Sand Castles [Part 1]

Posted on Wed May 25th, 2016 @ 10:36am by Khiy Tal'ehrihn

1,446 words; about a 7 minute read

Mission: Celebrate Culture
Location: Tiberius IV
Timeline: Backpost

[ON]

N’alae looked down at the atmospheric display on the console in front of her. External temperature: 35.7℃, Relative humidity: 1.4%, Average windspeed: 6.2kph… Or hot and dry. She looked back out through the shuttle’s front window at the persistent red haze. And dusty, she added mentally. The extremely fine sand particles were still settling after the storm, and would be for some time. N’alae could also see new clouds of red sand being lifted in fits, even in the now-low wind. It wasn’t exactly a destination spot.

N’alae wavered back and forth between loving the place because of it’s unique security potential, and thoroughly hating it for everything else. She continued to glare at the red haze; breathing would be impossible without filters.

The shuttle's sensors were barely functioning with the sand still in the air. Even on maximum they had to fly uncomfortably low over the surface to get any readings at all. Some of the rocks had higher concentrations of kelbonite than others, and didn’t appear on the scans until they were nearly on top of them. Time permitting, they would have waited for conditions to improve, but unfortunately another storm was approaching the target area. The window of opportunity for this ‘adventure’ was rapidly closing.

“You really know how to show a girl a good time.” N’alae said to Khiy as the shuttle suddenly lurched to the right in order to avoid an outcropping that had only just appeared on the sensors.

“What? Here I bring you to a planet with beaches as far as the eye can see and you’re complaining.” He responded with mock sincerity.

N’alae put on her best despondent look. “If only we could find the water…” she replied mournfully.

A rock outcropping passed close below them, a little too close. N’alae’s hand twitched slightly as she fought the urge to take the controls. “No more bouncing of rocks. Okay.” She’d meant it as a joke, but her voice didn’t quite follow through.

He shook his head. “I’m not going to live that down for a long time, am I? That rock clearly sprouted out of the ground at the last moment and hit us.” He shrugged “...We may have to go back later and fire a micro-torpedo at it...you know, to protect the next pilot that comes through here from being attacked by that malevolent formation.” He gave her a knowing look.

N’alae rolled her eyes. All that time working with dull-witted freighter captains and surly cargo masters, she had almost forgotten what it was like working with Khiy. “It would be ammunition well spent...especially since you bought it.” She grinned impishly at him.

“Always the philanthropist.” He grinned. “I’m sure they will one day build a monument of me to commemorate the moment.”

Just then a presence brushed the edges of her awareness. It was there and then gone so quickly that she could not even be sure she had felt it at all. The momentary distraction was enough to break her train of thought however, and her next joke crumbled and was forgotten. Instead she looked down at the nav display. “Approaching zone three.” she said, all business. “It had better be here. We only have about an hour before the new storm hits.”

Khiy glanced over at her screen. “Any chance the storm has been downgraded from our earlier projections?” He wasn’t happy with the notion of operating in such a tight window.

N’alae brought up the latest relays from the Morning’s Wake in orbit. “Unfortunately no, but it is not getting any larger. That’s something at least.”

“Scanning is already sketchy enough, having to deal with reduced visibility will shut us down completely.” Khiy shook his head. “Just wish we knew what we were looking for. There has to be some kind of facility somewhere, but we have no idea how far along in construction they were or if it is even visible from the surface. For all we know the sand could have covered over the structure years ago.”

N’alae stared out the viewer, knowing that he was right. The red haze made the horizon in the distance indistinct and the rocky towers seemed like dark ghosts against it. To the east something peculiar caught her eye.

The rock formation stood above the barren landscape like the remnants of an ancient palisade, a lone bastion in a sea of sand. It rose from a sprawling pile of debris which only loosely concealed a larger shelf beneath. It’s five spires cast an eerie shadow in the fading light. All around it like a halo was a ring of sand, as though an invisible force was holding it back. The sand broke around it like water around a stone in a river. Leading away from the formation, following the wind, was a procession of rippling dunes that eventually merged with the normal landscape. The sight was both beautiful and strange.

“I don’t think we need to worry about the sand burying it.” N’alae said to Khiy, “Look.” She pointed towards the formation.

Khiy turned his attention to where N’alae was indicating. There was no doubt that the sand rings stood out in stark contrast to the otherwise sandblasted landscape. “Yeah, that doesn’t look like any kind of natural phenomena.” He said, steering the shuttle towards the rock formation. “Deflector shielding?”

“Most likely.” N’alae responded, checking the sensors. “Whatever it is, it’s energy signature is too low to cut through the interference. We’ll have to get closer.”

“Agreed.”

The shuttle skimmed low over the surface as they approached the formation, the engines displacing waves of the powdery sand behind them. When they were closer, N’alae checked the reading again, this time they registered a low-level power source emanating from the rock formation.

Now that they were closer, Khiy noticed that although the deflectors held away a majority of the sands, they were by no means impervious. Sand had built up and spilled inside were the field should have prevented it. Despite being several meters above, he could clearly see the erratic shimmering where particulates impacted on the deflectors. Even in low-level winds it was clear that the shielding system was being taxed.

“Not looking too good is it?” Khiy mentioned as he completed his fly-by. “This system looks like it’s holding on by the skin of it’s teeth. I doubt it has many storms left in it.”

“Well, we’ve got less than three hours before the next one rolls in.” N’alae said as she looked over the readings. They did not fill her with a lot of confidence. “I really hope it’s held up better on the inside…”

As they passed, they could see a oddly rectangular indentation in the rocks part-way up the face of the foremost spire. The shape suggested bay doors, nearly lost beneath a thick layer of fine sand which had drifted in to hide them over the years despite the deflectors.

“Are those stairs?” N’alae peered out the viewer at the rock wall as they moved around the leeward side of the formation. The bottom half of the metal stairs looked as though it had been sheared off the rock wall and were mostly buried at the base of the spire.

Khiy nodded. “That they are.” He lined the shuttle up with the bay doors and started closing the distance to them. “Any chance those doors can be remotely accessed?”

“I’m not picking up any signals from the base.” She told Khiy, but sent a request for docking anyways. There was no response from the base’s computer. “There probably isn’t any power.”

He sighed. The platform wasn’t very large and what little space was available was covered in enough sand to be problematic.

Khiy pulled the shuttle away from the doors and headed to what looked like a suitable rock surface a few meters away from the base. “Looks like we are taking the stairs.” To say he was uneasy about that prospect was an understatement. Not only did the stairs look like they were in dangerous condition, but to get to the stairs they would have to somehow transverse five or six meters of treacherous shifting sand. “If we can get to the stairs.” He muttered.

[to be continued...]

Khiy Tal’ehrihn
Owner/CEOTGT

N’alae t’K’manatran
Grey Star Securities
Commander of the Morning's Wake

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