Superhero Adventures, UK Style

Inspired by the novel “Search and Rescue” by Ian Thomas Healy
Certain characters in Arctic Rescue were suggested by David J Hargis

The Balance was feeling both frustrated and isolated. All long distance transmissions over the airwaves, at least across the whole of the Northern Hemisphere, had been down now for over 24 hours. Surprisingly there hadn’t been any major civil uprisings in the United Kingdom at least not beyond some fairly local disruptions arising from bored teens unable to interact without access to their mobiles. Other countries weren’t so lucky and parts of Paris and Madrid in particular were in flames as people protested the loss of services.

Mikey had ensured that they still had contact with the outside world through their fibre connections but no one seemed to know why or even how radio communications were being interrupted. Worse, the phenomenon was still slowly spreading southwards.  It was only a matter of time before all of the airwaves around the whole world became silent. Cabled internet and television were still working thankfully as were line of sight transmissions like Bluetooth but satellite, communications towers, television signals etc. were all currently blocked by some unknown means.

Entire continents were suddenly cut‐off from the outside world except where telephone cabled connections existed. Old undersea communication cable lines were again being used as the primary form of international communication. Sea vessels were left completely isolated, with guidance systems, mobile communications, and navigational systems all non‐functional; everything from mobile phones to GPS systems to satellite communications were suddenly and inexplicably silent.

Without access to navigation and communications all planes in the top half of the world were grounded and many countries were not reacting well to having their air forces and missiles taken out of commission in this way.

No country or organisation had yet claimed responsibility for what was assumed to be an act of technological terrorism, and no demands had been made. Governments fearing the worst had stopped trusting each other though publicly many suspected China or North Korea of being responsible, simply because the blackout hadn’t yet affected them. The world Governments had begun re-establishing word‐of‐mouth and land‐line communication routes to secure their borders and mobilise their armed forces with tensions mounting around the globe and not all governments and organisations were sitting by and waiting.

The news had reported that NATO was sending teams of operatives to figure out what was happening, hoping to put a stop to it. Teams composed of Special Forces personnel from Canada, UK and Scandinavian forces had combined and were investigating the Arctic but there were also believed to be teams from the USA and the Russian Federation investigating.

While all this was going on, they received a voice-only call from Dame Madison Murdoch, Director of the UK chapter of Heroes without Frontiers.

She insisted that they just call her ‘Maddie’ and explained that they had a problem and she needed their help. Before they could reply, she continued. Last year, Heroes without Frontiers had created a specialist team focused on search and rescue operations inside the Arctic Circle.

She explained, “because of global warming, more and more sea ice is melting, which has resulted in increased ships taking the northern passages between the Pacific and Atlantic instead of going through the Panama Canal or going around the tip of Tierra del Fuego. In addition, every year there are more people living and working in the Arctic Circle especially on the rigs. Glaciers and sea ice was melting in the Arctic at a faster pace than ever before. Sea ice coverage was 20 percent below average last year, a record low. Glacier loss, in particular, has proceeded at an unprecedented pace over the last few years.

There was a need for a permanent search and rescue facility for when things went wrong up there, especially when arctic storms hit and so our Arctic Rescue was formed. That team went out on just such a search and rescue mission just before the polar cyclone Aurora was due to strike, to rescue the crew of a container ship Atlantic Nights travelling through the northeast passage; the ship had reported a serious fire onboard and was adrift when their radio went dead. The team were dispatched and that’s the last we heard from any of them as less than an hour later the blackout struck and all contact and all GPS systems went offline. We lost all contact and there has been no trace of the team or the ship since.”

Hurricane Aurora was still active and unpredictable and now of course all navigation was down. For a moment Maddie looked worried as she went on to explain, “I need an extraction team to find the them and get them home, hopefully with the surviving crew of the ship but I will not leave any of mine behind. My precog thinks a small team of three or four; you in fact, would have the best chance of achieving that, especially with functional communications limited to line of sight. The more people involved the more chance we will lose some of the rescuers.

We have a pilot who believes they can find the last reported location of the container ship even without navigation support and is willing to try; she is also a trained medic. I don’t think you’ll object to her accompanying you.”

Behind them the door opened and a familiar, tall redhead entered and wiggled her fingers at them in greeting. Annie then walked over and hugged them each in turn as she explained, “Sam was going to come as well until I revealed where we were heading to and the thought of all that cold weather put him off but he sends his regards and he would be with you in spirit just, you know icy hell, cold etc. He’d be thinking of you…”

Meanwhile Maddie continued, “We don’t know what has happened to our Arctic Rescue Team. They may just be unable to get home but it’s also possible that they have ran into some unexpected trouble and with all the military activity currently focused on the North it’s possible that they have encountered something they aren’t trained to deal with. The team only has one trained combatant, the team leader Yemayikadi, as they specialise in search and rescue. Nobody seriously expects a need for combat skills in the frozen wasteland of the Arctic Circle. We fear the worst especially with so many countries searching for and wanting to possess the technology responsible for blocking wireless signals. What if the Russian Federation’s Spetsnaz or even NATO’s Special Forces have captured them for some reason? Sorry, I always hope for the best and plan for the worst and who knows what is happening that far North?”

They asked for information on the team and Frankie pulled up a series of files, which confirmed what Maddie had said. The Arctic Rescue team consisted of Yemayikadi (a Meta with invulnerability and increased strength who’s name in her native Amharic meant ‘Invincible’) and the only member of the team with combat experience, admittedly back in her home country of Ethiopia. Then there was the Danish Isskulptør (they could guess what his powers were), Veterok (her name meant Windwalker in Russian) who was a speedster who could also fly, Doc’ Samaritan a Canadian cyborg and the team’s medic, Djevelfisk (another Scandinavian who was aquatic and immune to cold) & finally Flare (their young female intern who could create light and also fly, a useful skill in the long Arctic nights).

As they studied the team information Maddie continued her briefing, under the assumption now that they would assist regardless. Meanwhile Jeeves was busy loading the equipment and thermal clothing that Annie had brought, into the Crate. Akira seeing him and Mikey rushing by muttered that he had better wear a warm vest and bring some of those chemical hand warmers just in case and whispered in Mace’s ear that perhaps they should take the last functional freeze gun with them so they could try and reverse global warming? He immediately dodged just in case Mace responded.

Unaware of the whispered comments Maddie went on to explain that her team used a Russian-loaned Mi-8AMTSh-VA twin-engine helicopter as their primary form of transport. Unfortunately, it lacked sufficient fuel to have stayed in the air all this time and must have either landed or crashed.

She suggested they made their way first to the town of Alert, in the Qikiqtaaluk Region of Nunavut, Canada where the team were based and retraced their route from there. Alert was the northernmost permanently inhabited place in the world (it was only about 500 miles from the North Pole). The permanent population was supposedly 62 people not counting the team and support staff of Arctic Rescue, the settlement took its name from HMS Alert, which had wintered close to the present station, off what is now Cape Sheridan, in 1875.

Alert also had many temporary inhabitants, as it also hosted a military signals intelligence radio receiving facility at the Canadian Forces Station Alert, as well as a co-located weather station, a Global Atmosphere Watch monitoring observatory and the Alert Airport. “Communication will be difficult, but we do have a solitary landline connection at the airfield, so all further communications and reports will be over an unsecured line. Questions?”

There were none, or at least none other than Akira’s usual quips.

Mace did wonder under her breath, as to why they needed Annie as pilot as she was sure she could fly them to where they needed to go herself. Annie heard her anyway and walked over to quietly explain that they would likely be flying into Storm Aurora and may be unable to land. Not only could she navigate using the stars in real-time but she wasn’t essential to the actual mission and could stay onboard and continue to pilot the craft through the storm while they disembarked if needed. It made sense and of course, Annie’s android body would not suffer from fatigue.

Six hours later Annie piloted the now insulated Crate into Alert and headed towards their base. This immediately reminded them of Container Town back home as it too was composed primarily of shipping containers though each was heavily isolated and built on stilts above the snow so in Summer it didn’t sink into the mud.

There, Annie immediately entered into a conversation about the last known position of the Atlantic Nights with one of the support staff, a Russian Pilot called Alexi in fluent Russian. Minutes later, they headed out again into the 23-hour night and into the storm front, heading towards a recently opened channel in the ice flow where the Rescue Team had estimated that the Atlantic Nights would likely have ended up, having been driven there by hurricane Aurora.

It took over two hours to reach the ice flow that the Arctic Rescue team had logged as their initial destination and a further 30 minutes of battling through Hurricane Aurora, a category four storm with winds reaching 150 kmph circling round a well-formed eyewall before they saw the cargo ship below them being batted around in the sea.

Unlike the helicopter, of which there was no sign, they did not rely on conventional fuel and had ‘refuelled’ at Alert before setting out giving them up to thirty hours of flight time though fighting the storm likely reduced that dramatically. Had the Rescue Teams reached the ship before the storm would have made helicopter flight impossible?

The eye of the storm had already passed over the ship leaving it to be battered once more by the storm’s cyclonic winds. The Atlantic Nights was registered out of Liberia and had seen better days. For starters, it was listing 30 metres to port and there was a large dent on the bow from a recent collision though it was still seaworthy, for the moment. The ship was 100 metres long and ten metres wide with dozens of large cargo containers filling the main deck and below deck as well.

The operational decks and crew quarters were situated on the stern of the ship and that’s where Annie tried to get close enough for them to disembark but the rough waves and hammering winds made getting close impossible. Instead Banshee turned both herself and Mace insubstantial and floated down to the top deck of the ship, though the intense cold still affected them despite the lack of physical contact with the hellish environment and howling winds all around them. Akira followed levitating himself down onto the top deck and hurried, slipping, sliding and shivering into the stairwell down to the top deck where his teammates substantialised themselves.

Power was out so they were forced to rely on torches as they checked out the various deserted rooms. The windows were all covered in ice on the inside showing that it had been some time since the vessel had been under power.  It was hard to get a footing as massive waves beneath the hull caused it to shudder from side to side. They made their way to the bridge castle first but there was nothing obviously out of place though the rear wall was smoke blackened and there was what looked like solidified silver on the walls as though someone had fired a flare gun inside. Akira wandered over and stared at the burnt silvery paint-like fluid and momentarily wondered if it had been Nanites from a silver storm.  He couldn’t be sure, he had never actually examined the Nanites that closely before. It most resembled some sort of metallic paint that someone had then burnt for some reason.

Meanwhile Mace and Banshee checked out the quarters on either side. Both were in reasonable condition with beds made and the rooms well maintained.  Time to head down to the first deck and check out the crew’s quarters but not before a quick search for the ship’s log only revealed the Captain’s personal diary, written in Norwegian. Unfortunately, the only entry was for a couple of days before and as far as they could tell revealed nothing about what had occurred since.

On the next level down, they could clearly see that the ships’ rigid inflatable was still securely fastened to its deployment rigging and a quick search of the common room revealed all the life jackets were still in situ. The room was a mess but nothing that the constant shuddering from the storm wouldn’t account for. There were eight beds on this level but from what they had learnt before setting out, there had been only six crew on this voyage, not counting the Captain and First Mate.  The crew cabins were deserted but all had been left as though whatever had occurred had been quick, not leaving anyone enough time to grab any possessions.

There was nothing obvious that would account for the lack of people onboard; first aid kits and emergency equipment were still in place. It was only in the furthest cabin that they found anything amiss in that again there was a splash of what looked like silver solder on the wall of the cabin surrounded by a burn mark that again could have originated from firing a flare gun though again there was no sign of a flare, but why? The only difference this time was beneath the burnt silver and attached to it was a cluster of what appeared to be fine slivery threads. For a second, Mace thought it might have been some sort of webbing and wondered if they had been facing some sort of arachnid attack but it was just a spray of silver threads hanging from beneath the burnt paint.

There was still no sign though of either the crew or of the flare gun. Even more worryingly, there was no indication that the Arctic Rescue team had ever boarded the ship.

Again, they headed down to the main deck. The storm was starting to abate slightly even as the hull shuddered from hitting against underwater ice. Down here, they could see that the emergency rescue pods were still in their cradles. If the crew had left, they had elected to do so by jumping into the sea without using their life rafts or even putting on their life jackets. Again there was nothing on the poop deck to explain the mystery though they did find both the ships log (recording as their last entry the fire in the generator room below deck and their call for assistance) and the ship’s black box but without any means to read it. Leaving them behind they again headed below deck into the ship’s mess and engine rooms.

The Mess looked as though it had been deserted mid-meal. Although a couple of plates of food and cups of coffee had spilled on the floor, this was likely due to the ship’s movement in the storm as again there was no indication of a panicked escape or sudden departure.

As they stepped outside into the corridor Banshee thought she saw something small and silver scuttle quickly across in the darkness and vanish at the door to what they assumed was the generator room. She shone her torch around but there was nothing except for another slash of the silver paint-like substance on the ground in front of the closed door.

Then the ship tilted even more so that the deck was almost at a 45-degree angle forcing them to hold tight to the safety rails and move slipping and sliding, towards the generator room. Inside, everything was blackened from a fire that had destroyed the generators. Checking out the bilge pumps, Mace noticed that they were overflowing into the cargo hold and were likely to cause the ship to sink in the next few hours unless it found itself grounded on one of the nearby ice flows.

It looked as though the crew had left in a hurry, but if that was the case why were the life rafts still in their cradles and the life jackets still on their racks? What was clear though was that there was no crew currently left onboard.

Akira suggested they should scuttle her like the Graf Spee, to remove her as a risk to other shipping but as they had no idea what cargo the Atlantic Nights had onboard, or what environmental impact sinking her would have and anyway she was likely to run aground on the icy landscape ahead soon.

Akira saw some more of the silvery material on the back of the generator door. He reached out and touched it hoping to try to read the past. However, before he could focus he felt something flow over his fingers and hand and creep up his wrist. He looked down, saw the silvery ‘paint’ had compressed around and flowed over his hand holding it tightly in place, sticky like glue. Other splashes of the silvery fluid had also come ‘alive’ and were flowing towards him looking to merge with the stuff holding him. He almost panicked and for a second wondered what would happen if the stuff reached his face?

He immediately focused and began transforming the unknown material – his mind blank, he picked on the one substance whose chemical compound he knew intimately – and changed it into paté.  Pulling his hand free, he immediately shook off the altered mess whereupon it immediately reconstituted itself into the silver liquid. This then flowed together to form a swarm of small, centimetre-sized pentagon-shaped bug-like creatures, slim almost flat, each with a thin needle-like limb growing out of the centre of four of the sides, two either side with a fifth limb at the rear growing out of the angle. This limb seemed different from the other four as it had a bulbous head above a sharp needle pointed tip, which it seemed to use to propel itself at some speed towards them. The final face at the front was featureless lacking any visible sensors or, thankfully, teeth.

The three of them found themselves trying to head at speed towards the door, slamming it hard behind them as they entered the corridor only to see the silver bugs flatten themselves and flow under the door before reconstituting themselves outside the room. They began moving towards the three of them in an ungainly five-limbed gait that was surprisingly efficient and fast. What was worse was that a small torrent of the living silver flowing into the corridor from other rooms and the fact that several of the bugs were merging together to form even bigger pentagon-shaped, crab-like bugs!

Akira shouted out, “Ah, am I the only one that has noticed that they are starting to form even bigger buggers? Did anyone happen to bring any bug spray with them?”

Instead, Banshee screamed – a shattering shriek that melted the small horde of skittering bugs into a silver puddle. However, seconds later some of the silver began to ‘bubble’ as small, individual pentabugs began to reconstitute themselves from inside the silver pool.

Mace switched on her grav-gauntlets. “I’m really not happy about squashing bugs like this, even if they are metal.” She murmured as she sprayed the buglets and the remaining silver fluid hard against the wall, where they again became a splash of liquid silver but this time remained inert.

Rushing back up onto the main deck, they could just hear Annie on their commlinks over the howling winds. She was still struggling against the fury of the storm to remain hovering above the ship. “Move it people! There is something very large and silvery coming your way over the top of the cargo…”

Akira signalled as best he could for Banshee and Mace to get away while he would try to hold the still unseen ‘bugger’ at bay. Seconds later a metre-wide pentabug appeared on top of the cargo containers and then, defying gravity and the fury of the storm, it skittered down the side of the container on its needle-tipped legs towards him.

Akira unleashed a mystical blast into the base of the rear limb severing it then followed it up with a second blast into its body that splashed it into a large liquid stain on the side of the container; only the rear limb he’d targeted first retained its form, falling to his feet momentarily quivering before going inert. Why this hadn’t reverted to a liquid state was unknown but without thinking he picked it up and forcing his now exhausted body to take the strain as he opened a portal into the Crate and teleported the three of them into the relative safety of the Crate’s main cabin with his prize. He looked at the bulbous section of the leg. To his surprise it shuddered and flared open revealing a metallic ‘muscle’ formed of thousands of thin silvery threads that spasmed  then reformed into a single bulb-like mass on the leg. Caught by surprise, Akira allowed it to fall to the cabin floor even as Annie screamed something incoherent over the sound of the storm outside and pointed. In the water, close to a channel in the icy wasteland in front of them something glistened red. As though a light underwater was reflecting off something, long and narrow…

Annie pulled the Crate up and away from the Atlantic Nights with its metallic occupants and pointed again. This time they heard her, “I think that is a beacon under the water reflecting off something like a metallic helicopter blade? Could it be Arctic Rescues? You willing to risk taking a look?”

They knew the Crate was waterproof to a certain depth thanks to their adventures not so long ago at Dunwich and whatever was down there might explain the mystery of what had happened to the rescue team and the crew. Akira secretly wondered if the silver ‘buggers’ had consumed them all but didn’t voice the theory.

Whatever was under the water was lying on a ledge, about 30 metres down.  Annie brought the Crate in slowly and dived towards what appeared under their lights to be a red painted helicopter, the blades warped and twisted and there were indications of an explosion in the main engine. What was clearly missing from the crash site were any bodies. The craft was as empty of humans as the Atlantic Nights had been.

They searched the edges of what appeared to be either an undersea mountain or the base of a small archipelago of islands hidden deep beneath the ice but without any success and eventually surfaced close to the shore, near a newly opened channel into the centre of the icy wasteland, apparently formed courtesy of global warming.

On the ice below, they could clearly see two bears fighting over a bloodied carcass. Could it be..? Annie headed towards the ice and snow and hovered above the two feuding bears. As soon as the Crate got close, the two creatures fled. Below they could clearly see that the prize they had been fighting over was the bloody remnants of a dead walrus and not the remnants of a human corpse, breathing a sigh of relief they looked for any signs of tracks in the wilderness.

Automatically Annie switched on the radio and to her surprise got a signal; a single, very intense burst of radio noise but given it had been days since anyone had received any signals at all over the airwaves it caught her by surprise.

It gave her a direction, alongside the newly formed channel deep into the international ice-covered waters of the interior. Focusing on trying to work out where the signal was emanating from and why they hadn’t received it prior to this, she almost didn’t notice the largest pentabugs yet, five of them in total flying by some non-aerodynamic means towards them from the direction of the now ‘beached’ Atlantic Lights. These were about three metres across but still the same pentagon-shaped, five-limbed, crab-like configuration they had seen previously. Now they were inland and the storm was reduced to almost manageable levels they were obviously able to merge into even larger configurations and fly.

The first of the anonymous-looking creatures crashed into the Crate’s windscreen and immediately spread itself out covering the entire glass in silver even as it began to shatter the glass and small tendrils began to force their way through the cracked glass towards Annie and the others in the rear cabin.

Mace rushed towards the main cabin door, grabbed a restraining strap and wrapping it round her waist and shoulder she pulled the door open and fell forward, her feet on the cabin floor relying on the restraint to keep her from falling out she hung precariously out exposed to the freezing arctic winds. Two of the other silver bug-like creatures had also landed on the top of the Crate now and appeared to be starting to merge together into a single even larger creature, but for what purpose?

She loaded an EMP bolt to the shaft of her bolt and unleashed the bolt at the intruders on the hull. It hit one of them and the thing immediately froze, unmoving on the hull. The other bug quickly separated itself and began moving down towards the open door, and her. She loaded up a second EMP bolt and fired. This also hit its intended target and it too froze, unmoving until a blinded Annie manoeuvred the Crate into a steep ascent and they went sliding off towards the ice below.

That still left two more of the pentabugs flying towards them and the cold was starting to affect Mace’s aim. Suddenly Akira dived passed her and threw himself into the open air even as he activated his levitation. Banshee also exited but did so by squeezing passed her, not pushing as Akira had just done.

Outside Akira focused his mystical blast on the two still heading towards them and fired. Both blasts hit their targets and the effect was spectacular with both hits resulting in the ‘beasties’ changing into a silver liquid in mid-air as the blasts tore them apart and caused the resulting fluid to rain down on the ice below.

Banshee meanwhile headed towards the apparently inert creature now plastered across the windshield of their craft. For a moment she risked resubstantualising herself, touched the silver coating blocking Annie’s view and turned both it and herself insubstantial once more, hoping that her hold on the silver covering the windscreen would also render it into the same state as her. To her horror the whole windscreen and covered part of the hull became ethereal with her.

Thankfully, the ‘silver covering’ did not reanimate though she could hear Akira screaming over the freezing winds, “put it back, put it back!” It was too late for that; the whole section of the pilot’s cabin that the creature had covered had separated from the rest of the ship. There was nothing she could do to sort it so she threw it down onto the snow where it remained, totally inanimate.

Above her, she saw Annie close over the door from the pilot’s cockpit into the main cabin and put her thumbs up. Of course Annie’s android body was unaffected by the freezing cold or the howling winds though she still needed to breath so returning to Alert afterwards might be a lot slower journey.

Unwilling to take the windscreen back onboard while it was still covered in the silver substance, they again entered the rear cabin and tried to warm themselves up, though they felt guilty that Annie was upfront fully exposed to the elements.

Mace couldn’t help think that the bugs or the paint or whatever their natural state was, despite being more technically advanced than anything they had ever seen before, was acting extremely dumb. It was almost as though it was following a pre-programmed set of instructions, though admittedly instructions that allowed for multiple connotations. Less an AI and more like a machine operating a smart program?

Up front, Annie was maintaining a running commentary through the closed cabin door relying on their proximity despite the wind and snow rushing into the cabin making it difficult at times to hear her. The signal had again activated, sending a single burst of data that was of extremely limited range. She was unable to decrypt it or work out what it was for but its range was extremely limited and the otherwise silent airwaves did make it easy to identify and follow.

After travelling up the new sea channel through the ice that global warming had opened for about five klicks, Annie signalled them to go to the starboard window and look out. In the distance, hidden by a mountain of ice was an enclosure, a single square compound including what looked like a monitoring tower. Annie explained that it was likely build to monitor the transmissions of their enemies during the Cold War (that got a snigger from Akira) and subsequently abandoned going by the state of the buildings, though monitoring for what country was unclear. Surely this was the location of the signal they had been following?

Annie then explained through the closed cabin door. “Interestingly the base you can see is completely silent, it’s like it’s a dead zone. The signal we’ve been following is emanating from the West about another couple of klicks into the interior. What do you want me to do? Head for the spy station or follow the signal..?”

Mace suddenly muttered, “you can’t stop the signal, Mal…”  Akira smiled, that was a film reference he was familiar with. “Follow the signal Annie, the base can wait. The buggers aren’t exactly something we would expect from a monitoring station but the signal might explain their presence and we did find them close to the crashed helicopter. Could the team have been following them back somewhere?”

Akira played with the severed limb but couldn’t work out why it hadn’t emulated the rest of the bug body and turned into a fluid state. Then he heard Annie shout, “Down below. Looks as though global warming has revealed something buried under the ice until recently.”

Looking out of the windows, they could see tracks leading to a deep icy precipice and about a hundred metres down in the dark there were lights surrounding what looked like a massive circular mechanism like a rotor. In the centre of this was something they thought resembled an iris airlock. Spacecraft or some sort of base? The facility was unaffected by age but that much ice build-up would have taken thousands of years, there was nothing about it that said this was the result of human achievement. What was obvious was that the silver buggers were connected to it in some way; several of them were traversing the cliffs. easily walking down the cliff face as though gravity had no hold on them.

Annie landed the Crate nearby and watched as the Balance exited and headed towards the edge. She had her own issues and knew she needed to be ready for an emergency evac if required.

Banshee again insubstantiated both her and Mace and floated them both down onto the dome, close to the iris even as Akira levitated himself down. Thankfully, their presence hadn’t attracted the attention of any of the large bugs who seemed to be ignoring them as they burrowed underneath the ice, possibly towards other parts of the structure, whatever it was. Akira walked over and stared at the iris mechanism. There were no obvious locks or mechanisms to open it up, only a couple of centimetres-wide hole that tapered to nothing a couple of centimetres in. He risked poking it but there was nothing inside he could feel. As he experimented, Banshee quipped, “Have you tried knocking possibly?” He did so but there was no response. Banshee again held onto Mace and tried to phase through the metallic aperture – and failed. Something about its condensed alloy structure seemed to be resistant to phasing. Substantialising herself again she was about to try again but without a passenger when Akira smiled, “I have a cunning plan…” and before they could respond he knelt down onto the slippery surface and touched the artificial orifice, momentarily turning the substance into glass. Now transparent he took a good look at what was down below. He then stepped back and allowed the mechanism to return to its original state before he opened a teleport portal down into the room below and signalled for the other two to step through before teleporting inside himself.

Inside the circular room, there was light emanating from organic-looking fibre optics running down the walls and around the edge of the room. The walls were metallic but the floor consisted of smoothed stone. This wasn’t a spaceship, it was clearly some form of structure built on top of an ice-covered mountain or island and the floor had been lasered smooth. There was no furniture in the chamber but there was a single door, six-sided, shaped like an upside-down coffin and only 1-metre 50 high without any obvious locks or handles. The door appeared to open in the middle in some way. The stone floor by the door frame was ever so slightly crumbled and again there was a small, shallow hole on the ground in the middle of the frame.

Mace looked around the room even as Akira stretched out his hand and tried to read the door mechanism. The door was ancient, hundreds of thousands of years old and abandoned or deserted for most of that time. Occasionally he got a flash of something large and organic opening the door and squeezing through. The oldest memories though were of small, winged, imp-like creatures scurrying around but centuries, millennia had passed without any interaction at all. He stepped back and almost fainted with the strain. The one thing he knew for sure was that he had ‘seen’ that the door did open from the middle like a clam and folded into the walls when opening. He just didn’t know how the mechanism was activated…

Then they all heard a distant female voice, “Zdravstvuyte? Ty govorish’ na russkom yazyke? Angliyskiy..?” then it began speaking English but with a distinct Russian Accent coming from the other side of the door… “Vho are you? How get you here? Are you here for us? Ah, I Veterok…”

Veterok! On the other side of the door was apparently one of the people they had been sent to find.

To be continued.