The Alien Ship Ch 09

Inside Kyle could see several rows of what must have served the function of seats for the builders of the shuttle and each of them was still occupied by a body of an alien. He could easily see the occupants of the shuttle were nothing like humans and he could also see that they were all dead. The occupants of the shuttle were all dead and they appeared to have been that way for a long time.

The occupants of the shuttle required an atmosphere similar to that of the Earth in order to live but when the door to the shuttle had been opened there had been no puff of escaping air. The occupants of the shuttle had died because their ship had lost pressure when it impacted with the hill, or perhaps even before that. None of the occupants of the shuttle were wearing any kind of pressure suit so exposure to the normal Martian atmosphere had quickly killed them. And then it preserved them in almost the same state they had been in when they died, at least in appearance.

Despite the lack of movement inside the shuttle Kyle was startled by the appearance of the occupants and he found himself reaching for his hand weapon. Pulling the weapon from the holster and holding it in his hand, Kyle felt secure enough to step inside the shuttle to take a closer look at the occupants. The two androids who were already inside the crashed shuttle had already checked for security but Kyle still felt more confident with the weapon in his hand.

Looking at the first shuttle occupant that he approached Kyle could see they were something completely different from human. The dead alien had a lot of similarities to an insect though it was much larger than any insect from Earth. The body of these must have been nearly four feet long and they only appeared to have four walking legs. The two front legs seemed to have had the same function as human arms and looking closer Kyle could see that each of these forelegs ended in a four fingered hand.

Kyle slowly walked around the passenger compartment of the shuttle, examining each of the seven dead aliens still strapped to their places in the shuttle. They all seemed to be similar in size with about the same amount of variation found among humans. Their limbs were thicker than those of smaller insects which was necessary to contain the larger muscles needed to move them. Their heads bore two large eyes and two antennae sprouted from the top of their heads. Despite having been dead for a long period of time the alien bodies still looked surprisingly lifelike due to the hard shells that covered their bodies. The near vacuum of the Martian atmosphere enhanced their preservation even further.

After looking around for a couple of minutes Kyle noticed Cindy peeking in the doorway of the shuttle with everyone else crowded together behind her, He also realized he was still holding his hand weapon but since every alien was obviously dead he put it away in his belt holster.

"You can come if you want Cindy. I don't think there is any danger," Kyle said over his suit communicator.

"OK," the girl answered and tentatively stepped into the shuttle. Cindy gave a start when she came to the first insectoid alien but then relaxed when the creature didn't move and she realized it was dead. "What happened to them, Kyle?"

"It looks to me like their ship lost pressure and they suffocated in the thin Martian air," he replied.

"How long have they been here?"

"I don't know. Maybe for a long time, because the near vacuum here on the surface of Mars would tend to preserve their bodies after their death. I'll have the androids examine everything and see what they can find out. Tracy, do we have any record on these bug aliens?" Kyle asked, addressing his android.

"No Kyle, we do not have any records of a race such as this one," the female android replied.

"See what you can find out about them," Kyle ordered.

"Yes Kyle."

"If it can be done safely bring this whole shuttle back to the ship. We can study it there at our leisure," Kyle continued.

"We can do that easily," Tracy replied.

"Good. Have it done as soon as possible."

After looking around the alien shuttle for a couple more minutes Kyle and Cindy slipped out the door and some of the other people outside went inside to have a look, too. Kyle decided to wait until everyone had a chance to look inside the shuttle and then they would move on to explore a little more of the surface.

Taking another look around while waiting for the rest of the women to look inside the shuttle, Kyle and Cindy could see what looked similar to any of the windswept desert areas on Earth, except for the deeper red color of the rocks and sand. Another dust devil spun out on the plain and a thin wind blew despite the thinness of the atmosphere.

Waiting for the rest of the party to have their fill of looking inside the crashed shuttle Kyle had a few minutes of time on his hands and his thoughts turned toward the hand weapons they had brought with them from the 'Adventure'. The humans had been given instruction on how to use them before departing for the surface but they hadn't had a chance to actually fire them. Kyle felt some interest in seeing what the weapons could actually do and the desolate desert surface upon which he stood now seemed to be a good place to make some test shots.

"Tracy, I would like to test fire my hand weapon. Can we do that here on the surface?" Kyle asked his android.

"Yes, Kyle. We only need to move a little further away and you can use the hillside as the target and backstop," was the reply over his suits communication system.

Tracy led Kyle a bit further away from the crashed shuttle and toward a more vertical area of the hillside in front of them. This provided a safe target for allowing Kyle to test the effects of his hand weapon. Kyle pulled his pistol from the holster and looked at the setting control. The effect and power of the weapon was controlled by a small knob on the top of the rear portion. Since this weapon had been made for human use the settings were marked with letters from the English alphabet.

The settings markers on Kyle's hand weapon were S, K, H, V, and P. The setting marked S when fired at a person would render them unconscious, K when fired at a person would kill, H would heat whatever the beam struck to a high temperature, V would disassociate the molecular structure and vaporized whatever the beam struck, and the P setting would generate an explosion wherever the beam struck. While Kyle had been told about each of these settings and what they could do he wanted to see it from actually firing the weapon himself.

Kyle could see out of the corner of his eyes the women were coming to see what he was going to do after they finished looking around inside the crashed shuttle. Actually once they saw the dead, insect-like aliens the women had little interest in spending any more time inside the crashed shuttle than they had to. So Kyle quickly drew a crowd of onlookers, both human and android until only two androids remained inside the crashed shuttle continuing their examinations. The two androids ordered a large cargo shuttle to come down to pick up the crashed shuttle and return it to the 'Adventure' for more detailed examination and analysis.

Kyle selected the S setting on his weapon, aimed at the target area of the hillside, and pressed the trigger. A red spot appeared where Kyle had pointed the weapon, this was the visible aiming beam and the actual effective beam was invisible. Since the S setting was only designed to render living beings unconscious there was no visible effect upon the cliff face beyond the red spot from the aiming beam. Kyle fired several more shots on the S setting to practice putting the beam where he wanted it to be on the target.

Kyle next selected the K setting on his w1eapon and fired once again at the cliff. Again the red dot of the aiming beam appeared but there was still no visible effect upon the rock. Kyle selected the H setting, picked out a rock about a foot in diameter at the base of the cliff, and fired the weapon at it. The beam emitted from the weapon now was slightly visible in the air and after about a second the rock began to glow red hot. Kyle released the trigger and watched as the rock slowly cooled until it was not glowing any more.

Kyle selected the V setting of his weapon and fired at another of the rocks at the base of the cliff. A visible beam emerged from the emitter of Kyle's weapon and struck the rock. The rock glowed brilliantly for a moment and then faded. When the glow had faded from view so had the rock, it had been vaporized by the energy from Kyle's weapon.

Kyle then moved the selector of his weapon to the P position, aimed at the cliff face, and again pressed the trigger button. A visible beam emerged from the emitter of Kyle's weapon and struck the cliff face which immediately erupted in a small explosion at the point where the beam struck. Kyle fired at the cliff face several more ties and each shot resulted in another small explosion. Finally Kyle holstered his weapon and turned away from the cliff area where he had been firing to discover a small crowd behind him.

"Has everyone seen the inside of the crashed ship?" Kyle asked. He was answered by a chorus of affirmative answers and now had to think about what he wanted to do next on the Martian surface.

The discovery of the crashed shuttle highlighted in Kyle's mind that he couldn't just play around with the 'Adventure' which was partially what he had been doing up to that point. It was obvious now that the Solar System had been visited by at least two different alien races in the past and perhaps more. This was inspiring Kyle to start thinking he needed to take things more seriously and leverage 'Adventure' into a real advancement for humanity. Not just exploring but colonization as well.

Here on Mars conditions were the closest to those of Earth and therefore establishing a colony here would be the easiest place. There was water and other resources here and with technology from the 'Adventure' those resources could be easily extracted for use by a colony. Once the circumnavigation of the Solar System was completed Kyle decided they would return here to get started on construction. Shuttles from the ship would allow trips back to Earth in only a few hours even if the ship was away for some reason if anyone wanted or needed to go there.

As Kyle was musing about the future another, larger shuttle from the 'Adventure' landed near the crashed alien shuttle. This new ship was large enough to take the entire crashed ship of the dead insectoid aliens back to the 'Adventure' for more detailed analysis. As soon as the engines of the new shuttle shut down the door slid open and a large work party of both android and non android robots trooped out. These robots immediately began work on loading the crashed alien ship into the large shuttle. There was no need for Kyle or any of the other humans to supervise this work in any way since the robots had it well in hand.

Kyle turned away from the cliff face that had been his impromptu firing range. As far as he could see there was just a barren windswept plain and another dust devil swirled across his field of view away in the distance. Since there were no oceans on Mars there was more land area on this planet than on Earth, despite the smaller size of the red planet. Exploring even a tiny fraction of it would take many years and would have to wait for the future and the return from the outer solar system. But as he stared out at the red desert plain Kyle realized that not everything needed to wait until the ship returned to Mars.

"Tracy!" he called through his suit communicator.

"Yes, Kyle?" the female android answered.

"Have a group of androids and any other robots or equipment that might be needed sent down to the surface of this planet to start building a colony and refit center. I want to leave two shuttles here for their use and whatever ground vehicles they need." Kyle ordered.

"Yes, Kyle. Selection of androids and equipment is starting now and will be landed when ready. Do you want any specific location for the colony site?" Tracy asked.

"No, I don't know enough about Mars to make that determination. Conduct a survey of the surface from orbit and then select the site where it would be close to useful resources."

"Acknowledged," the android replied.

"Kyle," came a sudden communication from the 'Adventure" main AI. "We have just discovered the possible remains of an alien base in the interior of the outer moon of this planet, the one called Deimos. It is difficult to determine by remote sensing but it would seem to have been constructed by the same insect-like aliens as those found in the crashed shuttle. The facility is currently inactive, no power generation is occurring there."

"Send a shuttle with a group of androids to investigate," Kyle ordered in reply.

"Affirmative," answered the AI.

It would appear that the Bugs, as Kyle found himself almost subconsciously naming them, had a more extensive presence on Mars than just a single crashed shuttle. Perhaps there were more Bug facilities on other of the planets of the Solar System, even the Earth or the Moon was a possibility. So far no living Bugs had been found but that could change at any moment and it was unknown what their reaction would be to meeting humans in space. For now the 'Adventure' was the only thing in the Solar System which had the power to prevent the Bugs from doing whatever they wanted to Earth. Kyle realized that he needed to be prepared to meet the Bugs and other possible aliens who might be out there.

Over at the crashed Bug shuttle the androids had attached a thick cable to the downed shuttle as well as antigravity lift units. Using this they were quickly able to drag the Bug ship out of its resting place embedded in the cliff and into the cargo bay of their own larger shuttle. The Bug shuttle was still intact enough that the androids were able to drag the entirety of the wreck into their own shuttle in a single move. As soon as the Bug shuttle was inside the cargo bay of their own larger craft the android work party closed the doors. All of the androids and other machines involved in the salvage operation trooped back aboard their shuttle and then their ship lifted off to return to the 'Adventure'.

Kyle decided that since he was going to be establishing a base on Mars there wasn't much point to continuing on the surface; he was curious to see what further was learned from the Bug shuttle and abandoned base as well. That being the case Kyle ordered everyone to pack up to return to the 'Adventure'. Since there hadn't been any vehicles or equipment unloaded from the shuttle yet all that needed to be done was round everyone up and load them back onto their shuttle. This was accomplished in less than fifteen minutes and the shuttle containing the humans lifted off the surface to begin the return trip to the 'Adventure'.

While Kyle's shuttle was making its way back to the 'Adventure', the shuttle sent to explore the abandoned Bug base approached Deimos and found the entrance after a short search of the surface of that moon. The door to the base was open to space and the entire interior was exposed to the vacuum of space. Inside the androids found the base had been stripped bare of everything which it had contained while it had been occupied; only the empty spaces carved into the interior of the moon remained. The android explorers spent several hours exploring the interior of the abandoned base, robotic exploration rovers were sent out to add to the data collection effort.

Kyle's shuttle entered the landing bay on the 'Adventure' an hour after departing the surface and the examination of the Bug shuttle was already well along. All of the bodies had been removed and all but one had been placed into frozen storage and a team of androids was scanning and examining the remaining insectoid body and much had already been learned about their anatomy and body structure. Another group of androids were examining and testing the shuttle and of course all the data from both groups was exchanged with the ship's AI.