Solar Warden

More Part 67

On the next day five shuttles with five fighters and ten combat drones went down to the planet. SW-6 and 7 were again the backup. The landing zone was some kilometers away from the facility. The alien was still there doing nothing. They took the same fast approach and went as fireball down till the mountains were close to the horizon. This time they planned all to fly through the canyon. They left the ocean area and continued in low altitude over the land flying supersonic. A half hour later the canyon was in sight. The shuttle decelerated to subsonic travel and on entering to the needed speed to get through. All escort combat drones were already on the other side. Two fighters in front of the shuttles the rest behind. With the automatic they flew through the canyon. It was a proven and fast procedure. Now leaving the canyon they went to the landing zone also some kilometers away from the cave. Some of the shuttle missile slots were filled with surface scouting drones. They opened and released them before touching down. Immediately a dozen each went for the cave and the forest.

On the Icarus the data from the drones were analyzed. Most of the information could be automatically displayed on the tactical table screens of the bridge. Also Clark was now monitoring tactical information on two of his three screens.

The squad went out of the shuttles preparing their equipment and the bikes. Then headed at once to their planned location. SW-1 and 3 went for the forest while the others for the cave. SW-5 was the last who traveled to the cave. They also had two drones for their own. With the bikes it was a short travel and SW-5 went into the cave as the area was secured by the others. The drones were then further investigating the cave again as the bikes sentry were positioned.

Then SW-5 followed the drones and headed to their operation target. A position where they last time detected one of the machines. This time there were enough drones to relay the communication signals out of the cave. Also the drones reached faster than the bikes the end of the tunnels, so the team knew their targets were there.

It went as planned they reached the end of a tunnel. Ryan, Caine and Owens stepped off the bikes and secured the area while Newman and Archer started their work on the machines.

Max was already checking the data she got from the drones and advised the field hackers were to search. Both Newman and Archer streamed their camera view, so also Max or the other engineers and scientists could assist.

Meanwhile the drones in the forest had found the other entrance. It was a small cave leading into the mountain. The door was also much smaller. So two aliens should fit through. However, it was not a good place to fortify. They used a drone to monitor the door and guarded the open cave entrance itself, which gave them much more cover here in the forest. The remaining drones assigned for the forest were on patrol now.

The machine which was a kind of a laser melting the stone and a gravity field transferring the lava to the back. The system had the size of bigger pickup. On the back the lava was split into several balls over its container.

"There is a replacement container moving from the storage area to you," Max informed.

"How many of this containers are full at the storage location," Ryan asked.

"Three. They must saw us coming and made this area up. I try to figure out how long it takes to fill one up," Max answered.

"No problem. It could be even better if we get a fresh one. The lava might cool down faster when we stop mining. Just two minutes then the connection should work," Newman informed as he was connecting to the system interface they found. He did a bit hurry because it would be good to have the connection before the container arrived. "Got it."

"Beginning scans." Max replied.

Newman and Archer stepped back. Now using their laptop on a nearby bike. They were already moved to the side for the incoming traffic. Then the container showed up. It was hovering over the ground. The laser of the mining machine stopped. The lava stream disconnected and the last part was transferred to the hovering balls. At the bottom of the container were half balls which later could receive the cooled down ones. The container itself had nearly the size of a pickup. Seven balls were hovering over the container. It seemed to be a bit waste of space. The empty container moved to the side of the other. All of SW-5 were further away to avoid getting between the process.

The full container disconnected and went away. Then the empty one connected to the machine.

"This must be cost a lot of power," Samuel guessed. "I wonder how much of this power generator we seen they have in the hidden location."

"Well, there was no time to figure out what exactly the generator was. Maybe they have even a bigger version of it. But with that energy storage system they have, they could even use solar power. So this generator must be easier to build," Newman replied.

"Maybe they do solar later who knows or it is something other regenerative. We should have checked the generator," Samuel noted.

"Too big and not enough time. It's probably fusion maybe more advanced as on the ship we retrieved on Earth. But we have the saucer ship and with this machine we have two vehicles to check their energy storage system and generators. So we are fine with what we can get." Newman checked the scan results. The mining continued as the connection of the container was done. The lava started to flow again and finally three balls started to grow. It took a little bit then Max had found the stop command. Newman and Samuel did some further checks. Then Newman sent the command and the laser went off again.

"Good. Now we only need to move it," Newman informed.