Major General Lokhorst nodded. “General Deschner said that the Drakdels have a constant connection to the USV Valkanaut, so maybe we can use that as a measure for Nuwurth time?”
“Oh right, he did say that. Sure, I’ll record then for Varenok, and then we can compare.”
“That sounds fine to me.”
In unison they waved their hand and tapped on the time then they moved their hand upwards, and a list was shown “Record Time,” “Timer,” “Alarm,” “Set Time” “Nuwurth Time,” “Stopwatch,” and “Add New Time.”
“Set an alarm and record the time, okay? That way, we know how long has passed.” Major General Lokhorst noted.
Together they pressed “Alarm.” Major General Lokhorst set her timer for 24:00 hours and then tapped on a drop-down list and tapped on “Alarm and Record Time.” Major General Brentari changed her time, instead of one day, she had to just record time on Varenok, which was uncertain. She tapped on “Record Time.”
“There. All done.”
“You’re right. Well, want to be the first person to step on, Varenok?” asked Major General Lokhorst.
“Nah, I’ll let you have the honors. Wait for me, though, let me go get my OBA.”
“Sure, I’ll wait here.”
Major General Brentari turned around and walked towards the control room, pressed the button, and the doors slid open. She walked and grabbed the OBA from the shelf and a handful of vials. She turned around and walked back to Major General Lokhorst.
“I brought a few extra vials just in case. Here put them in your pockets.”
“Good thinking! Wait, did General Deschner say how long the vials lasted for anyway?” asked Major General Lokhorst.
Major General Brentari stood there thinking then shook her head. “No, I don’t think he mentioned it.”
“Oh well, I’m sure with extra vials, we’ll be fine.” She nodded and grabbed one of the vials and placed it into the OBA, and then moved it up to her mouth and put the mouthpiece in her mouth, and connected the arms around her head and locked them in place.
“Now, breathe and talk like normal.” Major General Lokhorst explained.
“Like this?” Major General Brentari heard her voice sound robotic, and it surprised her.
Major General Lokhorst laughed. “It does sound strange, indeed! Anyways are you ready?”
Major General Brentari looked all around her to check that she had everything. “We don’t need much, right? Just the OBA’s, a few vials?”
“Right.” Major General Lokhorst replied. “You ready?”
“Ready as I’ll ever be.” Major General Brentari pressed the button on the right side of the doors, and the doors slid open, the ramp extended onto the ice-cold surface of the iceberg and stopped as it reached the surface. She turned to her left side and spoke. “You ready to explore Varenok?”
“Let’s go!”
The Major Generals stepped onto the platform and then walked down from it onto the frozen surface of the iceberg, they looked around and could see the beauty of this newly found uncharted planet.
“I can feel the frigid temperature in the air, but I’m not cold.”
“I know what you mean like we should be shivering, at least. I mean, at these temperatures, we should have hypothermia or even frostbite… but none of that is happening.” Major General Lokhorst sounded surprised.
“It is the strangest thing. These OBA’s are definitely something else.”
“That they are.” Major General Lokhorst nodded and started to walk on ice. “Let’s explore what we can.”
“Sure thing.”
As they walked, a sound was made underneath their footsteps. They were walking on snow that crunched as they took their steps. Light snow was falling from the sky on everything in sight. In the distance, they could see the water swaying back and forth. Major General Brentari turned around to look at the Drakdel. “It looks smaller than I thought.” She motioned Major General Lokhorst to turn around and look at it.
“It really does. This iceberg has to be huge to support something as big as the Drakdel.”
“That is true, who knows how much it weighs.” Major General Brentari turned and pointed behind the Drakdel. “It looks like the iceberg is longer that way.”
“We can explore there, but let’s get closer to the edge here to see how the water looks.”
They walked closer to the edge of the iceberg and stopped walking.
“Whoa, it looks as if it goes down forever.” Major General Brentari noted. “Want to swim?”
Major General Lokhorst looked at her with such a sinister look that made her stop talking.
“Sorry, didn’t realize you didn’t like water that much.”
“It’s fine. I’ll get over it. Just don’t joke about water, okay?”
“Okay okay. I won’t.” Major General Brentari bent down and placed her hands on her knees. “It is really dark down there.”
“Yes, I know I heard you before.”
The water changed color slowly; the darkness appeared to come closer to them.
“What is that-!” Major General Brentari yelled.
In a flash, something jumped out of the water and flew towards Major General Brentari. Major General Lokhorst pulled her back and fell on her back as the creature jumped and landed on the iceberg behind them and started to flail.
“What is that?!” Major General Brentari yelled and turned around to look at it.
“No clue!” Major General Lokhorsts’ eyes watched the creature wiggle around and pointed at it. “Scan it, Brentari!”
She nodded and swiped her hand and started to scan the creature.
◆◆◆
SCANNING……………………ONE MOMENT PLEASE
◆◆◆
“We don’t have a moment!” Major General Brentari shouted at her, INH, “What do we do?”
“Well, it doesn’t look like it’s a big threat... I mean, look at it.” Major General Lokhorst pointed at it.
They looked at the creature. Its eyes were big and white, two on each side of its face. On the creature’s head, it had two dorsal rays that looked like it could emit light. The creature’s mouth was opening and closing, showing off its protruding fangs like it was trying to eat something. The creature was roughly four and a half feet long. The pelvic and pectoral fins almost looked like it had wings, like that of a bird or a bat, but entirely made from scales. The creature’s dorsal fins appeared to be hard, that of a shark or a dolphin and its tail fin was big, hard and scaly. They had never seen anything like it before.
“That’s kind of scary...” Major General Brentari remarked as she stood up and brushed her clothes off from the snow
“It almost had you for breakfast, Brentari.”
“That it did.”
“Want to get a closer look at it?”
Major General Brentari looked at her and shook her head.
“Come on, it’s fine. I mean, look at it. It is flopping around and such...” motioned Major General Lokhorst as she slowly walked towards it.
She hesitated then exhaled. “Okay fine, but I’ll stay back.”
“That’s fine.”
The Major Generals walked towards the creature. It looked helpless as it flopped on its sides, trying to get back into the water, but it did not look harmless. They stood about ten feet away from it and watched as it opened its mouth.
“This is definitely something new, Brentari.”
“I wonder what it is.”
“Well...” she turned and looked at her “Why not check the scan?”
“How could I forget?” Major General Brentari shook her head and swiped open her INH
“You were almost eaten. I’d say that’s a good reason to forget.” She chuckled.
Major General Brentari swiped her hand and then swiped it forward for both of them to see. Her INH appeared with these words on it:
◆◆◆
SCAN COMPLETE
UNKNOWN AQUATIC SPECIES
/>
POSSIBLE PHYLUM CHORDATA OR LOPHIIFORMES
SHARP FANGS CONSIDER THIS AQUATIC CREATURE A PREDATOR
THE ILLICIUM IS A LURE TO ATTRACT OTHER AQUATIC CREATURES
◆◆◆
“Well, we have some information about it.”
“We do?” Major General Lokhorst asked, “How?”
“Well, I think it compared what sort of lifeforms and creatures back on Nuwurth with this scan.”
“Hmm. Now that you mention it, I believe Lieutenant General Armitage said that would happen. You know, this fish looks familiar.” Major General Lokhorst remarked.
“Does it? I mean, it looks like a lot of things.”
“Yeah...let me see if I can find it.”
Major General Lokhorst swiped her hand, and her INH appeared in front of her eyes. She tapped on “Files” and scrolled down to “Nuwurth” then, many files appeared “Animals and Creatures” “Climate” “Environment” “IDSE” “Politics” “Syndicate” “Technology” and many others. She tapped “Animals and Creatures” then five files appeared. “Amphibians,” “Birds,” “Fish,” “Mammals,” and “Reptiles.” She tapped “Fish,” then one file appeared “Classes of fish.” And it opened three files. “Agnatha” “Chrondrichthyes” and “Placodermi.” She exhaled and shook her head.
This is harder than I thought...isn’t there a search bar somewhere?
She swiped her hand to go back and then tapped and held down the folder that read “Classes of fish” then a search bar appeared. A keyboard appeared on the screen, and she typed in “Pictures of fish.” In a moment, thousands of pictures appeared.
This is not going to help...what did I do?
Major General Lokhorst scrolled through pictures upon pictures of fish native to Nuwurth. She swiped her hand a few times and exhaled again.
What if I do this?
She swiped back and then typed in “luminescent,” then tapped on search. A moment passed by, and then a picture appeared on her INH.
Found it!
“Look, Brentari! This fish!”
Major General Lokhorst swiped over her left hand, and her INH on her bracelet emitted a hologram that they could both see.
“Anglerfish. That’s what this thing reminds me of.” Major General Lokhorst was motioning to the creature flopping.
“Hmm...you do have a point. Although it looks different, sort of mutated or maybe like a long-lost cousin.”
Major General Lokhorst moved her arm down and replied. “Well, of course, we’re on a different planet, millions of miles away, of course, it’s going to look different, Brentari.”
Major General Brentari defended herself and spoke with a slightly aggressive tone. “That’s not what I meant. It looks like they could have the same ancestor or something that’s all.”
“Hmm... you know, you may have a point.” Major General Lokhorst moved her arm up again and had the image of an anglerfish projected on her INH at the same height as the creature and looked at them side-by-side. “Check this out.”
Major General Brentari walked closer to look at the two creatures. “They do look sort of similar, but that raises the question, are they similar? And if so, how?”
“I do not know.” She swiped away her INH “All I know is I’m glad we scanned it.”
Major General Brentari nodded. “Are we supposed to take samples from this...thing?”
“I would imagine as much.”
“Alive or dead?” Major General Brentari asked as her eyes looked down at the creature, her face had a disgusted look about it.
“I believe General Deschner would want both.”
Major General Brentari looked at the creature then back at Major General Lokhorst then back at it.
“Erm, okay Lokhorst...?”
“Look, we’ll leave it here and walk back to the Drakdel and then call General Deschner and see what he thinks about it, okay?”
“Sure, okay.” Major General Brentari sighed.
“Well, before we head back inside, let’s explore what else we can here, okay?”
“What else is there to explore? We’re on an iceberg.”
“Well, I mean yeah, that is true…” Major General Lokhorst looked down at the iceberg. “Scan the iceberg then!”
“Sure. I’ll scan the ice that we are standing on. Want to scan the atmosphere?”
Major General Lokhorst nodded. The Major Generals swiped in mid-air and opened their INH and pointed their fingers at the iceberg and in the air. Their INH’s started to scan.
◆◆◆
SCANNING……………………ONE MOMENT PLEASE
◆◆◆
The Major Generals looked at one another and all around Varenok as their INH were scanning.
“I still think these OBA’s are pretty innovative.”
Major General Lokhorst nodded in agreement. “They are really something else, aren’t they?”
“I can’t believe that Antimatter is making this all work, I mean I didn’t realize we could harness the power of it. Especially how we can use its power in extreme weather conditions.”
“Yeah really. I just wonder what other tools General Deschner knows about that we don’t. This is just the tip of the iceberg. No pun intended.” Major General Lokhorst smirked.
Major General Brentari shook her head. “You realize we are on a planet all to ourselves, right? Like we are the first ones here.”
“Yeah, I realize that. We mentioned that as we left the Drakdel.”
“I know that. But doesn’t it make you think that we are not on Nuwurth anymore, you know? We’re all alone here without any other transhumans around.”
“That’s never happened before, it’s a strange feeling.” Major General Lokhorst nodded and looked up in the sky and noticed thick grey billowy nimbostratus clouds in the atmosphere above them.
The clouds reminded her of how she used to visit the southern continent, Ayewend, for business meetings and to conduct research for the URC in the southern-most region, which was the coldest on Nuwurth. Roughly one-fifth of the region of Ayewend was cold and snowed almost every day. This region was known as Nuwurth’s Arctic Zone. The clouds on Varenok reminded her of those research days.
Their INH appeared in front of their eyes, and the words appeared that read:
◆◆◆
SCAN COMPLETE
◆◆◆
“Oh, it looks like the scan is done. Should I read mine?” asked Major General Brentari.
“No, go on ahead. You first.”
“Okay. Well, my scan has a lot of information, so give me a second.”
Major General Brentari read aloud what her scan said.
◆◆◆
FRESHWATER ICE.
UNSURE IF DRIFT ICE OR ANCHOR ICE.
ONE-TENTH OF VOLUME IS ABOVE WATER.
ICEBERG SLOWLY MOVING WEST AT APPROX. 0.02 MILES PER SECOND.
◆◆◆
“Is that fast? Zero point zero two miles per second?” asked Major General Brentari.
“I’m not sure. We’ll find out, but first, this is what came back on my scan.” Major General Lokhorst read her scan out loud to Major General Brentari.
◆◆◆
FRIGID CLIMATE DETECTED
CURRENTLY NEGATIVE TWO HUNDRED AND TWENTY DEGREES
TEMPERATURES RANGING FROM MINUS 175 DEGREES TO THIRTY-FIVE DEGREES FAHRENHEIT
WATER VAPOR DETECTED IN AIR
HEAVY SNOW POSSIBLE IN NEXT FEW DAYS
◆◆◆
“Seems to me that Varenok doesn’t get warm at all.” Major General Lokhorst noted.
Major General Brentari took a long pause to prolong the bad news. “You seem to be right about that, but uh, Lokhorst...this iceberg is freshwater.”
“Really? That’s good news!”
“This iceberg is moving west.” Major General Brentari remarked.
“Yeah, you mentioned what like zero point zero two miles?” Major General Lokhorst asked, “So what is your point?”
>
The Syndicate's Journey Page 16
