Parker Interstellar Travels 6: The Celaran Ruins by Michael McCloskey Read Free Book Online

the ball it would alert them to the landing.
    “Should
we strap in somewhere?” Siobhan asked.
    “Just
sheathe your swords and put down your forks, people, we’re landing and it could
be a crash if it doesn’t work out,” Telisa said. She hoped she was overstating
the danger.
    Telisa
sat down into a chair that had thankfully been adapted for Terrans and waited.
She watched the approach on the exterior sensors, as she assumed everyone was.
The formation became visible below in a huge forest. Telisa saw the tower, only
a couple of kilometers away.
    They
dropped closer. Telisa saw the huge leaves around the formations start to
flutter as the turbulence and the spinner’s gravity distortion started to
disrupt them. Only another few seconds remained. Telisa took a deep breath and
steeled herself.
    I
have to succeed here, for Magnus. For everyone.
    The
ship settled on the giant tusk-shaped spires without so much as a creak. Then
the vines and leaves nearby settled. The New Iridar sat just a meter
above the top of the vegetation all around it. The PIT team had a penthouse
view above the alien forest.
    “They’re
strong,” Cilreth said. “Minimal deformation.”
    “Us
or the damn trees?” Imanol said.
    “You’re
always bent out of shape, Imanol,” Siobhan said.
    “Wait!
I heard something!” Caden said.
    “Landing
gear?” Telisa asked.
    “No,
I have that—cargo bay doors are open!” Cilreth said.
    Telisa
spotted the Vovokan battle sphere on camera feeds from outside the ship.
    “The
battle sphere—” Caden said.
    “Is
outside!” Siobhan said.
    “It’s shooting !” Imanol exclaimed.
    “Let’s
get out of here!” Caden suggested.
    Telisa
brought up her tactical combat pane arrangement. “No enemies on my screen,” she
said.
    “It’s
burning the forest to the northwest... moving toward the west,” Cilreth said
with a calmer head.
    The
battle sphere used some powerful weapon to obliterate the vegetation in a long
line. Telisa watched the swath of destruction grow. The enforcer machine had
cleared a pie-shaped section of the forest out to 950 meters. Even the huge
white trunks beyond the formation they landed upon were being incinerated. The
line slowly swept clockwise toward the west.
    “It’s
clearing a perimeter,” Cilreth concluded.
    “So
much for our plans to spare the forest!” Siobhan said.
    “Wow,
that thing has a lot of juice to spare,” Imanol said.
    He’s
right on that count. This has to be costing a lot of energy.
    “Could
it become depleted? When it completes the circle, that might be a good time
to...” Jason said.
    “With
what? Our pistols?” Imanol asked.
    To
attack it? Maybe the breaker claw. But Shiny knows I have it, and the breaker
claw is more effective when the storage rings have more energy, not less. He
could have rigged it to explode with even more power than a normal
superconductor rupture unless I got it in just the right place. If I get that
desperate, I have to make sure the others are far, far away.
    “We
won’t do anything yet,” Telisa said.
    Is
it really afraid of the alien forest’s secrets? Or did it do that to intimidate
us?
    The
battle sphere stopped when one quadrant had been burned away.
    “Cilreth,”
Telisa began.
    “Way
ahead of you,” Cilreth said. “Calculating how much energy that took. If it’s
stopping to recharge now, that’s a clue.”
    “I
think it would hold at least 20% in reserve,” Telisa said.
    “One
thing’s for sure, it could vaporize the whole team in a second,” Cilreth said.
    Yes,
it could.
     
    ***
     
    Imanol
took a deep breath. He smelled the air. He could not tell much about the
planet’s natural odor, since the smell of burnt foliage was overpowering. The
seven curved spires that supported the ship had been left intact. Every other
bit of material had been burned down to the near-level ground beneath. He could
see the alien vegetation on the horizon.
    “Nothing
like the smell of plasma in the morning,” Imanol