Free The Lost Voyager: A Space Opera Novel by A. C. Hadfield Page B

forward.  
    The movement at the edge of the pit had stopped.  
    “Babs, Adira, you getting anything up there?” Mach said.  
    “Negative,” Adira responded. “No change whatsoever. We have a visual on you both, though. You’re almost central to the pile. What are those ceramic fragments?”
    “We’re just about to find out,” Mach replied. “Sanchez, you cover me while I inspect.”
    “On it, boss,” Sanchez said, taking a knee to steady himself and bringing his scope up to his helmet. He swept his weapon in slow arcs, his eagle eyes watching for any danger.  
    Mach stepped forward to the base of the bones and fragments, slid his Stinger over his back, and kneeled down. He reached out his hand cautiously until he gripped a piece of shell the size of his palm. “Any movement?” Mach said, feeling his heart rate increasing a few extra beats per minute.  
    “Nada,” Sanchez added. “I don’t like it.”
    “I like it more than movement,” Mach replied as he snatched the fragment away and stepped back behind Sanchez. He flipped his visor over to a scan setting that sent the details of the object to his smart-screen system for analysis. He routed the readings to Babcock as well as Tulula on the Intrepid .  
    “It’s not very heavy,” Mach said to the entire team. “Thin too. The edges are sharp. It looks like… an eggshell.”
    “That’s a damned big egg,” Sanchez said. “Which makes me wonder what kind of creature came out of it—and what laid it.”
    Babcock interrupted. “The composition is a mix of calcium carbonate, phosphate and magnesium.”
    “Same as chicken eggs?” Sanchez said with incredulity in his voice.  
    “The very same,” Babcock added. “Although there are some interesting proteins here. Can you get some more samples? I can get Squid Two to do a more thorough analysis back on the Intrepid .”
    “Your wish is my command,” Mach said sarcastically. “Any other special requests?”
    “Some of the bones would be useful,” the scientist added, not responding to Mach’s sarcasm. The two men had long worked with each other and were used to the banter. It was the one thing Mach was most thankful for with his crew: the banter and jibes kept things light when they were surrounded by darkness.  
    “You want me to grab some samples?” Sanchez said.  
    “No, it’s okay. You stay there covering me. You’re the better shot anyway.” Mach didn’t want to admit that he worried about his friend’s capability. Though he was showing no obvious signs of illness, he didn’t want to risk it, and as for being a better shot, that much was true—much to Mach’s chagrin. He’d lost a fortune to Sanchez over the years in shooting matches.  
    Mach placed the small fragment into a pouch around his waist and stepped closer to the pile. He looked around for a more intact piece of shell, hoping to find one with some biometric data inside. As he stepped closer, his foot crunched down on a fibula, snapping it in two like a dried twig.  
    He paused, his muscles tensing, anticipating something, anything, but there was only silence.  
    “Keep going,” Sanchez said. “I’ve got things covered.”
    Mach inspected the pile and noticed an egg that looked almost perfect on a ledge of bones about three meters tall. He could easily reach it with a short burst of his suit’s thrusters. He prepared to launch himself up, but a mini landslide of bones fell down, covering his boots.  
    Instinctively, he kicked them away, but something had grabbed onto his boot. Poking out of the pile, he noticed an arm wearing a fragment of a uniform similar to the ones the people in the facility were wearing.  
    “Oh crap,” Sanchez said. “This ain’t good. Back up, Mach. Now!”
    “What?” He looked down at his boot and saw one of the little bugs that had attacked him before in the facility trying to get through the material. He whacked it away with the barrel of his gun before stamping on it with