Shadow Of The Past Trilogy ∞ THE DISPLACED

118 ∞ birth of the E's

Day Twenty-one to Twenty-two ∞ Late Thursday night to early Friday (PST)

LORA EXITED as Danny stepped into the large opening and surveyed the space, awed. The cave looked a lot bigger than from the elevation within Mickmi's ship, twice as long as it was wide. Deep inside, Tillman lit his way along its length. Muzzy stood in the center, inspecting the ceiling and Jagg approached the sidewall. On Danny's heads-up display, Eckstein's icon closed in from behind.

"Damn." Jagg slid his gloved hand on the surface. "Smooth as a babe's ass. Hardly even any dust."

Danny turned to the rock face inside the opening, and his collar ring automatically switched on its lights and illuminated the space before him.

Damn indeed. He ran his gaze up the gray wall. If he didn't know better, he would have sworn a large crew had just finished it with polishing machines.

"Gentlemen," Lora returned to the entrance, "please follow me."

Outside, they found Paulux parked nearby. Lora directed them to gather around one side and hold onto the third 'wheel' of antimatter containers. Their spacesuit servomotors activated as the brackets released from the hull, and they brought the frame gently to the ground.

Artemae bounced toward them with amplified skipping steps as they circled Paulux to the last wheel. Danny glanced around but Mickmi was nowhere in sight. Just as he was going to mentally check on her, her ship retracted its landing fins and rotated to face them.

"You can take this one directly into the cavern. Artemae, please take over." Lora lifted off the ground and entered Paulux.

"Ay-ay, captain!" Artemae tilted her head as she inspected the wheel, then put her arms akimbo. "Okay. Take it off and my Queen will assist in carrying it with the paragravitic field."

They removed the last wheel. As they tilted it into horizontal position and moved away from the ship, Mickmi's voice came through the ship's comms, "Activating PGF... now."

The PGF assist took over the weight.

"Let's do this off-ground," Eckstein said. "At two meters. After three... two... one..."

Together they rose and floated with the wheel across the terrain. Danny found himself going backward toward the cave. Artemae remained near the ground, monitoring their clearance, calling out occasional instructions. When the shadow of the cave mouth fell across them, their spacesuit lights turned on, one by one, as each entered the cave. They guided the frame to the floor furthest inside the cave, leaving walking space all around it.

Mickmi's ship reversed from the opening as they returned to get the next frame of containers. Danny took the nearest side, his gaze on Paulux as he waited for the others to position themselves. Lora had piloted it to near the 240º line on his HUD, in front of the steeper slope of the crater rim.

"Ready?"

Danny snapped his gaze to Eckstein who was watching him from the opposite side of the frame.

"Three... two... one..."

"Activating PGF," Mickmi said.

Danny tightened his grip on the frame as it rose a couple of feet off the ground as if the containers were filling with helium.

Within thirty minutes, they'd placed the last set of containers at the front, nearest to the cave entrance but still a safe distance inside. When they returned outside, Deymos had parked on its fins again. The side hull opened and Mickmi stepped out.