“They might be watching us right now. We’re not exactly hidden up here.” Knossos remarked, peering through his rifle scope at the multitude of crags further up the valley from a prone position. 595 scanned the higher elevations too, her hands so far still free from weapons of any kind. “Not loads of cover up here either, apart from the transit shield.” Carthage muttered, picking up a small rock near where she knelt. It crumbled into black dust and fell through her fingers. “Keep the line clear.” Thebes ordered. “We’re trying to reach base.”

[hr]

“I’m getting something!” A Rothian manning the auxiliary comms console called. Freyr rushed over and listened in. “It sounds like some kind of code.” He reported. Freyr only needed to listen to three pulses before she realised what it was. “It’s Morse code, an ancient Human form of communication. Plug it in, let's see what it says.” The transmission was unbearably slow, with words gradually forming on the screen. After about a minute they had their first phrase.

“LZ set up….safe”.....

Then another.

…..”mast jammed”

Then a sign off.

“TS in ten…life found…..stop”….

“They found life!” Freyr shouted, for the benefit of the people not huddled around the console. “The transit station will be ready in ten minutes. We only have limited space as it sounds like they need spares. We’ll need an anthropologist to go. Who else?” She’d resigned herself to being the vicarious co-ordinator in this expedition for now, but had already briefed the members of her team who were staying behind what to do when she did finally go in.

[hr]
“I’ve got a lot of activity down here.” Athena crackled, sharing her feed again. Lots of heat blobs were emerging from the long, flat building shapes to congregate together and mill around. “Think they’re coming out for a look. Maybe we should tell the civilians to stay put.”