Meanwhile, aboard the cutter Dysart, about ten kilometers away, Commander Sardon had been monitoring the actions of the other cutter’s compliment while also observing his crew set up the camp where he was, getting samples of the air, water, moss, rock and whatnot. “Commander Sardon to Gunny Mudd. What are you doing?” he asked.
“Mudd to Sardon. I’ve picked up what seems to be blast traces here. I’m checking to see what caused the kaboom. Was it natural or artificial?”
“Sardon to Mudd. Do you want any backup?”
“Mudd to Sardon. Not right away, but keep yourselves on ready one launch, just in case.”
“Sardon to Mudd. Will do.”
Behind the cutter, the ponies gathered, waiting. Spike looked down at the moss and saw something glitter. Curious, he picked it up. It looked like a shard of glass, but it was iridescent, glowing from within with a faint rainbow light. “Hey, look at this!” he called out, holding up the shard.
Twilight looked over at Spike. “What did you find, Spike?” she asked.
“I don’t know, but it’s pretty!” Spike said, holding up the shard.
The ponies all gathered around Spike and his prize. Rarity looked at it, using her gem sense. “Spike, may I see it?” she asked, her voice shaking a little.
“Sure, Rarity! Would you like it?” Spike said eagerly, willing to give Rarity anything she could ask for that he could provide.
“Yes, please,” Rarity said, taking the shard in her glow.
“What are you feeling, Rarity?” Twilight asked.
“This gem shard is full of energy, and is very unstable,” Rarity said. “If I drop it against something hard, or break it, it will detonate.”
“Detonate?” Rainbow Dash asked, increasing her altitude slightly.
“Yes, detonate. Where did you find it, Spike?”
“On the ground, right here,” Spike said, pointing to where he found the shard.
The ponies then heard Briscoe call out over the radio link, “Gunny, carefully come out of the cave. Don’ step on any crystals you see. All the gemstones in the area have a high-power charge in them! So, back out of theah, y’all!”
“You got it, Briscoe!” Gunny Mudd shouted before saying, “Holloway, Takahashi, slow step out of here!”
“Sardon to Gunny Mudd. I copy that, and we’re finding similar readings at our location. Get everyone aboard the cutter and lift off. I will send a survey party down, with proper insulation.” The Science Officer said in his usual bass tones.
“Copy that, Commander! Okay, everyone, into the cutter, and don’t stub a toe! Princess Twilight, please carefully bring your find aboard for further analysis,” Gunny Mudd ordered.
“Yes, Sergeant! Rarity, please bring it aboard carefully! Don’t drop it!” Twilight said, sounding a bit edgy.
“Of course, darling. Shame I can’t use this in one of my designs. The iridescence is fabulous!” Rarity said as she, along with the others, slowly picked their way through the moss around the cutter to the airlock.
“Are you telling me that the rocks down on that planet have absorbed enough magic charge to become explosive on impact?” Captain Somers asked Commander Sardon and Princess Twilight after they had undergone decontamination and returned to the Hurin.
“That is correct, Captain.” Twilight said. “I had a chance to examine the crystal shard on the way back to the ship. While I am familiar with the process of having gemstones absorb spells for various uses, I have to say this is the first time I have encountered something like this. It’s just that the crystal structure has absorbed nothing but raw, unpurposed magic, but in such a way as to render it highly unstable. Why that particular shard did not detonate when it was thrown to where it was found, I do not know.”
Sardon just nodded. “What she said,” he added.
Jamie thought for a few seconds, looking at the sasquatch and the alicorn. “Would you consider it worthwhile to go back down for some more samples of these crystals?”
“I would like to see exactly what sort of crystals hold this charge. Is it any form of crystal, or a gem structure? Can they be tapped for their magic or not?” Twilight spoke up eagerly. “This is something quite unknown to me, and I do know magic!”
Sardon just grimaced before saying, “What she said. I’ll just take a shuttle down, with some of the science staff and the Princess. I’ll scan for a good concentration of these crystals so we can bring back a varied sample. I had best take plenty of stasis boxes for sample containers.”
“Very well, Commander Sardon. Take the Lexow, it has the best sensor suite of all the shuttles,” Jamie suggested.
“I had planned on it, Captain. I plan on departing in two hours. Princess, can you be ready by then?” Sardon asked.
“Yes, I can! We had best take Rarity along as well. She can find gemstones, and I feel she would be of assistance to us.”
“Let her know and be ready at Shuttle Bay Six in two hours, with your suits. Bioscans have not yet been completed, and I refuse to take any chances with unknown pathogens.”
“I understand, Commander. See you in two hours, then! I have some studying to do first!” Twilight said eagerly before heading out of the Captain’s office.
Captain Somers and Commander Sardon looked at each other after Twilight left the room. “Are you sure your mother has not talked to her, Jamie?” Sardon asked.
“As sure as I can be, which is not very. I know she has been around once already. What she’s doing now, I don’t have ANY idea,” Jamie sighed.
“And you don’t WANT to know. How many times have you said that already?”
“Too damned many, but it works. Or, rather, she and Salem do a great job.”
Two hours and a bit later, the shuttle Lexow left its bay aboard the Hurin and dropped towards the planet’s surface, under the expert pilotage of Lieutenant Khaball. Rainbow Dash was in the co-pilot’s seat, with the control consoles inerted. Commander Sardon manned the sensor suite console, with Twilight and Rarity standing near him, suited up. “Miss Rarity, can you sense the gem fields from up here?” he asked politely, as is his wont.
“Not really, Commander,” Rarity replied. “I can get a vague sense from this distance, but I can’t detect concentrations yet. We will need to get closer.”
“Very well. Lieutenant Khaball, get us down to four kilometers altitude, and slowed to normal atmospheric speeds. Please do so smartly,” Sardon ordered.
“Get us down in a hurry, aye! Everyone sit down and strap in! Gee forces are going to be sharp!” Annelise called out. Waiting just long enough for the ponies to strap in, she proceeded to dive on in, the shuttle’s rotolinear drive making an unholy racket, the grav compensators struggling to maintain cabin gravity, and Exar fields up full. The little shuttle dropped like a proverbial stone tern, catching itself up short at the desired altitude and velocity, four kilometers above the depression where the Invergordon had touched down before. Twilight and Rarity struggled to maintain their seats, Sardon sat impassively, his large Sasquatch frame easily able to handle the gees. Rainbow Dash, on the other hoof, was having the time of her life.
“That was awesome, Annelise! I couldn’t do much better!” Rainbow Dash called out exultantly.
Annelise glanced at the cyan pegasus. “I told you I could fly, just not well by myself. It does enhance my piloting capabilities. Now, if any of my juniors tried this, I would have them over the coals so fast, they would not have time to get their fur singed before deep burns set in!” she said with a big grin on her feline face.
“Expect a talking-to from the Captain later, Miss Khaball…” Sardon said drily. “not to mention your father.”
Annelise razzed her superior officer, who is also a family friend she had known since she was a kit. “Sardon, Captain Somers knows my capabilities. He won’t be upset.”
“You may be right, Miss Khaball,” Sardon sighed before looking back at his instruments. “Miss Rarity, can you sense gems now?”
Rarity sat up straighter in her seat, quickly brushing her mane back to its proper shape. “In just a moment, Mister Sardon. I have to get my breath back first,” she said in a light tone before focusing, her horn glowing purple.
“You mean, get your composure back,” Rainbow Dash quipped.
“Rainbow, not now…” Twilight growled, unstrapping from her seat to get back to Sardon’s console to watch.
“Okay, I can feel the concentrations I felt before. We need to go about a kilometer to the north, and we will find a large concentration of crystals. It’s getting to them that will be a problem,” Rarity reported.
“Miss Khaball, get us to the position Miss Rarity described, and hover,” Sardon directed.
“Will do, Commander!” Annelise replied, bringing the shuttle to the desired spot, using much less force than the descent. “How’s this?”
“Excellent, Miss Khaball. Please to hover while the scanners do their work,” Sardon replied.
“What do you feel, Rarity?” Twilight asked her friend.
Rarity focused her talent, her horn glowing faintly. “Okay, there is a large quantity of gems under the surface in this area, most of them in a matrix of rock. The main problem I see is getting the gems out of the matrix without setting them off,” she said, her eyes staring off into space.
“How much power is in them, Rarity?”
“If I’m seeing them right, a gem that could fit inside my hoof has the potential of blasting a hole through the shield wall of Canterlot Castle. Fortunately, there are not many that size,” Rarity said before blinking as she sensed something more. “When the gems are encased in the matrix, they are far more stable than when they are freed of them. If we can find some encased in a boulder, we can just bring the boulder and wait to free them later.”
Sardon spoke from his console, where he had been patiently watching the sensor displays. “That explains some of the variances I am detecting. Miss Khaball, please land the shuttle where you can see the ground is clear of stones.”
“Will do, Sardon,” Annelise said before doing so, the shuttle’s rotolinear drive doing some clanking and banging as she set the shuttle down. Nobody understood WHY the rotolinears produced such a racket but using a drive like that was far more economical than using reaction drives, and can be made in many sizes, from miniature to drives that moved the Gilgamesh at high-gee acceleration. All they needed was electricity to spin the rotors.
Once down on the ground, the five beings aboard all put on their helmets, making sure they were secure before opening the doors to the outside. “Miss Rarity, you and I will be spotters. Princess Twilight will gather for you, while Miss Khaball is with me. Please to use the stasis boxes provided to transport the samples. Miss Rainbow, you take overwatch. I do not expect anything to be here, but I have been mistaken before,” Sardon directed as Annelise gathered up the stasis boxes, which in their unfolded state, resembled flat sheets of cardboard. The boxes were of different sizes, from that of the size a ring would be transported in, to boxes about half a meter on a side. Once unfolded, the box edges would seal together, the stasis part not starting until all sides were sealed. When that happened, the boxes could not be opened until a special tool is used to break the seal. Good for transporting all sorts of hazardous materials, if you could afford the prices of the boxes to begin with.
They fanned out from the shuttle, the two teams going in different directions, while Rainbow Dash went up. She flew in a lazy circle above the landing site, watching for anything that would catch her attention.
They gathered rocks for an hour, choosing the most energetic stones they could detect, stacking the boxes inside the shuttle. “We should save a few of these to take back to Equestria,” Twilight mentioned after carrying several boxes back to the Lexow.
“What are you thinking about, Twilight?” Rarity asked as she chose some more rocks for an open sample box.
“I want Maud Pie to look at some of these. She’s one of the best rockologists I know, and she should find these fascinating,” Twilight said as she readied another box.
“You have a good point, Twilight.”
From above, Rainbow Dash noticed a bump in the ground, a bump that was slowly moving along towards the shuttle. “Hey, what’s that?” she called out.
“What’s what, Rainbow Dash?” Twilight asked. Dash pointed with a wing at the bump, which Twilight could barely see. She moved to see the lump, which appeared to be moving under the moss. “Commander Sardon, I think we have a problem here…” she said as she watched the lump move.
Sardon looked up from his portable scanner. “What did you find, Princess?” he asked.
“I think we have found some native life here, living under the moss…” Twilight said, pointing with her wing at the bump. Sardon scanned the moving bump.
“It is alive, but photophobic, if what I am seeing is right. Apparently, our activity has stimulated it,” Sardon commented.
“Should I grab it and put it in a box?” Twilight asked as the lump neared the shuttle.
“Please do, Princess. Your telekinesis is very useful at this point,” Sardon replied.
Twilight reached out with her glow and snapped up the lump, as well as a clump of moss and soil surrounding it. Quickly, she put it in an open box and sealed it. “There. Now we can examine it. What sort of readings did you get from it, Commander?”
“Whatever it is, it is surprisingly energetic for something of that size. I wonder how it lives here,” Sardon mused.
“Maybe it eats the magic-powered gems for sustenance,” Lieutenant Khaball suggested.
“That is for further research to decide, Lieutenant. However, you just may be closer to the truth than we realize,” Sardon commented. “Okay, let’s all pack up and get in the shuttle. We still have decontamination to do before we moor.”
“Aye, Commander,” Annelise said, stowing the latest loose samples into a box and sealing it. Rarity did the same as Twilight loaded the ‘critter box’ in the shuttle. Within ten minutes, all were back aboard the shuttle as Annelise took off, setting the little ship to home in on the Hurin before starting the decontamination protocols, which took about fifteen minutes before it was considered safe to unseal the suits.
“I’m concerned about the life form. I thought initial scans did not show anything this large on planet,” Twilight commented as she stowed her helmet and hooked up her life support pack to the recharger.
“They did not, Princess. However, scanning from orbit only gives a quick reading about what could be there. With this being found under the moss, it may have been masked by the moss’ life readings. That’s for Science department to analyze, along with the rocks.” Sardon said as he did the same with his suit.
“That would be interesting to watch being done. May I ask permission to observe?” Twilight asked, looking up at the tall Sasquatch.
“Of course, Princess. You and whoever else you feel will be useful,” Sardon replied.