Chapter 136 - Icy Business

*(mood song: "Coldplay - A Sky Full of Stars")

The next morning, Erik stretched his arms in bed early in the morning, as he woke up with Inky sleeping on his chest.

Inky: "hnnn it's still early... sleep..."

Erik carefully put her head on the pillow and kissed her forehead "gotta do a lot today, you can continue sleeping sweety"

Inky: "nnnh..." and Inky quickly fell asleep again.

The dive suit climbed and covered his naked body as he walked to the kitchen. He found some of the abalone tender meat and grilled it with a bit of kelp oil, and then also some porkfish cut into slices and glazed with sweet algae juice, he put aside three extra servings for Inky, Crabina, and Anhuka, leaving a note with their names on a paper made with dried algae cellulose.

He then went to the armoury and found there Rose and Amanda bickering as they stood in front of the big power armor, the arms and back now looking bigger with the add ons.

Amanda: "will this really work? to be able to float you removed the armor, but isn't the surface dangerous? what if he gets attacked? won't they rip it easily-"

Rose quickly shut her up and turned looking at Erik at that moment "Erik... hey did you sleep well? as you can see everything is ready.... why are you looking at me like that~?... okay fine, don't worry, it will be fine... just remember this... if the ice starts trembling get to a high place or run back to the hole to get in the water alright?"

Erik: "can't I just shoot them dead? or use the drill?"

Rose: "no, you can't... let's see... imagine an armadillo and a mole fused together..., the size of horses, hunting in packs of hundreds and capable of ripping through reinforced alloys, and go after any sound they hear..." she pointed at the feet of the armor "we... I reduced the weight of the armor and added vibration dampeners to help you walk silently, also added a camouflage plating in the outside, that will allow you to memetic better with the environment" she pointed at the back "as for the back I replaced the speakers for plasma turbines, they will work much better on air but they should also lift you on water, but I installed something else for the water, see in the top of the back there's an inflatable bag hidden, if you think about it it will quickly expand with hydrogen, lifting you to the ice surface and then..." she pointed at the right arm "you will use the drill attached to the forearm, it should be able to also drill through most creatures, but be aware that most creatures that live on the ice prairies have armoured bodies to endure radiation from space" she pointed at the left arm "in the left arm you have the railgun with one hundred shots and a plasma launcher, but... be aware that the plasma shots will only scare away armoured animals unless you concentrate fire a lot, and the railgun while it will easily penetrate dangerous fauna, but it will also create a loud noise so... avoid using it"

Erik: "okay... fine, what about the antenna? where is it?"

Rose pointed to a cylinder by the side "that's the antenna, just place it on a high place and I will remotely control it to do the rest".

Erik: "...just that cylinder will reach space?"

Rose's brow twitched "...do you even know what that even is, or how it works?"

Erik: "a small directional antenna?"

Rose: "no, that's first a high explosive mortar and then a rocket, once it reaches a low orbit in space, it will unfurl a thin foil alloy antenna and remain operative for 16 hours before burning on the atmosphere, more than enough time to send multiple copies of your message in that general direction.... did you record it?"

Erik: "Yeah, I did yesterday before falling asleep"

Rose: "give me a second then...." in his room a USB cable came from the wall and connected to his laptop "got it, are you ready?"

Erik nodded "I am" and walked inside the big power armor that as always connected itself to his nerves like an extension of his body.

He then nodded to Rose and Amanda and went outside with the suit, the waters were dark and cold, as only a little bit of light passed through some areas of the thick ice, so he had to activate the helmet lights to see properly, in the distance he also saw Amelia directing the patrol teams and thought 'seems like the patrols are going on fine...' he turned and looked at the top of the mountain with the base 'alright let's get this done for today...'

As he walked up to the mountain the mud stuck to the soles of his power armor creating plumes of mud in the water, filtering mollusks and sponges lined the rocky walls with their different colors and shapes, as he crouched and jumped up, holding to the rocky cliff and climbing up.

Thirty minutes later he finally reached the summit, lots of shiny sphere bots working around as they carried metallic beams and soldered them together to create the initial structure for the surface base and the remaining twenty meters left to get to the surface from the summit.

Rose: [yeah, it's pretty easy once I have the materials and enough workforce]

Erik: [...for a second I forgot you can see what I see...]

Then the thousands of sphere bots stopped working as they looked at Erik at the same time.

Rose: [...I have dozens of thousands of eyes here and even the armor has cameras so there's no real need, but... yeah... I could if I wanted ¯\_(´_ゝ`)_/¯ ]

Erik observed the steel skeleton taking shape and asked [how long will it take for the initial structure to be ready?]

Rose: [well, the steel structure part is easy so it will just take a week at most, the biorock part is the problem, it could take years to grow like that]

Erik's face fell: [really? years?... can't it be sped up?]

Rose: [nothing in life is definitive... well maybe death, but yeah it can be sped up as it grows by mineral deposition and also by organic action, so we could speed it up from 40mm/year to 120mm/year if you get me some.... let's call them crinoids, since it's the closest thing in your planet, you will need to go deeper for some though]

Erik: [i can do so when I go see the octopeople city ruins, what's so special about these crinoids on the ARK?]

Rose: [well you see they are carnivores that will eat anything they see, and also filter feeders so they can survive up here even if there are less prey, becoming a defense mechanism too for this exposed base of yours, but... the most exciting part is... that the minerals like bones and shells that they consume they excrete them through their roots, in a form of a paste that starts hardening on contact with water! if you add enough and feed them well, for example, those metal mussels and clams the crabs used to make armors, then the structure would become incredibly solid (๑˃̵ᴗ˂̵)ﻭ]

Erik: [...there's a small detail though... won't they eat me too? and how am I supposed to get one here anyway?]

Rose: [grab small ones duh..., and to get inside the top base you would use an elevator from the rocky base or a vehicle, avoid swimming between them and you will be fine ¯\_(ツ)_/¯]

Erik: [well, a tunnel in the middle sounds fine I guess..., by the way, can you reinforce my small two person submarine for enduring high depths too?]

Rose: [...if you are worried about maneuverability then don't worry, I've added a neuronal helmet on the control bridge of the... Nautilus..., that way you could use the submarine's robotic arms precisely]

Erik: [yeah, that sounds good and all, but... to go out to take samples there might come the need to use the smaller one]

Rose: [...fine, I will use the shells from those metallic mussels and reinforce and join the bio alloys, it should hold the pressure that way... and your normal power armor I should reinforce it too...-] Erik was about to say something but Rose was faster [I know what you are about to say... to make new armors with those alloys for everybody-]

Erik: [well yes and no... I want you to teach Jennifer, her apprentice Jana, and Maktar from the fire tribe how to do it, that way they won't have to rely on you for everything, they could start with simplified versions without much electronics for example?]

Rose: [...it does get annoying sometimes... well fine I guess I can teach them a bit so they make their own...]

Erik: [oh, and-]

Rose: [yeah yeah, a power armor for Timberly right? ...she was nice after all... hmm yeah..., it's doable..., now get going, isn't that Sara's life at risk if you don't send that message?]

Erik got startled [you are right, there's no time to lose!] he then thought about floating and a big bag inflated with hydrogen on his back and his four limbs, making him start to ascend faster and faster, the twenty meters quickly covered as he approached a big layer of slightly green ice [how do I stop Rose?!]

Rose: [you don't ¯\_(ツ)_/¯]

Erik: [what?!-] *CLANG!* he crashed into the ice layer and then bounced down as he remained hanging from the slightly less inflated bags due to the impact.

Rose: [Now you should start drilling, have fun~]

Erik: [...okay] he thought about it and the drill came to life as he slowly penetrated the green ice with it [by the way Rose... why is the ice green?]

Rose: [That? algae and bacteria that live inside the ice on the surface, but don't worry, you will probably see even stranger, now keep drilling]

Erik nodded as he kept chipping away at the ice, soon making a hole big enough to pass, and then he started drilling on a horizontal angle and then back straight up again to have a foothold.

It took him an entire hour but he finally emerged from the ice, the sun was emerging on the horizon as lots of stars could still be seen on the sky [wow... so pretty...].

Rose: [indeed... I didn't have much time to examine this area when I teleported...]

Erik: [It's fine, once the surface base is set we can set some radars or something like that]

Rose: [yeah, something like that...]

He then looked down, but what he saw was completely different from what he had been expecting, as instead of an icy tundra he saw purple green prairies of grass that covered the ice along with slopes and hills as far as he could see.

Erik: [...wtf...] he bent down and picked some up, it had dark blue small roots that were glued frozen to the ice, while the stalks were a bluish green, almost cyan, with purple leaves that seemed to be slightly glowing [wow... are you seeing this Rose? can you tell me about this... moss? grass?]

Rose: [...hmmm I remember something similar but it used to have another color... scan it first...]

Erik did as told and used a scanner in the left palm of the power armor to scan the moss.

Rose: [just as I thought... its leaves are toxic...lots of glycoalkaloids..., the inside of the stalk seems to be edible though, it contains starches, potassium, some carbohydrates, fiber, vitamin C, vitamin B6, and some proteins...]

Erik was moved and readily took a sample into a container in his belt, this time he had come prepared with proper containers for living samples, as the previous slugs were now breeding inside a sealed container in the greenhouse lab. Beritkan had been amazed by the slugs too, as he had brought them along with the DNA samples while Rose was busy with Megan and Timberly.

--- Days ago ---

Erik in his power armor, along with Anhuka and Inky also in her power armor, had come to the greenhouse lab carrying the boxes with the DNA, while Erik carried and installed a big container the size of a family car and released the slugs inside, a tesla coil in the middle would give them electricity to eat.

That's when Beritkan came out of his side lab and greeted Erik "greetings my queen, may I help you with anything?"

Erik observed the old crab's now normal looking face and body and was impressed "seems like you have been studying, you even made yourself into less of a freak]

Beritkan: "yes, that is indeed the case... I became a bit more like you, my queen..."

Erik: "well good job, you are a bit easier to look at now..., well let's get to business" he motioned for the other two who placed the DNA sample boxes in front of the old crab man.

Erik: "these are the DNA samples from different ancient beasts, but they are really old, so since you made your weird monster potion, I want you to make a simplified version using each of these DNA samples".

Beritkan opened one of the boxes and grabbed and examined one of the vials before saying: " I could try my queen, but... it doesn't seem fresh enough..."

Erik: "just do what you can, I've already separated a bit of each sample in the freezer so don't worry, some sample might need you to inject on a similar cell or something like that, but..." he pointed at the contained "I want you to research these things too, they eat electricity and anything you toss them and store the DNA of what they eat so they can be useful for your potions, we gotta breed more of them first though, let them breed inside there and report your observations on them, also the container is coated in a hydrophobic layer so they won't be able to climb up... or shouldn't at least, just be careful when you open it since it's transparent"

Beritkan then bowed forward in a reverence "it shall be done like you ask my queen"

--- back to the present ---

Putting the alien grass sample away, Erik looked around at the purple grassland all around him, he didn't see any predators as only the sound of the wind was present. Looking up he saw the sun through the cloudy cover as it was a slightly cloudy day, and the stars disappeared with the arrival of the clouds and sunlight.

He almost felt like taking his helmet off to take a deep breath, but that would have killed him with the high levels of CO2 and other toxic gases at high pressures.

Rose: [yeah I know it's pretty but launch the satellite first, look for an iceberg hill and launch it from there so nothing interferes with the launch]

Erik: [is it noisy?]

Rose: [not especially, but it uses reactive explosives for the initial launch, once you activate it you can't move it as you will only have one chance, also it uses the launch base for positioning coordinates, so it needs to remain unmoved for a minute]

Erik's face got serious [alright...] and he started walking to the nearest hill, quickly climbing one and looking around as the clear green ice crunched under the weight of his power armor, but in the distance, he saw what looked like blue trees [...what is that? trees?]

Rose: [I don't know... that is new... but be careful, there's only a couple of trees and they are in an ice layer, it's impossible that ice grows in just a couple of months]

Erik: [... maybe a piece of ice broke off from the North? anyway I will be quick]

It took him twenty minutes but he finally approached the strange trees carefully and noticed they were dripping cyan fluids around them.

Erik: [yeah, this does indeed look suspicious... ]

Rose: [told you so, now get out of there]

Erik: [wait, I wanna test something] he got to a distance of ten meters from the strange tree, and bending over grabbed a block of ice and launched it to the trees, and what happened next surprised him, as the supposed trees bent quickly and got stuck to the ice block, dragging it to the middle where a car sized maw came one of the ice and chewed on the ice, only to angrily spit it out later.

Erik: [wow... you saw that? they would be easy to hunt with some explosives to jeet over and let it eat them until boom... dinner served...]

Rose: [just leave it be, this is a new creature I had never seen]

Erik: [okey fine, I will scan it first] he then carefully reached five meters of the strange being and pointing his left palm at it, scanned it, then also took a sample from the cyan glowing liquid.

Rose: [interesting, the liquid seems like a biological polymer, like a polyepoxides resin... interesting... and I detect chlorophyllic algae inside those... tree looking tentacles... this is new... can you take a sample from that tentacle? I wanna sequence its DNA]

Erik: [huh? what happened to being careful?]

Rose: [...but... it's new so... fine, I will send some bots in a while, it's not far from the hole, I hope it doesn't go away... if the suit is nearby the signal should hold... dammit I should have sent some bots too from the beginning]

Erik: [well, this was supposed to be easy... if I had a spear I might try, tell you what, I will launch the satellite and then I might try shooting a piece of a tentacle off if I have time]

Rose: [alright, be careful]

Erik: [always] he then ignored the alien creature and started walking North carefully, to what he thought might be an iceberg.

The wind blew with a whistle between the purple moss grasses, and the green ice slightly cracked under his feet, no other sound was heard as he walked on the alien ice field.

As he had been walking for almost an hour he climbed a hill and finally saw the big iceberg only one hundred meters away, a small mountain of ice by itself, but then he heard cackling noises and noticed something at the foot of the ice mountain, armoured creatures with big claws where there, at least five hundred individuals.

Erik quickly crouched and asked Rose [Rose, are those the ones you mentioned? they seem smaller than you said... maybe the size of a hyena or a big wolf]

Rose: [they look really similar, maybe they also mutated to become smaller, that usually happens... when there's less food available... and that could mean there are other species that prey on them so... be careful]

Erik seriously nodded [I will try going around them...] and used the hills to slowly circle the iceberg.