IC3

The sun has not risen here for thousands of years.

Icy wind hit his face as Cliffrax shivered and glanced at his wrist display, barely stopping his teeth from chattering. He tapped the luminated display with a gloved finger, as the wind howled in his ears. The display showed that his heart rate and body temperature were stable, but the iciness of this world was causing his technology to slow.

He had crash landed on the planet IC3, which had a comically fitting Galactic Database Resignation. His original destination had been a lush, watery planet with the designation R1V to conduct geological surveys for the Galactic Order. There was even preliminary evidence from galactic probes that R1V was home to primitive races. If he was honest, R1V was the first assignment as a surveyor for the Galactic Order he was excited about. Possible life, lush highlands – a great change from the lifeless dust bowls he had been assigned to lately. But his trip to R1V had hit a slight bump in the space road. For all its economic might, the Galactic Order had not updated its surveying fleet for some time, making most of their smaller system faring vessels out dated That is why his scanners did not pick up the icy meteor field before it was too late.

The human looked over his shoulder to his smoking craft, the white hull seamlessly blended in with the white planet and was already partially covered in snow. The only evidence of the ship being there was smoke flickering angrily in the wind. Cliffrax had spent a lot of time reading the database files on all the planets he was passing by during his lonesome intersystem travel, so he had a rough idea of IC3 and its history. The small planet circled slowly around its blue star like the other planets in the system, except there was a catch.

B1G, a behemoth of a planet that lay between IC3 and its star, was so large that it essentially blocked all sunlight from reaching IC3. This made IC3 a frozen wasteland except for once every 10,000 years when there was a break in B1G’s shadow over IC3. This allowed the planet to heat and cause 2000 years of daylight before freezing into the next ice age. Cliffrax noted that this melt was due within the next 100 years and the earliest Galactic survey done on this planet was 8000 years ago, meaning a Galactic surveyor has never been here during IC3’s 2000 years of light.

Cliffrax pulled his surveyor’s environmental mask over his face. The airtight mask made contact and sealed with the rest of his environmental suit, which was humming with energy, keeping him warm and powering his mask. He was momentarily blinded as his eyes adjusted to lights of the heads up display and the lenses of the mask adjusted to the darkness of the planet. He scanned the horizon.

To call IC3 a wasteland was a compliment. There were no arctic fauna, there were no frozen lakes, there was nothing at all save for the ice under his feet and the roaring wind in his ears, which even his environmental mask could not dim the sound of. The female voice of the AI inhabiting his mask commented, “No lifeforms found.”

“Ya, thanks for that.” Cliffrax snorted, taking another look at this ship. As the icy fingers of the planet began to tighten their grip on his bones through his enviro-suit, he had the creeping feeling that he would die here. He scanned the horizon to the west of him.

“Geological formation identified, 2 kilometers from your location.” The AI chirped.

Cliffrax’s display highlighted a mound of snow on the horizon, which would have been missed to the naked eye. Thank you, Galactic Order, he thought as he fastened his supply pack to his shoulders and began his trek to the unidentified geological landmark. Although his ship still had power, the intense cold was draining the backup generator, and it would soon become a snowy tomb if he stayed. He had the ship’s distress beacon activated, sending for help across the stars. All he could do was to stay warm and wait for help. Maybe there was a cave or snow tunnel he could seek refuge in at the mound.

The walk to the snow formation was longer than it seemed. Sometimes the wind blew against him, acting like an invisible wall.  Sometimes it acted as a tailwind, giving him that little extra push he needed to stay hopeful in this dire situation. As Cliffrax approached the pointed mound, which was little over 15 feet in height, he had his AI run a deep scan of the formation.

“Geological formation scans complete. Volcanic rock formation identified - 99.3 % likelihood of being an ancient mountain peak. Estimated age - 4 billion years.” The AI reported.

A mountain’s peak? Cliffrax thought in disbelief, looking down at his feet, imagining a massive mountain frozen beneath him. He expected thick ice on a planet like IC3, but for the surface of the planet to be covered with a mountain’s height of ice seemed impossible. But if there was one thing he had learned from his travels across the system, anything was possible.

Cliffrax did not notice any indentations or hollows that would indicate there was a cave he could take shelter in, so he did the only thing he could do, dig. He unclipped his spade from his supply pack and began cutting into the crispy snow at eye level, ensuring there was enough space for him to comfortably stand in his makeshift shelter. He felt his enviro-suit cool as it battled his rising heart rate and body temperature, making sure that he did not sweat. If you sweat in the cold, you die.

After an hour of digging, Cliffrax was happy with his man-made cave. It was about 8 feet deep and 7 feet tall, meaning he could lay down if he wanted to and stand up to stretch. He did not know how long he would be here, so he would consider cutting a sitting area, or even a bed, into the walls if he didn’t receive a response from a rescue operation. He checked his wrist display, which showed his ship still had power, but any calls would have been redirected to his AI. As of now, nobody was coming.

Cliffrax hit a button on his temple and his enviro-mark loosened its grip from his neck and lifted off his face, resting open on his head. The freezing cold felt refreshing and he let out a long sigh, not of relief, but of defeat. I am going to die here.

He pulled his pack deeper into the enclosure and figured he should have something to eat, but not too much. He slammed his spade into the crisp snow, and then he heard a loud crack.

Immediately his ears were filled with the booming cracks of thousand year old ice and snow, like a thunder god waking from a great slumber, the tundra erupted into a powdery fog. The last thing Cliffrax could do was to lower his enviro-mask as the snow and ice gave way beneath him, and he fell.

***

Cliffrax’s eyes opened slowly, gazing upward into the dark cloudy sky of IC3 through the cracked lenses of his enviro-mask. He blinked and slowly got to his feet. “How long have I been out for?” He asked.

“4 hours, 36 minutes and 22 seconds.” His AI replied in her usual monotone voice. “The icy surface of this planet formed several hollow pockets around this mountain. My estimates are that your crashed ship disturbed the fragile surface. My scans are indicating a rise in planet temperature, further weakening the seasonal ice surface.” She continued. And that was when Cliffrax noticed, he was not standing on ice, but on rock and grass. For the first time since he had awoken, Cliffrax took in his surroundings.

He now stood on a rocky plateau at the base of a mountain. The plateau was scattered with snowy patches of ice and what looked like some type of ancient frozen grasses and mosses. The rocky flatlands seemed to span for miles but stopped at a 100-foot ice wall where the collapse had stopped. The frozen surface of IC3 had given way to the area surrounding the mountain’s peak, causing a huge circular valley to form, with the mountain sitting dead in the middle of it. Cliffrax looked up in awe at the mountain’s peak, 100 feet in the air, where he was once standing in his makeshift ice cave. How the hell did I survive that fall? He thought, as he glanced at his wrist display.

The connection to his ship had been severed, either because it was now buried beneath 100 feet of jagged ice, or the backup generator had been damaged in the fall.

“Take a few minutes and do a deep geological scan of the area while I get my shit together.” Cliffrax grumbled as he looked around his immediate area.

His pack was nowhere to be seen, but that was to be expected. He turned towards the base of the mountain, which he was only about 50 feet from. He took a step, and that was when he felt a stabbing pain through his right leg. He looked down to see a disfigured booted foot with dark patches of blood slowly soaking through the thick synthetic leathers. Cliffrax gritted his teeth in pain, a newer model of his enviro-mask would have announced this injury to him. He hobbled on through the uneven volcanic rock towards the base of the mountain.

“Scan complete.” His AI said. “Reporting large volcanic rock formations within your immediate area with organic materials scattered across the plateau. My sensors are detecting a 78 % chance of unnatural geological formations at the mountain base directly in front of you.”

Unnatural formations? Cliffrax thought as he grunted his way through the stoney plateau. As he approached the base of the mountain, the unnatural formation came into view.

A huge archway into the belly of the mountain appeared, only blackness coming from its gaping mouth. Cliffrax stopped in wonder. The archway was lined with ancient carvings and runes and at the base of the entrance there was a beaten path of some type of primitive cobblestone. It seemed that the Galactic Order archives were wrong, there was life on IC3. Or there was.

“Start recording.” Cliffrax echoed with an exhale as a new found sense of urgency propelled him forward through the shocking pain of his twisted foot.

Cliffrax’s display adjusted to the blackness of the massive corridor as he entered the mountain, leaving the howling winds behind him. As he descended further into darkness along the volcanic cobblestone path, silence enveloped him. The architecture was rough, but the tunnel showed lots of signs of excavation, with equipment in the shape of chisels, shovels, woven baskets and more in total disarray amongst the twisting hallway, almost as if thrown down in a hurry.

The human’s dragging footsteps began to echo as his feet polished black stone floors, which opened up into another room. Cliffrax entered the room and his jaw dropped.

The volcanic corridor opened up into a vaulted circular room that was polished head to toe. Surrounding the walls of the circular room were obsidian chairs carved into these walls, runes and scripture just barely visible through the enviro-masks display. On these chairs, sat some type of humanoids, all of which had one hand in the air pointed towards the middle of the room. Cliffrax estimated the humanoids were only about 4 feet in height, and as he approached he could see their features through the layer of translucent ice encrusting their bodies.

The humanoid had a long slender face covered in thin fur with large rodent-like teeth and whiskers. The being was wearing dark robes and had its eyes closed, as if reaching out, grasping and praying with a boney clawed hand before being frozen in time. Cliffrax followed the humanoid's pointed finger towards the ceiling, and saw a large circular skylight had been cut through the stone, opening up the room to the clear white, sunlit skies of IC3.

Clear skies?

“Warning, sharp rise in atmospheric temperature detected.” The AI trumpeted.

Cliffrax put his finger to his temple, unmasking himself. There were no cold winds and his breath no longer turned to vapor in the cold. He shielded his eyes and recoiled as sunlight flooded the room through the skylight. B1G’s shadow had lifted.

A splitting cracking sound jolted Cliffrax’s head to the right. The ice that coated the rodent like creature closest to him began to glisten and crack in the sunlight as it melted, exposing the humanoid's wet yellow finger tipped hand.

And then it twitched.