As the song goes, “A very old friend came by today…” Looking at my notes, I startled myself that Nichole 5 Clarke is right around a century old. I’ve come that far since she made her debut in Friend and Ally. While Kira is miffed at the political issues to Japan sticking its nose into this mission, she realizes that this much older person will be perfectly suited to control the drone, so far under the ground.

There’s a bit more to write before the surface team finds something startling, after which we’ll be back to check on Allie. I’m personally a bit run down today and still have to DayJob a few hours tomorrow, but I’ll keep at it.

Enjoy my content? Buy me a beer!

When Sundström came back in a half hour later, the young man at the controls said he was fine, as “this isn’t much different than a really boring game.”  Thus, it was not quite three hours later, with the drone having travelled just over four kilometers down, that he called, “Stopping!” and yielded his seat to the Chief.

On the screen, through the drone’s cameras, the tunnel ended and there was a vast, dark open space before them.  About to tell Sundström to proceed, slow, Kira was distracted by cheering from the men and women at the base on the foot of the hill.

“What’s all that?” she muttered, asking the Chief Engineer to go forward just a bit then do a radar pulse, so they had some idea what they would be seeing.  Kira walked out of the cave and looked down.

Off to her left, where the two, now one, Shcha’s were, was a tiny saucer.  One of Japanese design.  This complication I did not need.  And, in the midst of her team below…

“Midwife Kira Romanov!” a young woman’s voice shouted up to her, waving her arm above a face suited to be a poster for Irish tourism, had Ireland still existed.  “My emperor has sent me here to help you in any way I can!”

Kira considered the strawberry-blonde hair, the splay of freckles across her nose.  Nichole 5 Clarke.  Android.  And a part of the imperial Hartmann family going all the way back to the first days of the Change.

“Please come up, Captain Clarke,” she shouted back, with a smile she hoped the other regarded as real.  “Things are just getting interesting and I’ve no doubt we can use your help!”

Bounding up the steps in her blue coveralls, they embraced one another, to more cheers from those below.  A kiss to one another’s cheeks.

“I know you resent my being here.” Nichole’s whisper was inhuman.  “But here I am.  Make me older as to the situation and how I might serve you, Midwife of Mars.”

Kira immediately thought the security codes to Nichole, whose brilliant emerald eyes flashed.

“How very interesting,” the android said, still close and quiet.  “Humans have made life, such as me, but never found complex animal life out here.  And, firstly, I mourn the loss of your teammate.  If you Order me, I shall go down the hole right now.”

“Absolutely not,” Kira said with a shake of her head.  Let’s go in.  Right before your arrival, it seems we may have found something significant.”

While being introduced, Nichole took in the live signals from the drone, including the radar scan just completed.

“A cavern roughly forty meters in diameter.  Two tunnels leading away, one to the east and the other to the northwest,” she said, analyzing the raw data even faster than Kira could.  “Oh.  There is a stack of rocks by the northwest one.  May I take control of your drone?”

Sundström shrugged and Kira sighed and nodded, appreciating the help but knowing that, through her rank in the Japanese Aero/Space Force, there was now more politics involved.

“IR and UV are negative.  Acoustics are negative,” the self-aware machine said in a professional tone, her body’s eyes staring at nothing as she took control of the drone is a way no one except another machine could.  “Moving down and to the left.  Light up:  what do you see on the screen, Midwife?”

“A small pyramid of rocks, like you said,” Kira said, peering at the image.  “What’s that just past it, on the ground?”

The perspective changed a little.

“Someone scratched an arrow into the dirt,” she continued.  “Allie or Mikhail?  I bet she did it and he followed.  Into that tunnel.”

“So let’s go.” Nichole moved out.  “Look at that:  obviously machine made, with a flat section on the bottom to move things easier.”

“Move people or material?” Sundström muttered.

“Depends on how you define people, Chief Engineer,” the android said with a wry grin.  “Lights off.  Stopping.  What do you see?”

“It… it’s a cliché, but there’s light at the end of the tunnel,” Kira said.  “Pause here, Miss Clarke.  I want to recheck the cables, and, well everything else.  In fact, it’s time to splice the next reel together, as we just don’t know what’s ahead.  That will have the drone on batteries for about five minutes, Nichole.  Do you want to land it?”

“There will not be a significant amount of power and will recharge almost immediately.” She shook her head, tossing her pretty strawberry-blond hair about.  “I’ll keep it put, about a meter off the ground.  In case, you know, someone shows up.”

“In the meantime, I’ll be running a diagnostic now.  I shall wait for your orders.”