THere were almost seven ways he could think of that would make a strong metal twist and bubble like that, and three of them were not possible outside a laboratory. The other four involved a lot of heat, and if there had been that kind of heat, the snow wouldn’t be here anymore. Hell, the planet might not have been here anymore. It took a lot of heat to melt starship grade metals— they tended to burn up otherwise.
Stephan swung around to the other side of the crash site, watching his feeder hose and safety cord swing around the jagged parts of the tower as he dropped a little lower. Didn’t want to cut the safety line. He could probably live long enough on the Life support systems of his suit without the feeder tube, but if the safety cord snapped, he’d never get back to the ship. Maybe it would be wise to put of a second safety cord. He’d mention it once he got back on ship. Again, on a starship most backups and redundant backups— it seemed unfathomable that he would be tethered to something by only a single fail-safe.
Then again, that he was investigating this tangled and wrecked crash-site was unfathomable, too.
UNder him lie the crumbled remains of a two seater starship. front panels smashed to an almost unrecognizable level. IN fact, the only way Stephan had been able to identify that the craft was a two seater was the fact that the emergency crash beacon had sent the ships ID codes for a brief moment before it, too, was damaged beyond function in the crash.
Stephan’s ship, a small freight crew of 8, picked up the SOS about a half-a-day ago, and was all set to ignore it when they got word from the foundation home world that they were being commandeered and that they were to investigate immediately. Such was the mechanism that afforded space travel— nearly all space-going vessels operating in and around the Sol system had accepted subsidies on their liscensure from the regulation militia. IN exchange, the vessels and their operators agreed to voluntarily give up their ships when they were commandeered for militia requirements. It happened just often enough to be annoying— but not often enough that anyone ever felt they were being unfairly burdened.
Actually, it happened just often enough that nobody— nobody— would underwrite an insurance policy on a melitia-consigned cargo.