Driving a team of archeologists through the woods was not as easy as the automotive advertisements back home would have you believe. Not when the woods are virgin forests.
At first light, Marines dropped onto the alpine meadow – and sank halfway to their knees. If there had been any drones near the high plain, they could have done this check during the night, but no one was interested in the meadow. It was boring to scientists.
The next drop included Marine engineers and groat sprayers. They picked the hardest spot two klicks long and a hundred meters wide and hardened it. As night fell, longboats were finally able to land. Helicopters rolled out of their cargo bays and mechanics began to get them ready for flight.
During the night, newly landed drones mapped the route between the meadow and the cave. It looked ugly.
However, they did spot an open space in the forest much higher up the mountain. Lightning had started a forest fire there not too long ago. Again, the engineers jumped. This time they blew up snags, cut down sprouting trees and generally flattened and enlarged the space. This allowed the choppers to land there, rather than hover.
It was only twenty klicks to the cave mouth – twenty klicks through trees twenty feet across at the base. Twenty clicks through ravines and across roaring rivers.
The first team that headed out from the landing zone included eager scientists, alert Marine rifle men and heavily loaded engineers.
At the first ravine, rather than climb down and then hump their gear back up, the engineers told everyone to take a break. A few minutes later, “Fire in the hole,” sent everyone scurrying for cover and a huge tree slashing its way through the forest canopy to rest, lengthwise, across the ravine. A few minutes with a 13-mm light antiaircraft laser and there were steps up and down the tree and a quick, safe walkway across the ravine.
A raging white-water filled canyon was crossed the same way.
Five breaks and five felled trees later, the light was fading, the entire troop was exhausted but they were at the foot of the rock-strewn mountain, looking up a very steep last few hundred meters.
One eager young scientist took off running for the cave. He hit a rock wrong, went ass over teakettle, and broke his ankle.
Gunny ordered the Marines to make camp and the scientists agreed to join them around the fire. The Marines set up a watch and those not on guard quickly fell asleep.
In orbit, Sandy reviewed the work of the last forty-eight hours and tried not to chew anyone out. The job had been hard. Nature had not cooperated with them at any step of the way. Still, trained troops had tackled the natural obstructions, sprayed, blown or dug their way through them and were set to begin exploring the cave in the morning.
She surveyed the star map. They should be getting word soon that the aliens had jumped out of their first system, five jumps out, and into the next one, four out. Sandy left instructions to be woken as soon as that message came in and went to bed.