Descent into Mayhem (Capicua Chronicles Book 1) by Bruno Goncalves Page A

sift through it, pecking at objects in the pile with his thumb and forefinger.
    Apparently satisfied, Kaiser discarded the remaining soil and, dropping back to the ground, his skeleton absorbing the impact with as much ease as it would on Mars, he sat casually on the titan’s left foot, working one of the bone-white objects with an articulated pair of pliers he carried with him.
    “What is it?” She asked.
    Curiosity caught hold of her, knowing well that few things merited so much attention from him. The officer did not answer immediately, but instead appeared to be trying to crush the seed-like object with the pliers, and apparently with great difficulty since, despite the strength augmentation provided by his exoskeleton, he hadn’t yet succeeded. With an audible crack and to Kaiser’s pleased exclamations, the seed finally succumbed, revealing a rich red core inside. Rubbing the interior vigorously with his gloved thumb, he touched it to his tongue.
    “Nein!” Lippard exclaimed, suddenly alarmed at his behavior.
    Disregarding her reaction, he held one of the halves towards her.
    “It is quite safe,” he added as she hesitated.
    Feeling foolish and slightly nervous, Lippard brought the rustred core to her lips and licked it lightly. The taste caught her by surprise.
    “Blood. It tastes a little like blood.” She commented, staring distrustfully at the object in her hand.
    “Not blood. ferrous oxide, meine liebe. This place is all an enormous mine. See?” Kaiser exclaimed, breaking one of the green clustered seeds open with much greater ease. Its core was a somewhat paler red color, just shy of pink.
    “The seeds store the mineral in them as they develop, and when they are mature, they are cultivated. My landing site was full of the ripe white seeds on the ground. That is why they would have a plantation so far from their cities. This location must have enormous iron deposits, and by collecting these resources using specially engineered trees, there would be no need for the locals to remain here in any number. They must be using the clearings to collect the seeds before transportation, I think. I knew that Command was up to something. And I was right, wasn’t I, Lippie?” He finished with a sly grin.
    “Have we just captured an iron mine?” She asked as she looked around her with a new interest.
    He nodded enthusiastically.
    “And perhaps not only iron, Lippie. There are other plantations near this one, and I expect they might have hybrid species of trees collecting other minerals from the soil.”
    “But how can this be used?”
    “Simple, I think. The seed’s oil and organic materials must all be quite flammable. The seeds need only be incinerated in a foundry, with the bonus of the organics supplying some of the carbon for steel production. We have seen this before on Mars, remember? Although the colonists there were unable to fully address the low light conditions found so far from the sun. These locals seem to have solved that problem. Don’t you see, Lippie? Most of what we need to get started presently surrounds us.” Kaiser explained admiringly, slapping his armored thigh in enthusiasm and producing a stiff clang in the act.
    Lippard felt momentarily awkward as she wondered whether the local population would put up with that, or whether they would consider the capture cause for war. She quickly put the thought out of her mind; Command had certainly made its decision for very valid reasons. The EFF Leviathan had, after all, just completed its first interstellar voyage, despite having originally only been designed for interplanetary jaunts. No matter how many refits a vessel was subjected to, its end product would never be quite as successful as with a specifically designed ship. In the Leviathan’s case its current military payload for an IS mission barely exceeded four hundred tons. And how did one occupy an entire planet with so little hardware? Why, the answer was hanging on the trees around