Cutlass Sharpened Read Online Free Page A

already activated their suits
internal helmets to breathe comfortably. They could breathe, but
not comfortably so high up without suffering hypoxia. Renee found
herself mildly irritated towards the three burly mountains of
muscle. Sparky though tempered and soothed her mind without even
saying a word. “You find that gap she was looking for?”
    “ Sure did.” Stone said,
rubbing his bald head. “If you call three microns a
gap.”
    “ Only three!” Renee gasped.
“That’s thinner than a human hair. Too small for our eyes to
see.”
    “ Oh, and we wanted to see
your faces to say it’s a perfect circle. A perfect circle.” Deegen tossed his
clean dreads back behind his broad shoulders.
    The women stopped and stared in shock.
Perfect circles are naturally impossible. Renee felt excited and
could feel her adrenaline flow.
    “ So it’s solid rock with the
exact composition of the volcano.” Said Stephanie as her angled
wrist let out a thin beam of blue light from the suits sleek
functions. The scan light was two meters wide and laser thin, but
it gave the wearer all it needed. “Oh this is interesting… the core
has microscopic silicate compounds not native to this
planet.”
    “ So someone not of this
world used crystals to cover their tracks?” Renee said aloud and
eager.
    “ A logical conclusion.” She
took an archeologists chisel and chipped a thumb sized chunk out of
the inner core and walked inside to drop it in the shuttle’s
analyzer.
    While waiting Sparky
said “I’m going to fly with Satellite and
keep an eye on the storm. Contact me before you do
anything.”
    “ Alright.” She patted his
hard ribs before his four wings lifted his bulk into the air to
soar on the many thermals created by the hot, barren
planet.
    Time flew by before Stephanie came out
carrying a green, clear piece of crystal no bigger than her
thumbnail saying “Jess came through. The crystal used to seal this
place used the native rock to fill the gap. This should undo what
was done. Everyone, get back. We didn’t find any traps, but there
could be. Plus we need to stay close to our ships in event of an
emergency. For all we know, nothing is down there, but the greatest
risk could be this cut down the caldera goes to the molten core.
Likely we’ll be uncapping a deadly pressure cooker. At the first
sign of vibration we get the hell out of here.”
    Renee called Sparky who came back quickly,
the falcon not far behind as everyone came up against their
ship.
    Stephanie sauntered over, placed the crystal
down relatively in the center and backed far away. As she met up
with Steven and the other two she said “Activation code:
Dissolve.”
    Everyone tensed to hightail it out of there
should the worst come to pass.
    The clear green crystal came alive and sunk
down into the rock that had been cleared of a thin layer of snow
before the shuttle even landed. The group watched closely as the
hole widened exceptionally to the width of the ten meter wide hole,
leaving the untouched ground alone as debris collapsed before being
blown loudly up and out of the hole by trapped pressure, but the
team wasn’t concerned. It was a natural effect built into all types
of crystal excavation. Wind currents carried the excess soil far
away.
    Aside from Renee and Stephanie, the others
went inside their craft or risk choking on dust.
    A half hour later the hole
gave one final mighty belch of black sand up high in a plume. With
just over an hour remaining before the sandstorm’s arrival everyone
stood around the edge of the deep hole. Waiting for new data scans.
It wasn’t long before Stephanie said “ Something is certainly down there. The
ground is stable.”
    “ We’ll be the judge of
that.” Said Stone while grabbing the miniature grappling hook built
inside his armor. The cable had thirty kilometers of hair thin line
with the pronged hook that looked fragile. Appearance would dictate
it would snap if any weight were applied to it let alone a