much colder) Pacific Northwest and there are eagles in that area. Probably not too safe to be up on the ridge, then. I’ll leave just as soon as I figure out where Harlow’s cave is.
I raise the glass again and this time, I scan the rocks. The cliff below shows nothing interesting, and I sweep up, up, up into the distance until I realize I’m staring at the base of the purple mountains, the ones that look like glass or rock candy. Pretty, but not what I want. Still, I can’t help but study them for a bit, because I’ve seen nothing like them before.
That’s when I notice the wreckage.
My spyglass sweeps over one mountain, and in the snow at the base there’s a dark shape half covered in snow. There are hard edges to it and a blinking red light, and the pit of my stomach curdles, sick.
It’s a ship.
It can’t be…can it?
10
JOSIE
W hen I decided to set off and become Ice Explorer Josie, I’d expected one of two things: sucking miserably at it and returning home, or finding Harlow’s cave and hiding out there until my cootie gave up.
I didn’t expect to find another spaceship.
I stare at the square. It’s not our ship. It’s not the one we came from. That one was near the peak of a granite-like mountain and this one is surrounded by purple rock-candy peaks. Ours had a breach in the hull on the top and the rest of the compartment we’d landed in was relatively secure. It was the only way we’d managed to survive the elements for a week despite no cold weather gear and no supplies. The snow had insulated us and our body heat kept us warm.
This wreckage is different. Even though it’s a square, it looks like one end is mangled, like a cereal box torn open at the bottom. There’s snow, but I see a blinking red light. Maybe it’s a distress beacon of some kind.
Oh, crap. What if there’s someone that needs a rescue and all they’ve got is me ?
I put down my spyglass, thinking. Okay, panicking. A little panic’s totally justified, though. I don’t know what I’m going to do. We haven’t seen any ships fly overhead in the year and a half that we’ve been on Not-Hoth. No one’s tried to re-kidnap us.
It’s a trap , Admiral Ackbar’s voice says in my ears.
Yeah, it feels a bit like a trap. Of course, the more I think logically about it, the more I wonder.
A ship returned a few months after we’d arrived. They stole Kira again, shot Aehako and Haeden - oh crap, Haeden! - and left them for dead. Kira had saved the day when she crashed the ship and took an escape pod back to Aehako’s side. It’s a story that’s been told around the campfire over and over again. I’ve heard it a dozen times, mostly because I gleefully enjoyed the part where Haeden got his guts shot up.
Man, I’ve been a jerk to the guy. I feel a twinge of guilt and then shove it away. Focus, Jo.
Okay. Okay. I close my eyes, picturing Kira telling the story in her solemn voice. She’d set the spaceship on autopilot and pointed it at the distant mountains, where it had crashed. Both Aehako and Kira had seen the crash.
Distant mountains.
These mountains.
I exhale a breath of relief. That has to be it. This is the ship Kira crashed, and when she’d crashed it, there were no survivors. They were all already dead. It was a little…well, bloodthirsty, but it’s hard to feel sorry for someone that stole you from Earth and wanted to re-enslave you. I’m not sorry they’re dead.
But I still don’t know what to do.
Do I check out the wreckage and hope there’s something useful? Or do I go hunt down Harlow’s cave with its supplies?
Or do I somehow make a boat and check out the green smear in the distant waves that might be an island?
This feels like an ice-age version of House Hunters. Does Josie want adventure and an island cabana despite the dangerous location? Or will she choose a beachfront property…provided she can ever find Harlow’s cave? Or will she choose the house in the mountains, even though it might
I raise the glass again and this time, I scan the rocks. The cliff below shows nothing interesting, and I sweep up, up, up into the distance until I realize I’m staring at the base of the purple mountains, the ones that look like glass or rock candy. Pretty, but not what I want. Still, I can’t help but study them for a bit, because I’ve seen nothing like them before.
That’s when I notice the wreckage.
My spyglass sweeps over one mountain, and in the snow at the base there’s a dark shape half covered in snow. There are hard edges to it and a blinking red light, and the pit of my stomach curdles, sick.
It’s a ship.
It can’t be…can it?
10
JOSIE
W hen I decided to set off and become Ice Explorer Josie, I’d expected one of two things: sucking miserably at it and returning home, or finding Harlow’s cave and hiding out there until my cootie gave up.
I didn’t expect to find another spaceship.
I stare at the square. It’s not our ship. It’s not the one we came from. That one was near the peak of a granite-like mountain and this one is surrounded by purple rock-candy peaks. Ours had a breach in the hull on the top and the rest of the compartment we’d landed in was relatively secure. It was the only way we’d managed to survive the elements for a week despite no cold weather gear and no supplies. The snow had insulated us and our body heat kept us warm.
This wreckage is different. Even though it’s a square, it looks like one end is mangled, like a cereal box torn open at the bottom. There’s snow, but I see a blinking red light. Maybe it’s a distress beacon of some kind.
Oh, crap. What if there’s someone that needs a rescue and all they’ve got is me ?
I put down my spyglass, thinking. Okay, panicking. A little panic’s totally justified, though. I don’t know what I’m going to do. We haven’t seen any ships fly overhead in the year and a half that we’ve been on Not-Hoth. No one’s tried to re-kidnap us.
It’s a trap , Admiral Ackbar’s voice says in my ears.
Yeah, it feels a bit like a trap. Of course, the more I think logically about it, the more I wonder.
A ship returned a few months after we’d arrived. They stole Kira again, shot Aehako and Haeden - oh crap, Haeden! - and left them for dead. Kira had saved the day when she crashed the ship and took an escape pod back to Aehako’s side. It’s a story that’s been told around the campfire over and over again. I’ve heard it a dozen times, mostly because I gleefully enjoyed the part where Haeden got his guts shot up.
Man, I’ve been a jerk to the guy. I feel a twinge of guilt and then shove it away. Focus, Jo.
Okay. Okay. I close my eyes, picturing Kira telling the story in her solemn voice. She’d set the spaceship on autopilot and pointed it at the distant mountains, where it had crashed. Both Aehako and Kira had seen the crash.
Distant mountains.
These mountains.
I exhale a breath of relief. That has to be it. This is the ship Kira crashed, and when she’d crashed it, there were no survivors. They were all already dead. It was a little…well, bloodthirsty, but it’s hard to feel sorry for someone that stole you from Earth and wanted to re-enslave you. I’m not sorry they’re dead.
But I still don’t know what to do.
Do I check out the wreckage and hope there’s something useful? Or do I go hunt down Harlow’s cave with its supplies?
Or do I somehow make a boat and check out the green smear in the distant waves that might be an island?
This feels like an ice-age version of House Hunters. Does Josie want adventure and an island cabana despite the dangerous location? Or will she choose a beachfront property…provided she can ever find Harlow’s cave? Or will she choose the house in the mountains, even though it might
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