With the crews on the ground, all attention turned away from the interviews to showing the ongoing deployment of the research equipment. From the ground, the raised ridges of the Prairie City were much more noticeable, and Max was certain that they could not have occurred naturally.
While the sensors showed that there were portions up to four metres tall, it was only when they got the camera footage from the team on the ground that most of the observers on Terminus really appreciated how much of the ancient city had been preserved.
The team quickly got to work, cutting away some of the overgrowth, as it appeared that the city itself wasn't buried, only overgrown, which had made orbital scanning somewhat unreliable. Using a low intensity Ion Beam, they cut away the vines that were hanging down from the top of a cliff face in front of them, then used the cutter's gravity beam to pull the foliage away.
What was revealed was the beautifully preserved outer wall of an ancient civilization's fortified city.
There were clearly cut square stone blocks, arranged without mortar into solid stone walls, carved statues of animals that nobody on board Terminus recognized, and further down the wall, on a flat spot in the terrain that early scans suggested might have been a road, there was a perfectly symmetrical archway, allowing access to the city within.
The Ship's crew was busy trying to match the local wildlife that they had scanned to the statues and carvings that were on the walls, but strangely, only about a third of it seemed to be represented.
Either there had been a mass extinction event on this world, or the majority of the creatures depicted were mythological.
There wasn't enough data yet to be sure, but the constant streaming of the finds as the crew identified them had the reporters in a frenzy.
Max turned to smile at Nico.
"It looks like we might be able to stretch out some of those meetings. They're all too enthralled by the finds on the surface to want to do any sort of interview for most of the day." He chuckled.
"That's true, but they're going to be pushing even harder for a shuttle trip to the surface to get a closer look with their own cameras. You know how they hate reusing our footage for the news broadcasts." Nico reminded him.
"We can likely schedule those for tomorrow, so that the crew has time to clear enough for them to get a good look, and not just at one single wall and a lot of foliage. The Pyramid teams should be well on their way by then as well.
They're excavating now, but that site is looking very good. See how the ground penetrating radar shows that it's irregularly hollow? It's a bit distorted by the distance, but I'm pretty sure that pyramid was actually an inhabited building, and not a solid structure."
Nico nodded in agreement, and started to rearrange the plans for their interview schedule. Once they had used the shuttle to clear the majority of the dirt off the pyramid, they were going to need some time to explore the inside before allowing the media near it, but the Prairie City was just covered in vines, so if they dressed them in augmentic armour the situation at that location should be safe enough to send the reporters down much sooner.
And sending down the reporters meant better footage for the guests, which meant more happy repeat customers later.
The excitement of the first find was just beginning to wear off when the team at Prairie City decided that it would be a good idea to clear off a bit of the cover from the top of the wall. They used the mechanical dendrites of the modified Mobile Suits that they were wearing, adapted from the harnesses which had become so popular with mechanics and every other physical labour job in the Terminus Trading Company.
The flexible arms pulled away the vines, and a glimmer met the eyes of everyone watching on the cameras. The top of the wall was plain stone, with a wall-walk behind the battlements, but there at the gates stood two distinctly technological housings for security cameras.
The internals appeared to have long since decayed, but the alloy outer housing and the arm that it was mounted on were still securely mounted, looking out over the grasslands.
There was no mistaking that these were a sign not just of a civilization, but of a technological one, and as soon as they were seen, the work paused. Nobody wanted to accidentally throw away the remains of a lens or an internal part that might give them more detail about the technology, and they were bound to be nearby somewhere.
Hopefully, they were not entangled with the lower vines that they had pulled away, but they hadn't reached the ground, so the most likely spot to find the missing parts was still untouched.
The ship's announcer suddenly came on the speakers, as excited as anyone else aboard the cruise ship.
[As you can see, it is a glorious day for the investigative crews of Terminus. The Prairie City site has uncovered a remnant of what appears to be a pair of security cameras, mounted by the last civilization to grace these lands.
Unfortunately, this will put some of the ground tours on hold, as extreme care must be taken when there is a chance to recover lost technologies so that the fragments are not damaged. However, our Commanders assure me that in a few days time, they will still be holding a low altitude flight for the news crews and VIP guests, to get a closer look at the site with their own equipment.]
The whole ship began to party after those words were out. They had found it, real proof that there had been someone out here in the past.
As Max recalled, their legends, and the Hunters legends, of the Darklings said that they had been out here a million years ago, but the legends only gave a general direction, which could be any of ten thousand galaxies within the given distance.
But, now that he was reminded of the fact, Max decided to send the details to Ranarth, along with the scans of the planet, and see if his people knew anything more about the region.
