Chapter Six
Somewhere under the pile of mud mixed with dead vegetation and charred and broken remnants of buildings, lay most of the settlement’s flitters. Ethan and Garwin decided to climb onto the top of the pile and dig downward, scooping out the sides. It was safer than trying to tunnel in at ground level, which would probably cause the heap to collapse.
The colony’s small digging machines had been taken into the bunkers before the bombardment to allow the colonists to dig themselves out if necessary, but consequently they were now also buried somewhere. Only the diggers lacked the flitters’ signal emitters and so were difficult to locate. Ethan and Garwin were therefore forced to excavate with hand tools created on the Mistral’s printer to help with the reconstruction efforts. In ti
