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For those on board the Galactic Traveller the rest of the day had slipped by without any further problems arising. Dawn the following day, David, Jimmy and Barney left the others and took the hovercraft out of the freighter. The only equipment they carried with them was a small portable generator to give them a power source, should one be required. They were soon hidden behind the large sand dunes, which were formed in part by the strong winds that occasionally sprang up. They were also partly artificial, being formed by the large earth moving machines that had flattened the area that now comprised the town and its spaceport, when the Mazerens first began to build on the planet.
Steve had noted down the exact position of the crash site when they were still in orbit above the planet, and now it was easy to set the small navigational device on the hovercraft to head towards it. The going was a little bumpy and occasionally they had to traverse across a broken land filled with rocks and gullies. They would have had a rough trip without the hovercraft but with it, they were able to make good time across this desert. At times they had to travel along deep wadies that were only eight feet wide at maximum, and they couldn`t see very far ahead of them due to the many twists and turns. The view on both sides of the hovercraft was even worse as it was completely cut off to them by the walls of the wadi. The direction that it took varied, and this worried David, but in the end, it always took them nearer to their final destination. Overall, it was a difficult land to cross but finally they were through it and back on the flatter land of the desert that finally took them on to the crash site, incurring no serious delays. Without having taken the exact position of the crash site while they were still in space, and without the navigational computer built into the hovercraft, they might never have found it amongst this mainly featureless land. Featureless that is when the traveller is on the ground; from up in space there is a vast network of ravines, channels, mountains and wadies to be seen. They arrived at the crash site tired and with the sun at its highest point in the sky. They saw the broken starship when still quite a distance away, as the sun`s rays were bouncing off the engineering section of the broken craft, and shining like a beacon to welcome them. The three travellers jumped out of their vehicle and cautiously approached this nearest part of the broken starship, a solitary cloud chose this moment to drift in front of the sun and it seemed to David Charlton that the darkened sky and the shadows within the broken hull of the starship was a portent of things to come.
Entrance into this portion of the ship was simple, as they could slip down a small incline directly into the ships broken hull, the sand having piled up on the deck of the starship cushioning their fall. David went first followed by Barney, who landed with a loud scraping noise as his metallic feet hit the deck and then slid along the floor before he stopped his movement with his powerful hands. Jimmy Fielding was last, and he had no problem with it, he rather enjoyed being a big kid for a moment in time. A slither of sand accompanied each of them as they slid down to land on the hard metal floor of the fatally wounded starship, making the pile of sand all the bigger. The floor on which they finally stood on sloped at thirty degrees down towards an impenetrable wall of sand, which the engineering section disappeared into after just ten feet, but thankfully, there were no dead bodies to greet them. However, David was extremely disappointed when he stood inside this part of the crashed starship, for it was obvious to them that it was not the Blazer Explorer. It was according to Barney a crashed Mazeren starship, for he could read the words beside the many dead displays. None of the ship`s instrumentation seemed intact following the crash and the explosion in this part of the ship that accompanied the catastrophic landing.
“Well David do you want to have a look at the forward section of this starship, seeing as how it is not the Blazer Explorer?” Jimmy asked.
“As we are here we may as well.” David replied quietly. He didn`t know whether to feel sad or elated that this broken starship wasn`t the Blazer Explorer.
David took just a few more moments to decide to cut short the inspection of this part of the broken starship and to head over to the forward section to see what it held. Before they left the engineering section of the starship, Jimmy took a moment to strip a long length of cable from one of the other broken units, using his hand Phaser to cut it when he considered that he had a suitable length.
“Our entry into the forward section might not be quite so easy; this will act as our rope.” Jimmy said.
“Good idea Jimmy, in fact we should have thought to bring some rope with us.” David said with a smile.
Scrambling out of this section of the starship was harder than sliding down into it, but Jimmy had Barney move a large computer console so that they could make use of it to exit the starship. The unit had been thrown from its place against the far wall, and was partially buried by the sand that was gradually seeping into the craft. The sand would soon fill this part of the starship making any future exploration a difficult and time-consuming chore. However, with this unit, and a tall cabinet that now leaned at a crazy angle towards the jagged hole in the hull, they were able to climb out of the dead starship. Barney had a problem climbing up as his knees didn`t bend all that much being a robot, but finally he too made it up the pile of furniture that led through the jagged hole in the side of the starship and to the desert floor above. Then they headed over to the forward section of the crashed starship.
The temperature had began to drop with the temporary disappearance of the sun behind the large black cloud, as they would find was normal on this desert world, and especially at this time of the year, David shivered and wished that he had slipped on something warmer for the trip.
“It should be a little warmer inside.” Jimmy said noticing, and this made him shiver in turn.
“I hope so Jimmy. With luck the sun will soon come out from behind the cloud.”
Once again entry was made easy by a jagged hole in the ship`s outer hull, this time through the top of the starship. Jimmy tied the length of cable that he had procured to a large rock that was near to the hole, and after dropping the other end down through the hole; they climbed down and found themselves within a short corridor that was also filling with sand. Barney had a little trouble once again as he was not built for this sort of travel, but he still managed to climb down the rope with his powerful hands ensuring that he didn`t fall. They had to use their torches to find their way forward to the bridge, luckily, they found the bridge door was jammed open and they were soon inside, their torches casting large eerie circles of light around the dark and badly damaged bridge. One end of a large ceiling support rested upon a thoroughly destroyed chair, while cables hung down everywhere causing them to stoop as they investigated the once proud bridge of the starship.
“You know Jimmy if the Mazerens had anything to do with my father`s disappearance, maybe we will find a clue in this ship`s computers, do you think that you will be able to get them working?” David wondered. The thought that they might be able to take something back with them raised his spirits.
“I might be able to it with Barney here to help. It was lucky that we brought along the generator David, otherwise it would have been impossible. It would certainly have been slow going relying on our torches to light our way. Hopefully, Barney should be able to operate all of the ship`s computers as well as to read what is on them, assuming there is enough left of them for him to interact with.” Jimmy said.
“Well Jimmy, you and Barney had better decide how best to find the ship`s computer and then to connect up our generator, I will check out the rest of this ship, see if I can find anything of interest.” David said as he turned and headed back for the door.
“Ok but be careful, this ship took quite a battering and there is no telling how safe it is back there.” Jimmy warned.
“Will do, as I`m not anxious to die just yet.”
David left Jimmy and Barney to their work while he took his torch and went to look at the rest of the ship. The corridor that
he walked along was a little spooky as his footfalls echoed back to him along the dark corridor, but he steeled himself to look into any of the cabins whose doors were already open, as he didn`t want to waste time on a closed door, as they would need a power supply. The door to the first cabin that he came to was also jammed open. The cabin was quite large, he assumed that it had belonged to the ship`s captain as it was decorated with photographs of various starships, and also looked to have been quite comfortable at one time, but anything of any importance seemed to have been cleared out of it. The next couple of cabins were definitely not of the same quality as they were smaller and quite cramped, but once again they were empty of anything, as was the ship`s clinic, even the drugs had been cleared out. It was now that he came to the last cabin before the sand took over. The starship seemed to him to be full of ghosts of its dead crew, all angry that he should intrude on their final resting place, thankfully there were no bodies, either they were buried under the wall of sand or had been recovered by their fellow spacemen. As he turned to leave this last cabin his eyes caught a flash of yellow, it was a photograph laying half hidden on the floor. It was lying partly beneath a cabinet but the light of his torch illuminated it making the bright yellow of a woman`s dress stand out. It was a photograph of his mother and himself at science world in Florida. It had been taken some twelve years ago when their life had been happy. David felt his head spin as the astounding ramifications raced through his brain, he put his hand out to hold on to cabinet to steady his swaying body, and he fought to catch his breath. This meant that his father had somehow been aboard this ship, for he had always carried the photograph with him ever since Patricia Charlton had gone missing. This was proof if any was necessary that the Mazerens had been behind all of the attacks on the Blazer Explorer and her crew back on Earth, and that the Mazerens were behind the disappearance of his father, his starship, and its crew. David hurried back to Jimmy Fielding and showed him his find.
“David, that is definite proof that the aliens are behind all that has happened to your father and the Blazer Explorer, even Kennedy can`t dismiss this.” Jimmy cried with glee.
“Yes he can Jimmy, he will just say that I brought it with me to screw up his first contact meeting, and also to demand his help in finding my father.” David lamented.
“But everyone who knows you will see that for a load of bunk.” Jimmy avowed.
“Yes Jimmy, but he is the ambassador, and he is not a friend of my family. Anyhow how are you getting on here?” David asked. He too was elated by his find, even if he couldn`t use it to aid him in his quest, but now he wanted much more. His spirits had soared to new heights, heights not reached for so long now. He now knew that they were directly on the trail of his missing father.
“I`ve finished connecting the generator to the ship`s main frame and now it is up to Barney here.” David and Jimmy both turned towards the tall metal robot that was as usual humming away to itself.
“Well Barney are you able to interface with the ship`s computer?” David asked his metal friend.
“Affirmative Captain, luckily the Mazerens have built into their computers the ability to allow one to connect into them remotely rather than only physically as on our own starships. I am now interfacing with the ship`s computer, I will soon have the ship`s log downloaded, and then I will also download all of the ships orders and communications that are still intact within the computer`s memory banks, I will be finished in a moment. It was in fact two minutes later that Barney had finally finished downloading the data files from the alien computer.
“I have finished downloading the data files Captain; I will now go through them to check if there is anything on them that refers to our quest.” Barney was very human in his speech. When he had said a moment he had not meant it literally, but as a human would have meant the term, and he always referred to the search for the missing starship as ‘Our Quest’ rather than his master’s quest. John Blazer had insisted upon this when he had had the Macintosh factory in Glasgow build the robot; it was so that Barney would appear more as a friend rather than a metal servant. David and Jimmy stood there listening to the quiet humming emanating from somewhere inside of the robot, but soon it stopped and then Barney looked at David.
“Captain, this ship accompanied three space cruisers that intercepted the Blazer Explorer and then attacked it. It happened in a planetary system that is eight light years from this one.” Barney said to an astonished David Charlton and Jimmy Fielding. “The Blazer Explorer was badly damaged but managed to land on the third planet in the system but most of the data from that point has been badly damaged in the crash of this starship. I do know that Captain Richard Charlton was alive and taken aboard this ship with at least one other member of the crew, they were to have been taken back to the Mazeren home world, but something happened and the ship crashed here.”
“David, this is beyond belief, to have found that some of them are alive is fantastic. Where do we go from here, do we tell the ambassador of our find and demand that he help us?” Jimmy was ecstatic for they were going to succeed against all of the odds.
David looked at Jimmy. “Not so fast Jimmy, we need time to think about what we have learned here, and how we should proceed. Maybe after a rest and a good night`s sleep we will be able to see the way ahead just a little clearer, then we can decide what we must do.”
David`s mind was rushing through a myriad of ideas and thoughts, but he forced himself to think on the present, as he had just said to Jimmy, he needed to sleep on the matter, then hopefully his mind would clear a way through to a sound idea for the future.
David and Jimmy had a quick lunch made up of their ship`s emergency rations and then they prepared to head back to the Galactic Traveller. With the length of cable Jimmy had taken from the other section of the starship, they made easy work of escaping from the man made cave and were soon on their way back to the freighter.
It was as they were travelling back along the narrow wadi that a large rock slid down from a particularly high hill at the wadi`s edge and crashed to the ground just inches behind their hovercraft. That it had missed them was due to the heavy rock hitting a jagged piece of rock half way down its fall and being diverting from its intended track. It was followed by screams from above and a shower of small rocks and stone being thrown at them by their unseen attackers and landing painfully on their bodies.
Although taken by surprise David quickly yelled out to Fielding. “Step on the gas Jimmy, get us out of here fast.”
Jimmy didn`t need any orders for his foot had already found the gas peddle and the hovercraft shot forward away from their attackers.
“This is ridiculous Jimmy why would anyone attack us now we know about the aliens?” David asked.
“Maybe they are worried about what we may have found out back there?” Jimmy wondered, but only for a moment. “No David, that can`t be right, if it were the Mazerens we would have been taken out by a heavy volley of Phaser fire, and not by a Stone Age attack.”
The wadi meandered around quite a lot but they were soon out of it, but only to be met by a hoard of pale-skinned creatures the size of a mountain gorilla, and all screaming out at them as the three adventurers quickly bore down on them in their swift moving hovercraft.
“Veer off Jimmy, head west towards that low hill.” David cried upon seeing the weird creatures that were racing towards them in an odd loping sort of movement. They were totally bald, with pink eyes and fierce-some claws and teeth.
The creature at the head of the pack howled out an order to some of its fellows and a good dozen of them peeled off and headed directly for the low hill while the remaining dozen also altered course to attempt to cut them off before they could even make it to the hill.
“Swing her around Jimmy lets revert to our original course, which should put the furthest bunch of whatever they are well behind us.”
From the actions of the creatures leader, David wasn`t sure if they were just pack animals like the wolf of Eart
h, or intelligent beings, but he didn`t have time to ponder on it as Jimmy spun the hovercraft around in a cloud of dust. The speed that Jimmy made the sleek low craft move at, coupled with his mastery over it and its superb manoeuvrability put the nearest pack of creatures running in the wrong direction for ten seconds before their slow minds realised that their proposed meal was moving in the opposite direction to them. The last that David saw of them was the leader of the pack roaring in anger at them. Then it stood upright and howled and the soulful wailing sound was heard by David and Jimmy, although they were now far away, and the sound made their blood run cold. Far ahead of them, David espied a hill.
“Jimmy, pull in this side of that hill and I will climb up it to ensure that there are no more surprises in store for us.”
Jimmy pulled in, David quickly scaled the low hill, and what he saw was more cause for worry. The creatures that he thought they had left far behind them were loping quickly across the desert floor, and they would soon be upon them. If this wasn`t bad enough David saw before them yet another two dozen or more of the creatures that were also moving towards them, they were almost surrounded. David could see a river to the west of them, probably the same one that ran by the small town, to the east was a broken land filled with rocks and cactus, they were in trouble but at least he and Jimmy were armed with Phasers, they should see them through this without too much trouble. He scampered back down the hill and told Jimmy of all that he had seen.
“Jimmy we have to make a move before the two parties join up with us stuck in the middle. Take us around the hill and then put your foot down and drive straight through the lot of them while I clear a path through them with my Phaser.” David said.
Jimmy drove slowly round the hill to see another twenty of thirty of the strange creatures ahead of them and when the creatures saw them they all let out piercing shrieks that would have froze a lesser person than Jimmy Fielding.
“I guess these things must be some of the native fauna of this planet, unfortunately at this moment they’re even more dangerous than the Mazerens.”
With that he floored the pedal and sent them racing towards the strange creatures who immediately began to howl and then a barrage of rocks poured down on David and Jimmy and it was only their speed and Jimmy`s driving ability that saved them from the worst of it. Even so they both received direct hits from some of the stones thrown at them, one cutting David`s head although he didn`t realise it with all that was going on. Barney escaped relatively intact, as his metal skin was impervious to such missiles. David had already begun to fire his Phaser at the creatures with the setting on its lowest point, for he had no desire to kill one of the creatures if he could help it. Unfortunately, although the creatures were knocked back an inch or two they seemed able to resist the energy bolt at this setting. Jimmy could see that they were in trouble and veered off towards the west driving along the straggling long front of the creatures and one of them even managed to grab a hold of the craft. David looked in horror as it slowly pulled itself aboard the swiftly moving hovercraft. It had huge canine teeth and a long pink tongue, saliva dripped from the creature’s mouth to drip onto the hull of the hovercraft. The creature`s face drew near to David`s, its ferocious growling could have frozen David into inaction but it was not the growling it was the hungry look within its eyes that were mesmerising him. He could feel his senses dimming before the ever-growing eyes of the beast, time itself appeared to slow and just for a moment, he heard words, sleep, sleep and he did feel tired, so very tired he wanted nothing more than to close his eyes. David was just about to surrender to the soft soothing voice when Jimmy cried out to him in desperation.
“David will you just shoot the thing.” Hearing Jimmy`s voice brought David back to the reality of the situation, and he forced himself to look away from those impelling eyes just as the beast lunged towards him.
But David`s hands had been working even if his mind wasn`t. His fingers had slowly spun the controls of his Phaser weapon to their maximum setting, and waking to his imminent death he now fired a prolonged burst on full power at the creature that stopped it just as its deadly fangs were mere inches away from his face. David watched as the beast finally tumbled from the craft to crash into the dirt behind the speeding hovercraft. Finally, David thought, they had been able to stop one of these fierce and terrible creatures. He knew how close he had been to death for those few terrible moments and he looked across at Jimmy.
“Sorry about that Jimmy, the creature must have eyes similar to the Cobra back on Earth, but the super charged version; I couldn`t seem to think never mind move when I looked into its eyes.” David said by way of an apology.
“Well at least we now know how to stop one of those animals, a burst of Phaser fire at full strength.” Jimmy said smiling.
“I`m not so sure those things were just animals, while I was held by those eyes I could have sworn that there was an intelligence behind them, talking softly to me.”
Jimmy wasn`t sure about that, he just knew that whatever they were they were dangerous. Now all that was in front of them was the river that ran swiftly at this point as it was hemmed in by the granite that prevailed here. Jimmy took the sleek hovercraft towards a small incline and as David cried out in horror, the hovercraft leapt across the small gap to land down on the other bank of the river with a hard bump that caused the two men to cry out. However, then the hovercraft shot off and they raced along northwards and back towards the freighter. Jimmy`s handling of the event would have made even a Hollywood stunt man happy. Behind them, they heard the mournful howls of the creatures fast disappearing from view, ahead was comparative safety.
“You are really something Jimmy, never did I ever imagine that you would attempt such a leap as that, and to complete it so easily, I am forever gobsmacked my friend.”
David said shaking Jimmy`s hand as they paused before a small bridge that would take them through to the spaceport. Here Jimmy pulled out the first aid kit and attended to the cut on David`s head but the rest of their wounds would have to wait until they were back at the freighter. Once back at the freighter, and in the privacy of the shuttlecraft, David told the others about Jimmy`s jump and how he had saved them both.
“Well now we know why the Mazerens require all the weaponry that they have around the space port, it is to keep those creatures away.” Sarah said. “And from what you say about the creatures David, thank goodness that they do have them.”
David turned his head towards Sarah and smiled and then he showed them the photograph that he had found aboard the broken starship, and finally he told them of the information that Barney had found within the crashed starship`s data banks.
“But this is wonderful David.” Sarah cried. “We are on their trail.”
Everyone cried out their own congratulations, and Sarah demanded that he repeat it again but much slower so that her spinning brain could take it all in. However, David and Jimmy were starving, so they first made up some sandwiches, and then they all sat down and talked about their find well into the night until David brought it to a halt.
“I don`t know about you lot, but I am exhausted after all that happened today, I need to sleep. In fact, we should all sleep on what we have learned today, and hope that one of us will come up with a way forward in the morning. David said leaving the shuttlecraft and heading towards his cabin and bed. David entered his cabin, but before closing his door he saw that Jimmy had followed him out of the shuttlecraft and was about to enter his own cabin so David spoke to him.
“Thank you once again Jimmy, and about that leap, it will go down in history, for I will personally see to it.” David promised.
“Shucks, David it was nothing, goodnight.” Jimmy said smiling across at his friend before entering his own cabin.