The day's journey was very strenuous for both Warp and Zarah. The trail went through cliffy hills and almost impassable clefts. It involved climbing and jumping over abysses. Zarah, who was yet frail after the violence she had experienced, still attempted to push forward with her full strength. She did not want the help he offered her. Among all she was scared, emotionally tired and jarring cramps teased her feet. He therefore felt creeping odium because of the fact that Zurg might trace them and sadness because she did not trust him. He would have been ready to lend a hand and even carry her, if she only had allowed it.
When the night fell, it was the time for camping, again. Warp eyed at his digital thermometer and forecasted that the night would be warm. She sighed with deep easement in her mind; she could sleep beside the fireplace, alone. He did not have even the courage to ask that if he could warm her. They both sunk into the world of dreams without a quarrel, though.
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In a black cloud were distinguished two eyes. Nevertheless, they were not regular eyes, they were hollow. Deep and hollow sockets. Below them was another hole and below that, a grinning mouth with bony gums. It was a face of a scull. However, soon after its appearance it began to click its jaw and a howl came forth from between its dead lips, with a cold breath, towards the spectator...
Zarah woke up in a shock. She had seen nightmares, again. And no wonder why. Her state was very incommodious; she shook like in ague. In a couple of hours the temperature had gone down so much that it was freezing out there. Her body parts were all numb and the coldness, the creeping decrease of the heat had made her starchy all over. Her teeth clattered against each other as she attempted to wrap the quilt around her more tightly. It was not supposed to be a cold night, was it?
Fifteen minutes she lay shivering on the ground. The small campfire did not facilitate her ease at all, how close it she ever tried to be. Why could she have not had more clothes? Would she now die to hypothermia after all these experiences? But, there was the alternative she avoided in her mind till the last minute. Turning her regard, G'Deneb distinguished Warp sleeping calmly in a half-sitting position leaning against a rock. He had no inconvenience in his warm space suit.
She blew once more into her palms and rubbed them together. No. That was impossible. Could she do that? Could she go to awaken him and ask... No, she possibly could not, she thought with fright and shame. But she began to quiver more and more, there was no other change but to gather the courage.
Warp startled awake feeling a knock on his arm. He rubbed his eyes to comprehend, what was going on. "...Zarah?" he whispered as he saw the girl kneeled beside him. In the darkness, he could distinguish her shivering like a fledgling without the wing shelter of its dam on a frost morning. She had a very coy and embarrassed expression and could not get a word out of her stammering mouth. A little teardrop glimmered in the corner of her eye.
Warp's mouth drooped open. He felt his heart suddenly very heavy and, pity; the very new emotion in him that stemmed beyond a couple of days totally got him annexed. He wined his arm around her and pulled her towards him. "Just come to me, li'l poor thing. I'll keep you warm. I'll keep you warm", he smiled sadly at her, stroking casually her shoulder.
She did not produce a syllable, but immediately nuzzled under his arm and pressed her cheek against his chest. She was overwhelmed by the warmth, now the cool air bit her no more. Zarah fell asleep almost instantly, as the strong and protective arm of his was firmly around her. Warp watched her with a hearty smile for a couple of minutes, before he also opened slightly the curtain of soporific.
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"Commander, do you copy? This is Star Cruiser 42."
"Ranger Lightyear? Any sign of life from Xaneda?" the voice of Nebula answered from the comm. channel.
"No, sir. We're jammed to Rigel, unfortunately. The local custom officers asked our help, to catch a couple of criminals that were smuggling illegal lightsabres to Trade World. We're a bit late, but we caught those knaves", Buzz spoke back determined.
"I wish you would hurry up! This is almost an emergency, already!"
"Sir, we do the best we can. Over and out."
Four solemn faces watched the black vacuum in front of them as their cruiser glided forward.
-----
The morning lightened with a feather-like aurora. It forecasted worsening weather. Still, now, the sun granted its friendly and warm rays between the treetops, above the camp where Warp and Zarah slept. He gradually yawned himself awake, stretched and wiped his nose. The girl beside him puffed calmly and had sometime during the night cuddled up very deep under his arm. The corners of his mouth rose up to a tender expression as he shook her a bit awake.
"Zarah... it's morning..."
But she only whined a bit and pressed her cheek more against his side. "I wanna... sleep..." she moaned drowsy.
Warp got his eyes wide open. "She must be talking in her sleep..." he chuckled suspiciously in his mind and shook her more. Lazily she opened her eyelids and evaluated him her head atilt for a second. Then she burst to a short laugh, covering her mouth with her palm.
Warp was fully puzzled. "What is funny...?" he stared back at her, his face in a light smile.
"You have grown a beard overnight!" she giggled behind her hand.
He grazed his jaw and noticed his yesterday stubble quite long. Picking up a small mirror from his pocket, he soon burst to guffaws as he saw himself. Bluish black, short beard covered his cheeks and chin. Zarah giggled aloud to his amazement.
"We gotta find water today, I ain't getting along with my new appearance, gotta shave this hair carpet away!" he chortled and began to dig the breakfast from his bag.
Zarah felt also about her hair and noticed it very greasy and sticky, not to mention the other dirt her form had gathered during these five days of imprisonment and fleeing. "I guess my braid needs a washing-machine, too..." she joked to him.
Warp was stunned about the new mood of Zarah. She seemed to have lost her fear totally towards him. He saw now a completely new side of her, under her timid shell was a playful and a bit sarcastic woman. He reflected hardly the reason for this change and only could understand that it somehow related to the last night. He was right, it was just because he had gently achieved her in her trouble and given her shelter, in addition that he had not mocked her in her dilemma. The old Warp in him would have enjoyed spitefully seeing a person freeze to dead. But now... the change had been churning.
He did not mention with a word about this topic, he wanted to keep the atmosphere as it was now, nimble and comfortable. Likewise, it warmed enormously his heart to see her laugh and smile. Finally, he was allowed to meet the woman in that holograph he adored.
During the forenoon, they spotted a little river along their trek. Warp supplemented at first the drink rations and then rooted soap forth from his backpack (a question to wonder is that he had soap and a mirror with him in the wild forest, but not a tent). He broke it and gave the other half to Zarah. "Here goes yours. Have a nice hair bath!" The view was quite absurd as they both bent forward down to the water to wash their hair, knelt on the river bend. Warp was fast with his head and began to shave while Zarah let the water caress her long locks and purify them from the dust and grease. As the wash was done, they encountered the problem that he had not a single towel with. He dried his chin to some spare shirt and combed his short-cut coiffure dry, but she struggled with a huge problem. Twining and twisting the water off from the hair like from some wet cloth, was her strategy. And after that measure, it was extremely shaggy and rigid. She did not know how to untangle the mess.
The girl sat on the ground and groped her lockings with her fingers when Warp came to her.
"D'ya need help with that red jungle?" he squatted beside Choi, friendly touching her shoulder.
"I'd need a rake, thank you", she sighed and thought the situation totally impossible. But she was surprised to feel that Warp started to comb the shags open. His little pocket comb was maybe not the most ideal tool for this, but it did the job, though a bit slowly. He relaxed and rambled something about his years in Star Command while continuing his labour. He enjoyed it enormously, feeling her hair glide in his hand, getting touch her crown and shoulders without needing to ask permission. There were moments that he did no actually comb, but just stroked her locks and pretended doing something else. And Zarah, she answered silently his questions and narrated her past, but very felt odd under his touches. This frightening alien was so mild towards her. As he once slid his fingertips along the side of her neck, for the same time gathering her hair, she felt an itch in her heart, a weird itch that got her quiver a bit. And it was not fear, it was a lovely emotion.
Gradually the yesterday's menace was only a random black cloudlet in the sky. Though, the real sky grew darker as a massive cloud pulp advanced from the horizon. The wind had gradually increased and the smell of rain was in the air. Nonetheless, for the travellers, the trek was like a game. Zarah had begun to quiz with Warp, just like she had teased XR playfully when the robot had been her assistant for a couple of weeks. He was just charmed about this and got easily his sarcastic mood back. Laughing he chased her as she threw some totally absurd comments about his mechanical arm; how it would be convenient to turn the shifting hand part to an umbrella when it would rain or draw a collapsible frying-pan from it to do some cookings. He was very delighted to hear her jingling laugh as she ran forth and the passage progressed for the while. The land was a bit easier now, yet, in front of them was another rock area.
"By the way, Mister Alien, where are we gonna spend the night? It can come a cataclysm from those clouds", she informed him when they had stopped their cat-and-dog run.
"Whee... I didn't come to think of that when I packed my stuff... I ain't got a tent. We gotta find a cave or relevant..." he bethought himself.
"I know! You log a couple of trees and build us a cabin! I believe that a chain saw is a standard equipment of that arm."
"Why you little..." he chuckled and was ready to run after her, again, but suddenly heard something from behind the rocks they passed.
"Shht!" he gripped quickly her shoulders and stopped her. Peeping warily behind the stone got a stern expression rise up on his face.
"What...?" she barely had the time to breathe.
"Now, hide!" he whispered swiftly and pressed her down. They luckily were able to cover themselves behind the big rock. In the valley in front of them wandered a robot that seemed to scan the environments. A low hum echoed back to them.
"What is it?" she asked.
"It's an imperial probe droid. Zurg has tracked us, somehow. Maybe he was able to do that through the failed transmission he attempted yesterday."
"Is this our end...?" she panted in terror. Cold shivers of death-fear went along her back.
"No. That's not gonna happen. Say bye to your Master and lick the dirt!" he groaned hate in his eyes and turned his arm to a plasma riffle. With one shot, he blasted the droid into a million pieces. A mushroom cloud rose up to the highnesses. Zarah slowly got up and stared at the remains, then his smouldering weapon arm. She was quite horrified to see the true power of that freaky body part.
"...T-That was a big b-bang..." she stuttered.
"I'd say a big crunch. Come on, we must get our butts outta here. I hope that the metal junk won't send any signal back to the One and Only Izzard." He took Zarah's hand and rushed forward.
"B-but will he detect the destroyed droid? Uf... Usually those have remote control and when the signal goes off, t... the suspicions begin..." she panted when they jumped over the rocks and hummocks.
"That's not the thing to be chickened out now. I just am afraid that there are more of those nasty spies. Though, I wonder why that kind of an out-of-fashion model was taking the job, he has a lot better machines."
"Maybe it tells about the fact that the control devices are not yet prepared?" she asked.
"You're right... hopefully. It's a fact that the older stuff is controlled through different machines than those I dumped. Wonder from what landfill that was picked up. Unless... he has contacted ally planets."
"How much... does he have allies?"
"Go figure. He's promising glory and prices to ev'ry passer-by if they join the dark side and then he often gives his antiquated tech to those who let him take the control over them."
The first heavy raindrops fell towards the ground in the middle of their rush.
"C'mon, we gotta play now the Flintstones and find shelter from some cave", Warp pointed out, leading her to a further looming cavity.
-------------
"Coming, Star Command? Cruiser 42 approaching the target. We have tried palpation connections, but there seems to be no sign of functioning", Buzz talked to the comm. link.
"Keep on going. I want to know what's wrong over there. This is not normal", the voice of Nebula answered.
"Yes, sir, over and out."
Xaneda's second moon rose in front of 42's windshield.
"Yuf! Looks kinda lifeless there, does it?" XR commented the mother planet and its other moon.
"What do you think now, ranger Nova? Do you still agree that there are no problems?" Buzz asked Mira.
"Eh... I still hope being right... but I feel emptiness around me... like there were no voices of life down there..." she sighed and observed the view.
"Yea... feel the Force... C'mon, ya cannot tell me Choi's a goner! My babe!" XR whined.
"We'll find out..." Buzz clicked the landing engines on.
A dismal landscape was there to wait for Team Lightyear as the cruiser landed and the crew had stepped out of it. Burned buildings, wrecks, ashes... half of the forest beside the mining area had burned down, too. No sign of intelligent life was anywhere.
"What has happened here...?" Booster gaped at the ruins.
"We got to find some clue. XR, scan the area. Blast, the Commander was right... if we could have got here earlier..." Buzz clenched his hands.
"This has not happened yesterday, ranger Lightyear", Mira noted.
"That's true... but we have to find out now who did this. And where are all the workers? Commander told that here lived a hundred men! Yet... I believe the culprit is not a stranger to us..."
"...Zurg...?" Booster added.
"That's the most logic answer. His hornets could do this."
For the while, XR scanned the environments with his build-in radar implements. He soon found marks of the destruction causes. "Report going on, folks! Possible causers plasma bombs... current presence of human/alien life forms zero. Possible occurrence: six to seven days ago, Capital Planet time. Marks on ground: transportation vehicles, possible combat machines... and sort of told-you-it's-Zurg-stuff."
The team walked forward and inspected sadly the remains of the research centre. Buzz contacted the Commander and explained the situation. The Captain was next told to find the possible remains of Zarah's dwelling and ship, if they would exist. Zeb Nebula was positive that Zurg was behind this, although there was no clear evidence of it, yet.
XR logged all the needless and important particulars on the way. One strange detail was that the supposed mining tunnel was covered with a heavy metal shield.
"Something has been here, after the destruction and put that thing over there. Nebula told the mine was open. Someone is after landanah, after the new technology and wants to get more solid..." Buzz meditated with a monotonic voice.
"And this 'someone', obviously our neighbour Sultan Zurgie is gonna come back, unlock that door with a nice open sesame and continue the punctuated mole job..." XR whistled.
"Hey, what's that, over there?" Mira pointed with her finger forth. They had approached Zarah's old dwelling that was still intact.
"There's even a ship in front of it!" Boosted noticed.
But, in vain the rangers searched for any signs of the missing personnel. The dwelling's insides was a chaos; the luggage of Zarah had been thrown here and there, the clothes and personal items torn and broken in order to find possible information disks. With disappointment, Buzz shook his head and contacted the Commander for the last time. Team Lightyear was now ordered to stay in Deneveria until reinforcements and repairers would come there from Star Command headquarters.
