Chapter 10
The sun was just setting in the west as Susan's fighter cut across the skies above Gorbachev Dome. It was the second sunset she had seen this day, having travelled nearly a third of the way around the large planet during three hours since she had taken off from the fortress. She was actually been rather surprised to find that so little time had passed as the battle in space followed by the long chase after the enemy fighter had seemed to take forever. In fact, Susan would not have been at all surprised if the sunset she was seeing was not in fact the next day's.
Easing back on her fighter's speed, until it was flying just fast enough to keep up in the air, Susan scanned the ground for a potential landing site. Fortunately, especially considering her fuel situation, it did not take long to find one as she soon spotted a line of shuttles near a large warehouse on the far side of the city. This appearing to be the only suitable landing site in sight, she tried to raise the local flight controller on her com unit, however, all she received was static. She tried calling the Rasputin, but had the same result, most likely due to the damage her fighter had taken, or perhaps interference of some kind. Realising that it was more important to land before her fuel situation became desperate, she decided to make a snap decision and set down on the landing strip anyway.
Flying towards the landing site, she passed across the top of the dome. Below her, she could see the neat rows of apartment buildings and the smaller cluster of shops and government buildings near the centre of the dome. Everything looked a lot more crowded than the buildings of Reagan Dome had, but then Gorbachev was the city where most of the mining and manufacturing took place, while the smaller city of Reagan was the capital and financial centre of the Proxima system. It had obviously not been designed with the comfort of its citizens in mind. She didn't have time right now for sightseeing though, so Susan turned the fighter away from the dome and circled around towards the shuttle landing strip. After checking visually to make sure there were no obstructions, Susan lowered the landing struts and, using the small thrusters mounted below the fighter, gently bought it in for an almost perfect landing.
With great relief, she flicked the switches that powered down the reactors and computers and as soon as that was done, undid the straps that held her in place. Hers legs and chest burned with a brief burst of pain as the blood flow was restored. Normally she wouldn't wear the straps so tight, but in an unfamiliar craft and wearing an ill-fitting flight suit, she had wanted all the protection she could get. Susan rubbed her legs to restore circulation and, as soon as she was assured that she could walk without any trouble, climbed out of the cockpit and down the ladder built into the side of the fighter, which Susan had lowered soon after her fighter had touched down.
Only one other person was visible on the silent landing field as Susan climbed down onto the red sands. He quickly hurried over towards her and she could see he was an old mechanic. At least that was what she assumed by his greasy blue uniform, and rag hanging out of a pocket. Susan unclipped her heavy helmet and tucked it under on arm as she waited for him to arrive.
"Good afternoon I am Captain Ivanova of the EAS Rasputin," she said before the mechanic could even get in a complaint about not being allowed to land here. She could see him about to open his mouth, probably upset about some rule or something, and wasn't about to waste any more time that necessary.
"The Ivanova," he asked, awe creeping into his voice. "The one that was on the vids all the time during the war."
"That was me," she admitted. She didn't really want to rely on her reputation, but wanted to get back to Reagan Dome and find out what was going on as soon as she could. Not to mention let the Rasputin know she was still alive. From what she knew of Commander Petrov, he would be very worried by her absence.
The mechanic stuck out his hand for Susan to shake, and after a cautious glance at the coolant stains on it she took up his offer, if only very briefly. "Well it is certainly a pleasure to meet you Captain," he said enthusiastically. "Why, we all used to watch your broadcasts every day back when Clark's goons were trying to break us. Just wait until I tell Bert about this, he will be so jealous."
"I sure he will," Susan said, hiding a groan. "Right now though, I am looking for a shuttle to Reagan dome. Is there one leaving soon?"
"Oh no, Captain, no shuttles. It gets a bit dangerous out here after dark, so everyone usually sticks to the domes once the sun goes down, unless they have a crawler of course."
"Is that because of those big lizards in the mountains," she asked.
The mechanic looked a little confused for a second before he realised what she the creature she was talking about, "You mean the Hymir?"
"Well I don't know what it is called, all I know was that it was a big lizard with big claws, really big claws. It came a lot closer than I'd like to taking a bite out of my fighter."
"That sound's like the Hymir," the mechanic said with a smile. "You don't have to worry about them, they are harmless enough if you keep out of their way. I was talking about the tooth worms."
"Worms?" Susan asked. "No wait, I don't want to know. Is there any way I can get back to Reagan then?"
The mechanic thought for a moment. "Well you could take the train, that runs all thirty six hours of the day and night. They leave about every ten minutes from the station in the dome. I would have to run you up to the dome though as you wouldn't want to walk there when it is getting dark. After all, the worms will be coming out soon. In fact if I were you I would get inside."
He pointed across the landing strip to a low hanger of some kind, where a shuttle could be seen sitting half in and half out of the large doors. "You will safe enough inside there," he told her. "We electrify the entrances, and those worms can't burrow through solid concrete."
Susan was now even surer that she didn't want to meet the creatures he was talking about, and hurried across the landing strip towards the well-lit hanger, the mechanic close behind her. As she entered the hanger, she noticed a small indentation cut parallel to the entrance. The mechanic noticed her interest and said, "Yep that's where we keep the wire. We run a current through it at a certain frequency and it keeps the worms away. Otherwise you and me would be nothing but bare bones by morning, those little pests would eat anything. They don't seem to harm metal or anything that isn't living though, so your fighter will be ok."
"How soon can you get me to the dome?" Susan asked him, deciding that the sooner she got back to her ship the better. There hadn't been mention of flesh-eating worms or huge fighter-swallowing lizards in the information she had read on Proxima. Now that she knew what the place was like, she was glad she was going to be in space most of the time she was stationed here, Proxima was beginning to sound a little too dangerous for her tastes.
"Well I will have to go and warm up the old crawler. I don't take it out much so it is a bit rusty. Once I get it started though, it will go like blazes. You just sit here by the heater and I will go and get the card."
Susan nodded and sat down on an old stool next to a heater that was even older. As she was still in her flight suit, she unclipped the gloves and airtight plastic sleeves that had slipped over her boots. After putting them down on a small table with the helmet, she pulled off the rest of the suit, struggling for several seconds as she tried to get her arms free.
She was immediately glad that she was near a heater, even one as old as this model was. During the flight, she hadn't realised how much she had been sweating in the heated flight-suit, and now in the cold night air she was left shivering. The heater soon warmed her up though, so by the time the mechanic returned with the card necessary to unlock and start the crawler, she was almost comfortable.
No heater could replace the sense of security of the huge domed city though and when the mechanic asked if she was ready to go, Susan needed no encouragement. Following him across to the other side of the hanger, past the partially disassembled shuttle she climbed into the cabin of a rusty crawler, noting with some pleasure that the heater in the main cabin still functioned, even if the rest of the vehicle was more than a little suspect. It started without any problems though, and soon Susan was on her way back to civilisation and away from any other monsters native to the world that might be hidden out in the wilderness.
Easing himself back into the command chair on the bridge, Gregor Petrov stretched out and allowed himself to relax. It had been a busy few hours, and he had been in the thick of it. Fortunately, the Captain had survived her brief stint as a fighter pilot, and despite his misgivings she had somehow managed to wind up a hero once again, being the only one who had been able to bring down one of the enemy fighters intact. Petrov shook his head and could not help but wonder if perhaps somewhere out there was someone or something that kept watch over Ivanova, certainly she seemed to have lived through events and wars that, from the stories he had heard, would make most people never want to leave Earth again.
Picking up his hot cup of coffee Petrov took a sip, enjoying the warm feeling it left in his stomach. With the battle over for now, he could look forward to a nice quiet afternoon. At least that was the plan. The Captain was still down on Proxima, and with any luck he wouldn't have to worry about her for the rest of the afternoon, as it would take her at least that long to get back from where she had landed her fighter. For a moment, he wished he could have been assigned a nice by the book kind of Captain, one that never took any risks and sent their subordinates to do the hard work instead of insisting on leaping into the action themselves.
Instead he had Ivanova, who had shown by her actions over the past week that she had no intention of going by the book and staying on the bridge while sending her crew out to handle the kind of activities she seemed to be insisting on doing herself. It didn't look likely that she was going to have a sudden change of heart anytime soon either, and so he was going to be left to worry about her constantly. After all, it was every good executive officers job to try to keep the captain of his ship alive. Well actually, he wasn't sure if things worked that way on Centauri vessels, they did have some odd customs and from what he had heard, assassination was often consider the best way for advancement. Or was that the Narn, Petrov wasn't that familiar with either race, as he had spent the majority of his time in Earthforce stationed on its colony worlds, and had yet to venture out of Earth Alliance space.
Still it could have been worse. At least Ivanova was better looking than some of the captains he had served under, Captain Vandenbroek of the Horus is one name that immediately sprung to mind. He was retired now, but when Petrov had served under him, it was said that he could shatter a mirror at a hundred paces. Still he had been a good soldier, and one of the few to bring his ship through the Earth/Minbari war intact.
"Commander," a voice called, bringing his thoughts back to the present.
Petrov sighed and put down his coffee cup, looking over at the crewman who had spoken. "What is it?" he asked, a little irritably.
"Sorry to disturb you sir," the young officer said. "Sensors have just reported a jump point forming near Proxima I."
The Commander leapt to his feet. "Where?' he asked. "Put it on the display."
The crewman quickly complied and the holographic viewscreen, which had until now been showing the now peaceful upper atmosphere of Proxima III, quickly went black before bringing up a long range scan of Proxima I. This image of course was little more than a computer representation of what was out there and lacked the detail of the normal display, but it was still possible to see the swirling shape of a jump point, and a large bulky vessel heading towards it.
"Unknown vessel is entering jump point Sir," came the report from the sensor operator. "Silhouette matches that of a JMC short range bulk tanker."
Watching closely as the computer displayed a wire-frame representation of the cumbersome vessel in question. "What is it doing so far off the normal routes," he murmured to himself. "Ensign," he said turning back to the sensor operator. "Log that vessel as suspicious and put out an alert on its ident code. Whoever the captain of that ship is, he has some serious questions to answer, not the least being why his ship has jump engines, they most certainly are not standard equipment for that class of commercial transport."
"I am sorry sir, but the computer was unable to record vessel's ident code. It does not appear to have one."
"Very strange," Petrov mused. "Alright then log its description, time and direction of jump and any other details your sensors collected. I want a report in my hands later today so I have something to tell the captain."
"Yes Sir," was the swift reply.
Petrov sat back down in the command chair, but this time did not have time for coffee. There was something about the sudden appearance, or rather disappearance of this vessel that just didn't ring true to him, especially after those fighters appeared out of nowhere. A suspicion was beginning to form in his mind, and the more he thought about it the less he liked it.
The underground train sped along a dark tunnel, with only the lights inside the cabin to give Susan any idea of where she was going. "This was the quickest way to Reagan," the official she had spoken to back in Gorbachev Dome had said. They had even given her a car all to herself, but still she would have preferred to take a shuttle, or even her fighter. Still, it was better than the monorails on Mars. There you could see what was going to kill you, here you were in total ignorance until the moment of impact.
Susan knew she was probably being paranoid, that few accidents ever happened on the monorails, that they were safer than space travel. She had heard all the arguments, but still she didn't like them, especially the way they were controlled almost entirely by computer, with no human drivers at all. In her opinion, any safe form of transport should have a living pilot. No machine, no matter how intelligent, could react as quickly to problems as a live pilot.
The trip was short though, as the advanced magnetic levitation system, which had been built by a Centauri company just two years ago, pushed the train along at speeds nearly three times faster than the monorails on Mars, despite their similar propulsion systems. A brief flash as the row of lights that signified the end of the tunnel sped past and the train began to slow, sliding gently to a stop at the main station in Reagan.
She had left Gorbachev soon after sunset, but here in Reagan it was late in the night, the air cold and damp against her skin as she left the car. Both domes lacked the atmospheric controls common in Martian cities, deciding they were a waste of resources on a planet where the air was breathable. Susan imagined this was why she saw few people near the station, in fact only one man standing quietly near the exit, dressing in an unfamiliar uniform.
It soon became obvious that the guard, she recognised the uniform as belonging the local Proxima security force, was waiting for her. As soon as she walked off the train, he started towards her, a package of some kind tucked under his arm. With some surprise, she accepted her jacket from the guard. She had left it behind with Major Logan, so that meant that the Major, most likely the other Earthforce officers, and probably President Mitrovic as well, were all back in the capital.
After waiting while she zipped up her jacket, which provided a little more protection against the cold than the thin white shirt, which was all she had worm underneath, the guard guided her towards a small ground car which sat quietly outside the station, it's rear door open to receive her. She took her seat and sighed in pleasure as the security officer closed the door and the freezing cold air outside vanished, to be replaced by the warm, heated interior of the vehicle.
As the vehicle sped silently away from the monorail station, Susan realised that it was most likely President Mitrovic's personal transport, as the dome was large enough for its citizens to require vehicles. In fact, all the buildings were within a short walking distance of each other, so she assumed this vehicle was used by the President primarily for security reasons. Certainly during the quick trip through the city to the government buildings, there was no sign of any similar vehicles, although the road they travelled down had been constructed with ground traffic in mind.
Government house was a tall, almost Gothic structure built around the central strut for the dome, which rose high above the centre of the building. For a moment it reminded her of Psi-Corp headquarters in Earthdome, which of course she had always seen from the other side of the street, not willing to go anywhere near that den of telepaths. It had the same tall columns though, and the statues. Here though, most of the statues appeared to be smashed, probably a legacy of the civil war and the temporary occupation of the major settlements by Clark's troops. No other scars from that time had been visible in the city though, but of course, it was night and despite the bright streetlights, it was impossible to see everything.
Pulling up outside the long flight of stairs leading up into the government building, the guard again opened the doors of the car. After she had climbed out, he led her up the stairs, past a guard post and into a large hall. There, Susan was met by the presidential aide from the party. She couldn't remember being told his name, so instead just waved off his greetings and asked him to take to see the president at once.
The aide agreed without complaint, and took her through a maze of corridors, up another flight of stairs and finally through two huge doors, carved with scenes that reminded her strongly of the desert she had flown over earlier, before finally leading her into another large room. At the far end of the hall, a small collection of Earthforce officers was gathered around a desk that was easily dwarfed by the size of the room. Sitting in a chair behind the desk was President Mitrovic, and seeing Susan entering he waved for her to come over and join the rest of the Earthforce personal.
"Captain," he said as soon as she was within earshot. "It is good to see you are still alive. I was very concerned when you ran off like that, and so was Captain James here."
Susan turned as nodded in the direction of the Apollo's captain. He nodded back respectfully, and for the moment didn't it didn't seem like he wanted to bite her head off. "I did what I thought was necessary Mr. President," Susan replied. "And the results as I am sure you will agree were worth the risk."
"I am not sure I can agree with that Captain," Mitrovic said shaking his head. He also didn't seem that upset with her though, more worried that anything. "Still your risk did manage to bring down one of those raiders intact, which is more than anyone else managed."
"You mean no other enemy fighter survived?" Susan asked, finding that a little surprising.
The President shook his head. "I am afraid not. They fought to the last man, and despite repeated calls for them to surrender, there was no response. None of the enemy fighters were able to be captured either, they all had some sort of self destruct system that destroyed their vessel if it was too damaged to continue."
Susan hadn't noticed anything like that during the battle, but had no reason to doubt the President's words. "They don't sound like raiders then to me," she said. "Whenever I have fought raiders before they usually run at the first sign of any real resistance. The actions you describe to me sound more like the actions of fanatics."
"Perhaps," Captain James said, speaking up for the first time she arrived. "We also haven't recovered any bodies, or in fact even any traces of bodies."
"You don't suspect drone fighters do you captain?" Susan asked with a frown.
He shrugged. "It is possible. I have had teams from the station scanning the site of the battle for nearly two hours now. Despite their best efforts, so far they have recovered no trace of any organic life, except those from our own ships, of course. We have been checking the DNA of each body we find and so far they all match pilots we lost."
"That fighter I fought on the surface was no drone fighter," Susan said firmly. "Not the way it laid that trap for me in the canyon, that took real intelligence, and I refuse to believe that anyone could make a computer smart enough to fly the way that fighter pilot did."
"Well we will know soon enough," the President said, breaking into the two captain's discussion. "I have dispatched a couple of crawlers from Gorbachev. They've been order to bring in the fighter you forced down in the desert. Once our technicians get to work on it then we will soon know what makes it tick."
"I guess we will," Susan replied, leaning against the desk to rest her tired legs. "If it is still out there. Those creatures you have out in the desert might decide that it will taste good, they nearly took a bite out of my fighter, and I was in the air at the time."
The President looked confused for a moment, just like the mechanic earlier. "Oh you mean the Hymir," he said after he realised what Susan must have encountered. "They are harmless enough, as long as you stay away from them. Weird creatures really, we think they actually consume rocks as their main food source."
"Well this one tried to eat me, in fact there were two of them, and neither one showed much respect."
Mitrovic laughed. "They usually don't Captain. We just keep away from their lairs and they leave us alone. They were responsible for a few deaths during the earlier days of the colony, but they don't come in close to our settlements much any more. We leave them alone and they leave us alone, and we all seem to get along fine."
"Well you can be very certain I will be leaving them well alone for the rest of my stay," Susan said firmly. "In fact if I never see another one of those things again in my life I won't be sorry."
"Well at least you survived the encounter Captain," the President told her. "Many of the early settlers were not so lucky." He then paused and shuffled some papers around his desk before continuing. "Anyway, in answer to your question, I don't think the Hymir will do anything to the crashed fighter, they rarely leave their mountain lairs."
Susan nodded. Then her mind turned to other matters and her features took on a grimmer tone. "Do you know yet how many of our pilots were killed?" she asked, changing the topic back to matters that are more important.
"Captain James?" the President looked expectantly at the Apollo's captain.
He consulted a data pad he had tucked under his arm. "We lost twelve pilots from the Vesta, two from the Odysseus, nine from the Apollo and five from the Rasputin. In addition, the Odysseus lost another thirty-five crewmembers when these fighters blew up a good portion of her flight deck. They have put out the fires and sealed the hull, but will still be laid up for a couple of weeks at the very least while repairs are conducted."
Susan shook her head sadly. She hadn't expected this many deaths. "And the enemy?" she asked.
"All one hundred and thirty of their fighters were destroyed or self-destructed after taking critical damage, with the exception of the one you downed of course."
"Well that is some good news at least," Susan said, although he face didn't show any pleasure at the report. "Do we have any idea at all where they come from?"
One of the other Captains, who she remembers as a Captain Waterman from the Odysseus, spoke up to answer her question. "We believe either a base or a carrier ship of some kind. Your executive officer, Commander Petrov, reported that a JMC civilian tanker jumped out of the system from near Proxima I just a few minutes before you got here. I think the fighters came from the direction of Proxima I." Waterman turned and looked at James for confirmation.
"That is correct," the Apollo's captain confirmed. "They definitely came from the direction of the inner planet, and given that place is little more than a burning hell I can't think of any good reason a big tanker like the one Commander Petrov described would be hanging around there."
"I didn't know they had jump engines," Susan said. "I thought they were mainly confined to jump gates and in system travel, just like most of the rest of the civilian transport fleets."
"They are not supposed to," Waterman agreed. "That's what makes this craft suspicious. After all, if that vessel had one modification, then couldn't it also have had more alterations made? Commander Petrov also said that it had no ident code, which makes it even more suspicious. I think someone must have done some serious modifications to that tanker. If we had been hit by Delta V fighters, then I'd be suggesting it was a raider command and control vessel right now."
"Would it make a good carrier though," Captain Maruichi of the Vesta asked.
Waterman nodded. "I think it would. If you removed the main storage tank and just kept the basic hull, maybe strengthened it a little with some armour plating. Those tankers are big enough that they could store a good-sized number of fighters inside each one. Of course, they would be a clumsy as an ox, and their reactors are not big enough to handle any sort of heavy weapon emplacements, especially with a jump engine as well. But apart from that, if all you wanted was a large carrier then that sort of ship would serve."
Susan nodded, agreeing with Waterman's explanation. "Any reason why we didn't pick it up?" she asked. "Those tankers should stand out from half a system away, they have enough of a signature to register on any one of our ship's sensors."
The other captains didn't have an answer for that question. "Perhaps some sort of stealth system," was Waterman's best guess. "Like the one the Minbari used during the war. After all, those fighters had something like that according to the reports, which is probably why we lost so many of our own. They had a distinct advantage over us in that regard."
James and Maruichi nodded in agreement, and Susan couldn't help but agree that Waterman had come up with the most logical explanation. The fighters had definitely had some sort of stealth system, and without it, they would have been little match for the powerful Starfuries. With their tracking systems unable to properly lock onto the enemy fighters, it had been left to the skill of each pilot to make the shot. Susan was pleased that so few of her own fighter pilots had been killed, and it was a testimony to their skill that out of forty-eight fighters only five had been lost.
"Well I don't think there is much more we can discover until they bring in that wrecked fighter tomorrow," President Mitrovic said with a yawn, which made Susan realised that by Proxima time it was actually close to midnight. On the Earthforce vessels, which always kept Earth time it was only late in the afternoon. She still felt tired though, especially after recent the battle.
"Sounds like a good idea," Susan agreed. "Just one thing though before we go. I was wondering if I could have permission to send one of my own staff down to help examine the fighter, Dr. Kozlowski the Rasputin's designer."
"Is he any good," the President asked sceptically.
"He designed my ship," Susan told him. "And from what I have seen there is very little he doesn't know about starship design. While the Rasputin is not exactly a fighter, I assume he would still probably know enough to be of some assistance. I don't imagine that you have many starship designers living here on Proxima."
"No we don't Captain," agreed the President, although his tone let Susan know that it was a sore point with him. Probably because of the rich rewards a shipyard like the one on Orion VII could bring to a colony. "Very well," he conceded after a moments thought. "He may assist, as this all happened in Proxima space, our scientists will be in charge."
"That sounds fair," Susan said as she hopped up off the desk. "And now, if you will excuse me. I think I shall return to my ship." She saluted the other Captains, and Colonel Kroehn who had been leaning quietly against the back wall without saying anything, a tall drink in his hand. After they returned her salute, and raised no objection to her departure, she turned to leave.
The voice of President Mitrovic called her attention back to the desk though, after she had only taken a couple of steps. "Oh Captain," he said. "Your staff are in the side room over there." The President pointed in the direction of a small door halfway along the wall, almost hidden behind a large stature of some anonymous Proxima leader. "Also I will organise a crawler to take you right to your shuttle. You want to be careful out after dark, there are some rather nasty creatures around. They are none to particular about what they eat either."
Nodding her thanks, she walked over to the door and opened it. Behind was a large formal dining room. Major Logan was sitting at the far end of one side of the table, all the while staring daggers at Talia was sat opposite, her eyes closed as she appeared to be meditating. Susan watched her for a moment, just enjoying the way the telepaths body moved as she breathed.
She quickly pushed aside those thoughts and walked into the room. Major Logan looked up as soon as Susan entered, and she looked almost relieved as she leapt to her feet and hurried over to Susan's side. G lancing down the other direction of the room Susan saw the rest of the Earthforce officers who had been at the party. They were playing a game with some kind of holographic chessboard, the tiny holographic creatures the board generated fighting each other as the players made moves. Alone on one side of the table was Dr. Kozlowski, while all the other Earthforce personal were busy handing out hints and suggestions to the lieutenant who was challenging the doctor.
"Dr. Kozlowski," she called out. "Time to go, the shuttle leaves as soon as we get on board."
The doctor looked up and nodded. To the cheers of the Earthforce officers, he conceded the game and walked over to Susan side. "I would have won," he said confidently as he joined her. "Another ten moves at the most."
Susan nodded, and had no doubt that he was telling the truth. "Sorry to take you away from your game doctor, but I have something important I need you to do tomorrow and I want you rested."
Kozlowski nodded and was about to reply when he noticed Talia walked slowly over to join them. So instead he kept his mouth shut and slipped the data crystal he had been about to give Susan back into his pocket, where it rest up against the strange sphere, whose function he was still trying to decipher. She didn't notice, her eyes instead focused on Talia.
"If we are all here then we should get on our way to the shuttle," Susan said, turning away from the telepath and walking briskly out of the room. The Major and Kozlowski followed closely after her, but Talia paused for a minute to allow a smile to come to her face. She glanced over at the Earthforce officers who were beginning another game.
"I would watch out if I were you," she said, pointing towards one of the new competitors, "He cheats." Then, making sure they saw the Psi-Corp badge pinned to her dress, she walked out of the room after the others, almost laughing aloud at the way it was so easy to manipulate the minds of normals. Behind her, the sound of an argument broke out, which only made her smile grow wider.
20:48, February 5, 2262.
The early morning desert stillness was broken suddenly by the throaty roar of powerful engines in the distance. Only one specimen of the native wildlife was about this early in the morning. It was large lizard about as long as a man's leg, and was known to the people of Proxima as a Gonna. The lizard looked up from the pool of water it had been drinking from as the noise of the engine reached it. Far off, but approaching quickly, it could see a three bright beams of light that cut through the semi-darkness like a knife. Frightened, the lizard scurried off to hide beneath the wonderful new home it had found during its nightly wanderings. Then, well hidden and safe, it poked its stalk-like eyes out to see what new monster was coming.
The monster in question turned out to be a massive beast made of similar material to it's new home. This new beast moved though, and the lizard could see its strange legs churning underneath it, throwing up sand in all directions. It came to a stop near the lizard's home, towering over it. The lizard hissed loudly in warning, but the beast did not seem to notice. Instead a mouth filled with light opened in it's side and two strange creatures climbed down onto the sands below.
The lizard watched as the first of the creatures pulled out a long, metal stick and poked it into the ground near his home. Before the lizard had a chance to wonder what these creatures were, what the stick was, or why they were here, it felt a sudden shock of pain pass through it. To stupid to run it just sat there and watched as the electric charge tore through its body and cooked it's tiny brain.
"Hey Moshi," Spike Richards called out to his partner. "Looks like we got ourselves a Gonna." He held up the slightly charred body of the lizard and waved it about happily, his mind already imagining the breakfast the lizard would make.
"Great," the other prospector replied. "Toss it in the back and we can cook it up later. I will just let off one more charge to make sure there are no worms around here and we can load this wreck on the back and get back and collect our pay."
Spike nodded and tossed the still smoking lizard into the back of the main cabin of the huge crawler. He and Moshi were one of the few prospectors left on Proxima, most of the mining companies now using cheap satellite technology to locate mineral deposits. Of course, no matter how good a satellite was it would never find everything, which is where the prospectors came in. Unfortunately, over the years the pickings had dropped off, so when the government had called and put out a call for someone to head out into the desert and pick up the wreckage of the crashed fighter, they had jumped at the chance and sped off into the night.
The two old prospectors had taken a chance and set out while it was still dark, hoping to beat the other crawlers to the site. Of course, this meant that they had to deal with the planets nightlife, including the dangerous Tooth Worm, which was a nasty predator that resembled a long earthworm with a sharp toothed mouth at either end of it's flexible body. It sensed the vibrations of anything walking on the surface and a pack of them could devour a man in a few minutes. Fortunately for the other creatures of Proxima, it kept to the sands where it could easily burrow through the loose material. Unfortunately for the prospectors, the sandy desert east of Gorbachev Dome was where they were right now.
Spike and Moshi had one of the new electrical charge generators though, as well as some good insulation on their feet and throughout their crawler. The devices send out a pulse of energy that travelled through the sand and rock in all directions for about fifty metres, frying the nervous systems of anything living. They were costly, but compared to the alternative, a very good investment. Most of the crawlers were equipped with them now, as no one really wanted to be caught out at night and eaten alive just because they wanted to save a few credits.
Another loud crack sounded across the desert as Moshi set off the second charge. This time nothing was found, not even another Gonna, the rather stupid, but common lizards that were found across the planet. No one knew exactly what they ate, but they seemed to breed like rabbits. They were good eating, although it was something of an acquired taste that had never really caught on offworld. The people of Proxima didn't mind though, and the lizard was one of the few forms of fresh meat available on the Planet, except for the artificial meat product that came out of the protein farms of course.
"The area seems clear enough for now," Moshi said as he came over to stand next to the crashed fighter. Looking down at the wreckage, he asked, "So what the hell do you think this is."
"I don't know," Spike replied. "But by the money the President is offering for its speedy return, it must be something important. If it weren't valuable, they wouldn't be paying us to pick it up, they would have just sent out one of their own crawlers."
Moshi knelt down and poked at the wreckage. "There doesn't seem to be a lot of damage," he said.
"What do you think happened to the pilot?" Spike asked as he turned on the hand spotlight he alway carried hanging from his belt. "They did warn us to look out for a pilot who might be roaming around here somewhere. Have you seen anyone around?"
Moshi scratched his greying beard and shrugged. "I didn't see any tracks. If you ask me, he is still inside, assuming there is a pilot of course. There doesn't look like there is much room."
"Do you want to have a look," Spike asked, shining the light over the hull of the fighter. Spying something interesting, he focused the light on that particular spot. "Look, there is a hatch, maybe we should open it up take a look."
Moshi followed the beam of light and saw what his partner was pointing out. "Ok Spike," he replied. "Keep the light steady and I will see if we can't get this thing open." The prospector shuffled over to the hatch and pulled an old fashioned screwdriver out of his tool belt.
"Don't tell me you are still using that old thing," Spike teased, just as he did every time Moshi insisted on using the old tool.
"Could never do without it," Moshi replied, jamming the screwdriver into what looked like the clasp for the hatch and twisting it upwards.
To the surprise of them both, the hatch opened smoothly and easily, exposing the interior of the fighter. Eager to discover what lay within, Spike hurried forward and shone his light into the exposed cavity. Instead of the expected cockpit and controls, there was a mass of electronics and wires.
"Wow," Spike said in amazement. "It looks like some sort of machine. Look that there is probably some sort of fancy central computer." He pointed at the large cluster of electronic chips and circuit boards that seemed to form the heart of the machine.
"Well I don't think we should mess about with it," Moshi said firmly, closing the hatch again. "At least not if we want the full payment. You go and start up the crane, while I go and radio the city to tell them we found their ship."
Spike nodded and went around to the back of the crawler, opening the panel that activated the crane. The heavy crane was usually used for lifting samples of ore to take back to the labs for testing, but it's motor could lift the small fighter just as well. Spike manoeuvred it into position above the fighter, while in the cabin Moshi switched on the communications system, sending the news of their find in to Gorbachev Dome.
Barely ten minutes later they were on their way back to the city, their crawler now hauling a surprisingly light fighter on the tray behind the main cabin.