Salvage
By
UCSBdad
Disclaimer: I'd love to salvage Castle, but it's gone. Rating: K Time: The future, after my story Shipwreck.
"What about all the people down there with King Ant?" Hastings asked. "Do you think they were all killed so he'd have slaves, or whatever, in the afterlife?"
Rick and Kate looked at each other.
"We'll probably never know." They said together.
Going back was much easier since they had already chopped a path through the jungle. That was until they got to where the grey wave had attacked them.
"Uh, oh." Rick said. "Scavengers, feasting on the bodies of all the animals we killed."
"Look at the size of them." Kate had seen a similar animal in a zoo on a planet she had visited when she was an engineer officer on a starship. The Earth animal was called an elephant. However, these animals were enormous compared to the elephant. And while the elephant had two huge, but rather blunt teeth sticking out of its mouth, these had four long teeth that looked more like gigantic swords. The Earth animal she'd seen had a very long, flexible nose. These also had a long flexible nose, but it split into four parts at the end, almost like a hand.
"They're busy eating." Rick said. "We'll back off an when they finish, we'll head back to the ship."
As Rick spoke, the largest of the beasts looked up and saw the humans. It gave off a loud braying snort and the other beasts, some six in number, also looked up. The whole herd began to lumber towards Rick and his party.
"Hell! Shoot at them." He ordered. "Those things are big enough to damage our walkers."
But the blaster fire did not good and just seemed to enrage the gigantic animals.
"Run for the stairs. They're too big to follow us."
And run they did, making it to the stairs just ahead of the leading animal. It shoved his snout into the opening and reached for the humans, but they were too far away. They fired again, and again there was no effect.
"I don't believe it." Rick yelled. "Those things can't possibly have grown a collapsium hide. It's biologically impossible."
"There are other ways to absorb or deflect blaster fire." LT said. "For instance, a liquid resinous matrix made of…"
"I don't care!" Rick yelled. "The damned things shouldn't be able to withstand blaster fire. They shouldn't."
"But they did, Babe. Don't worry about it. They'll finish eating and be on their way soon enough."
"I wonder why they attacked us." Hastings asked. "I mean they were eating when we got there."
"Maybe we look like their favorite treat." O'Connell said with a grin.
"Oh, boy. Canned humans. My favorite." Rick said sarcastically.
Espo edged a bit towards the opening.
"Most of them have left, but there are two hanging around, waiting for us."
It took another three hours, but the beasts finally left, and Rick's team headed back to their ship. This time they cut another path through the jungle. And they moved Lucy as soon as they got back aboard.
"Where to today?" Rick asked as Kate looked over her sensors.
"There's a good-sized neutrino source about three hundred klicks to the north, but it's really rough country. We may have to walk a bit."
It was rough indeed, but they couldn't walk.
"That's a warship all right." Kate said, looking at her viewscreen. "I can see at least two gun-turrets and a missile tube. The rest of its too overgrown with jungle to tell anything about it, but it could be the monitor we're looking for."
Rick looked at other readouts.
"There isn't any place to land for a really long way, and the ridges go almost straight up and down. A fall, even in a walker, of two or three hundred meters would kill you. How are we going to get to it?"
"I can hover over the ship and lower everyone with a rope and then climb down myself."
"How do we get back up?"
"I'll contact Lucy and tell her what to do."
He shook his head.
"Too dangerous. You stay with Lucy and make sure we get back up."
"Rick, I can…"
"Stay here. That's an order." He quickly added, "Please."
Lucy hovered about fifty meters over the wrecked ship and the five teammates slid down a rope to the ground.
No sooner had they landed and headed for the ship than several dozen humans attacked them. They were armed with nothing but spears with flint spearheads which bounced off of the walkers' collapsium armor.
"Don't shoot." Rick yelled. "They can't hurt us. Just shove them out of the way."
Rick shoved the man in front of him backwards, but the man attacked again, swinging a club at the walker's head. Rick kept pushing the man away and the man kept coming back. Rick grabbed the man with the "hand" of his walker and used the "tentacles" to pull the man's animal skin pants down. Then he squeezed the man's balls as gently as he could.
The man screamed and bent over, holding onto himself and staggered away. Rick hoped he'd done the man no permanent harm.
He looked around and saw O'Connell kicking a man in the butt hard enough to send him flying several meters. The rest of the humans were running away or on the ground groaning.
"Okay. Now we check out the ship.
Rick went through what had apparently been a cargo hatch and found himself confronted with a screaming woman, holding two small children behind her. He tried to tell her they meant no harm, but apparently, she didn't understand.
He was attacked again, this time by an elderly, grey haired woman who was wielding what looked like a cooking pot. The contents splattered over Rick's walker and the pot shattered.
"Really?" He said, pushing the old woman aside.
They began looking through the ship as women, children and the elderly fled in terror from them.
"Rick, I don't think this is the monitor we're looking for." Esposito said.
"Why not?"
"The writing on the door of this cabinet. It's in Jeeraweelii. They're aliens from off by Wandering and have a real navy. They're not pirates, so I doubt they have any treasure stashed around here."
"What the hell was a real navy doing on this place?" Rick demanded.
"Dunno." Espo said.
"Okay, we'll leave."
When they were back outside, they found one of the men was still on the ground. Hastings bent down to check him out.
"Rick, I think he's the one I hit with the barrel of my blaster cannon, and I think he may have a concussion, or maybe even a fractured skull."
"He did attack us, remember?"
"He's just a kid. Look at him and we were attacking their home. They live in this old ship."
Rick tried to be reasonable.
"We didn't attack them. We dropped down and they attacked us. Now we should…"
"No." Hastings said. "We'll take him back to Lucy and let the autodoc care for him. It won't take long."
"How will he…" Rick began.
"I'll carry him while Kate pulls me up,"
Seeing that arguing was futile, Rick agreed.
He told Kate what the new plan was, and she hauled them all up, including Hastings and the injured man.
Kate had the autodoc ready to go and Hastings put him in it.
"It's taking an awfully long time to diagnose him." Rick said after a half an hour.
"I'm sure it'll be…"
Before Hastings ended the sentence, the autodoc chirped and they all crowded around to see the results.
"He has a fractured skull, and ulcerations on his legs and arms, some kind of stomach bug, a badly healed fracture of the left wrist, and impacted wisdom tooth, a growth of some sort on one kidney, residuals of a bad burn on his left leg, and about a dozen other more minor problems." Rick said.
"The autodoc says it'll take about forty hours to heal him. This autodoc can't just heal one thing. It has to heal everything." Hastings replied.
"Suppose he wakes up and goes berserk and attacks someone? Or damages the bridge?"
"I'll squat here in my walker. Even if I fall asleep, he won't be able to move past me."
Rick gave up arguing.
"Okay, and I'll spell you so you can get some sleep."
"Me too." Added Kate.
The others all agreed to get in their walkers and keep their patient from getting out of the autodoc.
Thirty-eight hours passed and Hastings came to the autodoc in her walker and carrying a bag.
"What's in the bag?" Rick asked.
"A few things we have plenty of."
"Such as?"
"There's a machete with a collapsium coated blade, a couple of regular knives, a saw, a hammer and chisel, a box of steel nails, a steel canteen and a few odds and ends. I thought he could use them."
Rick just sighed.
"Okay, but just in case he goes nuts when he wakes up and grabs the hammer and swings at someone or something, I want everyone in their walkers when he's awake."
He awoke and was peacefully taken back to the surface of the planet by Hastings. She stayed for a few minutes and showed him the things she was giving him. Then she was pulled back up and Lucy flew away.
"I bet if we come back in a hundred years, we'd find a cathedral there, or at least a church." Espo said.
"Why?" Hastings asked.
"This is how religions start. Our boy, what's his name…"
"George." O'Connell said.
"George?" Espo said." How do you know he's named George?"
"He looks like a George. In fact, he looks more like a George than any George I've ever met."
"Okay, George, has just had an experience he can't explain by any rational explanation he can think of, so his mind turns to the irrational. As he sees it the metal sky gods came down and fought his people. George didn't run away, proving to the metal sky gods that he was worthy. They took him into the sky, healed him and gave him all sorts of magical tools. Then they sent him back to his people to spread the word of the metal sky gods. And a new religion is born."
"Could be." Hastings said.
"Could be? It's happening like that right now."
"Okay, we've founded a new religion, but we have a mission, people. Let's find another ship." Castle broke in.
"I wouldn't mind being worshipped as a god, especially by women. If only the ones on the ship weren't so grubby and hairy." O'Connell said.
It took the rest of the day to get to the next ship, so they decided to get a good night's sleep and come back in the morning.
"There's a damned village around that ship." Castle said as they circled high above it.
"It's sure not a monitor. The damned thing's a near perfect sphere. Do you think the villagers are the crew, or their descendants?"
Kate brought up a close up on her sensor screen. The villagers were tall, skinny and yellow skinned, wearing baggy homespun clothing and very wide brimmed hats.
"It's probably a merchant ship." LT said. "A sphere covers the most amount of space for the size of the hull. More economical. There could be something worthwhile inside. We can look at it, maybe."
"Okay." Rick said. "The locals don't look like much of a threat. If they get nasty, we'll leave. And Kate will stay with Lucy, okay?"
Kate stuck her tongue out at him but stayed on the bridge.
Kate landed Lucy just outside the village.
The villagers ran for cover, but as the five humans in their walkers headed to the village, five locals came out, waving some sort of flowers.
"Flowers?" Espo asked.
"Could mean anything from we're going to kill you and cover you in flowers to welcome, brothers. And a lot in between."
TBC