He stepped back as she frantically struggled to get out of the bag. “It’s all right. We have come to rescue you, Miss Uterra!”
She got out of the bag and moved away towards the edge of the clearing, turning around in panic. With fear in her eyes she looked at him and asked in a trembling voice, “Who… Who are you?”
“I am Brigadier Henry Broncon, and this is Kir.”
Kir came closer to the fire and when Diana saw her dark eyes she screamed, terrified, and looked all around. “You’re with him!”
“What are you talking about?” Henry asked, surprised.
Diana was totally frantic with fear. She screamed hysterically, “Where are the monsters? Where have you hidden them?”
“But there are no…”
Now markedly angry, Kir shouted in her icy voice, “Enough of this!”
Diana fell silent, and Kir turned to Henry. “I think she’s gone mad. It isn’t clear how she stayed alive on this planet with that mighty Being.”
Who the hell is she to call me mad? Thought Diana and snapped back, “I haven’t gone mad. I am fine. What are you, some kind of psychiatrist to tell me I’m mad? I only thought you were that damn Being that has chased me across the desert.”
Kir’s laughed, “Now it seems that she hasn’t gone mad, after all.”
Henry took a couple of steps towards Diana. “Miss Uterra, your grandfather sent us to get you out of here. You needn’t be afraid of the Being anymore.”
“Why are you walking around without spacesuits? The Being will kill you.”
Kir and Henry looked at each other, and he added, “The Being isn’t able to get the edge of the crater for some reason and that’s why we came here. As to the suit, you’ll have to explain that to us in detail.”
Diana was totally exhausted, and her whole body was shivering. She had no strength to explain anything. “Can we delay it until later?”
“It’s clear that we can, but first I’d like to take you to the main camp.”
“It is all right. Just let me pick up my things.” After short moment Diana approached him to shake his hand. “Sorry for being so rude. I’ve been terror-stricken by that Being.”
“Now, now, you don’t need to apologize. You deserve some rest and then we’ll talk more about the Being. Let’s go to the camp.”
While she was shaking hands with Kir, Henry furled up her sleeping bag, and then he threw some sand on the fire to put it out, picked up her rucksack and turned on his flashlight. “We can move now.”
*
“Commander, Major Vallery has just called in. They found the fallen fighter,” Colburn reported to Henry as soon as they landed.
He anxiously asked, “Has anybody survived the crash?”The Sergeant shook his head.
“Unfortunately nobody, but some equipment could be retrieved.”
“Hmm… Have their bodies been brought back to be buried with military honours?”
“Yes, Sir!”
Henry looked towards Diana, who was still in her space suit, and ordered Colburn, “Also, get some water and a shower ready for Ms. Uttera.”
Diana looked at him and said, “Thank you, Brigadier! I dreamed about a shower the whole time I was in the desert.”
“You are welcome. I am still curious about your suit story. Surely you couldn’t have crossed the desert in much comfort your suit.”
“After some time you get used to it,” Diana commented, getting out of the fighter.
She saw Miura Weng, John Stronghill, and Mark Bontovic, who were playing chess and argued about the last move Mark had made. For a moment they stopped and looked at Diana with interest, and then they continued playing. Diana was very surprised for, although they were in uniform, they didn’t look like soldiers. “Your men don’t behave like soldiers.”
Henry laughed. “It’s true. They have had only brief military training by Sergeant Colburn, but nevertheless in most sense they still remain the prisoners they are.”
“Prisoners sent to save me?”
“Yes, the Sergeant, Major Vallery, and I are the only active military personnel here. All the rest of them are captives from Hades.”
“Jesus!”
“You needn’t be afraid. They are here to rescue you and they seemed to have done a good job in finding you, so far.”
“Aren’t there enough commandos in the army that you had to get captives to save me?”
“Three crews had been sent. Two of them disappeared in Absolute and the third…”
She interrupted him. “They and two of my friends were killed by the Being.”
“You’re lucky that we have come. If it hadn’t been for your grandfather, we surely wouldn’t be here.”
“Why?”
Kir appeared from the other side of the fighter. “Supreme Headquarters wanted to give up on the mission because many commandos were lost,” she said, “but your grandfather made them let this crew try it. In fact, we were going to come and rescue you from the desert before the third crew, but they were sent anyway, regardless of the fact that we had prepared ourselves for longer at the training camp at Astasan. If that crew had succeeded we would have been sent back to Had, but nevertheless, we are here, and they are dead, unfortunately.”
Diana sighed and confirmed her words, “It’s true. They are all dead. The Being has no mercy and leaves nobody living, not even tiny creatures.”
“You mean, you didn’t find any animals in the desert?” Henry asked amazed.
“Absolute and the desert are literally dead. The first animal I saw was here in the crater. The Being has been destroying every living form, but still, it isn’t clear to me how the animals in the crater survived.”
Kir came closer. “He can’t enter the crater, something prevents him.”
“But what might that be?” Diana asked, surprised.
“That’s what we have to discover.”
Henry interrupted their conversation. “I’m sorry, but Diana should get some rest. Tomorrow morning we’ll have a talk about the things we’re interested in. Kir, please, take her to the depot to find a clean uniform and anything she needs.”
Kir looked at him with dissent but she didn’t say much; she only smiled at him cynically and said, “Yes, Sir!”
Diana watched them for a moment. What a strange pair? But her thoughts she kept to herself and said, “Commander, I’d be thankful if you could inform my grandpa that you have found me.”
“Don’t you worry about that? He’ll be informed. I’ll take it upon myself personally.”
“Thank you.”
After that she turned to Kir and said, quite exhausted, “Now I really need a long shower.”
“I think that all has been arranged. Follow me.”
Henry watched them as they went towards the small shower tent. Finally, Diana took off her space suit and helmet, and her blonde hair fell onto her shoulders. At that moment Colburn appeared like a ghost at Henry’s side, watching Kir and Diana. “The General’s granddaughter is very beautiful,” he said.
Henry smiled and tapped him on his back. “It seems to me that somebody has a good taste; is this love?”
Though they were only standing under a faint light, Henry noticed how his face turned a distinct reddish color. Colburn almost snapped back Henry, “Commander… I think… that you’ve… got it all wrong!”
“Apologies in that case. Of course…” Henry was having fun at Colburn’s expense and let out a hearty laugh.
“Henry!” Colburn yelled, for a moment forgetting whom he was speaking to.
“A charming young lady has done what a Brigadier couldn’t… Hmmm…Case study for our military college…” Henry continued with the teasing tirade.
He pushed him aside with his hand, walked into his tent, “Anyways, I’ve got better things to do than argue with you.”
The embarrassed, Sergeant followed Henry to his tent. Henry laughed and added, “The serious sergean
t has come back. Do I have to stand to attention?”
Colburn turned towards him with a smile on his face said. “That wouldn’t be a bad idea.”
“You know that I would do anything for you.”
“I don’t doubt that.”
“And maybe I can be your best man at your wedding?”
“Henrryyy…..”
*
An hour later, when Vallery arrived with her crew, they assembled in the command tent. After Henry had checked the list, she had handed over to him, he said with a sense of resignation of having lost some precious lives, “That’s all that you have managed to save?”
“Unfortunately, we weren’t able to save more than that – crew were charred beyond recognition and the rest of the equipment was totally destroyed in the crash.”
Henry had an uneasy tingle running down his spine, “Aurelia and Randy gone?”
Vallery’s face grew a bit serious, “We found them in their pilot seats. Something butchered them badly. If not for the unfortunate attack, they probably could have saved themselves and not got caught in the ensuing fire. The fire charred them.”
While they were talking, they heard Diana’s voice. “The Being did that when they fell into the storm cloud.”
They all turned around, and Endy Van de Mort commented without much ado about mannerism befitting a gentleman, “If I had known that the General’s granddaughter was such a beauty I would have gone to rescue her myself.”
“Endy, you’d better shut your snout!” Colburn yelled angrily.
“It’s all right, Sergeant, I know how to take care of myself.” Assholes like him I met a lot of times in my life. Diana turned to Endy and continued in her icy voice, “Endy, if you had been with me in the desert the Being would have swallowed you a long time ago. He doesn’t forgive anybody; you would be only another butchered victim. I saw what it did to my friends. It was a horrible sight.” She came nearer to him and leaned her hand on his chest, looking him directly in the eyes. “You aren’t bad, but…” She hit him right between the legs, and he bowed over and grabbed his groin, “…but you’ve got a big problem, because you think with what’s down there, not up here. That isn’t exactly commendable!”
Henry had to recognize that she had courage; it wasn’t easy to take a stand against a huge bear like Endy. While they were all laughing and Endy writhing in pain, Henry asked, “Diana, could you tell us some more about the Being?” Everyone just ignored Endy.
Diana turned towards him and nodded. “I can, but I don’t know how much it will help you.”
“Any detail is good to get our grey matter going.”
“Well then, I’ll tell you what I know and what I have seen. I just have to get something.”
She went back to the entrance of the tent, picked up a small package and laid it on the desk before Henry. “This suit saved my life. If it weren’t for this, I wouldn’t be alive, and you wouldn’t see me here.”
Henry rubbed his chin. He vas joining the dots in his mind, ‘This is what we need. Kir was right when she said that we would get the information we need. This surely no one knew.’ He then said after observing the suit, “That means first we have to get space suits like these.”
“That’s right. The Being isn’t able to see us when we have the suit on.”
At that moment John Stronghill, known as Brain, broke his silence for the first time since coming from Hades. They all looked at him with surprise. His grim face dotted with numerous scars ensured that everyone was curious about him and his past. He looked at Henry and checking himself before speaking said, “The suit conceals the heat and energy emitted by the human body. Probably that is why he is unable to pick them up when suited up. I think there could be a similar reason why the Being can’t cross over the edge of the crater – something prevents him.” He threw two small, black, glittering stones onto the desk. “Since we landed here I’ve been thinking about why he isn’t able to cross the edge of the crater. These stones are the answer to that. I’ll show you. Beny, give me the knife!” Beny took out his knife from his belt and handed it over without a word. John took one of the small stones and put it by the compass on the handle of the knife. The magnetic arrow which usually showed north began to turn around like mad. “This is the main reason that we have a bad connection with our cruiser in orbit and why the Being can’t get into the crater: the crater is full of these meteor stones.”
Henry took another stone from the desk and carefully studied the black stone in disbelief and said, “I’m pleased these stones exist in the crater, and I have to thank Kir once more for directing us to this place.”
Kir, standing next to Diana, was turning her head and massaging her neck and thinking to herself, ‘You finally realize that my information was correct.’ Then with a painful grimace on her face, she got a bit serious, “In this crater, I have such headaches. At some moments I think that my head will explode. This magnetic cage we are in is full of magnetic oscillations, and it exhausts me. Still, I’m able to feel any new attempt by the Being to cross the edge of the crater.”
Henry was surprised by this statement and asked Kir, “Is he trying to cross it?”
‘Do you doubt that Henry? He would be happy to destroy us, together with the crater.’ Kir dismissed those thoughts, she sighed and said to him, “Yes, he has tried it many times but he’s had such a painful experience each try that I myself have felt it. He’s raging outside.”
Henry gazed towards the eastern part of the crater, which could be seen through the wide-open entrance of the tent. Bluish sparks flickered on and off in places. Before he could ask a question, Kir said, “Yes, that’s him, but now he is trying less and less often. He knows that we’re here in a trap, and he is closing it by raising a huge sand wall around the crater.”
Diana, who was listening carefully to the conversation, got involved because she wanted to hear her opinion, “Without these clothes we won’t be able to leave this crater. How do you intend to get more of these?”
Henry thought for a moment and responded, “We’ll call the command cruiser and have the suits sent to us. But what is so special about these suits that the Being isn’t able to perceive humans within them?”
For a moment Diana looked at the suits on the table and answered, “I don’t know. These suits were new products and they had to protect us from the radiation and other toxic elements that were revealed by the satellite images and recordings of Absolute, before we had planned to land.”
Henry was surprised by her response because he thought that Diana had something deliberately planned to escape the Being. However, the conversation so far did not appear to be so. He took the suit and felt it over, “So it was just a coincidence that you were saved from the Being.”
Diana sighed recalling the days when she was with her friends wearing the suit. “Maybe luck or God saved us. We weren’t attacked as soon as we landed. The Being, for some reason waited ten days and then attack. On that tenth day, I descended with a group of colleagues into the tunnels under Absolute. It was then that we put on the suits for the first time, and I didn’t take mine off until I came today, into your camp. While we were underground, the Being killed everyone in the camp.”
‘What was the reason for the wait?’ Henry asked himself. He then leaned his hands on the table and asked Diana, “The Being attacked you only on the tenth day? Why?”
“I don’t know. Maybe he was studying us.”
He sat up and rubbed his hand over his chin and dissatisfied with the answer, felt that he somehow knew lot lesser about this Being, than before. “That could be the case. And what happened once you came out from the underground tunnel?”
She was in tears, “My assistant Aron, Aron Koler, saw the boy.”
“What boy?”
“The Being materializes as a boy.” She paused for a moment to clean her throat. “When Aron took his helmet off it immediately felt him and soon after killed him.”
&
nbsp; “How come you didn’t take off your helmet?”
She was furious at the cross-questioning, especially on the events around the Being, which she was so desperately to forget. ‘You get on my nerves with the military examining Mr. Brigadier. I’m not a prisoner like your team.’ Diana calmed herself and said, “I saw Aron’s head fly onto the stony ground, and creatures from my nightmare butchered him. I was in shock, like my friends. Do you think that I was thinking about taking off my helmet then? We weren’t soldiers; we were just researchers.”
Henry realized that he had probably stressed her with questioning, “Sorry, it wasn’t my intention to tire you but your answers will help us trying to figure out how to make it out of this planet. Hope, I can have few more questions…… that is, if you are able to take it.”
Diana wiped away her tears and said, “Excuse my reaction but the memories of all the friends I lost there are too heavy and still fresh in my mind. Please go ahead with your question. I think the best service to them and to all your team members is to get every possible question answered.”
“How did you find yourself in the desert?”
“When we comprehended that the Being couldn’t see us, I tried to contact anyone to rescue us, but while I was sending a call for help, the Being almost killed me. At the last moment, I escaped. After that, we tried to leave the planet by the transporter, but we didn’t succeed, even though we sent another transporter as bait in the opposite direction. The Being soon overturned the bait transporter and dashed after us. The single remaining thing to try was to land in the desert. It was lucky that we had brought enough food and equipment and the transmitters through which we sent the SOS signals so you could find us.”
“Unfortunately, it was disastrous for our commandos and your friends.”
She watched him sadly and concluded, “Honestly, we did not know how powerful the Being was; we just tried to escape from the planet. But only I am still alive.”
“Thank you for all those detail.”
She only nodded. “I wish all this hadn’t happened.”
“I am sure you do.” Henry said with a bit of sympathy. “Unfortunately we don’t know much more about the Being, but still, we have found out that we can hide in these suits. Now we have a way to protect ourselves from the Being. But how do we protect the transporters and the fighters?”
Godeena: SF Novel Page 22