by M. Shaunessy
“But what if something goes wrong?” Tygla wondered, “I mean, if Uno did not survive, what makes you think we would?”
“You let me worry about that, ok sweetheart,” Mike assured her as he touched Tygla’s chin, gave her a peck on the lips and smiled.
“I’m just worried of what might happen if we don’t make it back,” she said awkwardly.
“Tygla, I’ve been doing this kind of stuff when Justin and I left the orphanage,” said Mike, “I know what I’m doing. Hey, you trust me right?”
“Yes,” she replied smiling remembering last night when she asked that same question.
“Then trust my instincts, they are never wrong,” Mike assured her.
Maybe Mike is right Tygla thought. What could go wrong? Before they kissed again Justin entered and interrupted them, “Well, we got three hours before we get there. Mike, are you sure about this?”
“Are you having second thoughts too?” Mike questioned looking to him.
“No,” Justin replied, “I’m just thinking if this junk pile will protect us from the Empire's attacks, if they attack. And you promised Morgan that you return the Star Hawk in one piece, remember?”
“Don’t worry, if you and Morgan fixed this bird correctly we should be fine,” Mike assured him, “You did fix everything before we left, right?”
“Of course, I just wish CRAIG was here,” Justin thought.
“Well, you know there's only room in here for three,” Mike replied, “But don’t fret, he’s with Xman.” Justin and Tygla gave a worried look on their faces as Mike added, “Trust me, if we don't make it back, we still have the Thunder Claw and the Rebirth to dig us out, so we’re covered.”
It may reassure Tygla and Justin, but not himself. Something was not right, he did not know what, but he had a gut feeling that Drax had something up his sleeve. He did not know Drax personally, but he knew that was a devious humanoid. Justin looked at the screen on Mikes pad and asked, “What’s that?”
“Uno’s flight plan,” Mike replied. “I got it off of my dad’s memory stick.”
Justin smiled, “You finally decided to take look at that thing huh?”
“Yeah, and I think it will help us on this mission,” Mike said.
Back on Hades, Drax was growing impatiently. He needed to know what that power was and where it was coming from. From what Hiss told him, the negative energy was more powerful than three black holes put together. It was something that he wanted.
“Commander Hiss,” the scanning officer spoke, “We have found something.”
Hiss, after receiving the information, he and Lieutenant Tila hurried into Drax’s quarters and reported, “My lord, the sscanning officcer hass finally found sssomething intressting.”
“What?” Drax inquired.
“The scanners have found some old ruins in the tropical section of the planet,” Tila responded.
“Interesting,” Drax remarked. This could be what he was waiting for, “Very interesting. Assemble a recon team. We’re going down.”
“On the planet?!” Hiss exclaimed, “Issn’t that dangerouss? You sssaw what happened when we got clossse.”
Drax replied, “Then we better find a way to use that negative energy to power our ships.”
“I’ll have the engineersss come up with sssomething,” Hiss replied.
“Good”
“Your team will be ready asss sssoon asss you’re ssset,” Hiss told him. Drax nodded.
“Do you mind if I joined the party?” Tila asked.
Drax smiled to her and answered, “Not at all my dear.” Hiss and Tila then went back to the bridge. Drax has heard of ruins on Earth that summoned great power. If this ruin can do the same, he thought of the possibilities.
The Star Hawk finally arrived at their destination. They were in micro sights of the planet, as the crew got set. Mike placed his hands over the cloning bar and push it slowly up as he remarked, “Here we go.”
Justin checked his computer and said, “Nothing happened.”
“Say what?!” Mike exclaimed as he and Tylga looked over. He then tried again and still it did not work. He was getting worried, so was everyone else. He looked to his friend, “I thought you said you fixed everything?”
“Mike what happened?” Tygla asked.
“I did!” Justin replied as he started to get up, “There must be loose wire I’ll get it.”
Mike blocked him with his hand and said friendly, “No I’ll get.”
He got up and as Justin wondered, “You sure?”
“What are friends for, come on Tygla, I might need your help,” he said as they left the cockpit.
They went down to the lower level into the engine room and went over to a box on the wall where the cloaking device was. He opened up a panel and looked inside. He have found the problem, a wire did come loose while they took off. “Can you hand me that soldering gun over there?”
Tygla went over to the tool chest and not knowing what tools are which, she grabbed something quickly and gave it to Mike.
“Uh, this is a screwdriver sweetheart,” Mike acknowledged, “I asked for a soldering gun. Its right next to pliers, it looks like a laser.”
“Sorry,” Tygla said embarrassingly, as she handed him the gun, “I’m new to all this.”
“It’s ok, you’ll learn,” Mike said as she smiled.
Mike then took the disabled wired carefully without shocking himself in one hand and he held the soldering gun in his other. He asked Tygla to hold the solder material as he melted it on the wires. Sweat began to drip from his forehead, but whipped it off as he was done.
“It was just a loose wire. TRY IT NOW JUSTIN!” he yelled.
Justin pushed the bar up then they heard wobbling sound and he check the display, he acknowledged, “We got it!” Mike and Tygla raced back into the cockpit and Justin said, “Just like my favorite burger, it disappears faster than the eye.”
Mike snickered at his comment and thrust the ship forward to full speed. They saw a green and dismal planet before them. They also saw the huge star behind it. Justin looked at his scopes and saw the star was a super red giant class. He added that they were a few thousand miles away from it. As it got bigger, Mike saw the Hades just to the right of it. He held his breath and wished that his plan would work.
“I hope the Empire doesn’t find us out,” Justin remarked.
“Well, just keep on jamming their frequency with your Ghost Shield,” Mike retorted, “and we’ll be fine.”
Meanwhile on the bridge of the Hades, the scanning officer noticed something weird on his display. For a second he thought he saw another ship in the scopes, but the blip disappeared.
“Captain?” The officer said curiously, “Our long range sensors just picked up a small space craft, and then all of a sudden it disappeared.”
Captain Tah, wonder if that was Xman returning just as Drax predicted. He walked over and asked, “Hyper Flight?”
“No sir, no energy trail was detected,” the scanning officer replied.
“Check the readings, including life signs,” Tah commanded, “He will not hide when I am around.”
The officer looked to his screen and typed a few hexagonal keys. The readings came back as little to zero percent.
“Nothing sir,” he said to Tah.
Tah did not like this. What game was Xman playing this time? He then thought what it if he had new anti-scanning system in his ship.
“Check any energy discharge,” he ordered.
The officer nodded and went back to work, he pressed a few more buttons on his console and saw that there were some energy partial discharged. He told Tah and he was pleased. No one can pull the wool over his eyes, he thought.
“Arm all weapons and fire on that partial discharge,” Tah commanded.
The Star Hawk was just passing the huge menace battleship quietly hoping that all goes well. They saw another ship, a Xatu shuttle actually. It departed the hull and headed to the planet. Mike commented t
hat it was probably was Drax and they did have not much time left. Suddenly, without warning, the Hades’ gunners started to fire on the rustic ship as it headed for the planet below. One the laser bolts hit the back of the ship damaging the engines a bit. The Star Hawk was going out of control. Suddenly, the lights and power suddenly turned off. Justin tried pushing buttons and switches like a maniac, but the controls were dead. Mike tried to maneuver the ship, but his flight stick would not cooperate with him. It was as if someone turned the power off on the entire ship.
“Where’s our power!” Justin exclaimed.
“I don’t know! Just brace your selves for emergency landing! Tygla hold on to something honey!” Mike warned as Tygla grabbed the back of Mike’s chair and screamed franticly.
The ship fell like a shooting star in the sky as it was on fire. It laid a trail of smoke longer than the planet’s equator. Mike pulled the flight control bar to manual analog drive. He had to maneuver the ship so it would not melt them and destroy the ship. He pulled the flight stick back as far as it went with all of his strength. The hull rattled and started to heat up. Mike tried, but they crashed landed in a heavily dense forest, and then it skimmed across a large swampy pond where it sat and sizzled. Fortunately, the crew in side was alive. Mike was impressive that hull didn’t crack. Mike moved a bit but he was going unconscious.
Chapter 12
Meeting Uno Pu’Do
On the planet’s surface, the crew of the Star Hawk got their senses together. Mike opened his eyes again and saw that Justin was wiggling to get out of his chair.
“Trust me eh?” Justin remarked as we was trying to get up.
Mike looked around and asked, “Is everyone ok?” Justin nodded as Mike saw Tygla still unconscious and blood trickling from her forehead. He quickly unbuckled he seat belt, got out of the chair and aided her. “Oh my god, Tygla!” Mike said fearfully. He was wishing that she were still alive. Mike could not live with himself if anything happened to her. Xman would be furious as well as her father, if she had died. He grabbed a clean white cloth that was on the floor and whipped some of the blood off, then put pressure on it. Mike checked her pulse and concluded, “Thank god, she’s still alive. Help me with her.” Mike was then relieved.
Justin grabbed her legs as Mike lifted her shoulders. They got Tygla out of the ship and placed her down on the soft grassy knoll. Mike took the first aid cloth again that he got from the Star Hawk and placed it on her forehead.
She then finally opened her eyes and commented weakly, “Did we make it?”
Mike smiled, nodded, and kissed her tenderly, “For a minute there I thought I lost you.”
She smiled back and inquired dazedly, “I’m still here aren’t I?”
Justin looked at the ship. It was sinking in the shallow swamp water as he commented unpleasantly, “Yeah, but now we’re stuck here. Sheriff Morgan is gonna kill us. How could the ship’s power go off like that?”
“I don’t know. See if you can get it back on line, and don’t worry about the sheriff, he’ll understand. ”
“And what about my brother,” Tygla added in holding the cloth on her forehead, “You said you would call him if anything came up.”
“Right,” Mike returned.
“I think this a perfect time to call him,” Justin said as he headed toward the ship. He checked the digital radio and ship’s power, but for them, unfortunately it was dead. He walked back out and reported to Mike and Tygla, “Guys, we got a problem. I tried to reroute the power systems, nothing. It’s like someone drained the ship’s power. Even the fuel cells are drained. We’re stuck here.”
“Maybe not, remember that ship that departed from Hades,” Mike said.
“The one that was heading down here too?” Justin questioned.
“Yep,” Mike answered.
“You’re not suggesting that we hitch a ride with the Empire?” Justin commented unsurely.
“I don’t think we have a choice?” Mike said.
“Well, what if their power system failed too?” Justin wondered, “Hey do you think this why Uno never made it back?”
Mike answered, “It’s a possibility. All right first things first. Let’s just unload the supplies we have and find that other ship.”
What was worse they had little supply to survive. They did not even know where they were. Mike attended to Tygla’s wound, while Justin tried to get their bearings. They looked around and saw that the planet’s vegetation was almost jungle like, but more dense. The air they breathed smelled much richer than any other planet, almost pure. They heard squawks of birds as they looked up. They now know that the planet was habitable, but what kind of animals.
If the pilot had not miscalculated on trying to land the shuttle in the right position, Drax would have taken the power by now. He was not happy that he had to land in a dark mucky swamp. The Xatu engineers tried their best to reconvert the negative energy, but it did not go smoothly as Drax had planned. He and Tila as well as few soldiers trudged through the mucky waters.
“Tila, remind me to execute the ship’s engineers once we get off this retched planet,” Drax commented.
“Yes my lord,” She replied smiling to herself about Drax’s comment.
“Sergeant?”
“Yes my lord?” the Xatu soldier replied.
“How far are we from the site?” Drax asked.
“It’s hard to tell sir.”
“Hard?”
“The scanning equipment is not working,” He hesitated. He did not like telling bad news to Drax. “I’m afraid that we may be lost.”
Drax growled at that thought then said, “Well then, I am sure you Xatu are prepared at wilderness survival training?”
“Yes sir, don’t worry, we’ll find that temple.”
“I hope you do for your sake,” Drax said as the sergeant scouted ahead.
After Xman made contact with the Rebirth and told them their situation, Xman tried to contact Mike, but it was no use, as they did not respond. Xman did not like this, as his father instructed him to go and find Mike, Justin and Tygla. It was not before too long the Thunder Claw finally reached the system. They found it by the Star Hawk’s Hyper Flight trail. CRAIG checked his scopes, but could not find any trace of the Star Hawk. Not that he did not trust Mike, but after what happened to Uno, he did not want to take any chances that they were was floating out there in space or worse. On the far end of the Uno System Xman and CRAIG was waiting in his ship. Mike said that they would contact them when they were ready. They noticed that the Hades was orbiting at a safe distance. CRAIG scanned the area and did not locate the Star Hawk on the scope. This worried Xman.
“Where are they?” Xman asked worryingly.
CRAIG replied, “I don’t know, they are not on the scopes. They must have cloaked themselves.”
He did not like that. Xman wanted to know what was going on. He decided to call them on his secured COM once more, “Mike...” No one answered he called, “Mike, this is Xman, do read me?” Still no response. He frowned and said uneasily, “Something’s wrong.”
“Maybe it’s a glitch in their auditory system,” CRAIG suggested.
“I doubt it,” Xman returned. “I think it’s time to go in.”
“Go In? Our orders were to stay until Mike responds.” CRAIG informed Xman, “Besides, do you know our chances of surviving a whole armada imperial fleet by ourselves?”
“I don’t care,” Xman shot back as he thrust his engines, “Mike’s in trouble. I think he needs us now.”
Hiss was now the temporary commander for Hades. When he had gotten reports of a cloaked ship passing their sensors, he was furious. He told them that they were lucky that Drax was not there to hear this, as he would have them killed. He tried to call him on the radio, but he did not receive anything. It was dead. He then got worried. What if he died in that crash he saw before? Just then, an officer who was monitoring the radar screen saw another ship coming in from the southeast below the y-axis. He had to b
e on the bridge as he relived Captain Tah form his duties.
“Commander Hiss,” an officer reported, “There’s another ship approaching.”
“What it’ss classs?”
“A Felinoron fighter ship.”
“How many?” Tah asked.