by DN Farrell
Within a few minutes, the sand dune vehicle, with its five Incenotopian crew members, arrived on the scene and over the course of the next few minutes, they would rip out anything which had not been nailed down in the pod. They also rummaged through the remains of Samuels, taking his blaster rifle and anything else they deemed of value. Kell could not understand their dialect, as they were speaking in a local dialect, which made for a warbling kind of sound. By nature they seemed to have very expressive bodily movements and noisy conversations, but when they saw the torn apart body of Samuels, it seemed to stir some surprise in them. Obviously they had never been on the planet Exocon before, Kell concluded, and then they all jumped into their vehicle and were off again and Kell knew where they would go.
Once they had covered a few hundred yards, kell started a fast jog behind them, feeling pretty sure that if they looked back, that they wouldn't notice a tan brown marine suit running across an orangy brown planetary surface. A few minutes later they stopped at the wreck of the Landing craft, busily looking for salvageable items. As Kell came closer, he slowed down his pace and finally he came to a stage, whereby he got down on his belly and started crawling towards the Incenotopian bandits.
Once Kell was about one hundred yards away from them, he saw his opportunity, as all the bandits where busy taking apart whatever remained of the Landing craft, which was now filled with the scattered body parts of the crew, who the giant worms had obviously eaten the night before.
Kell took of his helmet and reaching inside, he pulled out its homing signal chip, which was planted into all marine helmets, to help with the location of the marines, if perchance they end up getting lost or left behind. Kell then took out his laser rifle and placed the homing beacon chip onto a sling like structure, which was attached to the bottom part of his rifle. This structure was designed to fire projectiles, such as homing beacons and even hand grenades, if need be.
Kell wanted to place the beacon on the back of their dune buggy, but one of the bandits was happily sitting in the driver's seat. Kell waited patiently for another couple of minutes, then one of the bandits signalled the driver to come and help them move a large sheet of Induranium shielding, which they had been able to take of off the side of the ship. Kell then lined up his sights and the projectile launcher made an almost inaudible "shhhuu" sound as it launched the beacon, a second or so later a soft thud sound was heard, as the beacon, which kell had wrapped in a special adhesive, which he carried in his suits tool box, hit home. Some of the bandits heard it and looked around for a second, meanwhile kell kept his head low in the sand. Then they ignored it and went back to their business.
Kell put his helmet back on and waited quietly for another twenty minutes or so, while the Incenotopians finished their work and then they were on their way heading back towards the town of Exejet. Kell lay in the sand for another few minutes to be on the safe side, before he started a gentle jog back towards the town.
As suspected, by the time he had reached the town, the Incenotopians had picked up the pieces of the communications center, which they had dismantled and left in a heap in the town square. Kell walked over to the pod, which was a little difficult to find, as it was invisible, but eventually while moving slowly across the terrace, with his hands out in front of him, he bumped into it with a soft thud. Reaching in and deactivating the invisibility cloak, he sat inside the pod and initiated the homing beacon, and then spent another half an hour watching the dune buggy slowly make its way across the desert, until it finally stopped at one spot, twenty six kilometers east of the town of Exejet.
Since they appeared to land somewhere in a due east direction, about forty kilometers away, they must have stopped by another burnt out ship. kell waited for half an hour, to see if they would move again, then an hour went by, at which stage Kell was confident that they had found something which was very interesting to them.
He synchronized his left wrist direction finder, to the pods beacon scanning frequency and started jogging out towards the site, where the Incenotopians had stopped off. He ran fairly quickly, at about sixty kilometers per hour, only slowing down once he was a few kilometers away from the site, then once again as he got closer and closer, he started walking slowly. They were only a kilometer away apparently, but he could not see them. Then arriving at the top of a big sand dune, he looked down and there right in front of him was a large crashed rebel ship, with the bandits busily at work gutting it. But this was obviously their big prize, for the ship was a couple of hundred yards in length and looked like it was intact, save for its dead crew, who were strewn here and there, although as yet the big worms had not found them.
For safety sakes, kell got down on his belly and using the binocular function in his helmet, he could zone in and could see the bandits busily at their work. Then the wind started blowing and there was a heavy vibration, as their ship was coming over to the landing site. Kell just buried his head in the sand and hoped that they would not notice him. For a minute or so a big gale blew and sand was sprayed conveniently over Kells suit, burying him completely and thus preventing his been seen by the Incenotopians ship, which landed just besides the bandits. There was a whoosing roar of the engines and then all was quiet, accept for a turbine sound as the electromagnetic engine of a mark IV saucer came to a grinding halt.
Kell lifted his head up and took a look. "A Mark IV saucer!"He exclaimed, "Did they even make them anymore?" A beautiful piece of classical space engineering, but practically an antique at this stage, the Mark IV was one of the larger types of saucers, being over one hundred and fifty feet in diameter and as tall as a four story house. Kell looked down and saw several vehicles coming out of the saucer and realized that they would stay at this point for at least another day, as there was a lot of salvaging going on in that ship.
He started to observe the comings and goings of the various bandits and after a few hours, he came to the conclusion that there were about a dozen or so bandits on the ground. In a small operation, like this, it would be all hands on deck, so surely if anybody was on board the saucer, it couldn't have been more than one or two people inside. This gave Kell an idea on how he could take their ship. Of course he could just go down there and say "Hi", but chances are that they would either kill him or enslave him, either option not being good. The other option was to wait for them to go, put the beacon back on and wait for the space navy to come back and pick him up. After all he was safe in his “safe”, in the communications centre, but that left a big "If", what if they never came back or simply they came back but didn't notice his beacon? And after a few months the local peoples would come back, to do their farming and maybe they would be friendly or maybe they would be rebels. Although inherently riskier, kell intended to take the Incenotopian ship!
Of course taking their ship, could result in fatalities on their side and possibly his death if he miscalculated, but Kell rarely miscalculated. Then regarding their deaths, he would try to capture them and make them prisoners, but he would kill them if need be. There was also a question of the legality of what he was doing. While the Incenotopians were famous for their callous disregard of life, it wasn't against any galactic laws to salvage an old ship, although kell was pretty sure the locals would not be happy about their dismantling of their communications center.
If anybody would ask him why he captured and imprisoned the Incenotopians, he would put it down as a forceful redeployment of a civil vehicle in a war zone. Once the ship was intact and its occupants unharmed, he could go back to naval HQ and give them back their ship, it should stand up under naval law as civilians, even salvagers, are supposed to wait until the war is over, they're not permitted to wander around a war zone and kell was within his rights, as a marine, to borrow their vehicle. But of course they weren't just going to hand over the saucer to him, but Kell had a plan!
Chapter Twelve – Bon Voyage The Planet Exocon!
By the time Kell got back to the town of Exejet, it was high none and kell was feeling
very hungry. For the last few days he had been living of off tubes of space food and it was about time he had a real meal and it was time to kill two birds with one stone!
Setting off to the outskirts of town, kell found the five foot tall anthill like structure, which was the abode of the large worms, who by day avoided the light. For a moment or two kell felt scared, then his survival instinct took over. Taking out his blaster he took a shot at the large mound and blew it to pieces. Then looking down he could see a meter wide tunnel, which would lead down into the worms lair. In order to put the odds in his favour, he took out an anti-personnel grenade and dropped it into the tunnel. There was a one second pause and then he heard the grenade hit the ground. Crouching down then he waited for the three second fuse to finish, then "Boom" and with that the ground vibrated and moved about a little and then a sudden jet of dirt, rock and dead worms came out of the ground. Then there was a sudden wobbling, as a large piece of earth gave way and fell into the hole. Kell stood back quickly, so as to avoid falling in, and then all was quiet.
Kell looked down into the smoking hole and then used his second tactic, a florescent flare, he dropped it into the hole to scare away the worms. Looking down he judged that the flare had dropped down a good thirty feet or so before it hit the cave floor, so he decided it was winch time. Then taking out a special steel rod, which came with his escape pod, he used the biomechanical strength of his suit and with all his might and a hydraulic "hssh" sound from his suit he stuck the stick a good three feet into the ground. Then he hooked up a steel tether to his suit and to a winch motor attached to the rod, and with that he jumped down into the hole.
As kell jumped the winch motor automatically adjusted, so that rather than crashing down to the tunnel, thirty feet below him, he glided down and landed with a slight thud. In front of him he saw various tunnels heading of in all directions, although where he stood was a fairly big cavern, where he could easily stand. Kell had no intention of travelling down the tunnels, but instead he would wait for his dinner to come to him. Even though the fluorescent light was strong, kell could hear the shuffling of giant worms.
He picked up the flare and then purposefully covered it, so as to entice the worms to come. No sooner had he done this, than he heard five or six worms started shuffling towards him. Then he took his hand of the flare, thus scaring away the worms again, only now he had an opportunity to catch them. Firing of his blaster with his right hand he blasted one worm, but because the blaster was on stun mode it just flipped and vibrated a bit and then came to a halt. "One down and one to go." He thought to himself, then trying his party trick again, with the flare, once again he heard the worms, then releasing his hand, he hoped to scare them off, which worked on all save one worm, which threw itself with vigour at him.
Squeezing his body in a vice and trying to get its sucker onto his visor. Kell was genuinely amazed at the strength of these creatures, who could easily throw around a five hundred kilogram biomechanical suit. Thinking quickly he blocked the worms sucker with his left arm, by grabbing the creature near the sucker and holding it at bay, and then reaching around with his right, he struggled to blast it with his blaster, but the worm kept on wriggling, making it nearly impossible to do so. Then improvising he used his left hand to squeeze the area near the sucker, in the hope that its brain, if it had one was near there, or at least the more advanced parts of its nervous system would be there. Squeezing as hard as he could, about five inches behind the sucker, his biomechanical hand could exert about one thousand kilograms of pressure, and as he did so the worm started to become less active and finally it slumped to the ground.
Kell lit up another flare and threw it towards the far end of the cavern, so as to scare of the other worms who had already started to move dangerously close to him. With that he took the two worms, the sleeping one and the dead one, and draped them over his left shoulder; then with the press of a button on his left wrist, the winch started to work and a few seconds later he was pulled out of the large hole in the ground.
Getting up then, he took the first worm, whom he had stunned, and he placed it into a black tarpaulin sack, which he had picked up in the communications center. The worm was fairly small, only about five feet in size. He tied the bag and then taking up his equipment and the other brain dead worm, he walked across town and found a nice picnic spot in the heart of Exejet town.
Placing the bag to one side, he sat on a stone park bench and now flopping the brain dead worm onto the ground, he used his scanner tool to examine its body. He wanted to avoid eating its intestines. As he thought there was no brain, just a large nerve complex which he had just destroyed with his fist. He also scanned it for bacteria and parasites etc., but nothing significant came up, it should be safe to eat when cooked. Then making up his mind he took out a laser knife, from a pouch in his right leg and cut up the snake into three parts. He threw away two and then took out the third part; then using his knife to hold it in place, he used his blaster on a low heat to cook the remaining part, which took a few minutes to complete.
Kell munched away on the dead worm, only wishing that he had some salt. Apart from being a little bit chewy, it was actually quite tasty and being the muscular creature that it was, its body was almost pure solid beef and for the first time in days, Kell had a solid meal!
Kell sat there under the shade of a big tree and enjoyed his lunch and then lying under the tree he had a snooze for an hour or so, as he knew he had a big night ahead!
As twilight came down across the northern hemisphere of Exocon, kell made his way to the Incenotopians ship. Either they knew about the worms and they would retreat to their ship for the night, or the worms would attack them and force them back onto the ship, either was good for kell. With tarpaulin bag in hand, Kell waited patiently and seeing a hive of activity on the rebel ship, but just one lonely guard standing at the entrance to the Mark IV saucer, he took his opportunity. He crept up behind the guard and swiftly put him into a sleeper hold, about three seconds later he was out cold. Kell could have left him in the bushes, but knowing full well that the worms would be out, he wouldn't leave even his worst enemy to have to face them.
He threw the small hairy panda like creature over his left shoulder and ran up into the ship. Being familiar with the mark IV design saucer, he knew full well that there was a storage room immediately to the left of the gangway. He quickly deposited the Incenotopian in there and to make sure he remained asleep, he took out a sleeping hypodermic and admitted enough tranquilizer to put him out cold for a few hours. Then Kell just waited.
After a while he could hear shouts and screams coming from outside the ship, the worms had arrived! There was the sound of blaster fire and shouts and screams, as the Incenotopian bandits faced the wrath of the big worms. With a lot of blaster fire and shouting and screaming and stumping of feet on the gangway, Kell reckoned that most of them had found their way back to the ship. He then heard some shouting and screaming and blaster fire followed by the ship door shutting with a clunk. There was a lot of excited speaking, from the little bandits, and finally after half an hour everything settled down.
There was a lot of rustling in the plastic bag, as the worm was now fully awake, so Kell opened the storage room door and made his way to the stairwell. The Mark IV saucer craft was designed in three levels, the lower level, been a large storage facility, then the next level was living quarters and finally the bulbous top layer was the command module. Kell got himself onto the second level, where the living quarters where and he threw the big worm towards the common room, where most of the bandits where hanging out.
Within seconds the hungry worm was attacking the bandits and with that several bandits came down from the command module, in order to help tackle it. Meanwhile kell reached up into the command module and threw a stun grenade. There was a flash of light and a bang sound, then Kell jumped up into the command module, where one Incenotopian was lying on the floor out cold and two others were walking around looking con
fused and holding their eyes in pain. Kell took out his blaster and with a quick "Pew, pew" sound, he had stunned both of them, then to make sure the one on ground stayed down, he blasted it with a stun blast for good measure.
Kell jumped down to the living quarters level and there was a few blasting sounds going on in the rec room, where the bandits where killing of the worm, but they had been so busy that they hadn't noticed the stun grenade go off upstairs. Kell grabbed one bandit, who was standing in the doorway of the rec room and threw him in, while he also threw in a stun grenade, then backing away from the door, there was a bang and a blast of white light. Kell then jumped into the rec room and took out the eight bandits who were there, with four blaster stun shots "Pew,pew,pew,pew," rattled off his blaster and then all bandits where out cold. Kell did a quick jog around the ship to see if any bandits remained, but they were all accounted for, twelve in total, as they probably lost one or two to the worms, when they were outside.