by Max Jager
Matt then briefly described to Drok the nightmare he had suffered earlier. Drok shook his head,
"So it isn't just us, I was afraid of that, even strangers are susceptible." Then he added,
"What I'm about to tell you is strictly between us my friend, it is not to be repeated to anyone, do you understand?" Matt held out his hand,
"Let's shake on it Drok," he said.
Drok then wrapped his massive hand around Matt's, and shook it.
"We Gri'Foda are the pariahs of the universe. For the longest time, we desperately sought out a place to travel to free of the horror you see around you, some small place that would welcome we few, someplace where we could grow and prosper, but sadly that was not to be. He then took a drink from his canteen.
"Nobody will have us; we've even been threatened for even just talking about going somewhere else. No my friend, the effort we are now attempting is our last stand, should nothing come of it we are simply doomed. The only friend we have at this moment is the Loridian Trading Company. If it requires that every single "amma" of this cursed planet be scooped up and spit back out to save us, then so be it."
"Well for what's its worth Drok," replied Matt, "Kaitlyn and I have been to Xandrus, if Gandric says they can help, believe me, they can. You know it's kind of funny in a way, you have work that needs doing, and all those 'droids on Xandrus are looking under rocks for work." Drok said nothing for a moment, then softly chuckled.
"Everybody in this whole damn galaxy has turned their backs on us except these androids. If they can really do what Gandric says they can, they will be treated as royalty."
Matt then asked,
"So you're saying that everybody is scared of you?"
"They are afraid that were we allowed to settle on their planets the first thing we would do would be to start a war. Face it my little friend, we do look rather frightening, but we cannot help the way we look. Tell me, were we to travel to your planet, what sort of reception would we receive?" Matt sighed, and shook his head.
"The same reaction everyone else gives you, I'm sorry, but there it is." Drok then looked up at the dawning light in the sky.
"Come with me, I want to show you something." Matt followed him down past the row of wreckage to a point they could look towards the horizon. Pointing to the dawn's light just starting to break, Drok said,
"Watch, and tell me what you see."
Matt stared into the distance, then began to notice what appeared to be movement on the horizon. Letting out a gasp, he observed a long unbroken line of soldiers, and strange looking machines moving south. Thinking it a mirage, he started to say something, but Drok interrupted him.
"Every one of us has seen that, every morning at this time, and sometimes at dusk, what we call the "death march" plays out, it is our past making claims on us." The slogging troops remained visible up until it began to grow lighter, the tableau slowly fading away.
"Come," said Drok, "We've got a long day ahead of us."
After a quick breakfast, it was back out on the wind wags. Bria seemed quite charmed by Udel once more, so she was riding in his wagon again. Matt asked Kaitlyn what she thought of their "relationship." She merely shrugged,
"Big and dumb, doesn't do anything for me, but Bria seems to like him, who am I to judge?" When they set out, the wind was really blowing so the sand goggles came right out. Both Matt and Kaitlyn had to tie bandannas around their faces to cover their mouths and noses. The noise from the wind wag, along with the wind made it practically impossible to talk to each other. Matt tried to use his binoculars but the constant bumping made that effort practically impossible.
Matt noticed that Gandric and Amber had their eyes completely closed, while Chasi, and to a certain extent, Drok resembled Tusken Raiders from the first Star Wars film.
They rolled across the flats for close to three hours, at times Udel tried to race his mother, but she acted rather indifferently to his efforts. Gradually, Matt and the others began to notice the evidence of wreckage begin to increase, from sporadic piles, to constant piles of destruction. Matt noticed Drok sitting next to Gandric, speaking right into his ear, and pointing things out on the increasing size of the wreckage. Before long, the detritus of war began to appear on both sides, eventually funneling them into a narrow passage a mere ten feet wide in places.
Matt also began to notice that the size and height of the wreckage also began to grow. Finally, they were forced to move farther away from the destruction which now gave everyone an opportunity to get a feel for just how massive the piles of wreckage really was. They were also beginning to see massive craters as well, and while two hundred years of wind had filled them in for the most part, their incredible circumferences still hinted at the horrific weapons that caused them.
Matt couldn't be sure if what he was seeing was a completely destroyed city, or the remains of a massive battle that had been fought here. Sand covered a lot of it, but the grotesque skeletons of the machines of war were plainly visible. He also began to see what certainly looked like the remains of "Transformer" type weapons twisted and wrecked strewn along their way.
"Could Drok's ancestors have fought in these things?" He wondered, "Or are they the remains of incredibly large robots?" It appeared that he might get a chance to find out, as they were slowing, Drok pointing towards the remains of one.
After both wagons had come to a stop, and everybody had gotten out, Drok expressed his desire to show everybody, but especially Matt and Gandric something only visible from the top of a sandy berm. It was like climbing a sand dune, but as soon as they crested the top, Matt gasped. An area close to a hundred acres was literally covered with wrecked and smashed "transformers," as he thought of the large mechanical battle suits. Although years of sand had filled in the low places, at first glance, it resembled a massive auto junkyard. It took a few moments for him to realize what he was actually looking at, but while Drok spoke to Gandric, he took several pictures with his camera.
"There are many areas like this," said Drok. "Places so dense with metal, I worry those purifiers won't be able to plow through all that." Gandric replied with,
"Not to worry Drok, my information on them indicates that while their travel may be slowed down, their ability to recycle all that scrap will not be hindered in the slightest.
While he went into a more detailed explanation of how the huge factory machines would tackle acres of scrap, Matt continued to stare at the horrific sight. He imagined that the remains of the soldiers who fought to the death in those machines were still inside them. His heart was also filled with a curious sadness in knowing that their bones would be ground up along with their metal "coffins." From what he had heard Gandric telling Drok everything but the metal, plastics, and manufactured materials would be spread upon the earth. The landscape spread out before his eyes would haunt his dreams for a long time to come.
Before they returned to the wind wags, Drok pointed off to the east, and said,
"We will be making a slow turn to the north very soon, as the wreckage you see off on the horizon is heavily contaminated, and cannot be approached. Gandric carried the equivalent of a notebook computer, which had a map on its screen. Because of his massive hands, Drok was forced to use a pointer, to indicate where the radiated zones began and ended. He then turned to Matt, and said,
"We will be stopping at one more place; you may find it rather interesting."
After they moved away from the masses of wreckage, and back out into the openness of the wastes, both Chasi and Udel took advantage of the increased wind, and "Opened up." At one point, Matt figured that they were traveling at close to eighty miles an hour racing across the waste, Occasionally, they would pass individual piles of wreckage and rubble, at one point, Matt tried to snap a picture of what appeared to have been a spacecraft that had "augured in," it's massive size forming a landmark in the barren waste. Towards late afternoon, they approached another massive area of twisted rubble and metal. Suddenly he knew what Drok
wanted to show him, twice the size of the Nora-Lee, was a spacecraft just sitting by itself, its hull sand blasted to dull silver by the wind.
"While I was in school," explained Drok, I showed people a hologram I had made of this craft, most thought it resembled a ship built by the Dreia, but who's to say? All we know is that it's completely locked up, it appears that the crew left to explore and never returned."
"How long has it been sitting here?" Asked Bria. Drok shrugged, his mother then spoke up.
"It was here well before Drok was born, we know of several others, but most are too close to the contaminated areas to bother about."
They returned to their wind wags, and continued traveling until just before dusk, when they stopped at a large individual pile of rubble, that had once been some sort of building.
Like every bit of metal, the rubble had been constantly blasted by the wind giving it the look of a small mountain. Entering what resembled the entrance to a cave, Matt and his friends were surprised to see it open up into a decent sized room, one that also appeared to be clean and maintained. There was also a radio sitting on a large table, along with a fireplace, and several beds fashioned from various pieces of scrap.
"We aren't all that far from home," said Chasi, but it get's mighty dark out here, and we might easily his something on our way back." Drok then got on the radio, and contacted his father, letting him know of their location.
"This is one of eight water points along with being a retreat in case of trouble," explained Chasi.
"We also have access to fresh water," she added, "Whatever this place used to be, we discovered it must have sat over a natural spring, there are seven more just like it, it is one of the very few "offerings" from the past that benefits us."
Chapter 36
Titan Stand Chapter 36
As they brought their gear inside the abandoned building, Matt took several pictures of its interior, which appeared to be made of metal and masonry. The walls showed remains of being painted bright colors at one time but like everything else, was slowly eroding away. Still, the place must have been very impressive in its day. Matt and Kaitlyn threw their sleeping bags onto two large pads which Drok said were for sleeping on.
"We scavenged them, along with a couple aerostats' you might have seen back in Shong Vak. Anyway they're pretty comfortable; you should sleep pretty good on them."
Once again, Bria was occupied with Udel, and Drok, Amber and Gandric had gone outside to look at something. Matt fired up his little gas stove to cook he and Kaitlyn's evening meal. While they waited, he turned to Kaitlyn and asked.
"So are we having fun yet?" Kaitlyn shrugged, then replied,
"Well it's certainly not what I was expecting or hoping for."
"Yeah, I think I know what you mean," he replied. "Well, we're stuck I guess, it's different anyway, not what I thought life on other planets would be like." They both said nothing for a moment, then Kaitlyn looked at Matt, and softly said,
"Thanks."
"For what?"
"For just being you I guess, I was a real asshole back there on Moriedia, then siding with Bria all the time. But honestly Matt, the only good time I've had so far is was when I was with the fairies and pixies."
Matt patted her on her crossed legs,
"That wasn't your fault Kaitlyn, those little shit kids were fucking with your head, Bria's too."
"Yeah, I know, but…Well you know?"
"You're homesick aren't you?" He asked. She grimaced,
"Yeah, I never thought I'd say it but I really miss mom, she probably thinks I'm dead and all." Matt nodded in agreement, then said.
"Me too, but I've been thinking a lot about that and I've got my eye out for something."
"What's that?" She asked.
"Well we've been seeing all this super technology all around us, I'm thinking that somewhere there has to be some sort of mini spacecraft we could program to travel back to earth, you know, right back to our home. Amber told me she has the exact coordinates to that old ball field, my house wasn't that far away. I'm thinking that maybe we could program it to land right in our back yard, and you know, put pictures of us maybe a hologram of us, you know stuff that will let our parents know we're OK."
Kaitlyn chuckled,
"You think there's something out here that would work like that?"
"There's got to be," he replied, "Compared to the stuff we've seen so far, something like that has to be around."
The conversation took a break while the two prepared their freeze-dried rations. After poking at her food for a moment, Kaitlyn said,
"I heard Gandric tell Amber that she might have to take him and Drok back to Xandrus, if he does, I'm going to ask Amber if she could drop me off on Denedra, it's practically on the way." He looked at her for a moment, then asked.
"What will I do?" Kaitlyn frowned, and shrugged,
"I don't know, but I'm tired of being scared all the time and living like this. Look Matt, I don't give a fuck about our Incredible Hulk family, just look at this place, what the fuck is going on here?" Matt now realized that Kaitlyn was more upset that she had led him to believe, and his first priority was to calm her down before the others heard her.
Trying his best to comfort her,
"Please Kaitlyn, just try and settle down, we're here and there's nothing we can do about it." He then looked her in the eye and asked,
"Are you having bad dreams?" She started to say no, but then admitted the truth.
"Yes, all the time, I'm so tired, but I'm afraid to go to sleep because I know I'll wake up and see guys like Drok and Udel standing around looking at me." Matt pulled her close, and hugged her.
"I've been having the same dreams for what it's worth, Drok says he and his people get them as well, says it's their past making claims on them."
"I don't care what the fuck it is," she sobbed, "I just want it to stop."
The situation was more serious than he had thought. Sure, he suffered from the same bad dreams, and then there was that shoot-out with the raiders, not the kind of stuff teenagers growing up in America experienced. He was however taking the long view; they were embarked on an adventure that might not come even once in a lifetime. Aside from those people who had been kidnapped from Coryville so long ago, he and Kaitlyn were the first earth people to travel this far into space. Matt knew they wouldn't be on this god-forsaken planet forever and he knew he could tough it out, but what about Kaitlyn, was she really ready to call it quits, and just go back to Denedra and hang out with the fairy folk?
"So you'd be content just to go back to Denedra, what if I wanted to go on? I know this place sucks but there will be other places, don't you want to see what this Z'ha'dum place is like?" Kaitlyn thought a moment, then shook her head,
"It will be fucked up as well, if you want to go, be my guest, I won't stop you but I've had it, I'm going to ask Amber to take me back to Denedra." Then she added,
"Hell, maybe they'll make me queen of the fucking fairies or something." Matt didn't like her attitude at all, but what could he do? Maybe it was time to have a chat with Amber.
Matt waited until he was sure Kaitlyn had fallen asleep, then he crept over to where Amber and Gandric were sitting.
"Amber," he whispered, "Could I speak to you?" He indicated a dark alcove off to the side of the room. She followed him over to hear what he had to say.
"First off, that was awesome the way you killed that saber cat
"I've been trained to do a whole lot worse," she replied.
"Look, I've been talking to Kaitlyn, and she's in a really bad way, besides being homesick, she doesn't want to continue with us. She just wants to return to Denedra and hang out with the fairy folk." Amber said nothing for a moment, then replied.
"What do you want to do?"
"I'm for going on Amber, I asked Kaitlyn to come along because I really thought she wouldn't crap out on me. I thought of a couple other girls as well as my best friend, but I knew none of them would be
able to deal with things out here…Guess I was wrong about Kaitlyn as well, I'm sorry."
"There's nothing to be sorry for," she replied, "We haven't traveled to some of the really bad places yet, if Miss Parkinson truly does not want to continue then perhaps it would be best if she returns to Denedra."
"Uhh but what about Gandric and this Ussen Ommo project?" He asked,
"Well I was going to take the three of you to Z'ha'dum, leave you there while Gandric and I along with Drok returned to Xandrus where they could begin to organize this project."
"Yeah, and when were you going to tell us?" Wondered Matt.
"Wait a minute!" he exclaimed, "You were just going to dump us on Z'ha'dum, what if there's nobody there, or they're hostile?"