The Celestials

by Richard Wood

  All the crew was crowded onto the bridge for the close flyby of the fourth planet. They called it the red planet. From this distance, its surface was a reddish ochre colour except for the polar caps, which showed whitish, with a faint cloud formation above. The ice cap contained frozen water to a depth of three kilometres, but very little carbon dioxide. Ancore ordered the ship to be put into orbit at a height of seventy-five kilometres above the planet’s surface. “We will make several orbits of the planet, while we carry out a topographical survey. This planet has the potential for terra-forming,” she told the crew.

  Glaina replied, ‘The planet has very little carbon dioxide, captain. It would not be easy terraforming this planet in the conventional manner.”

  “Well at least we will have carried out a preliminary survey and mapped it. The rest is up to the central council to decide,” replied Ancore.

  They were passing an enormous extinct volcano, when Rogan remarked, “In its history this planet must have had flowing water judging by the erosion evidence left on the surface.”

  Later, during their first full orbit, they came across a system of canyons up to seven kilometres deep in places, stretching in a great gash across the planet’s surface for almost four thousand kilometres. Various parts of the planet were covered in dark bands of material, thought to be volcanic ash.

  While the ship was crossing the giant canyon at an oblique angle, Breen suddenly exclaimed, “Captain, we’ve just passed over a power source in the canyon! My screen showed a large blip.”

  At the same instant, Fantee was reporting communication signals on her console. “I’m getting a pulsed emission from the canyon, captain,” she reported. “No, I’ve just lost it. It must be deep inside the canyon, and we have passed over it.”

  “Did you get a fix on it?” asked Ancore.

  “Yes,” replied Fantee, “It sounded like a beacon transmission, repeating every fifty milliseconds.”

  Ancore began giving orders, “Fantee, feed the co-ordinates into ship’s guidance. Breen, take the ship out to two hundred and fifty kilometres above the planet, and bring us into geostationary orbit above Fantee’s co-ordinates. I think we should check out this signal. It might mean there is intelligent life here; however, inhospitable the planet appears.”

  It took another two circuits of the planet before they could achieve geostationary orbit above the canyon. They could not discern anything in the canyon using three-dimensional terrain radar mapping, but could pinpoint the power source and the x-band transmission. The bottom of the canyon at that point was a fraction over six kilometres deep.

  “All right, everybody, I require your input if we are to decide the best course of action. Breen, you first,” said Ancore.

  Breen, checking his console, replied, “What I’m seeing on the console is two power sources both nuclear about a kilometre apart. One is large. The other is very small. The smaller source is located at the co-ordinates given by Fantee. I’ll transfer them to the main screen.”

  The screen showed a view of part of the planet surface and the canyon dominating the greater part, with the two power sources in red and the co-ordinates alongside them. “Fantee?” Ancore queried.

  Fantee nodded and replied, “The signal I am receiving is a fifty millisecond burst transmission, every one minute in a continuous cycle. I’m putting it on audio now.” She switched into ship's audio, and everyone could hear these burst transmissions like a repeating high-pitched whine.

  “When we slow it down, we get a voice repeating the information, three times each burst, but it’s in an unknown language or code. The last part is possibly co-ordinates.” She then played back the recording at various speeds, and gradually a voice could be heard repeating the message, three times. “I believe it to be a type of distress beacon,” said Fantee.

  “Thank you, Fantee. Whatever this signal is, it means intelligent life, although maybe not originating on this planet. If as Fantee surmises, it turns out to be a distress beacon of some kind. The question now,” said Ancore “Is what we do about it.”

  “Surely we are bound to investigate this signal if someone is down there, and is still alive and in trouble,” replied Rogan.

  “What if it’s just a marker for something there, not a distress signal at all?” interjected Nassel.

  Glaina piped up, “Whatever is down there, surely we have to investigate it as Rogan said, even if it is only to satisfy our own curiosity.”

  The captain sat looking around the control room at the crew before she said. “I want a vote on this, to investigate this signal; we need to undock one of the three landing craft, and physically go into the canyon to be able to investigate further. This undertaking is not without possible hazards, so it must be a party of volunteers, and we cannot risk more than two of the crew, all those in favour of going down to the planet’s surface to investigate the signals.”

  Five hands shot up.

  “Carried,” said Ancore. “Now, are Glaina and Nassel willing to volunteer? They are the only two crew members that are one hundred per cent fit.” Both Glaina and Nassel agreed at once amidst groans from the rest of the crew, as they all wanted to go on this adventure. “It will take us several hours to check out the Lander. After, I suggest we break for a meal and have a night’s sleep, before Glaina and Nassel go down to the surface. That way, we will all be fresh whatever happens. Adeeone take the bridge please. The rest of us will assemble on the bridge tomorrow, at first watch.” Ancore then left the bridge, leading the crew to Lander one to check out its systems before separation in the morning.

  The following morning they all gathered on the bridge deck, after having breakfasted together in the lounge. While they had been eating, they decided that Adeeone had better go down to the surface with Glaina and Nassel, just as a precaution. Ancore was briefing them, “I don’t want you to take any risks, either with your own lives or the Lander. Keep me informed at all stages of the investigation. Remember to keep audio and visual recordings of everything. Well, that is about it. Safe landings from us all.” She then asked Breen to go with them to check the airlocks, and help them into their space suits.

  All four left the bridge and took travelators to the number one Lander airlock. With cries of “Safe landings!” echoing after them from the rest of the crew. Once they were all dressed and safely in the Lander, Breen checked the airlock was securely shut and showing all greens on the board before he returned to the control room. The undock sequence was now under the control of the Lander crew.

  Inside the Lander, Nassel was in the pilot’s seat with the holographic three-dimensional head-up flight instrument displays in a half circle in front of him. A small control stick on the arm of his seat was for emergency manual control. Glaina was in the navigation chair entering the co-ordinates for the computer-controlled flight path to the canyon. Adeeone sat in the engineer’s seat was going through his pre-flight checks. “Ready to unlock clamps,” called Nassel to the bridge deck. Ancore acknowledged. “The ship’s spin will be at zero in five minutes,” she replied.

  Nassel confirmed his countdown readings, and the undock checks in the Lander continued. Adeeone was bringing the anti-gravity drive up to full readiness. The view screen is activated, and all thrusters and sensors are in the green. The soft lighting inside the Lander made the lights of the various consoles reflect from the crew’s faceplates in a myriad of colours.

  The craft was circular, ten metres in diameter, but the interior diameter was only half that, five metres in diameter and two point five metres high. . The rest of the space outside the cabin was crammed with the antigravity drive, thrusters, and sensors. The nuclear reactor, which powered everything aboard; liquid oxygen tanks, water tanks, motors, computers, hydraulics, lighting and kilometre upon kilometre of piping, fibre-optic cables, and the single cutting laser which was the only external device that could be used as a weapon in an emergency. It was powerful enough to slice
through forty centimetres of hardened steel.

  They were now weightless. “Start Lander separation,” picted Nassel. Adeeone complied, picting a stream of instructions. There was a barely perceptible thump as the docking clamps retracted, and they were free. Thrusters gently pushed the Lander up and away from the mother ship. At one hundred metres separation, the Lander increased velocity and started the long spiral down to the planet’s surface.

  Forty minutes later, they were over the canyon. From this close, it was like looking down on a jet-black river. Because of the sun’s oblique angle, it lit only a few hundred metres depth of the far wall of the canyon. Into the Stygian darkness, they plunged, heading for the beacon signal, the three-dimensional radar display their only visual guide. The Lander displays were being up-linked to the mother ship so the rest of the crew could follow their progress.

  As they reached a depth of five and a half kilometres, Nassel levelled off the Lander and decreased forward speed. Glaina turned on the landing lights beneath the Lander and its directional searchlights. The view was awe-inspiring. Near the bottom of this vast canyon, the walls had tapered in to less than a kilometre wide in places. Vast rock falls littered the canyon floor. Towers of rock stood up here and there, some of them over three kilometres tall, like gigantic fangs. Over everything was sand or dust. In some places along the walls of the canyon where the sand had drifted, it almost reached to the top of the canyon walls in vast slopes. They slowly floated along picking their way around the biggest obstacles.

  As they manoeuvred around a particularly nasty snaggle of smashed rock, they came on the first pieces of wreckage, like giant confetti spreading away from them in an ever-widening stream. It was here that they located the signal source, a bright yellow rectangular box half-buried in sand.

  “That’s the signal source, the yellow box,” observed Glaina. “Now what do we do? Leave it, or destroy it?”

  “Leave it, for the moment, I think,” replied Nassel. “We can come back later. Besides it is serving us as a beacon at present.” The amount of wreckage was increasing, but also spreading wider, the farther along the canyon they progressed. “Do you notice anything?” asked Glaina.

  Nassel nodded “Yes. The outer surface of some of this wreckage is deepest black. Are you thinking what I’m thinking?”

  “Murdering Zedd ship is what I’m thinking,” replied Glaina.

  “Me too! Look, we are just coming up to the main power source. Adeeone, start taking radiation readings please. We do not want a radiation overdose, especially to the Lander itself. We could end up with a radiation hazard instead of a Lander.”

  Adeeone replied “The radiation levels are below ten roentgens at present. We can go to fifty for one hour and still be just within acceptable limits.”

  “Warn me if it gets that high,” said Nassel.

  “Look!” exclaimed Glaina, directing the search light well ahead of the Lander, where a vast drift of sand disappeared from sight up the canyon wall at an angle of at least fifty degrees. There in the beam of light was the semi-circular edge of a huge black ship almost completely buried in the sand. Nassel eased the Lander as close to the rim of the alien ship as he thought prudent.

  They were now stationary above the widest edge of the rim of the ship where it entered the sand at a very steep angle.

  “I do not think I can land on that. The angle is too steep! We would end up buried in there ourselves,” said Nassel.

  “If we land at the bottom of the sand drift and tried to climb up to the ship we would certainly not get very far without causing a sand slide that would bury us. I just don’t see how we can get to the ship.”

  While they sat, thinking the problem through, Breen called them from the mother ship.

  “What, do you feel about using the cutting laser on the sand at the top of the ship? It’s possible that you could melt a platform of glass level enough to land on once it has solidified.”

  “What, a super idea! Why didn’t I think of that?” said Glaina, “I’m sure it would work,” she enthused.

  “It’s certainly worth a try,” agreed Nassel.

  Adeeone manipulated the laser and started at the junction of the sand and ship, melting a great swathe of sand with each horizontal swing of the laser beam. The sand cascading down from above actually helped the operation. In a short time, he had melted a twenty-metre radius arc into the side of the sand. By adjusting the power of the beam, Adeeone managed to fuse a wall of glass that led down to an almost flat area a metre thick. They decided to wait thirty minutes for the glass to cool properly. While they were waiting, Glaina and Nassel were sipping refreshments through a plastic tube.

  “Shouldn’t we cut a hole into the ship? Otherwise how do we get into it?” said Nassel.

  “Good thinking, Adeeone. Will you cut an entrance hole into the ship, outside the glass area please?” asked Glaina.

  Adeeone immediately started cutting an entrance into the ship, but it was not easily accomplished. Underneath the outer skin appeared to be a metalised honeycomb about half of a metre thick, which was conducting heat away at a phenomenal rate. It took nearly forty minutes to cut an opening into the interior. Nassel brought the Lander slowly forward, lowered the self-levelling hydraulic landing legs and gingerly set the Lander down on the glass-landing site. “If the inside of this vessel is anything like our Lander, all we have managed to do is get into the equipment area.

  Let’s hope we find some service passage that will get us into the main area of the ship,” said Glaina.

  “I think we will need a hand laser inside the ship, in case we need to cut through any bulkheads, and who is going inside, someone needs to stay in the Lander,” remarked Nassel.

  “You’re the pilot,” said Glaina. “You should stay in the Lander. Adeeone and I will enter the ship.”

  “You can pilot the Lander, as well as I can,” protested Nassel. “I think Adeeone and I should go.”

  “Why don’t we both go, and let Adeeone pilot the ship?” retorted Glaina.

  “That’s not an option, and you know it,” Nassel replied. “We will let lady luck decide. Whoever picks the hand holding the straw, stays to pilot the Lander.” Nassel thrust both his clenched fists out in front of Glaina. “Your choice,” he said. She looked him in the eye, “really?”

  “Yes, really!” he replied.

  She chose his right hand, and when he opened it, her face fell.

  “Dammit!” she swore.

  Nassel stood up, “Come on, Adeeone, we are going for a walk. Bring a hand laser with you. You can watch every move we make on Vid link,” he told Glaina. “Helmets closed,” he said. “I’m about to operate the air lock.”

  He opened the airlock and went down the six steps to the surface. As he stepped onto the glass, he opened his left hand and let a straw fall.

  When they were both outside and had closed the airlock, Nassel carried out a comms check. “Can you hear me all right, Glaina?”

  “Yes, receiving you fine, and I have a good Vid picture.”

  “Right! We will keep in constant touch.”

  They both walked out from beneath the Lander and across to the hole in the outer rim of the alien ship. Nassel entered the hole first. “We were right. It’s stuffed with cables and equipment in here,” he radioed.

  In the Lander, Glaina watched them both disappear inside the alien vessel on the view screen, which had a double inset of the Vid displays from the helmet-mounted cameras. . Glaina watched them picking their way around a bracing strut and into a service tunnel, which was high enough for them to walk upright in comfort.

  “We’re in a service tunnel,” radioed Nassel.

  “I can see it on the Vid,” replied Glaina.

  The only light now was from their head-mounted lights, and the large hand held flashlight Nassel was directing along the floor in front of them. After about five metres, they came to a door, it slid into a recess, an
d they stepped out into a faintly blue-lit corridor, which stretched away in a slow curve to their left and right as far as they could see. The light was emanating from a large tube above head height that appeared to be full of a faintly glowing blue liquid.

  As they stepped farther, into the corridor, the door slid shut, and Glaina was left staring at blank screens and listening to hissing audio.

  “Nassel, Nassel, can you hear me?” she called in panic.

  “The door slid shut and blanked out communications,” Nassel’s voice suddenly said. “I’ve just stepped back to the door, and it’s opened again.”

  “Yes, I can see and hear you again. Perhaps one of you could stand in the doorway and keep it open while the other explores. That way, we won’t lose contact.”

  “Good idea! Adeeone will you stay by the door while I look around?” said Nassel.

  The Vid and audio blanked out again, then after a brief pause, it returned with Nassel saying, “It’s no good. The damn door doesn’t respond to androids.”

  Glaina replied, “You’ll have to stand in the door then, and let Adeeone look around.”

  “No that’s useless! If doors do not open for androids, he will not be able to get out of this corridor into the main part of the ship. I think the only way to resolve this is if we both go exploring, let’s say fifteen minutes to look around and fifteen to get back here and report in, all right?”

  “I’m not very happy about this Nassel,” replied Glaina. “We were supposed to stay in contact at all times.”

  “It will be all right,” said Nassel. “What can go wrong in thirty minutes?”

  “Very well, if you must, but I still don’t like it, and make sure it is only thirty minutes,” replied Glaina.

  “Don‘t worry so much. We will be back before you know it. See you in thirty minutes,” replied Nassel. The communication link was broken, showing only static and audio hiss.

  Glaina decided to call the captain, and tell her of the latest situation.

  She thought to herself, “It’s strange there has been no input into this development from the captain or crew on the ship.” When she tried to contact the ship, all she could receive was a garbled wailing from the audio and psychedelic streams of coloured garbage from the Vid link. “What is happening. Where are the crew and ship? Has the Lander comms failed?”

  She ran a quick diagnostic on communications. All reported serviceable. “This is crazy! I cannot have lost comms links with everyone.” She repeated the tests, still garbage. She sat thinking maybe somehow, the ship has drifted away from the canyon. Maybe that is why I cannot contact them. Oh, I do hope Nassel returns soon. This is getting scary.”

  A slithery movement on the view screen caught her eye. She started watching the screen intently. The sand wall in front of the Lander had moved. She was sure it had. She rotated the searchlight around onto the sand wall, and then sat in a horrified stupor. Sand was slithering down the vast sand wall in front of the Lander. More and more sand was on the move. In her mind’s eye, she pictured the steep angle of the sand stretching above her for several kilometres up the canyon wall. She, in her tiny Lander, was perched almost a kilometre from the canyon floor on a minute ledge. Sand was pouring down faster now.

  “At this rate,” she thought, “the Lander is going to be buried before Nassel and Adeeone return.” Then she realised that the Lander lights were getting dimmer and dimmer. Her brain was racing now; she was pumped up with the adrenaline of fear.

  Quickly, she changed the view screen to look out across the canyon and swung the searchlight onto the same direction. It was raining sand; great swirling gusts were falling through the searchlight beam from above. Even as she watched, the searchlight beam was growing dimmer by the minute. She swung the searchlight and the viewer screen back onto the sand in front of the Lander. It had now filled the gap between them and was threatening to engulf the Lander. She had to get off this ledge now.

  She quickly lifted the Lander off the ledge and eased it away until she was facing the edge of the alien ship, close to the hole they had cut into it. She hovered at five metres from the edge of the ship. Through the sand raining down, she could just make out that the landing area was now completely covered. Horrendous gusts of sand and wind were buffeting her, and even through the Lander’s considerable insulation layers. The wind and sand could be heard screaming and roaring outside.

  “At this rate it’s going to sand the hull of the Lander away,” she thought.

  The autopilot was holding the craft reasonably steady, but it was obviously struggling.

  Looking at the time, she realised it was five more minutes before Nassel and Adeeone were due back at the opening. In that time, the hole would be full of sand. They were going to have a struggle to get out before the whole ship became buried.

  Those five minutes were an agony for Glaina. Each minute the sand pouring down the vast dune crept closer to the hole. Then the hole was gone buried under the relentless advance of the wall of sand. She hovered the Lander another five metres back away from the sand that was now spilling in a torrent over the final lip of the alien ship.

  Suddenly, there was an enormous slide of sand and the edge of the ship and the blocked hole were once more visible. The sand in the hole seemed to be running inside, when a helmet appeared followed swiftly by another helmet. “Glaina, Glaina can you hear me?” Nassel’s voice suddenly erupted on the Landers audio.

  “Yes! Thank goodness you’ve both got out,” answered Glaina. “There’s just one problem. I can’t get close enough for you to board the Lander, and you’ll be swept off and buried shortly unless I can pick you up.”

  Nassel’s voice came over the audio in reply. “Glaina, listen carefully and don’t argue. I want you to take the Lander to the bottom of the canyon and find a landing place near the base of this sand drift, and wait for us there. We will join you shortly.”

  “But, how will you get down. It’s over a kilometre below us,” wailed Glaina.

  “I’ve no time to explain just go, NOW!” shouted Nassel.

  Glaina banked the Lander and flew down the giant sand pile to its base and searched for a suitable landing site, eventually finding a flat-topped rock above the sand not far from its base where she landed. On the way down to the landing site, she had been listening to Nassel outlining his escape plan to Adeeone, who had readily agreed.

  With the sand pouring down ever closer, Adeeone stood behind Nassel grasping him around the waist and lifting, he stepped to the lip of the alien ship nearest the sand wall and stepped off the rim like a ramrod, throwing his body slightly backwards as they dropped.

  Adeeone hit the sand on his back, and they were off! Nassel, with the torch pointing at his feet and his head lifted slightly off Adeeone's chest, had his legs outside Adeeone steering with his feet. As they picked up speed and went careening down the slope. It was like surfing the face of the biggest, hardest, steepest wave that could only be dreamt of in a nightmare. All Nassel had time to think was, “I hope we don’t hit a rock near the bottom,” before all his skill and energy were engaged in keeping them arrow straight down the face of this incredibly steep slope. When they reached the bottom, their luck ran out. Adeeone's feet hit a rock outcrop.

  The enormous impact would have killed Nassel if Adeeone had not had the presence of mind to release him. As it was, they somersaulted through the air and luckily landed headfirst in a soft drift of sand.

  When Nassel came to, he found himself half buried face down, and when he levered himself up he thought he was blind, until he realised that his helmet face plate was so sand blasted that he couldn’t see out. Nassel rolled over and checked himself; he seemed to be in one piece.

  “Adeeone can you hear me, are you alright?” he called over the commlink.

  “My feet and legs are not functional below my knee joints, and one hip joint is damaged.” Adeeone replied.

  “Glaina can y
ou hear us,” Nassel called.

  “I hear you, but I can’t see you anywhere,” Glaina replied.

  Nassel was getting worried now. He tried desperately to see anything at all around himself, and then made out a faint glow to his left. He crawled towards it, feeling the ground in front of himself. Suddenly, his hand touched the torch. He grasped at it like a drowning man. It was a miracle it still worked. Sitting up he pushed the base of the torch into the sand so that its beam was full on him.

  “Glaina! Adeeone! Can either of you see me? I’ve found the torch and trained the beam on myself.”

  Glaina called, “I can’t see you.”

  Adeeone replied “I see a glow ahead of me to my right. I will pull myself towards it.”

  Glaina suddenly broke in, sounding very worried, “Nassel are you injured?”

  “Not physically, but my faceplate is so sandblasted I’m virtually blind,” he replied.

  “I have lost contact with the ship. All I am getting is static. They don’t know what’s happening down here.” The pitch of Glaina’s voice seemed to have risen.

  “Glaina, we need you to stay calm. Can you get a directional fix on my voice transmissions? I will keep talking until you have a direction. Once you have a direction, I want you to train the searchlight along it. If we are near enough, we should be able to see some sort of glow.”

  “Got it! I’ve pinpointed the direction, and I’m pointing the searchlight that way now.” Called Glaina.

  Suddenly, the sound of the storm was howling in their earphones. Adeeone broke into the conversation, “I have had to remove my faceplate. It was cracked, and my helmet filled with sand. I can see you now Nassel,” shouted Adeeone, “I will reach you shortly.”

  Less than a minute later Nassel felt Adeeone touch his leg.

  “Great you made it,” Nassel shouted to him.

  He turned off the torch and shouted to Adeeone, “Can you see the Lander lights anywhere?”

  After a short pause, Adeeone replied, “No.” Just then, Glaina broke in, shouting to be heard above the screaming shriek of the wind over the intercom. “Stay where you are! I’m going to try to bring the Lander to you.”

  “Hurry it’s getting a bit fraught out here,” shouted Nassel and turned the torch back on.

  Glaina lifted off in the Lander and gently moved in the direction of the radio fix. Suddenly, the beam of the searchlight picked them up sitting in the sand, “I’ve got you in sight!” shouted Glaina as she gently set the Lander down.

  She felt it settle, then start sinking, and then stop. She donned her helmet and opened the airlock, and walked bent almost double against the wind until she reached Nassel and Adeeone,

  “Come on, you two lazybones. We’ve a Lander to board,” she shouted in relief.

  “I have never felt such a wonderful feeling,” shouted Nassel as Glaina took his arm.

  “We’ll have to help Adeeone, between us.”

  Glaina guided them to the Lander airlock with Adeeone supported between them.

  “If you put me face down on the airlock steps and support my legs, I can walk up the steps on my hands,” said Adeeone.

  When they were safely aboard with the airlock shut and their helmets off Nassel said, “Isn’t it lovely and quiet in here?”

  They got Adeeone strapped in and settled themselves into their seats, Glaina in the pilot’s seat this time.

  “Let’s get out of this nightmare canyon and back in space,” she said taking off, and rising vertically at an ever-increasing rate of climb.

  The Lander shot out of the canyon. As it passed the lip, they caught the full brunt of the storm. The Lander bucked sideways, but the autopilot compensated and in another minute, they were above the storm and heading for the ships co-ordinates. Nassel watching the view screen thought, “The cameras will have to be changed.” The screen was decidedly foggy.

  He looked at Adeeone and winced. What a mess he was. He must have hit the rock outcrop, mainly on his left foot. It had smashed the leg crumpling it up to the knee. The force had also pushed the hip completely out of the joint. His other foot is badly bent, and the shin twisted. Then he looked at Adeeone's face. The visor that protected his eyes had been sandblasted, and his eyes did not look too good, either. Glaina was busy trying to raise the ship, but only received howling and hissing. The Lander’s thrusters came on, and they started to slow. Then, through the blurred view screen, they could see the ship, exactly where it should be.

  “I cannot raise the ship. We’ll have to try to dock manually,” said Glaina.

  “Not a good idea! It is far too risky without communication with the docking collar sensors. We could damage the Lander and the ship,” replied Nassel.

  “What do we do then, just sit here?” queried Glaina.

  Just then, a light started winking on the ship.

  “Look they are signalling us,” exclaimed Nassel. WAIT COMMS LOST DUE SUN FLARE! DO NOT DOCK, YET!” read Nassel.

  “UNDERSTOOD!” He flashed in reply by searchlight. “Well, it looks like we wait until comms are restored. What’s to eat on this old tub? I’m starving!”

  “Do not eat everything! We might be out here days,” retorted Glaina.

  They waited four and a half hours before communication was restored, and they could dock the Lander. Then they had to operate the docking clamps several times before they locked fully, and the docking board lights were all green.

  “Damn sand must be everywhere,” remarked Nassel.

  The airlock door cycled open and Breen stuck his head through the hatch, “Welcome back! Everyone all right?”

  “No!” Replied Nassel. “We need some help with Adeeone. He has badly smashed legs and sandblasted eyes.”

  “What happened down there?” queried Breen. “It’s a long story,” said Glaina. “We’ll fill everyone in at debrief.”

  They carried Adeeone out of the Lander and along to sickbay. They left him to the tender care of Adeetoo, who would soon have Adeeone fully functional. Then, taking travelators, they went to the bridge to make their report.

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  Chapter Three