“Small comfort that,”Decker volunteered. “I remember those drones from the war, theywere tough as…well, rocks.”
Kennedy offered, “At leastthey warned us about the hostile creatures they encountered.” Heturned towards Sasaki. “What did they call them again?Jaw-something?”
“‘Jaw-snake’ – or‘jaw-ribbon’ – is the best translation I could come up with. We’restill finding the Carraik language extremely difficult to translateinto Standish.”
“Jaw-snake,” Deckerrepeated, nodding thoughtfully. “Pretty ominous-sounding name. Andthey fly, too.” She looked up at Kennedy. “Isn’t thatright?”
“Yep. Theyfly.”
Decker expelled a long sighand then laughed, “All this to pick up some rocks.”
Ramsey chided, “The amountof kiatilium that is said to exist on this planet can hardly beclassified as ‘some rocks,’ Lieutenant.”
“If everyone in the galaxyis chasing after this stuff,” Werther asked, “why would the RockPeople—”
“Carraiks, Chief,” JeffSasaki interjected. “They dislike being called ‘Rock People’ – theyfind the term rather insulting.”
Werther glanced back atLindstrom but apparently knew better than to ask why he hadn’t beensimilarly admonished. He continued, “Why would the Carraiks turnover the location of so much kiatilium for some easily obtainabletechnology? Doesn’t add up.”
Ricci said, “Well, they didadmit that the planet is inhabited by a highly dangerous lifeform.Additionally, with their stone-based technology, steinium is not avaluable metal to them. And therefore, the mineral needed to makeit, not as attractive a prize to them as it is to us.” He clappedhis hands together in an obvious signal that the time fordiscussion was over. “All right, Kennedy, you know your mission.Recon first, planetfall if possible, bring back an estimate of howmuch kiatilium we’re looking at – and exactly what we’re up againstwith these…flying ‘jaw-snakes’.”
“Aye, Captain.” Conquickly hustled the mission team onto the L3 shuttle, pausing onlybriefly to exchange an affectionate farewell with his wife, AqilaLateef. Decker settled for a smile aimed Tal’s way, then she andKayatennae followed Con onto the shuttle.
Minutes later Naiche waspiloting the shuttle towards the electric-blue cloud coverenveloping Saclaten-c. She hailed the communications officer,Lieutenant Leticia Evans, on the bridge. “Lovelace, L3 shuttle here. I’mapproaching the planet atmosphere. I’ll keep my comm line open thewhole way. Hopefully, I’ll be able to talk to you on the otherside.”
“Copy that, L3.Lovelace standingby.”
Decker steered the shuttleinto the atmosphere and as she expected, lost all visibility on theview screen. She was using the sensor read-out to ably guide theshuttle towards the planet surface when a klaxon sounded from thecontrol panel. The alarm stopped abruptly as the entire shuttle wasplunged into darkness. Based on the muffled exclamations of concernand alarm, Deck didn’t feel it necessary to announce that they’dlost all power and were in free fall. She took a deep breath tosteady herself, then focused on attempting to restart the shuttleby touch. Decker had never heard of a situation where a shuttle’spower had failed so completely as to lose emergency reserves,leaving her extremely pessimistic about her chances.
Beside her in the copilot’sseat, his voice taut with apprehension, Kennedy asked, “You canwork this thing in the dark?”
“Pretty much. Score onefor muscle memory.” As they continued falling towards the planet’ssurface, Naiche concentrated on using her available senses to takestock of their situation. “The atmospheric drag is slowing us down– but not enough. If I can’t get this thing restarted before wehit—”
Her dire warning wasinterrupted as the lights and controls flashed back to life; theshuttle had returned to full power so suddenly that the warningklaxon resumed blaring for a moment. A glance at the view screenrevealed that they’d cleared the dielectric-barrier. Evan’s tensevoice resonated from the shuttle’s comm unit. “I repeat, L3, do youcopy?”
“We copy,Lovelace – had a bit ofa situation there. We’re fine now and approaching the planetsurface.”
Ricci barked, “Define‘situation’, Decker.”
“Well, it seems like therewas some vital information about that dielectric-barrier that wedidn’t get from the Carraiks’ data packet.” With a shaky laugh, sheadded, “Please tell Commander Ramsey that I’ll need assistance fromEngineering in calculating our return trip to Lovelace. I need to know how much ofan ignition thrust a shuttle needs to achieve in order tocompensate for a complete loss of power in the upperatmosphere.”
Ricci, echoed by Lateef,exclaimed, “What the hell happened?”
Deck and Con exchangedbrief smiles as she replied, “Just what I said – a complete loss ofpower in the upper atmosphere. I’ll transmit the data for yourreview as soon as we land.”
***
The L3 had been skimmingthe planet’s surface for ten minutes, covering a 150square-kilometer area. Kennedy watched Decker consulting the datascreen; she announced, “Still not reading any technology and thelife-signs seem pretty evenly spread out over the entiresurface.”
“Where are you detectingthe highest concentration of kiatilium?”
She pointed to an area onthe sensor display. “Right there.”
“None of those‘jaw-snakes’ in sight, so let’s touch down in that area.” WhileDecker landed the shuttle, Kennedy relayed his decision toLovelace.
A minute later, Consurveyed the rocky terrain from the open shuttle hatch. He wasabout to declare an all-clear when he spied possible movement onthe horizon. “Deck, come here.” She leapt out of the pilot’s seatand jogged over to him, shadowed by Kayatennae. Together theywatched as the faint signs of motion resolved into what looked likefour-foot-long tubes of amber ribbons floating towards them in atwirling motion. Pointing toward the figures, Kennedy asked, “Couldthose be the ‘jaw-snakes’?”
“I don’t see any signs ofjaws but I guess they’re kindasnake-like, so…maybe?”
The creatures keptadvancing until dozens of them hovered about ten-feet from theshuttle in a formation that definitely had a menacing air to it.One of the aliens glided over to a near-by rock face and extendedseveral jagged knife-like appendages from its upper orifice. Conand Deck both jumped back when, with a strident whine, the creaturestarted cutting into the rock more readily than any plasma drillcould.
“Okay! Guess that’s thejaw part,” said Decker.
“I’m going out for abetter look,” Kennedy announced. “Deck, I want you and Abello bothcovering me.” Con figured his survival in the next few minutesmight depend entirely on the reflexes of his back-up and he wantedhis two best marksmen at the ready. With Decker and Abello inposition, Kennedy inched down the ramp.
“Hello,” he called out,slowly advancing towards the creatures.
