In the shadow of the stolen light. Nika Veresk
could be the threat of a collision. Oleg, you are responsible for the defence arms. Stan, calculate the possibility of using the teleport ray for transporting the injured onboard. Mary, get the spacesuits ready, they could be useful.”
“What should we do?” Derek looked questioningly at the captain.
“Fasten your belts for now,” he answered calmly. “But the night is young.”
“The object is on our right!” reported Chris.
The earthling and Lora sat in the vacant chairs, staring intently through the panoramic glass into the darkness surrounding the shuttle.
“The speed is too high, it’s going to be a rough landing!”
Soon after these words were uttered, Derek noticed a ship approaching them at speed; moving in jerks, losing and gaining height. When it was too close to the surface, it touched the spiky moon rocks which cut into its cover before bursting in all the directions.
“The scanners show that only one of the brake motors switched on! The ship’s going to turn around now!” reported Chris.
However, within seconds; not only did it turn, but it broke into two parts. One of the pieces of debris flew far ahead, disappearing from view of the onlookers and exploded as shown on one of the scanners. The bigger part bumped into several cliffs before halting one and a half kilometres away from the shuttle.
“Scan the debris for the presence of survivors,” commanded Paul.
Stan shook his head gloomily.
“Fifty-two life forms, but I can’t say anything about their physiological state. By the way, before firing the scanner had shown three hundred and seven Tarians.”
“So, our help could be useful,” summarized Paul. “Stan, what’s the situation with the teleport? Can we transport them one by one?”
“No, can’t do that. The damaged ship equipment could cause a lot of interference. If anything goes wrong, we’ll get the Tarians in pieces. But if we stick small beacons on the survivors, then every object’s signal will become stronger and the risk of harm or injury will be considerably decreased.”
“Is there a risk of explosion?”
“Not at the moment, but the engines of the ship are badly impaired; the beginning of a chain reaction is only a matter of time,” replied Oleg. “I think we have about an hour.”
“This mission isn’t directly connected with the interests of ‘Solar Flotilla’: that’s why I can’t give orders to anyone.” Paul looked at his crew.
“We’re coming, captain,” Mary gave a nudge to Oleg.
“Coming,” he nodded in agreement and, walking fast, they left the bridge.
“I can also help,” Lora said, ready to follow them.
“Great! Stan and Chris will stay with me onboard,” decided the captain.
“I want to go,” suddenly said Derek, loudly and decisively.
Paul raised his eyebrow in surprise, while Lora who was already heading to the spacesuit chamber stopped hesitantly.
“A walk in a spacesuit, despite all its advantages, is quite a tiring thing…”
“But I feel great. Besides, Paul said that he can’t order…”
“I can’t order you to go…” specified the captain, “But if your actions put other crew members in danger, it’s a different matter.”
“I can handle it,” confidently said Derek and pointed at the hologram, “Besides, we have little time to evacuate all the injured. Another pair of hands really could do.”
“He’s right,” agreed Chris, “Fighter planes are taking off from Taria. I don’t think they’ll ignore a ship that crashed on the moon.”
“The injured are all around the ship,” added Stan, “Teleporting our rescue team there will save some time, but they’ll have to move around the inside the spacecraft on their own, which can be very difficult.”
“Alright, put on your spacesuits and wait for departure at the teleport cabin.”
The rescue mission preparation took less than 10 minutes. Getting inside the Tarian spaceship, Lora and Derek looked around. A wide corridor, where they had been teleported by Stan, partially collapsed with clusters of bare wires sparkling, broken pipes and pieces of twisted metal. The flat bio scanner monitor attached to Lora’s spacesuit displayed the ship scanning data. Thus, receiving the directions, they headed to the place with several bio signals. From time to time, the piles of debris became a serious obstacle and moving ahead was badly hampered. Making her way through the blockage, Lora lost her step causing her leg to slip from a pipe, wet due to steam coming out of it. The girl screamed, lost her balance and rolled down on the floor with a crash.
“Hey, are you ok?” the earthling didn’t manage to catch her on time, but immediately rushed down to help her.
“It seems so,” she winced with the pain in her knee.
“Shall we move on?” he was watching her closely.
With the corner of her eye, the girl assessed her physical state indicators that flashed on the spacesuit virtual display right in front of her eyes and nodded affirmatively. Then they continued the way to their destination.
“What do the Tarians look like?” asked Derek, carefully following Lora.
“You’ll see for yourself,” the girl answered. “Here we are! Can you help me move this bulkhead.
Applying a great deal of effort, the young people managed to free the entrance to one of the passenger compartments where, according to the scan results, a few survivors were. The place was filled with thick steam and, judging by the squishing sound under their feet, there was a lot of water on the floor.
Suddenly, from Lora’s side, Derek heard a hoarse rattling sound resembling the kind of speech that they heard during the broadcast from the Tarian ship.
“What’s this?” the young man looked around.
“I just asked in Tarian if there is anyone there” answered the girl.
“How can you make sounds like that?” the young man was perplexed.
“Thanks to another element of the UCD, the personal speech synthesizer,” explained Lora. “The thing is that human vocal chords are not always able to reproduce the speech of alien races. I’m sure you have seen this gadget before. It’s a pendant that all the Titanium citizens wear around their necks. It works as a speech device, receiving signals directly from the brain and wording my thoughts towards it.”
“I need one!”
“Of course, but for now activate the interpreter, installed in the spacesuit.”
“We are the rescuers from the ‘Solar Flotilla’ shuttle, our crew is ready to help you!” Switching on the device, Derek heard a perfectly clear translation of the rattling created by Lora’s synthesizer. “Come out, don’t be afraid,” she added and within seconds they were surrounded by five short humanoids.
Derek had never seen the Tarians before and was now staring with great interest at the creatures that had appeared in the dimly lit compartment. In physique, they looked like short stocky men who, instead of skin, had small red scales. Their short strong limbs had long nails at their tips, while the heads and partially the shoulders and back were covered with a leathery carapace that resembled a helmet. From under this armour, yellow snake-like eyes observed the humans who had just arrived. The young man unwillingly smiled, watching the aliens’ clumsy movements while the rising water was up to their waists now.
“You were asking for help,” the girl broke the long silence.
“Yes, the captain of this ship tried to get in touch…” started one of the survivors, “But we don’t know where he is now…”
“Our friends will try to find him. For now we can offer