Page 21 of Protected By the Alien Commander

Doshax

I frownedas I adjusted the comm to another frequency and static still came through. I could not power up the emergency beacon, so the comm was our only hope. And it was not working correctly. There were too many mysterious things about this planet, and I did not like mysteries. I focused on the comm again. The only reason the electronics would not work or work correctly was if something native to this planet was blocking them. But that did not answer how all our ships died and got pulled onto the planet’s surface.

How did Ohliveah’s ship get here? "What happened to your ship? How did you end up on this planet?"

"I'm not sure. We were all in the lounge dancing and drinking. It was the start of the three day booze cruise and we had just left the Space Elevator connected to Earth. Then the ship tilted, and I saw a green, wispy cloud next to the ship and blacked out. I woke up, and saw we had crashed here. We didn’t hear anything from the pilot but couldn’t reach the cockpit to find out why. The hallway had collapsed. We think," she paused, “that the crew is dead."

What a tough experience for a civilian. I know some soldiers that would not be as calm as she was now. "Did you check the ship to see if anything worked?"

She shrugged. "The medpod was working when we put Emma in it. She got knocked out from the crash, but I think the medpod runs on batteries. We just assumed nothing was working after we didn’t hear from the pilot. We weren’t supposed to be on the ship much during our cruise. Which was probably why there wasn’t much water to drink.”

"Why did you leave the ship by yourself?" I reached out to the dashboard and adjusted the comm to a new frequency.

“I didn’t. My friend Miranda and I left to walk to those big plants, but she turned around and went back to the ship. Well, I’m sure she did. I mean, when I stopped for a break, she wasn’t behind me anymore.”

I made sure I did not show my thoughts on my face. Ohliveah had enough to deal with already. She did not need to know that I did not think her friend had gone back to the ship. Strange disappearances was another rumor regarding Yazell. I hoped for her sake that her friend was safe on their ship. Otherwise, I was not sure she would ever see her friend again.

The floor suddenly hummed, vibrating through my boots and the pilot’s chair. It was the kind of vibration that everyone that traveled in space knew; the ship was active. Lights all across the cockpit blinked and then were steady. Vidscreens flashed and messages alerted the systems were restarting. “What the herrex?”

"The ship just turned on!" Olivia held her hands up.

I did not know what had caused the ship to power on. I doubted anything she had touched had started the ship, because the power button was on my side and I had tried it already. Many times.

She frowned as she looked at me. “Why do you think the ship suddenly started?"

I did not know how to answer her. How could the ship have started itself? It had been some time after I had pushed the power button and tried to reboot the ship. “I do not know. It does not make sense.”

The cyndagrade crystals that powered the ship were still well above the minimum functioning level, according to the newly active sensor. I tapped on a vidscreen. If everything else on the ship was working, we could fly and find my men. But I did not know if the ship was airworthy. The hull could have been punctured by the crash on this planet.

But I would try it. This was my best chance to find my men. First, though, we needed to rescue Ohliveah’s friends. Then I would fly over the area looking for my squadron. They should have crashed in the same area as I had. The only problem would be if her injured friend needed more medical help than what was available on this ship.

I checked all the vidscreens and instruments on the dashboard. Everything looked within acceptable limits for liftoff. There was no reason to continue sitting on the ground with a working spaceship. It was time to see if the ship could fly.

I buckled myself in the old-style restraint system, then looked over at Ohliveah. “Put on your restraint. I am going to fly the ship. I do not know what is going to happen."

“Is it safe? I mean, the ship crashed. Can it even fly?”

“I would not dare endanger your life, my Ohliveah. The sensors show the ship is operating within acceptable levels.”

She flashed me a smile that quickly disappeared as her forehead wrinkled again. “Do you think there’s dust inside the engines that could make it not fly? Or worse, take off but then crash?”

I looked at the dashboard and sensors again. It was odd that the ship had sat in the elements for over a decade, then powered on and sensors showed everything was operational, even if in the lower ranges. I did not like this mystery. But I could not think of a good reason to not try to get the ship off the ground.

I turned to Ohliveah who stared at me, but not with fear. A fit mate for a warrior. My chest hurt that we would soon be separated after we left the planet. But I pushed those thoughts away. I needed to focus on flying this ship, especially if anything happened. “I am going to pull back and lift the ship off the ground. Stand by.”

I slowly pulled back on the flight stick so that if anything would fail, it would happen when we were not far off the ground. The ship creaked and groaned, shaking violently. I saw Olivia grab her chair’s armrests. Then the ship lifted off the surface of the planet.

A fierce pride flushed through me. We had done it. The ship worked and we were off the ground. But I kept my eyes on the dashboard’s instruments to monitor them. Everything continued to look stable. Odd, but I would not look a gift urlak in the mouth. I could not see out the window. Orange dust blown up by the ship clouded the view. I needed to move the ship further off the ground so I could see the landscape and any crashed ships.

The dust storm fell away as I raised the ship higher off the ground. Nothing but scattered tan scrub brush and a few dark, short, gnarled trees out the window. I did not take my eyes off the instruments; I needed to be alert if anything with the ship changed for the worse. "Which direction do you remember walking to the plants? The directional instruments are still not working correctly, and I will have to fly using landmarks. Do you see anything that looks familiar?"

Ohliveah bit her bottom lip, then raised her arm pointing. “Go this way. I walked towards the cliffs and the big plants. I didn’t see this ship then. You’d think I would have seen a spaceship this big."

I added that to my ever growing mental list of oddities about this planet. She should have seen it, but what if it had been camouflaged? Though why someone would have hidden then revealed an old crashed spaceship was beyond me. It made little sense.

I kept the spacecraft steady as we slowly glided over the planet’s surface. The shaking and groaning had lessened significantly.

"There, I see something!" Ohliveah strained against her seat restraints as she pointed at the window.

A large lump had appeared near the horizon and grew larger as we approached. I kept the ship flying so slow that I worried it might stall. But any faster, and we could not identify anything on the blurred ground as we flew by.

Ohliveah could barely keep still as we flew closer to the lump that had revealed itself to be a ship. We were now close enough that we could see the ship’s markings. “That’s it! That’s my ship!”

I set our ship down a short distance away from hers, so the backdraft would not shake it. Now I faced a dilemma. I did not want to turn the spaceship off. It might not start up again. It should not have started at all, especially on its own after at least a decade on the surface of this planet. But I would not ignore our only hope of rescuing ourselves and my men. I also did not want to leave the craft open and running for anyone else to steal. Like pirates.

I cycled down the engines to standby. "I do not want you to go to your ship by yourself. But first I need to change the biometric scanners so this ship recognizes both of us. I do not want anyone else to take it.”

Maybe I should not have shared that based on how Ohliveah’s face changed color. I would have to ask about her species’ camouflage when we had time. It was bizarre.

"What do you mean?” she cried. “We haven't seen anyone else. You really think there are other people here?"

I cycled through the ship’s menu for the security settings. "It is just a force of habit from my military service. I have not seen anything that would make me think there is anybody else here."

The lie was easy because I did not want to scare her. I placed my hand over a screen on the dashboard, which scanned it and beeped. "It is your turn now. Put your hand on the screen.”

I set the security system to recognize another person, then a band of light scanned Ohliveah’s hand. I unbuckled the chair’s restraint system and stood. “We can lock the cockpit and leave the ship."

She waited for me to lead the way. I stopped outside the cockpit to place my hand on the vidscreen next to the cockpit’s door. The odds of this vessel working continued to bother me, but I would think about it another time. We had to leave the ship and check on her friends. For her sake, I hoped they had survived.