Episode 4
Part Three
"I don't like this night travel," murmured Hefferan, leaning against the crude plastic railing of the escort ship. "At least on Earth we knew what the darkness held."
"Yes. It held quick death, sneak attacks, crazed victims of biological attacks. Or have you forgott..." Snowfire stopped, his eyes narrowing. "What was that?"
"What?" Hefferan craned his neck forward to stare out into a nearly impenetrable darkness. Snowfire scowled and took a scanner from his loosely-tied belt. He looked through the single lens and twiddled the controls. Several armed soldier/techs moved closer to him.
"Nothing." The word floated across the blackness of sea and sky.
"There is not an ounce of moonlight through the Churn," said Hefferan, an older scientist who had scored Expert on the marksmanship tests. "Bad luck that both suns are on the far side."
"There," said Snowfire, then swiveled the scanner. "Something... Does the navigator see anything on his scanner?"
"He would have said something," answered Hefferan. "There are native life forms in the fungus. Are there also ones out here?" The older man looked down into the inky blackness around the ship. "Something must live down there."
"It's too dark," said Snowfire. "Let's not wait like this." He went down belowdeck and re-emerged a few moments later with a beacon gun. He aimed it low across the horizon and fired.
A bolt of white energy burst from the gun and arced low across the horizon, sending brilliant trails of light into the sea. The bolt went long and far, then faded down and away. A few moments passed in silence.
Suddenly a burst of yellow fire shot from the darkness of the sea and arced toward them. Snowfire watched it and then covered his face as the light grew brighter.
"That's not a flare! Hard to port!" he ordered.
The ship began to turn into the waves as the engines fired, sending the ship breasting the waves, propelled skyward by the engines' force. The yellow fire had now spun its way into a huge sphere of light that loomed above the ship, and Hefferan turned away from the heat. It passed over the ship and then there was a hiss as the sea boiled and steam rose in clouds.
"What was that?" shouted Hefferan. Two more flares thumped into the night sky and arced toward them.
"Full stop! Remain still!" shouted Snowfire. "These will miss us."
But three more thumps sounded on the horizon, and now five balls of yellow fire crossed the sky.
"We must protect the cargo ship," hissed Hefferan, helpless to fire his scoped rifle when he could not see the enemy.
"They're not firing at the cargo ship. They know what's on it. In fact," Snowfire tapped into his quicklink, contacting the pilot of the cargo ship. "Cargo, move your ship closer. We must bunch tightly."
"Too risky!" came the high pitched voice of the cargo ship's pilot. "They are trying to kill you."
"But not you. If we move closer it will be for the good of all."
The sea surged and roiled as the yellow fire rained down around them. Steam washed over Snowfire's face, scalding him.
"I don't agree!" the pilot warbled. "You distract them, we will run! We must protect the alien engravings!"
"If you run you are a sitting duck!" shouted Snowfire, then broke the link. He yelled to his own helmsman. "Move close to the cargo ship. I want to be able to spit in their pilot's eye if I want to. Stay close. Do not let them run."
The ship surged ahead. The bolts of fire launched from the distance had changed colors now, to blues and whites, smaller in size but filling the sky with their heat and power. Then, as the ships moved into a tight cluster, the fire stopped.
Snowfire and his crew waited for the unseen enemy that approached.
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