From the Darkness by Thomas Gilmor

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From the Darkness
Chapter 4

The sun rose on the landscape as the group slept. It was soon time to wake up, Stewart was due to arrive at any time. The breeze blew softly and quietly through the leaves of the large dominating trees. The air that moved towards the tents carried a sent that was recognizable yet unfamiliar at the same time. As if time had caused the nose to forget. But sometimes the mind is quick to remember; this was proven by Pavlov and his experiments hundreds of years before.

Morgan had stumped out of his tent at the same time as Alonzo.

"Is that the smell of bacon?" inquired Morgan, his tastebuds ready to explode.

"It certainly smells like it," Alonzo answered.

Within the next minute or so the rest of the group was out of their respective tents salivating at the scent. They looked towards the clearing, the HR-7 was there, motionless as if it had been there all along. The aroma though was coming from the north. Slowly and cautiously the group made its way in its direction. In a small clearing they soon saw Stewart over a thermal heater with enough bacon and eggs to feed the entire group. As they approached he turned;

"Well who's up for breakfast?"

"Oh this is great, a real meal!" Morgan exclaimed as he ran towards the cooking meal. He almost stumbled on a log in his haste. Alonzo approached Stewart,

"How did you get the HR-7 down without us hearing?" he asked

"Stealth mode. Quieter than a whisper."

Alonzo gave a quizzical look to John and Yale. Stewart picked up on it and added, "Hey, Eden 2 was wealthy, what can I say? How about some chow?"

The group sat on the ground as Stewart dished out their breakfast on new plates.

"So when do we begin? Stewart asked.

John was sitting opposite of Stewart and quickly finished his mouthful before starting. "Actually we want to talk to you about that."

"Oh."

"We don't want to appear ungrateful but we have had a number of bad experiences on this planet and we want to proceed slowly."

"What do you mean?"

"We would like Alonzo to pilot a HR-7 and meet your crew and then use it to help locate and possibly retrieve our missing cargo pods." John was testing Stewart. If they could retrieve the pods they could move their vehicles.

"You will need something larger than an HR-7, more like a ZX2."

"Is that possible?"

"It might be. I will have to talk with the others. Why don't you make this easier on all of us and just let us take you to New Pacifica?"

"Look, we are appreciative for your help but we have survived this far with what we've got. That's the deal."

"Fine. I'll be back." Stewart stormed off in the direction of the HR-7. It took off without a sound and glided into the heavens.

"What was his problem?" asked Baines.

"Maybe he is just insulted," offered Morgan "We really are being a pain in the ass. I mean.."

"Stuff it Morgan. If he's got a ZX2 that means he could transport the vehicles. He's not telling us the whole story.

The day passed and Stewart did not return that day. It wasn't until noon the following day that he arrived. He landed in the same clearing he had landed before. The group had gathered just on the edge of the clearing, Stewart approached.

"We have agreed to your terms John, but I still fail to see why you are being so difficult. We have one ZX2 available. Only 7 of your 15 pods survived and remained intact. You will require more than one pilot to load the pods onto the ZX2. You and your crew will board the ZX2 from the Mother Ship."

John responded, "Why then don't we move our vehicles?"

Stewart obviously was expecting the question and didn't crack a sweat, "Because our scans of them show that they have about a month left in their service life. There is no use hauling around junk."

John was insulted but he was able to hide his emotions, "I knew they were in a state of deterioration, but I didn't think it was that bad."

"Well they are," smiled Stewart.

"Alonzo and Baines will join you," John nodded to the two of them indicating for them to go. The expression on John's face looked as if to say, "Be careful, keep your eyes open."

Uly and True were in the main tent with the rest of the group. They had the job of placing markers on the map that depicted the location of the cargo pods. The group had decided it was best to first locate the pods with an areal reconnaissance to check if they were intact and only then would they start to load the ZX2.

Uly turned to John, "That's the last one," as Uly had placed the marker on the map in Copus where the last cargo pod was found.

"See I told you," stated Morgan coldly, "Stewart was telling the truth about the pods. Now why can't you trust him?"

"You know me Morgan. I don't trust anyone," Danziger replied with cold stare. Danziger was obviously referring to the first meeting he had with Morgan in which Morgan had deliberately, out of cowardice, took one of the escape pods as the ship crashed. Leaving John and True to find another pod in order to escape.

True had come up beside her father, "Dad, can Uly and I go out and play?"

"Sure."

True and Uly looked at each other and started to run out of the tent.

"But stay within the perimeter!" he yelled after them.

"We will!" they both replied in tandem without stopping or turning back.

True had devised a new game to occupy themselves. It involved them both laying on the ground staring at the sky. To be more precise, the clouds. They used their imaginations to identify them as objects. The winner was the one with the most elaborate story behind the object.

"That one," pointing to a cloud "looks like a wolf from Earth," said True. "It had escaped from the Station Zoo and was hiding in an empty tool locker. At night it prowled the corridors outside the Public Mess Halls waiting for some unsuspecting passerby to feed on." True ended her story with a grow and a howl.

"My turn," said Uly clearly excited. He paused and thought. Slowly he lifted his hand to point to a cirrus cloud just coming over the horizon. "That is the Wildebeest of Upper Calonia. He has six arms which shoot spiral tentacles to catch it's prey. They slowly drag it's victims, usually a Grendler into it's mouth. Acid from its forked tongue devours the Grendler as it howls in pain. Once the Grendler stops it's cries it then swallows it whole."

"Uly!" yelled True. "I thought we agreed that you were not supposed to use monsters that eat people all of the time!"

"Fine. You just don't like me using them because then I would win. Fine you go." True pointed to a very small dark cloud that was very high in the sky. It seemed to be growing a bit. "That one looks like one of the creatures that live behind black holes. As soon as you spot it, it grabs you. As it grows it holds you tighter and tighter as the world around you becomes darker and darker." She paused, then screamed! It was the high pitch whine that she was famous for.

Before Uly could ask for an explanation the ground in front of them exploded blowing dirt into his face. Great pulses of energy streamed from above.

The two on patrol, Magus and Walman, started firing their MagPro's wildly into the sky. What was once believed by a child to be a small dark cloud was actually a large dark assault aircraft. The rest of the group started running out of the tent. Those with MagPro's took a defensive position and opened fire.

Others ran across camp to the vehicles to get more weapons. The plasma bolts fell like rain. With each explosion more of their base was destroyed. At first some of the group took refuge near the vehicles but they quickly moved away, the shelling was too intense.

John was running through the battlefield trying to locate his daughter. Debris were flying everywhere and he often fell. A plasma bolt smashed ten feet in front of him and the explosion sent him wheeling. He looked behind him in time to see a plasma bolt hit the main tent. Nothing was left. He moved forward but each time he did he was repelled by a volley of plasma bolts. He slowly recognized the pattern. If he moved forward, a charge would follow, knocking him down.

He looked up to see that now there were three aircraft, all HR-7's and one descended before him, between True, Uly and himself. The other two aircrafts hovered above, menacing over the base that was left in shambles. The door to the HR-7 opened and John was not surprised when Stewart walked out of the craft with a weapon in hand.

"Good to see you again John," he smiled.

"What do you want? Who are you?" John demanded.

"Oh come on John, surely you've figured it out by now." He chuckled and moved towards the children.

"Stay away from them!" John yelled.

"Or what?" Stewart laughed. John charged at Stewart with pure adrenaline yelling "Run!" to the kids. Immediately a charge was fired at John and it exploded a few feet in front of him. Uly and True were terrified, they bolted but no sooner than they had started, Stewart fired his weapon at Uly, stunning him and knocking him to the ground. Stewart walked, then leaned over and threw Uly over his shoulder.

As he entered his ship with Uly in hand, Stewart turned to John, who was stunned but not seriously injured.

"I've got what I came for John. You've done a good job, keeping him safe for so long. Now you don't need any of this." Stewart said as he pointed around the camp that smouldering fires surrounded.

The door closed and within moments the HR-7 rose and turned in to an attack formation. John shouted "Everyone get away from the vehicles. Run!"

Morgan had moved back to the Transrover after Stewart's HR-7 had landed. He was standing on the roof screaming, firing his MagPro widely at the lead ship.

"Morgan move it now!" John yelled.

The ships moved in closer, Morgan stood his ground. It wasn't until he saw the green glow around the firing chamber did he jump and run.

The HR-7's made short work of the camp. The Transrover was the first target followed by the Dunerail, the medical tent and finally the smaller tents. With each explosion a piece of their collective hearts was ripped away as despair slowly took over and sunk in. After the last shot was fired the three HR-7's turned to leave behind a smouldering mound of debris.

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