Marooned on a desolate planet, joining forces with the enemy is their only hope for escape.
Maya Pandita spent years preparing for an expedition to the Deadlands. But her dreams of unearthing ancient artifacts are shattered when her shuttle is buried by a violent sandstorm, and her team is abducted by the scaled inhabitants of the planet. Maya and her companions must try to outwit their blue captor and call for help before they die in the toxic atmosphere.
Sa
Vittaran has a problem in his claws. Along with treasures from the ruins, he
has retrieved three smooth-skinned foreigners. They will die if he leaves them
in the desert. Yet the puny creatures have little value as slaves, except
perhaps for the impudent woman who claims to be their leader. He plans to keep
her. Her knowledge of the ancient texts will be an asset if she can survive the
long trek to his house.
An
attack by marauders forces Maya and the Blue leader into a wary alliance. They
must work together to thwart the bandits and reunite their company. Can Maya
convince Sa Vittaran to help her team? If she fails, they are doomed to a short
unpleasant life on the desolate, war-torn planet.
Chapter 1. Sandstorm in the Deadlands
The
sandstorm whirled out of the desert and plowed into the shuttle.
Red
grit rattled on the windshield. Maya flinched. Surely the transparent screen wouldn’t
shatter? The prospect of a delay annoyed her more than the storm. Her team was ready
to land and explore the ruins, remnants of an ancient civilization destroyed
millennia ago in a nuclear catastrophe. She glanced at the tablet embedded in
her armrest. Their instruments had detected the walls of a city under the sand,
and she had pinpointed a landing site in the center of a large complex. But,
they had overshot the outlined walls and were shifting further away.
The
shuttle bucked in the violent gusts.
“Helmets on,” Jack yelled, struggling to
control the shuttle’s erratic path. “I’m taking her down.”
The
four surveyors had discarded their headgear in the climate-controlled cabin.
Now, they hurried to fasten their helmets, or more accurately, head masks with
built-in goggles. They wore military-issue suits, provided by the Terran Space
Authority for exploring dangerous environments like the Deadlands. Its heat and
acrid atmosphere made the Deadlands unfit for life, but the high radiation levels
posed the severest hazard. Their suits even had boosters to facilitate walking
and lifting in the planet’s high gravity.
Rocked
by the powerful winds, the shuttle lurched to starboard. The floor tilted. A cascade
of rust-red sand blocked their view. The external monitors
darkened under the onslaught of sand particles.
Abruptly, screens
blanked.
The air recycler
coughed to a halt.
Lights flickered
out.
Maya froze in a
flash of panic. Her first mission, the first she had led, might be her last. She fingered the
bridge of the nose filters under her mask. If the air scrubber failed, she
would need the filters to block the grit and toxic atmosphere. Her team must
also be realizing their deadly peril. For the most part, they were handling the
shock well.
In
the co-pilot’s seat, Hong gasped. She glanced over her shoulder at Maya, dismay
written in her eyes, although the mask muffled her face.
Seated
next to Maya, their tech expert, Felix, cursed as he jabbed his fingers on his
tablet.
A
beep announced the switch to emergency power. Spots of orange light illuminated
the cabin. In the eerie silence, Maya surveyed her companions with a new
clarity. The dim orange glow highlighted their goggles and special suits, giving
them an alien appearance. The insulated suits were colored and patterned with
scales to mimic the native inhabitants in case her team was spotted from the
borders of the Deadlands. She had recruited her assistant, Hong Dinh, on Terra.
Hong’s role was to make digital records of the ancient artifacts, and she had
basic medical training in case of any accidents. Felix McCree was their tech
expert, a genius with any type of machine, from electronic devices to
mechanical engines. Lastly, Maya focused on Jack. Major Jarvi had been assigned
by the Terran Space Authority as their pilot and expert on inhospitable
environments. He would know what to do in this emergency.
“Jack?”
she prompted.
“Felix,
check the instruments,” he ordered, tapping the control panel. “Hong, call the
station.” Their support staff, Lieutenants Kit Rangi
and Ross Wu of the Security Division, were based in the orbiting station.
His
eyes fixed on the screens, Felix played his fingers over the keys.
Grabbing
the mike, Hong called, “Mayday, mayday. Come in Big Bird.” After repeating the
call for the third time, she swiveled to face Jack. “There’s no answer.”
He
directed his laser beam at the windshield. The light reflected on a dull red
surface with tiny glints of crystalline particles. “The shuttle’s buried under
the sand. A thick layer. Too thick, I’d guess, for our radio transmissions to
penetrate to the surface.” Twisting to look back at Felix, he asked, “What’s
the damage?”
“Bad.
We’ve lost power. Engine’s jammed. Sensors indicate silica particles
everywhere.”
Pinpointing
a critical factor, Maya asked, “How much oxygen do we have?”
Felix
punched the pad and groaned. “Enough for about three hours. Possibly longer if
we don’t exert ourselves.”
“Or
less if the tank’s been holed,” Jack warned. “The oxygen was intended for our
trips to the space station and not for consumption on the ground.”
“Won’t
Kit and Ross send a shuttle to search for us?” Hong asked.
Maya
said, “I’d signaled them the landing site we’d selected. But, the storm blew us
way off course. They won’t know where to look.”
“I
saw mountains in the distance,” Jack volunteered, “just before the sand hit the
screen. The shuttle might have landed near the border of the Deadlands.” The
explosion creating the Deadlands had carved out a basin rimmed with high cliffs
and mountains.
She
shook her head. “It doesn’t help. We’ve no way to signal the station and they
could take days to locate us. We’ll have to manage alone.” Shooting a glance at
Jack, she said, “Any suggestions? You’re our expert on hazardous sites.”
“Okay.”
Jack exhaled a slow breath. “Here’s my suggestion. We wait one or two hours. If
we still can’t make contact, we’ll try to tunnel to the surface.”
“Can
we unload the digger?” Hong asked.
“Won’t
work,” Jack said flatly. “We’ve nowhere to dump the sand except inside the
cabin.”
Swiveling
to tap Maya’s arm, Felix said, “It’s your decision. You’re the boss.”
Weighed
down by the responsibility for their lives, she nodded. “Okay, we’ll wait one
hour.”
Every
ten minutes, Hong sent the distress signal.
After
trying for the fifth time to restart the engines without success, Jack said, “I
reckon the intake’s clogged with sand.”
Felix
unscrewed the base of the control panel and began to test the wiring.
While
they waited, Maya checked the storage lockers and made an inventory of their
supplies. They had food concentrates and water to last five days, lasers, and
miscellaneous detectors for the expedition. The bulldozer and sand blower were
in the cargo hold. They had brought everything needed to excavate the
underground ruins and explore the ancient site, including ropes for climbing
into subterranean rooms. According to the scientists from Eden who fielded the earlier
expedition, the underground levels of the buildings might be intact. But, they
had expected to use the shuttle as their base, with its controlled temperature,
filtered air, and generator to power the excavation tools. At this point, they must
abandon the mission and concentrate on escaping the shuttle and calling the
space station for help.
Anger
and frustration swelled inside her. They were trapped. Buried under the
radioactive sands and low on oxygen. What a stupid way to end her first
mission!
