Quest for the 5 amulets chapter 2

Prolouge - pt3

The thunder rolled as Gabriel and Lucifer soared over the clashing clouds, weaving through the lightning to barrel roll down again and observe the seas swell up. Gabriel laughed and span away again, moving back up into the crimson sky as the sun rolled above and Lucifer remained at the water. He curled around as a gizer broke from the surface to find Jahovah sat by the water and flew in to greet him, landing gracefully.
“We have made sure the weather’s constant, the seas are filling up nicely.” He said smiling in achievement, then blinked as Jahovah remained staring the water.
“Master?”
Jahovah looked up. “Oh Lucifer! I’m sorry, I was thinking. What was it you said?”
“The seas are filling up, sir.” He repeated with a small edge of irritation.
“Ah! There’s my lad. That’s perfect.”
He patted Lucifer on the back and turned to trailing his hand in the water. He frowned. Lucifer sat down next to him, folding his wings at his back and looked at his reflection in the water. He enjoyed looking at himself, it seemed that every time he did he found another detail he had not noticed before. He looked at Jahovah’s reflection, which wasn’t there in the form he took, but instead appeared like a bright glow of light from beneath the surface of the water –a part of it. Lucifer wondered why he glowed like that- he supposed it was something to do with being a god, although he had never seen another to compare. He knew that they had vast power as a god. The creator. It made him shiver sometimes when he looked at Jahovah’s reflection. A pure light and control. The angel was never happier than when he was creating things for his master. He knew he was damn good at it too. He smiled with pride at this thought, pulled his hair behind his ear and looked at Jahovah’s face again.
“What is it that troubles you, father?”
Jahovah turned to Lucifer, but both were struck for words as they marvelled at a particularly sudden and great flash of lightning as it forked its way to the ground to be chased by a titanic roar of thunder. Lucifer felt the hairs on his neck stick up and he laughed.
“Everything here is perfect, what can worry you?”
Jahovah smiled as the lightning disappeared and he heard Gabriel’s thrilled laughter from above.
“It’s not worry, but a puzzle, My Light. Look.”
He pointed up to Gabriel as the archangel zipped into another clump of clouds.
“You know that you are different to him. You’re a male, and a good one at that. Now I need to make a female, but it’s complicated.”
“How so?”
Lucifer moved to recline on his back to watch the storm better.
“There are many issues. The female will harbour the life I create- she is key to the evolution that is so important. I need something that can hold a child. Now, the animals I have more or less sorted, but, for my stewards to be just right I need to give them values and a tie to their children. I need the child inside the mother – she has to be a mammal. The sanctity of life can’t be kept unless there is that initial bond you see?”
Lucifer frowned. “What is an animal? What’s a mammal?”
“I know I haven’t told you everything, for there is an infinite amount of things to tell.” He put a hand on Lucifer’s face. “But you miss the point my boy. I need the mother. I think I have it right, but it’s so complicated, the womb and such. Of course your design wasn’t easy, but she as the second piece needs to fit well with you, else it’s hopeless.”
Lucifer nodded and looked up as the rain finally stopped. Gabriel swooped down. Jahovah stood up and stretched.
“I believe evolution should work itself out for me… I will probably get a premonition soon to help me. I feel the full answer is close.”
Lucifer stood up also and Jahovah turned back to the sea.
“Now. Let’s begin.”
He moved to his knees and bent towards the water. Suddenly there was a blinding flash of white light emitted from his hand, and then everything was normal again. Jahovah rocked back and smiled broadly at the seemingly empty water.
“Come, come. Look.”
He pointed again and Lucifer and Gabriel leant in to see. A tiny cell-like organism hung stationary in the water and then suddenly began to divide. Gabriel and Lucifer gasped, leaning in closer so that their faces almost touched the water.
“What is it?” Gabriel breathed as the pairs divided again and wiggled through the water a few millimetres.
Jahovah stood up again and smiled. “Beautiful isn’t it? That, my children, is life. Real life. Now let us leave them to their own devices for a while. I will populate the other planets also in a few days. Back to Heaven.”
Gabriel tore himself away and nodded, following Jahovah back through the thin film between their world and ours. Lucifer continued to look at the creatures, now in their hundreds, writhing about in the water. There was no white glow from them, but he had a deep feeling of an ominous power in them he and Gabriel didn’t have, which collected in his chest and gut. He didn’t know why, but these were special. He looked back to where Jahovah and Gabriel had disappeared and frowned, returning his gaze back to the water. He didn’t even get that feeling so strongly around Jahovah. There was a dormant power in them, and it made his heart beat that little bit faster. It frightened him a little.
“Why are you so special?” he whispered to the ever increasing organisms.
Lucifer! Come on.
He shook himself and turned away, disappearing through the film and back into heaven.






Chapter 2 – The ship with no name

A few hours later the ship was well on its way to Pluto, gliding through the vacuum of space and out of Earth’s Federation Sensors with a good natured farewell. The captain was proudly sitting at the helm and the cooks were busy cooking and organising in the kitchen, merrily preparing for the celebratory first lunch. Everyone was in their place, doing their jobs as instructed.
Everyone, of course, but Kero and Kaisa.
"Clingons to your left captain Kaisa!!"
Kero yelled across the holding bay.
"BBBBUSSSSIIHHHHHHH!!! GOT'EM Henson Kero!" Kaisa hollered back, leaning forwards in the space pod and holding onto the controls, pressing wildly on the dimmed buttons. Somewhere on the screen ‘control lock’ flashed silently, prompting ‘disengage key lock?’ before fading after being ignored.
The Cargo bay was a large empty metal room, stocked full with crates. The 1 Person Transport Space Pods, used for individual trips and as life rafts, were stacked on a pile of heavy crates, rocking precariously as Kero and Kaisa fired imaginary guns at imaginary enemies energetically from either side of the Cargo bay, their cylindrical shape hindered by some stout legs.
"DIE YOU ALIEN SCUM!"
Kaisa screamed 'killing' another part of the wall.
Kero grinned happily and leant out of his ship, pointing his hand like a gun and firing at the wall. The only problem was that Kero’s hands were actually armed.
Huge bolts of energy suddenly erupted out of his hand and exploded onto the wall, fanning out and corroding the metal until it dispeled, leaving a sooty dent the size of a land rover.
Both shut up with shock and stared at it, then slid slowly out of their vessels,
"Umm…" Kaisa said, trembling, "Wanna do something else now?"
Kero stared at his hands and gulped.
"Yeah…"






Meanwhile, the vacuum of space cocooned the cargo ship, blanketing it yet at the same time isolating it. In an age of travel, where species skipped from one planet to the next, space was the shipping currents. It was as large and mysterious as the ocean had been to our ancestors – huge, powerful and emotionless. As terrifying as the vast unknown of the sea had been, at least it had been something. It was the nothingness of space that many hardened traveller felt trickling into the cracks of their minds. The ocean was a beast; a creature of it’s own that, true enough, seemed to want to kill you at times and swallow you whole, dragging you into the crushing weight of it’s core. Space was passive and empty, sucking out the existence of everything. This apathy often tormented those who swam in the black nothingness for too long.
For Xenon, the emptiness excited him. The more time he spent in space, the clearer his thoughts felt. It was sterile and absent from corruption and idiocy. Space was the mistress that held all the answers…and the power.
Miles upon miles above the cargo ship, (a mere hair’s breadth in the view of Space), Xenon’s ship hung in the black. It was far larger than the cargo ship, and covered in a reflective black exoskeleton, built in panelled layers like a scorpion’s armour. It was as armed as the scorpion also, and not much more subtly, with the hanging machines of weapons under its belly. Lucidly streamline, it was the height of alien technology for those who could afford it (and very little could). If the sinister cloaking colour could not tell you clearly enough who the occupants were the price could: Space Pirates.
These morally deficit individuals were often the richest; after all who could fail to be rich in a no-cost-all-profit job? From cargo, to ships, to slavery to small moons the pirates had grips on it all. However this particular ship was not nearly as commonplace as those ‘thugs’.
The ship was strictly ‘off the radar’ of the Federation for the simple reason that it left no survivors. As a considerably older pirate adage told: ‘Dead men tell no tales’.
Xenon, however, having never heard of these old Earth pirates, nor listened intently to any stories about Long John Silver as a child, made do with common sense and bloodlust in these matters.
He sat inside this ship in the captain’s seat – a metallic throne like chair – and tapped his clawed fingers impatiently, his short tail flicking two and fro in anticipation as he watched the Cargo ship on the wall-sized observation screen.
Xenon was an Animagnan, more specifically the sub species Hynan. Like the rest of his home planet’s species he was an anthropomorphic beast, his species resembling a hyena. Course, short brown spotted fur covered his entire body, and wiry shoulder length straight hair was swept back from his muzzled face, settling mane-like between two long tufted ears on top of his head. His face was powerfully set, with a square, thick muzzle filled with carnivorous teeth, and topped with a large wet nose. Despite his dog like quality, his eyes were bright not with a dopey loyalty, but with a sharp human intelligence and cunning. Though dark and fixed on the observation screen, they occasionally flickered about the room wildly before remaining. Twitches in his face occasionally appeared and the eyes would flare with insanity.
Hynans had no concept of melodrama, but they achieved it effortlessly just by existing.

“What’s the population?” he asked in a rasped voice that none the less had the intonation of education buried deep within it. One of the various crewmembers on the helm controls looked at his equipment and smiled,
"Only 36 crew members sir; no-one will know they disappeared."
"Good." The captain smiled, drawing a tongue over the backs of his teeth slowly. “Weapons?”
Another responded with a smug smirk.
"Low base lasers captain Xenon. They wouldn't even singe us, nor do they look much worth robbing if you don’t mind me saying so, sir. Our nuclear weapons will take care of them. "
"No." Xenon said holding out his hand and clicking his fingers as he thought, "They will be perfect…"
"For what sir?"
"None of your business!" he barked suddenly, breaking his calm appearance and making the crewmembers flinch, "Just keep them alive! I want them captured, NOW!"
"Yes sir." They said nervously, reminding themselves to be more on guard for his outbursts next time.
"Good…" he purred, and sat back gently again, folding his fingers under his chin.
“Bring her down.”
Silently the ship turned, and went for a dive; its sensors guiding it to the exact location of the cargo ship X4412. With a subtle green flash, their weapons powered up. Not the nuclear ones, but the more docile lasers.


The captain of the cargo ship stood up in surprise. The Henson had just reported a ship that had come, as it seemed, out of nowhere on the sensors and even revealed that its weapons were locked on the engines.
Xenon allowed them this information. The ship could easily cover up and confuse their sensors no sooner than he could blink, but panic was what he wanted.
Yes, the captain would keep any danger discreet from most of his crew. Xenon would have to choose where to shoot carefully, in order to get the common crew worried.
"What should we do captain?" The advisor queried, after being given a vague description of the size of Xenon's ship.
"Hail them." The captain ordered, "Let's see what they want."
The communicator opened a channel to Xenon's ship. A little light flashed out of the corner of the Cytan pilot’s eye.
"Do you wish to speak to them sir, they are requesting attention." The Cytan – Veretrix - said carefully, wary of Xenon's irrational mood swings.
"Hmmm…." Xenon wondered, his tail flicking two and fro and his ear twitching. He stood up.
"Yes… let us see this captain…let him know who I am when my face is the last one he sees." He grinned and looked down at Veretrix. He hastily pressed a button, avoiding Xenon’s stare.
The screen at the front of the ship flashed into life, with the same initial green glow as the power was triggered as the weapons as they had charged.
The captains frowning face appeared on the screen, dominating the room.
"I am Captain P. V. Maneley, of the cargo ship X4412, from planet Earth. Who may I ask are you?"
Xenon smirked,
"Wouldn't you like to know."
The captain made a sound of irritation and gritted his teeth. The encounter already was pouring ice down his spine, and he couldn’t understand why he had grown so afraid so quickly. It was unnatural, after all he had been trained, and knew how to deal with pirates. Nevertheless, his heartbeat increased to a stressed hammer.
"Ok little monkey, I’ll play your game."
Xenon said smiling wider, revealing his powerful, yellow fangs.
"I am Xenon. This," he said waving a hand absently at the ship, "Is my ship. It has no name because it needs no name; it is simply the instrument of your destruction."

He laughed, placing his hands on his hips, his tail wagging quickly. The captain struggled to remain composed. He was embarrassed, but most of all afraid. He personally had dealt with small pirates in the past, though most knew cargo ships were peaceful and ones the size of his rarely carried anything of substantial value – at least not valuable enough for space pirates. He sensed quickly that xenon was something else. It was something in Xenon’s eyes that caused his heart to pierce with fear, and caused his voice to quaver as he replied.
"What do you plan to do? WHY?" The captain said quietly, his voice erupting on the last word to a yell of desperation, taking himself by surprise. He was no longer restraining this fear.
"Are you pirates?" the captain added weakly.

Xenon laughed the devilish cackle that reminded the captain far too much of the hyenas back home calling each other for a fresh carcass. The captain was terrified of what would happen to his crew, his…family. Xenon sensed it. He could taste every atom of the head crew's fear. He lived for that taste.
"No, no…we're not pirates." Xenon said quietly, just loud enough for the captain to hear, leaning forward so his face was just in front of the screen.
"Why would we want any of your cargo?" he asked mockingly, "We want something more…"
"What?"
"Your li-ives…" Xenon said I a sing-song voice, swirling around and cackling again.
He suddenly threw himself violently onto the bar protecting the communication screen from any falling bodies, stopping himself with his hands, his claws extending. He looked up with his demented eyes and bared his teeth. The captain stared in dread at this crazed creature. His training hadn’t prepared him for this mad…thing. The Henson looked around into the advisor's eyes as she nodded.
Then Veretrix called,
"Xenon, their engines are powering up for light speed!"
Xenon suddenly snapped out of his psychotic state and turned around, suddenly calm and smiled, turning to the screen again.
"Oh-ho captain…" He chuckled, "We can go three times as fast as you."
With one swoop of his arm their lasers fired and maimed the cargo ship's engines, sending the ship shaking.
"LALALA! You've got no pow-er!" Xenon sang again, breaking into a fit of devilish laughter and dancing in a circle.
"Damn you!" The captain shouted.
“Why don't you surrender captain, make it all, a little quicker." Xenon said.
"GO TO HELL! Hannah, turn the bastard off!"
"Ok." Xenon said, smirking, "But I'm not going to hell alone."
The communication channel was severed by Xenon first and the captain's face paled with worry disappeared in a flash of green light.
Veretrix looked up nervously at Xenon, who was grinning maliciously and scratching his furred chin. His crew waited and watched him silently. The silence was broken by the sound of the electronic sliding doors.

Xenon's eyes darted to the door back to see a medium height human-like alien called a Mon’tan standing in the doorway.
"Ah, Tyran, my boy," Xenon said in a cheerful, paternal manner, “decided to join us?"
Tyran grunted and moved over beside Xenon, absently running a hand through some fur-like spiky black hair, then tugging on one of the red chunks of hair that fell over his shoulders free of lugs.
“Are you going to destroy them or what?"
Veretrix flinched in anticipation of Xenon suddenly lashing out at the blunt statement, but it never came. Tyran seemed to be the only one who escaped xenon’s temper.
"No…" Xenon said, like you would say 'silly boy' to a child who swore there were monsters under their bed,
"We're going to capture them."
Tyran nodded curtly and started to walk to the door,
"I'll get the soldiers then." He said simply, as he usually did, and disappeared through them, his black monkey tail, neatly wrapped around his waist, being the last thing they saw.
Veretrix wrinkled his nose slightly, glanced at xenon and steered the ship down to board the Cargo ship.

The ship X4412 was in red alert. The captain paced, deciding what to do, speaking hurriedly to his helm crew as in the belly of the ship the few security officers collected and armed themselves, ready for the imminent boarding the sensors promised. A shaking throughout the ship that nearly knocked the inhabitants off their feet proved that the eagle had landed. The more common remainders of the crew were panicking, only increased by the booming voice of the captain over the tannoys that they were going to evacuate.
"What's happening?"
Kero called to Kaisa, who was just beside him, but couldn't hear anything over the commotion.
"A Ship attacked us!"
Kaisa yelled back, her eyes darting around, watching everyone's distress.
"Is it serious?"
"I don't know!"
They took each other by the hand so as not to get separated and started running down the corridors, just two more people in the stampede.
"It looks like their trying to evacuate!" Kero said, pointing to a frantic woman trying to help an elderly man in an escape pod.
"Why?" Kaisa asked being pushed aside by a burly alien, "We've only been hit…"
Suddenly there was a yell. As if from no where thirty or so armed aliens boarded the ship, jogging down to where all the people were, then going to the main deck. The others fanned out, grabbing for those trying to evacuate. Like a tide the crew turned, trying to get away from them. Kaisa and Kero were stuck and ran to the nearest wall, covered partially by a metal outcrop and hid, looking frantically around and gripping each other so hard their knuckles turned white. Kaisa pressed herself and Kero further to the wall when a straggler exited from where the soldiers had boarded a few seconds later. He was a man with wild black and red hair. Kaisa shut her eyes and Kero looked at him, praying that he wouldn’t notice them. He paused in the middle of the floor, watching the soldiers exit, and turned to them. He fixed his sharp amethyst coloured eyes on Kero and kept them there, watching him. Kero cursed and Kaisa clung onto him tighter, her eyes still stubbornly shutting out what terrified her. The man’s black tail flicked out from around his waist, wagged lazily and he gave a thin smirk. Raising an eyebrow at Kero, he turned and walked away from him, exiting through the doors to the main helm. From behind the doors they could faintly hear him shout.
“Xenon said alive you idiots!”
Kero breathed a sigh of relief and released his grip on Kaisa a little, but the message written on the man’s face was clear. I don’t have to capture you personally – there’s no escape. Looking about them, they started as more soldiers filtered back into the room, preceded by a few more fleeing people. Kero forced any creeping grief for the helm-crew’s fate down and shook Kaisa, running to a jog to get away too.
“Kaisa! Kaisa are you ok?”
her usually rock hard resilience was faltering and she nodded, forcing a firm look on herself. “yeah sure. We-“
“KERO! KAISA!”
Kero's mother was running down in front of them, crying out. In one scoop she picked Kero up, grabbed Kaisa by the hand as she was running; pushing the crowd away to get to the escape pods. A soldier dived in front of her and she turned on her heels, dragging Kaisa behind her, running in the direction she'd just come from, diving through the doors.
"Mom!" Kero yelled over the noise, “What’re you doing?! The escape pods are back there!"
"NO!" Jerrianai snapped, pulling him closer to her, "We're getting to the cargo!"
She belted down the hall like a black mare in a thunderstorm, knocking her friends and enemies out of the way – Maternal instincts on fire. She tripped over, letting go of Kero and Kaisa and sending them flying. She tried to get back up and cried out in pain, clutching her ankle. Looking back at the chaos she forced herself to her knees.
"Kero, go to the cargo bay! I'll be there!" She yelled to him.
He nodded and got up, dodging the soldiers to get to his goal, Kaisa running right behind him.
They pushed back the broken sliding metal doors with difficulty, and ran into the cargo bay.
"There!" Kaisa said, pointing to the space ships they had played in and gasping for air, even at the short run. Both the hammering of his heart and the adrenaline set his lungs on fire.
"It can only fit one person in it!" Kero said desperately, watching five soldiers pursuing them,
"Get one each then!" Kaisa cried, pushing him into one and getting into the other.
"What about mom?"
"She'll be behind us – she said. We have to go!"
Kero looked around the room helplessly looking for his mother. Kaisa gripped onto the controls of the ship, looking desperately at the controls, then to her companion as the soldiers charged in and climbed the crates to get to them.
“Kero, we have to go NOW!” she shrieked.
He gulped, strapped himself in and get ready for take off.
"The red button!" Kaisa called to him.
He nodded, struck momentarily by the irony that there was actually a ‘big red button’ and pressed it. The whole ship appeared to shake, and in one surge of energy and power his ship took off, the superior new metal blasting through the roof and into space.
As it managed to pierce the metal roof all the air was sucked out, sucking Kaisa's ship with it, sending it spinning out of control and into the depths of space. Kaisa gripped for life on the controls and watched Kero’s ship catapulting away form her. She groped hopelessly at the viewing glass.
"KERO!"
"KAISA!"

Back in the corridor Jerrianai had managed to stand up and was looking around desperately, making sure her son was safe. People were being beaten, captured and shot into submission all around her, the more capable ones being killed if they resisted. It was all or nothing. Taking a deep breath, she focused all her energy onto getting to the next cargo bay, one of the series that had not been destroyed by the vacuum of space.
Her muscles tensed, and in a burst of speed she headed off down the corridor, her long legs taking her faster then most.
The rest of the soldiers hadn't noticed the children get away; the soldiers that followed them were killed when all the air escaped out of the cargo bay and the pressure changed so dramatically. Everyone expected the kids to have died with them.
A scaly one of Xenon's soldiers saw Jerrianai belting down the corridor and pursued her, gathering energy between his hands, ready to shoot a Chi blast when he got the chance. (Chi being a life-force that many aliens had learnt to manipulate for deadly use.)
When she reached it she almost crashed into the cargo bay door and struggled to get it open. She heard panting and turned around.
The alien was trying to catch his breath, his hands glowing with Chi energy, and pointed at her chest.
She looked up slowly, and he scowled.
"Heh…Heh" He tried to laugh, wheezing,” Cornered…. A-eh…are we?"
She stared at him, thinking. Her face was as blank as blank as a statue’s, but her eyes darted around trying to think how to get out of this. Her attacker stood and watched, his hands glowing, though gradually fading with the length of time of gathering. Jerrianai practically snorted aloud. He was obviously as killed with chi as he was fit, although she would not be able to hold him off long enough for his chi attack to fade completely. Praying that he had less energy than she thought even then, she made her decision- the only choice. Fight or flight.
"MAJERTAHA NAEIFH!" She screamed, sending a ball of magic energy at him. He let his chi energy erupt. The two special attacks fought against each other, moving closer and closer to Jerrianai. His attack, though unskilled was far stronger than she had anticipated. Brute power with little control. But enough… the surging weight of the attack against hers was superior, but she battled on with her magic.She panted with exhaustion, and stared at his grinning face, like a hunter's with a tiger skin. She wouldn’t be able to beat that attack. She knew there was little chance she could get off the ship either. A wave of hopelessness reached her. Was Kero safe? If he was she had to reach him… there was only one way she could do this now.
Desperately, as the attack neared, sending waves of fatigue down her arm muscles, she looked for another way. She could hear the cries of those who had been captured, and knew that with this enemy she had no way of escaping. Even if she managed to fend off his attack first time around. By the time she had turned and forced the cargo bay doors open she would be shot in the back. He was substantially huge enough to block off her exit and grab her if she tried to snake around him.
Hopeless.
~Kero, my darling…forgive me.~
She sighed and parted her hands, letting the magic cease. She was vulnerable and unguarded.
It was all in slow motion.
Jerrianai saw the attack coming towards her, his face grinning at her, her heartbeat in her ears slower then usual, thud-thud, thud-thud, in her ears, her breathing like a storm's gale swirling around her head, the backing for the pulsating thud of her heart. Her eyes were opened wide in wonder, a strange light filtering all around her, and her murderer to be, the light watching, and waiting - twinkling reassuringly. She turned to face the attack again, it almost hitting her…and she knew what she must do. All Carluxians were taught this. A last hope, to ensure your spirit will be with your loved ones…last contact.
She took a breath, like the tide's breath, closed her eyes, and whispered to the light;
"Kaio conor meisai naftertai, kai nedai iabe…."
The light turned brighter, and warmed her face; she opened her eyes, smiling a little.
Time was restored. The attack, like a speeding train charged to her, going right through her body. She gasped in pain and collapsed, lying like a fallen silk cloth on the floor.
She gasped her last breath; saw her last sight, the silhouette of her murderer, a shadow against the blinding, beautiful light…
Her body gave up, her heartbeat stopped, everything stationary. Rising up from her body, like a phoenix from the flames, her spirit rose, dragon formed, a smoky mist with piercing purple eyes.
It was invisible to the murderer. It rose up, accompanied by the light and with one smoky wing beat, disappeared through the space ship walls into the darkness of space.
It searched, and found him. Kero's space ship. He was sitting inside, shivering. It went through the spacecraft's walls and rested in his lap.
He looked down slowly and met her amethyst gaze.
"No." he said weakly, picking it up in his hands, "No."
It circled his head and as he breathed in followed the air, circulating around his body and touching his soul. As he breathed out, it followed, back outside him again.
"No." He said again, grasping out for her spirit, "No…mother!"
Her spirit brushed past his face, and smiled, travelling out of the spacecraft and into the darkness of space, before fading to join the life and disappearing.

Kero smiled weakly, knowing that she got what she wanted, but he couldn’t stop the hot tears spilling from his eyes and a choked wail escaping his mouth. Floating in solidity in space, he wished he had died with her. In the confinement of his spaceship, he mourned….

Kaisa looked around her again, but Kero's space ship was gone. Maybe gone forever, she thought, but forced the thought angrily from her mind. She looked around her again, thinking that she saw a small planet in the distance, glowing like a blue star. The sensors showed there was. She sat up; she would have to force the grief of the events away for the time being and figure out how to land this thing soon….