THE PLANET THAT LOVED PEOPLE (standard:science fiction, 1464 words) [8/15] show all parts
Author: Danny Raven	Added: Mar 08 2016	Views/Reads: 1810/1363	Part vote: 0.00 (0 votes)
PART 2 - CH 8

Click here to read the first 75 lines of the story


‘Blaze! Blaze! Can you hear me?' 

How could he hear Muslik if he was dead? 

‘Blaze!...Blaze!...Blaze!' 

Suppose he answered and the voice stopped? 

‘Can you hear me Blaze? Answer me if you can hear me.' 

Blaze bit his lip. ‘I can hear you, Muslik,' he thought and waited,
terrified. 

Muslik answered him immediately. ‘Blaze! You're alive! Thank God! Where
are you?' 

‘On Modas.' 

He heard Muslik laugh. ‘I know you're on Modas, but where? Are you near
Kol's mansion?' 

‘No. I'm in a cave. On the other side of the planet.' 

‘Look outside. Is there anything to guide us? We're coming to pick you
up.' 

‘Pick me up? How can you do that? The Ship--' 

‘Don't worry about the Falcon. We're all safe. Look around outside and
see if there's anything to guide us.' 

Blaze stumbled out the cave and blinked in the sunlight. ‘I'm in the
middle of a valley,' he thought. ‘It's empty. There's no-one around.' 

‘Can't you see any landmarks in the distance?' 

Blaze squinted through the sunlight. ‘There are some mountains at the
end of the valley. They're yellow. Bright yellow.' 

‘Good,' said Muslik. ‘Start moving towards them. We're on our way.' 

On the other side of Modas, still inside its atmosphere, Talis changed
course and headed away from the area near Kol's mansion. Kane and 
Muslik were bent over a console, studying a map. 

“There!” said Kane, pointing to a long valley ringed at one end by a
range of yellow mountains. 

Muslik nodded agreement. 

Kane gave Talis the co-ordinates. “Activate the Thermal Sensor,” he
ordered her. “There shouldn't be anyone else around in the valley. We 
should spot him easily.” 

Fifteen minutes later, hidden behind some boulders, Blaze watched the
Falcon land. There were no other Ships following it, Modas still 
recovering from the destruction he'd caused. He grinned and before the 
Exit Bay door slid open he'd dematerialized over. 

‘Can you hear me, Muslik?' he thought, waiting impatiently. 

‘Sure,' replied Muslik. ‘Where are you?' 

‘Right outside.' Then the Exit Bay door slid open and Blaze yelled with
joy and rushed forwards. Corthan was standing in the doorway holding 
his arms out to him. 

***** 

Blaze was sitting up in his bunk in his cabin. After he'd hugged Corthan
and the others and they'd cleared Modas's atmosphere, Muslik had taken 
him to the Sick Bay, sat him on a couch and attended to his cuts and 
bruises. He was so glad that they were all still alive that he kept 
dematerializing from the Bay, appearing on the Bridge, hugging them all 
then materializing back on the couch again. Muslik in turn was so glad 
to see him alive that he found it difficult to get mad at him. 

Now, an hour later, Corthan was sitting on his bunk beside him,
explaining what had happened. 

“And the second last pod, the one which Sark destroyed and you thought I
was in – it was empty.” 

“Empty!?” 

“I was in the last pod with Talis,” Corthan said, grinning. 

“How did you manage that?” Blaze asked. 

“I took care of the Guards when we were getting into the pods,” Corthan
told him. 

Blaze laughed and punched him on the arm. “Wish I'd seen that,” he said.


“Then when Muslik got back on board the Falcon, he reversed the work
Kol's technicians had done on our Computer so he could fly the Ship 
again.” 

“But the Falcon was still on my screen in the cabin,” said Blaze. 

“I know. When Muslik was reconnecting our Computer he made a slight
adjustment on theirs and put a false Ship on the screen.” 

“Oh!” “So it looked like Sark had destroyed us when it was only a
picture on his screen and the crowd's screens which had blown up.” 

Blaze frowned. “Muslik's pretty clever, isn't he?” 

Corthan nodded. “He sure is.” 

“Well if he's so bloody clever why didn't he contact me and tell me what
was happening!?” 

“He tried to, he really tried but he had a lot to do on the Falcon and
you were so upset when you thought we'd all been killed he couldn't 
reach you.” 

Blaze nodded. “I didn't half make some mess of Kol's mansion, didn't I?”
he said, grinning. 

“His mansion and half the surrounding district,” Corthan admitted. 

“And I whacked that bastard Sark again before I did it!” he said,
laughing. 

Corthan grinned and ruffled his hair. “So now you know what happened,
get some sleep. You look exhausted.” 

Blaze settled down in his bunk. Corthan made up a bed on the floor for
himself. Contentedly, he listened to Blaze yapping on for a while 
before they both drifted off to sleep. 


Tweet