After engaging the Tornado’s four vertical take-off jumper engines the Tempest class freighter landed softly on the apron at Cranack and when the freighters ramp lowered the Tornado’s APMTV, (All Purpose Multi Terrain Vehicle), nicknamed the “Stroller”, followed on foot by Asti,
The name
Stroller was an ironic one because when Shiyne or Merri were behind the wheel
it did anything but stroll, the moment it came to a halt Asti paused before
remotely closing the ramp and then climbed aboard, and as the Stroller pulled
away
Malena looked
long and hard at the blackened scars on the Tornado and said
“Let’s go and
give Pulsat and Vanzyl the bad news”
It was
mid-morning when they reached the settlement, and everyone was surprised when
the Stroller pulled into the yard.
There first
port of call was to find their crewmate Visitor Parham, known as Bagg, who was
staying with his brother Trebreh, who was also a Visitor, and his wife Xandra
and her brother Ale who was Bagg’s boyhood friend.
As they
disembarked from the Stroller Malena turned around and perused the two familiar
figures walking toward them, surrounded by children, Pulsat Rad was slightly
shorter than the other, and the heavy set Prinsloovian was unmistakable, with
his rough bony skull raising up like a crown above his Mahogany scaled brow.
He was clearly
enjoying himself, his smiling ivory coloured face bore testament to that and
his yellow eyes were twinkling.
His friend Vanzyl
was slender and although they both shared reptilian ancestry Vanzyl was more
akin to a fish than a lizard, with large eyes and pursed lips, and of course
gills.
“Good meeting again” Pulsat said and clicks
and whirls began to emanate from Vanzyl which were clearly directed at Pulsat
“Ok I speak” he
said, and more clicks and whirls followed
“I ask, I ask”
Pulsat retorted
“Vanzyl say why
you early back?”
“It’s a long
story” Malena replied and in response Vanzyl made a long whistling noise
followed by a succession of clicks and Pulsat snorted.
“Yes, Yes, I
ask, I ask” Pulsat retorted
“Where Captain?”
“That’s another
long story” Mal replied “Come and sit with us and we’ll explain everything”
The Strollers
arrival had been met with mixed feelings by the children of the village and
Pulsat and Vanzyl, a sign that it would soon be time for them to leave was not
well received by the children and there were vociferous calls of disappointment
when Pulsat and Vanzyl had to join the crew, but their displeasure didn’t
prevent them from walking with their friends to the courtyard and hugging them
when they got there, and the two engineers were reminded of how sad they would
be leaving the “small humans”
After the
greetings were over with the first task was to introduce the injured Andraxian,
Ambor Etra, to them who was confined to a stretcher and discharged her in Xandra’s
care who they knew would ensure she got the bedrest she required.
Once Ambor was
settled, as she had been clearly tired by the journey, the crew told the tale
of the meeting with Merri’s cousin Dwynwen, and what brought her to the Eikon
Cluster, the mistaken identity which lead to Merri’s abduction and the
subsequent rescue, and the perilous voyage to the rendezvous.
Vanzyl started
clicking and whirling agitatedly.
“I do it, I do
it” Pulsat said to his Kesslerian friend, and Vanzyl whistled and clicked again
and Pulsat snorted.
“Tornado shot?”
“A little bit”
Mal replied and Vanzyl became very excitable and clicks and whirls began to
emanate from him which were clearly directed at Pulsat
“Ok I speak” he
said, and more clicks and whirls followed
“I telling, I
telling” Pulsat retorted and to the group he explained
“Vanzyl say we
must look”
“There’s plenty
of time to do that, we’ll look later” Malena said
Then there were
more Clicks and whirls
“I telling, I
telling”
“Vanzyl say we
look now” Pulsat insisted
“Ok” Mal said
in surrender
Shiyne accompanied
Malena as moral support for the journey back to Cranack, she would have
preferred to have spent the time with Terrell, but he was busy attending to
Ambor.
As she
approached the Tornado Mal braced herself and when they had an uninterrupted
view of the ship Pulsat screamed and he and Vanzyl jumped out of the Stroller.
“Argh!” The
former exclaimed repeatedly while running back and forth, while the latter
stood transfixed while uttering repeated strings of whirls whistles and clicks.
It was a full
five minutes before Pulsat could utter a sentence
“What kind
Holiday, you have?”
Vanzyl whistled
and clicked again and Pulsat snorted.
“Tornado
broken, yes” Pulsat agreed
“Can you fix her?” Malena asked
“We fix, yes” Pulsat said sadly as he realised
it would be some months before they would return to Montrose and their friends.
“We go Soman
soon?”
Soman was where Golbolt Interstellar was based,
which was where they got most of their work and the main reason for that was that the Operations
Manager was Oshwin Lemik and he fought against the Legion in the Shaxon War
with the Skeet brothers, they as pilots and Oshwin as Logistics Commander.
Golbolt also had an abundance of hardstanding
where the Tornado could stand while it was repaired.
“I thought we’d
just stay on Eirkos while you fix it” Malena said
Vanzyl uttered
a soft whistle like a plaintive flute, then he looked at his friend and whistled
again.
“Yes, we fix”
So, over the
next three months, while Ambor Etra convalesced amidst the gentle people of
Montrose, the two reptilian engineers worked on the Tornado to get her back to
her best, however they actually got her to beyond her best.
The rest of the
crew weren’t idle either, and took the opportunity of their downtime to get the
inside back up to snuff, although thanks to Oshwin, who loaned them a clipper
called Darios, Mal and Shiyne did some local freight hauling and the clipper also
allowed them to keep the supply of parts coming to facilitate the engineers repairs
on the Tornado, but the Skeet Brothers used the down time to fly the Spider
Hawk to Eikon Major because they were concerned about an old
friend.
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