Lishieru noticed Silargh the moment he entered the room.
“He was thrown out against a wall when we first decelerated so violently, right before landing. He was trying to secure two containers in the cargo bay…”
Tehe suddenly felt his presence in the room and got up from Berhis’ body. She turned and looked at Silargh with such anger and despair, that for a moment, he feared what she might do. But she just kept looking at him with rage until she exploded.
“It’s all your fault! Why did you have to do that? He would still be alive if it wasn’t for you! You killed him! He was…” her emotions turned from anger to hate and then, as the tears started rolling down her face again, she turned back and collapsed by Berhis, sobbing. She was holding her face in her hands, looking at the love of her life. He was gone. And in truth, she knew it wasn’t Silargh’s fault.
“I’m sorry, Tehe… I am so sorry… I had no choice. I had to stop the ship before it crashed, or we would all have died… I am truly sorry…” There was nothing else he could say. He was genuinely distraught as well. Berhis was his friend. He could feel her pain, and it only added to his own. Tehe knew he had done the only thing he could have to save them. They would all have perished without Silargh’s quick maneuver. She just wanted Berhis to still be alive with all her heart… She wanted it so much… But she knew blaming Silargh wouldn’t bring him back. As she slowly started to calm down, and eventually managed to hold back the tears, Silargh repeated “I am sorry.”
She looked up at him and mustered to say, “I know,” with crushing sadness in her eyes, “I know…”
By the time Silargh was back in the cockpit and opened the ship’s window to take a look at their situation, the night had turned pitch black. And apart from a weak moon crescent, dimly lighting general shapes around the ship, the outside surroundings did not look very inviting. Scanning the immediate area, Silargh noticed the bare earth and dirt in the small crater left by the ship. A thick perimeter of trees and vegetation were also surrounding them, all alien things he had never witnessed in person, or touched, and only seen in the Zarfha books of the Grand Hallis library. Up above, the thin slice of moon visible was much smaller than he had expected. His home world counted three large satellites of comparable size, but orbiting closer to Kahnu, they appeared noticeably larger. Straight ahead in the distance rose a majestic mountain. Its peak was covered in a white layer of ice, clearly visible in the pale moon light. Silargh’s attention was suddenly diverted by a moving shadow in the night sky. Hovering in uneven circles far above the ship, the flying creature the crash had attracted earlier was now keeping its distance, screaming an occasional croak. Down below, a few small rodents and other creatures could barely be discerned, rummaging about in the vegetation. Already feeling bold enough to approach within a few meters of the ship, a larger predator let out a loud growl that would have scared a good number of spectators.
Suddenly, Silargh noticed movement in the trees ahead. An even larger creature appeared from behind the thick vegetation, immediately followed by another. Although of a relatively small size compared to a Kahnu, those were not beings to tangle with, and Silargh already knew some species inhabiting this planet to be very aggressive. The two creatures were definitely on that list. He did not know it but Silargh was staring at two Masiakasaurus, fierce carnivores from Earth’s Jurassic period.
“What are they?” asked a young Kahnu girl who had just entered the messy room.
“Dahhize! How are you, child? Were you hurt at all during landing?” he asked, surprised to see her out of her room.
“No, I’m OK. Thanks. But what is that?” she asked, pointing at the two predators outside.
“I don’t remember their names, but I remember learning about them in training class. They are very dangerous. They hunt in packs of two or more.”
“I think they look cute,” she said smiling.
“They may look small and cute, but they can kill you. Don’t forget that,” he replied with a firm voice.
Unexpectedly, a massive dark figure crossed in front of the large window and rushed towards the two Masiakasaurus. Fleeing for his life, one of them sprinted back into the thick vegetation a few meters away, but the other wasn’t so lucky. Taken by surprise, the animal reacted too late, and the giant’s jaws came down swiftly, and grabbed its back in a clenching bite. The large Majungasaurus, measuring a good twenty-five meters in length, lifted the doomed Masiakasaurus up in the air and, crushing several of its ribs in the process, and shook the animal furiously from side to side. The small raptor screamed loudly for a few seconds, before the massive jaws finally crushed its spine, killing it instantly. The proud predator then turned around and calmly walked away, the limp body of its next meal hanging off the sides of its lower jaw.
Both Silargh and Dahhize kept silent for a moment, staring at the window, in shock. They were not used to such a graphic display of violence. In fact, most life forms on Kahnu were non-predatory. It was hard for them to watch what they had just witnessed. The Kahnus were a peaceful people who fed on different forms of algae, found in abundance in their big ocean, and so did most animals on their planets. Only a very few did, but even those were rarely witnessed. But what they had just witnessed was truly shocking and mortifying to both of them. Dahhize’s smile was gone, and Silargh realized the precarious reality of their situation, having crash landed several thousand kilometers from their intended destination.
“Why did the gravitation generator raise the outside weight of the ship so drastically on our descent? Only a few of us can control the Zarfha engine…” Silargh was thinking out loud, and the young girl was listening attentively.
“You think someone is responsible for the crash?” she asked.
“I’m not sure. But I intend to find out…”
Inside the crushed ship in the Madagascar cave, Jorh had waved at the Zarfha and the scene around everyone changed quickly to show Silargh seated in front of the clear window. The new view now showed the landscape in a bright sunny day.
“Silargh, we are at the cave. Everything is ready,” informed him a telepathic voice.
“OK, great! On our way,” he replied.
Turning to his crew, he announced preparations for the maneuver. They had been working on restoring main power to the ship for the past few days now. Most of the ship’s systems were functional. But the Mahkiar matrix controlling the Zarfha engine was unusable. The other major damage the ship had suffered was a hull breach near the nose of the vessel; an impossible repair without more Kehoas, a substance only found on their home world. That meant they were stuck on Kahjuna for good. There would be no way for them to get the light they had come for, and they would not be able to rendezvous with Jorh and the others on Kesra. All they could do now was to do their best to survive and adapt to the harsh environment of Kahjuna, their new home. Although the ship could no longer travel through the vacuum of space due to the damage its shell had sustained, flying in Earth’s atmosphere would have been no problem, had the gravitation engine not been damaged. The ship was now flyable solely on limited power and going to the blue planet’s South Pole, their original destination, was no longer an option. The power left in the Zarfha would have to be preserved if they intended to survive.