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Robert could feel an overwhelming sense of achievement and excitement at his extraordinary discovery. If this map was indeed what he thought it was, the course of the C.L.I.M.A.X., then by now the C.L.I.M.A.X. had reached an entirely new galaxy, thousands – millions perhaps – of light-years away. But with the insight of this, came also a feeling of despair and hopelessness; for the realisation of the distance between him and his target – the distance between hope and failure.
At that same point the shuddering and vibration of the Savior could be felt from within his room as it lifted off the ground and slowly began its ascent into space. The engines could audibly heard whirring back into life and the smoke, originating from them, hung like a thick velvet cloth over the spacecraft, effectively blocking visibility from the outside view.
Robert’s heart sank at the thought of having departed from the Old Ones only so soon after discovering their very existence. He held the picture of the map up high and stared at it intently. Saving his people from the Xenon now seemed unattainable. He thought about it hard and then went to find Harold for some advice, a very unusual thing for him to do. He exited his cabin into the corridor and hastily searched the ship until he found Harold fiddling with the Jumpdrive on their ship.
“What are you doing, Harry?” Robert asked curiously.
Harold quickly dropped his tools and twisted round to see Robert staring at him peculiarly.
“Um, nothing. Nothing at all,” he nervously replied. “Just doing some work on the ship. What’s up?”
“Harry, we’ve got a problem. The C.L.I.M.A.X. is not even in this galaxy anymore.”
“The what?” asked Harry, looking puzzled.
“Oh, it’s the name the Old Ones gave to their super weapon,” explained Robert, remembering that Harold had not been their when Keldak had informed him about it.
Harold briefly nodded. “So what makes you think that it’s in another galaxy then?”
“This map,” said Robert, holding the map up visibly in the air and then handed it back to Harold.
Harold looked at it closely for a while. “So what are you going to do?”
“I don’t know.” Robert glared down coldly at the ground. “I came to you for advice.”
Harold sighed exaggeratedly. “I think you should give up. Personally, we’ve already risked too much. We’ve got everything we need to survive right here, why try and fight against the Xenon now? If there was ever any hope of destroying them, it would have been when we started making them centuries ago.”
Robert was baffled by the suddenly contradictory statement Harold had made to the way Harold supposedly felt about the Xenon. Perhaps he has gone through too much trauma, Robert thought.
“Harry, how can you say that? The longer we leave it, the closer it becomes to the impossible to destroy these heartless robots.”
Harold faced the other way and leaned on their Thor Fighter. “It is too late, Robert. The Xenon cannot be defeated.”
Robert was comparatively shocked from Harold’s remark and began to leave the hangar without another word. He was puzzled at Harold’s sudden change of attitude.
“Just out of curiosity,” Harold said before Robert could leave entirely, “what galaxy did the map say the C.L.I.M.A.X. was headed to?”
“The Hafarian Galaxy, why?” asked Robert enquiringly.
But Harold didn’t respond and Robert left the hangar impatiently. Robert was mystified by Harold’s completely different manner and feelings about the Xenon and destroying them.
Clearing the thoughts from his mind he began to make his way back to his cabin. His hands held firm to the handrails as the ship began exiting the atmosphere and started through the same shuddering, rickety routine that always chewed on Robert’s nerves. To him, the idea of the spacecraft losing control and being overpowered by the planet’s gravity pool was not an unlikely possibility, which naturally caused him great fear whenever entering or leaving a planet’s atmosphere. The rough jerky motions of the ship began to soften and Robert could feel his grip loosen again and his heart pace slow down. Just as the Captain announced the ship had safely – as if he would have announced otherwise – left the planet’s atmosphere, a loud automated voice got everyone’s attention on the loudspeakers placed throughout the ship.
”Security breach! Intruder in Jumpdrive Generator area. Take necessary action immediately.”
Robert could not believe what he had heard. How could there be an intruder on the ship? He thought. He ran to his cabin and swung the door wide open. He quickly searched his drawers and found what he was looking for – his H-PAD which Keldak had been so generous to leave with him. He charged to the Generator room and pressed himself up against the wall to the side of the entrance, his weapon raised up high. Carefully, he peered round the corner to look into the room. To his horror, there lay three guards on the ground completely unconscious, or even worse, he thought – dead. He slowly and cautiously entered the enormous room and kept spinning round, in fear that the intruder could be right behind him, creeping up for the kill.
Wires and cables hung broken from the ceiling and walls, sparking dangerously in different directions. The tools used for working with the Savior’s Jumpdrive lay scattered on the floor, twisted and bent. Lights that had lightened the room were shattered and destroyed, leaving the entire room in almost bare darkness, other than the ominous glow from the jumpdrive. The Jumpdrive Generator itself appeared, strangely enough, to be totally untouched and unharmed.
Robert’s heart pounded hard as a dark figure appeared out of the shadows near the Generator, holding a gun in his right hand, but lowered to the same level as his knee. He gradually stepped in front of the generator, his face still silhouetted from the gloomy light the Jumpdrive emitted from behind him.
“It is pointless to fire at me with that gun,” the cold voice of the stranger said. “You will disintegrate the ship’s only Jumpdrive along with me.”
“Terry is that you?” said Robert unbelievingly, but recognizing his voice.
“Do not come any closer,” the man continued, “because shooting you is still a possibility.”
Robert hesitated for a while, not knowing what action to take. Just then, a soldier who had been ordered to immediately inspect the security breach arrived in the room and pulled his rifle out and aimed it directly at the stranger. The intruder immediately did the same, but was unfortunately for him, not quick enough with pulling the trigger and fell to the ground, his breath obviously laboured from the bullet he received.
“No!” Robert shouted furiously at the soldier. “No, you fool! What have you done?”
“I did what I had to,” the soldier replied self-righteously.
Robert ran to the stranger and bent down to see the man’s face. His heart sank when he saw it was indeed Terry who had been shot. Miserably he shut his eyes to try and rid himself of the terrible scene. He glared coldly at the soldier who had committed the act – evil in Robert’s eyes – and tried to bring the words from his mouth.
“A terrible thing you have done,” scolded Robert, but could not bring himself to say anymore.
Three more soldiers appeared at the entrance and congratulated the first soldier for his brave and decisive act, much to the provocation of Robert. Robert left the room in furious rage and marched to the main deck where the Captain was commanding the ship’s new course. He requested a moment alone with the Captain to talk with him privately. The Captain hesitated and then excused himself from the deck.
“What is this about, pilot?” demanded the Captain.
“Sir, the man who broke into the Jumpdrive Generator room was a man named Terry Westerton,” Robert began to explain. “One of your soldiers shot him down before he could grasp the full situation at the time.”
“And what situation would that be?”
“I know Terry, personally. He would never do as much to sabotage the Jumpdrive or harm anyone on our side. Now, granted, he did act violently towards the three guards there and he was not that great to me either, but something tells me he didn’t just go nutty.”
The Captain thought hard. “So, you are implying that this man Terry was not in the wrong and was unjustly killed.”
Robert nodded his head solemnly. “Yes, sir, that is exactly what I am implying.”
“Well, pilot. Then I suggest that we have him checked to see what could have happened to him to do something like that.”
“It would mean a lot, sir,” said Robert gratefully.
“I am sorry to hear the death of your friend,” the Captain said and then returned to his duties.
Robert made his way back to the hangar and began thinking how he could break this dreadful news to Harold without upsetting him too much. Harold and Terry had known each other for a long time and had grown quite close to each other over the years, so it would certainly not be easy to explain Terry’s death. However, when Robert arrived at the hangar, Harold had left the vicinity. He looked back down the corridor and happened to see Harold walking along; oblivious to anything serious that had occurred.
“Harold, I need to speak to you,” said Robert, his facial expression hardly concealing his anguish.
“What’s up?”
“Well, there was an incident in the Generator room.” He hesitated for a moment and then continued. “I don’t really know how to put this the right way, so please forgive me if I put this in an insensitive way, but Terry was involved in it and was shot.” Robert’s face took a sorrowful expression and prepared himself to show Harold sympathy for the news he had just received.
Harold looked at Robert indifferently. “Well, that is... unfortunate.”
Sorry for yet another cliff-hanger...
