Ryan Taylor awakens from hibernation to a mystery that he, along with his crew, must solve in order to continue their mission. How they solve it and what they find is astounding.
After going through the disinfection process, we entered the shuttle proper, but what we saw was horrifying. The main window was literally covered with the vampire bats, and they were gyrating and slithering around in a concerted attempt to enter the shuttle.
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The women remained still while I sat down at the pilot's chair and powered up the shuttle. I punched a few buttons to activate the deflection system. A strong magnetic field enveloped the shuttle, followed by a powerful blast of hot plasma. That killed some of the bat creatures, allowing me to see where I was going.
I started the engines and began a rapid ascent. That got rid of more of the creatures, which prompted the women to get buckled in. As the shuttle sped up to reach orbital velocity, the remainder of the creatures were lost in the slip stream.
"I thought those damn things were going to get in," Natale said.
"I've never been this frightened," Bridget said.
"I didn't think they were going to get in," I said. "I needed to get them off of the window so I could see where I was going."
"How in the hell did those things evolve?" Janet asked. "Wouldn't the aliens have realized that they were dangerous?"
"They probably didn't realize how dangerous they were until it was too late," I said.
"I guess they weren't any smarter than humans," Sharon said.
"That's the truth," I said.
As the shuttle caught up with our ship, I approached the hanger but stayed out at a distance.
"What's wrong?" Janet asked.
"I'm going to have COMA give us some particle blasts before we enter the hanger. I don't want anything alien to get in our vessel."
No one complained. COMA blasted us with gamma rays to kill off anything alive that had persisted on the outside of our vessel.
By the time we got back to the crew wheel deck, we were emotionally and physically exhausted. But I was not happy about remaining around the planet we were orbiting.
"You may as well start searching for a new candidate planet," I said. "I don't want to hang around here anymore than I have to."
"Do you want to stay in this galaxy?" Janet asked.
"I don't care. Just find something." I walked back to my bunk and laid down to relax my nerves. I realized that we had just escaped a really bad situation. Only by sheer luck and my ability to sense ugly situations were we able to escape a horrible end.
When we gathered at the food station for supper, I was in a better frame of mind.
"We owe you our lives," Bridget said. "If you hadn't reacted so quickly to that situation, we would have been . . . turned into zombies."
