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them. They were marines."
It took only a few hours to bury the dead, but it took three days of hard work
to clear an
LZ for the shuttle. It turned out that Chin was good at electronics. He
managed to piece together a transmitter from the piles of shuttle junk Renn
and the marines brought him. This made Renn a little suspicious, since Chin
seemed to be a lot better at electronics than he was at biology, but he
decided to keep his thoughts to himself.
Five hours after Chin's first transmission, a shuttle roared overhead. Help
had arrived.
Renn and Marla watched with detached amusement as everyone else jumped up and
down with excitement.
Chin dashed into the cabin as the roar of the shuttle died away and turned on
the transmitter. "Chin to shuttle, Chin to shuttle, you just passed over our
position, repeat, just passed over our position." Since they had no receiver
he said it over and over again, hoping the shuttle crew would home in on the
signal.
Outside, all eyes were on the sky. The dense layer of clouds made for poor
visibility, but they looked anyway, hoping to see the shuttle return. And
return it did, dropping out of the clouds with a mighty roar and pushing a
tidal wave of displaced air before it. As the shuttle came to a stop and hung
suspended on its repellors, the jungle foliage swayed this way and that, while
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the muddy water of the channel was pressed completely flat. A black rectangle
appeared in the bright metal of the shuttle's hull, and moments later, a
bright orange dot fell towards them.
It became an orange blob, then an orange rectangle, and then a parachute
suddenly blossomed over it to slow its descent. As the parachute drifted
slowly towards the ground, the pilot waggled his wings, goosed his engines,
and disappeared into the clouds.
Seeing that the chute would hit about two miles to the north, Renn, Jumo and
two marines took off to get it.
Marla felt good. The air drop would ease the demands on their supplies, plus
it should be only a matter of time before the survivors were rescued. And the
sooner the better. Though friendly as always, Renn was increasingly
preoccupied, and Marla knew why. Dr. Vanessa Cooper-
Smith hung on his every word, oohed and aahed over his knowledge of the
swamps, and took full advantage of her considerable assets.
Renn was attractive, but Doctor Cooper-Smith's interest seemed forced somehow.
Why would a woman like Van-essa be so taken with a criminal? A criminal
condemned to life on a prison planet?
It didn't make sense. Or was Vanessa so in love she couldn't think straight?
Well, either way the sooner she left the better.
The search party returned two hours later carrying an orange trunk. It was
about six feet long, three feet wide, and constructed of heavy plastic. Inside
was a treasure trove of survival gear, food, medical supplies, and best of
all, a small transceiver.
Minutes later they were communicating with the space station via the tiny
satellite, which the shuttle had dumped into geosynchronous orbit over their
position.
Once the casualties were mourned, and the survivors cheered, serious planning
got underway. Marla assumed they would simply land, pick up the survivors, and
take off. She soon learned it wouldn't be that easy.
Having already lost one of their two shuttles, plus their best pilots, those
in charge were reluctant to take any more chances than they had to. They
wouldn't be able to get another shuttle for some time, and since the remaining
craft was also their only lifeboat, they were understandably cautious. So, to
safeguard the shuttle, a temporary LZ would have to be built.
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A small island was chosen about a mile from Fred. Energy weapons were used to
clear away the jungle. The shuttle's weapons could have accomplished the same
thing in a few minutes, but that would have meant an extra trip, an idea
quickly vetoed by station management. So, every tree, shrub, and plant was
leveled. Then the whole mess was set on fire. At first the wet vegetation
refused to burn, but by the judicious placement of some volatile fire weed,
and the addition of some kerosene from Fred's stove, they finally got a
roaring blaze.
Meanwhile Vanessa had earned Marla's grudging respect. When it came to
clearing brush the blonde scientist pitched in with a will, often working
shoulder to shoulder with Renn, and never complaining. And if that wasn't bad
enough, Marla had to sit around and watch. Without hands she couldn't help
much. So she watched from a distance as they kissed, silhouettes against the
dull red flames of the fire. With the kiss came a dull ache deep inside her,
which, unable to ease, she did her best to ignore.
So she watched the dense black smoke boil upwards towards the sky, instead.
Fortunately the clouds were low, and unless someone was very close, they
wouldn't see the smoke. Though he hadn't said much, Marla knew Jumo was
concerned about Swamp's other residents, and she really couldn't blame him.
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There were some very nasty customers out there, gangs like the one Cyclops had
run, who would regard the scientists as a crop ripe for harvesting. So Jumo
posted sentries and scattered electronic sensors over the approaches to the
camp.
These were quite primitive as sensors go, being the sort of broad spectrum
devices included in standard survival kits. Unlike the more sophisticated
types, these had no intelligence of their own, and would respond to almost
anything. Hearing noise, or sensing body heat, they sent a signal to a small
control panel in Fred's cabin. The glowing red dot would show the location of
the sensor, but not the nature of the potential threat.
As a result Marla spent a good deal of her time venturing out into the rain,
checking on sensors which had heard a dead tree fall, or sensed the passage of
a roo monster. This was not a pleasant duty, but Marla took pride in it, since
she could do it better than anyone else. The fact that Vanessa was afraid to
go into the jungle alone made it even better.
So Marla welcomed the morning of the fourth day, and the shuttle which came
with it. By nightfall the Imperials would be gone, and things could return to
normal. The shuttle hovered as it played its energy weapons back and forth
across the still smouldering surface of the small island. Everything the blue
beams touched turned to molten soup. Here and there the molten muck overflowed
exploding into steam as it hit the surrounding water and quickly condensed
into mushy rock. As soon as the surface of the island glowed red, the energy
beams snapped off, the shuttle waggled its stubby wings, and lifted towards
space.
The rain poured down all afternoon, sending up sheets of steam, and gradually
cooling the surface of the island until it formed a hard crust. When the
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