Excerpt: From Chapter 6 of "The Skies of cMaj," by Joseth Moore...
CHAPTER Six
Beeshmah popped the last of her dried-out plant-jerky into her mouth before she finally decided to call her search mission for Number 4 off. It had been two days since she had arrived at that particular region of the continent of cMaj—its savanna landscape very different from her home-region of the plateaus and rocky outcrops. She figured it was best to camp in the area for a couple of days or so, since she had gotten that transmission from some anonymous colonist about “unknown visitors.” Since the message, Beeshmah had not zipped any communique nor traveled any further. Trying not to draw attention from any visiting species that may not harbor the friendliest attitude toward a, now, burgeoning species of homo sapiens.
For all the specialist knew, laborer Number 4 could have been on one of the other continents of cMaj! She was not sure how sturdy Number 4 had built his cobbled flying machine—she heard he, like the rogue synthetics, had harvest all the parts from the Old Ship’s crash-site.
Even for the synthetics it can’t be healthy to be exposed to nuclear radiation like that for hours during flight-time…even with the radiation levels at a relatively low reading, Beeshmah thought to herself.
Over the past two days of sedentary camping, Beeshmah’s landcraft’s photovoltaic system had gotten a good charge of sunlight from the Canis Major system’s nearest star. So Beeshmah was set to start heading back to the Vestige Clan’s Settlement out in the plateaus…
That is, until her tracking device, stashed within her tree-carved vehicle, started to chime wildly!
“Oh, stars…”
Beeshmah whipped her head all over the place, looking for what was setting off her tracking device! Usually, from a long distance the device would beep in long, intermittent chimes—denoting that said-object being tracked was a distance away from the device. But the fact that the beeping started off in an almost continuous, long wave of sound indicated that whatever the object was, it was coming toward Beeshmah’s camp extremely fast! And given her vehicle was a simple-machine of elaborate foot-pedals and pullies made from cMaj tree bark and twigs for belts, there was absolutely no chance of Beeshmah vacating the area in time to escape whatever was coming her way!
As if that weren’t bad enough, a universal trait of savannas on any planet was the same—hectares and hectares of wide-open space, with few trees and rocks, and with no good places to hide!
End of Excerpt.
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