Humankind has found the stars - and forgotten the coordinates of their home planet. Then Hana does the impossible and gets pregnant. Her mother's predictions ringing in her ears, she sets out to find humanity's lost cradle. She only has a myth to gu...
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Credit for the chapter soundtrack goes to Wuckster
"Sanju, help." The pre-recorded emergency signal flashed across the Corpse Clipper's control screen.
"H'ver! Do you read? Respond."
Silence.
"H'ver, my friend. Respond."
Again, silence.
Xeir long fingers slid awkwardly over the controls of the confiscated clipper. It took xem the longest time to remove the vile layers of Human dead skin cells and sweat that the moron crew had let build up on the vintage-style button activated hud. From the emergency message, Sanju was able to get a general reading on H'ver's location on the planet. Hopefully, the small droid would be found in one piece, although H'ver's last message before xe jumped some two weeks ago did raise a level of trepidation as to what was to come: The forest is more dangerous than they think.
Sanju checked the orientation of the ship to ensure xe wasn't facing one of the Wahangu system's two suns then gave the aft engine a pulse and lowered the jump shield. Xeir destination, the planet Jangal, shone in the distance; its dense atmosphere reflecting a grey-blue mixture of light from the binary suns.
For the short time they had been together, Sanju had become fond of xeir operational intercourse with the droid, a discourse that would occasionally border on social interaction. For now, the young agent would have to resort back to xeir internal monologue.
"Think, Sanju. What do we know about this place? Not a lot." Sanju had been able to find that there was an informal record of an ancient human colony located someplace in the system. Ruins had been found and recorded by long-dead explorers, but the exact coordinates of the location had been lost, or likely removed for unscrupulous purposes. "It would make sense for the Hana Human to make this colony an objective. Might this even be the location of the amber treasure?" The question resonated in xeir mind, thinking of a hidden tomb, deep inside a primitive Human temple set with puzzle traps designed to ward off or kill outsiders such as themselves.
