The Project

Chapter 35

The Project Chapter 35

Before Alex could show his treasures to Drok there was a commotion outside with Kelly announcing,

"Hey it's Bria and Udel!" Drok forgot about inspecting Alex's finds, and along with his mother went outside to greet his brother. Alex stepped outside the wrecked transport to see Udel roll up in his rattle trap wind wag. His mother then began to berate him for being so late, and why wasn't he here earlier. Udel then began to argue back, and before long Drok became involved. Alex noticed that Bria looked like she wished she was anywhere else but here. Any enjoyment she had been sharing with Udel was now long gone. Kelly then came up to Alex, and observed,

"She's just like my mom. It's kind of funny really, you can travel millions of miles in space and still not get away from this shit." By now the bickering and arguing had become quite painful to watch, Arna and Garmik just stood there not knowing what to think, Drok, for all his education, seemed no better than the others. Alex looked at the troubling drama then at Kelly.

"I guess wherever you go you're gonna find families that just can't get along."

"Yeah, well they don't need to do it in front of us," replied Kelly, who then went back inside the wrecked shuttle.

Alex stayed a couple moments longer pondering the family drama playing out in front of him, before following Kelly back inside. A few minutes later, Drok, Udel, and their mother entered, their problem apparently resolved. They were soon followed by Bria and the two androids. Bria didn't look very happy, and sat down next to Kelly, whispering to her about something. Everyone ate by themselves, and for a time Udel kept trying to engage Bria in conversation, but she didn't pay him a whole lot of attention. Later that night, a wind storm came up, forcing everyone to move deeper into either side of the wrecked shuttle. Earlier, Drok had rigged up a tarp over the door, which kept a lot of the sand and dust out, but, Alex and the girls were forced to tie bandannas around their faces to keep from inhaling all the dust.

Later, Alex woke up and realizing that he couldn't sleep, and needed to take a piss,and made his way over to the covered door. Opening the flap, he was startled to discover Drok sitting outside.

"s**t! You scared me," announced Alex, Drok looked up and apologized.

"Can't sleep either?" He muttered.

"No," replied Alex, his first thought was to wonder how he could excuse himself, but he really had to go. As if he could read minds, Drok pointed with his thumb,

"Down that way, just step into the open spot and have at it."

When he was finished, Alex sat down next to Drok,

"I take it that your family doesn't get along very well," he asked.

Drok turned to look at him.

"What makes you say that?"

"Well, what was all that bickering earlier?" Drok chuckled,

"That? That wasn't anything. Oh don't get me wrong, Udel likes to throw his weight around from time to time. In this case, I think he was trying to impress Bria, I…" He suddenly stopped, speaking, then changed directions.

"When you're around we Gri'Foda a little more, you'll realize loud talking is just our way, we don't mean anything by it."

Alex wasn't so sure, then took a chance by asking.

"What happens when all that "loud talking" as you call it gets out of hand, when do the weapons come out?" When Drok next spoke, there was a discernable edge to his voice.

"So you think arguing leads to bloody fights, and everybody bashing each other over the head?"

"It usually does on my planet, people have been known to kill family members simply because they were served coffee that wasn't hot enough, or somebody just said the wrong thing." In the half light of dawn, Alex saw Drok bow his head,

"For all we know this planet was destroyed simply because someone said something somebody else took offence at," replied Drok. "Do you have any idea what it's like to wake up every morning after suffering terrible nightmares about the things our ancestors did, or having to look out on a dead planet, wondering how you're going to get through the day?"

Alex then briefly described to Drok the nightmare he had suffered earlier. Drok shook his head,

"So it isn't just us, I was afraid of that, even strangers are susceptible." Then he added,

"What I'm about to tell you is strictly between us my friend, it is not to be repeated to anyone, do you understand?" Alex held out his hand,

"Let's shake on it Drok," he said.

Drok then wrapped his massive hand around Alex's, and shook it.

"We Gri'Foda are the pariahs of the universe. For the longest time, we desperately sought out a place to travel to free of the horror you see around you, some small place that would welcome we few, someplace where we could grow and prosper, but sadly that was not to be. He then took a drink from his canteen.

"Nobody will have us; we've even been threatened for even just talking about going somewhere else. No my friend, the effort we are now attempting is our last stand, should nothing come of it we are simply doomed. The only friend we have at this moment is the Oxynian Trading Company. If it requires that every single "amma" of this cursed planet be scooped up and spit back out to save us, then so be it."

"Well for what's its worth Drok," replied Alex, "Kelly and I have been to Xindus, if Garmik says they can help, believe me, they can. You know it's kind of funny in a way, you have work that needs doing, and all those 'droids on Xindus are looking under rocks for work." Drok said nothing for a moment, then softly chuckled.

"Everybody in this whole damn galaxy has turned their backs on us except these androids. If they can really do what Garmik says they can, they will be treated as royalty."

Alex then asked,

"So you're saying that everybody is scared of you?"

"They are afraid that were we allowed to settle on their planets the first thing we would do would be to start a war. Face it my little friend, we do look rather frightening, but we cannot help the way we look. Tell me, were we to travel to your planet, what sort of reception would we receive?" Alex sighed, and shook his head.

"The same reaction everyone else gives you, I'm sorry, but there it is." Drok then looked up at the dawning light in the sky.

"Come with me, I want to show you something." Alex followed him down past the row of wreckage to a point they could look towards the horizon. Pointing to the dawn's light just starting to break, Drok said,

"Watch, and tell me what you see."

Alex stared into the distance, then began to notice what appeared to be movement on the horizon. Letting out a gasp, he observed a long unbroken line of soldiers, and strange looking machines moving south. Thinking it a mirage, he started to say something, but Drok interrupted him.

"Every one of us has seen that, every morning at this time, and sometimes at dusk, what we call the "death march" plays out, it is our past making claims on us." The slogging troops remained visible up until it began to grow lighter, the tableau slowly fading away.

"Come," said Drok, "We've got a long day ahead of us."

After a quick breakfast, it was back out on the wind wags. Bria seemed quite charmed by Udel once more, so she was riding in his wagon again. Alex asked Kelly what she thought of their "relationship." She merely shrugged,

"Big and dumb, doesn't do anything for me, but Bria seems to like him, who am I to judge?" When they set out, the wind was really blowing so the sand goggles came right out. Both Alex and Kelly had to tie bandannas around their faces to cover their mouths and noses. The noise from the wind wag, along with the wind made it practically impossible to talk to each other. Alex tried to use his binoculars but the constant bumping made that effort practically impossible.

Alex noticed that Garmik and Arna had their eyes completely closed, while Chasi, and to a certain extent, Drok resembled Tusken Raiders from the first Star Wars film.

They rolled across the flats for close to three hours, at times Udel tried to race his mother, but she acted rather indifferently to his efforts. Gradually, Alex and the others began to notice the evidence of wreckage begin to increase, from sporadic piles, to constant piles of destruction. Alex noticed Drok sitting next to Garmik, speaking right into his ear, and pointing things out on the increasing size of the wreckage. Before long, the detritus of war began to appear on both sides, eventually funneling them into a narrow passage a mere ten feet wide in places.

Alex also began to notice that the size and height of the wreckage also began to grow. Finally, they were forced to move farther away from the destruction which now gave everyone an opportunity to get a feel for just how massive the piles of wreckage really was. They were also beginning to see massive craters as well, and while two hundred years of wind had filled them in for the most part, their incredible circumferences still hinted at the horrific weapons that caused them.

Alex couldn't be sure if what he was seeing was a completely destroyed city, or the remains of a massive battle that had been fought here. Sand covered a lot of it, but the grotesque skeletons of the machines of war were plainly visible. He also began to see what certainly looked like the remains of "Transformer" type weapons twisted and wrecked strewn along their way.

"Could Drok's ancestors have fought in these things?" He wondered, "Or are they the remains of incredibly large robots?" It appeared that he might get a chance to find out, as they were slowing, Drok pointing towards the remains of one.

After both wagons had come to a stop, and everybody had gotten out, Drok expressed his desire to show everybody, but especially Alex and Garmik something only visible from the top of a sandy berm. It was like climbing a sand dune, but as soon as they crested the top, Alex gasped. An area close to a hundred acres was literally covered with wrecked and smashed "transformers," as he thought of the large mechanical battle suits. Although years of sand had filled in the low places, at first glance, it resembled a massive auto junkyard. It took a few moments for him to realize what he was actually looking at, but while Drok spoke to Garmik, he took several pictures with his camera.

"There are many areas like this," said Drok. "Places so dense with metal, I worry those purifiers won't be able to plow through all that." Garmik replied with,

"Not to worry Drok, my information on them indicates that while their travel may be slowed down, their ability to recycle all that scrap will not be hindered in the slightest.

While he went into a more detailed explanation of how the huge factory machines would tackle acres of scrap, Alex continued to stare at the horrific sight. He imagined that the remains of the soldiers who fought to the death in those machines were still inside them. His heart was also filled with a curious sadness in knowing that their bones would be ground up along with their metal "coffins." From what he had heard Garmik telling Drok everything but the metal, plastics, and manufactured materials would be spread upon the earth. The landscape spread out before his eyes would haunt his dreams for a long time to come.

Before they returned to the wind wags, Drok pointed off to the east, and said,

"We will be making a slow turn to the north very soon, as the wreckage you see off on the horizon is heavily contaminated, and cannot be approached. Garmik carried the equivalent of a notebook computer, which had a map on its screen. Because of his massive hands, Drok was forced to use a pointer, to indicate where the radiated zones began and ended. He then turned to Alex, and said,

"We will be stopping at one more place; you may find it rather interesting."

After they moved away from the masses of wreckage, and back out into the openness of the wastes, both Chasi and Udel took advantage of the increased wind, and "Opened up." At one point, Alex figured that they were traveling at close to eighty miles an hour racing across the waste, Occasionally, they would pass individual piles of wreckage and rubble, at one point, Alex tried to snap a picture of what appeared to have been a spacecraft that had "augured in," it's massive size forming a landmark in the barren waste. Towards late afternoon, they approached another massive area of twisted rubble and metal. Suddenly he knew what Drok wanted to show him, twice the size of the Karla-Ann, was a spacecraft just sitting by itself, its hull sand blasted to dull silver by the wind.

"While I was in school," explained Drok, I showed people a hologram I had made of this craft, most thought it resembled a ship built by the Dreia, but who's to say? All we know is that it's completely locked up, it appears that the crew left to explore and never returned."

"How long has it been sitting here?" Asked Bria. Drok shrugged, his mother then spoke up.

"It was here well before Drok was born, we know of several others, but most are too close to the contaminated areas to bother about."

They returned to their wind wags, and continued traveling until just before dusk, when they stopped at a large individual pile of rubble, that had once been some sort of building.

Like every bit of metal, the rubble had been constantly blasted by the wind giving it the look of a small mountain. Entering what resembled the entrance to a cave, Alex and his friends were surprised to see it open up into a decent sized room, one that also appeared to be clean and maintained. There was also a radio sitting on a large table, along with a fireplace, and several beds fashioned from various pieces of scrap.

"We aren't all that far from home," said Chasi, but it get's mighty dark out here, and we might easily his something on our way back." Drok then got on the radio, and contacted his father, letting him know of their location.

"This is one of eight water points along with being a retreat in case of trouble," explained Chasi.

"We also have access to fresh water," she added, "Whatever this place used to be, we discovered it must have sat over a natural spring, there are seven more just like it, it is one of the very few "offerings" from the past that benefits us."