Amongst the crew
was Valla. A tall very attractive woman with long jet black hair; one
of the scientists assigned to Saros 5 to determine whether the planet
was capable of supporting life. She was very head strong and didn't take
to being ordered about very easily by anyone - including Napier.
'Well?' she said, 'What the hell is going on? When are we likely to get back to work around here?'
Napier looked at
her nervously, he was aware of what she was like when things weren't
going well and he tried to make the most of it by finally suggesting
repairing the damage himself.
'You're hardly
experienced enough for that,' said Lodge, Valla's assistant - a short
balding man in his late thirties who clearly wasn't as head strong as
Valla and in whom Napier found to be an easier target when he wasn't
able to get to Valla.
'Nobody asked
you for your opinion,' snapped Napier who glared at Lodge and who
quickly looked at Villa for support, but none came.
The two
mineralogists, Lindley and Malikyan sat quietly at one of the tables
beneath the large window that viewed the landscape of the other side of
the base. Neither decided to join in the banter that was ensuing amongst
the other three, but both agreed with Valla, as they too wanted to
return to work.
The door to see
the rec-room opened and everyone turned to see Dr.Jezak, the base
Medical Officer enter. She caught their somewhat awkward stare, all
seeming to expect something from her. She paused momentarily before
moving over towards Napier and gently ushering him to one side and began
to whisper something in his ear.
'Look, dear, if you've something to say, just say it.' said Valla sarcastically.
Jezak looked up at the others before her. 'Alright,' she said, 'but I thought it was right that I should inform the commander-'
'Just get on with it!' snapped Valla.
'I was on my way from Medical, when I heard someone screaming.'
'They probably saw you coming,' said Valla to herself, but Napier heard her. She realised this as she caught a glare from him.
Jezak continued: 'There was also laser-fire...sounded as thou someone was being attacked.'
'Did you check it out?' asked Lodge.
saros five part 2 page 2
anto
had been maintaining a vigilance of the base. He had ceased his mundane
call-out for Sterne and Brent the two base engineers upon the discovery
of Sterne's body by Ridge in airlock nine. Zaran in the meantime had
left the communications room to go and find Ridge as he hadn't reported
in as ordered, leaving Santo to run a complete systems check on the
monitoring equipment due to certain anomalies which had recently arisen
with the landing platform and airlock nine following the meteor-storm.
n
the crew's rec-room, concern was mounting as to the whereabouts of
Sterne and Brent. As they were engineers, they were needed to repair the
damaged caused by the meteorite storm and thus regain full lighting to
the base.
