“By the Maker!” Deevee cried as he toppled over the copilot’s chair. “I just put myself back together!”
The ship continued to fall, but it also began to slow down as Hoole gained more control.
“We’re going to make it!” Tash cried.
“Not quite,” Hoole said grimly. “Hold on.”
Try as he would, he couldn’t pull the ship out of its dive. All he could do was adjust the angle of their fall so they wouldn’t slam right into the ground. The Shroud hit the surface of Kiva like a rock thrown across the surface of a lake-skipping once, twice, three times-then plowing over a rocky field as parts of the hull were torn off the ship’s frame. The ship scraped across jagged mounds of stone that gouged long cuts into the tough metal.
Inside, the four passengers were thrown around. The room was filled with flying debris as equipment, datachips, holodisks, and everything else not tied down suddenly leaped into the air. Tash felt a datachip bounce off her forehead with the force of a small rocket. A moment later she blinked as a trickle of blood dripped into her left eye.
Finally, the ship came to rest.
Before Tash and Zak could climb to their feet, Hoole was standing over them. “No broken bones, no serious wounds,” he said to each of them, then pressed a piece of cloth against Tash’s cut. “Can you stand?”
They both nodded and the Shi’ido helped them up, then quickly turned to Deevee. “Are you functioning?”
Servos whined as the droid climbed to his feet. “It seems to defy the laws of physics,” Deevee said, “but I’m still operational.”
“Good,” Hoole said, as though they hadn’t just had a very close brush with death. “Please go check the engines for damage.”
With that, Hoole began to check the cockpit equipment. Tash held the cloth against her forehead and watched her uncle. She had to admire his calm. Her hands were still shaking from the crash, but Hoole was steady as a rock, running checks on all the systems.
“Oh, this is not prime,” she heard Zak mutter.
Zak was looking at the floor just outside the cockpit. There was a gaping hole in the metal floorboards. It was so wide and deep that they could see straight through to the gray rock of the planet’s surface. “I think this ship just found its permanent home,” Zak said. “It sure isn’t going to fly anywhere soon.”
“I am afraid Zak is right,” Hoole confirmed. “There are at least four major holes in the hull too big to repair. The crash took out almost every system, including the navicomputer. Even if the engines worked, we could not fly. This ship is dead.”
They were marooned.
A short while later, Zak, Tash, Deevee, and Hoole stood outside what was left of the Shroud. Each of them carried a small supply of food and water salvaged from the ship’s galley, and Hoole pulled an emergency crash kit out of the wreckage. It contained two small tents and a cooking unit.
Zak had also insisted on bringing along as many of the ship’s datachips as possible. The Shroud’s computer banks had been full of interesting information.
“It was a good ship,” Zak sighed. “It got us through a lot of scrapes.”
“Funny,” Tash added. “This ship started out as part of Gog’s plan. Now it’s as if we’ve brought it home to him.” Zak nodded unhappily at the memory of how they found the ship. The Shroud had belonged to one of Gog’s henchman, another evil scientist named Evazan.
Hoole said, “Come. It’s not a long walk, but we should start at once.”
“Where are we going?” Zak asked.
“Just follow me,” Hoole said.
The direction Hoole chose seemed no better or worse than any other. In fact, every direction looked the same. Kiva was absolutely dead, made up of kilometer after kilometer of dark gray rock under a roof of dark gray sky. Even the sun looked gray. The light was dim, but strong enough for huge, jagged pillars of rock to cast long shadows on the dry ground.
Zak stood next to one rock that was taller than he was. “These things look like giant teeth.”
“Or frozen people,” Tash added. “They’re all over the place. Like millions of people, turned into rock.”
“Be silent,” Hoole warned sharply. Tash and Zak looked at each other and shrugged.
There was no sound, other than a sad wind that moaned through the rocks. Zak looked around. Something bothered him. But what was it? Then it hit him.
“No life,” he muttered. He crouched down and stared at the ground, looking for the tiniest sign of growing things, a weed, or even a thorn. “There’s nothing here. Not even a blade of grass.”