Wormhole

“Thanks. I assume that you want us to stay on Starseeker once we’ve landed until you are ready for us?” “Yes, I’m sure you understand why.” “Not a problem. We’ll be with you shortly.” We completed another orbit of Traymar to establish exactly where the beacon was coming from, then slowly, very slowly, edged vertically down into the atmosphere. Shouldn’t really have been possible; the spin of the planet should have thrown us off, but then perhaps we did go in at a slight angle and we were moving forward at the same speed as the planet’s spin. At first it was clear sky, just the black of space above us with thick cloud below. Then we were into the cloud, flying blind and trusting that beacon to guide us in. If they wanted to kill us they only had to make the beacon appear to come from a mountain (assuming Traymar had mountains) hidden in the cloud. We’d fly straight into it and be toast – unless Starseeker saw the danger and avoided it herself. Now we were under the cloud and not too far away the star had burnt the cloud away completely. From that hazy area the beacon beckoned, and now we could see a bright light as well. Above that light, both above and below us shapes flew in the sky. A moment later we had been seen and the shapes turned as one and flew towards us. Giant wings flapped slowly to propel them through the air at remarkable speed. Long tails trailed behind them while the long snouts off their heads aimed straight for us. Dragons! Beasts of Earth myths come to life. The closer they came the larger they appeared, varying in size from that of a small aircraft to that of the largest airliner that had, until recently, filled the skies of Earth. If we hit one I was not sure who would come off worst; Starseeker or the dragon. The maw of the leader opened and a jet of fire shot towards us; Starseeker’s low level shields went up. I reached for the communications and called, “Tansur, if you can, tell them to disperse, our shields have gone up, I don’t know what will happen next, or when,” There was no reply, but suddenly the mass of dragons – for that is what I assumed they were – dispersed; it now didn’t look as if a missile was approaching and the shields powered down. The lead dragon however did not stop his forward charge. While still some distance from us he abruptly halted and hovered as if standing on the air, then he leaned down and blew another great sheet of flame at us. The flames hit the shield and were deflected harmlessly away. I heard the click, but before I could locate where it had come from there was a sound like ‘phutt’ and a beam of light shot from Starseeker and hit the fire breathing dragon. The fire stopped instantly and like a whipped cur he turned tail and fled. “Well he was warned,” came Tansur’s voice with what sounded like raucous laughter in the background. “Thanks, he’s had that coming a long time.” “Automatic reaction from Starseeker,” I replied. “She fired before I could work out what was happening. Is it now safe to land?” “I don’t think anyone else will be stupid enough to try bravado like that now, so come on in.” There was still some sort of ‘break’ in Tansur’s voice that was difficult to define, yet there seemed no threat so we shrugged our shoulders and resumed the landing procedure. Ten minutes later we had Starseeker on the ground and her main systems shut down.