Strange Adventures

Return to Rann

by CSyphrett

“Stand in the execution chamber,” said the bailiff. He pressed the prisoner’s hands on the silver knobs in front of him. A clicking and a small surge of yellow light held the man to his position. He seemed resigned to whatever fate was dealt him in the coming moments.

An honor guard in light blue and red preceded the man’s executioner with a regal grace.

The executioner waited for the honor guard to form two lines on either side before approaching the circular dock.

“Sardath of Rannagar,” the executioner intoned from underneath his featureless red helmet. “You have been found guilty of treason and sedition against the government of Rann. Do you have any last words before your sentence is carried out?”

The blond Sardath shook his head in negation.

“Then, by order of the Council,” said the executioner, “you are to be put to death by lethal fall.”

The man grasped a lever. He pulled the switch.

The bottom of the dock irised open. The two holders slid down on slender rods so that Sardath was lowered through the floor. A cloud passed by underneath his feet as he looked down.

The executioner rotated the lever. The prisoner’s hands were released so that he could fall to his death.

Sardath tried to remain calm. He was falling rapidly to a hard impact, but he was sure the thing that had got him into this situation could get him out.

He felt the surface of his arm. A control pad revealed itself to his fingers. He worked the keypad until a small numeral lit along a receptor in his eye. He hoped he had timed it just right.

A beam shot from the ground and wrapped around Sardath. He vanished in its embrace.

***

Sardath appeared in the middle of a highway, with oncoming vehicles speeding at him. He didn’t pause to think but ran for the side of the road as fast as he could.

Horns roared in anger as drivers tried to miss the suddenly appearing alien. He threw himself off the road as a BMW almost clipped him.

Sardath found himself sitting beneath a yellow sign. He marveled that he was still alive as he gazed at the sign. It was a strange, black picture of four humanoid figures, each pulling the one behind as they seemed to run.

He got to his feet, brushing off his green convict suit with his hands. Time to study the environment for a way to get home.

Sardath worked the keypad in his arm as he walked. He was out of range of his lab for another teleportation beam. That was expected but something that needed to be checked.

A few finger pushes and a small screen appeared in his oracular receptor. The random noises he heard were roughly translated as Rann standard on the screen.

He hoped to be able to take the time to examine the natives and have the computer learn the language as he looked for a means to survive and return home.

Sardath wandered the city streets for long hours. He finally settled in a park. Numerous humans went about their business as he listened and built a vocabulary of English from guesstimated scraps of conversation.

Sardath’s gaze fell on two men playing some kind of board game. He watched as each sought advantage over the other. Game after game went by before the Rannian noticed his implants were giving him a play by play commentary on what he could hear in the neighborhood.

Sardath knew his translator had a margin of error but felt he was on the way of being able to blend in with the city life.

He left the park, wandering for some time until he found a three story building across from some kind of torture place. He hoped he never met the thing in yellow and red with the large teeth.

Sardath looked at the sign just on inside of the building. He wondered what a Hall of Heroes meant as he stepped inside. He heard loud voices as he looked around.

Sardath walked toward the voices cautiously. One of three young humans demanded something called green from an older human. The old man shook his head, denying the existence of green. The younger slapped the older man furiously.

Sardath stepped forward, frowning. One of the thieves tried to warn him off with a drawn knife. The exile grabbed his opponent’s wrist and dragged the man into a forearm to the face. Then the arm reversed, dragging an elbow into the other cheek. The knife slipped out of the man’s grasp.

Sardath let the stunned thief drop to the floor, kicking the knife across the floor.

The two remaining thieves had not seen what had happened to their comrade. They were angry at the interruption of their questioning. The interloper calmly stepped forward, putting a slippered heel in the fallen man’s face as he did so.

“Who do you think you are, #$@@$er?” asked the spokesman. “Wildcat?”

“Yes… I… am… #$@@$er… wildcat,” said Sardath, face neutral as he stepped forward again.

The two thieves looked at each other. They rushed Sardath. If they could get him on the floor, they could pound him while he was trapped beneath them.

Sardath took one step forward, thrusting a hand out. One of the men ran into the open hand and fell.

The other tried a swing. The thrusting arm swiveled, directing the blow from the Rannian’s face. The other hand swung, and Sardath reversed the direction of his block, knocking the hand away.

The man on the floor tried to stand. A golden shield the shape of a police badge smashed against the back of his head with a bong. He went down and stayed.

The second man tried to push past Sardath. Two straight arms crashed against the thief’s chest, knocking him down. The exile brought a hand down in a hammer blow. His attacker banged his head against the floor.

Sardath stood back. He tried to catch his breath from the exertion. His stomach growled at him.

“Name’s Harry Carter,” said the man, hanging the shield back on the wall. “Thanks for the assistance.”

“No… worries,” said Sardath.

“Not from around here, are you?” said Carter. “Watch them while I call the cops, and I think I can get some Chinese from down the street.”

“No… worries,” Sardath said. He wondered why Car-ter would want people from the avenue now.

His translator must have lost some connection.

***

It was an hour later before the two could sit down and eat a delivered meal. The police came and took statements. The men were placed in the back of a prowl car and driven off.

Sardath had taken the time to look the museum over while they waited. One exhibit in particular drew his attention more than any other.

It was a finned red helmet with a gold, winged star on the front of the grayed white front.

“You got a story you want to tell?” Carter asked as he devoured his noodles.

Sardath told him as much as he could in his limited command of English. Carter had to puzzle some of it out because the wrong word was used. Finally he thought he had a picture of the events that had brought his strange visitor to his doorstep.

Sardath had been researching the science of teleportation from his own planet’s history. The secrets were forbidden because Rann had destroyed most of its civilization in a civil war. He had been found out and placed to be executed. He had escaped by using the prototype beam he had constructed to teleport to Earth.

But he was stranded until he found a way home.

“How… did… acquire… guardian… helmet?” Sardath asked Carter, showing his host the display while he ate the last of his meal with his fingers. He hadn’t realized how hungry he had been until he had wolfed the Terran food down.

“I got that in ’65, or ’66, I think,” said Carter. “Matter of fact, this whole display case was donated by a small group that had broken up a couple of years earlier. I think that helmet came from one of their cases in Australia.”

“Australia?”

Carter showed him the continent on a nearby globe.

“Where are we?” Sardath asked.

Carter spun the globe, pointing out California. Sardath frowned in thought.

***

Carter let Sardath stay at the museum for the night. He hoped to find a place for the exile to stay and a job to pay his bills while he was on Earth.

Sardath did not sleep. Instead he wondered the halls, inspecting the exhibits. He smiled as he hit upon a plan. It was risky. He could be scattered across the Earth in a trail of molecules miles long. Still, it was a chance to return home. He couldn’t pass that up.

Sardath took numerous devices from the display cases. He found a tool kit and went to work, assembling his machine from the parts.

His key pad gave him a coordinate to load into the primitive processing unit he had devised. He would have to thank this Luthor, whoever he was, if he returned to Terra, assuming he survived his plan.

Sardath found a stylus and some paper. He wrote a note for the curator as well as he could with the unfamiliar language. He made sure the device was linked to a source of power called a socket.

He made sure the processor was locked on the proper coordinate. He grabbed the ancient helmet before he took his place in front of the barrel-like projector.

He closed his eyes and triggered the activating pulse with his keypad. He vanished in a spray of light, leaving behind a faint afterimage that slowly faded away.

***

Sardath opened his eyes. He prodded the keypad into giving him a location fix. He smiled when he saw that he had crossed the globe in about three seconds.

He saw that he was a little off from his calculated position. Still, his keypad fed a small sensor reading to his eye as it detected the Rannian ship buried for so many years and then discovered by the human McCabe and Adam Blake.

If only it could provide a means to travel home. He was sure, though, it was a wreck only fit for salvage. Still, it might be enough to increase the range on the teleporter he had built from Mr. Carter’s museum.

Sardath followed his sensor to an indentation in the ground. Spindly shrubs had grown up as a cover to the burial place.

Sardath pondered for some time, not caring about the hot sun and glare. Rann had hotter days than this. He wondered how he was going to get to the relic from the past.

He had not thought to bring tools with him. He realized he had been in too much of a hurry to reach his goal and hadn’t thought ahead.

Sardath checked his sensor for anything that might be useful. He found that, whatever type ship it was, it had suffered a full power loss and was missing most of its mass.

Something did occur to him. He walked to the rear of the detected mass, playing with his keypad.

When Rann had possessed star flight, certain sections could be commanded from the outside the craft if you had the encrypted code. One of these sections was the escape pods, most spacecraft carried. The codes could be used to fire the pods from outside to grant crash teams access without having to cut through the hull.

Sardath sat down to wait after programming his keypad to search for and send the fire command. He didn’t know how long he had to wait but felt he had nothing but time.

Eventually, as Sardath waited, two plumes of dirt leaped straight up and fell in a small shower across the area. He brushed himself off after the last of the dirt had fallen.

The escape pods were still in place where their covers had been blown out. Firing one of them into the air would do more than rain dirt.

Sardath examined the two pods and their cradles. He found a manual release to open the cradles’ grapples. He punched the lever, praying that time hadn’t corrupted the workings.

Sardath waited as the holding arms opened slowly. He had a way to get aboard the buried ship and look around.

Hopefully it would also provide a means to go home. Earth was a nice place to visit, but he didn’t want to live there.

Sardath pressed the external switch on one of the escape pods. What he needed was to be able to fly the pod out of the cradle.

That would leave the airlock unobstructed.

The cockpit of the escape pod slid back to allow access to the pilot’s seat. The controls were at once familiar and strange to Sardath. It had been some time for Rann to regain its grip on the sky.

Personal flying machines were restricted to the Emperor’s private guardians. Just like weapons were restricted. Just like research was restricted.

Sardath climbed into the cockpit. He tried to identify the various instruments with a visual exam. He had a working knowledge of the things involved. Time to try out what he knew.

He flicked on the ignition, listening to the engine purr. Sardath smiled.

The escape pod bounced up out of its cradle under Sardath’s shaking hands. He floated it forward as gently as he could. He thought he was doing a good job for his first time.

He thumped the vehicle hard against the ground as he landed it and cut the ignition. Historically, escape pods were known to be fragile as glass. His inspection revealed nothing, so he breathed a sigh of relief.

He climbed down in the cradle. The access hatch refused to open to his button pushing.

Sardath frowned in thought. He went back to the pod, and reached inside. He pulled out a detachable box from its small compartment. He placed the box under the stubborn lock. He flipped the lid on the box up.

He smiled at the contents laid out for his use.

A laser cutter was the first thing he selected. Its thin shining blade ate at the panel for the door lock. In seconds, the metal cover laid on the ground.

Sardath replaced the cutter with a set of clamps. He clamped the individual wires for the door into two bunches.

He cut the wires easily with the energy blade. Then he clamped the ends together. He took a small surger out and clamped that to the wires. He pushed the trigger on the surger.

The metal hatch complained as it tried to slide open under the command from the altered wires. Sardath put his shoulder to the hatch trying to push the heavy door out of his way.

When he had enough room, he slid inside the derelict.

Sardath started by searching for anything he could make work. He found that his only supply of light had floated down through the open hatch.

So the first thing he needed was a source of light other than the laser cutter, back in its box.

Sardath cautiously searched each room he came across close to the escape pod bay. He found a light square under a wrecked crew bunk. He activated it, smiling at the change the omnidirectional beam made in the gloomy corridor.

He went back to his search with a calm patience. He expected to find a treasure trove of some kind with the light of the cube to guide him.

Sardath quickly amassed the tools he needed to modify his device back at the museum. All he needed was materials, and a power source to last a single jump to his laboratory.

He would need a way to cross the ocean indicated by the globe Harry Carter had pointed out. He had a small idea about that. First he needed the materials. It was time that he planned instead of jumping into things without consideration.

He searched the broken hull quickly and surely, gathering every spare part he could and loading it in foot lockers with protective padding scavenged from bunks. Then he turned his attention to acquiring the power source he needed.

Sardath made his way to the Engineering section. His keypad sent an all-clear signal to any interior defenses that might still be in operation as he went.

He shook his head at the devastation he encountered. The main drive in the center of the room had been completely ripped from its base. Uniforms were all that was left of the crew, as time had corroded the corpses to dust.

He quickly checked for the power crystal that went in the main drive tube. He saw footprints in the dust and a regular outline on the floor. It was an easy assumption that the person who had taken the guardian helmet had also taken the crystal.

Sardath frowned, at a loss. He surveyed the section with the help of his light cube. He saw just what he needed on the wall.

Sardath went to the wall. He keyed the instrument in his arm for several seconds. A door popped open. The scientist smiled at the locker’s contents.

Inside were several power crystals of varying size. All he needed to do was charge them. Then he could load them into a beam generator and use them to power his teleporter. Sardath placed the crystals in a light, metallic box.

He had everything he needed now except for a working beam home. That would surely be child’s play to obtain, now that he had a plan.

***

Sardath looked at his new teleporter at the Hero Museum. Harry Carter had helped him disassemble and reassemble the device on the roof of the building. The escape pod rested in front of the cannon barrel as coordinate calculations were performed and checked fro accuracy.

Sardath aimed the barrel into the night sky, trying to match his aim with Rann’s orbit.

“Are you sure about this?” Harry asked.

“Yes… I… am… sure,” said Sardath. “Good-bye. Thank… you… for… the… food.”

Harry nodded.

Sardath climbed into the escape pod. The flight across the ocean had given him time to practice the controls. He smoothly stepped through his startup, and lifted the small aircraft off the rooftop. He hovered in place as he waited for the target to enter the firing limit.

Finally, the signal beeped at him in his ear. The cannon fired automatically. Then several key components melted down.

The scientist was on his way.

Epilogue

Days after the execution of the renegade Sardath of Rannagar, an area in the barren Glass Mountains suffered a small tremor. The cause was undetermined by the Science Council. The matter was set aside until some type of study could be done.

It was noted that something fell from the sky near there, but an impact crater was nonexistent. These two facts were linked together by the advisors to the Emperor, but none would hazard a guess on what it meant.