Survivors

 

 

Brandon was checking the high-definition image of the “Survivor” on the view screen. The ship’s telescope had been tracking the shuttle’s flight since it had left the “Paxton.”. The telescope was locked into the shuttle's radio beacon and automatically tracked the shuttle throughout its descent.  Visual contact was lost only when the shuttle disappeared behind a cloud, but the instruments could pick up its heat signature.

 

After the aborted landing outside of the capital city, Ryan spoke with Scooter on the radio. Scooter told him that they were in radio contact with some Hakaanen who were giving them a new place to land.

 

He told Ryan he would get back to them as soon as he knew more. What he didn’t tell Ryan was that his contact was with a Hakaanen boy. Brandon followed the shuttle as it headed northwest, circled around, and then started its approach to the runway.

 

The sky was partly cloudy, but he could see the "Survivor" make its approach. It appeared that the shuttle had made a safe landing, but right after it touched down he saw an explosion and fireball. Involuntary reflex action closed his eyes to protect them from the intense brilliance of the explosion. When he opened them again he could see nothing on the ground except billowing smoke shrouding the scene below.

 

Ryan got on the radio. "This is the 'Paxton' calling the 'Survivor'." There was no answer. He tried again and still got no answer. He looked over at Brandon. Brandon's face was totally white.  The console beeped, and Brandon looked at the view screen.  The screen was blank, except for a message that read, "NO SIGNAL".

 

"I think we lost them," Brandon said quietly. "I think they crashed."

 

All of the boys were on the bridge and had seen the disaster unfold. All of them felt sudden fear and emptiness. If Brandon was right, they were alone in space—they were the last survivors.

 

 

Thraller listened in on the chat between the "Survivor" and the "Paxton,” but he couldn't understand any of it. It had been one thing for a boy with a weird accent to be talking, but now the radio had boys talking a language he had never heard before.  Why were these children flying a Hakaanen shuttle, he wondered, and where had they come from?

 

 

Alex, Scooter, and Travis were temporarily blinded by the explosion at the end of the runway.

 

"What the FUCK!!!" Alex screamed. "They're trying to kill us!"

 

Douglas was standing at the open cockpit door looking at the huge fireball rising into the sky followed by a column of smoke. "No, I don't think so," he said.

 

"You don’t THINK SO? Are you nuts, Douglas?! That was us they were trying to blow up, because I sure as hell didn’t see anybody else landing here. And if nothing else they tried to blind us! I'm getting us out of here!" His hand grabbed the throttle.

 

"To where?” Douglas asked. “This is the only runway we've found that we can land on. We don’t have enough fuel to look someplace else. And besides, they weren't trying to kill us—that part is obvious."

 

"Not to me it isn't," Alex growled as the shuttle came to a stop. They looked at the burning hulk in front of them.  They noticed it was the old shuttle they had seen at the end of the runway that had just been blown up. "Explain please." Douglas could see that Alex was shaking with anger.

 

"Well, first, let's taxi to the terminal. We need to get off of this runway. And turn off the transponder!"

 

"No taxiing until you tell me how we're not in danger," Alex demanded.

 

"Alex, either you taxi to the terminal or Travis will. But we're going to start taxiing now, and that's an order.  We need to get off this runway fast." 

 

‘Sometimes you just have to kick Alex in the balls to get what you want', Douglas thought at Scooter, who quickly hid his smile.  Douglas understood what had happened at the end of the runway, and he knew that for the plan that was unfolding to work they had to clear the runway quickly.  "I'll tell you why while you taxi us to the terminal."

 

For the second time in two days Alex glared at Douglas. Alex liked him better when he hadn't been so fucking cocky. Now he seemed way too sure of himself, as far as Alex was concerned. He had forgotten that Douglas had been the same way when he led them from the "Moonduster" to the big valley. The difference now was Douglas was confident in his leadership abilities and acted quicker and more decisively than he had then.  When things were safe and comfortable, Douglas lay back and acted like a Student Council president. But when the group was in danger, Douglas took over complete control. It was Douglas, after all, who had decided to exile Robert Charles.

 

Alex took a deep breath, switched off the transponder, turned the shuttle around, and taxied it toward the terminal.  "So, explain this mess, before we get to the terminal and get killed. I, at least, would like to know why I am dying at age fifteen."

 

"Quit being paranoid, Alex. Think. If they wanted to kill us they would have just let us land on the first runway. We would have crashed and burned there. Why would they wave us off and give us a smooth runway to land on just so they could attack us later? No, there is some weird shit going on here, but it doesn't have to do with killing us. I mean look at what they did with the runway. We didn’t have anything we could land on, and suddenly it opened up right before our eyes. I’m really sure we are safe. In fact, look over there." Douglas pointed to the east side of the terminal. A Hakaanen lady was waving lights at them, just like at an airport.

 

Just then the radio sounded. "This is the 'Paxton' calling the 'Survivor'."

 

Scooter got ready to answer, but Douglas stopped him.

 

"Don't answer!" he commanded.

 

"Why not? They're worried about us. We haven't talked to them since we aborted the first landing attempt," Scooter said.

 

"We won’t answer them because we blew up when we landed here!"

 

"Huh?"

 

"What do you think that explosion was about? That's our shuttle at the end of the runway."

 

Scooter grinned as he suddenly understood what Douglas was saying. Alex and Travis had an aha moment as well. The situation on Hakaan was not what it had been the last time Inferno had had contact with it. The present situation made it important to hide them from somebody, most likely the government of the planet.

 

They heard the "Paxton" on the radio again, but continued to ignore it. Alex taxied toward the lights. The lady guided them and they turned into a space next to the terminal. There was a hangar in front of them that was covered with trees and other plants. Another lady was at the hangar door, signaling the shuttle to enter the building. Alex folded the wings and guided the shuttle through the door as the lady instructed.

 

Outside, the runway cover was moving back into place.  But part of the cover was different. It had broken trees and tire tracks that led right to the burning hulk. It looked like the shuttle had hit the runway too late and had gone off the end of it.

 

Alex stopped the "Survivor" inside the “underground” hangar and shut off the engines.

 

"So, who is going to surprise the two ladies outside?" Douglas asked.

 

"Surprise?" Mike asked.  "What do you mean, surprise? You mean because we're naked?"

 

"I think they would be more surprised if we were dressed," Travis grinned. "I think he means our round ears and bare backs."

 

"Oh. Duh. I wasn't thinking too good on that one.  I got too used to being just one of the guys on Inferno. But I think us two big guys, me and Jeremy, would work out just fine. First Earthlings to set foot on Hakaan. What do you think, Jeremy? Give the honor to the two thugs?"

 

For a brief moment Douglas selfishly thought of wanting the honor for himself, but he took a deep breath and nodded his assent.  After all, he was still the leader. Let his friends get the glory—if there was ever going to be any glory.

 

They saw a set of stairs being pushed up to the hatch of the shuttle by two men. Mike opened the hatch, and he and Jeremy stepped out onto the stairs. Corrinna, Dralkan's mother, was the first to see them. When she got a close look at them, she put her hand to her mouth in surprise.  The boys she saw were certainly not Hakaanen boys.  And if they weren't Hakaanen, who were they?

 

Dralkan contacted his father on his radio. Even though it was a long way from the capital city, he had seen the smoke rise from the old space port. Dralkan told his father that plan A had been put into motion. Dralkan’s father instructed Dralkan, Trundall, and Shamene to meet him at the end of the runway farthest from the terminal. Dralkan knew which one he meant, but he didn't know why they should meet there.

 

The three boys reached the end of the weed-covered runway and waited. The sun was beating down on them. Suddenly, they heard a humming noise above them and saw a flier, just like in the history books. It has to belong to the Ancients, Dralkan thought. The boys were about to bolt into the woods, but the flier came down too quickly.

 

The three boys stood still, frozen with fright.  Dralkan wasn’t sure why he was frightened. After all, it wasn't illegal to play at the old airport. Kids hung around there all the time. It can’t be about us playing, he thought; it has to be about the arrival of the shuttle.

 

The boys stared at the flier, wondering who would come out. They knew they couldn’t run away, so they just stood and waited. The Ancients and their police would catch them before they even got close to the wooded area next to the old runway. But instead of men in police uniforms, a man wearing a loin cloth appeared at the door. It was, Rikers, Dralkan's father, who lowered a ladder.

 

"Quick boys, we have no time. All three of you get on!" his dad yelled.

 

The three boys climbed up the ladder and the flier lifted straight up and shot off.

 

"Wow! Where did you get this dad?" Dralkan was impressed.

 

"It was an experimental flier, one that can hover, land, and take off vertically. When the Ancients started confiscating the machines, your grandfather managed to save this one. He made a comment in the records that the flier had been destroyed and then kept it for himself to be used at a time when it was really needed. It would appear that time is now."

 

“Where did he keep it?” Trundall asked. He couldn’t remember seeing it at the old spaceport.

 

“He kept it in a warehouse near where the Ancients dismantled and destroyed many of the fliers and spacecraft.”

 

”Dralkan saw that Norad, his father’s Meshanna and partner, was on board. In fact he recognized the three other men on board. He knew them from the “vacation resort” at the former spaceport.

 

"Where are we going?"

 

"To the old spaceport.” Rikers looked at his son with pride. “I heard about how you communicated with the shuttle. That was very brave of you. You were cool under fire. I am very proud of you, son…very proud."

 

Dad doesn't even know the half of it, Dralkan thought. He recalled standing in the middle of the runway waving off the landing shuttle—that was way scarier than talking on the communicator.

 

The flier raced low over the tree tops heading for the old space port. Rikers had heard from Corrinna that something strange had been revealed at the space port, but she wouldn't say what it was.  She would only say there was something very different about the kids on the shuttle.  Why, Rikers thought, was a shuttle from one of the lost colonies being piloted by children?

 

Rikers knew that he had to get to the spaceport quickly, because the Ancients would soon have a flier heading there to investigate the crash. The good news was theirs couldn't land, because this was the only flier made by Hakaanen engineers that could land and take off vertically.  Rikers didn't know that the engineers on Inferno had retrofitted their fliers to do the same just after communication ended between the two planets.

 

When the flier arrived at the field they could see that it was covered by camouflage. At the end of the false runway the old shuttle hulk was still burning. The flier landed and Rikers headed for the terminal with Norad. The flier needed to be parked in the hangar as quickly as possible.

 

 

Thraller sat in an ornate office with Hamnod, one of the Ancients. He told the Ancient about the strange things he heard on the radio; the unfamiliar language and the fact that all of the voices belonged to boys.

 

Hamnod agreed with Thraller; a flier needed to be sent immediately to the scene.  The situation had to be investigated thoroughly and any survivors taken into custody and permanently isolated.

 

Thraller called to get a flier ready. He was going to be on it. If anybody was left alive, he was going to see to their capture personally.  He had no problem in his mind about killing any of the crash survivors if they showed any resistance.

 

He smiled to himself as he thought about how the Shkah way was slowly becoming the way of Hakaanen. It was fortuitous that the Ancients had placed them in positions of authority. When the proper time came, he knew that the Ancients, who were true Hakaanen at heart, would be easily crushed by the growing power of the Shkah.

 

 

Corrinna looked at the two strange looking boys standing at the hatch of the shuttle. She didn't know what they were, but they certainly weren't Hakaanen. They were naked boys, they were wearing Hakaan belts, but they had round ears and no mane down their backs. Yet the shuttle was Hakaanen—she could tell by the writing on the sides.  The boy doing the talking on the radio as the shuttle landed spoke Hakaanen, although he had a strange accent. However, there was no doubt these boys were some kind of alien species, and not Hakaanen. She didn't think twenty-five years would change the appearance of Hakaanen that much.

 

The two big boys walked down the stairs, and behind them came three smaller boys, followed by another somewhat bigger boy. They all seemed to be smiling as they came down the stairs. A small dark haired boy came forward and gave the Hakaan sign of greeting.

 

"Shamra Morna," Douglas said. It was the most formal kind of Hakaan greeting.

 

She was surprised that this strange looking boy knew the proper Hakaan greeting. But then there must be a Hakaan there somewhere, because whoever was on the radio could speak the language perfectly, though with an accent, which could be explained away by the years of separation.

 

Scooter came up to her next. "Shamra Morna,” he said with a small bow of respect.

 

Corrinna looked at the boys. She had fear and anger in her eyes. "Who are you? Where are you from?" She wondered where Urland was; she could use his wisdom and advice right now. She didn’t know that he was busy contacting his son, Rikers , because he could see he would need reinforcements.

 

"We are from a planet called Earth. We became stranded on your colony of Inferno,” Scooter said, using the Hakaanen name for the planet.

 

"Then how did you find your way here?"

 

Scooter started telling the story. But Corrinna stopped them and asked them to return to the shuttle. She was afraid of the strange boys and wanted them in the shuttle until Urland made his appearance. Not wanting to create any trouble, Douglas led them back up the stairs into the shuttle. They needed the help of the Hakaanen who rescued them in order to survive.

 

Scooter turned to the two Hakaan women. "Lasherra." Thank you.

 

The boys boarded the shuttle and sat in the cabin. "Why did she send us back?" Jeremy asked.

 

"She's scared," Douglas answered. "She's waiting for help to come. That's what I think."

 

Everybody agreed with him. Now it was a matter of waiting to see what was going to happen.

 

"Should we call the 'Paxton'?" Jeremy asked.

 

"No," Douglas answered. "We don't want anybody picking up our radio signal. It looks like our rescuers want it to look like we crashed. Until we find out differently, we're going to play along with it."

 

"But they’ve got to be worried sick up there."

 

"I understand. But for now, we need to stay silent."

 

Urland arrived and chatted with the two women. He was stunned to hear the news that the crew of the shuttle was a group of alien boys. The mystery regarding the shuttle and its crew was becoming more and more perplexing.

 

He was about to board the shuttle when he heard the flier land next to the terminal. It was immediately moved into the hangar. The boys on the shuttle looked out the window as the flier was pushed in. They watched four men and three boys exit the flier. They talked to the two women and to the old man who had appeared from somewhere. The old man left the group and climbed the stairs into the shuttle.

 

"We need all of you to come with us. Now!" he ordered. He turned and walked down the stairs. The boys looked at each other—they all had understood what he said. They didn't like the demanding tone of voice the old man had used, but they felt they had no choice but to follow him.

 

They left the shuttle and followed the Hakaanen into the terminal. They had no idea what was going to happen and wished everybody would just quit gawking at them and stand still long enough to hear their story.

 

 

Thraller looked out of the window of his flier, surveying the old spaceport as they flew over it. The wreckage of the shuttle was still burning and it looked completely destroyed. He could make out the tire marks on the overgrown runway leading to the wreckage. It appeared that the runway was too overgrown for a safe landing and the pilot had lost control of the shuttle. He didn't see how anybody could have survived the crash and explosion.

 

 He was actually hoping to find some survivors so he could send his soldiers to detain them and so he could find out what was going on. But it looked like all they would find were burned bodies. There was no way his flier could land on the deteriorated runway. Thraller wished they hadn’t destroyed the new flier that could hover and land vertically. They had the plans, buthe Ancients would not allow any new technology to be built.

 

He would have to return to the base and make the journey by land. He ordered the pilot to return to Kana. He took a last look at the burning shuttle. He had three questions in his mind. What was the strange language he’d heard on the radio? Why were children piloting the shuttle as well as doing the talking from whatever starship was in orbit?

 

And finally, why had the shuttle suddenly aborted its landing on the rough runway of the main airport and flown to the even rougher runway of the old spaceport? The runways of the airport could still be easily spotted from the sky, but the runway of the old spaceport was much more difficult to make out. Unless somebody knew it was there it was almost impossible to see it from the sky. Since it was in the middle of a forest, the runway was in much worse shape than the one at the main airport. So why abort a landing on a runway they could see and that almost looked good enough to land on for a runway that was in worse shape and was practically hidden?

 

He got on the radio and sent a message to Hamnod.  He told the Ancient that in his opinion it might be a good idea to send guardsmen to the old spaceport. Something didn't seem right—the facts simply weren’t adding up.  Hamnod received the message and acted on it right away.  He ordered a contingent of the national guard to meet Thraller as soon as he landed and accompany him on a trip to the old spaceport.

 

 

The six boys from the "Survivor" went into a large room with the Hakaanen. Urland, Rikers, Norad, Corrinna, Trundall, Shamene, and Dralkan sat down and the Earth boys followed their lead. Corrinna's partner stayed in the front of the old terminal to keep watch for anybody coming.

 

Rikers stared at the six Earth boys. Their round ears and bare backs made it obvious they weren't Hakaanen. Other than that he could see little difference. They were even naked like Hakaanen boys often were, with Hakaan pocket belts to hold what they needed. They looked to be the same size and weight as adolescent Hakaanen boys. Their faces were smooth and their wide, clear eyes sparkled like Hakaanen boys in their early teens. Some of the boys were slight, while the musculature on others had begun to noticeably develop. Their pubic regions varied from the thick bushes of hair that Mike and Jeremy had, to almost bare pubis of Scooter.

 

What was unusual was that only the penis on the small blond boy resembled a Hakaanen’s penis. The other's penises were different, lacking the normal skin over the head. In spite of their otherworldly looks, Riker found them as sexually appealing as many Hakaanen boys.

 

Riker’s mind was full of questions. How did the boys get here in a Hakaanen shuttle?  How did they learn the Hakaanen language? Where were they originally from? What did they want?  And could they be trusted?

 

Dralkan was amazed at what he saw. He knew that the shuttle was being flown by boys from the voices on the radio. But he never imagined they would be alien boys from some alien world.  The excitement of seeing them couldn't be denied.  Dralkan often dreamed of the stars and space travel and of the days the Hakaanen traveled to the stars.  What was happening now was beyond his wildest dreams.

 

Scooter, the small blonde boy with the normal penis, did the talking for the group.  He explained that the other boys could understand and speak some Hakaanen, but he was the only one who could speak the language fluently. While it seemed that he was the one doing all the talking, what the Hakaanen didn't know was that he was in constant mental contact with Douglas. The Earth boys knew Douglas was doing a lot of the talking through Scooter because they had discussed the possibility before landing the shuttle.

 

Scooter started telling Rikers and the Hakaanen the story of how a ship full of boys ended up crash landing on a lonely desert planet. He had gotten to the start of their trek across the desert to the mountains when they got an alert from the front of the terminal. A flier was approaching. Rikers motioned to everyone to follow him. They went to the front of the building and looked at the flier circling the field. It was obvious it was observing the crash site. Then it flitted away over the trees.

 

"We're safe," Dralkan said. "We fooled them. The round-ears are safe too."

 

"For now," Rikers said. "We have to get them out of here as soon as possible. Our little ruse won't fool them forever. All it did was buy us time. I wouldn't be surprised to see soldiers by tomorrow. If they could land vertically like us they would be here within a couple of hours. Fortunately, the Ancients never bothered to have that kind of a flier rebuilt."

 

Scooter and Douglas thought that was strange. The Hakaanen could conquer the stars, but never invented a way to land an aircraft vertically? They didn't even have helicopters. They both thought about the flier on Inferno, which could hover and land and takeoff vertically.  They didn't realize that the flier on Inferno had been modified by Quan and his men after the last starship had come. We had that technology long before we ever went into space, Douglas thought.  Douglas was willing to bet the Hakaanen probably invented some things that Earthlings never thought of. The technology of their terraforming machines were far beyond that of anything Earth had built, according to Brandon.

 

The group returned to the big room in the back. Scooter finished telling the story of the “Moonduster” and their trek across the desert and mountains. Rikers still wasn't sure how much he trusted the boys.

 

When he heard of the role Robert Charles and Jordan played in the Shkah rebellion, he had even more reason not to totally trust these strange boys. The Shkah on Hakaan were working for the Ancients, and could not be trusted at all. If two of the round-eared boys had been in league with the Shkah, what’s to say that others weren’t as well? He all but ignored the part about their role in bringing down the Shkah on Inferno and seemed only to hear the part about Robert Charles and Jordan aiding the Shkah.

 

Finally, Scooter talked about Matthew. He told how he and Enghar became Meshannas, and how they were at the Joining to witness it.

 

"Wait!" Rikers said. "You mean to say a Hakaanen boy became the Meshanna of one of your kind? And you all witnessed a Joining? Where is that boy now? Up in the starship?"

 

"No. He stayed behind to be with his Meshanna and his Hakaanen family."

 

Rikers was stunned. "This boy, this Mattoo, decided to stay behind with his Meshanna? He picked a Hakaanen boy over his own kind?"

 

"Yes, sir, he did," Scooter replied.

 

Rikers looked closely at Scooter. He locked eyes with the Earth boy, giving him a penetrating gaze.  Rikers saw no hint of deception in Scooter's eyes.  At the same time Rikers felt something inside himself.  It was something he couldn't describe, but his fear of the boys ebbed and he viewed them with new respect.  If one of these round-eared boys could gain the approval of a Priest to take part in a Joining with another Hakaanen, then perhaps these boys could be trusted.  Perhaps these boys were what they had been waiting on for twenty-five years—a way to bring down the tyranny of the Ancients. He told Scooter to go on with his story.

 

Scooter told about how the machinery was wearing out on Inferno. He told of their own desire to see their own families and their own home. He told of how hard it was to leave Inferno despite that. They had grown to love their Hakaanen friends and families. But the Hakaanen on Inferno needed parts and new machines, or someday they would lose to the natural forces of the planet. Inferno wasn't conquered yet, and without the atmosphere machinery the planet would end up winning. The Earth boys realized that the only way Inferno could be saved was for them to fly the starship back to Hakaan.

 

“So, there were two reasons we left,” Scooter told his Hakaanen listeners. “One was to find our way home and the other was to help our friends survive.”

 

Rikers told Scooter what had happened on Hakaan during the last twenty-five years. He told them it looked like the home planet would not be able to help the lost colony of Inferno. The Ancients had seen to that. It was all they could do to keep even a little of the once great Hakaanen technology alive.

 

“Outposts like this one and others scattered around the planet have saved much of the old technology, but we need to overcome tyrannical rule of the Ancients in order to bring Hakaan back to prosperity,” Riker said.

 

"If we could find a way back to our own home maybe we could bring our own technology to help Inferno and Hakaan," Scooter suggested. Douglas had sent the idea to him, and Scooter thought it was a good one.

 

"You would need an entire load of warp fuel," Rikers said. "We don't have any at all. One of the first things the Ancients did was to take all the fuel from the spaceport before many of us realized what was happening."

 

"We would need rocket fuel too," Scooter said. "We need to get the shuttle back into space, as well as being able to refuel the rockets on the starship."

 

"That we have. We managed to react in time to save supplies of rocket fuel, which we have stored in underground tanks. We can fuel your shuttle. But rocket fuel needs special tanker shuttles to transport it into space. I don't know if the warp fuel was destroyed or stored somewhere. And if there is any stored, it would be well guarded by the Ancients Shkah police."

 

Urland spoke up for the first time. “I was once one of the Ancients. They think I am dead. At the time of their takeover, rumor had it some of the fuel was stored, but I was not high enough in the hierarchy to find where if, indeed, the rumor was true. I was able to save a very important flier, the one Rikers flew here today—but one man can only do so much.”

 

The more Rikers talked to Scooter and the more both he and Urland saw of the other boys, the more he liked and trusted them. The boys were smart and they were brave. They had to be to get this far.  Incredibly smart and incredibly brave. They obviously had good rapport with each other. They had to be able to work together to get as far as they got. Their long lost colony of Inferno respected them. One of them had become the Meshanna of a Hakaanen. That fact alone told the two men almost all they needed to know.

 

The men and Corrinna looked at their eyes and how they talked to each other. They could see that some of them could easily become the Meshannas of each other if their culture had such a thing. The leader, Douglas, who had to be very strong to get them all this far, and the little blonde haired boy doing the talking, were two boys who had the look between them that almost all Meshannas had.

 

Rikers told the boys he needed to talk to his friends and family alone for a moment. The Hakaanen men, women, and boys left the room and gathered in the front room with the view of the old runway. They could see that the fire in the old shuttle had almost burned out.

 

"I don't know about you, but I like them and I trust them.  I didn't at first, but they have changed my mind" Rikers told them. "It's a shock to find out that the Hakaanen are not the only intelligent beings in the galaxy like we thought. But if we are going to have galactic visitors, I can't think of better ones to have than those boys in the back room. I want to know what you think. I truly believe they were sent here with a purpose."

 

"I think the blond one doing all the talking for them is sooooooo sexy," Dralkan said, and the entire group laughed, including Trundall.  And, he's the only one who doesn't have a strange looking penis, Dralkan thought.  It was pretty obvious what Dralkan thought by just looking at his still rock hard erection.

 

They agreed they liked and trusted the round-eared boys.  Like the Hakaanen on Inferno, they could see that the Earth boys could help their cause. But without warp fuel, the question was, how?

 

 

The Shkah patrol was gathered inside the walls of the capitol building. Their vehicles were ready and loaded with arms and supplies. In the morning they would be leaving over the highway to the spaceport. The highway had been kept in usable condition. Many of the Hakaanen had their vacation homes near the lakes and in the forests surrounding Kana, the capital city ,including at the spaceport. They went in their carriages and carts pulled by unicorns.

 

Thraller surveyed his map. He looked at the roads going to and from the old spaceport. He had long suspected that many of the people making their vacation homes in the vicinity of the spaceport were supporters of reviving the old technology, which means they were not friends of the Ancients. He looked at the old roads, trying to figure out if anybody was trying to hide someplace near the spaceport where they would go.

 

Everything he observed pointed to the mountains in the west. There were caves, old cabins, old mines, and other hiding places there. The map showed only one road into that region of the mountains. He looked at the map and checked out the connecting roads.

 

 He decided to play a hunch. He would take one of the vehicles and park it off the mountain road for a few hours just in case his hunch was right. He looked at the map again. He thought he had a good chance of being right.  He and his men were going to leave now and travel overnight. He wanted to be hidden along the mountain road before anybody else had a chance to go into the mountains.

 

As he rode shotgun in a truck being driven by a Shkah soldier, he thought yet again about what he had observed at the crash site. Something wasn't right with that crash. He was certain the rebels saw the shuttle as something to help their cause, although he wasn’t certain how it managed to land on the decrepit runway. But he saw the shuttle differently.  They had somehow fooled him and were probably feeling very confident right now. He planned on using that confidence to destroy them. 

 

 

Corrinna and her partner prepared a feast for the Earth boys. They were pleased that the boys loved Hakaanen food, and were even more pleased as they asked for seconds after cleaning their plates with gusto. None of the six Earth boys missed the fact that Dralkan had sprung another erection.

 

“Is he always hard?” Jeremy whispered.

 

“He’s thirteen,” Alex chuckled. “What do you think?”

 

After dinner Rikers asked Scooter and Douglas about the boys who were still on the starship.  Scooter answered his questions and told him how they didn't answer their radio call after they landed. Rikers nodded. They are just as smart as I thought they were, Rikers thought. They knew not to give themselves and us away.

 

He told them how their own radios couldn't be detected by the Ancients, as long as the broadcasts were short and sent directly to a single receiver. He offered to let them send a quick message to their starship.

 

Douglas sent the message. "Hakaan to 'Paxton'. We are safe. Please don't answer this. We'll tell more later. Digi out."

 

They had agreed before the shuttle left that if Douglas called himself Digi on a radio broadcast, then everything was okay.  The worried boys on the "Paxton" all started breathing normally again. They didn't know what the explosion meant, but they did know that their friends and lovers were safe.

 

The Earth boys were given rooms with beds. The old terminal had lots of bedrooms.  The apartment owners were all part of the resistance against the Ancients.

 

Mike and Alex had a room together. It had two beds, but they only needed one bed. They had more than sleep on their minds. It wasn't long before Mike found himself inside of his lover, Alex, pounding on his teen ass.

 

Jeremy and Travis shared another room. They started out in separate beds, thinking of their own boy friends. But they both were tense as well as horny. They needed to relieve the tensions and knew that their lovers wouldn't mind their getting off with another member of what had become a family. Jeremy came over to Travis's bed, and the two boys were soon started on what would be two sessions of hot oral sex.

 

For Scooter and Douglas the story ended up being a little different.  They were just getting ready for some lovemaking when there was a knock on their door. It was Dralkan.

 

The Hakaanen boy was hard again, and he could see right away that the two strange looking round-eared boys were too. He had been very nervous coming up to the door. He hoped that since they had lived in one of the lost Hakaanen colonies, they would look at sex the same way a Hakaanen boy like himself would. He wasn't disappointed. Seeing the exotic penis without skin on the dark-haired boy made him even more excited. He was happy that he had Trundall’s okay to have some fun.

 

“I’m really tired,” Trundall lied. “But I reserve the right to join in some other time.” Trundall knew that his Meshanna had been sexually fascinated by the alien boys from the first moment he had seen them. He decided to take a wait-and-see attitude when it came to sex with a different species.

 

Douglas and Scooter had both thought Dralkan was a very sexy Hakaanen boy. He was a lot like Bandar, Laryar, and Perryska—sexy young teens who turned on Douglas and Scooter as well as many of the other Earth boys. But when they first saw him they were concerned with business. Now they looked at the horny Hakaan teen, and serious business was the farthest thing from their mind—it was now all about sexual business.

 

By the time the three boys fell asleep, naked and tangled together, Scooter and Douglas had both drilled Dralkan's firm tight ass, giving him exactly what he wanted. The three of them had each enjoyed a pair of orgasms during their sexual play.

 

 Dralkan couldn't wait until morning came to tell Trundall that the round-eared boys had no problem with sex, and were, in fact, excellent love makers. He wondered if there would be a chance for all four of them to do something in the future. Maybe he could even bring his little brother, Shamene. The preteen thought that the round-eared boys were sexy. And he was right, they were very sexy. Sucking the skinless cock of Dooglass had been exotic, erotic, and oh so sexually hot. He was surprised that it was common for the round-ears to have the skin cut off of their penises when they were babies.

 

The round-ears even knew how to use his mane to give him overwhelming erotic feelings. It was obvious he was not the first Hakaanen boy to have sex with them. He wanted to learn more about their sexual adventures on the lost colony.

 

 

When morning came Scooter, Douglas, and Dralkan were squeezed into the bed, tight, cozy, and cuddled. They got up when Shamene came in without knocking and told them breakfast was ready.

 

He looked at the three naked boys on the bed. "I know what you did," he said smiling. His little three-inch cocklet was very hard.

 

Dralkan threw his pillow at him. "Get lost and let us clean up!" Shamene ducked the pillow and ran out of the room laughing. Scooter couldn’t help but admire the boy’s pert little ass.

 

When everybody got to breakfast they sat down for some serious eating and talking. Rikers said he had a couple of ideas. But before he discussed them they needed to get away from the spaceport. He didn't want to take the flier. If the Ancients were suspicious, he didn't want them seeing it. By now they had probably heard reports of its flight out of Kana, and he didn’t want the flier connected with the spaceport.  He was willing to risk taking one of their vans, however. The roads were covered by spreading trees and someone in a flier would have a hard time seeing them.

 

"Where are we going?" Scooter asked.

 

Rikers pointed to some mountains in the west. "Here. We take this road up into the mountains. There are two mines up there where we have hidden a lot of Hakaanen technology.  I think the exact thing we need to help you and us is there just waiting for us."

 

The boys asked him for details, but he said they would learn about it when they got to the mines. But for now they needed to prepare to leave right away. He had a feeling the patrol that flew over would be back. Rikers grinned as he watched the boys leaving the dining room. He knew where Dralkan had spent the night. He smiled, wondering how long it would take Trundall and Shamene to get involved with the round-ears. The fact that Dralkan trusted the boys enough to have sex with them told Rikers he’d been right to give them his trust.

 

The van could seat eleven in four rows of seats. With Urland, Norad, Dralkan's sister, Rikers, the three Hakaanen boys, and the six Earth boys, they were crowded. Eleven-year-old Shamene sat on Mike's lap and Scooter sat on Travis's. He wanted to sit on Douglas's, but he knew he was too close to his lover’s weight to sit there for a long trip. Still, feeling Travis's dick up against his butt felt very good. Shamene felt the same about the big boner pushing up against his ass.

 

They didn't pack anything except for food and water. Rikers said they would have everything else they needed up at the old mine. The van pulled out from the terminal.

 

Thraller had pushed his group all night. The two trucks had moved steadily along the highway, which had been devoid of traffic. They switched drivers every hour. It was just after dawn when they got to the junction with the mountain highway. Thraller had the driver head up towards the mountains. Thraller and some of his patrol knew the mountain highway pretty well—they’d gone up there more than once trying to find rebel stashes in the old mines, but without success. Thraller knew just the spot to meet anyone trying to escape into the mountains.

 

The van turned off of the main highway and on to the road that led into the mountains. They drove until they got to the junction with the highway from Kana. As Douglas looked east down that highway he thought something seemed wrong, but didn't give it much thought. Soon they were driving along a winding road up into the mountains. Shamene said he needed to pee and Rikers pulled over.

 

"Pee stop. Go now. Last stop until we get to the old mine," Rikers told them.

 

The nine boys piled out. Mike, Travis, Scooter, Shamene, and Dralkan were fighting boners. The road was rarely used and the boys had no problem peeing along the side of the road. The Hakaan were never embarrassed about their bodies and the Earth boys had learned to follow suit.

 

Douglas looked up the mountain road. Something still didn't seem right to him, but he couldn't figure out what. They all got back onto the van and continued up the mountain road.

 

Thraller and his patrol were parked off the road. They had a perfect view of the mountain road below them.

 

"Why are you so sure they are coming up here?" one of the patrolmen asked.

 

"Because it is what I would do,” Thraller answered. “The best places to hide are here in this part of the mountains. In fact they are so good, we still haven’t been able to find them, so we will intercept them on their way, instead. I think they figured their little trick would fool us for longer than it did. They don’t suspect we would beat them here."

 

"They would be riding a carriage or wagon anyway," the patrolman said.

 

"I wouldn't be too sure," Thraller replied.

 

Suddenly he saw motion. Thraller trained his binoculars on the highway and saw a van climbing up the hillside. Just as he figured. The technology below proved without a doubt that these were the rebels they had heard so much about and feared. Now they were about to enter a trap.

 

The van kept climbing up the winding road, sometimes disappearing behind the trees or cliffs then quickly reappearing. Thraller saw right below them. They would be going around a rock overhang, then switching back, and when they did, they would be coming right into his trap. He had the rebels right where he wanted them. And if his suspicions were right, he would have whoever was flying that shuttle too. He wasn't sure how they landed safely, but somehow he was sure they had. Why else would they go to the spaceport to land unless it was safe?

 

Thraller wheeled his truck out to block the road. The mountains were quiet. I should be hearing the engine of the van, he thought. He was about to start worrying when he heard the van coming around the turn. The noise must have been blocked off by the rocks and trees.

 

Rikers steered the van around a turn when he saw the military truck blocking the road. There was nothing he could do. He hit the brakes hard and came to a fast stop, kicking up rocks and dirt. They had just been caught and he knew by whom. He was not surprised to see Thraller getting out of one of the trucks—he was the only person working for the Ancients who was smart enough to set this trap.

 

The patrolmen raised their laser rifles. Thraller walked up to the van. He signaled Rikers to open his window.

 

"Well, well, Rikers," he smirked. "It certainly is a surprise meeting you here."

 

Next: Starship

 

Comments are welcomed.  E-mail me, Douglas DD, at TheHakaanen@Hotmail.com