Chapter No.30. Search.

We didn't go down there until the next day. I had a problem finding a decent landing spot in what was very rugged terrain.

When we exited the shuttle, we felt the heat and humidity. Actually, we welcomed feeling it.

"That alien craft is huge," Sharon said. "It's at least five hundred meters in diameter."

"Yeah, and it's going to be fun trying to figure out how to get in there."

We hiked over to the crashed saucer craft, which was sitting at a 20-degree angle. A cursory examination revealed no hatch or entrance.

"Maybe they used teleportation," Bridget suggested.

"This isn't Star Trek. We have to locate an entrance."

Sharon had gone under the part of the craft that was sticking out of the cliff it had collided with.

"Hey, I think I've found a hatch!" she yelled.

We rushed over to her and looked up at a round indentation in the craft's hull.

"Yeah, I'll get a ladder," I said before heading back to the shuttle to retrieve a telescoping ladder.

I returned and extended the ladder to reach the supposed hatch. I climbed up and looked at the hatch for a moment to see if there was a way to open it. Not finding anything, I smacked it with the heel of my hand. Surprisingly, it flew up, opening the entrance.

I looked back. "We're in!"

I climbed up into the vessel and pulled myself up. Activating my lamp, I scanned over the interior of what appeared to be an air lock.

Sharon and Bridget climbed up the ladder and joined me.

"I think this is an air lock. There's a door over there." I pointed to a much larger round indentation in a wall.

Sharon went over to it, carefully keeping her balance while waking up at an angle. After a few minutes, she turned to us. "It looks like this is a control panel for the door. I doubt that it's active." However, when she placed her finger on a round symbol, the door began to open. "I guess it's still being powered."

"It's alien technology," I said. "Who knows what they use for power."

"Yeah, but this wreck is probably nearly a hundred years old," she retorted.

I smiled. "Never look a gift horse in the mouth."

She frowned back at me.

We entered the opening and played our lights on what appeared to be a corridor, the surfaces of which contained complicated geometric carvings and indentations.

"Look at all the weird stuff on the walls," Bridget said. "What were they; artists!"

We moved down a corridor to the center of the craft, which meant we had to descend on an angle. The small round chamber appeared to be the command center,

Sharon pointed. "That looks like a body," she whispered.

Bridget moved over to what appeared to be a skeleton sitting in a complicated chair. "It's definitely an alien!" she yelled back.

Sharon and I moved over to the chair. The skeleton appeared to be human-like, but the skull was higher and narrower.

"This alien was at least seven feet tall," Bridget said. "It had a three-finger hand."

"What's up with that? It seems that all the aliens we've found have that."

"It's got to be from whatever they evolved from," Bridget said.

I looked around. "I wonder why this is the only alien in here."

"It could be that they only needed one pilot," Sharon said.

I went over to a complicated control panel. "I wonder if we could get some info from this."

Sharon went over to the panel and began running her fingers over various things. Suddenly, a panel lit up with symbols. "Looks like it still works."

I rushed over to her side. "Any way we could translate that?"

"It's obviously an alien language. I'll record them and maybe I can get something out of them after we get back to the ship."

"I suppose we should see if there's any other bodies on this craft," I said.

Bridget and I went back out of the command center and began searching other compartments off the corridor. Most were empty, but one of them had something that made both of us cringe.

"These are definitely human skeletons," Bridget said. "And they're piled up like firewood." She examined some of the bones before she held up a femur. "This bone has what look like knife nicks." She showed me a pelvis. "This has several nicks."

"What does that mean?" I asked, frowning.

"They could be animal teeth marks, but they appear to be more precise, like someone butchered the victims."

"Ah . . . see whatever else you can determine. I'm going back to see what Sharon has discovered."

She nodded and continued to examine bones.

I went back to Sharon in the command chamber and found her busy with other images on the alien device.

"I've found some astronomical maps, but they're definitely not anything I'm familiar with. Maybe Janet can translate them. What did you guys find?"

"I'm not sure you want to know."

She gave me a funny look.

"We found piles of bones. Bridge says they're human and she found knife nicks on some of them. She thinks it means that they were butchered."

"That's nuts! What the hell is going on here?"

I sighed. "Let's get whatever info we can and get back up to the ship. It's getting late."

I went back to where Bridget was working and told her that we're going back to the ship. I didn't have to urge her to come with me.

As we walked back to the shuttle, Sharon pointed to what appeared to be a large hole in the bottom hull of the alien craft. "What's that?"

I went over to it to examine it. "I think this is what brought this thing down. I'll just bet that the dome city people shot it down with a missile like they tried to use on us."

"Maybe Adal has information about the encounter," Sharon said.

"Could be. We'll have to ask her."

We boarded the shuttle and returned to the ship. Janet and Natale were at the command station and immediately began asking how things went.

"We found an alien skeleton in what appeared to be a command station. We also found piles of human bones. Bridger found knife nicks on them that she thinks are the result of them being butchered."

"You're kidding, right?" Janet said, her eyes wide.

I sighed, "I wish I were."

"I recorded some alien astronomy charts," Sharon told Janet. "Maybe you might be able to decipher them."

Janet nodded. Sharon sat down next to her and they began going through the alien recordings.

Bridget and I headed back to the crew bunks. I sat down at the food station and ordered a beer and soy burger. Bridget stripped near her bunk and after putting her clothes in the cleaning unit, she brazenly walked to the shower unit. Before she entered it, she glanced back at me and smiled, pausing to make sure that I could see everything.

I didn't smile back and downed more of my beer. I had trouble understanding why she was being so flippant after the grizzly evidence she had discovered on the alien saucer craft. I would have thought that she would be depressed.

The next day uncovered more secrets about the aliens.