“Did you hear that?” Michael asked. He held his breath, listening.

“What?” his partner, Sarah, replied. “It was probably just the wind.”

“The wind I know doesn’t make those kind of sounds.” They remained quiet, and kept on their guard. The bushes began to rustle. Pulling out his laser, Michael stood ready. He let out a sigh when he saw it was only David, a member of his crew.

“Captain,” David said, saluting him. He was out of breath.

“What’s wrong, soldier?” Michael asked.

“The Zerek,” he replied. “Quite a few of them are heading in this direction.”

“We should leave now.”

“But the ship isn’t ready,” Sarah cut in. “If we leave now we’ll be stopping again in just a few miles.”

“Damn.” Michael thought fast, trying to come up with a solution. “We have no choice,” he finally said. “Gather everyone. We’ll leave this section and land when we run out of fuel again.”

The two gathered up their gear and were preparing to leave. Let’s hope this works, Michael thought. They didn’t get far before their ship began to slow. “This should be far enough, anyway,” Michael said as the ship gave a groan and slowly let itself down. He had hoped they would get at least to the other side of the island. They filed out of the ship again, and set it up to charge. David set out once again to survey the area. He wasn’t gone ten minutes before he came back with the same news as before. “There are two times as many as before.”

“It looks like we may have to fight this one out, Captain,” Sarah said, looking over at Michael. He nodded.

“We have no choice,” he said. “We’re going to stand our ground. Now, I want to give everyone a bit of advice. Do not let the Zerek attach on to you because if they do they will be able to control you. If by some chance you do get caught, you have a window of maybe five seconds to rip their cord from your side. All you need is one quick jerk like this,” he demonstrated what they should do, “and it should break free.” The sound of hundreds of feet pounding in the sand met them. “Get ready.”