Free Solbidyum Wars Saga 5: Desolation by Dale C. Musser Page B

area that might be a place where a stream could exist, it was about 200 meters from the ship. I descended from the ship and began to walk toward the ravine, when the thought struck me that it might be wise to take a weapon with me as I didn’t know what I might encounter.  I turned back and re-entered the ship, I was retrieving a small laser pistol from the arms locker when I heard Kala calling me.
    “Tib, have you been outside?”
    “Yes, I was just out there looking over the ship.”
    “How bad is it?”
    “It’s bad.  We definitely are not going anywhere in this ship.  I’m afraid we are here until someone gets our distress call and comes to rescue us.”
    “At least we can use the ship for shelter, and the replicator is still functioning,” Kala said.  “I checked the reading on the fusion reactor and while we have greatly reduced power levels, it seems to be holding constant at the same level and is providing enough power for life support.”
    I noticed that Kala was lying on the bed next to the babies, and she had some pads attached to her abdomen with wires running to the med unit.
    “Are you sick?”  I asked.
    Kala looked at me and then glanced down to her stomach.  “Oh, these.  These are just electrical stimulation pads that use mild impulses to cause the muscles to contract and help get me back into my pre-pregnancy shape.  Don’t they have anything like this back on Earth?”
    “Ah, I don’t know to be honest.  I never kept up on such things.  I do seem to remember hearing some women discussing stretch marks and doing exercises after child birth, but I never paid any attention to them.”
    Kala shook her head and then asked, “So, what’s it like outside?  Other than the ship, I mean.”
    “It’s mostly desert.  There are some sparse treelike plants, but they look pretty barren.  I spotted what might be a stream bed near here that I want to check out, but I felt I should take a gun with me.  I have no idea what may be out there.”
    Kala said, “I’ve checked the computer records earlier, and they mention some animal life forms but nothing extremely threatening.  Most of it is quite small.  The computer says that the majority of the animal life here is nocturnal as a means of surviving the periodic solar flares.  During the days the animals survive by hiding underground in small caves and rock crevices where the solar flares can’t reach them, that’s how they survived.  Even the plants here retract their blossoms and leaves during solar flares, and their thick barks and outer husks are capable of deflecting all but the most intense flares.”
    “Were there sentient life forms here at one time?”  I asked.
    “Yes, there was a growing civilization here once, and according to the computer, there are ruins about the planet from then, but the sun unexpectedly began flaring frequently, and the environment changed. Over a period of 1000 years, the civilization and the people all died.  That was about 9,000 years ago, now the flares are less frequent but still take place often enough to prevent colonization.   There aren’t any resources here with sufficient value to make it worthwhile for anyone to come and risk the flares to exploit the resources here.”
    “Why didn’t the people simply leave the planet?” I asked.
    “They never reached that level of technology, and no civilizations visited the planet and made contact with the natives here before the solar flares.  There is some evidence that indicates they may have had limited flight capabilities, but it was all very primitive, and they never made it out of the atmosphere.”
    “I see.  I guess I should have thought of that.”  I responded as the sounds of whimpering came out of our cabin.
    “Oh, it sounds like Lunnie is waking up and wants to be fed.”  Kala said as she turned to the door.
    “How do you know it’s not Reidecor?”
    “Ha,” Kala said.  “Lunnie is just like her name sake.  I assure