Chapter Two

The flyer shuddered as it bounced off the dense atmosphere of Planetoid X37. "Hold tight, Adria. We've arrived in the midst of a storm, it seems. We'll have to punch straight through. No gliding in on this one." Teelak piloted the flyer gently around and pointed the nose toward the planetoid's surface. Then he hit the booster.

Adria switched off the irritating warning beeps and grabbed onto her seat. From experience, she always took Tee serious when he told her to hold on.

The flyer bucked and shimmied, but made it through the thick, tumultuous atmospheric layer encircling the planet.

The pilot immediately began fighting with the next problem; leveling out the flyer before they crashed into the rocky surface coming at them at lightning speed.

"Give me more rudder. Cut the left thruster. Stand by to restart on my mark," Teelak barked out the orders as he fought the helm. This was one job he would not trust to the flight computer.

With the left thruster off and using full left rudder, Teelak veered the flyer and angled along the surface. Wild clouds of gray dust whirled around the small ship. Winds buffeted it from both sides and played havoc with the steering.

"Uhhm, Pilot, sir... I know we're supposed to do low-level scans, but this is a bit too low, don't you think?" Adria could see the stress fractures in the rocks they were barely skimming over. The view from the side portal shouldn't be of the surface.

"What? You don't think this is what the captain had in mind?" Teelak asked through gritted teeth as he worked at the controls.

He finally righted the small ship. Then he ordered Adria to restart the left thruster as they began circling from the force of the right thruster he didn't dare power down.

"No good, it won't start," Adria told him.

"Try it again," the pilot ordered. "Increase the fuel mixture to compensate for the higher oxygen levels."

"The computer does that. If I—"

"It's not enough, Adria. Do it now!" Teelak insisted, still fighting the controls. Beads of sweat peppered his brow and upper lip.

Grumbling under her breath, Adria manually adjusted the fuel mixture and again tried the restart on the left thruster. On the third try, it sputtered and fired. She breathed a sigh of relief.

"Told you." Teelak couldn't resist the jibe as he tossed a cheeky grin at her and brought the flyer under control. It helped that the storm seemed to be dissipating. He programmed the proper flight level and heading into the computer before sitting back to relax.

Adria entered the commands to begin the sensor sweeps of the planetoid's surface and to a depth of several hundred meters. Following regulations, she first scanned for life forms.

There were none. Not even a worm crawling below the soil showed on the sensors.