Drew (Cont...)

Using the internal anti grav unit in the suit, Drew sped toward the anomally in the distance. As he closed in he saw a green sphere on tripod legs. It was emitting a weak sub-wave distress beacon and was obviously low on power. As he got even closer, he noticed that the solar array had been deployed,but seemed to have been damaged by the almosy constant storms on the planet.

He arrived at the sphere and pulled out a block from his belt,placed it on the object and waited whilst it spread over the surface, formed itself into a parablic dish and routed power from Drew's vessel to the array on this one. After two minutes, Drew heard machinary and saw lights on the hull. He connected to the power dish which had now interfaced to the ships life support and security circuits. It was a small matter to cycle open the hatchways and look inside.

It was a small craft, possibly a life boat from a bigger ship. Drew didn't see any controls so he used a more sophisticated link with the ships functions. He was fed with information designed to be easy to understand if you were a sentient , reasonably intelligent being. It was indeed a lieboat Behind a panel there were four stasis chambers, three of which were occupied. Examining the read-outs on his virtual screen, he found that One was dead, one was barely alive, and the last one seemed OK. One stasis had been achieved, it require only a small supply of current to keep it's hosts healthy. As the solar array failed, the system decided tolet one die, and keep the two as long as possible. It didn't have the power or the authority to awaken the subjects, so Drew called Beach five station and asked for help getting thse two awake and out of danger.

Drew had removed the remains of the dead body. The lifeboat had used the body for power generation and most of it had been consumed.They seemed humanoid anyway. The boat, apparantly, had crash landed here 120 years before.

Beach 5 called back with an expert on screen to help with revival. The stasis 'coffins' were removed from the boat and started the wake up routines. After about an hour the first lid was ready to be opened, Drew waited as ancient servo motors lifted the lid of the first box open with a hiss of compressed gas. The second box wasn't far behing. Drew stared  with his mouth open at the two groggy figures inside..........to be continued     Max