It was in the middle of the night, and Hawke was walking quickly, almost running, through a strange forest. Hawke was thinking that the forest seemed to have eyes, but it could well be caused by what happened a few hours earlier. He had landed with his friends on that planet, and although they couldn't detect any lifeforms on the planet, they were being attacked from the moment they set foot on the ground. Everyone rushed back in again when the attack started, and Hawke tried to take off again. The ship's thrusters were blown to pieces, and auxilary power was shut off. They were trapped. Without giving much time to think about it they took their weapons, which they had taken from the soldiers, and tried to fight back. It was like a game of Channa, but this time they were the bots. Their enemy seemed invincible, as no matter how much missiles and weapons they emptied on the enemy, it kept on firing at them. The worst part was undoubtedly the fact that they couldn't even see the enemy: the only thing they saw were laser blasts and such fired at them. After only a couple of minutes Toren was killed by a big blast coming from behind him. Rhani cried and fought even harder, while Dako and Rose backed away to the ship again. Hawke shouted to Rhani to retreat, but she didn't listen to him. He then walked to her to drag her back, but he was too late, as a grenade exploded in front of his eyes. After the smoke had gone, he didn't see Rhani anymore. He didn't see anything at all, not a body, or anything, just the trees and bushes of the forest they landed in. He ran back to the ship, but when he came there it was gone. He wondered if he walked in the wrong direction, but he recognized the landing-marks made by their ship. He screamed loudly, and collapsed on the ground. He looked around to see anyone, but all he saw were laser blasts and explosions. His hart kept beating faster and faster, and he felt the adrenaline flowing through his body. He stood up, and started running. He ran straight forward and didn't stop. For nearly three hours he kept running, but then he became tired, and slowed down. All this time he couldn't think, the only thing he could think of was running away from all the suffering and pain. While he slowed down, he noticed that it was already dark. He looked around a bit, and it seemed that people, or things, were watching him from behind the trees. A terrible feeling got into Hawke, as he now realized he was all alone, on a hostile planet which he had no knowledge of. His friends were either dead or away with the ship, and now he had to find a way to get off this planet too. He wondered how it was possible that they couldn't see any lifeforms on the planet. Maybe it were robots, that attacked them. But even if it was true, and that it were robots, it was still not logical, as robots would fire with much more accuracy. All these questions and puzzles were getting to his head, and he stopped walking to rest a moment. He sat on the ground, and started crying. Suddenly, a loud explosions was heard, and Hawke shook up. He saw trees burning with flames, but not regular flames. It was a terrifying sight, as the flames were green and blue. Hawke turned around, and was nearly scared to death. A large alien, one he had never seen before in his life, not even on ancient images, stood directly before him, just a couple of centimeters away! Hawke screamed as loud as he could...

"What is it?" shouted Rose scared. "Huh? Wh-where am I...?" said Hawke, bathing in sweat. "You had a nightmare," said Rose softly. It was true, Hawke was back in his bed, sweating, with tears on his cheeks. "You're safe, don't worry." Rose tried to calm him down. "It was horrible..." Hawke didn't finish. "Your nightmare? What was it?" asked Rose, while she was holding him. "We, we were on that planet we're currently flying above...and we were attacked." "By whom?" I-I don't know, we landed and got out, and immediately blasts reached us. I tried to take off again, but the ship couldn't. We started fighting back with everything we had, but Toren got killed, and then Rhani vanished in a blast. I wanted to go back to the ship where you and Dako were, but it was gone..." His voice was still shivering, as was his body. "Don't worry, we're all ok. Go to sleep now, allright? We have a hard day to come when we go..." "No, please, we can't go there! Please!" Rose didn't finish her sentence, but kept looking at Hawke. Hawke's eyes seemed scared to death. "Well, let's talk about this in the morning with the others, ok?" she said. "I don't want to decide already, especially while the others don't even know about it." Hawke agreed softly. They went to sleep again, and Hawke didn't get any more nightmares.

"Good morning." said Dako to Toren, who was coming out of the shower. Dako was already fully dressed and walked a bit through the ship. "Morning. You're up early!" answered Toren. "Yeah, I couldn't sleep very well last night. I woke up at 6, and couldn't fall asleep anymore. So at around 7-thirty I stood up and got dressed. I took a look at the planet again. I couldn't see any lifeforms, but I'm not very good at that thing, so I might've done something wrong." Toren smiled, and asked Dako to deck the table for breakfast. Dako nodded, and walked off. Toren went back to his room again.

While Hawke was getting dressed, Rose informed Toren, Dako and Rhani about Hawke's dream. They all agreed that they should take a very close look on the planet before landing. When they all sat at the table eating breakfast, Rose announced that they were to send a drone to investigate. "We don't have drones one this ship." claimed Dako. "Why? It's supposed to have them!" said Hawke, who knew the HOLS' structure inside out, and knew every little detail of the ship. "Well, I checked the cargo hold for drones and it was empty. Either the drones aren't in their appropriate hold, or they aren't on the ship. We should've checked this when we were on the Mantis." replied Dako. "Well then, now what?" asked Rose. Nobody knew what to do. Toren suddenly got an idea. "Why don't we fly over the planet, without landing? Isn't that possible?" "No, it isn't. Gravity would pull us down after a short time, and landing would be the only way to get safe. We could land, fly, land and fly for a while, but that uses up all the fuel, which we should really be careful with, as we need it more than anything else..." "Except food and water!" interrupted Rhani Hawke. "...yes, that's true. Uhm, what was I saying. Oh yeah. We can't fly over the surface, as it would use up all our fuel, ok?" "Damn." said Toren softly.

They were done with their breakfast, and while the girls cleaned the table, the boys scouted the ship for anything useful. Dako found a camera of some kind, it was probably from the soldiers from the Mantis. "What if we attach this to a 'simpler' and shoot it over the surface?" Dako's idea was innovative, but none of them had a clue on how to make it work. The simpler was a missile that evades any objects in its path, and hits with the deadliest accuracy of all missiles. It lack destructive power due to this, but it wouldn't be necessary as they didn't want to use it for destruction. "I think we should give it a try, at least." said Toren. Hawke and Dako agreed, and went back to the girls. "Found anything?" asked Rhani. "Well, we found this camera. If we can attach it to a simpler and shoot it over the surface, we might get an idea of the possible threat on it." Dako was probably the only one who knew how to attach it to a missile, as the girls too didn't know how to do such a thing. "It's not that difficult. I saw some Terrans -ORIGINAL Terrans- do it on an instruction movie..." "Instruction movie? What courses did you take in school man?" asked Hawke. "Terrology mostly, but I did some study in Ship & Space too, and in Technicalities." Hawke snickered. "You actually took Ship & Space and Technicalities? I can understand Terrology, but those two?" "Don't forget I'm a Voran, Hawke. These two courses give tons of information, which we like." Dako was right, although those courses weren't the most populair by Vorans. Terrology was a true Voran-course. It gives insights on how the Terrons wound up in this location, and on most questions one cannot find in the Sectors by itself. "Well then, go right ahead, attach it. We'll just look, if that's okay with you." said Hawke, a bit sarcastic. Dako ignored him, and took the camera to the missile-bay. He ordered them to get some items he needed, and after less than an hour the camera was attached to the missile. "Now all we need to do is hope that it won't burn or break or anything. And that the image is clear." They loaded the missile, and Hawke went to the control room to initiate the planet-dive sequence. The others followed him shortly after, and all took their places. Hawke powered the thrusters, and they dropped softly towards the planet. "What's our status Rose?" asked Hawke. "All systems in great condition, nothing has changed since yesterday. Starting planetary scanning." "Great, thanks. Now, let's see what is down there."

The ship lowered altitude and entered the planet's atmosphere. The ship started glowing a bit. "What's the temperature?" shouted Hawke. "Not so safe at 301 Kelvin, temperature rising quickly...302...303...." "Damn, we gotta hurry." Hawke pushed the stick as far away as he could, and the ship took a steep dive. He pushed it so hard his arm was beginning to hurt again. Within seconds, they left the outer layer of the atmosphere, and kept diving until the temperature was dropping again. "301...297....294..." "Phew, we're through it." sighed Hawke. "How come the temperature was rising so rapidly?" "Heat capacitors are probably broke, or the cooling system is damaged. I can't imagine it to be anything else. Wait a minute. When we fought the soldiers, one shot didn't hit anyone, but it hit the ship somewhere right?" "I think so..." answered Dako. "It must've hit a cooling pipe, because the last time we checked the cooling system was before the fight!" Hawke told Dako to check the cooling unit right away, so Dako left the room. "We should shoot the missile now, Hawke," said Rose. "Otherwise we'll be too low!" Hawke thanked her, and Toren prepared to fire the missile. "Aim it at....point 3-67, 226-82. Make sure it drops immediately." said Hawke. "Immediate drop? Oh, you mean stealth mode!" "Yeah." "Ah, I see. Okay, missile prepped. Inputting locations...ready to fire missile." said Toren calmly. "Fire." said Hawke. "Missile away!" screamed Toren. The missile dropped from the ship until it reached the 500 meter altitude, then it powered its thrusters and blasted forward at an incredible speed. "Is there an image coming from the camera yet?" asked Rhani. "Not yet, I haven't switched the screen on. Allright, it's on." The image the camera sent was not very clear, but it was clear enough for them to make it out. "I can't see any hostiles, nor can I see any turrets." said Toren. Nobody saw anything that could pose a threat. Dako stormed inside. "Is the missile away? Is the camera working?" he asked. He saw them staring at the screen, and ran up to them. "Not much to see, except forests, and occasionally some water." Toren said without looking away from the screen. "Hey, look at that!" screamed Dako suddenly. He saw something that resembled a structure of some kind, but none had seen anything like it before. They all stared at the screen from amazement, but the image suddenly vanished. "What happened?" asked Rose to Toren. "I don't know. It exploded I think." "Did it reach the location?" asked Hawke. "Strange." said Toren mysteriously. "Well, did it reach the location or not?" repeated Hawke. "No, it hasn't. It should still be flying. But the scanner says the missile has exploded in mid-air!" "What could cause it to explode?" "The only thing I can think of is an anti-missile defense system. But that would mean that there is life right now on the surface there...

The crew was confused. They saw a structure like nobody seen before, the missile was blasted by someone, or something, and Hawke had that terrible nightmare last night. They sat at the table again. Dako had checked the cooling unit, and it was indeed a blast that hit a cooling pipe during the fight. Hawke was going to fix it, but he waited with it until after the meeting they planned. Rose took their inventory they made last time, and summed up everything on it. The team added the structre and the missile, and at the urgent request of Dako they also added the strange briefing letter the boys got from Colonel Brennon. "Brennon, wasn't he the one who gave us clearance for working on Delta-2?" asked Rhani to Toren. "Yes, now that you mention it. What a coincidence!" Hawke didn't really think it was so special, as Colonel Brennon was as important as the captain of the ship, so everything had to do with him in some way or the other. "We owe a lot of things to Brennon. He made sure nobody suspected us for anything, as that could blow our diguise. He gave us good jobs on the ship, he just has done a lot for us..." said Rhani. "..and now he's dead." finished Toren. "I'm not as dead as you think I am!" said a new voice. All were scared by the sudden voice, and especially by what it had said. "I may have been on the Delta-2 when it was destroyed, but so were you two. And you both seem pretty living, don't you agree?"