and moving debris, waiting for the enemy. They probably invaded from another part of the planet in ships way back when.”
“The enemy,” Vicky said. “Their own race, it is so hard to believe they really killed each other.”
“Well, it’s all done now, except here, where we’re standing. This one droid, still alert, waiting to kill. It will continue until finally running out of power or breaking down.”
“By that time we’ll all be dead, we can’t last longer than a week on this planet.” Vicky said, filling with worry.
“Gods, there must have been thousands of droids like this,” Carl grumbled through his wrinkles. “They covered their own planet in this gas cloud.”
Trevor was walking slowly around the droid, squinting at it. “A complex thing isn’t it, all those cables, tracks, and arms, turning that green gel into vapor. You really think there is a giant magnet underneath controlling metal debris? Coupled with a quantum computer, no doubt.” His suited hand touched the end of one of the six arms.
Instantly the droid retracted that arm and swung it to a new angle.
“Stop moving!” Carl screamed. The arm swung up and over them as they stood still as statues. For one brief moment of horror it whirred next to their heads clicking into firing position. Then the sound stopped and the droid fell silent.
Trevor smiled a sense of relief inside his helmet. “I must have touched a sensor or something. I’ll be more careful.” He stepped gingerly away from the body of the droid, and disappeared from view.
“What? Where did he go?” Vicky said agitated. “He’ll get us all killed.”
“Yeah, if it releases that gas this close, suit or not, we’ll all be dead from the heat alone. Trevor, come back!” Carl shouted above the din of swirling poison. “What the hell is wrong with you?”
“Just give me a second.” There was a long silence. Finally the geologist reappeared. “I think I found something, come here and I’ll show you.”
“What is it?”
“Carl, you said the droid was here to keep the enemy away. I think I found out why they wanted to keep the enemy away from here specifically.”
They were puzzled.
“I found what the droid is guarding. Come give me a hand with the door.”
“We’ll be right there,” Carl said quickly. “Let’s go see what he’s found. I thought something like this might happen when I saw the—“
“Like what,” Vicky interrupted. “You act like you know what he’s talking about.”
“I do,” Carl smiled. “All races have a legend involving buried treasure, and the dragon that guards it, keeping everyone at bay.”
“Yeah, well?’
Carl pointed to the droid.
“That,” he said, “is the dragon. Let’s go.”
The three of them together managed to pull off the rusted steel cover and flip it over. Carl was dripping sweat in his suit when they finished, his cooling system compensated.
“This isn’t worth it,” he huffed. He stared into the black hole beneath them remembering the legend. “Or is it?”
Vicky turned on her helmet lights, shining a solid beam of bright white light down a flight of ancient stairs thick with rubble and dust. At the bottom was another door at the end of a hallway, this one of a titanium alloy.
“Well, come on,” Trevor spoke happily. He went down the stairs. Reaching the door he pulled on it without success. “Help me out here!”
“All right,” Carl looked the door over. It was still sealed shut. There was an inscription in an unknown language over it. The translators didn’t work.
“Now what do we do?” Vicky asked.
Carl took out his handheld phaser.
“Stand back. This is the only way.” He pulled the trigger and as the lower half of the door began to glow red, it melted and collapsed on itself. Carl turned his weapon off.
“Now we can pry it the rest of the way off. Let’s give it another try.”
The door opened easily. In minutes they were through, their headlamps guiding them. They entered a vault. Dust was everywhere, covering everything inches deep. Metal crates lined every wall, huge crates, all manner of containers. Trevor looked around nervously.
“What are all these? Something valuable I would guess… gold maybe?” He opened a crate’s lid and picked up a round container, some square shaped slides fell to the floor. He examined them, holding them up to the light of his helmet. “Check these out.”
They gathered around him. “Pictures,” Vicky said. “Square pictures.”
“Some type of records,” Trevor looked into the crate. “Look, hundreds of those containers. Check those crates over there.”
Carl was already opening another. Inside on top was a picture, a girl in a pink dress, smiling happily, young and carefree. She seemed almost alive, wanting to jump off the picture and into the light. It was one of the people from this ruined planet, an extinct race.
They stared in silence at her for a long time. Carl finally put her down and replaced the lid as he found it.
“All these other crates,” Vicky said. “More pictures and more containers, what about those boxes?”
“This was their treasure,” Trevor said whispering almost to himself. “Here are their records, their pictures. I would guess all of their literature, art, and myths are here as well.”
“And their history,” Vicky said. “We can trace their development and find out what made them become so warlike.”
Carl wandered around the vault almost in an angry trance.
“Strange,” he growled. “Even till the end, after their wars, they still knew inside of them the real treasure was this, their books, their pictures, their music, and their legends. I’m sure they all hoped to come back and find this one day, even if everything else was gone up in poison.”
“When we go back home we can ask for another mission here,” Trevor said. “All this can be loaded up with us to take back.”
“Yes,” Carl said slowly. “We’ll be off in about two or three of this miserable planet’s days from now. We can fix our ship and take off. If nothing happens we’ll be on our way home. Like more debris controlled by that.” He pointed up towards the droid.
“We will figure out a way Carl, and he’s right, all this must be taken back home to check and recheck again. We’ll have to disable the droid somehow. There is no choice.”
Carl nodded very unsure. “What’s your plan then? As soon as we lift off we’ll be smashed to nothing this time,” he frowned angrily. “They have guarded this all too well. Instead of preservation this will all turn to dust in time. I think they deserve it, the bastards.”
“What do you mean?”
“Don’t you see how twisted they became? They setup droids to poison their own planet and control metal debris for what? Smashing into their planet, that’s what! They were positive everyone visiting was a hostile, coming to take their treasure. Well, now they’re gone forever, and you know what? They can keep all of this.”
Vicky was lost in thought, her mind adrift. Suddenly she spoke, “Carl what’s wrong with us? There is no threat, the droid is no problem.”
The two men stared blankly at her.
“No problem?” Carl said incredulous. “It slammed the hull of some ancient ship into ours with the precision of threading a needle before, and then tried to poison us. When we take off—“
Vicky started laughing at the simplicity of the answer. “You still don’t see? That poor, lonely droid is totally harmless. I could deal with it alone.”
“You? Alone?”
Her eyes flashed brightly. “Yes, with a hammer, or iron tool, or even a stick of wood. Let’s head back to the ship for load out. Carl, you can use your smuggled phaser on it, since there is only one. We may be at the droid’s mercy in the air; it can smash anything that tries to fly. But that is all! Against anything on the ground it is helpless right?”
Carl nodded a few times with realization.
“All l
egends also speak of the dragon’s soft underbelly.” He started laughing. “Vicky’s right, absolutely right.”
“Well, let’s go then. We have work to do here.” Vicky said.
Early the next afternoon they reached their ship. During the night the Commander had died and he was cremated immediately, according to tradition. Everyone was standing silently around the pyre until it burnt out completely. As they were going back to their repairs, Vicky, Carl, and Trevor appeared, tired and filthy, but excited.
They told the crew about everything, and filing out of the ship in a single line everyone left, each with a different weapon in hand. They marched through the green poison fog eternally stretching over the planet except within the droid’s lights. When they reached the lights and small clearing where the droid stood they fell violently on it at once. Hammers, crowbars, pieces of the ship, wrenches, anything heavy and dangerous.
They dismantled the sensors and struck until the six arms shattered to pieces. The wiring was shredded. All of the delicate gear assemblies and gyroscopic detectors were smashed. Finally the tubes under the droid connecting it to its external poison supply and magnetic gravity control were detached and pieces carried off.
The droid was obliterated; the enormous weapon was no more. The crew went into the vault and examined the treasure. With its metal dragon dead there was no danger. They took their time studying the films, pictures, books, religious beliefs, and all other artifacts left behind by this extinct race.
As the speck of white that may or may not be a sun was lost behind the green cloud of death they started