Meanwhile, in orbit, Dara sat in the pilot's chair and watched the light of the local sun slowly penetrate the planet's atmosphere. Her father Kir entered the wheelhouse.

  “Why are you sitting in the dark?”  He asked.

  “Father.  Let's fly home.” She sighed and continued. “ You understand that it's over, no one survived.”

  “We will be here as long as required by the regulations and even a little more if needed.” Kir interrupted.

  “But why?” Dara was indignant. “Although, wait, it means that I do not know something. Right?”

Kir did not answer, sat down in the navigator's chair and stretched out his legs. He felt lightness in his legs, he still could not get used to the idea that he had no legs, and instead of them prostheses, although the sensations were real. Kir understood that he had not much time left, and he must do everything so that his daughter lived better than him. His thoughts were interrupted by Dara's voice, he looked at her.

  “Dad, I'll close the wheelhouse and send the ship home if you don't tell me everything now!”

  “To fly home, you do not have enough coordinates to calculate the trajectory.” He replied calmly.

  “Yes, you are right. But! Cap thought I wouldn't notice that he was entering the static coordinates of the system. I'm an experienced pilot, dad, it's hard to fool me, I managed to determine the displacement vector. So I have all the coordinates to get from here to anywhere in the galaxy. So tell me.”

Kir smiled.” Yes, you will not be fooled, you are a fine fellow that saw through Cap. The fact is that our customer, the Berg company, is just a cover behind which another customer is hiding and my task is to find out who it is.”

  “Who gave you such a task.”She asked suspiciously.

  “Galactic council officials. They became interested in the financial activities of one bank, which provided loans to the Berg company. This company is associated with Cap Vale. I was visited at the hospital and offered to address this issue. Most interestingly, the bank's security service also contacted me and for a certain fee they want to be the first to find out who this mysterious customer is.”

  “And did you agree?” Dara asked.

  “Making money is not a bad idea. But the first ones made me a business offer from which it would be unreasonable to refuse, especially at that moment when the caste set me up and put me out the door.” He replied.

  “I would not believe the promises, why are they better than the leadership of the caste?”

  “I do not know this.”

  “Why is the galactic council interested in an independent company that most likely hides some corporate system?”

  “This is the most interesting thing.” Kir turned to his daughter. “The Galactic Council has been trying to figure out who the customer is for several years. I think it's all about this planet, there is something very valuable. Something for which the galactic council might go to extremes against corporate systems.”

  “Again!” Dara snorted in displeasure. “You said this was the last assignment. We left the caste and found ourselves in the middle of another mess!”

  “Thank the caste for not taking the ship away from you!”  Kir reminded. “At the moment, that's all we have!”

Both of this conversation soured their spirits. Kir went to the exit, and Dara went to the window, annoyed with her father. The sun was coming out from behind the planet, shadows crawled along the walls of the cabin. Out of the corner of her eye, Dara saw the bluish glow of the radar hologram, and she turned sharply.

  “Boss, we caught the signal of an emergency beacon!” She shouted after the departing father.

Kir returned to the hologram monitor.” It's them?”

  “Yes, the landing coordinates and the code are the same. Judging by the code, it has been working for five hours. Due to the long orbit, the signal was discovered only now.”

  “We fly after them!” Kir commanded and sat down in the navigator's chair.

Dara jumped into her chair, but suddenly turned to her father and asked. “And if it's Cap?”

 “Let's go, we'll figure it out on the spot!” Kir said with displeasure.

Twenty minutes later, the ship entered the planet's atmosphere. Dara guided the ship towards the beacon signal. She was the first to notice two human figures on the plateau.

  “There are only two of them!”

   “Yes, I see. One of them is Sam. Who is the second is unknown.” Confirmed Kir, examining the image on the scanner. “ Only Sam has a weapon.”

  “Something big is moving towards them from the west.” Dara pointed to the upper level of the plateau. “ The stones are moving.”

“These are not stones.”Kir looked through the porthole. “ It's gigarnid. When we first examined the tunnels, I also thought that these monsters might live on this planet. My fears were confirmed.”

  “What to do, father?” Dara was nervous.

  “Get your missiles ready, let's try to distract this monster.” Ordered Kir.

For Sam and Suely, time passed very slowly. During this time, a sandstorm swept twice over the plateau. The air was so hot it was difficult to breathe and they had to wear breathing masks. Five hours later, a confirmation of the received signal arrived at the lighthouse. Taking water, they went down the stairs and went out into an open space, where nothing interfered with the landing of the ship. Suely followed Sam. She stopped suddenly.

  “Guardian!” She shouted.

Sam turned around hearing the scream. An unimaginably huge monster stood at the top of the stone belt. The guard looked like a stone centipede. “Big beast!”

  “Sam! Run!”

The guard lowered his head, took a few steps and, together with the breakaway edge of the stone portal, was below, blocking the portal and stairs.

  “Rather, to the ship! They are already sitting down!”

Sam on the run took out a communicator, which he found among the abandoned equipment and tried to contact the ship. “Boss, if you can hear me. Get us out of here!”

The earth trembled under the feet of the fleeing, they realized that the guard was already very close. Several flashes of fire buzzed overhead. Fire was opened from the ship. The ship hovered a few meters off the ground. Swaying slightly, the ship opened its rocket launchers and fired several volleys. The explosion slowed down the monster's movement a little.

  “Suely, jump in!” Sam grabbed her arm and they jumped onto the open loading ramp.

Sam hugged Suely and pressed himself against the side of the cargo hold. With his free hand, he lowered the safety net, the tensioning straps worked, and they were pressed against the wall by the net. The cargo bay began to close slowly.

The guard quickly recovered from the explosion and, furious, rushed to the ship. For the first time, Dara felt that her ship was not so maneuverable and fast. It seemed to her that the ship was not listening to her. But she managed to avoid being hit by the monster. A pulse beat in Dara's ears, through this beat she heard her father's screams.

  “Take off! Take off soon!” He shouted, continuing to fire from the onboard guns.

  “I can't take off until the cargo hold is closed.” She answered sharply.

They managed to break away from the monster that was running after them, they flew along the stone belt.

  “Stay out of the tunnels.”  Kir shouted.

The warning sounded late, at that moment the ship was already approaching the edge of the tunnel. The stone ring of the tunnel stirred, and the huge mouth of yet another monster opened in front of them. Kir saw several weavers fall into the blackening abyss. At that moment, the ship jerked sharply and turned around. One of the long spikes that framed the monster's jaws dug into the ship's right wing. Signals sounded in the wheelhouse warning of damage to the ship. The monster's thorn pulled the ship straight into a throat studded with black thorns. Dara desperately resisted, she tried to rip the ship off the thorn. Cyrus, seeing the remaining clenching thorns, opened fire in an arc of the monstrous throat. It worked, the monster opened its mouth wider and began to shake its head from side to side.

  “How do you not like this!” Kir exclaimed. “You thought that only you can bite!”

Kir fired several more volleys, and the monster roared. At that moment, Dara managed to snatch the ship from the guard's mouth. There was a grating sound, a sharp jerk, and the ship burst into the open sky. Torn pieces of the right wing skin and the rocket launcher fell to the ground.

Dara jumped out of her chair and ran to the right viewport.

  “What is there?”  Kir asked excitedly.

  “I've had worse.” Dara answered angrily and sat back down. “We can fly.”

Twenty minutes later, the ship was already moving in orbit. Dara ran diagnostics and dispatched an engineering drone to repair the damage.

  “We need to see who we took on board.” Suddenly remembered Dara. “It seemed to me that a girl was running next to Sam!”

 “Let's go and see if they are still alive after such a turbulence in which we got.” Agreed Kir.

Sam and Suely were still hanging by a safety net against the wall of the cargo hold.

 “Silence. This is fine?” Suely asked.

 “Yes, everything is fine, we are most likely already in space.” Answered Sam, hearing the ringing clicks of the cooling metal.

Sam reached for the net lock and unfastened it, the net loosened and they slid down the wall to the floor of the cargo hold.

  “Hey, there are live ones in the cargo hold!” Came a voice from the communicator.

  “Yes, boss! It's okay, you can open the door.”  Answered Sam.

The cargo hold was filled with caustic white disinfectant steam, and the ventilation started. The door opened and Kir and Dara entered the cargo hold, looking at Sam and Suely with interest.

  “Boss, this is my wife Suely.” Sam spoke, seeing surprise and bewilderment on the faces of those who entered.

  “A piece of an asteroid” Dara swore in surprise. “ When did you manage to get married!”

  “Sam, I congratulate you! “ Kir chuckled. “Why are you so tanned, it seems that you didn’t crawl out of the ground, but fried at the resort? Where is the rest of the gang?”

  “This morning the sun was hot.” Sam tried to laugh it off, but then, with a sigh, said. “The rest died.”

  “And what was it all for?” Kir asked.

Sam took off his armor, he was wearing pants and a bandage with caked blood, Sam untied it. Kir saw the scar from a severe wound. Kir did not understand how this was possible, Sam had to be dead, and if he survived, with a DNA abnormality, the scar would heal for a very long time, and Sam would hardly have lived more than two years after such an injury.

Sam saw a mute question on Kir's face, said.”There is a medicine, boss.”

  “This explains a lot!” Kir answered and wearily sat down on the step.

Suely did not understand what they were saying, but guessed that she was greeted. Dara was a little surprised that the girl didn’t answer.

  “She does not understand modern language, she speaks the ancient language of the pilgrims.”  Sam explained.

  “Surprise after surprise.”  Kir chuckled. “I am sure that the next two weeks of the flight will have a fascinating story.”

Dara left to do the repairs. Sam opened the slot on the armor and took out three tokens, then went to Kir.

  “Boss, we exchanged tokens before we went underground.” Sam handed him the tokens.

  “It's a bad omen to exchange tokens before a mission.”  Kir sighed and continued sorting through the tokens. “ Gak, he was like a brother to me, he was a good man and a soldier. Dave and Phil, I didn’t have sons, and these two guys were like my own sons, it’s bitter for me to realize that they don’t exist. Two years ago, we fell into a trap, from which I could not get our team out.”

  “Do not reproach yourself.”  Sam interrupted. “We are not in space crashed, where there is emptiness and nowhere to run. We had where to go, but everyone remained in the team voluntarily. We knew where we were going. I didn't expect to find myself on the ship again, but here I am.”

  “Sam, fortune loves you!” Kir smiled.

  “I know!” Аnswered Sam and hugged Suely. “Here is my fortune!”