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eBook Category: Science Fiction
eBook Description: This is an ERB-type sci-fi adventure. Crash landed on a savage planet of city states, Lomooro, three citizens of the Galactic Federation discover they must depend on one another in order to survive. Captain Jon Hanlon, trained soldier on his way back from leave to the battle front. Mari, the spoiled daughter from a rich family. Red, a common street fighter. The three of them are tossed onto a savage planet, where they discover that status means nothing when fighting for survival.

eBook Publisher: Fictionwise.com, Published: 1969
Fictionwise Release Date: May 2005

8 Reader Ratings: Great Good OK Poor

Available eBook Formats [MultiFormat - What's this?]: Adobe Acrobat (PDF) [932 KB], eReader (PDB) [168 KB], Palm Doc (PDB) [157 KB], Rocket/REB1100 (RB) [139 KB], Microsoft Reader (LIT) [227 KB] - PocketPC 1.0+ Compatible, Franklin eBookMan (FUB) [188 KB], hiebook (KML) [449 KB], Sony Reader (LRF) [242 KB], iSilo (PDB) [128 KB], Mobipocket (PRC) [160 KB], Kindle Compatible (MOBI) [234 KB], OEBFF Format (IMP) [204 KB]
Words: 49349
Reading time: 140-197 min.
Microsoft Reader (LIT) Format: Printing DISABLED, Read-Aloud ENABLED
Adobe Acrobat (PDF) Format:  Printing DISABLED, Read-Aloud ENABLED
All Other formats: Printing DISABLED, Read-aloud DISABLED

The Crash Landing

A raging storm slashed through the jungle world, muffling the crash as the ship plunged through layer upon layer of matted branches and lacy purple foliage. Finally it came to rest some twenty feet from the planet's surface, shuddered and was still. Its two-month voyage was finally ended.

Inside the craft, two men and a woman lay sprawled among the wreckage in the ship's small control room.

The tallest of the two men was six foot three -massive and muscular, he was dressed in the silver gray uniform of the Galactic Federation Space Service. Captain's bars were laced into the shoulder pads. Black hair, cropped close, framed the handsome, evenly chiseled face. The rise and fall of his chest was the only indication that he still lived.

The storm outside snapped off the tops of trees and whipped them along in the raging wind. Darkness fell over the world; the storm slowly faded away as the total black of night enveloped the jungle. Then darkness too passed, and the large, hot sun moved up from the horizon.

The uniformed man moved slightly and groaned, but his eyes remained shut.

Captain Jon Handon was first aware of physical pain; a pounding at his temples. He forced himself to concentrate.

He was a spaceman in the Intergalactic Federation of Lacus Patrol, on his way to the War Sector after two months on leave. He had been a professional soldier ever since his twenty-first birthday--the legal age for enlisting in the Space Service. For eight years all he had known was war, followed by weeks off at some space port, almost living in the bars and in the company of women.

Since childhood on the planet Valsol, Jon had dreamed of joining the Patrol as his father had done. Mal Handon had become Major-General, then was killed in a battle with one of the Splinter System navies.

Memories of the past crept into his mind like sand trickling through a clogged sieve, but nothing of the immediate past would sift through.

The death of his mother some five years before had left Jon without any family ties. On his last leave he had returned home to look up a girl, a school friend. But she wanted him to settle down, stay at home, be a family man--quite impossible for Jon Handon, professional soldier spaceman.

Now, lying in the dimensionless darkness of ebbing pain, Jon wondered if he should have stayed on Valsol, settled down, become a desk officer.

Suddenly, as if some dam had burst, the rush of held-back memory all but overwhelmed him. Naltolis, the spaceliner on which he had been returning to the war zone, had, after two weeks of flight, jarred unexpectedly back to normal space, leaving the dimensionless void of hyper-space through which interstellar travel and speeds faster than the speed of light were possible. Somebody had tampered with the hyper-drive unit--probably an agent from the other side. They were to continue on to the nearest civilized planet at normal speed--something under 100,000 miles per hour. But even this hope was shattered when the engineers discovered that the ship's engines had developed a buildup of radioactive feedback and must be immediately abandoned.

Jon had left his cabin and gone directly to the scout-boat assigned to him and nine other passengers. Mari Dorna and Red Fendricks were already there. They were securing themselves in the bucket seats when the voice of the liner's commander came over the scout-boat speaker. "Leave immediately! Leave immediately! All passengers in scout-boats leave immediately!"

Jon had piloted almost every kind of ship, and had therefore been put in charge of this scout-boat during their first practice day. He closed the air lock and pulled the takeoff lever. They soared away from the spaceliner, building up speed to 50,000 miles per hour.

A couple of minutes later something silent and deadly lit up space from behind them. Jon watched the view screen in horror as the spaceliner they had so recently left, and all its remaining passengers, simply stopped existing in that flashing explosion.