“Gaooo!”
Mugi suddenly growled. He popped up from the rear seat and his ears stood up straight (strictly speaking they weren’t actually ears, but they looked like ears, so it was just easier to call them that).
He stuck his face up to the window on the left-hand side, his eyes darted around wildly.
His eyes then became fixed on one spot.
“Mgyau,” he cried this time. Raising his right front paw, he patted the window up and down.
Look there, he was saying.
“What is it?” I asked, trying to turn and look from the cramped driver’s seat. I twisted and got my head right next to Mugi’s.
“!”
I wouldn’t have believed it if I didn’t see it myself.
Right opposite us. Near the horizon, where the aquamarine-colored sky had turned white. There was a small silver cross shining there in the sky.
The cross was gradually growing larger, as it did it began to develop a distinctive form.
An airplane. It looked like something similar to an airplane. The wings were short, and the fuselage was stumpy and wide. It was a small-type airplane.
And it was flying straight for us.
“Yuri, that’s it!” I called to Yuri sitting in the front passenger seat.
“Wha—?”
Yuri turned around.
Pushing me out of the way, she gazed through the window.
“Pegasus V-II…”
That must be what kind of plane it was. Hearing the name, I remembered seeing it in a catalog or magazine somewhere. If I wasn’t mistaken, the Pegasus V-II was an eight-passenger VTOL.
“There is something weird about this Pegasus,” said Yuri. “It’s really flying strange, at an angle.”
I’d noticed that, too. At first I thought it was circling around, but that wasn’t the case. It looked like the fuselage might have taken some damage, and the plane was bouncing up and down and every which way as it flew.
The plane got closer, and began to wind around the mountain summit we were on from our left. Even though it was flying at a slant it wasn’t quite on the verge of crashing. Its altitude simply wasn’t rising.
“Wonder what he’s trying to do,” I said. “You don’t think he’ll try and land here, do you?”
“It’s not impossible,” Yuri said after quickly surveying the open area. “The wing might clip our car if he tries to land here, or he might possibly have enough space on the ravine floor.”
That wasn’t the answer I was hoping to hear.
The Pegasus roared closer. I could see the fuselage clearly. Its registration number. Blue and red lines. The words MANDALA and CHAKRA.
“Ugaoo,” Mugi roared again.
He glared at the Pegasus and bared his fangs.
Zuun, the muscles in his neck tightened. His black fur stood on end, and his feelers started waving about.
The tendril-like hair where his ears should be began to vibrate. This always happened when he was manipulating electromagnetic waves or electric currents. Mugi’s whiskers would flex back and forth at an incredible speed.
“!”
Yuri’s body stiffened.
I was surprised, too.
Suddenly the Pegasus went into a steep turn.
It was almost a 180 degree turn. It’s not a move often pulled off by thick-bodied VTOLs. Sweeping over the mountain’s surface, the Pegasus seemed to prepare to land.
And then the next moment.
The mountain cracked open.
It wasn’t a natural phenomenon. And it wasn’t an explosion.
From the mountain’s side, the giant invisible jaws.
The fangs!
The fangs were trying to get the Pegasus. Detecting this, Mugi took control of the Pegasus and rolled it. The fangs missed their target, and had come down on the rocky mountain, instead.
Mugi is incredible, but so were these invisible fangs!
“Unh!”
Yuri kicked open the car door.
Unholstering the heatgun from her belt, Yuri took aim.
Naturally, I couldn’t be left behind. I jumped to the ground and laid down flat and squeezed the trigger of my heatgun.
The two of us lit the mountain up. Mugi still had control of the Pegasus.
Since we couldn’t see our enemy, we filled the air with our fiery blasts. Everywhere we thought it might be.
The faded surface of the mountain turned as black as charcoal.
The fangs did not strike back.
Under Mugi’s control, the Pegasus landed in the open area. One wing rested on top of our car. But thanks to Mugi’s careful maneuvering, the damage was insignificant. The wing landed softly across the car’s roof.
We stopped firing our weapons. It seemed like the fangs dispersed after that one big bite. Maybe it left because Mugi was there.
I stood up. Yuri was starting toward the Pegasus, now on the ground. I wasn’t aiming at the airplane, but I did keep my finger on the trigger.
The hatch slowly opened.
My back stiffened.
Above the gangway a human shadow rose.
It exited the plane.
Oh! Well, I’ll be…
I suddenly relaxed.
What do you know?
Well, if it wasn’t the mayor!
“No, thanks. You really helped me out there. Ho ho ho!” said the mayor as he gave the nearby Yuri an exaggerated hug. He then grabbed her hand and shook it way too hard. I hid myself in the shadow of the car. I am not kidding. When I get near emotional guys like that, I seriously break out in hives.
“When the plane did a sudden bank, I didn’t know what to think, but I was really surprised. Again with the fangs…”
The mayor spoke loudly, gesturing with both hands.
Five members of his staff exited the plane and formed a line, their eyes showing no pleasure at the situation. One of them must have also been the pilot. He wasn’t wearing a shirt.
“Weren’t you already at Mine #4?” I asked the mayor.
“Yes,” the mayor said nodding. “We landed about three hours ago. But the owner quickly blocked access to the accident at Mine #4.”
“Blocked access?”
“Nobody can enter. Even the sheriff was restricted from entry.”
“Even Jeff…”
I tried to surmise what the mayor was trying to tell us. But I didn’t have enough information, and couldn’t read what he wanted us to do.
“We disputed his blocking us, but he wouldn’t budge. So we decided to try and take a look at the scene from the air.”
“And then there was that giant white flash from the mine,” Yuri interrupted.
“That’s right. But how did you…”
The mayor blinked, his eyebrows raised.
“We could see it,” answered Yuri. “It was on the other side of this mountain. The flash rose up, and then faded away.”
“What was it?” I asked.
“I’d like to know as much as you would,” said the mayor, shaking his head. “We were about 500 meters above the ground when it happened and the shock was incredible. It felt like we slammed into a giant wall. It’s a miracle we didn’t crash. But we did take some heavy damage. Thanks to this guy’s flying we made it out of there.”
“An explosion?”
“A kind of one, maybe.”
“But there was no sound and no smoke,” said Yuri. “Just a big ball of light spreading in the sky.”
“From the air we could see down to the mine.”
“And what did you see,” I said leaning closer in.
“Nothing.”
His answer sounded like it reverberated from the lowest depths of Hell.
“—the mine, the buildings, the drilling equipment, the mountain of rocks, all of it. All of it gone. Nothing remained.”
“What about people? Jeff? Did you escape together?”
My voice shook as I asked.
“Jeff was there and the owner was there. Along with several miners.”
“Mugi!” I called out to the Mugi.
“Mgya?”
He came to my side.
“Let me get on your back. Let’s get to that mountain. And fast. Like now!” I said facing Mugi. By the time I was done speaking I was already on his back.
I put my arms around his thick neck.
Mugi took off running. With incredible power and speed he ran straight up the mountain of stone.
Kicking off rocks, we left a dusty trail of flying dirt, and Mugi and I arrived at the spot in one, maybe two minutes. My legs were wobbly and I couldn’t immediately stand.
To prevent myself from collapsing, I sat down on a big round rock. Just below my eyes I saw a horrible scene.
The mayor hadn’t lied. It was exactly as he had said. First of all, where there should have been a continuation of a zig-zagging chain of mountains, it appeared that one mountain had been plucked up and taken away.
One entire mountain.
Now there was a gigantic crater.
A diameter of five kilometers. No, more like six. No. More.
The bottom of the crater was as smooth as a mirror. It reflected a bright tan. This didn’t look like the planet’s surface. If this was a fantasy story I could say it looked as if some giant took a huge ice cream scoop and scooped out a piece of the planet, and then lined the crater with a thin metal foil.
The far side of the crater was hazy. I wondered if it wasn’t fog making it hard to see. I could no longer see the edge of the crater.
It was like the wasteland or mountain range was stretching away farther, but I couldn’t really tell with my bare eyes.
“Jeff,”
His name slipped from my tongue.
“Jeff…”
That’s all I could say.
The handsome sheriff, Jeff, was gone.