Jago: The Millennium Galaxy Race

Chapter 18: Comrades

"It's you ..." I mumbled, trying to convince my brain that my eyes weren't lying.

"Of course it's me! It's you I wasn't expecting," Breccan said, standing outside the ship.

He wore thick outdoor wear with sturdy black boots and had grown a small beard. It brought out a more rugged, sturdier side of him. If anything, he was even more attractive than before, which made it obvious Kiko wasn't turning him down because of any lack of good looks.

Within a few moments the entire Jago crew gathered in front of the door.

"Of all the humanoids we could run into in this vast universe, why do we run into you?" Rei groaned.

"Why'd you open the door, Tammy?" Kiko complained.

"It seems he wanted to discuss some matters," she said simply.

"He can talk from outside," Rei pointed out.

"Let him speak," ordered Cashel.

Rei gave a defeated sigh and plopped herself on some cargo.

Breccan entered our cargo bay with a wide smile. "It seems we have found ourselves in a similar ... predicament."

Cashel stroked his bearded chin. "Go on."

"We've both crashed in the same area, so I can only assume you and your crew have come searching for the same thing as us? And now we have similar problems."

Our captain crossed his arms. "As in ...?"

Breccan took a deep breath. "Your main power source failed when entering the planet, but you were able to activate your backup generator in order to land ... somewhat safely. Now your new problem is the fact that your tracking device can no longer be powered, plus, according to my sources, it isn't engineered to find a close-range signal of the stone." He cleared his throat. "Then there's the minor problem of leaving the planet before getting sucked into the black hole we're currently sitting on, because the backup generator simply isn't strong enough to get you very far in the air, at least on this planet."

We all turned to Tammy who made the calculations with a few blinks of her eyes and nodded to Cashel.

Guess he was right on target.

Cashel studied Breccan before saying, "So you want to join forces, I assume? What do you have that we don't?"

"Resources." He gave a smug smile. "I can build almost an entirely new ship with the materials we brought. Plus, I have an excellent mechanic crew that can build anything you want. Our problem is we don't have enough knowledge to work around a few issues we've been having, but I'm pretty sure your Mechanite can help us there." He gestured to Tammy.

Mechanite? That must have been what Tammy's species was called.

"How do we determine who gets the stone if we cooperate together?"

"Eh, we can figure that out later." Breccan simply brushed off the most important question.

Cashel thought for a moment, but it was pretty obvious what we had to do. There was no way any of us would be able to leave the planet without each other's help.

"All right, we're temporary comrades," he agreed.

Breccan smiled, showing his pearly white teeth.

"Excellent! Feel free to drop by our base when you're ready!"

And with that, he turned and strolled off, whistling.

We watched until he was far enough away to talk about him without him overhearing.