Arriving at the edge of the Galaxy, the captain was very surprised when he stumbled upon an inhabited world that wasn’t known to the scientists of the Galactic Union of Astronomers. And he did that on his first try. The captain had lost himself in staring at the bright, colorful colors of the atmosphere. It was nice to see something different from the widespread gray of many lifeless planets. However, it wasn’t as nice when he forgot to hit the brakes in time. Now, he was watching the monitor in despair. The timer displaying how many seconds were left before the collision with the planet was flashing red. The captain tried to turn sharply and steer the ship away from the planet one last time but instead of succeeding, he ended up breaking the wheel.
The ship entered the dense atmosphere and began to heat up rapidly. The captain was hastily trying to remember everything starting with his birth, and his attempts were richly spiced with the monotonous gut-wrenching thuds of his very heart. In other words, he was screaming hysterically, staring at the wrecked wheel in his hands, and wasting his precious time.
The ship, having ceased receiving instructions from the pilot, belatedly switched to autopilot. The captain had no idea that such a thing existed on his vessel since he had purchased the ship during a firesale of old space technology, and it came without a user manual. The seller gave a 30% discount off the cost solely because of this, and the dazed captain bought it with joy, like the idiot he was.
“In your case,” he recalled a phrase from an old joke, “idiocy is a vast improvement!”
“Not funny at ALL!” the pilot shouted for the sake of diversity. The next moment, a bunch of boxes fell on him from the shelf. The pilot stopped yelling in fury and switched to screaming in pain. Only then did he deign to pay attention to the monitor. His shouts were cut off abruptly. Although the speed of the ship didn’t decrease, the distance to the planet ceased its rapid decline, and soon, it froze completely. The autopilot had managed to change course and fly at a tangent. The temperature of the outer surface of the ship stopped at eight hundred degrees and slowly went down.
The ship trembled as it commenced landing procedures, still on autopilot. The captain leaned back in his chair weakly, closed his eyes, and didn’t open them until he felt a slight jolt from the contact with the surface.
Being a part-time navigator, co-pilot, cook, mechanic, flight engineer, and cleaner allowed him to spend an impressive amount of his salary on something more pleasant than the payment of the crew. So, the captain gulped a liter-deep mug of sedatives, enough for an entire crew, and wiped the sweat from his forehead. He supposed he could congratulate himself on the most successful landing in his life… a life that had almost ended. Still, firstly, no one was killed, and secondly, an unknown planet on the edge of the Galaxy proved to have oxygen and was inhabited by highly developed forms of life! Perhaps even slightly intelligent ones!
Blue sky, white clouds, green grass… it was the ultimate dream of any space traveler! To receive such a gift from fate was like catching a black cat in a black room, especially if this cat had never been there in the first place. It was like discovering an oil field while digging a cellar, like the simultaneous death of a dozen of billionaire relatives, like losing a win-win lottery…
“The last comparison is somewhat unfortunate,” the captain reproached himself, without taking his fervent gaze off the planet before him. “The locals, like all the natives of other discovered planets, are terrible cowards for sure. They’ll gladly give me power over them as soon as I show them a couple of cheap tricks!”
The computer’s analysis showed that there were six continents on this planet. One of them was covered with an impressive layer of eternal ice. The others had no industrial technology or air pollution, and the largest continent was located in the northern part of the planet. No dangerous viruses present, as it would seem.
“Well, we won’t be wasting our time on trifles! Let’s start with the conquest of the largest continent.” The captain glanced at his reflection. “Nothing’s wrong with that, right?”
But first, he had to replace the steering wheel and drink a couple of more liters of sedatives. And not necessarily in that order.
But he didn’t manage to relax properly. An hour later, the monitor began to flare in alarm, indicating that the natives were approaching the ship. The captain blew the dust from his new helm and eagerly waited for the local residents. He was curious to see how scared they would be and how they’d run from the ship as if the devil himself was chasing them. How hilarious that would be!
Three minutes later, the captain was staring at the screen silently, tension vibrating in his body. Instead of fleeing from the incomprehensible (and frightening, damn it all to hell, it was frightening!) object, the crazy natives began to throw knives at it. They used stones, too, as well as some handy garbage, and they did it with visible pleasure. Protective laser beams leveled these objects into atoms before they could reach the ship surface, and it looked like this process was the one that the natives liked most.
And well, the captain could tolerate such antics of the wild forms of local life. After all, they couldn’t damage the ship in such a manner. But when the natives drew the swords from their scabbards and began to cut down a tall massive tree, pushing it directly toward the ship, the captain grew restless.
“Who is scaring whom here?” he asked indignantly, hurriedly sitting down in the pilot’s seat and fastening the seat belt around himself. “Vandals!”
“Cut it down!” Yaroslav shouted, brandishing his sword in excitement. A few strong blows, and the three hundred-year-old birch bent, hanging over a huge brown stone. The stone roared angrily and suddenly soared into the skies, throwing up a wave of wind that blew away all the dust, leaving a thick, long, hazy trail behind. The princes coughed, the horses backed away anxiously, and the birch finally fell on the road.
“Flying rocks!” Artem’s surprise knew no bounds. “Is that a joke!”
Yaroslav followed the strange stone with his intense gaze and said, “Maybe it’s a beast and not a rock? Like a dragon?”
“Maybe an evil Kolobok who swallowed Nightingale the Robber? It’s too much, don’t you think?”
“After a meeting with Kashchey, I wouldn’t dare say as such.”
The princes knew the local area well. They had been in the capital many times before and hunted the wild boars in its woods. And Yaroslav had been friends with Princess Maria since his childhood. Yesterday, he had been planning to officially ask for her hand in marriage, but Kashchey’s appearance sent all his plans down the drain.
There had never been any huge rocks on this road, so the appearance of this obstacle left the princes quite puzzled. Six meters high, it was blocking traffic, and the ground around it was scorched and covered with a layer of grayish ash. Artem jumped off his horse and approached the barrier. He touched it and was surprised to note that the stone was warm, humming strangely, as if a swarm of bumblebees had made it their home.
Yaroslav took his mace and went to the stone to test its strength. He swung and heard a long howl in response. A red lightning hit his mace, spraying it into a dazzling shower of sparks. The horses reared back while Yaroslav jumped and shielded himself so that the sparks didn’t touch his face. Artem shut his eyes tightly, covering himself with his hands. When the silence came and nothing terrible happened, the brothers looked at each other and decided to repeat the attack.
As soon as the stone disappeared into the clouds, they managed to push the birch to the side of the road. They had to cut almost all the branches off but, in the end, it worked. They couldn’t leave such a mess for other travelers to see.