“Running diagnostics now.”
A few quiet minutes went by.
“Diagnostics complete. System is intact.”
“Good, now take us into the atmosphere.”
The ship gathered magnetic information about Sparasa and then headed straight for the giant blue, glowing planet.
Once Jesse had safely cleared the atmosphere he decided to land the ship in the one place he thought he would not run into any giants - right in the middle of a hot, dry desert. Jesse had never been to a desert before and found it to be very interesting. In most directions, for as far as his big goldfish eyes could see, there was nothing; nothing but sand and sky. He found the sun to be very soothing and quickly dozed off in the sand. When he awoke a shock of terror surged through his rested body, for what gazed at him was not a devious little elf, but a giant dragon.
“A dragon! Oh my, I’ve got to get out of here!”
“Don’t be afraid, I won’t hurt you,” the dragon said,
“I’m just wondering what you’re doing way out here in the desert. I don’t see many folk out here. Not too many folk can tolerate this kind of heat.”
Jesse slowly eased his hand away from the door and stepped cautiously back off the steps of his craft to the desert ground below.
“Hmn Uh…ha hi there, I’m Jesse from the planet Mala. I’m here on a very important mission.”
“Ohhh, and what might that be? Maybe I can be of some assistance.”
“I am looking for an object.”
“Ohhh…and what kind of object are you looking for? What shape is it?”
Jesse then answered having decided to trust the dragon.
“I can show you.” Jesse uttered aloud to his spaceship,
“Computer, generate holographic image of the quantum time generator’s missing component.”
Computer then generated a three dimensional hologram. Jesse pointed to the holographic image.
“Have you seen this object?”