Buried Treasure

“How much further?” Kevin groaned.  Never one for eloquent speech even in the best of situations, the three-sunned noon was not doing much to improve his mood or grammar.  It was a detail the Blackfire couldn’t help but dislike; it emphasized the fact that her hired help was really no more than a child trapped in the body of a horrible brute.  Then again, that suited her purposes just fine.  The exiled princess didn’t need an advisor; she needed muscle, and Kevin supplied that in bulk.

“It’s not far,” she replied, looking at the small scanner she was carrying to see if her scripted reply was true.  For the first time out of the thirty or so that Kevin had inquired as to the proximity of their destination, it was indeed no more than sixty meters away.  “Come on, Kev.  Don’t tell me that you’re getting tired already?”

Blackfire had spent a great deal of time preparing for this little expedition.  The Sand Hell of Lokis was not exactly the friendliest place for a stroll, with temperatures easily reaching above seventy Celsius on the hottest days of Lokian summer.  Fortunately, it was winter, or whatever equivalent this Z’hall-forsaken place had.  Still, it was well over forty, and the wily Tameranian was not taking any chances.  A light-canceling sun hat, almost like a pitch halo, sat atop her head, while heat-resistant wrappings circled and draped across her face and a specially-made cooler suit; it looked almost identical to her usual purple-and-black outfit, except for the near-invisible latticework of blue cooling vessels running throughout it.  A breath mask completed the attire, which kept her both hydrated and cool, and was remarkably stylish to boot.

Kevin got nothing.

He had been slogging through the shifting sands for what seemed like an eternity, following that horrible girl who had dragged him from his comfortable hideout and blasted him halfway across the universe in a piece-of-junk star freighter to this blazing little furnace of a planet, all the while talking about some priceless something-or-other to be found there.  His interest had only been piqued once, when she mentioned a cache of navigation coordinates stored inside the whatever-it-was.  Navigation meant maps, maps meant a way home, and a way home meant…

Kevin grinned.  That one thought had been keeping him going the whole time.  As he fought to escape the Null Void, as he battled his way through legions of bounty hunters, and as this crazy alien girl had shanghaied him into servitude for her treasure hunt.  As long as he could relish the thought of that one moment, whether it would be tomorrow or fifty years from now, he would keep going, keep surviving, and keep getting stronger.

A smart flick to the center point between his three eyes brought Kevin out of his reverie.  Blackfire was hovering in front of him, and stayed there while he rocked back for a moment in surprise.  “What’s with the smile?  Did the heat finally get to you?”

Kevin entertained the idea of charging the Tameranian for a moment or two, but quickly discarded it.  He was lost, and she was not; moreover, she held the key for his return to Earth.  “No, I’m fine,” he said, brushing himself off and wiggling his lure to make sure that it hadn’t been damaged.

“Good,” replied Blackfire.  “Because we’re here, and I’m not the type for digging.”

“Digging?” Kevin echoed before looking down.

“You never said anything about digging.”

“And I don’t want to hear you saying anything about it, either.  Now dig; it’s about five meters below the surface.  And consider yourself lucky: in winter, the Lokian desert heaves itself around, and everything buried in it gets tossed up from around a hundred kilometers on down.”

Kevin growled in annoyance, but looked back down at the shifting sands.  There was no way he could dig normally; he might as well try to dig though water.  Fortunately, there was one recently-discovered ability in his arsenal of alien DNA that might do the trick, even though he was always wary of using it.  Concentrating for a few moments, he reached down into the sand, though not a grain of it moved.  His body slid forward, intangible, and vanished beneath the surface.

Blackfire nodded thoughtfully; she had though that the jagged lines across his chest had looked familiar.  Ectonurites were whispered about across the galaxy, so it was only natural that her mutant companion, who possessed the genetic traits of a mad cocktail of powerful species, would have the DNA of the fabled “Phantoms of Space” somewhere in the mix.

Presently, Kevin surfaced, bearing the prize in his smaller pair of arms.  It was an oblong box, about a meter across, half a meter high, and half a meter deep.  It was blue, with odd white trim, a translucent blue panel, and a series of white protrusions that looked like buttons or controls.

“Good job, Kev; let’s go, the sunsets on Lokis are spectacular, but they make you go blind.”  She started flying off, until she realized that there was no buzz from Kevin’s insectoid wings following her.  She turned, seeing the mutant standing in place, unmistakable fury contorting his fanged mouth into a hideous grimace.

“You pulled me out of hiding for THIS?” he roared, holding the box above his head.  “A stupid BOOMBOX?”  He threw it to the ground in frustration, raising his arms up again as if to smash down upon the object.

A violet starbolt interrupted his short rampage, sending him tumbling head over tail into the dunes.  Blackfire descended, picking up the box, righting it, and sweeping the sand off of it.  Kevin was already recovering, though his vision was blurred from the unexpected jolt.  The Tameranian “tsked”, as though observing a spoiled child being disciplined.

“Maybe if you stopped to think for a moment, you’d recognize that this ‘boombox’ is more than what it seems,” she said coolly, pulling a small power cell from underneath her wrappings.  Kneeling over the box, she inserted the cell into a matching plug; energy transferred immediately, and the box began to move, apparently of its’ own volition.  Blackfire retreated slightly, standing next to the dumbstruck Kevin.

The boombox changed, or, more accurately, rearranged itself.  Parts slid and shifted, revealing a humanoid body had been hiding the guise of a stereo system.  It also grew, mass compactors disabling and letting the disguised being revert to its’ true size and shape.

Blackfire and Kevin stood for a moment in the shadow of the giant, staring up at it.  It started back, from the dimly glowing visor that crossed its’ cranium.  Suddenly, it spoke, in a harsh, mechanical rumble that shook the very sand around them

“Designation: Soundwave.  Function: Infiltration and reconnaissance.  Status: Operational and ready for orders.”

“What’d I tell you?” Blackfire said, a smug smile creeping across her lips.