Escape to Earth 1: Running From Fate by Saxon Andrew Page B

friend.”
    Lauren looked at Jack, “Tony felt she had found someone else to replace him.”
    “No, she said they had been fighting about getting married and she was going to live with McKenzie until things cooled down. Most of you know her. She’s as devastated as all of us.”
    Julie shook her head, “Why wouldn’t she marry him, then this wouldn’t have happened.”
    Jack sighed, “It was Tony who didn’t want to marry her.” Everyone looked at each other and knew a terrible mistake had been made. Lukas knew the real magnitude of the mistake. “Everyone go home and I’ll notify you on the funeral arrangements.” Jack motioned Lukas to stay and he came over and put his hand on Lukas shoulder, “Luke, I need you to help me.”
    “I’ll work every night until you find a replacement.”
    “Thank you so much, this means a lot.” Lukas nodded and stood up. He walked toward the door and for the first time in many nights, he didn’t see a Stalker on the way home.
    • • •
    The Stalker Commander was furious. Their fee had been reduced by one third for killing one of the local inhabitants who had no connection with the Welken escapee. He gripped his fists and screamed at the ceiling on the Searchship. The thirty Stalkers in the room flinched at the volume. “Did it ever occur to you that it might have been honest when it said it was having problems with his girlfriend?”
    “But…”
    “Shut up!” The Commander knew he had lost a huge sum but the Welken were still going to pay double so it wasn’t a complete loss. He looked around at the gathering and said, “We’ve been focused on the area where the escape pod’s dust settled. It could have used its gravity compensators to move away from this area. We will now focus on finding that escape pod. If we find it, we’ll find the escapee. I’m calling in five other ships to assist in the effort. You thick heads will continue to search in the dust area until it turns up. Now get out of here before I KILL EVERYONE OF YOU!!!” The room cleared faster than smoke in a hurricane. The Commander sat down in the ship’s command chair and stared through the viewport at the planet below him. Searching by looking for high emotions was stupid. Everyone on this planet was emotional all of the time about something. This species was insane! Whatever madness evolution took to create these Humans made a crook in sensibility. They laughed, cried, screamed, and released their emotions for no apparent reason. This one would have to make a mistake. So far, he had been lucky. The additional ships would make a huge difference. He would be found! He looked up at the ceiling, “System.”
    “Yes, Commander.”
    “You will cease using emotional scans.”
    “Order acknowledged.”
    “Scan for aberrant patterns and look for anything that matches up with typical Welken behavior.”
    “That is a better choice, Commander. Interpreting all the emotions around our scanned sites had taken up ninety percent of my operating system.”
    “Why didn’t you mention this before?”
    “I follow orders, Commander; I don’t interpret them.”
    “You will notify me if this overload happens in the future.”
    “Yes, Commander.”
    • • •
    Lukas began working two shifts with a few hours of sleep in the kitchen between them. Jack brought an air mattress in which made sleeping easier. He kept thanking Lukas until Lukas told him that he knew how he felt. Jack paid Lukas double pay and knew it wasn’t close to the value he was getting. He attended Tony’s funeral and wept with the others. Tony was his only friend and losing him hurt more than he imagined. This sorrow was an emotion he was completely unfamiliar with. But he pushed forward and pretty much ignored the Stalkers that periodically came in. Life became little more than one dirty table after another.
    • • •
    The Myot looked at the Stalker on his monitor and screamed, “You have cost me a fortune in keeping my fleets