Chapter 16

Shifting sands and a wall of dust made their way through the barren desert during the nightly sandstorm. The size of the dunes varied and caused the wind to vibrate the air space between them which made a howling noise that morphed with evil frequency. There were no living creatures on the surface of the desert as it would have meant their immediate death from exposure to air that no natural filter could make any animal lung safe from the dust.

As dangerous as it was, a single soul was out in the blowing dust. Dr. Talcuin was wearing several layers of protective clothing and had a filtered mask covering his head. He was setting up his targeting system to measure its performance under the harsh conditions.

This particular experiment was setup to verify that his targeting system could locate one of three sample targets scattered in a 10 km radius. The target discs had been placed earlier in the week before the storm was predicted to hit the area.

Dr. Talcuin had a difficult time setting up the ruggedized computer attached to the targeting system equipment and the sand was severely limiting his field of vision.