Date point: 4y 10m 1w 4d AV
Following Kayla as closely as he could, Jennings was buffeted painfully by stinging wind.
Behind them, close enough to dominate the sky and blanket the horizon, a wall of dust extended into the sky for miles, gaining on them faster than they could hope to run.
Unsteady on her feet, under powerful gusts coming from unpredictable directions, Kayla was stumbling down a hill, glancing back at the pursuing storm with increasing panic.
She’d taken Jenning’s shooting goggles, in order to actually see where she was going, forcing the man behind her to take hold of her wrist, as he could no longer open his eyes.
All but sprinting down the hill, kicking up stones and loose dirt, they made it to the bottom of the incline and began running flat out along the edge of the plains, looking for a cliff that she knew had a tunnel that was used by the hunger crazed locals.
Gripping tightly to Kayla’s wrist, Jennings was doing everything he could to prevent slowing her down, but was finding the task to be his match. Between being rocked constantly by wind, incapable of looking to see where he was placing his feet, and awkwardly running behind her as she led him, it was all he could do to simply remain upright.
At last, Kayla found what she was looking for as they completed making a wide turn around the base of a hill. Looming above them, a sheer cliff face rose into the sky, perhaps a hundred feet up. At the base of it, a large hole in the rock promised shelter.
Finally confronted with the entrance, Kayla hesitated.
She was allowed only the briefest moment of contemplation before the sandstorm washed over the top of the cliff, immediately driving the wind speed even higher and causing the two humans to feel as if they were being attacked by a hoard of angry bees.
With no other options open to them, Kayla pulled Jennings into the mouth of the tunnel and continued down it until they no longer felt the worst effects of the storm.
Gasping and wheezing, Jennings went to all fours and began hacking up dirt from his lungs, dry heaving several times until he could at last breathe easy again.
Faced with a similar problem, Kayla leaned against the wall with her hands on her knees, coughing hard.
Eventually, they both lapsed into silence, breathing in deeply and trying to steady themselves.
At last looking around the tunnel, Kayla saw that for the moment they were blessedly alone, and breathed a small sigh of relief. As she looked further down into the tunnel, Jennings was trying to rub the sand from his vision, blinking rapidly, tears streaming from his eyes.
Whispering quietly, barely loud enough to be heard over the still howling wind, he said, “Good fuckin work. Seriously, I thought we were totally fucked.”
Glancing back nervously, Kayla said, “Don’t thank me yet. We still might be.”
Captain Durant had been slowly creeping along the tunnel, leading the four men behind him deeper into the cave system.
Out of caution, he had turned off his headlamp, as well as making the others do the same, and only took perhaps a dozen steps at a time, pausing for several seconds each time and listening hard for unfamiliar sounds.
Unable to see anything in the pitch darkness, each man had hold of another, using their free hand to feel along the walls of the tunnel.
Near the opening of the cave, it had been sweltering as the day moved onward, baking the surface of the planet. Down here though, the temperature had steadily been falling, until it had become slightly chilly, but well within the men’s comfort zone.
Under Durant’s guidance, no one had spoken for nearly an hour, pausing to rest only a few times and to make sure that everyone was still present.
Both relieved and unnerved at the complete lack of resistance, and indeed lack of anything inside the tunnel, Durant again continued forward after hearing nothing either ahead or behind them.
They continued in this fashion for another ten minutes until Captain Durant froze, his free hand touching the wall of the cave.
All the other men froze as well, sensing something different this time.
Pulling his left hand free of Carlson’s grip, Durant began exploring the wall of the cave with both hands, still unable to see in the absolute darkness.
None of the men spoke, unsure of what the man was doing, hearing only skin sliding across stone.
Finally, Captain Durant flicked on the dark red setting of his headlamp, squinting only slightly in the new illumination. Confirming what he had felt, he began drawing many different conclusions, all of them unpleasant.
The men behind him immediately saw why they had suddenly stopped.
Roughly excavated tunnel had given way to what had once had been a solid concrete wall, lined with several centimeters of metal.
Bent outwards toward the direction they had come, the metal looked as though it had been clawed through by a particularly persistent attacker, who had also broken through a good three feet of concrete.
Beyond the broken wall, a hallway was laid out in front of them, continuing for maybe fifty feet before turning to the right.
Looking back to the four men following him, Durant’s expression was grim, though they could not see this due to the light obscuring his face.
Disliking the need to speak, he moved closer to them, motioning them to get as close as possible.
Barely making a sound, he whispered, “This is a nuclear bunker. Whatever the hell these things are, they didn’t use to be like this. That’s reinforced concrete lined with a lead exterior. There’s not a chance in hell that those animals would have been capable of building this.”
Leaning to look at the outwardly bent metal, Carlson asked, “How can you tell it’s lead?”
Annoyed at the question, Durant still answered, saying, “I’ve spent half my life in third world countries. Half of them use lead for all kinds of shit. I know it when i see it.”
Williams, also annoyed at the question, replied, “Who gives a shit if it’s lead? What the hell do we do from here? Do we keep going? We could be walking right into where those bastards sleep.”
Shaking his head, Durant said, “We don’t have a choice. I doubt we could get out the way we came in, and even if we did, we’d still risk running into those monsters again. If we’re lucky, there will be several ways into this bunker, however big it is, and we can try to find one that’s empty and make it back to the surface. We’re fucked for options right now. I don’t see us surviving any other way.”
Aware that even though he was technically in charge, Durant was not giving Captain Williams the option to object. Resigning himself to the man’s experience, Williams nodded once, indicating his agreement and his desire to continue.
“Hey,” said Forester, all eyes turning to the nearly always silent man, “is it just me, or is it easier to breathe down here?”
Surprised at the unexpected observation, all of them paused, eventually each taking a deep breath and realizing that it was easier to breathe here, nearly all traces of sulphur absent from the air. Other things at the forefront of their minds, they’d not noticed it on their trek into the cave system.
Having no response other than to shrug and nod, Durant allowed himself only a moment to enjoy the fact before returning to the task at hand.
Flicking off his light once more, Captain Durant drew his knife from its sheath on his hip, using his free hand to once again grip onto Carlson’s and form a chain as he led them through the opening. Moving to the right, he kept the wall of the pitch black hallway within reaching distance and moved forward in the same manner as before, a dozen steps at a time, then listening hard for any movement.
They passed closed doorways several times, pausing outside of each and making sure that all was silent before proceeding. Eventually coming to the right turn in the hallway that they had seen earlier, Carlson squeezed Durant’s hand, causing the man to stop.
After telling himself not to strangle the pilot in case he had another stupid question, Durant leaned close to Carlson and whispered, “What?”
Barely moving his lips out of fear, Carlson replied, “There’s light ahead of us down the tunnel. It’s barely there at all…but it’s there.”
Having been focused so totally on listening for danger, Durant hadn’t noticed it, but he immediately saw that Carlson was right. A very faint blue light was coming from somewhere farther up the hallway, past the bend.
Raising his blade and preparing to fight, Durant leaned past the corner of the turn, seeing that the hallway was still deserted, illuminated by the faintest glow of blue that shone through an open doorway perhaps twenty feet away, though he could not see the light’s source.
Their path now lit, he led them further up the hallway towards the opening, still listening hard for noises.
Reaching the doorway, they saw that the door itself had been ripped from its hinges, discarded several feet away. Slowly easing his way further into the light, which had steadily grown in brightness, Durant couldn’t help himself as he gasped at the sight of what lay outside the opening.
A huge concrete dome arched above him, several hundred feet high, extending outwards into semi darkness on the other side of a massive cavern that would have dwarfed the largest of Earth’s caves.
Standing at what appeared to be the very edge of the dome, he looked down into a tightly packed city, with the ground at the edge sloping downwards to the middle like an gigantic amphitheater until, at the very center, a sunken pit full of water reflected light from its surface.
Covering nearly everything, except the walls of the buildings and the very centers of the worn pathways, were small bio-luminescent fungi, illuminating patches of the city with a soft glow.
Growing up along the roof of the dome, the fungus gave the impression that sections of the ceiling had fallen away, revealing starlight from the sky above.
Unable to tear his eyes away from the beautiful and unnaturally silent city, Durant heard the other four men react just as he had, awed by the strange beauty before them.
However, the spell was broken as all five men heard a loud shriek, somewhere deep inside the city.
“I figure we try and wait out the storm here. I’m plenty fine with not going farther into these caves than I have to.” Jennings whispered, sitting closely next to Kayla.
With the wind still howling further up the tunnel, he felt speech was, at least for the moment, safe.
Rolling her eyes at his obvious observation, even though she doubted that he could see it in the near pitch black tunnel, Kayla replied, “Deal. This was your dumb idea, so you take first watch if you don’t mind.”
Irritably, she lay down along the edge of the tunnel, the exposed skin on her arms, neck and face feeling raw where the airborne sand had attacked it. Trying to ignore the painful itching, she closed her eyes, wrapped in a thin jacket she had pulled from her pack.
Casting his own irritable expression at Kayla, Jennings said, “Why the fuck do you always have to be such a dick?”
Not bothering to deny it, or even open her eyes when she responded, she answered, “Because a lot of men could never respect a woman like me otherwise. Deal with it.”
“I would respect you.”
Opening her eyes this time, Kayla turned her head to look at him, pausing for a moment before saying, “You think you would. And I guess in your own way you would respect me. But, you wouldn’t think of me as an equal. Never as an equal.”
Stung by the accusation, Jennings retorted, “You’ve got quite the chip on your shoulder, don’t you? You think just because you’ve got a pair of mammaries that a guy like me can’t see past what’s on the surface?”
Unfazed by his indignation, Kayla closed her eyes again, saying, “Maybe not, but you would be the first guy who did since I signed on the dotted line and went to flight school. So, if you’ll allow me my own goddamn opinion about how I should act, I’ll be going to sleep now.”
Biting back another retort, Jennings let the matter rest, once again leaning back against the tunnel wall.
A long silence began, as both of their breathing came to a full rest, Kayla’s becoming deeper as she fell asleep.
Stomach growling, Jennings reached into one of his cargo pockets and retrieved a package of peanuts. He saw Kayla twitch as she heard the plastic package tear open, but she made no comment.
In utter silence now, except for the occasional howling gust from the raging storm outside, Jennings allowed himself some blessed relaxation as he ate.
Forcing back the urge to tip the whole package into his mouth, he dropped out one peanut at a time, examining each one thoroughly and taking his time chewing each morsel, savoring each facet of the flavor. Sitting in a cave, which had been dug by murdering creatures, stranded on a desolate world and tens of thousands of light years away from home, he marveled that anything so normal as a package of Planters salted peanuts could still exist.
He had often performed this ritual in Afghanistan, using dried cranberries or pretzel sticks, though he had never taken such comforting solace in it as he did now, reassured that even though it was far away, the real world did still exist.
It took him nearly half an hour to finish his meal and, when he was finished, it felt like he had suddenly lost a small light that had been giving him warmth, forcing him back to the present.
Giving a silent sigh, he resigned himself to another couple of hours of being on watch, pining for more sleep, and shivering in the dark. Thirsty after his meal, he reached for his water jug, eager for a small sip, but found that the plastic container had frozen solid.
Laughing bitterly, he laid it back down.
I fucking hate this place.
“We have to stay near high ground. No light sources at all, do you understand? Once we leave this hallway, there is absolutely no talking, for any reason, unless we are spotted. Is that clear?” Captain Durant whispered urgently.
The four other men nodded silently, Jackson and Carlson’s faces barely concealing terror, while Forester and Williams maintained stony expressions.
“You three,” Durant said, indicating Jackson, Captain Williams and Carlson, “pull any spare clothing you have and tie it around your shoes to muffle your footsteps. Forester, I expect you don’t need extra help with keeping quiet.”
As they moved to obey, Williams had a thought before Durant turned back towards the doorway, saying, “If we get the chance, we need to collect water. It’s possible that there are other water sources here besides the center lake. If the opportunity arises, I want you to take it.”
Hesitating for a moment, Durant nodded, painfully aware that water on the surface would be nearly impossible to come by.
Taking one last look at the men before him, Durant said, “Forester, take the rear and watch our six. The rest of you stay as close to me and Forester as possible. Do everything you can to be silent… Alright, let’s go.”
Cautiously, and armed with only his knife, Durant stepped onto the worn walkway outside of the door, looking both ways along the path for movement. Seemingly completely alone, and unsure of which way to go, he decided to follow the path that looked less traveled, with larger bunches of glowing fungus and a narrower path of clear space.
Watching and counting the men following silently behind him, he forged on.
4y 11m 2w 6d AV
After Frank had finally managed to bring himself under control after the sickening sight inside the escape pod, he stood, still feeling queasy.
While there didn’t seem to be any immediate danger around them or in the badly scarred pod, all of the Reclamation’s crew had their eyes darting in every direction, scanning for threats.
Feeling as though he could now safely open his mouth, without worrying about losing his last meal, Frank said, “We need to recover as much of the body as we can. I also need the hard drives removed from the control console. If they survived the impact, we might be able to get an idea of what happened.”
None of them moved to do so however, repulsed by the contents of the ship, splattered over the walls and ceiling, and congealed on the floor.
Even though Robert was standing just outside the open hatch, Ryst was the first one to break the mood, seeing that no one else was eager to enter the ship.
“If no one else feels like doing their job…” he growled, striding forward.
Walking to the ship, Ryst thought that Rob avoided his gaze as he strode past him, possibly ashamed that he hadn’t acted first.
Stepping across the threshold of the escape hatch, his feet sank slightly into the thick blood, feeling sticky and leaving vivid footprints as he walked. A shadow crossed his vision as Robert entered behind him, and he felt a slightly guilty yet grim satisfaction at having a Deathworlder follow his lead.
Calling into the ship, Ted yelled, “I’m going to get a body bag from the cargo hold. I’ll be back in a second.”
Ignoring this, Ryst found the control console, its labeling translated for him through his helmet visor, as he could no longer rely on an implant. A maintenance access port lay ajar, possibly forced open during the brutal landing.
Opening it, he saw that the ship had lost all power, with no lights at all flashing within the innards of the control display. Crouching for a few seconds, he found what he was looking for, and grabbed a labeled handle, marked “primary hard drive.”
Tugging on the handle, he pulled the drive free with a clunk, and it immediately fell to the floor, much heavier than Ryst had expected. Grunting, and using both hands, he lifted it again and turned to hand it to Robert, standing behind him, who took it wordlessly while trying to avoid looking at his surroundings.
Outside, Frank was patrolling the perimeter, keeping an eye out for danger, feeling slightly guilty that he had delegated the unenviable task of going through the bloody ship, though glad he didn’t have to see the inside again.
Tricko was looking inside, slightly unnerved by the carnage, though much less affected by it than the humans were.
He’d seen worse in the mine.
Ted soon hurried up behind him, carrying a large black bag that he was unfolding. Zipping it open, Ted glanced inside the ship and felt bile rise in his throat, but entered the now cramped space all the same.
Following Ted inside, after allowing Robert and Ryst to exit, Robert carrying a large hard drive and Ryst carrying a smaller secondary, Tricko said, “I’m not really sure which bones are human. How can I help?”
Looking as though he was dreading the task to come, Ted replied, “Hold the bag open, and try to keep it from touching the ground. I’d rather avoid having to wipe the bag clean of this once we bring it back to the ship. I’ll collect the bones.”
As Tricko did as advised, Ted began picking up obvious bones, such as the skull and pelvis and dropping them in the bag, his face pinched in obvious disgust as he did so.
Forced to pry the bones of the other creatures from the sticky floor in his search for more pieces of the unlucky human occupant, he examined the skulls of the attackers.
He was not an anthropologist, but he’d taken a few relevant courses during his undergraduate years.
Holding up one of the skulls, he thought it had a kind of reptilian look to it. Though it was doubtful that any creature from Earth resembled the real thing too closely.
Finding some human sized ribs, he collected them and dropped them in the bag, as he spotted something that looked like it had once been a femur.
Under the steadily increasing weight of the bag, Tricko was relieved when he heard Ted say, “I think that’s as good as we’re gonna get. I’ll take the bag and put it in the medical bay. The stasis freezer in there can finally start pulling its weight.”
The human chuckled as he said it, but Tricko doubted that Ted’s heart was really in it as, even through his helmet, he looked paler than usual.
Both of them exited the pod, Ted lifting the heavy bag from Tricko’s arms with one hand as if it had been made of clouds. Glad to be away from the blood, Ted walked quickly back to the Reclamation.
Ryst had already gone inside with Robert, leaving Tricko standing next to Frank, who was still scanning in every direction.
Taking a moment to pause, Frank asked Tricko, “Was there anything else in there that you saw that I should know about?”
Mulling over his answer, Tricko replied slowly, “I saw that Ted Burnquist is right. I think we should leave, while we still have the chance.”
Turning and walking away, he recognized the human expression of troubled thoughts that Frank’s face wore.
Inside the flight deck of the Reclamation, Robert was hooking up several cables to the ports on the back of both hard drives, Ryst sitting in the co-pilots chair, watching him work.
Robert fumed at himself, burning with his own cowardice at letting a Gaoian that was in ten times the danger on this planet as he was show more spine than he had. He was far from angry with Ryst, he even respected his nerve, but he resented how calm Ryst had seemed while walking through the thick blood.
He didn’t share his feelings however, keeping his mind busy with the task at hand.
As each cable was attached, another light on the front of the hard drives lit up, until the mixture of lights that had been flashing red and yellow all began to show a solid green.
Both drives operational, he navigated to their contents on one of the pilot displays, sitting beside Ryst as he did so.
He was dismayed to see that the Byron Group had not designed the life pods to share black box data with the main ship, so they could not see the full story of what had happened, but was relieved to see that at least the pods own data was intact.
“Well,” he sighed, “we can see what happened to this pod, but there’s nothing on here from before it was ejected from the main vessel. I could play the video feeds now, but I think we should wait for the others.”
Even though the movement still felt unnatural, Ryst gave an attempt at a human shrug, and said, “That works for me. Whatever is on this drive, I doubt that we’re going to want to watch it a second time.”
Chilled by that thought, Robert was even less inclined to see what the drives contained.
Several minutes later, Ted was heard coming up the hallway, walking into the flight deck, saying, “Frank is inside now. Tricko is winding the cord up and Frank is taking the suit off.” Turning to Ryst, he said, “Frank wants us in the air as soon as possible. He’s asked you to take us up.”
Grunting an acknowledgement, as well as heartily agreeing with Frank, Ryst leaned forward and began flipping switches, eventually taking hold of the controls and throttle and bringing them into the air.
A few seconds later, they reached the same cruising altitude that they’d been using before, and both Frank and Tricko entered the flight deck looking somber.
Setting the ship to hover in place, Ryst stood to give his chair to Frank, while Robert said, “The drives are wired up and ready to go. I can walk you through all the technical data later, but I figure that we should watch the camera feeds first.”
“Go ahead, kid.” Frank replied.
Expanding the window to take up the whole front view screen, Robert opened the first video file.
The room darkened as it began playing its initial departure from the ship, showing the view captured by an external camera.
Facing towards the main ship, venting atmosphere and glowing from plasma cuts, they saw only the shredded hulk of what had once been one of their missing ships. Covering the ship and writhing in violent, frantic movements, the same copper serpents that had allowed the Reclamation to pass freely earlier were tearing into the ship with blue plasma, intent on its total destruction.
“Jesus.” Ted whispered.
As the silent video continued, they saw one last pod jettison away from the belly of the ship, forcing its way out through several serpents and speeding in the same direction as the pod whose footage they were watching.
Then, all at once, the creatures abandoned the ship, instead rushing toward the life pods.
Breaking around the one small ship in view, as well the recording pod, both were left untouched. Several seconds passed before debris from several explosions began to rocket past the camera.
Afterwards, there was little activity for several minutes as the pod descended towards the surface at a gentle angle. They saw the ship enter the first layer of debris scattered across the edge of the atmosphere, and suddenly the camera was rocked violently, then cut out after another second, ending the video.
Silence rang through the Flight Deck after it had ended, each person processing what it had shown.
After a few moments, Frank said, “Is that it, kid? Was there any other video on the drives?”
“Yeah, just one more. It looks like it was recorded the next day… I think this one shows what happened to the occupant…” Robert replied, his voice trailing off.
Hesitating for a moment, as each crew member looked to him, Frank said, “Show me.”
Once again, the video window darkened the room, revealing the inside of the pod, which was cast into semidarkness, as many of the internal lights did not seem to be operational.
Standing directly in front of the camera, a man with a thin beard fiddled with a few controls on the console, sound suddenly blasting from the speakers on the Flight Deck, making the crew jump.
Talking very quickly, over the sounds of horrific shrieking and scraping noises, the man began talking as fast as he seemed capable, speaking in a Russian accent.
“My name is Dr. Anton Yushkov! I am a geologist for the Byron Group! My ship has crashed and I am under attack from unidentified creatures! If you are seeing this, you must leave this planet immediately and never return!”
Rattling noises began coming through the speakers, and beams of light began showing from the doorway, which had been nearly forced open.
Talking even quicker now, Dr. Yushkov began shouting in Russian, which was automatically translated for them.
“My love, I am sorry! I am so sorry! I wanted to make you rich and give you the life you deserved! I wanted you to be happy! Forgive me! Please forgive me!”
And he backed away from the camera as the door began to give, revealing that in one hand he was holding one of the same T.A.S.E.R.s that each of the humans now wore, and in the other he held a large knife, his expression terrified.
When the door finally gave way, the terrified man shouted and began shooting at the first disgusting creature through the opening, halting it and then stabbing it repeatedly. Quickly running out of ammo on the next few monsters, he began to hack at his attackers, even as he was overwhelmed and shoved into a corner, sharp claws slashing into his face, hungry mouths biting everything that they could reach.
Eventually, cries of rage and fear gave way to screams of agony, and he disappeared from view, buried under a mass of thrashing bodies.
Cutting the video short, and bringing the deck to absolute silence, Robert leaned back in his chair feeling sick.
None of them spoke for a long time.
Finally, saying what many of them had been thinking, Ryst whispered, “Do you really think any of them could still be alive?”
All eyes turned to Frank, knowing the question had been for him.
Sobered about the realities of their task, Frank took a few moments to phrase his answer, eventually replying, “Could you live with yourself if you left now and found out that we left even one person alive down there? If we left them to die the same as him?”
No one answered him.
“I thought not.”
++0009++: You are sure that they survived?
++0019++: I am positive. It seems that the lack of implants is indeed the key to safe passage through the defenses.
++0009++: Interesting. This is problematic, though I do not blame you. Do you require my assistance?
++0019++: No, I have a plan. Although the methods necessary are…unorthodox.
++0009++: As long as there is no exposure for the Hierarchy, then at this point the methods are irrelevant. Complete your task.
After Nine closed the chat room on her, Nineteen leaned back in her chair, thoughtful.
She had not been entirely truthful in saying that the required methods would be unorthodox. A lie by omission, what she had meant by “unorthodox” was really closer to “insane.”
In fact, thoughts of the Human Disaster had crossed her mind, and his antics had partially inspired her plan. After all, when dealing with humans, it paid to think like one.
Knowing that Nine was somewhere close by, watching events unfold, she opened her own private chat window, linking her primary host with the hundreds of copies she had made of her consciousness. Thinking together, her entire fleet was one mind.
<+No more mistakes. No more drones. I’ll take care of this myself.+>
Sending one of the small pirate vessels rocketing forward into the pillar of gases extending out from the stellar nursery below her, she piloted the ship herself. Completely devoid of fear, iron hard anger burning in the minds of hundreds of hosts, she waited until she saw the first gleam of copper, immediately bringing her tiny ship to a stop.
Loud noises sounded all over the vessel as the planetary defenses activated, inspecting the vessel.
As she looked without fear at the copper machine that moved to fill her viewport, all of her hosts narrowed their eyes and snarled as she at last drove the pre-prepared reactor critical with the flick of a switch.
From beyond the borders of the nebula, the entire fleet saw a bright flash for just a moment, followed seconds later by a shockwave that all of the ships felt, blasting a deep gouge away from the pillar of pink gas, vaporizing everything near the nuclear detonation.
<+Right. One vessel down. Fifty to go.+>