All Fall Down

planetfall

by

astrotomato

legal stuff

planetfall – book 1 – all fall down

Copyright © Graeme Maughan 2012

The right of Graeme Maughan (writing as
astrotomato
) to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise) without the prior written permission of the author. Any person who does any unauthorized act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages.

Contact the author:

[email protected]

Twitter: @astrotomato

Cover art (c) Robert Ellis 2012. Contact on Twitter for commissions @MoviesSimple

 

planetfall

book 1:

all fall down

Chapter 1 – The Oncoming Storm

Out on the edge of the Fall solar system, the wormhole glowed green. Whatever had come through was in silhouette, a black iris. The object accelerated to the inner system. It was about three metres long and two tall and two wide, with no obvious engine. Quickly it reached the dust cloud which sheathed the system, passing through it without leaving a wake. The object, black against the black of space, exited the dust clouds, and passed the system's gas giant. It sped to the inner system, faster than any ship, and orbited a planetoid near the yellow sun for a minute, before moving outwards again, to the desert planet Fall, where it passed the planet's orbital sensors.

           
It moved into the planet's atmosphere. The whole journey had taken it ten minutes.

Huriko stood on the surface of Fall by her science experiments. She was bewildered, as if she'd woken too soon from a sleep. She checked the time on her wrist comms device, “Oh no.” She looked up to the horizon, which had already purpled with the oncoming storm.

           
Quickly, she put away the tools littered around her into the small bag she'd brought with her. The scientific experiments would have to wait. Huriko tapped her wrist device with gloved fingers, “Colony, I'm ready for pick up. Colony? Kiran, are you there?”

           
A dust devil danced across the desert floor. The horizon bruised further.

           
She kept a hand on her wrist to feel for its vibration; a reply.

           
Another dust devil danced, quicker, more turbulent.

           
“Where are you? Colony? Kiran?” She pulled scarves tighter around her face mask and checked her suit. Should she start walking? Her environment suit was only rated for a single sun.

           
The horizon was darker, almost black. Soon it would lighten as the second sun rose.

           
Her comms device remained silent. She tapped it frantically, screaming through her protective face covering, “Kiran? Kiran, where are you? I need urgent pick up!”

           
The first biting specks of dust and sand whipped past, pattering against her goggles.

           
Panicking, Huriko broke into a jog, racing into the rising wind and against the light, trying to reach the Colony entrance before she was baked by the double sun or battered by the storm.

Fall was the only habitable planet in the system from which it took its name. Its orbit was a strange loop around the twin suns.

The planet's permanent sandstorm raged across Fall’s desert surface. The blue dwarf sun was high in the sky. The slowly rising yellow sun drove the storm around the planet’s curve. With the combined solar radiation, the surface started to become a deadly, irradiated place. The planet surface was featureless, except for one area. Towards the equator were the only signs of habitation. The floral surface features of an underground Colony were near Fall's only natural feature, a storm eroded rock island, an inselberg.

Still two kilometres from the Colony, and approaching the inselberg, Huriko battled against the roaring wind, heading towards the horizon where the second sun would show. The leading edge of the storm was upon her. Her shoulders were hunched; a headscarf was wrapped tightly around her face, leaving the thinnest gap through which the glint of goggles was just visible. Briefly, she leaned into a particularly strong gust of wind, unable to move forward. The wind dropped slightly, and she stumbled back into a laboured stride. Each step forwards was an effort, and she dragged footfalls of sand with each step.

She tapped her wrist pad constantly, having long since given up trying to shout above the wind. Her goggles misted as tears of frustration and dread evaporated. Where was Kiran? If she was still stuck out here when the yellow sun broke the horizon she would be dead within minutes. And she estimated she only had twenty minutes until the full storm front hit her. She battled to avoid death.

Sand filled the air, the desert floor shifted. The fury of the sandstorm was mindful for a moment, relaxed to a strong wind. Visibility improved, the air turning from a yellow-black blur to a smudge of different colours.

The horizon started to change colour, too. Huriko risked a look above ground level: second sunrise was fast approaching. She must hurry. In the distance, hidden in the storm was the Colony entrance, her destination. The immediate sound of the storm diminished to a dull roar, filtered through her suit's head piece and mask. Casting a quick look behind, Huriko saw her footsteps had been obliterated. There was no trace of her struggle. Beyond, behind her, the darker horizon was a sickly black, the dust clouds refracting the blue dwarf’s cool glow.

Behind her face scarves, radiation shield and breathing filters, she could smell the dry tang of the desert, the aroma of a landscape thirsty for water, for nutrition.

She checked the external air temperature: 52ºC already. Her environment suit was working hard to keep her cool.

Reaching the outcrops of the inselberg, Huriko rested briefly in the weak shadows on the lee side. There wasn’t much time to spare. When the second sun rose, the radiation levels would be more deadly than the storm and temperature combined. Adjusting her headscarf, she set out once again for the Colony entrance, staying in the shadows of the rocky outcrops wherever she could.

She grit her teeth and struggled to save her life, tapping on her wrist as she went.

“Pilot.”

           
Kiran Ha'Doek looked up from the aircar, where he was uncoupling power cables. “Yes, Ma'am?” He straightened out his jump suit for the Operations Director, Sophie Argus.

           
“I'm re-assigning you to Doctor Currie. Please help him move some equipment.”

           
“But there's a scientist still up top.”

           
Sophie held Kiran's gaze, “I'll go, Pilot. There are some issues at an air exchange site I need to see to.”

           
“Yes, Ma'am.” He moved to go and looked back, “Be quick. Storm's coming fast. The scientist's name is Huriko. Huriko Maki.”

           
“Thank you, Pilot. That will be all.”

           
Kiran nodded and left the hangar.

           
Sophie watched him go and waited. The hangar was otherwise empty. In the aircar, the comms device burst into static life, “
Colony, I'm ready for pick up. Colony? Kiran, are you there?
” Sophie leaned in and shut it off.

           
There would be no need to update the aircar's flight log. Sophie would never make the journey. But then, Kiran wouldn't remember that Huriko needed collecting.

           
Satisfied, Sophie left the hangar and went to find the Colony's Administrator. On her way, because the Fall Colony was a classified installation, she sent a standard signal to Military Intelligence informing them of the loss of one of their
 
scientists due to exposure.

           
But other than that, it was easier than she imagined to forget about Huriko.

The storm strengthened and whipped the air into submission. Huriko struggled through, following the inselberg's flank. The rock surface was smooth on this side, though riddled with deep fissures, cracks and some gaps like valleys. She trailed her right hand along the rock to keep balance as the sand shifted underfoot and the gusting air tried to force her back.

Halfway round the inselberg, Huriko approached a small valley. Dust and sand howled through the air. Visibility dropped to less than a metre. She laboured on for a few more metres, wind howling around her, unable to see. And stopped. It was an abrupt stop, leaving her prone to the gale. Huriko turned to the valley and looked into shadows, her posture and attention caught between curiosity and flight.

Protected from the storm, the valley entrance at an angle such that the wind howled past and left all calm within, and wreathed in the shadows, hovering a metre above the ground, was a black mass, an entity, three metres long and two tall, with a surface pitted like acne, organic. It showed no sign that it had been discovered. It hung in the air, brooding, sandwiched between hundreds of metres of rock on either side. It could almost be sheltering, though in Huriko's racing thoughts she would not have been able to say from what: the deadly scouring of the sand, or the intensity of the approaching sun? Long seconds passed. Huriko had to use all of her strength to stay standing still, at the edge of this valley, on the leading edge of the oncoming storm.