Citadel: First Colony (12 page)

There
was a crackle from the comms.
“Shuttle, this is base camp.”

Reilly had been going over the launch checklist, and she fumbled with the transmitter controls.

“Base camp, this is Shuttle! I read you. Is that you, Billy?”

“Yeah, Reilly. I’m glad we could reach you! The alien asked me to contact you guys.”

The alien? “Can I talk with
Captain Somar
,” Reilly said, placing a bit of emphasis on the Captain’s name. She couldn’t understand why there was so much hatred towards him. The war was over, wasn’t it? This idea that he might have had something to do with the crash was stupid. It was pure racism, and she wasn’t going to be a part of it.

“I’ll get him.”

The comms went silent, and Reilly found herself regretting the lost connection. She hadn’t realized it before, but being alone in the shuttle while the others were out hunting for the colonists was starting to get to her. She had never really been alone for so long in her life, and it was starting to wig her out a little.

“Shuttle, this is Captain Somar. I am pleased that we could make contact.”

The Captain was so formal it made Reilly smile. She liked him. He was a true leader, she felt. Maybe a bit starched, but he seemed friendly enough. “Captain, it’s good to hear your voice. Have you heard from Captain Alonzo?”

“No, I’m afraid not. How is your mission proceeding?”

“Slowly. I’ve been idle for hours, Sir. The boys all took off to get to one of the pods, and I’ve been waiting for the engines to cool. But it looks like there might be a slight change in plans.”

She explained to Somar about the crash site, as well as the plan to repair the shuttle and, hopefully, to be able to get to the colonist stasis pods more quickly.

“It is a good plan, but not without risks,” Somar said when she had finished. “If they are unable to repair the shuttle then the whole endeavor will cost us time.”

“Yes, sir,” Reilly said. “But if they can get her fixed then we’ll more than make up for it. That might make it worth the gamble.”

There was silence on the other end, and Reilly was afraid for a moment that the connection might have been lost. “Very well,” came Somar’s reply, finally. “Tell them they have my full approval. They are retrieving one of the pods first?”

“Yes, sir. It’s between us and the wreckage. And for all we know, there may be a lot of pods near the crash site, too.”

“Agreed. Then I will leave you to your work. Please give Misters Thomas, Garrison, and Angelou my compliments.”

And the connection ended.

Reilly felt as if she’d suddenly gone deaf and was reeling from the loss. She hadn’t realized how much she missed the constant communication she’d had onboard Captain Alonzo’s starship. Nearly her entire life she had been a Blue Collar, living primarily in space and only setting foot on ground when she piloted passengers and cargo to and from an orbital platform. This little stint after the crash represented the longest in-atmosphere experience she’d ever had, and she was pretty sure she hated it.

As soon as they could repair the shuttle and get these colonists back to Citadel, she was more than ready to get back into space. Captain Alonzo would have her and the other Blue Collars back to something resembling normal in no time.

She hoped.

T
homas
huffed as they crowned yet another ridge
. The terrain here was rocky and difficult, and the heat from the sun was making him feel dehydrated and exhausted. He took a sip from his canteen and looked over the landscape before them with a wary and weary expression.

If the pod was here, it was hidden damn well.

“It should be close,” Mitch said, dropping to one knee and opening up his own canteen. “I’m tempted to pour this over me instead of drinking it.”

“Don’t,” Alan said from beside them. He, too, was sweating and slightly out of breath, but it didn’t seem to impact him nearly as much. Thomas envied him. “You need to drink a lot of water, or you’ll become dehydrated.”

Mitch smiled at him. “Thanks,” he said.

“I think he was kidding,” Thomas told the boy.

Alan only nodded and stepped ahead by a few paces.

Thomas couldn’t help but laugh lightly to himself. Alan was something of a mystery. Everywhere Thomas went Alan seemed to be on his heels. But he didn’t mind. He liked the boy. Well, hardly a boy. A young man, though that term made Thomas feel every bit as old as his birth date would have implied. At any rate, Alan reminded Thomas of people he’d known long ago—scientists who had senses of humor, but hadn’t quite figured out when or where to use them. Maybe that’s why he felt so familiar.

“He respects you,” Mitch said, catching Thomas in a moment of reflection.

“No accounting for taste,” Thomas smiled.

“I don’t know about that. I’ve heard about what you did. You risked your life to go back for Lissa. That was brave.”

Thomas shrugged. “The least I could do after ... ” he stopped himself.

Mitch looked at him curiously, took a swig from his canteen, and asked, “After what?”

What could he say? After my crimes? After everything that happened in my name? “After nothing,” he said with a shrug. “I think I have a bit of survivor’s guilt.”

“Survivor’s guilt? Over what? Most of the crew survived the crash. You can’t blame yourself for the ones who died. It’s not like you were the one who sabotaged the ship. Wait ... you’re
not
the one, right?” Mitch teased.

Thomas smiled lightly, “No, I’m not the saboteur. But when we were hitting the atmosphere, I was the one Marcos ordered to release the clamps so Citadel could fall free from the orbital platform. I know that they wouldn’t have worked anyway, that someone had welded them together. But still ... Marcos sacrificed his life to cut those lines. I think part of me still thinks it might have been my fault.”

Mitch paused, nodded in contemplation, and then said, “That’s the dumbest thing I’ve ever heard.”

There was silence for a moment, and then the two men burst out laughing.

Mitch stood and clapped Thomas on the shoulder. “You had nothing to do with any of this. You’re a victim, just like the rest of us. And Alan respects you because you risked your life to save one our own. Hell, Captain Somar must respect you, too. He put you in charge of this mission, didn’t he?”

“This despite me being about as useful as a penguin in the desert.”

Mitch laughed. “Hey, if nothing else you can always eat the penguin.”

“Too true,” Thomas said. “So if we run out of food, you have my permission to eat me.”

“Noted,” Mitch said, smiling.

Both men joined Alan where he was surveying the area before them. They were prepared to carry on to the pod when the radio crackled. “Rescue this is Shuttle. I’ve just had a conversation with Captain Somar. Things are looking up.”

The
first pod lay at the bottom of a ravine.
Thomas looked down the vertiginous slope and backed away slowly. He planted his eyes on the ground at his feet and took a few deep breaths.

“Scared of heights?” Mitch asked.

“Not exactly. Scared of falls.”

Mitch grinned. “The falls aren’t so bad. It’s the sudden stops.”

“Very funny,” Thomas said.

Alan stepped forward and inspected the ridgeline. “There are some trees just north of here that seem to be growing up from the bottom of the ravine,” he pointed. “We could use those to go down.”

“But we have ropes,” Thomas said.

“We’re going to need the ropes to get the pod back up,” Mitch responded. “We passed through a clearing a short ways back that will do for a hover pick-up.”

“Hover?”

“Reilly can’t land here, not easily. But she can bring the shuttle in close and lower the cargo door. We can load the pod and be on our way to the crash site.”

Thomas considered this. “Good plan,” he said. “And all it takes is for us to climb down into a steep ravine on a tree and then haul a very heavy stasis pod up using ropes. All without dying.”

“Simple as they get,” Mitch nodded, smiling.

In moments, Mitch and Alan had rigged a pulley and carry system with the ropes, anchoring it to some of the larger boulders present and lowering it into the ravine. It would be enough to hold the weight of the pod, hopefully. Thomas wasn’t at all sure about this sort of thing, but he trusted the expertise of the two men. Not for the first time, he felt completely useless in this. What was a computer engineer doing out here, where physical strength and stamina could mean the difference between survival and death? Of course, Thomas was no slouch, physically. He kept in shape. He had always worked out, even before being sent to ...

He stopped. Best not to think about that. It was a time long passed, and remembering it now had no real purpose. There was a task to complete, and he focused on that instead.

Once the carry system was down, it was time to make their descent. The trees to the North did indeed reach the bottom of the ravine, and they looked stout enough to support their weight. Thomas had never been much of a climber himself. He hadn’t really spent much time in trees, even as a child. But it couldn’t be that hard, could it?

Mitch stepped out and put a foot on one of the branches experimentally. It seemed to bear his weight. He held onto another branch and put his full weight on the one at his feet.

With a sudden crack, the branch snapped, and Thomas cried out as Mitch was forced to hold tight to the one above him. He dangled perilously, his feet kicking wildly to reach the broken stump of the branch he had just been standing on.

“Keep close to the trunk,” Alan said. For the first time, Thomas noticed a bit of emotion in the boy’s voice, in this case alarm at the near disaster. There was hope for him yet.

“Good tip,” Mitch said, huffing. “Could have used it a few minutes ago.”

“Sorry,” Alan said, returning to near impassionate mode.

“ok, is this going to be a good idea or a bad idea?” Thomas asked. “Should we be looking for another way down?”

“This is as good as any,” Mitch said. “The base of this branch seems pretty stable. If we keep close, it should be ok. Like going down a ladder.” To prove his point, he bounced a few times on the branch, testing it.

Thomas wanted to yell at him to stop but chose instead to get this mission going. The quicker this was done the better. “Let’s get going then,” he said.

Mitch made his way slowly down the tree, followed by Alan. Mitch had nearly made it to the ground when Thomas took a deep breath and slowly reached out to grasp the first limb. He placed a foot on the base of the broken branch and soon was scaling down slowly, keeping his body close to the tree’s trunk.

It was not easy. And it certainly was not like climbing a ladder. For one thing, at this level the tree swayed in a way that made Thomas very edgy. Visions of the top half snapping off and hurling him down to the rocky bottom of the ravine were making this one of the scariest things he’d ever done. In addition, though there were branches at fairly even intervals there were still gaps where getting down took a leap of faith—literally. Thomas reached one such gap and found that he was dangling by his arms and trusting that he could keep himself stable after dropping a few inches to the limb below.

To add to the difficulty, there were thousands of tiny branches that tended to catch and tangle in his gear. At one point he lowered himself to a branch only to discover he could go no further because there were a few limbs caught in the straps of his pack, holding him up.

“Stuck,” he said, huffing.

“Try to pull yourself up a little,” Alan said. “If you twist to your right a little, those branches should let go.”

He pulled up slightly and felt some of the branches whip and smack his neck. Then, with a slight twist, he felt the rest fling free. Once again he lowered himself and found his footing.

The only real blessing was that as they descended the branches became thicker and sturdier. It was no longer necessary to hug so close to the trunk, though Thomas still tended to stay in close proximity to it. Below him, he heard Mitch call out, “Made it! It’s not so bad. There’s a long drop to the ground, though. And it slopes. We’ll have to figure out a way to get back into the tree to get back up.”

“Good to know,” Thomas called back. He was not at all thrilled about the idea of climbing back up. Getting down had been hard enough. Maybe they could find another way out once they’d recovered the pod. It was a slim hope, but he held on to it.

He had taken a brief rest and caught his breath, now it was time to get back to the climb. He put a foot on the branch below him, and just as his weight settled in, it snapped, falling away quickly.

Thomas cried out as his full weight yanked him suddenly downward, causing him to lose his grip on the branch he’d been holding. He suddenly found himself plunging through the branches, taking a brutal beating as he moved towards the ground with alarming speed.

Before he could slam into the rocky terrain below, he was brought to a sudden stop. The network of branches had caught and grabbed him, and were, for the moment, holding him aloft. He scarcely breathed, as he realized that all that stood between him and hitting the ground were a few green branches. He held very still, trying to figure out what his next move should be.

“Don’t move!” called Alan, now above him. He was hurriedly making his way down the few feet to where Thomas was being held aloft.

“Don’t worry,” Thomas said tightly.

“Can you get to him?” Mitch called from below.

“Yes, maybe,” Alan said. He was close now. Standing on the branches just above where Thomas was caught. He crawled outward on of the larger branches and reached a hand downward. “Slow,” Alan said.

Thomas slowly raised one of his arms. The motion was enough to cause some of the branches to work free, and he dropped a bit. Instantly he stopped moving.

“I think this is bad,” Thomas said slowly.

“Just wait there, don’t move,” Alan said.

“I’m coming up!” Mitch called.

“No!” Alan cried. “Stay where you are! You might shake him loose.”