Colony One (18 page)

To Niko’s thinking, it was surprisingly easy to make it look like nothing had happened on the bridge. All the surfaces were non porous so it was just a matter of soaking up the blood and making sure nothing had been damaged in the struggle. Niko’s console was fine. Avery explained she had only brought low-velocity rounds so the slug would not travel through any decking. They had found the slug on the other side of the bridge and just a dent on the lower part of Niko’s console where it had originally ricocheted after passing through her target.

Charlie’s console was another story altogether. It had cracked and splintered with the impact of the former co-pilot and they still had to determine if it would be one hundred percent functional.

Shifting from clean up to forward momentum, they all stood in the briefing room now – with the exception of Makenna who was still unconscious and with Finn being the last to report. Avery had played Rockford’s last words and summarized what Niko and she had found. She asked for a similar recount of what had happened with Makenna’s group and Finn reported on her behalf.

Charlie leaned against the wall, still holding the bio-freeze pack to the back of his head but looking overall much more relaxed. Winston had given him some anti-inflammatory after a routine examination. The doctor reported that their pilot was, indeed, concussed and would not be permitted to sleep until further notice.

“So what now?” Charlie asked after everyone was up to speed on what happened. There was a strong sense in the room of defeat and the crew looked to Avery – the closest they had to a rock. She had proven herself to be a capable and strong leader and any opinions that the others may have had were respectfully held back - like Finn’s, who was thinking it might be a good idea to return home or Niko’s, who wanted nothing more than to find Colony One, especially after seeing the fate of Colony Two.

She did not answer right away. She stood with both hands bracing the table in the center of the room, looking to the center of it where Rockford’s OMNI still lay. “Our scanners confirm what Colony Two’s sensors detected. A planet that is likely Colony Alpha. This was our original mission, and we will complete it.”

18

Colony One, Mission Duration: 9 Months

Skylar thought that she was hallucinating when Colony Alpha came within visual range. It would not have been an impossible prospect – her food rations were just as stretched as the rest of the ship’s and she often tried to go longer without her rations if possible to ensure she would have enough to eat to complete their journe
y.
She woke Patrick from where he slept in the chair next to her, “Hey,” she said when his eyes cracked open to look at her. She gestured out the viewscreen and evaluated his reaction.

He blinked rapidly and then sat up in his chair, “We made it,” he breathed and Skylar found herself breathing out a sigh of relief, as well. She knew that if she were hallucinating, it was at least a mass hallucination.

With some effort, Skylar reached out and keyed on the audio system, “This is the Captain,” she said and her words echoed throughout the ship. “Thank you all for the sacrifices you have made to get us to this point.” She paused, and then with a sigh: “We’ve made it,” she said with clear relief in her voice. “Estimated time for touch-down…” She leaned forward and tapped her interface to do some quick calculations. “Two hours. Please prepare to disembark.”

Throughout the ship there were cheers, silent tears and some tears not as silent. Disbelief, relief, gratitude – the mixture was intense for the low-energy passengers of Colony One. Demetri and Lucy embraced and didn’t let go of each other until shortly before they landed when Ndale made them detach. He needed to figure out how to get his contraband off the ship without too many people noticing, which required their help.

Jia watched the celebrations with trepidation. She found herself sinking away and out of sight to manage the anxiety she felt at the news. She, like the others, had resigned herself to the hunger and she had thought more than once that might be how she ended up dying on this voyage. Now there were other possibilities – better or worse, she wasn’t sure, she simply had the overwhelming feeling of dread at word of their decent.

Luca seemed to rally and overcome his hunger at the news, excitedly packing his bags. Alexa watched him with some envy. She had lived with a constant headache for so long, she wasn’t sure she could remember what it felt like to be pain free.

Anivashak stat cross legged on his bunk, as he often did – but instead of his meditative blank expression, he was smiling with his eyes closed. It made him look oblivious to the buzz around him, but the opposite was true. He was soaking in the moment.

Elsewhere in the ship, teems of people crowded around the largest observation window, drinking in the sight of their new home.

ɸ ɸ ɸ

Colony Alpha was a planet with some green and blue, but the vast majority of it was a sandy color that one would associate with a rocky desert land. Skylar did not waste any time and put the large ship into a degraded orbit so they could land as quickly as possible. She calculated a spot based on distance to the nearest water source according to their instruments and a space large and flat enough to land the behemoth ship.

Her estimate of two hours appeared to be accurate and it took them only a few minutes more to put down and extend the stabilizing legs. Patrick and Skylar read the numbers that came across their consoles that explained the atmosphere composition, gravitation pull – slightly less than Earth – and more. Both their faces were encouraging and the shared an excited look.

“Figures are within range,” Patrick confirmed. He looked out the viewscreen to the landscape ahead of them. It was rocky and flat, but there were what looked like trees in the distance. Patrick would have preferred to be a little closer to the trees, and the water source they had identified from orbit, but he knew Skylar could only do so much with the ship which was not designed for maneuvering.

From the cockpit, Skylar keyed in the command to open up the large aft loading ramp and felt the pressure in the ship change almost immediately. The air they had been so used was suddenly not as stale as it once was. The Captain leaned forward to key on the audio system a final time, “Welcome home, Colony One. You are free to leave the ship.” She said simply, and then turned to Patrick, “Get the scouting party together. Take the Runners and see if we can’t find a more ideal location to make ourselves at home.”

“My pleasure,” Patrick smiled for the first time in a long time, feeling renewed and excited about putting his boots on the ground.

He set himself upon his task and left Skylar alone in the cockpit. She leaned forward on the console that was dark from being deactivated. She starred out the viewscreen with a contented smile. She would stay with the ship until every passenger had exited – it was only right for the Captain to stay with her ship until the very end.

The passengers of Colony One exited the ship in record time. The air of Colony Alpha was palatable – fresh and inviting. It was a sensation none had felt before – unfiltered, clean air. Many passengers had not bothered to bring their possessions out with them. Instead, they rushed out into the open and when they got there, felt dumbfounded by the untouched lands around them. A large number simply shuffled away from the ship, looking around like newborns.

Ndale, Demetri and Lucy were among the last to leave the ship. By then, even Patrick had successfully coordinated unloading the Runners. The copilot had coordinated a team and gave out instructions before giving the green light to release the vehicles to gather more information about where they had landed. The sounds of their engines were far off in the distance when Ndale pulled a heavy bag down the separate ramp Patrick had used to offload the Runners. Demetri and Lucy followed, pulling similarly weighted bag. Demtri was surprised Ndale still had so much. It wasn’t nearly enough to share with the entire ship, so Demetri didn’t blame Ndale for holding back. More, he was impressed with the man’s restraint and steadfast attitude.

“I am going to set up a tent for us,” Ndale was saying over his shoulder. “And it must never be unattended.”

Lucy and Demetri voiced their agreement as they stepped off the ramp and onto solid ground. The two shared an excited smile that was short lived. As soon as the three stepped onto the planet’s surface, a great rumble came from the ship they had just departed. The ramp they stepped off began to close with alarming speed.

Around the aft of the ship, the loading ramp did the same – closing without manual instruction to do so. The ship’s engines engaged and the crowds around Colony One reeled away from the giant of a ship as they felt the heat of the thrusters.

“What now!?” Ndale shouted over the noise as Demetri scooped up his bag, along with the one he was already carrying and ran away from the ship.

“Hurry!” He yelled back at Ndale – Lucy was already on his heels. They ran until they couldn’t feel the heat of the engines, and then turned to look at what was happening. They were on the starboard side, relatively safe compared to the others, who were almost all exclusively to the ship’s aft. Large, oversized thrusters cast them in an ominous glow

It looked as if Colony One was attempting a launch sequence. As it did, the heat intensified and the masses at the rear of the ship ran frantically in all directions. Some ran towards the ship, looking for a way aboard – their instincts immediately told them they did not want to be left behind. This was a fool’s errand, however, as the heat overwhelmed them and they collapsed. Others looked on and those who may have wanted to stage a rescue were helpless to do so.

Angry yelling started – the only logical conclusion those on the ground could come to was that Skylar was responsible for this. She was still on the ship. She was leaving them. Why? Confusion, anger, hurt, despair, all of them collided and the crowd shook their fists and tried to scream over the deafening sounds of the engines engaging.

Skylar was in a panic. One minute, she was preparing to climb down the cockpit ladder, the next, the ship was rumbling under her feet. Hunger and exhaustion fled her mind and all she could fathom was trying to stop what was happening. She rushed back to the console and tried to make sense of what the readout was saying.

“WEIGHT THRESHOLD SATISFIED, AUTOMATED LAUNCH SEQUENCE INITIATED,” it read, and below the message, the coordinates for Earth blinked as the target destination.

“No, no, no…” She said, her face screwing up in a panicked expression. The ship was meant to be incorporated into the colonization effort – its parts used to build infrastructure and homes. It was not meant to return to Earth. It was meant to stay here with them.

Skylar tapped the console frantically, and then pounded on it when none of her override codes worked. The rumbling of the ship increased as the thrusters prepared to engage. She cursed and looked around until her eyes fell on the circuit panels lining the cockpit walls.

She began ripping them off, reaching into the gaps and pulling apart any bunch of wires and circuit boards she could get her hands on. She had pulled open almost every single panel and gutted it with no change in the launch sequence. Finally, she ripped a floor panel from the decking and began to pull electronics from their connections. A shock hit her, throwing her back and the ship gave a great shutter before everything went terribly silent.

From where she had landed, Skylar blinked at the ceiling of the cockpit. Everything was tingling and she did not immediately register that the ship had gone silent. Carefully, she pushed herself up to her elbows and surveyed her surroundings. Panel doors lay everywhere, along with wires and motherboards.

She lay very still for several minutes until she was sure that she had, in fact, stopped whatever automated sequence that had tried to take place. Finally, she pulled herself to her feet shakily and began to make her way down the ladder and to the rear of the ship. The compartments she passed were quiet and the stale air was back. She realized why when she found the loading ramp door had been shut. Still feeling that she was in a daze, she found the control panel for the ramp and keyed it to open.

As soon as the door cracked, she heard a roar of voices and the sound was almost deafening. The ramp lowered itself to the ground and she stepped into view, squinting out into the distance.

The first thing she registered were bodies on the rocky ground – some with their clothes singed off and many of them burnt. They didn’t move. Skylar knew immediately they were dead and felt a tight knot twist in her stomach. So many bodies.

The next thing she saw was a mass of people rushing towards her. Many of them were screaming and angry. Some stopped to circle around fallen bodies, others continued at her, leaping up the ramp with determined purpose.

Skylar held up her hands, “I don’t know what happened!” She tried to say over the noise but her words sounded muted against the collective anger of the crowd approaching her. She tried again, but it was in vain as the sea of people hit her like a violent wave. Some moved past her – they seemed to think being on the ship was the safest route. Others surrounded her and pushed her against the wall, yelling angrily.

“I stopped the ship! I stopped it!” She said over and over again. Many of the faces she did not recognize and the crushing weight of the mass was stifling.

Someone reached out and struck her, making her head bounce off the bulkhead. That was enough to incense the others to violence – some pulling at her clothes, others kicking. She was struggling against them and calling out for help when she felt a sharp pain in her upper right leg. She screamed involuntarily as the pain rocketed up her body.

Her scream was punctuated by the sound of a flare gun being fired into the air. It was close, and it startled the group that surrounded Skylar. They turned to see Alexa holding the double barreled flare gun. She lowered her aim to point it at the crowd. Luca and Javier were standing next to her, looking authoritative. They were on the other side of the ramp’s highest point. Beside them, an emergency container had been forced open – it held fog horns, hand lamps and more flare guns.

“Disperse!” Alexa said and added “Now!” when they did not immediately move. That did the trick, and everyone in the crowd scattered.

Skylar slid to the floor and clutched her leg. Her face tingled from a blow she had taken and her lip was cut open. She looked down to see that her leg had been gashed open. Something had cut through the fabric of her jumpsuit, into her skin and muscle.

Alexa was at the Captain’s side as soon as the crowd was gone. Javier and Luca chased off any onlookers and stood with their backs to the women to ensure their safety. The former medic did not waste time. She assessed the situation with remarkable speed and was wrapping her belt around Skylar’s thigh before the Captain knew what was happening.

“We need to get your bleeding under control,” Alexa explained in a calm voice. “Once we do that, you should be fine.” She assured with confidence, but the truth was, Alexa was not sure. In terms of unfortunate places to be stabbed, the upper leg was one of them. If her femoral artery had been hit, she would need surgery to survive the hour.

“Luca,” Alexa barked, going into a headspace she had thought she left behind, “I need you to put pressure on the wound,” She told him and showed him what she needed. Looking reluctant at first, Luca acknowledge the serious look in her eyes and pressed his palms firmly on the wound in an attempt to help stop the bleeding.