by Luke Norris
“We got them out of the ship because we always have drivers with us planetside.” The captain said. “We need to control them, and that’s exactly what we would be doing if all the chemicals weren't sinking with our landing craft right now.” He put his hand on his forehead. “We need to get to civilization, and we need to get off this godforsaken planet.”
The sergeant held his gaze then the spat on the ground. “But I thought you said this planet was early first-stage, they aren't singing yet. I thought you said this planet was...you know, basically cavemen.”
“No well they won't be cavemen, but there are no radio waves, no communication, nothing like that.” He paused, “and there are certainly no spaceships!” He gazed up at the alien sky as if he could somehow see their ship in orbit. “The planet was definitely not singing. They are going to be really primitive.”
Verity could see the captain contemplating, concocting a plan. He always had an answer, she had to give him that.
He looked around at the men on the ground, one of them was starting to move. “Alright, this is what we are going to do, we are all going to put jumpsuits on. We will look like them, talk like them, speak like them, and behave like them!” The captain ordered.
“I'm not going to act like a driver.” The engineer with blond hair spoke up. “Do I look like some ruddy first-stage man?”
The sergeant turned around and grabbed the smaller man by the scruff of the neck. “You will do as your captain says.” He snarled, and the scar on his lip stretched.
The captain was squatted down with his hand on his forehead leaning forward. He was thinking. “We have to get them to behave without chemical controls. Is that possible?”
“Well,” the sergeant said releasing Riff, “everything is possible, but why should we?”
“Because, if they work out who we are, if they work out that we are their captors, they will turn on us and that could be very dangerous. The captain’s eyes portrayed a hint of mischief. “We have to pretend that we are captives just like them, convince them that we need to be going south. This is the way we need to be going to reach civilization, and make contact with the mothership. ”
“Is it worth the risk? How are we going to get them to do that?” the sergeant asked.
“They shouldn’t be hard to manipulate,” Yarn said, “we need them as soldiers because we don't know what we are going to come up against, or who we are going to face. They are going to be far better strategists than us, and they are expendable. I would rather sacrifice them than any of us. Look around! Look where we are!” The captain indicated to the mountains. On cue, a gap in the cloud opened to expose the peaks, black knives piercing the stratosphere above them.
Makes the last planet, Earth, look like a Terras cruise. Verity thought.
The sergeant smiled, or the closest thing he could muster and nodded toward Verity and Shira. “What about, you know...those two? They don't really fit the profile of drivers.”
“Yes, but the drivers don't know that.” The captain said. He looked at the large men unconscious on the ground. “They don't know what the profile of a driver is, they are just used to being obedient. We can conceal ourselves amongst them. We just have to behave like drivers. Put on your acting faces people!”
“Well, communication doesn’t sound like a likelihood, sir.” The sergeant said. “The ship’s data showed the Local inhabitants to be very primitive.”
“Yes, but it’s the only plan we've got. Get the others over to explain. Be quick about it, these drivers are starting to wake up. Lie down and pretend we're asleep, and stay that way until the others are awake!”
“I'm not going to behave like a driver,” the lieutenant said, disgusted as she looked down at the inert forms.
She had hardly finished her sentence when the captain’s open palm caught her hard across the cheek. Her ears rang. He stood up close, so their noses were inches apart and he could see lieutenant’s pupils fluctuating in size. He lowered his voice. “You will do exactly as I tell you to do, and if you do not, you are expendable. We only have one chance of survival, and that is if we convince them that we are all the same,” he took a deep breath, “persuade them we have to go south to the coast.” He resumed his matter of fact tone. “If the worst comes to the worst, we will kill them, but in the meantime, we will behave just the way we need to in order to stay alive.”
“What a mess! How are we going to get out of this?” The lieutenant said to Verity, whose dark brown eyes stared back unable to hide the anxiety. The lieutenant turned back to the captain with a petulant look, rubbing the stinging ear.
“What do you think?” Yarn turned to Riff and Costa. “Can one of you make any sense of this?”
“Well sir,” the engineer said, “our landing ship was sabotaged from within. One of our robotoids sabotaged it causing us to crash. That much is clear. What if the same thing has happened up top?”
“Preposterous!” Shira cut in. “The robots are not even in the same part of the ship, they're kept down in the quarters, and they’re not even in the living area. How can the servants even get up there?”
“Well, maybe they overcame the barriers… I don't know, maybe they got through.” He could hear how absurd his words sounded and trailed off. “Have you heard of anybody getting through before?”
“No!” The sergeant said. “As soon as they go to the unit doors the main computer turns them off. They're dead before they get near us.”
“Alright.” The captain sighed. “We have to assume the worse. Somehow they've managed to get around our protections. It's possible that everybody up there is in trouble,” He paused, “possibly dead.”
“Dead?” The lieutenant nearly screamed the word but suppressed it quickly not to prematurely wake one of the sleepers beside her. “Are you serious? Everybody?”
“It’s possible.”
“How are we going to get back up?” A fourth man broke in. He was by far the biggest of the group. He was a mercenary they had picked up on the trading post before Earth. Verity had joined the crew at the same time. “I mean, look at the ship!” He indicated to the mound of water that once was the landing craft. “It's submerged, and we can't get off this planet without it.”
“That is correct,” The captain’s tone was measured, “and so we must survive.”
Survive? Verity thought. It’s not developed. There’s no technology, and there were absolutely no signals. They're probably still running around in cave suits.
“The thing is,” The captain said, “we’ve got no choice until we get help from above. And failing that, we are going to have to find a way to get back up to orbit.”
“And, and how do you propose this?” Shira spat the words at him. “Are you going to build a rocket ship out of wood?”
“We are going to shave every bit of hair off our body!” Yarn said.
“Are you out of your mind? I'm not shaving my hair off!”
The lieutenant flinched involuntarily as he stepped up closer. The stinging reminder of his last reprimand still upon her cheek, but he continued in a more persuasive tone.
“There is a danger here, I mean look at us and look at them!” They looked at the chemically shaved men. “Over the next few days they will return to who they are without the chemicals, whoever that is, and they will be looking for someone to blame. If they work out who we are, they will blame us!” They looked at the burly men they had pulled from the craft “We have to convince them that this is normal, that we are the same. We have to be angry. We have to be blaming...us, civilized people, for what's been done to them, for being turned into slaves. Do you see it now?”
“I don't know why we have to shave.” Verity plucked up the courage to speak for the first time since the nightmare began. Her dark eyes showed hints of fear, but strong fine features gave away a quiet underlying determination.
“Listen!” The captain said “I know you are new to our crew, but you have to understand! These men are our little remote control g
enerals, only used to receiving orders from the mothership or from us remotely while they are on the planet. They have never actually seen us. We have to use all our skill to keep them at bay. We have to work together and whatever we do, do not refer to each other by our titles, or our societies names.” He put emphasis on the last part to let the point sink in before continuing. “We will use our short names, so they sound like driver names, like the ones they use and respond to. These are the names we have allocated for them in the command language, not their original names. That brings me to another point, we must all speak the command language when they wake! I know it’s the language they will all speak until the drugs wear off at least. We just have to convince them that south is the direction to go, the ship’s computer mapped larger concentrations of people there.”
“It’s where we should have landed in the first place.” said the engineer, as he rolled one of the sleeping onto his side with his boot. The sleeper had been gurgling on his tongue.
“In the meanwhile, we have to be as if we are all soldiers just like them!” The captain continued.
“You mean slaves!” Verity said, dark eyes defiant.
He turned away, ignoring the comment. “Ok men get some equipment and start cutting hair off. We need to do it over there, so nobody finds it.” He indicated to the river where the flow pushed up against the bank. “We don't want somebody to see a whole lot of hair lying on the ground and put two and two together.” He looked at the meager supplies. “Damn. We have hardly any equipment here. Have we got something to light fires at least? It could get cold here at night time.”
“I managed to salvage one of the solid projectile blaster guns on my last dive. “ The mercenary held out the firearm to the captain. “It could light fires, the energy dissipates again when it hits anything solid...they're explosive. It will run out eventually though because we can't charge it.”
The captain reached out to take the weapon but then stopped, considering for a moment. “Hold on to it for now!” The mercenary smiled, gave a satisfied chuckle and slipped it into his utility belt.
The captain’s brow furrowed in concentration. “Okay you lot, get that gear. We have to start shaving, and we all have to wear jumpsuits!” He ordered.
“Oh my god, I'm not wearing one of those stinking military jumpsuits.” The lieutenant said.
“Yes, you are!” the captain replied, “you're wearing one, and so are we. You can put it on, or the sergeant can do it for you.”
The sergeant just nodded at the remark, blue eyes unblinking. “Quickly get some of the jumpsuits from those over there!” He ordered. “How many are there?”
“Thirteen of them sir.” The blond engineer was rolling one over, sizing him up.
“Don't you call me sir again Riff! Are you trying to paint a target on my back? Haven't you heard a word our captain...we've said.” He caught himself about to make the same mistake. “We need six jumpsuits!”
Quickly the men started stripping sleepers of their white one-piece jumpsuits, then they took the sleepers and tossed them in the river. The swirling water carried the inert bodies under immediately.
“Stop! What are you doing? Verity couldn’t conceal her horror and disgust. “They're still alive.”
“Don't need them anymore,” came the distracted reply from the engineer. He heaved another body into the water.
“You can't just throw them in the river alive!” She was helpless.
“They're asleep. They don't know what’s happening.” The blond man explained as he rolled the next form onto his stomach to release the clip and slide the suit off more easily. The other men laughed.
“Come on, we need one more.” He stripped the last body and tossed it into the river. He threw the man’s the jumpsuit to Verity. She caught it, gaping at the engineer.
Seven bodies were left on the ground. If they only knew how narrowly they escaped the same fate, she thought.
“This is wrong.” She turned to the lieutenant for support. “Do something!”
“They're only drivers. Just relax! You're not thinking straight because of the crash.” The lieutenant gave her a thin plastic smile for reassurance.
Verity looked around for any support, but they were busy with the task at hand. She turned away in shame, her brown eyes wet and unable to bear witness to the sleeping men being murdered in front of her.
“Let’s stay focused!” Said the captain. “Our main objective is to get to civilization, get communication and if possible, get off the planet. The Patrolers were hot on our trail when we hightailed it from Earth. We only just managed to escape that planet. They will be tracking our signal and most likely following us. This planet isn't singing though so they may not think to look here. At least it's a good place to hide.” he explained.
“How far behind us will they be?” Shira asked.
That bastard is enjoying this, enjoying the chase. Verity recognized his quirks, the way he pinched the skin below his bottom lip when he was scheming.
“Well, at our body’s current metabolic rate,” the captain tossed numbers in his head, “I don't know I can't do the math, perhaps a hundred years behind us. Can we survive a few hundred years?”
“I can’t be sure if slow-time is possible on the planet.” The engineer replied. “Technically we should be able to slow down, but it’s going to be difficult. Either way, we have to get to the ship and get out of here before they turn up.”
The captain had stripped off naked and was having his hair shaved by the mercenary.
Verity let the lieutenant do the same. Shouldn’t she be feeling some pang of regret? She just felt numb, watching her flowing brown hair fall to the ground. In any normal circumstance, this would have been the most humiliating Verity could imagine, but everything was so surreal, shaving her hair seemed trivial next to the men she had just seen murdered by her crew members.
“Everybody upstairs is still in slow time,” Shira said as she shaved another thick lock from Verity. “We have to get back up into our own normal habitat and slow down otherwise our lives will be expended on this stinking planet.”
They had all stripped off naked by this stage. They finished shaving under the arms and above the genitalia. Lastly, Riff swapped with Cass and shaved the already short cropped hair of the mercenary.
The jumpsuits didn't fit Verity or Shira very well, being designed for bulky men and not women, but they had chosen the smallest suits they could find.
Yarn looked at the five other crew members and laughed. “You all look like, well...drivers.”
A moan rose from one of the real drivers. The captain’s expression became serious. He looked at his crew members. “Ok everybody lie down!” He ordered. “We are just going to wait. They are starting to stir now, they will be waking over the next hour or two. Pretend to be asleep until they are up, and then we will take it from there!”
Verity reluctantly laid down on the bank in the same fashion as the others. Soon the scene on the side of the bank, a landing vehicle now toppling into the river, and thirteen bodies lying on a grassy verge next to the jungle, all returned to relative peace.
So it was, that on a sunny afternoon on a planet that had one large moon and one small moon, a slightly orange sun, birds alive in the trees, animals crawling in the undergrowth, a frigid alpine breeze blowing along a riverbank in the mountains, men began to stir from a chemically induced slumber, that for some, had lasted centuries.
7. Thirteen castaways
This time when Oliver woke, it was not to the spaceship interior that had become his world. He was breathing fresh air and felt warm sunlight on his body. He lay on his back, and was that grass? Was that the sound of birds? Where are Lego, Toro, and the other Robotoids? Why do I feel wet? He had been awake for some minutes, but stayed on his back and tried to take stock of his surrounds. What about the plan to space-walk along the ship and the plan to find the crew and take revenge? Lego had said we were coming into orbit of a planet. Did the plan get disru
pted? The last thing he remembered was preparing for “upgrade surgery” as Lego had referred to it.
Oliver could hear the voices of other men around him. He recognized the language being spoken. It was the military command language he had also been programmed with. The commanding megalomaniacal behavior was familiar to him. They were other drivers, just as he had been on Earth. Other men who had been sleeping next to him on the ship.
Lego and Toro had freed him from the chemically induced sleep, but where are they now? Did they sabotage this landing craft?
He knew first-hand how dangerous drivers could be in their current state and decided it would be safest to play along, not reveal that he was sober, and not under the same chemical restraints.
The first sleeper was a tall man. Skin deep ebony. He stood and looked around in confusion. Normally the serfs they controlled weren't wearing jumpsuits like the men around him on the ground. Jumpsuits meant other drivers, that didn't make sense. There had to be normal people. He wouldn't have been woken unless there was somebody to command. But all around him were those in command jumpsuits.
He was trying to think, and then he called out. “Serfs! Serfs!” Nobody came. He reached up and touched the ear-piece on his helm “Command, Drake reporting! What are your orders?” No response. He tried again. “Drake reporting! Orders?” Still, no answer came. Then he looked around, reached over and kicked one on the ground next to Oliver. “You, get up! Get up!”
The one on the ground opened his eyes and looked up with a look of hatred and distrust on his dark face. “Don't kick me again fool or you will be a dead man.”
Somebody else was waking up too. “You two come over here!” Said the waking driver with authority.
“Don't tell me what to do.”
Oliver mimicked what the others were doing. “Cougar reporting,” he said pretending to listen to his helmet intercom. “What are your orders control?
The scene erupted around Oliver. They all started to wake up as the sleeping drugs started to release their hold. They were all expecting the same thing, obedience, mindless followers who would obey their command. One of the men touched the earpiece on his helm, “Ponsy reporting. Control, orders?”
