by J. J. Green
Far above, the Mistral was growing more distant from the Nova Fortuna, though the colony ship remained visible at the edge of one screen. Aubriot was letting go with all weapons forward, streaks of light streaming into the darkness of space. Still, the alien ship didn’t show up on the visuals. It was like they were firing at an invisible, malevolent ghost.
Suddenly, the bridge of the Mistral erupted in whoops and cheers.
“Yes,” Aubriot exclaimed. He leapt from his seat and collected high fives around the room. The Mistral’s crew hugged and punched the air.
It seemed a safe time to contact Addleson. Unlike the rest of the crew on the bridge, he wasn’t elated. He looked serious and sad, bent over his controls.
“What’s happened?” Cariad asked.
“Bastards turned tail,” Addleson replied. “They ran. I wish we could go after them and finish them off, but their ship’s about ten times as fast as the Mistral.”
“Thank the stars,” Cariad said. “Do you think they’ll be back?”
“Probably not for a while. Aubriot got some good hits in. I think that’s why they chickened out. They’ll have to make repairs. Or maybe wait for the rest of the fleet.”
Cariad clenched her jaw. “That’s what I was thinking.” Though the colonists seemed to have beaten off the aliens, she doubted that was the last they would see of them.
“Do you have comm with the Nova Fortuna?” Cariad asked.
“Nope,” Addleson replied. “It’s been dead for a while.” Then he said, “Holy shit!”
“What?”
“She’s dropping out of orbit!”
“I thought she might be,” Cariad replied. “I was hoping I was wrong.”
“No, unfortunately.”
“Are your scanners picking up anything on a shuttle leaving?”
After a pause, Addleson replied. “No. Geisen should abandon ship soon though. A couple more people are still aboard too, right?”
“Yes. My techs.”
“Don’t worry. I’m sure she’ll get them away. More importantly, what’s going to happen when the ship hits?”
“I’m trying not to think about it,” said Cariad. Billions of tons of starship impacting the surface of Concordia would be sure to wreak utter devastation.
“Better keep everyone down there in the shelter for now,” said Addleson.
“Yes. It isn’t like there’s anything left for us to return to anyway. Is your system giving an estimate of the time of the impact?”
Addleson checked. “The remaining engines are working to slow the fall. I guess that’s Geisen’s doing. Hopefully she’ll put the ship on auto and evacuate soon. Uhhh… The ship’s going to hit in about six hours.”
“Where?”
“The ocean to the east of you,” Addleson said.
Cherry asked, “That’s better than it hitting land, isn’t it?”
***
As each minute leading to the crash of the Nova Fortuna passed, more and more of the sheltering colonists were drawn to the control room. They crowded inside and leaned in at the door. The Mistral had its scanners and cameras trained on the colony ship, tracking its smooth descent.
No shuttle had launched. The generally accepted reason was that the alien attack must have damaged the shuttle bay. Whether that was true didn’t really matter. There was clearly an insurmountable problem preventing Geisen, Florian, and Cassie from abandoning ship. The comm lines were dead, so no one would ever know.
Cariad was trying not to imagine her techs spending their final hours together, knowing their inevitable fate. She wished with all her heart she’d fought harder to persuade them to come down to the planet and shelter in the bunker with everyone else. Or that she’d convinced them to change places with her.
Kes had joined her in the room and had his arm around her shoulders.
On the visual from the Mistral, the sun was dancing at the edge of the horizon. Morning would be arriving at the settlement soon, and along with it would come the after-effects of the impact of the Nova Fortuna.
Addleson comm’d Cariad. When she answered he said, “I need to speak to you in private.”
Cariad pushed out of the comm room, through the crowd of people staring, zombie-like, at the screens. When she told Addleson he could speak freely he said, “I asked the Mistral’s computer to calculate the repercussion of the Nova Fortuna’s impact. You need to get everyone out of the shelter immediately. Though the ship will hit hundreds of kilometers away, the tsunami will be so massive it’s going to reach as far inland as where you are.”
Cariad cursed. “But what can we do? We can’t climb on roofs. The settlement’s razed.”
“I don’t know. But if everyone stays there you’ll all drown. You have to get them out and on to the highest ground you can. You only have a couple of hours at most.”
“Okay.” Cariad closed the comm. They had already lost everything above ground and they were about to lose everything aboard the Nova Fortuna too. Would the onslaughts against the colony never cease?
Chapter Forty
“Out. Be careful. Out. Be careful.” The voice had droned on for what seemed like hours. It was driving Ethan insane. Ganika was sitting hunched up, her hands over her ears, rocking. Her father was doing his best to comfort her, but the strain of hearing the constant repetitions of the voice was showing on his face.
At first, Ethan had entertained a wild hope that the threads were about to set them free. What else could they mean by Out? But no means of leaving the chamber had materialized and the word had turned into a cruel taunt. Out was the one thing they wanted more than anything yet they would never achieve it. What the threads meant by Be careful, Ethan had no idea. Imprisoned as they were, they had no option about being careful or careless.
The only upside to the previous few hours was that the pain from Ethan’s severed limb had lessened somewhat. Either that or he’d become more accustomed to it. Whatever the cause, he found he was now able to think straighter than he had when he’d first returned to consciousness in the cell.
Over the sound of the threads’ endless message, he and Rudra had managed several conversations. Ethan had told Rudra more about his experiences outside the settlement and in the threads’ chamber under the river, and Rudra had spoken about colony life up until the point that he and Ganika had been captured.
The latter wasn’t particularly informative for Ethan. It turned out that Rudra and his daughter had been dragged into the lake not long after Ethan had left on his expedition. All he discovered was that Cherry had been conscientiously managing both his farm and her own, and that Cariad was spending time at the settlement conducting some sort of assessment on the progress of the colonization. That had struck Ethan as rather odd considering the amount of work she already had on her hands restocking the gene pool.
When he could block out the drone of Out. Be Careful, Ethan thought a lot about Cariad. It was both heartening and heart-breaking to know that she was so near at hand and yet utterly unreachable. She probably thought he was hundreds of kilometers away, cataloging Concordia’s life forms and assessing their potential danger to the colony.
Maybe she was wondering when he would return. Eventually, she might begin to worry that he’d been gone so long. Finally, perhaps years in the future, she would give up hope and accept that he was dead. Only he might still be trapped in a chamber in a lake only kilometers away and she would never know.
“It has to stop some time,” Rudra said hopefully, over the droning voice. “There’s no point in them continuing to harass us with this sound.”
Ethan replied, “I don’t think we can begin to guess why the threads do something, or whether they have any point. They aren’t from Earth. Who knows what they think?”
“Maybe. I just wish they were trying to speak to us.”
“I thought I made some progress with communicating with them,” said Ethan, “but after days of work we’d only managed to exchange a few words and even then I wasn
’t sure that Quinn understood me.”
“Quinn?”
“That was what I called the creature that I was communicating with. Giving it a name made the process easier.”
Rudra said, “I guess they’ve been trying something different with me and Ganika. I must have said those words thousands of times since we were captured. I’ve talked a lot about getting out and I’m always telling her to be careful. The threads must have built something that replicates human speech and now they’re observing how we react.”
“Yes,” Ethan agreed. “I don’t know what’s the best response to it. Maybe the threads don’t understand that we don’t communicate by endlessly repeating the same words. From what I’ve seen of them, they’re constantly in motion. Perhaps this sound we’re hearing is the equivalent of their communication style, except in human speech.”
“Whatever the hell it is, I wish it would stop,” Rudra said.
And it did.
The silence pressed in on Ethan’s ears as he and Rudra stared at each other in surprise. Before they could say anything, however, the floor jerked. Ethan placed his hands on it, expecting it to drop and water to flood the cell. But when the floor jerked again, it moved upward.
“Daddy?” Ganika clambered to her feet and threw her arms around her father’s neck.
A grinding, groaning sound came from all around and the floor began to rise steadily. The walls diminished in height as they slipped below the rising surface. Ethan looked up at the glowing ceiling, which was drawing rapidly closer.
If the floor didn’t stop rising, he, Rudra, and Ganika would be crushed against it.
“Daddy,” Ganika repeated insistently, as if expecting her father to do something to make the scary sensation stop. But Rudra could only grip his daughter tightly, fear written all over his face.
What could be done? The rise of the floor was relentless.
Ethan stood up awkwardly, balancing on his intact leg, leaning against the wall. The ceiling was just above his head. He reached up and prepared to brace himself against it. Rudra saw what he was doing and followed suit. Perhaps, between both of them, they could halt the progress of the rising floor. Ganika grabbed her father’s leg and wailed.
The floor pushed Ethan’s head against the ceiling. His effort was having no effect. His head was forced down and his shoulder took its place. Rudra was grunting with effort as he too buckled under the pressure of the floor.
Ethan was forced to his knees. His stump complained loudly.
“Ethan,” Rudra said, grimacing. “It’s been good knowing you.”
Before Ethan could reply, the floor stopped.
The two men and small girl were in a space only about a meter tall. The warm, glowing ceiling and smooth floor were the new boundaries of their world. Depriving them of space as well as everything else in their lives seemed a particularly cruel joke.
“Well,” said Rudra, “at least we aren’t dead.”
A clunk sounded. Lines defining a square appeared in the ceiling. The square lifted up and away.
Daylight shone in.
Shock froze Ethan for a moment. Rudra was similarly affected. Ganika crawled toward the hole.
“Quick,” Ethan exclaimed. “Get out. Get out. I think they’re setting us free.”
Rudra scooted over to the square space, grabbing Ganika under one arm along the way.
“Thank the stars,” he shouted. “Sunlight! I can see sunlight.” He stood up, lifting his daughter with him.
Ethan watched Rudra’s legs as the man climbed out of the hole. As Ethan followed, he squinted hard against the brightness of the light, even though the sun was only just rising. The first thing he noticed was a fresh breeze, blowing the sweat from his body.
“Ethan,” Rudra shouted. “This way.” He was walking over the roof of the chamber, holding Ganika’s hand. The chamber was close to the lake shore and soon the man and his daughter were splashing and scrambling through the waves.
Ethan’s eyesight had been confined to small spaces for so long, it took him a moment to take in his surroundings. As he climbed out of the chamber he noticed an electric fence stood all around the shoreline. That hadn’t been there before. A familiar farmhouse stood not far away. His own. Or it had been his. Perhaps someone else lived there now.
“Quickly,” Rudra shouted. “Let’s get out of here. Before they change their minds.” He was over at the fence.
Ethan crawled over the roof of the chamber and into the shallow water that lay between it and the shore. He half-crawled, half hopped through the waves. When he reached the lake’s edge, he turned back to look at the rectangular roof of the threads’ prison, half expecting one or more of the creatures to rise from the lake. A wild joy took hold of him, almost a madness. He had a vision of Quinn’s tentacle lifting out of the water and waving goodbye.
Finding himself unable to hop in sand, Ethan set off crawling to join Rudra and Ganika at the fence. Rudra was trying to lift the bottom of it to give Ganika space to crawl through but when he saw Ethan’s progress he abandoned his effort and ran back to him. He helped him rise to his feet and supported him as they returned to the wire boundary.
“Hey,” Ethan shouted, his hands cupping his mouth. “Hey!” He thought his voice would be heard at his old farmhouse but after several more attempts to announce their presence, no one replied. Perhaps the house was empty after all.
Both men exerted their all their strength trying to lift the bottom of the fence, but it had been secured in place with heavy staples, driven deep into the ground.
“They must have done this to prevent other children from going under it like Ganika did,” said Rudra.
They tried some more, but neither of the men could loosen the staples with their bare hands.
“It’s no good,” said Ethan. “We’ll have to climb over.”
“Can you manage?” Rudra asked.
“I’m going to have to. Can you carry Ganika?”
“She can hold on like a monkey, can’t you?” Rudra asked his daughter.
“Yes, Daddy,” Ganika exclaimed. She was still clutching Rooty to her chest.
Ethan wondered if she would keep the toy and if, in the years to come, she would remember her weeks of confinement.
They set about scaling the fence. It wasn’t easy for Ethan to do with only one foot but his arms helped to compensate for his missing appendage. As he reached the top, he saw a wide view of the farming district. It struck him as odd that, among the fields and farmsteads dotted among them, no one was about. Though the hour was early, farmers usually began their working days soon after the sun rose.
Out, the threads had said. Their captives were now “out.” But what had the creatures meant by, Be careful?
Chapter Forty-One
Cariad was one of the last to leave the bunker. Cherry and other colonists had organized the evacuation of the shelter and were helping everyone find the highest ground available before the tsunami hit. Addleson had sent down both of the Mistral’s shuttles to collect as many children, elders, and sick or injured as possible. Both shuttles had departed crammed, but there was no time for them to make a return trip. All the settlers who remained planetside would have to do the best they could to survive the tsunami when it arrived.
A view on a screen of the slowly falling Nova Fortuna occupied Cariad’s attention. She couldn’t stop wondering what was going through her techs’ and Geisen’s minds as they awaited their fate, trapped aboard the ship. She imagined they were probably together somewhere, comforting each other, trying to stay strong to the end.
She wished she had a final chance to say goodbye and tell them how much they meant to her. On the other hand, if the comm channel was open, seeing them and not being able to help them would be almost unbearable.
Addleson had told her the Mistral’s computer calculated the tsunami would reach the settlement about forty minutes after the colony ship impacted the ocean. She knew she should leave and try to find somewhere out of t
he reach of the tsunami, but she couldn’t seem to tear herself away from the screen.
The true size of the Nova Fortuna became more apparent as it neared the planet surface. In all the years that she’d worked on the colonization project on Earth, of all the possible scenarios for how the project might unfold, Cariad had never once imagined that the ship would meet its end by crashing into the destination planet. The ship’s wheel had entirely ceased turning, but the Nova Fortuna’s last three passengers would already be feeling the gravity of Concordia pulling them to its core.
The portion of the planet Nova Fortuna was passing over was in daylight, and the ship’s battle scars were easy to see. Scorch marks were scored across large swathes of its skin and in places the metal was buckled and torn. It wasn’t hard to imagine that the shuttle bay had sustained such heavy damage that evacuating in one of the vessels was impossible.
“Cariad! What are you doing still here?” Cherry was standing in the control room entrance as she had only hours before, though it felt like days ago to Cariad.
“I… ” In truth, Cariad didn’t know why she was still there.
Cherry didn’t wait for an answer. “Come with me, quickly. Unless you want to drown? I’ve tried it and, believe me, it sucks.” She walked into the room and took Cariad’s hand. “Come on. I don’t know what’s gotten into you.”
Cariad stood mechanically, feeling like a child. As Cherry led her from the room, she took a final look over her shoulder at the screen. The Nova Fortuna was dropping at speed toward the ocean. She hit. A massive wave arose. Then Cariad left and saw no more.
***
The churning, roiling tsunami approached, its surface thick with displaced vegetation. Sluglimpets could be seen in it too, upending or spinning in the current, their legs wriggling. The settlers stood on the roofs of the handful of settlement buildings that remained standing, or clung to the branches of tall tree-like vegetation. The electric fence had been turned off, and a few men and women had chosen it as the structure least likely to be knocked down by the wave. They perched precariously on top.
