Planetfall

by L. E. Howel

  “Good-bye, sir.”

  It was the briefest of farewells and without further word the two men took their own direction without looking back.

  As Birch walked back from the clearing he again felt the towering presence of the trees surround him. Their influence was a strange paradox of comfort and fear in his mind. He knew that they offered him protection and safety. It would be harder for the Ares to find him among the trees, but he was also aware that it would be harder to see anything himself, and the Ares were experts at hiding.

  The morning air was still and cold under the canopy of branches, except where small gaps had allowed the warming sunlight to reach the forest floor. Birch shivered and walked silently on. The noisy chorus of birdsong had replaced the stillness of night and he found himself listening intently for something, anything that might be an Ares communication among the noise. It was hard to tell, but he thought he heard something different, something out of place, less striking than the screech of an owl in the still night air, but equally ominous.

  He glanced around him. The daylight had made little difference to the gloomy impression of his surroundings. In the sunlight of the clearing the earth had seemed new and fresh, now under the dreary shade of the forest he could only smell the dank rot of old trees and an earthy mixture of vegetation and mud. Somehow he didn’t feel alone. Wary watchfulness marked every step; he knew he must be cautious. The Ares, though unseen, seemed to be everywhere, if only in his mind.

  The sudden sound of intense gunfire brought him to a stop. It was coming from somewhere to the east. DeSante was firing already. The sound ceased as suddenly as it had begun. There was no way of telling what had happened. It didn’t sound like there was any return fire, but something must have made him shoot early. Perhaps the Ares had caught up with him. That wasn’t good; he had counted on DeSante providing cover as he climbed the bare rock of the crag. If he was out already he would have to go it alone and hope he wouldn’t be noticed.

  For a moment Birch found himself considering going back to help, but he knew that risked everything. He had to save Karla and trust the young lieutenant to do his part. Still he couldn’t help wondering at the sudden end to the gunfire, and his ears strained to hear the reassuring booming start up again. It didn’t, and Birch sweated his way through the rest of the woods until the tree cover ran out and he found himself facing the bare rock leading up to the overlook some five hundred feet above.

  The rock face was impressive enough, smooth and featureless in a straight vertical line to the top, but it wasn’t the steep assent that worried him. It was his hands.

  Birch was a climber. He loved to climb. It hadn’t always been so, but in later years he had found a true passion for it. It seemed to match the purpose of his life, the solitary pleasure and the feel of the rock, solid beneath his hands and feet, with the challenged sky waiting above. It was in this pursuit, rather than in space travel, that he felt closer to life. The ground was secure, the goal was above, and only the honest bluntness of nature’s obstacles lay between him and success. He could do this. At least usually he could. This time was going to be different. The pain and fear made this something else. What might have been a challenge on a gentle Sunday afternoon had become a life struggle on this cool mountain morning.

  DeSante had been right; this was going to be hard. Flexing his fingers below the bloody cloths that served as bandages he bit hard against the pain just to stop himself from screaming aloud. He dared not look more closely. The condition of his hands seemed better left a mystery beneath the oozing cloth. He might cope better that way. Instead he concentrated on the task before him. He could see how it might be done. The danger of detection was great because of the exposed rock, but he imagined that he could see some natural cover from overhangs and ruts in the stone, and he knew that if he was careful to use every natural advantage he might make it.

  Barely within the protective embrace of the forest, he sat plotting his path. The shadows created by the jutting rock’s own form against the low morning sun created dark crevices and cracks in the smooth stone that he knew he could exploit. It was possible. It all depended where they were watching, and how carefully they were watching. Of course it also depended on how well his hands held out. There was hope, but again there was fear. Only in despair was there true fearlessness. If only DeSante hadn’t been pushed out of the way so quickly, the chances would be better. Grimly he steeled himself to the task and moved into the open.

  His mind was clear on the direction he would take, and without hesitation he bolted from the trees to the rock. He didn’t waste any time dodging or weaving, the bare, exposed ground gave nothing to dodge or weave behind, and the extra activity would have only increased the likelihood of detection. His run was straight and fast and when he reached the bottom of the rocky cliff a few minutes later he was puffing breathlessly, confident that so far he had gone unnoticed.

  He was at the bottom. Looking up the steep incline he felt the same old anticipation for the climb, despite the circumstances. It began easily enough. The incline started gently and as it increased he found generous handholds and footholds that, though they seemed natural from a distance, were clearly made for this purpose. In other circumstances it would have been easy, even as free-soloing, like traveling on a paved road with street signs and road maps, but today it wasn’t. Back an eternity ago, when climbing was nothing more than an amusement, he might have even complained that it wasn’t challenging enough, but today he was struggling. The pain in his hands was increasing with every heave and lift upwards. The expert placement of the holes should have made it easy. They allowed him to put much more weight on his feet when he was in the resting position, but he couldn’t avoid the wrenching and tearing at his hands as he pulled himself up. He was leaving little red patches on the stones he touched, like a bloody trail of crumbs that might lead him back down if he ever made it to the top.

  Exhaustion was setting in. His mind was struggling to concentrate, to overcome his pain and still focus on what he needed to do. The shadows had covered him pretty well up to that point, and he had used any crevice he could find to allow him a place to hide in his frequent stops. But at last, two hundred feet from the top, he came to a complete stop. He couldn’t do it any more. The task ahead, the exhaustion from the night before, his hands, it all seemed to crash together in his brain like a blur of reality and he felt himself sway and drift, both mentally and physically. He just wanted to rest. He would do anything just to rest. It was that dangerous point where the distance above was so hard, and in the delusion of the moment it almost seemed right, that it would be easier to just fall into an everlasting rest than to have to go on.

  For a time he just hung there. No thought came to him beyond the simple act of clinging to that one piece of rock and to life itself. He dangled, but he did not fall. Slowly again one arm moved, then another. With deliberate, wrenching action he started again, one hand, then another, until momentum took over and he was able to believe again that he might make it to the top.

  Mechanically he climbed. As his mind slowly cleared Birch began to wonder at the lack of reaction to his assent. Either they hadn’t seen him or they were waiting quietly at the top to gather him up after he got there. He knew he had made mistakes on the climb. They should have seen him. Probably they had and were just waiting for him, letting him exhaust himself before they picked him up at the top. They wouldn’t take him that easily though.

  He wondered about DeSante. He hadn’t fired again since those first few shots. The thought nagged him that he may have rescued the young lieutenant just to get him killed a few hours later. That didn’t seem right. If there was any purpose to anything they had to make it. Too much had happened for them to fail now. It was this irrational hope that fueled him now in the grueling climb toward Karla, and it was that same hope that told him that DeSante wasn’t dead. They hadn’t come this far for nothing; they would live and he would save them all. He would get them out of this place.
Beyond that he wasn’t really sure. He guessed the convoy would have continued east rather than wait for another Ares attack. He’d probably try to catch them in that direction.

  Birch stopped himself. His train of thought had taken him far beyond where he was and what he was doing. He knew it was foolish to hope too much or to think too much about what they had to do. First they had to live.

  Finally, by the steel of his will, he had mastered the indomitable rock. He placed his bloodied hand into the last hole and heaved himself up to eye level with the top. From here he could see what was there to meet him. He was looking for any kind of camp or settlement, but there was nothing, not even a lookout or a sentinel. It was abandoned, or perhaps no one had ever been there at all. Cautiously he waited. He suspected a trap, but he could see nothing. Finally his weariness won out and he pulled himself up with one last flash of energy that died immediately as he collapsed onto the dusty ground at the top.

  If the Ares had been watching Birch would have easily been subdued. For a time all he could do was lie in the warming sunlight as he drifted into a shivering semi-consciousness. It was a few minutes before he awoke again; he was still alone. As he stumbled to his feet he cautiously looked about him, no one was there and his fears slowly melted into doubt and then finally anger. The boy had tricked him. There was no sign of any activity here and he’d wasted probably six or seven hours in the climb. Now he had lost both DeSante and Karla. He had been so caught up in the difficulties of the task that he hadn’t even stopped to question if it made any sense, and now he raged angrily within at his own stupidity. It was the one thing he could never tolerate, his own mistakes.

  For a time he stewed, but eventually he took advantage of the altitude to view the vista around him. He was looking for any clue that could help him. To the east there was the prairie, stretching out as a flat table, laid out for miles beneath a fierce blue sky. It was wild. The tall grasses of old western days had replaced the regimented order of fields and the geometric patterns made by irrigation machines. He had flown over it hundreds of times, but he looked on it now as he had never seen it before. The Midwest was wild again. Nature had taken back what had been wrested from her hands years ago and it seemed an ominous foretelling of a future of change.

  To the West Birch saw the mountain range they had passed through. The dense forest stood in contrast to the open plains to the east. In all this panorama he saw nothing of those he was looking for. He was alone. The heat sensor provided no comfort, even DeSante wasn’t showing up now and Birch’s solitary flashing red speck on the display seemed to increase the impression that he was utterly alone in this world.

  It was as Birch contemplated his descent down the cliff that a thought occurred to him. This lump of rock seemed useless, a diversion, but the way he had gotten up here proved the lie in that idea. That climbing path was too smooth, too perfect to be anything natural, and it had seemed to prove to him that this was some sort of Ares haunt. It was only in the disappointment at the empty top that he had flung away all hope. Perhaps there might still be more to this, it was at least worth looking more closely before he left.

  The task was not a lengthy one, the rock was bare and his search seemed fruitless. There wasn’t much to see but bare stone and rocks in great heaps. The thought of those stones began to trouble him. They looked natural enough in these surroundings and hadn’t drawn his attention until he considered how it was they got here. He couldn’t think of any natural cause for their presence, not in piles like that, but what did they mean? He had some idea, but he had to test it out. He had to move those rocks.

  Birch was quickly to the task, though his screaming hands rebelled at the activity. His bandages were now little more than bloody tatters and his fingers were nearly crippled into gnarled claws, so that he could only lift the larger stones with the palms of his hands and roll them roughly aside. He kept working. It took some time, but eventually a tuft of moldy cloth and a broken rusted cage appeared amongst the rubble. He pulled at it as best he could and exposed a part of what lay underneath. He turned away heaving from the stench, it was the half rotted remains of a corpse. He had discovered a burial ground.

  It seemed too much to take, but as he bitterly considered this latest defeat he noticed something about one rock pile that seemed different. Where the other stones were dry and blanched, these were dark and muddy. Some were slightly wet. They had been placed recently. Birch’s heart quailed at the thought of the meaning behind this little pile, but doughtily he set to this last vestige of hope.

  The stones came off easily and slid down like little tears shed for the people in this place. As he came closer to the bottom Birch noticed a wire cage, not rusted like the last one, but with a similar cloth beneath it. He pulled at the metal, wrenching it free from the stones and clumsily causing smaller ones to tumble onto the cloth swathed figure. Trembling, Birch removed them and pulled at the sticky, oozing material. It was Karla.

  TWENTY-ONE

  Morning had come as an unwelcome relief to Edwards. The light of dawn meant the lifting of uncertainty. It meant a return to their world of day from the Ares’ world of night. There would be no more attacks until the darkness returned, at least he believed so. What had taken place already had been so far from his expectations and experience that he couldn’t feel certain of anything.

  The light of daybreak had not brought its usual comfort. It brought the grim reality of what had happened. It exposed the destroyed trucks with their last wispy traces of smoke bleeding out from their burned shells. Ash and death were strewn everywhere. In the darkness of night you could almost deny the events. It had been so unreal that it wasn’t unreasonable to doubt what you knew and consider it nothing more than a grave delusion. Daylight made it what it was, a slaughter. Still, he told himself that it hadn’t been their choice to kill.

  The choice had belonged to the Ares’. They had attacked in numbers, and it wasn’t just their methods during the battle that had surprised him, but also the result. He’d known for sure they were all dead when he saw the force ranged against them. There had never been an attack on that scale before, and their own security preparations had been woefully inadequate. They had not been prepared for it. Somehow the Ares had surprised them, and if they had pressed their advantage they would have destroyed them. For some reason they didn’t and Edwards marveled that he was still alive.

  In the end they had won out over the Ares’ overwhelming force. Something inside their attackers must have flinched or buckled at the crucial moment. That wild unthinking side of them, so formidable at other times, had been turned and changed into that other most basic animal instinct, the need to run. It was strange to Edwards though; it didn’t fit with what he knew of the Ares. They had run, but he didn’t know why. Some would glibly claim that it was a natural victory, superiority had won out, but he wanted a better answer. Something incredible had happened here and he wanted to understand it.

  It was the age-old battle between good and evil, between reason and force. Like everyone else, he had learned it from childhood. Like everyone else, he had seen its bitter results, and like everyone else, he hoped it would end. He remembered what everyone knew, what was known from the very beginning, that when reason battles force the contest may be brutish and foul, but reason would win. They had won. Last night’s events seemed to prove all of this, but as the memory tumbled through his mind the two sides merged into one bloody conflict. Two sides of the same coin. Maybe they had proved their superiority here, but at a terrible price. In that moment he hated the Ares, not for what they had done, but for what they had made him do.

  To his weary eyes the smoldering ruins of the camp presented a distressing sight. The mangled wreckage of the trucks, bodies strewn about them, mud and blood everywhere. It was hard to see. Through the night they had cleared the circle of the camp, but all around them the twisted wreckage of humanity still lay, deserted like so much useless equipment. It made Edwards sick, not from the sight of it, not
even the smell of it, but from the idea of it. He wasn’t made for this; no one should be made for this. For a moment all he could do was stare up to the heavens, the one place unsullied by the scene. Little wonder that people like the Hypnos crew had dreamt of an escape out there, to get away from this, from what they had made it, but if they took themselves along then what would really change? Could that big blue sky cleanse and wash them of who they were, like refreshing waters? Could anything clean them?

  His eyes went to ground. They had to go. The situation was tough and they needed to get out of the mountains as quickly as possible. Another night would kill them. Already they were decimated. Six men were known dead. Nine others were missing, Commander Konik was one of them. Also missing were three of the dependants, Birch, Dawson, and DeSante. That left just two and they had to get them to safety with all speed. He was in command now. The sergeant was gone and only twelve men of the complement were left. Two of them were from their escort that had been due to return once they reached the other side of the mountain range. They would be staying with them now.

  The search for survivors didn’t last long. The heat sensors had shown no signs of life in the area apart from their own. There wasn’t any use wasting time looking for something that wasn’t there. The bodies of a number of their company, including Konik and the three passengers, had not been recovered, but that didn’t mean they weren’t there somewhere among the carnage. They didn’t have the time to look. If they were there they were dead anyway, and if they weren’t then they had been carried off somewhere out of range. There was no way to follow. It was an impossible task.

  Jane had argued about it, they were her colleagues and she wanted to help, but Edwards had refused. He had almost pushed her and Lauren physically into the trucks to get them to go. They had wanted to stay, to look for their friends. It was understandable but he couldn’t let them. His job was to get these two to Washington. They were in enough trouble as it was without risking the loss of these last two. They had to make it.