by G J Ogden
Not knowing what else to do, Ethan instinctively stepped in front of Maria, his heart racing and head pounding, placing himself between her and the outstretched arm of Summer, still clasping the weapon with deadly intent. Summer did not adjust her aim, though her expression betrayed a wavering of her resolve. She did not want to shoot Ethan, but she had committed to this course of action and to back down would mean letting him leave with Maria and Kurren. She would not allow that.
“Summer, please put the weapon down,” Ethan said as calmly as he could manage, but with strain breaking his voice. “Look, you win, I’ll stay. I’ll stay, Summer. But only if you put the weapon down and let them leave.”
Summer was not so easily placated. “I’ll drop this weapon once they are both in that thing, and you are well away from it. Only then.”
Ethan again tried to take a pace forward, but Summer adjusted her aim to his right and squeezed the trigger. The shot rang out and again Ethan froze in terror as he heard the speeding projectile ricochet off the metal decking behind them. The sound was like a bell ringing, loud and clear, signaling danger.
A tear began to trickle down Summer’s face, tracing a line over her cheeks to the corner of her mouth. She was fighting to remain composed, but the pressure was intensifying. She had forced them both into a corner and there was no turning back. Either Ethan would give in, or someone would die.
“I will do it, Ethan!” urged Summer, fighting back her emotion. The weapon in her hand quivered but remained pointed at him, the barrel oozing smoke like blood seeping from an open wound.
As this was happening, Kurren, unnoticed by any of the others, had quietly entered a sequence of new commands at his control console. All of Summer’s attention had been focused on Ethan and Maria, and likewise their focus was purely on Summer and the outstretched weapon. Kurren hit a final sequence of keys, careful to keep his actions unseen by the others. The words, ‘Fire Suppression Override’ flashed up on the screen. Glancing up briefly to make sure he was still unobserved, he took a deep intake of breath, held it, and hit another button on the console. There was a sudden, violent rush of sound from vents in the decking below them, and the room rapidly filled with a cloudy gas. Summer coughed and gagged, lowering the weapon and instinctively covering her mouth with her free hand, and in that instant, Kurren charged towards her.
Kurren had improvised this plan moments after Summer had appeared, weapon in hand, her intentions clear from the venomous way she had looked at Maria, and the rigidity of her posture, muscles taut and ready for a fight. He was perhaps seven or eight meters away from Summer and had banked on this distraction giving him sufficient time to close the gap and disarm her. As he advanced, legs and arms pumping with maximum effort, he saw Summer’s head turn towards him and panic spilled into his gut. Still retching and struggling to breathe, Summer fought to bring the weapon up, tilting her body and shifting her weight with a nimbleness honed from years of training. Now Summer was focused only on Kurren, her expression a blend of pain, surprise and fear, but her eyes still burning with deadly intent. With less than two meters between them, Kurren realized to his horror that he was not going to make it. A shot pierced the air, clearly audible even over the hiss of the gas. The console where Kurren had initiated his plan exploded, launching splinters of flame and electrical energy into the air and then, fractions of a second later, he piled into Summer, his momentum knocking her backwards; the weapon flying from her hand and spiraling into the far corner of the room. Kurren collapsed into a heap, rolling uncontrollably into a stack of containers against the wall, sending some of them bouncing around the hangar. The fire suppression vents closed as quickly as they had opened and pumps began to whir, emptying the gas from the room. There was a momentary, deathly silence, punctuated only by the chaotic sparking of electricity from the console. Then a siren sounded and the lights dimmed. Red lanterns dropped from the overhangs, pulsing in time with the klaxon’s wails, and huge slabs of metal slid down from inside the hangar doors, one of which closed off the corridor and another the side room where Summer had been lying on the couch moments earlier. On them were written three words in bright yellow: LAUNCH BLAST DOORS.
The gas had caused Ethan to collapse to the ground directly where he was standing, with Maria on her knees beside him, both coughing violently. As they began to recover they reached over and helped each other to stand. The pulsing red lights illuminated them for brief moments, casting a blood red sheen over their faces. Maria looked over to the console and saw the tell-tale scorched puncture wound in its metal panel, and the cause was immediately obvious to her.
“Oh no!” Maria said.
Ethan did not hear her. Instead he was looking at where Summer lay on the decking, motionless. “Summer!” he shouted, but there was no response. He struggled to run over, stumbling, falling and getting back to his feet multiple times before he reached her and dropped to his knees at her side. He rubbed his eyes with hands grazed and bloody from all the falls to try to clear his vision as he stared down at her face. She was breathing and semi-conscious, but the wound on her head had re-opened and was weeping blood. “Summer, can you hear me?” Ethan shouted, but his words were drowned out by a deep, mechanical growl, like the guttural noise the transport vehicle had made while bringing them here, but far more powerful and ominous. The sound was coming from the UEC shuttle, perched in the center of the hangar.
Maria shouted over to him, “Ethan, something has gone wrong, the launch cycle has activated. We have to get in the shuttle now, all of us!”
“I’m not bringing her with us!” Ethan shouted back.
“We’ve got no choice!” Maria pleaded with him. “The launch has been activated, and without that control console, it cannot be aborted. The doors are sealed, there’s no way out, and in a few minutes the shuttle’s engines will ignite and this entire hangar will become a furnace. Nothing can survive!”
Ethan looked down at Summer and shook his head. “You proud, stubborn fool,” he said, angrily. “You should have let me go. It’s my life to risk, not yours.”
“Ethan, please!” Maria shouted again. “We have to go!”
Ethan heard her plea, but ignored it and continued trying to rouse Summer.
An artificial-sounding voice filled the room. “Emergency launch in five minutes. All personnel clear the hangar deck. All personnel clear the hangar deck.”
Ethan listened to the voice. Five minutes he thought, five minutes to make sure she’s safe, but how? He turned to protest to Maria, but another voice cut him off.
“I’ll get her to safety.” It was Kurren. He was propped up against the side of the hangar, one hand pressed to his side. Blood was seeping between his fingers. Maria saw this and her eyes widened. She surged toward him, but Kurren raised his other hand, indicating for Maria to stop. “Sal, it’s okay,” he shouted over to her, wincing with pain. “It’s a through-and-through. I’ll live. But I won’t survive the launch, not perforated like this. And you won’t either if you don’t get in that shuttle soon.”
“The blast doors are sealed, there’s no way out...” Maria argued back, barely containing her panic.
Kurren pointed and Maria’s eyes followed. “The hangar has a hardened storage area, for fuel and other volatile substances, like our ranger friend here,” he said. “It’s not big, but it’s enough to shield us from the launch. Me and miss crazy over there will have to become closer friends than either of us want, but it will keep us safe.”
“Kurren, I can’t leave you, I need…” but Kurren cut short her protestations.
“It’s okay, I’ve had my time,” he said, trying to offer comfort. “There’s nothing for me up there now. I know you understand what I mean. You have it all ahead of you, Sal. So get this done and go live your life. Go, now!”
Tears ran down Maria’s face. She tried to speak, but no words could pass her trembling lips.
The artificial voice filled the room again. “Emergency launch in four minutes. All perso
nnel clear the hangar deck. All personnel clear the hangar deck.”
Still on his knees beside Summer, Ethan turned to Kurren, “You promise me you will keep Summer safe and take her back to the settlement?” Ethan said, locking eyes with Kurren. The old soldier looked back at him, solemn and serious. More serious than Ethan had ever seen him. A large drop of blood fell from his hand and splattered on his boot.
“I’ll keep her alive, kid. I swear. Now go.”
Ethan held his eyes for a moment, looking for any sign of deception, any hint of a lie. But he saw nothing to give him doubt. He looked back to Maria. She was fixated on Kurren with a look of desperate sadness that made Ethan feel even worse than he already did. More alien sounds began to emanate from the UEC shuttle. Throbbing, pulsing, artificial noises unlike anything Ethan had ever heard before.
“Emergency launch in three minutes. All personnel clear the hangar deck. All personnel clear the hangar deck.”
Maria looked now at Ethan, on his knees beside Summer, his friend and comrade. She understood his pain and his conflict, and the magnitude of what she was asking him to leave behind hit her full force. “Ethan, if you want to stay, I’ll understand.”
“Sal, you don’t have time for this!” Kurren said hoarsely, and for the first time, Ethan heard fear in his voice. “With or without the kid, get the hell out of here, now!”
But Maria ignored him and continued to stare at Ethan. Her eyes burned into his soul. A jumble of different thoughts raced through Ethan’s mind: Summer, and their childhood; his sister; Elijah; Dorman’s death at the hands of roamers; Administrator Talia’s anger towards Maria and Kurren, and her warning of the danger they posed; the flashes in the night sky; Ethan’s longing to learn more, and guilt at allowing his desires to overshadow all else. Then his mind turned to his feelings for this mysterious stranger. The woman who was looking at him now, in a way no woman had ever looked at him before, not even Summer. Kurren had promised to make sure Summer was safe, but if Ethan stayed too then it would be the same as committing Maria to a death sentence. He no longer cared about the Fall and the war that caused it; none of that mattered now. What mattered was making sure that Maria and her people lived, and the only way to do that was to leave his life planetside behind. Maybe he was selfish, he didn’t know, and didn’t care anymore. This was his decision, his way to move his life forward and stop obsessing about the past. He took one last look down at Summer, smoothing her red hair, matted with blood, away from her face, and pushed himself unsteadily to his feet. He staggered back to Maria and said, “Let’s go”.
Maria half-smiled with relief, and then raced over to the open door of the ship and stepped inside. Ethan glanced back at Summer on the deck. Kurren was kneeling beside her, injecting her and then himself with a small device from a container placed on the floor beside him. He looked at Ethan and with a weak smile gave a thumbs-up signal. Ethan turned and followed Maria into the UEC shuttle, stumbling over the lip around the door hatch, still groggy from the gas. Once he was inside, Maria slammed a button on the door frame, causing the hatch to hiss shut and seal.
“Emergency launch in two minutes. All personnel clear the hangar deck. All personnel clear the hangar deck.”
Maria pushed Ethan into a seat and hastily buckled an elaborate belt over his waist and chest. “There are about a hundred things I should do before taking off in this thing,” she said, while working the mechanism, “but there’s no time. So just sit back, and hold tight, it’s going to be wild.”
The realization of what was about to happen hit Ethan like a club to the head. He thought about saying, ‘you’re telling me this now!?’ but his brain was a muddle and he was unable to get the words out.
Maria climbed to a seat at the front of the ship and buckled herself in. Above them, huge panels swung apart, revealing the black, open sky. The ship began to vibrate and Ethan felt the pulse of the engine resonating throughout his whole body. “Emergency launch in one minute. All personnel clear the hangar deck. All personnel clear the hangar deck.”
He looked out through the hatch window to where Kurren had pulled Summer into the small compartment that he’d opened in the side of the hangar. The soldier looked towards him, but not at him, and held up a hand. At the top of the ship Maria waved back. And again, another bludgeoning wave of realization hit Ethan; Kurren was giving up his ride home to save Summer and to make sure that Ethan could go with Maria, to make sure the mission continued. To make sure that she would live. He was doing his duty, and so much more. He understood the sacrifice he was making, and in that instant felt a deep respect for the older man; but also for Maria. She was saying goodbye to her partner and friend; a man who was injured, and despite his casual dismissal of the wound, could still be in danger of dying. She may never see him again, never know what became of him, or even if he lived or died. The finality of the moment hit him. He would also never see Summer again, never be able to say how sorry he was for how he’d acted, and for what he’d blindly led her into, without a thought for anyone but himself. He continued to watch as a huge slab-like door closed over the compartment, giving him his last glimpses of his best friend, who from child to woman had stuck by him and protected him all his life, and who he had now abandoned to the care of a practical stranger. Emotions finally overwhelmed him, and he wept openly.
“I’m so sorry. Forgive me, Summer! Please forgive me…” But the words were lost in the maelstrom of noise generated by the ship.
Without warning he was thrust back into his seat by an invisible power unlike anything he had ever experienced. The noise was deafening, the vibrations truly horrifying. He screamed, though no-one could have known, the feeble noises emanating from his mouth being completely overshadowed by the ferocious, violent thrust of the ship’s engines. The tears on his face were squeezed dry by the forces acting on his body. They were ascending and Ethan could see the insides of the hangar bay quickly slipping away. The pressure pushing him back into his chair intensified, and he gripped the seat arms with such intensity that his knuckles completely emptied of blood and went snow-white. His vision began to darken, and he went to scream again, but there was no sound. His heart was racing and he felt like it was going to explode. Panic overwhelmed him. He tried to force his arms up to his chest to unbuckle the belts and get out. He desperately wanted to get out, but he could not move his arms. He could not move anything. His vision dimmed further and then, as the silvery light of the night sky gave way to infinite blackness, he too passed into darkness and unconsciousness.
***
Katie squeezed Elijah’s hand as they both stood in the settlement grounds with the others, watching the object rise into the dark sky above the old, ruined city, a trail of dense, white smoke in its wake.
“What is that?!” Elijah wondered, excitedly, and when no answer came, he looked up and saw tears rolling down his mother’s face, and he wondered why she was sad.
“Goodbye, Ethan,” he heard her murmur weakly, the words seeping softly into the night air.
Confused, Elijah turned back to the object. He watched in silence as it steadily rose higher and higher, until it was nothing more than a flash of light in the clear night sky.
Chapter 18
Deep, black smoke belched into the air, twisting one way and then another as if it were alive. The flames burned with ferocious intensity and the heat was unbearable. Ethan tried to get closer, but was forced to back away. Or was he being pulled away? He tried to scream, to shout her name, but no words came out. Instead, out of the inferno he heard someone call his name, an anguished shriek cutting though the roar of the flames.
“Ethan, help me!”
The words bit him like burning splinters. He fought, but he could not get closer, and still the fire grew hotter and the clouds darker. He fell to his knees, his face red with the heat. Then above the enveloping darkness appeared two bright shards of light, brighter even than the fire, intense against the black smoke. They hovered over the house for a momen
t, and then shot away, upwards, leaving them behind.
“No!” Ethan tried to scream, but again no sound. “Don’t leave them! Come back!” He felt his throat burn as he made the sounds, but he couldn’t hear the words. It was as if the blackness had also swallowed his voice. “No!”
The cabin collapsed in on itself, a mass of flame and heat, and then the voice came once again, his mother’s voice, calling to him, begging him for help. “Ethan!”
Ethan opened his eyes and pushed himself upright, arms flailing wildly around him. His heart pulsed violently in his chest and his face and body were soaked with sweat. His breathing was shallow and rapid, and his temples throbbed. He grabbed his face and drew sweat away from his eyes.
“Damn it, damn it, damn it!” he cursed, angry at his own mind for continuing to press these images on him. Through sheer force of will, he urged his breathing into a more natural rhythm. It was a routine that he’d become quite practiced in over the years, when the nightmare came.
Soon he had regained control. He squinted against the intense white light of the room he was in, which was doing nothing to help his headache. He raised a hand to shield his eyes from it, but found his arm to be weak and heavy. With his eyes still barely half open, Ethan attempted to take in his surroundings. He was sitting on a bed and, as his eyes slowly adjusted to the light, he began to see more clearly where he had awoken so violently. The room had a clean, white design and from the materials used it looked similar to the type of rooms he had seen in the space port on the planet, just ‘newer’ and without the filth. Maybe he was still there, he thought. Perhaps Maria had been forced to abort the launch and had managed to find an area of the city that had been largely preserved, even after all this time.
He slid across and sat on the edge of the bed. Pain shot through his shoulders and arms. In fact, his whole upper body felt bruised and sore. In the room were various items of furniture and a host of objects he did not recognize. There was a single door with frosted glass in the top section, and a large single window on the opposite side. Outside this window he could see an interconnecting web of tunnels and curious dome-shaped buildings of various sizes, all starkly contrasted against the night sky. He got off the bed and was shocked by the coldness of the floor. He was not wearing any shoes, in fact he wasn’t sure what he was wearing, only that they weren’t his clothes. They had been replaced by some lightweight, loose-fitting garments which were very comfortable, but wholly unsuitable for life in the settlement. Feet aside, Ethan didn’t feel cold; in fact the air in the room was uncomfortably warm.
