by Raylan Kane
I am full of panic but I must hold my composure and conserve this lung full of air. I immediately flash back to the blood eel’s gut – to the gut of the much larger beast. All of a sudden the wisdom of the Grim’s “evaluation” snaps into focus. Relax. Stay calm.
I float, suspended in this substance. The gel is thick I cannot move any part of my body without tremendous effort. Something impacts. My breath is knocked out of me – the gel fills my mouth – my throat – I choke – I’m drowning! My spine stiffens fluid pushes up my nostrils and floods my sinus cavities. My muscles erupted into spasm. I fight and convulse. Stop!
Calm takes over. My seizure stops – I can breathe! I’m breathing yet I am submerged in this liquid. Strange. Everything is warm. I feel good. I am in the ultimate of comfort – nothing moves – there are no sounds – just me, suspended in this womb. I start to drift off to sleep, I can barely keep my eyes-
The gel and along with it, the warmth, sucks away violently from all around me – I fall and smack against hard dirt. My legs kick out – my hands press against the ground; I cannot open my eyes. I spit and sputter as goo shoots from my mouth. My chest heaves in new air and I expel more liquid with every gasp. Everything is bright. I roll to my back. Through my eyelids I see white-yellow light and heat intensifies on my face. I cough out more of the gel. The light is less intense as my eyes adjust. I get to my knees and slowly open my eyes. A hulking smoking wreck lays embedded in yellow-brown dirt a fair distance off. My pod sticks out of the ground from one end. In front of me are dozens of pods and other soaking, sputtering souls trying to make sense of their surroundings.
A mister all in black – swirls of dried crusted gel cover his uniform. He walks to me and smiles extending his hand. I grab it and stand up.
“Welcome to ZTR736.”
CHAPTER EIGHTY-FIVE
This is the cleanest air I have breathed in my life I am sure. Gust is known for its purer air but the freshness of this planet’s atmosphere feels so crisp and clear with every breath that it tickles the very depths of my lungs. The man standing with me loudly inhales and exhales.
“Isn’t this something? I feel alive for the first time,” he said.
“It is remarkable.” I need to find Milne and the others.
“Sorry – didn’t catch your name – I’m Lofwell.”
“Bramen – sorry, I cannot stay and chat – I have others to find.”
“Here let me help.”
The two of us jog to the next closest pod lying on its side near a cluster of rocks.
“How do you open this thing?” I said.
“There’s an emergency release cord underneath – give it a pull.”
I see the end of the cord sticking out on the bottom of the pod. I wrap my hand around it and pull. My hand, still greasy from the gel, flies off as I pull back.
“Here let me – my hands are drier.” I rub my palms on my legs as Lofwell seizes the cord and yanks hard and away from the cocoon. The pod’s lid flies open and an oblong blob hits the ground and squirms like a new born in a birth sac. I stifle my gag reflex at the grossness of the site – gel rolls out of the pod. The body convulses and vomits goo to the dirt with great force. The person rolls around spitting and coughing as they rid their lungs of the substance and suck in gobs of clean air.
“There you are – there you are – okay – you’re doing great,” Lofwell says in a soothing tone.
The blob starts to look more like a person as they bring their dripping arms up and wipe the fluid from their face. She lies still on her back for a moment her eyes tightly shut. She coughs out more sputum as she tries to open her eyes a crack.
“Take it easy,” Lofwell said. “Give your eyes a couple of minutes to adjust.”
She rolls to her side and slowly opens her eyes. She squints as she turns and looks up at us.
“This is it – we made it!” She smiles.
Lofwell reaches out to her, “welcome to ZTR736.”
“There’s not a lot here,” she said.
The three of us survey the vast flat landscape that surrounds us. The sky is a mixture of yellow and a very pale blue. There are undulations in the land but nothing remarkable – the horizon appears flat. In the distance a field of long yellow grass sits amongst a few scattered barren trees.
“Lots of dirt, lots of rocks – not much for water,” Lofwell said.
“I thought this place was mostly water,” the miss said.
“Two-thirds water, that’s right. We’ll find some,” I said. “Maybe somewhere in that grass.”
“What else do you suppose we’ll find in that grass?” Lofwell said.
“Some kind of strange alien being,” the miss said.
“I think in this place, we’re the strange alien being.”
CHAPTER EIGHTY-SIX
Two dark souls walk in our direction. Curses. I keep my head down and focus on the dirt.
“Good to see there are other survivors,” Marek says.
“Good to see you, Captain – I am Lofwell I work in-”
“Who’s your friend Lofwell?" Marek looks at the miss then points toward me. "I see you’ve already met the ship’s trouble-maker,” he said.
“I’m Prit, pleasure,” the miss extends her hand.
“The Captain is speaking to you, Bramen Hold,” Rygart said. “Acknowledge him.”
I raise my head and stare directly at Marek. Our eyes lock on each other and for a brief moment all I can think is how much I want to kill him.
Marek breaks his gaze away first, “you really ought to learn to lighten up, Hold,” he said. “Sometimes things happen on missions like this – you have to be able to adapt – roll with the punches.”
I continue glaring right at the man. I mean to make him uncomfortable – it appears to be working. I don’t know for sure, but I believe Rygart is trying to do the same to me – but I refuse to play his game.
“Well, enough of this standing around,” Marek says. “There are hundreds of pods around. Let’s get everyone out shall we?”
“Sir – where are we exactly? Are we anywhere near where we were supposed to land?” Lofwell said.
“Actually we’d planned to land in an area thought to be more tropical, with more vegetation, more precipitation and with better access to fresh water. Best I can tell we’re almost perfectly between this planet’s northern and southern hemisphere which is good – but the climate here is less than optimal – the nights will be cold.”
“ZTR’s sun is rising,” Rygart said. “We got lucky and crashed here in the beginning of the day. We have time to set up our builds.”
“You all can stand around and chat if you like. I’m going to get people out of their pods,” I said.
“No one’s stopping you,” Rygart said.
I am glad to walk away. I watch behind me as I move – I don’t trust those two with my back turned. I reach another pod a good distance from the chatters. One end of the thing rests upside-down on a large rock and the front sticks in the dirt. I approach from the bottom of the front and reach up to find the end of the cord. I pull and the lid pops open. The blob falls against the lid but the opening of the lid against the ground is too small for the body to fall free. As disgusting as the gel substance is, I must help free this person. I get on my knees and sink my hands into the blob of gel. I pull and pull – back and back until I get the body out from underneath the craft. The person wriggles around spitting and spewing gel; they’ll be fine.
I move on to the next pod and repeat the process. Another soul lies in the desert convulsing themselves back to life. I do this again and again – more and more pods are opened. In the distance I see the others have joined in opening pods – soon there are dozens of people joining in until there are more people up on their feet than there are still trapped in pods.
The planet’s sun – remarkably similar to Sydin’s – climbs higher and the heat of the day grows more intense. Sweat rolls
off of me. I unzip my suit to my waist and curl the top of my suit down off my upper body to my hips. A cluster of pods lies in the offing not too far from the ship’s crater. I walk closer and see an image that will forever be burned in my brain.
CHAPTER EIGHTY-SEVEN
Lying at the bottom of the crater against the base of the Holocene is a huge pile of blue bodies. The mass of tangled limbs dead open mouths horrifies me – there must be hundreds of them. A distinct buzzing noise emanates from them. I walk closer - the sound has me curious. Others have come and joined me. Soon most of the people have stopped opening pods and congregated around to look down on this sorry sight. Captain Marek works his way through to the front of the crowd.
“What do you think you’re doing down here?” Marek says to me.
“Do you hear that?” I said.
“What?”
“Listen.”
A light breeze whispers through the crowd – everyone is silent – the giant pile of death buzzes. I walk closer; the stench is unbelievable, almost as much as these creatures I’m seeing dart over, on, and around the dead clones.
“Curses, what are those?” Someone says in the crowd.
“Everyone get back – we don’t know what these are,” Marek said. “They don’t appear to be intelligent.”
“What makes you say that?”
“They just keep buzzing around without reason – bumping into each other – tangling in the air.”
“They seem to be attracted to the wounds – the blood.”
“They’re miniature beings,” a voice said from the crowd.
“They're disgusting,” another voice spoke out.
“Should we collect them?” Someone said.
Rygart steps from the crowd and motions for everyone to back away from the mounds of clone corpses.
“Everyone – forget this and get the rest of the pods opened,” Marek said. “These are your comrades and they need to be released from the gel just as you were. Now move.”
“Sir – that’s our food supply right there – are they all dead? All of the clones?” A voice said from the crowd.
“We don’t know how many are here – I’m sure some of the clones – probably many of the clones survived. We’ll know more later – for now let’s focus on the task at hand. Go!”
The crowd reluctantly turns away from the scene and walks to find other unopened pods. As Marek passes I turn my head toward him with my voice lowered. “You know as well as I do that’s our entire cursed food supply lying here dead in the dirt.”
“You’re probably right,” he said.
“What do you plan to do about that?”
“Don’t be naïve – you know as well as I do what happens next.”
“I won’t take part,” I said.
“Then you’ll starve.”
“I’d rather starve than eat my fellow crew.”
“You’re a fool. You’d rather die than end the life of a person you don’t even know,” Marek said.
“Just as you were about to end my life – someone you did know?”
“Oh, that’s what you think? Cheer up – that was just for sport.”
“Exactly my point; these are real people, not your personal playthings.”
“I think you’re forgetting your place, crewman.”
“I beg your pardon?”
“Your place. You are not in charge, Bramen Hold, I am.”
“And this is not Sydin.”
“No – but my word is law as far as these people are concerned.”
“That’s as far as they are concerned – not me. You think I’m afraid of you?”
“Whether you are or not is none of my concern.” Marek leans in close to me and speaks quieter. “You got away once, clone. You were lucky. And tonight when I invoke Rule of the Hunt you’d better hope you’re as far away from here as humanly possible.”
CHAPTER EIGHTY-EIGHT
All of the pods that were on the ground around me are open. I still don’t see Milne or Trident or the clone. On a flattened part of the Holocene far above me I can see there are more pods. The huge group of survivors along with Marek and Rygart are congregated at the edge of the yellow grass sitting in circles. Lofwell and Prit walk over.
“What are you up to?” Lofwell said. “I noticed you and the Captain don’t like each other very much.”
“I’m going to climb up there to open those pods,” I said pointing. “And no, we don’t.”
“Good – I don’t like him either,” Prit said. “I could see him eyeing me up like a clone flank, ready for cooking.”
“Well you do have nice flanks,” Lofwell said.
“Shut up.”
“Did you two know each other before?” I said.
“No,” Prit said. “Guess we just hit it off.”
“Guess so.”
“Do you need our help,” Lofwell said.
“No – I’m okay – you guys can go back to your friends.”
“They’re not our friends,” Prit said. “We don’t know any of them any better than we know you.”
“Didn’t you work with some of them?”
“Sure,” she said. “Things are different now.”
“I know what you mean,” I said. “Almost my entire crew is over there – they barely acknowledge me.”
“No one likes their boss,” Lofwell said smiling. "It's the downside of being in charge of a crew."
“I suppose that’s true.”
“So how do you plan on getting up there?”
“We’ll have to walk around, see if we can find a lower part of the ship we can climb up on, then make our way to where those pods are.”
“Looks like some of those pods are stuck pretty high up there,” Lofwell said.
“Yeah – well.”
“I’m not a fan of heights,” Lofwell said.
“You climbed the Cliffs of Ro,” Prit said. “You jumped out of a plane for curses sake.”
“That’s different.”
“Sorry guys – much as I’d love to stand here in the sun – I really need to get up to those pods.”
“Fair enough.”
The three of us walk around the edge of the crater. Sure enough on the back side of the Holocene is an edge of the ship that hovers only a few feet off the ground over the edge of the crater. Standing on the other side of the ship and looking off to the distance the view to the horizon is cut off by a small bluff.
I grab this small edge of the giant ship and pull myself up. The surface of the ship is dark gray, almost black and smooth. The heat from the sun radiates out from the ship’s surface as it absorbs the intense rays. I lie down on the ship and feel the heat against me. I reach my hand down to help Prit up to me. She steps over me to a flatter spot. Lofwell wraps his fingers around the edge and I grab his arm as we both pull and he swings his leg up and slides onto the edge of the ship. In front of us the flat polished exterior of the Holocene rises up into the sky at an angle that is too steep to climb. There are flatter angled portions that we walk on as we lean into the ship’s surface to keep from falling.
Before we make our way back around to the other side of the ship we stand to look out at the view from this greater height. A good distance in front of us is a small blue body of water surrounded by scrub grass and dead trees.
“Look at that!” Lofwell said.
“Amazing – we’ll have to let the crew know.”
“They’ll find it soon enough.”
“Wait,” Lofwell said. “What are those things?”
“What things?” Prit said.
“Those things – they’re moving!”
I look to the edge of the water and I see what Lofwell is talking about. A four-legged creature – it looks small from here but probably larger than a human near as I can tell – it's light brown – covered in fur with a tail curled behind it.
“Look there’s a bunch more over there.”
>
In front of the grass near the body of the water an even larger creature, similar in type lies down. It’s head encircled by a thick darker growth of fur.
“They look positively terrifying,” Prit said. “Did the High Council know about creatures like that when they sent us on this suicide mission?”
“How could they?”
“Maybe they’re friendly,” Lofwell said. Prit and I both shoot him a sideways glance. “You never know,” he said.
“We should warn the others,” Prit said.
“They don’t appear to be in any hurry to leave that water,” Lofwell said.
“True.”
“Let’s just get to the rest of those pods – I have some people who are important to me that I want to find.”
CHAPTER EIGHTY-NINE
Parts of the Holocene are broken open and smoke billows out. The giant ship even in its crater reaches high above the land. We climb along the slippery surface and walk along flat areas heeding signs painted on the ship’s exterior – presumably for maintenance personnel back home working on the thing. We reach a large flat deck about half way up the ship that leads into a big bay door – a place where smaller ships could land or enter the Holocene. On this flattened area there are dozens of pods.
“How would any of them land here?” Lofwell said.
“I’m surprised these are intact,” Prit said.
“Let’s get them open.”
Even half way up the ship from the ground we have a grand view over everything. Our crewmates look small from this height – the breeze is stronger up here too – which is nice considering the blazing sun above us grows hotter.
Lofwell snaps open the lid of a pod – after a fit of coughing and gagging the gel blob wipes away the goop and looks up at us.
“Ri!”
“Bramen?”
