Saving Grace

by Merry Farmer

  “We need bandages.” Danny shook his head, rolling Alvin to his side to view the back of the wound.

  “What can you use instead of bandages?” Grace assessed the situation with as cool a head as she could manage.

  Danny shrugged, ripping the hole in Alvin’s pants wider. “We could use part of his shirt, but it’s dirty. I would prefer something clean. Something—”

  “Here.” Kinn’s bored voice made both Grace and Danny jump. He had taken a wad of something white from one of the pockets in his pants and offered it to them. It was a roll of gauze.

  Grace stood as Danny took the offered bandage and set to work. She watched Kinn with lips pressed tightly shut. He took an army knife from his belt and offered it to Danny as well.

  “To cut the bolt,” he explained. His eyes didn’t hold a shred of remorse, not a drop of concern. He was doing what he was trained to do when a comrade was injured.

  Danny hesitated. He stared at Kinn, a hint of recognition lighting his eyes before he snatched the knife and opened it. Alvin growled and cursed under his breath as Danny sawed off the short end of the bolt, then grabbed the other end, pulling it through his leg. Alvin shouted in pain as the bolt was tossed aside and part of the bandage was pressed to the flowing wound.

  “Get some fresh water,” Danny ordered.

  Carrie jumped to obey, eyes glued to Kinn, untying the shirt from her waist and soaking it in the river. Danny took the shirt from her, squeezing it over the wound to clean it. Blood continued to ooze as he dressed it. Alvin fought to stay conscious through the pain.

  “You bastard.” Carrie turned on Kinn. “You could have killed him.”

  “I wasn’t trying to kill him.” Kinn pulled himself to his full, intimidating height and stared down at Carrie as if she were an annoying dog.

  Carrie bristled. Her fists balled at her sides and the tendons in her neck stood out. She knew better. “Who do you think you are anyhow?”

  “His name is Kinn,” Grace answered. “He was on another emergency ship that escaped the Argo.”

  “The one that was following us?” Carrie marched closer to Grace’s side.

  For a fraction of a second Grace thought she saw surprise register on Kinn’s face before he resumed his tough, bored expression. “There’s another ship?”

  “Yeah,” Carrie snapped.

  “You didn’t see it?” Grace asked.

  “Where?” Kinn ignored her.

  “Why should we tell you?” Carrie barked.

  “Several miles that way,” Grace answered over top of Carrie’s growl.

  Carrie whipped to her with eyes that said ‘shut up.’ Kinn watched her with a calculating look that made Grace’s hair stand up.

  “We haven’t had time to investigate yet,” she told him.

  “Don’t,” Kinn ordered, pointing at her. He hefted his crossbow onto his shoulder before turning away from them and striding back toward the bridge.

  He flicked his head a couple of times in the direction of the forest on the other side of the bridge. Half a dozen spots along the bank rustled. One by one, soldiers revealed themselves, a dozen at least. Kinn had had backup the entire time and none of them had noticed. A chill fluttered down Grace’s spine.

  “Where are you going?” she called after him.

  Kinn glanced over his shoulder as he headed toward his men. “We’ll bring you fire and meat and furs,” he called back. Soldiers in olive-drab pants with a variety of army shirts and animal skin vests flooded across the narrow bridge to meet up with Kinn. The whole lot disappeared with silent stealth into the woods.

  “Where are they going?” Carrie echoed Grace’s question, renewed fear pinching her face.

  Grace could only speculate. “To find the other ship.”

  Chapter Three – The Gift

  “We should have gone after them,” Carrie grunted, adjusting her shoulder under Alvin’s. She and Danny supported Alvin on either side, half carrying, half dragging him across the rough terrain of the forest on a direct path back to the crash site.

  “To help them?” Grace asked.

  “To stop them,” Carrie replied.

  “Just because they’re soldiers doesn’t mean they’re going to kill everybody,” Grace said.

  Carrie replied with a wary lift of her eyebrow.

  “We would have been in the way,” Danny said.

  “Who asked you?” Carrie snapped.

  “He’s right though.” Grace walked ahead of them. She snapped a branch to clear their path, forging ahead.

  Just because Danny was right didn’t mean she liked it.

  “We need to find a way to make meaningful contact with the other crash survivors. The sooner we form a single group the better.”

  “Grace, pick some of that plant there, the one with the purple flowers and fuzzy leaves.” Danny changed the subject.

  She nodded and ducked through the underbrush to grab a handful. “Do you know what it is?”

  “No.” He shook his head.

  Alvin groaned as he tripped over a rock, forcing Danny and Carrie to stop and catch him. Grace doubled back to help them. That Alvin was even trying to walk was an act of heroism on his part.

  “The purple flowers remind me of comfrey,” Danny kept the innocuous conversation going. He met Grace’s eyes, a silent signal to keep Alvin distracted from his pain.

  “And that’s a good thing?” Grace played along. She stepped to the side and pulled a few of the plants Danny pointed to, roots and all.

  “It’s a good thing if it works.”

  “What does comfrey do?” Grace tugged up a few more as they moved forward again.

  “It heals. Skin conditions mostly, cuts and burns and the like. But it’s also known as knitbone. If this is anything like that, we could probably—”

  “We should have gone after them,” Carrie interrupted.

  Danny sent her a peevish look from Alvin’s other side. Grace swallowed her frustration and picked up her pace.

  They made their slow way over the last hill and were noticed as soon as they came within sight of the wreck of ES5. Dave and Sean were in deep discussion closer to the river bend but rushed up the gouge from the crash to intercept them as they crested the hill and started their descent.

  “What happened?” Sean demanded. He and Dave and several others met them as they reached the flat of the valley.

  “Some crossbow-toting lunatic came out of the forest and shot Alvin,” Carrie growled.

  “What?”

  Sean took Alvin’s arm from her shoulder and draped it over his own. Dave did the same for Danny. Danny shook out his aching muscles before going to Grace to take the plants with a grateful nod and smile. He looked tired. Another problem to add to her list.

  “Dave has been trying to get the communications systems on ES5 up and running so we can contact the other ship, but so far no luck,” Sean reported.

  “The crash was pretty much fatal for ES5,” Dave added. “All power is gone now.”

  Grace nodded, filing the information away and moving to what they could control. “We came across some people from another emergency ship.”

  “What other ship?” Sean asked.

  “The one that was following us?” Dave added.

  Grace shook her head, rubbing her temples. “A different one. They look like they were part of the military squadron on the Argo. The one who talked to us was named Kinn. Do you recognize the name?”

  “Talked to us?” Carrie snorted over Grace’s question. “The one who tried to kill us, you mean.”

  “He wasn’t trying to kill us.” Grace sighed. The last thing she wanted to do was wrestle understanding into a group of alarmed and weary crash survivors. She had done more walking in the last few hours than she had done in a year and her limbs were rebelling. She wanted water, a good, hot meal, and a nap. “Alvin came out of the forest and picked up a rock to throw, so Kinn defended himself.”

  “I can’t believe you’re choosing his side
.” Carrie glowered.

  “I’m not choosing any sides, I’m just—”

  “He shot one of us.”

  “The wound isn’t fatal.” Danny came to Grace’s defense. “He was trying to disarm Alvin, not kill him. Alvin will be fine. Unless infection sets in.”

  “And if infection does set in?” Sean demanded. He motioned for Dave to help him scoop up Alvin’s legs to carry him up the hill to the wreck faster. “We’ve already got one body to bury. I swear to God—”

  “Kinn said there are about a hundred of them on the other side of the river.” Grace diverted the argument to something more useful. “They’ve been here for about two months.”

  “How is that even possible?” Dave asked.

  “I don’t know.” Grace was grateful to be asked a real question. “That’s something we should ask Gil. Kinn said he would bring us supplies, but when he heard that there was another wreck he and his friends rushed off to find it.”

  “Beth ran into a scouting party from the other wreck.”

  Dave’s announcement stopped Grace in her tracks. She blinked as her exhausted brain worked to do its job.

  “Really? How are they? Can we move them down here with us?” She jogged a few steps to catch up.

  “Apparently they’re about the same as us,” Sean finished the explanation. “And she asked them to come, but they said no.”

  “They said no?” More inexplicable delay. It was illogical, potentially harmful, and something she would need to get to the bottom of as soon as possible.

  They reached ES5. Without power, it was as dead as Dave suggested. Sean and Dave set Alvin down in a clearing near a fire pit a few of their mates were constructing. Jonah sat several yards apart from the clearing with Peter’s body lying in front of him. The desolate fear of his expression squeezed Grace’s chest.

  “The other ship crashed at roughly the same time we did,” Sean continued his explanation, “although time has been a little tricky to deal with today. They were in one of the larger emergency ships, but only a hundred and forty of them made it on before the bulkheads closed. They landed in a field instead of the forest, but their ship was badly damaged. That’s what the smoke we’re seeing is.”

  “Did they sustain any casualties?” Danny asked.

  Sean turned on him. “What, are you suddenly a real doctor?”

  “Did they?” Grace’s heart pounded.

  Sean sighed and turned away from Danny. “The group Beth came across said there were some, but apparently they have a doctor with them too. A real one.”

  “Who is it?” Danny asked at the same time as Grace questioned, “How far away are they?”

  “Several miles.” Sean answered. “They said they’d been scouting the area for at least a few hours. Beth ran into a scouting party an hour away across the valley and over a few of these hills.”

  Grace rubbed her tired eyes. “Whatever their objection is, our best chance for survival is to come together, pool our supplies, and find out what we have. Kinn’s men too, whether he likes it or not. We should—”

  “Grace,” Sean stopped her. He studied her with anxious eyes and a tight jaw before saying, “Kutrosky was on that ship.”

  Even the breeze in the treetops seemed to stop.

  “Kutrosky?” Carrie swallowed, paling. She sank to sit against one of the large rocks, head in her hands.

  “This is not a problem,” Grace insisted. “Brian Kutrosky is just a man now, like any of the rest of us. What’s he going to do here, now?”

  Carrie didn’t look at all convinced. Neither did most of the others.

  “We need to organize all of the survivors.” Grace moved on. “Maybe there are other emergency ships nearby that we don’t know of. We need to pool our resources, build shelters. ‘Safety in numbers’ is more than just an old cliché. We need to—”

  “No one is doing anything more today,” Danny interrupted her. He took her hand with a smile that didn’t touch his eyes and steered her to the rock where Carrie sat. “You need to rest.”

  “Danny, I can’t—”

  He silenced her with a raised hand. His finger hovered just short of touching her lips. “I would gladly step back and watch you take over the world on any other day, but today you’ve done enough. Rest. Now,” he ordered, soft and deep.

  Grace sighed and sent him a wry grin. When he used that voice she was helpless. It held more than just orders. It soaked into her chest and sent the warmth of knowing somebody cared about her spinning through her. Few people had ever cared for her. And he was right.

  “Don’t think any less of me if I agree with you. This time,” she murmured, raking her fingers through her hair to pull it out of her eyes.

  “How could I, since it happens so rarely?”

  He sent her one of his lopsided grins, brushing his hand down her arm to squeeze her hand. He waited until she was sitting by Carrie’s side before he walked back toward the wreck, leaving prickles of warmth across her skin in his wake. If she didn’t know better, she would be tempted to believe in love.

  She caught Carrie staring at her, mouth and face tight, eyes sharp with disapproval but still swimming with fear. Grace sighed and ignored her. She never could explain her attraction to Danny, just as she could never understand why so many people distrusted him. Neither side was going to see the other view right now.

  She glanced to Jonah instead, to Peter’s body. She swallowed. If they didn’t all come together soon, Peter wouldn’t be the only loss they suffered. Whatever Kinn’s vetting process was, they needed to get it over with. Now.

  She let out a breath and rested her head against the tree. “Can’t it be night already?” she spoke her thought so that only Carrie could hear it. Carrie huffed something that might have been a laugh. It was a good sign.

  A camp of sorts had taken form in the cleared area around the wreck while they had been gone. Several supply crates had been moved out of the ship. Those that had been emptied weeks ago in their wandering were being used as tables or benches. Stacey directed some of the travelers that hadn’t gone exploring as they picked through the remaining supplies.

  Grace and Carrie weren’t the only ones taking a break. In fact there were more people gathered in the clearing than were missing. They seemed to be well. Even Lois was sitting upright against a tree now.

  “What are we gonna do, Grace?” Carrie’s voice was uncharacteristically small beside her.

  Graced leaned against her friend. “We’re going to do whatever we have to do to survive. And we’re going to survive, Carrie. More than that. I promise you.”

  Carrie lowered her head and opened frightened eyes with a nod. “If you tell me we’ll survive I’ll believe you. I’ll believe anything you say.”

  “Good. Then believe this. Our mission hasn’t changed. We signed up for The Terra Project so we could take part in the creation of a better civilization. And that’s exactly what we’re going to do.”

  “But it wasn’t supposed to happen like this.”

  “Nothing ever happens the way it’s supposed to. I learned that when I was six, after my mom died. I wasn’t supposed to grow up under the cold thumb of a grandmother who despised the sight of me, but I joined The Terra Project and life got so much better. I was given the chance to start over. That’s what this is—another chance to start over.”

  “No offense, Grace, I know your mom meant a lot to you and the Project was the best thing to ever happen to you, but this,” she gestured to the forest around them, “is a problem.”

  Grace shook her head and shifted to face her friend. “How do you think the first ship of colonists felt when they landed on Terra? Did they know that the colony would survive? That it would flourish?”

  “I’d hardly call what they’re doing flourishing.” Carrie’s voice was bitter.

  “Or the first settlers at Jamestown centuries ago on Earth. We’re facing exactly what they faced.”

  “Half of them died.”

  “We�
��ll survive,” Grace insisted. “And once we figure out where to live and what to eat and how to adapt to this place I’ll be right back to rolling my eyes at you as you throw yourself at every handsome man on the moon.”

  “Hmph.” Carrie hugged Grace’s arm, trying her best to laugh. “There’s not much of a selection, is there?”

  “There’s enough for everyone to find a mate and start a family. A thriving family that cares for each other and a bigger community that bands together. That’s all that matters.”

  They sat in silence. Grace tried to think, tried to plan ahead, but all she wanted to do was lay down where she was and close her eyes. She settled for leaning her head against Carrie’s and glancing up at the sky.

  “When is this day going to be over?” she muttered to no one in particular.

  “Hmm?”

  “The sun was high in the sky when we landed. It feels like it’s been ages since then, but the sun has hardly moved. Why can’t it just set already? I haven’t seen a sunset in ages.”

  “We’re not on Earth time anymore.”

  Gil’s distracted voice would have made Grace jump if she’d had more energy. She cocked her head up to where he wandered near them, running a hand through his long hair and staring alternately at the sky and ground as if making calculations in his head. Combined with his scraggly beard, the distracted expression made him look every inch the mad scientist.

  “What do you mean?” Carrie asked. Grace could feel her tense and rubbed her arm.

  Gil took a moment to answer, turning a full circle where he stood, still looking up. “This isn’t Earth and we’re not operating on Earth time anymore. The day isn’t twenty-four hours. I need to take some measurements….”

  His thought wandered for a moment as he spotted something on the ground. He bent to pick up a particularly long, straight stick.

  “It’s got to be more than twenty-four hours, but we won’t know how long until we’ve gone through one rotation.” He wasn’t talking to them anymore. “And it’s hard to say how the planet will affect night and day, although we know that Chronis turns on a ninety degree axis, like Uranus in the Solar system. Judging by the movement of the sun so far, I believe this moon is on an Equatorial orbit to Chronis while its axis, well, it’s axis in relation to Ovid isn’t that different than Earth’s axis toward Sol, not really. At least I think so.”