by Megan Alban
Eventually, we came to a small cavern opening. On the other side of it was a destroyed portable office, and rubble was strewn everywhere.
“What happened…?” I looked about with a wide jaw. Then my heart skipped a beat.
Beside a flickering lantern was a bloodied, wounded man. His knees shook by his chin, and his back was against the cavern wall. One arm reached across his knees to keep him tight and warm. His other arm was missing.
“Sir! Sir, are you okay? Oh my goodness, let me help,” I scrambled about him, putting Aippaq down.
His eyes opened at the sound of my voice. His helmet and life support must’ve still had life and power. “Help… help the other miners! Please…” he muttered over the radio with a weary, chilled voice that sent shivers down my spine.
My hands hovered near his shoulder joint where the arm was missing. The wound was bound up tight and sealed with tape about the rest of the mining suit. Beside him, a tank of depleted oxygen was clipped to his life support system. A green cross was painted on its side.
First Aid? My heart raced as I looked about.
“Please, help find the others. They went down the shortcut to the main path. Follow them down there! Get the other miners out of here. It’s too late for me,” he gasped.
There was no way I was going to abandon him there. He was one of Darner’s men and part of our team. I had to do what I could. “What happened here? What attacked you?”
I aimed my torch light about the cave floor, and then I saw evidence of the thing that might’ve caused the wound. A tunnel the size of a bus loomed above my head and then continued through the side of the wall and back into the ground, near the broken portable office. Empty laser shells about the floor showed of a struggle.
“After the meteorites hit, the machinery went rogue, almost like it had a mind of its own. The Galactic-Bertha dug through everything. It almost followed us. The men here, they went back down to try and cut its power.”
I clenched my jaw. That was impossible. All the equipment had been vetted and accredited… by me. My eyes darted to a shining glint. Among the shards of glass and metal, I saw the first aid kit.
Aippaq said to me, “Miss Pepperfield, I sense his passive biological signal is low. He will be gone without something soon. If you can, find an adrenaline syringe.”
I opened the case beside the man and stuck my hand inside. I pulled out bandages until I found a syringe. Then I hopped close to the old man’s wound. “Quick, sir, please could I ask you to move your hand? I need to administer this syringe.”
His teeth chattered, “No, young lady. I told you to stop. Save it for someone who can be saved. I’m done for.” He continued to breathe hard between his syllables. His eyes were wide with terror, so much so his brown eyes looked like beady pinpricks.
I felt my cheeks flush. How could someone say such a thing? “I can help you, if you want. You’ve made it this far to the corner of our galaxy. You can make it through.”
“No, I don’t want to…”
I didn’t want to hear it. “Think about how far from the Milky Way Outpost we’ve come! We’re so close to finding the origin of the broadcast.”
“I don’t care about that,” he seethed.
But I went on, “Just think about what you miners here found today. Just hold on, please!”
“No!” he snapped.
The syringe almost fell from my fingers. I listened.
“I didn’t come here for that. I don’t care about any of that. I came here for my family, my beautiful daughter.”
Under his bloodied helmet, I saw a tear fall from his eye. He wept. “My family name is Gensworth. I have a daughter, Sarah Gensworth. A beautiful teenaged daughter back on the Outpost. Oh Sarah… I love her with all my life. I didn’t know… I didn’t know last Thanksgiving would be the last time I’d see that smile on her face. And it would be the last time she saw my cranky old wrinkled face.”
He reached out with his bloodied, intact hand and held onto my suited forearm. “I’m going to die. You’ll live, though. You’ll go back to the Outpost, won’t you? If you see her, please tell her that her father loves her with all his life. And that he did all this because he wanted her to have an easy life. It was a mistake to come here. I never asked her what she wanted. I did only what I thought she wanted. But all the money and discovery I make here won’t make up for never seeing my beautiful daughter again. I’m sorry, Sarah. I’m sorry.”
My vision of him moved up and down as I nodded. I would pass his message on if I could. If I made it out alive. I didn’t have the guts to tell him maybe I couldn’t. Who was I to destroy his hopes?
Another part of what he said, though, kept me quiet. I felt despair for him. His love for family was greater than everything in his last moments. It was a realization that many came to on the Outpost, or so I’d heard.
The man’s eyes drifted. Our time was fast coming to a close. “You really love your daughter, don’t you?”
“More than anything,” he said, and then closed his eyes for the last time.
Chapter 11
I swallowed the lump in my throat and dropped my head.
“Is Miss Pepperfield okay?” Aippaq asked.
“Yes. Thank you,” I whispered with my eyes closed.
It was the first time I’d seen someone pass before my eyes besides my own father. Back then in the hospital ward I remembered the same eyes he gave me. Ones of hope that I would find happiness in my career, as well as in love, which was so important to him. Family. Love.
My mind returned to Captain Darner. The only man who I’d wanted more than anything. If he asked me anything work related, I could do it. Analyse. Construct. Test. But then when it came to those other words that every other academy girl knew how to do, I couldn’t. Dating. Love. Boyfriends. These were words Alyse Pepperfield didn’t know.
I noted the man’s chest moved ever so slightly. I prepared the adrenaline shot in my hand, and administered it into his arm.
I glanced into the dark hole to my right. The shortcut that the old man spoke about.
Aippaq and I moved to the mouth of the hole.
Aippaq tapped me on my shoes, “Miss Pepperfield I can sense something down there. A strong, passive life signal.”
The ground swelled again, moving me off balance left then right. “It might be Carrera and the others. I hope they are okay.”
“Wait. The more I listen to it the more it seems like something I’ve never ever observed before. It is dark, almost violent,” Aippaq said.
I peered over. What was waiting down there? “It looks like a long drop,” I peeked over the edge.
“Yes, but this is our rescue mission, is it not?” Aippaq asked.
Like a clean drill had gone through I could see the sawn off purple shards on the walls. It was like looking through a telescope, seeing the circle of view right at the end, but as far as I could see the view was of a much darker floor of the pit below. It was a vertical drop from where I stood.
I knew there was no turning back once I took that one step forward and let the quarter-gravity take me down.
“If I go down, I don’t know if I’ll have the reserves to climb the ramp back up. It’s a one way trip for me,” I said.
Aippaq looked at me from the spot nestled in my arms and in front of my LED indicators on the engineering suit. “Everything is a one way trip, is it not?”
I smiled. Aippaq was indeed wise beyond his youthful Fuzzario years. I’d made choices to get to where I was. A choice to enroll at the academy and become a scientist instead of a housewife like my father wanted. To apply for the SH-17 mission and advance humanity. To stay quietly under Captain Darner’s command all the while betraying my innermost calling to be brave with him.
Just like Gensworth, if I could go back I would. I would tell him how every time he wanted to speak out of office hours, I wasn’t running away. I was just scared. And I would be myself instead before him, even though I knew I wasn’t worthy.
But a part of me knew there was no turning back now. My oxygen blinked at fifteen percent. Going back now would be a lost cause. In my head, I flagged this moment as the last regret I’d ever have. Goodbye Darner, I thought to myself.
“Are you okay, Miss Pepperfield? I sense a dark mood about you,” Aippaq asked.
I shook my head. “I’m fine now thank you. Let’s go down Aippaq. Let’s finish this rescue mission.”
“Very well.”
“Ready?” I asked my new Fuzzario friend Aippaq.
“Ready,” he replied. I held onto him tight and brought my right foot forward. I leaned my weight into it and stepped off into the great circular pit.
Chapter 12
Captain Darner shook his head, thinking about the mess the scientist, Alyse Pepperfield was in.
In his rover, accompanied by his search team, Darner watched the still, marked red flag for Dig Site Two pass by.
“Rescue teams, it’s time to spread out. Remember we’re looking for any signs of Rover Four, a Fuzzario and Miss Pepperfield,” he spoke firmly into his microphone.
“Sir? I thought we were responding to the duress call from Mine Site Four?” A marine asked, looking about.
Darner kept his head low. “We will search the area on our way there.”
The two vehicles on either side of his split away, opening up like a fork.
Darner kept his focus on the swathes of land before him. From counting the suits in the locker room, he knew Alyse would be in an Engineer’s suit. At least she would be easy to spot in orange, he thought.
He imagined the eagerness with which she probably put it on. Her uncontained joy at her first field excursion, all because he was too over-protective over her.
“What’s the status?” Darner asked.
“We’re approaching Dig Site Three,” the navigator said.
Darner held onto the ceiling and peered out the observation dome on top of the rover. “Slow down here. We need to clear the area.”
“Sir?” Another marine asked.
“Don’t question me, just slow down the vehicle,” Darner replied. He could almost see the confused expressions on his men’s faces, but seeing the holes in the ground and shards of metal about, he could only focus on her.
The marine who first protested asked once more, “sir are you sure we should be-”
“What is it? Speak your mind, but make it quick,” Darner snapped.
The rover carried on in silence. The marine cleared his throat. “Captain, Sir. With all due respect. I think we need to focus on saving the lives of the miners are Site Four. We can’t be wasting time out here looking for someone we can’t confirm is here.”
Darner clenched his fists, “Alyse Pepperfield is one of us, we can’t just ignore the fact that she’s missing.”
“That’s not what I was suggesting sir. But at the same time protocols say we should not spend longer than ten minutes on a search mission.”
Darner closed his eyes. He knew the marine was right. On one hand, he knew for his peace of mind, he needed to know if Alyse had made it or not. But at the same time, Darner had a mind to toss out all the rules he’d followed till now. Alyse had the courage to face the meteorites to save the men, why couldn’t they give her the same courtesy for her rescue.
“You’re right marine. I concede. We will spend the next five minutes looking, and then we’ll make it to Mine Site Four.”
Darner put on his thinking cap. Given the amount of time between her departure and the meteorite shower finishing, he mapped out the farthest possible frontier arc Alyse’s rover could be in. He pressed a button on his PDA device and spread the word to the others.
“Spread out in these areas, and scrape the frontier. Let’s do the best we can,” Darner said.
“Indeed,” the navigator replied to the plan popping up on the vehicle’s own screen.
A minute later at full speed, the navigator turned the vehicle in a wide arc, “we’re here sir.”
Darner peered into the distance and waited for shining metal pieces among the purple crystalline ground. But with each shining glint from the galaxies above, his heart sunk deeper into sadness. A sadness he now could explain. It was regret.
“Captain. I see something in the distance, looks promising!” The navigator cried.
Good god. Thank you, he thought. Darner’s gaze shot to the horizon. “Well done, marine.”
The rover decelerated as it came closer to the pile of mechanical pieces jutting out against the horizon.
“That’s it. Rover Four,” the navigator said.
Darner pressed his helmet into the window to look inside. The tipped vehicle was empty.
He let out a quiet breath of relief. Then he addressed his crew again, “men, we can confirm Miss Pepperfield is not among the wreckage. Thank you for your patience,” he felt a pained gratitude in his heart. Could he tell anyone the way he felt? “It’s time we move on to Mine Site Four.”
Chapter 13
Moments later, Darner’s armada of rovers were by the fourth dig site. Some men pulled drilling equipment out from the back. The others, including the Captain brought out with their laser blasters held close to their chests. It wasn’t like they had encountered anything dangerous on the planet, but the weapons served multiple purposes. Especially against the fragile amethyst in their way.
Darner led the team. He rushed down the tunnels in wide hops, letting the planet’s soft gravity bring him closer toward the pit where the miners and hopefully Alyse was. below the planet’s surface. He hoped she hadn’t gone too far ahead.
When they came to the fork in the road and Darner directed them to the right. “This way, the miner stop of point should have a short cut to the mining pit below.”
Soon, they’d covered the distance and were into the next, destroyed room. Darner tip toed around the destruction as his men spread out behind him. He was careful not to disturb the scattered floor’s metal, glass and blood.
Then with the torch on his blaster aimed up, he turned about and shouted “medics!”
The marines parted like a mythical sea, allowing the two younger team members to come forward near the old man with his back against the wall. “Oh god. There’s so much blood. He doesn’t look good. Not good at all. It’s a miracle he’s still alive.”
Darner waited by the men and checked around the corner for any more survivors. When he found none, and the men had spread out a stretcher, he crouched beside the old man. He saw his name tag on his chest.
“Gensworth. You are under Carrera’s command aren’t you?” Darner asked, conscious that he was not to speak in past tenses. “What happened here? Can you tell me where Carrera and the boys are? Was there a lady who came by here?”
“Sir, go easy on him,” the medics lifted the man onto the stretcher.
But the man had enough strength to be heard through everyone’s helmets, “Captain Darner. Carrera was with the other men in the pit below. I heard their cry for help. The equipment has minds of their own. They attacked me, and then kept going after the men too,” his eyes were pale. Almost insane. He went on, “but they will be okay. You know the lady. The lady in orange is helping them.”
“Alyse Pepperfield?”
“I did not know that was her name. But she helped me come back from the edge.”
“Where is she now?”
“She went with the Fuzzario into the pit. By the hole over there,” he said before he closed his eyes to breathe deep.
Darner placed a glove softly on the man’s crown. “Thank you,” he said.
Darner stood and let the man be carried away. He than gathered the other men by the gaping entrance leading down into the pit. Darner peered inside, circling the gaping hole
Three years without incident. Yet here he was, losing mens’ arms and exposing a fair lady to danger. He shook his head. It was about time he grew up.
Darner pressed his shoulders back and broad chest forward. “If we are to believe Genswor
th, I have my suspicions about equipment having lives of their own. Machinery doesn’t do evil things. Nuts and bolts don’t aim to kill,” he readied his weapon, and hoped to god that his leading scientist Alyse Pepperfield hadn’t encountered any of the other miners, “only humans do.”
Chapter 14
I drifted in free-fall.
The black pit floor at the chute’s circular ending expanded into view. The crystalline cylinder encasing Aippaq and I, rushed upward past my eyes until at last, the gravity took us through the bottom and into a dark football field sized cave.
I angled the torch on my chest around to the conveyorbelt and transport machinery about the room. Past the equipment, I caught the corners of the room.
“What on Mars happened here?” My eyes bulged as my heart rate burst. There was red on the floor. Blood.
“This doesn’t look good,” Aippaq said as he hopped out of my arms.
I followed the trail until I saw a wall. All along it were diggers painted red and turned on their sides.
“Oh god, they weren’t as lucky as old man Gensworth...” I choked and covered my helmet, where my mouth would’ve been.
I dug into the many pockets inside my engineer’s suit and found a small a flare to set off. It sparked, then shone bright red, illuminating the mine cart beside me with a blood red glow.
Whatever attacked old man Gensworth had attacked these men too. And with their backs to the wall it was clear that between them all, they had no fighting chance.
I brought the red flare to the wall where the bodies were. I counted five. Five rag-doll bodies strewn along like toys in a predator’s pen. None of them moved while their chins hung low, and their eyes were glazed over.
I rushed to the first man who had a build like Carrera’s. I put my hands on the helmet and glanced through the dried spurts of blood on the inside of the helmet. For a moment, I saw his face. But it wasn’t Manuel Carrera staring into the void, mouth open. It was another equally unfortunate soul.
I retreated five steps back, hand held to my heart. Every limb in my body felt heavy. None of these men deserved to die the way they did. What horrors did they last see before all their bodies were frozen into the crusty, twisted poses they now had?
