Project Columbus: Omnibus

by J. C. Rainier

The trees behind her consumed the landscape, and she could no longer see the pod. The voice inside her kept urging her on. Keep running. Don’t stop.

  Gabi did just that.

  Capt Haruka Kimura

  30 March 2058, 14:00 (est)

  About 2.5 miles west of ex-Raphael engineering skiff crash site

  Haruka studied the confluence of the stream and the river from her position on the hill just above. Nova Weyler stood a few feet ahead on her left foot. Blood from her wounds stained the right leg of her flight suit a sickening purple, and a patch of dried blood caked her long blonde hair, hiding the gash from her earlier altercation with Haruka. Nova no longer wore Mancini’s pack around her neck; the strain made it too hard for her to breathe, and Haruka had pillaged it for the most valuable supplies before discarding the remnants.

  “Thinking of drowning me, I bet,” Nova taunted.

  Haruka ignored her. She checked to make sure that the ropes were still tight against Nova’s wrists. “Stay here.”

  “Yes, Captain,” she sneered.

  Haruka walked down the gentle slope to the wide bank of the creek. Near where the two bodies of water joined, the tangled vegetation gave way to mud and rock. She looked across the creek at the opposite side, then slung her rifle over her shoulder and picked up a long stick from the muck. She probed the waters with the stick, testing the depth and pull. Cautiously she walked in. The relatively cool, rushing water gave her immediate relief from the oppressive heat of the jungle. Haruka knelt and splashed her face before she resumed charting the bottom of the stream.

  It’s a little fast, but very shallow, she thought. We can cross here. She cast aside her probing stick and went to retrieve her weapon. With almost no warning, her stomach revolted. She was barely able to double over and turn her head before she vomited. She spit and coughed until her innards settled, then slogged up the slope.

  “That was really fun to watch, Kimura. Thanks.”

  “Shut up. Cross right there,” she commanded as she nudged Nova with the barrel.

  Nova hobbled forward. She tripped on her way down the slope and tumbled down to the bank, stopping just before the water’s edge. The prisoner cursed and thrashed, and had to be helped to her feet by Haruka, who grabbed Nova by the collar to steady her as the two forded the shallow stream. Again Nova stumbled on the opposite bank, but kept her footing. A pained grunt escaped her lips.

  “March,” Haruka ordered, pointing down the bank of the wider river. Her teeth clenched as her captive gave her a twisted smile, and then limped along the shore.

  She could at least act like she’s just murdered someone. Cold bitch.

  The two walked along the river at a glacial pace. Nova’s leg prevented any quicker movement. Each footfall of the prisoner’s lame leg wore on Haruka, reminding her of her murdered friend. She clenched her teeth and came to a halt, then scanned the way ahead. A steep cut bank ahead would force them into the river, so she ordered Nova to climb a small rise to their right, and they worked their way down the far side, away from the river.

  Nova faltered as they came to the bottom of the hill, but struggled to her feet. Haruka leaned the M4 against a short tree and drew the canteen from her belt. She held it to Nova’s lips, but she turned her head in refusal.

  “Drink,” Haruka said in a commanding voice.

  “Screw you,” Nova shot back.

  The rage inside of Haruka boiled over, and she chucked the canteen into Nova’s face, sending her reeling and the canteen flying.

  “Now we see your true colors, Captain,” she mocked.

  “Why did you kill him?”

  “I don’t answer to you.”

  “What the hell did he do to you that he deserved to die?” Haruka screamed as she pushed her captive’s shoulder with each question. “Why the hell did you kill him? What possible reason could you have?”

  Nova gave an unnerving chuckle. “He annoyed me.”

  Haruka’s vision narrowed and she felt her anger erode at what little control she still possessed. She took a step forward and kicked as hard as she could into the side of Nova’s wounded leg. A howl of pain rose from Nova and she fell to the side.

  “He was my friend, you bitch! And now you’re acting like he doesn’t matter. Who the hell do you think you are?”

  “Someone better and more loyal than you, traitor,” she spat back.

  “I’m not a traitor! I had no idea that any of that… that shit that Shipp was talking about was even going on!”

  Nova laughed, although pain was evident in her voice. “We’ve known what your father and Dr. Benedict were up to for a while. But they changed their timetable, and we couldn’t stop them on the ground.”

  A shiver ran down Haruka’s spine. “What are you talking about, Airman?”

  “God, you’re as dumb as a bag of rocks, Kimura.”

  “Just answer the damn question.”

  “Not a chance.”

  Haruka slammed her foot down on Nova’s right leg again. She bellowed and reached her bound hands for the wound, which seeped with fresh blood.

  “You will answer me,” Haruka growled.

  “Fine.” Nova glared at Haruka as she drew deep breaths through her bared teeth. “I’ve been watching your father and Dr. Benedict since I arrived at PCRL in Laramie about six months before launch. We knew something was going on, and that they were planning on betraying the government. It was my job to infiltrate, report, and neutralize the threat.”

  Neutralize the threat. Dad’s not a fucking threat, you psycho.

  “Benedict’s supporters were loyal,” she continued. “I couldn’t get close enough to any of them to be effective, so I had to change tactics. I’m afraid that Dr. Lang’s disappearance shortly before the arrival of the passengers was no mystery, my dear Captain. Unfortunately, he didn’t know as much as I had hoped.”

  Haruka gasped. “You… What did you do to him?”

  Nova shrugged. “A little torture, a lot of interrogation. He cracked pretty easily, but again, I didn’t realize that he didn’t have the information I needed.”

  “And just what was that?”

  “The planned dates for moving the passengers to Laramie and the launch date of the sleepers. A couple days later I got the answer to the first question when the first buses showed up. So I stood by and waited for orders.”

  “That must have been hard for you,” Haruka sneered. “What did you do, walk across the hall to Fox’s office?”

  “Give it up, Captain. Fox is dead. I didn’t work for her anyway.”

  “Liar!” Haruka kicked her prisoner in the shin, eliciting another scream of pain.

  “God damn it, Kimura. I didn’t work for that nut bag. She was my scapegoat, not my handler,” Nova growled through her teeth.

  “Handler?” Haruka paused. “Who the hell are you?”

  “Lisa Evans, NSA.”

  NSA? Oh God. Haruka took a step back. Then it’s true. Dad…

  “So then how was Fox your scapegoat, Evans?”

  Evans chuckled sadistically. “It’s a good thing the old bat was going insane. It made it really easy to persuade her that she killed Airman Ellsworth.”

  Haruka’s jaw dropped. “What? You mean she didn’t?”

  For a moment, Haruka saw sorrow in her prisoner’s eyes, and her gaze cast downward. “Ellsworth was an unfortunate victim in all of this. He served his country well. His only crime was to accidentally stumble across what I was doing.”

  Haruka’s stomach knotted up as the sinister words of Evans rattled in her mind. “What were you doing that was so terrible he had to die?”

  “Exacting revenge.” The words knifed Haruka in the gut.

  “On who?”

  “The conspirators who condemned my family to death. Want me to list them for you?”

  Haruka shook her head and closed her eyes. “No. Don’t.”

  “Lieutenant William Shipp,” Evans said in a low tone. “Major Daniel Forrest.”

  �
�Stop,” Haruka interrupted and her eyes snapped open.

  “Doctor Jonathan Fairweather,” she continued. Her glare felt as if it would burn into Haruka’s skin. “Lieutenant Brandon Reid.”

  “Stop it!”

  “Doctor Tadashi Kimura.”

  Haruka screamed and kicked the prone Evans in the chest, sending her rolling onto her pack, coughing as she struggled for air. “No. You can’t go after Dad. I’ll kill you right now.”

  Evans winced as she slowly hobbled to her feet. “I already killed him.”

  Haruka’s heart sank, and she felt faint. “No,” she croaked feebly. “No, there’s no way.” Haruka’s stomach betrayed her again, and she threw up.

  Evans tsked in disapproval. “Silly girl. How do you think I killed Shipp without his sleeper ever going offline?”

  “No. His sleeper failed.”

  “I decalibrated the GDS sensor in his pod.” Evans spat a glob of blood onto the soft ground. “Killing the others was just a matter of activating an exploit in the com software that I had rolled back while we were still on Earth.”

  Haruka was struck with the realization that this blonde menace might have actually found a way to kill anyone she wanted. Her knees buckled and she dropped down on them. “No…”

  “Starting to feel how I felt, huh? My father served our country for longer than you have been alive. He was a good soldier and a great public servant.” Evans’s voice turned cold again. “But your father and Dr. Benedict decided that they didn’t want Senator Ryan Evans and his family to come along.”

  Numbness washed over Haruka. She rose slowly and looked Evans in the eyes again. “If your father tampered with the algorithm to get himself on board, so help me…”

  “So what if he did? That’s absolutely no different than what your father did; using his influence to get his loved ones on board.”

  Haruka swallowed hard. “So what about Marco? And why not just kill me in my sleep back on Raphael like the coward you are?”

  “I thought about killing you before. But that damned shit for brains Bartrand screwed up the course of the ship, and you were the only one who could figure out how to fix it. I needed you alive, and knew that I wouldn’t have a chance to kill you until we were on the planet.” Evans wobbled as she tried to put weight on her lame foot. “I found out the hard way that Mancini was too devoted to you. Everything I tried to break the two of you apart on Raphael failed. There would be no way I could kill you with him around and get out alive, so I needed you separated. I thought you had wandered farther away than you had when you scouted. Just a few more seconds and I would have taken care of the little hairy rodent, grabbed the radio tracker, and left you to rot in the jungle.”

  Haruka rose to her feet and drew the Beretta M9A1 from her belt with a deliberate motion. She flipped the safety off and chambered a round, then raised it level with the head of the NSA agent.

  Do it, Haruka, a voice from deep inside called. Take revenge for Dad.

  “Do it, Kimura,” Evans taunted. “Finish the job.”

  Revenge, she thought. Revenge would make me no better than her. Killing her won’t bring Dad back, or Marco or Brandon.

  “No.” She engaged the safety and ejected the round from the slider, then tucked the weapon back in her belt. “No, you’re going to have a trial for what you’ve done.”

  Evans took a step forward. “You’re a traitor and a coward, Kimura.”

  Haruka turned and walked wearily to the tree where the rifle rested. As she reached for it, she heard a rustling and a cracking noise. She snatched the rifle up and wheeled around a split second too late.

  With a fierce roar, a tawny brown animal with a long tail, about the size of a large dog, leaped from within a bush and knocked Evans to the ground, screaming. Haruka took a step to the side and aimed the rifle at it, but she was knocked down from behind. The rifle flew from her hands and landed well out of reach. She scrambled to her knees and was confronted by a second animal, which spun around and faced her, its yellow eyes halved by dark slits and its large teeth bared. Twenty feet away, the first animal locked onto Evans’ throat and tore it out. Blood spurted as she made a sick gurgling noise.

  Haruka reached to her belt and drew the Beretta with lighting reflexes. She managed to ready the weapon just as the beast leaped at her. Two rounds burst forth from the gun, and the creature flailed in mid air. Its claws raked Haruka across the shoulder and the force knocked her on her back. She winced and pushed back on her feet to get away from her attacker, which lay on its side, whining and bleeding.

  She clamored to her feet and turned to face the beast that took out Evans. It stood over her limp body and stared at Haruka. If it had been human, Haruka might have taken the look on its face for one of disbelief. Then its eyes narrowed and it bared sharp, bloodied fangs as it crouched. Haruka squeezed one shot from the pistol and the slug found its mark between the eyes of the animal; it fell dead where it stood.

  A pained whimper came from her side, and Haruka turned to face the beast that wounded her shoulder. It wheezed and thrashed weakly in the dirt as dark blood trickled from under its side. Haruka took a long look at it. Its body was long and lean, and its claws appeared to retract into its paws.

  Predator, she thought. Looks kind of like a small tiger or a jaguar.

  Haruka took aim and put it out of its misery with one more shot. She scanned the area to make sure no more of their friends were lurking about, and then walked over to the lifeless body of Lisa Evans. Blood pooled behind her opened neck, forming a slow, thick river that rolled away from her. Her jaw was slack and pale, and her lifeless blue eyes had rolled back and were fixated on some point in the jungle canopy above. Haruka spotted the mangled chain of her dog tags lying across her chest. She picked them up and read the name.

  WEYLER, NOVA L.

  She clenched them in her fist. No you weren’t, you lying sack. Haruka added the tags to her pocket and rifled through the fallen agent’s backpack. She exchanged her partially spent magazine for the pistol for a fresh one, and grabbed an extra meal, stuffing it in her own pack. As she was about to turn from the body, she paused. Evans still had her hands tied behind her back, as if to mock Haruka for letting her die without the ability to defend herself. Haruka knelt down, drew her bayonet, and sliced through the ropes, tossing them aside.

  She rose and took her bearings from the tracker and the compass, then retrieved the rifle and jogged off in the direction of pod eight.

  Gabrielle Serrano

  30 March 2058, almost sunset

  Lost in the jungle

  Gabi’s feet dragged as she plodded along, plowing tiny streaks of bare dirt in the leaf littered jungle floor. Her pink shoes were caked brown with mud, her long brown hair a tangled mess, and her jeans torn at the knees. She had more than a dozen scratches from her head to her feet, but her skinned arm stung the worst. The only thing that rivaled the burning pain in her arm was a sharp pang that came from her stomach, warning her that she needed food.

  She no longer ran. The voice in her mind gave way at last to the idea that she was alone. At this point she could do nothing about it as she was completely lost. An endless sea of trees surrounded her. No human sound reached her ears to guide her, only the chorus of a dozen birds and a thousand insects.

  The insects had become a problem as well. As the orange sun dipped to the horizon and shadows lurked ahead, hiding unknown evils, they came out. Most ignored Gabi and went on their way, but there were also bugs similar to mosquitoes. They came from seemingly nowhere and would land on Gabi to feast. When she felt one, she would shriek and slap at it. The bugs were lazy, too; Gabi killed almost every one that landed on her. A few managed to have their fill and fly off, leaving an itchy bump on her skin. In her tired state, Gabi could no longer defend herself from these pests, but she knew she had to press on.

  Papa, I’m scared, she thought. I miss you and Mama.

  She wandered to her right for a minute, continuing her quest f
or anything familiar. There were no buildings, or roads, or cars. Even the plants around her were strange. On the ground there was a short, tangled bush that had green and blue leaves, and another that seemed to climb the trees and burst with flowers in three brilliant colors. The trees stood taller than a house. Their branches were high above Gabi’s head, and bore long limbs bristled with hundreds of long, thin leaves. Birds flittered between the branches above, but their song began to die out.

  She heard a loud snap to her left, and she spun around while squeaking. Her eyes met those of a short deer-like creature with a ridge of white, bony knobs that ran down each side of its neck. Its wide eyes blinked once and it slowly chewed on one of the vines that climbed a nearby tree. Its glare felt somehow menacing to Gabi, so she slowly backed away until the animal paid her no mind.

  Gabi trudged up a rise several times taller than she was. She stumbled halfway up as she caught her shoe on a rock, but recovered her footing and gained the top of the hill. A new sound greeted her at the top, faint but distinct. Gabi had skipped rocks in enough creeks to know the sound of one. She cocked her head and strained to hear the source of the sound. Once she was confident of where it was, she turned toward it and moved slowly ahead.

  The sun had merged with the horizon, and the light dimmed with every moment. She knew that it would be dark very soon. Her stomach growled at her, despite the nerves churning within her.

  I’m really really hungry. I want some crackers and cheese and an apple and juice.

  She knew none of those things were here, and she couldn’t see anything right away that looked tasty. Gabi crossed a low point and over another hill. On the far side, the dying orange glimmer of the sun reflected off of a fast moving creek. She knew she should not cross this without an adult; water was a dangerous thing. Instead, she walked to the shore, cupped her hands together, and drew a drink from the stream. The water helped ease her stomach somewhat, but also reminded her of how thirsty she was.

  Gabi sat at the edge and drank until her thirst was quenched, then wandered along the bank of the creek some more. She climbed up on a log and took two steps forward when she stumbled and fell sideways through the canopy of a thick bush. A fresh scratch on her leg welled blood, and she clutched at it as she cried out in pain.