Project Columbus: Omnibus

by J. C. Rainier

  “Yeah. Let me see,” said Emilia as she peeled back the tape holding Haruka’s makeshift bandage together. Haruka winced as she examined the tender flesh. “Luis, do you remember where the med kits were?”

  “Yup. Need one?”

  “Yeah.”

  Luis turned and left. Haruka sucked in a breath of air as the probing continued. “How bad is it?”

  “All things considered, not bad. I see you’ve managed to keep the wound pretty clean, but it has opened several times. We need to find a way to bind it shut and keep it from getting infected.” Emilia looked up at the gathered crowd. “Take the kids somewhere else for a minute, please.”

  The children were shuffled out of the hallway with their respective guardians, and Luis came back with a bulky medical kit from one of the storage lockers. Emilia retrieved some supplies from inside. “This will probably hurt pretty badly. I noticed that there’s morphine in this kit. If you’re not allergic and you want me to use it, I will.”

  As much as Haruka wanted to tough it out and continue, she was pleased at the prospect of being relieved of the pain. She nodded at the nurse.

  “Luis,” she said. “Want to know the next thing you can do for me?”

  “Absolutely.”

  She unslung her rifle and handed it to him, pulled the pistol from her belt and set it on the deck plate, and removed the belt with her second pistol and bayonet. “Keep a watch over everyone for me. No one goes into the jungle until I say so, got it? We have enough supplies here that we don’t need to do anything rash.”

  “You got it.”

  Haruka turned back to Emilia, who was already preparing a morphine shot. “Patch me up, but don’t knock me out.”

  Emilia tapped Haruka’s arm with her fingers, then slipped the needle in and injected the drugs without Haruka feeling so much as a pinch.

  “Wow, you’re good at that.”

  Emilia smiled at Haruka. “Twelve years of experience, and I hope to have many more.”

  Haruka’s eyelids drooped as she felt the drugs kick in. She did not try to fight the effects, but instead welcomed the end of her pain in a blurred haze. The light seemed to blend in with the metal as her head slipped to the deck.

  “How many people survived?” Haruka asked, barely able to enunciate.

  “Shhh. Worry about that later,” Emilia soothed.

  Haruka tried to lift her head. Emilia’s face blurred like a painting in the rain. “You tricked me. I didn’t… I said…”

  She did not have the strength to battle through both the drugs and fatigue, and she faded out of consciousness.

  2nd Lt Darren Cormack

  USAF

  Planetfall +1 day, early afternoon

  Ex-Raphael sleeper pod seven landing site

  Darren climbed down from the top of the pod and into its sweltering belly. There were no trees atop the hill where they had set down, and the sun baked the exposed metal craft all day long. The halls reeked of body odor, and even with the top and rear hatches open, the internal temperature was miserable well into the evening hours. He wiped his brow as his long strides covered the distance from the ladder to the ESAARC cockpit.

  He slid the door open and took his place next to Sergeant Daniels. Her face was plain, with an angular nose. She had clipped her wavy brown hair up, and her headset spanned over her folded locks. Her blank expression could have either been that of singular focus or complete disinterest.

  “Update please, Daniels.”

  “No change, sir,” she said. “We have had no contact from any unaccounted pods, nor have we heard from Captain Kimura.”

  Darren sighed. Captain Kimura should have landed here by now, or at least signaled. She’s probably crashed too.

  “Alright, let’s go down the list again,” he said as he settled his headset. “Status of our pod and passengers.”

  “Landed safely. Both crew members and all one hundred fifty nine passengers accounted for, no injuries. Pod is fully operational, although our thruster banks are basically out of fuel.”

  “Pods one and two?”

  Daniels looked at a clipboard with some handwritten notes. “Landed safe. All passengers and crew accounted for, no casualties. They are located together about fifty miles east.”

  Darren nodded and pursed his lips. “Pods three and four?”

  “Number three landed hard, twenty miles northeast of here. Sergeant Forsyth reports nine dead and thirty wounded. Pod four crashed on approach to the one-two landing site. Our report came from a civilian. It’s not clear just what the extent of casualties is, sir, but it would appear the crew did not survive and there are a lot of civilians dead.”

  “Hang on a second, Daniels.” Darren activated the radio. “This is Lieutenant Cormack of pod seven, calling pod one or two. Please respond.”

  There was a crackle and a pause. Darren waited for two full minutes before he repeated his request, and several more seconds passed before a response came through his earpiece.

  “Pod two, Lieutenant Marsolek speaking.”

  “Have you had any contact with pod four today, Lieutenant?”

  “No.” Darren could hear the sound of paper shuffling through his headset. “From what I see, you’ve been coordinating communication between pods, so we’ve been concentrating on getting set up out here instead.”

  Figures.

  “Can you spare a small search party? Pod four is near you. Their crew is dead and there are civilian casualties.” Darren snapped his fingers at Daniels and held out his hand.

  “I think so. Where are they at?” Marsolek asked.

  Daniels handed him a crudely drawn map showing the positions of the pods. “Looks like they’re two, maybe three miles northwest of you. Bring them back to your camp if you can.”

  “Alright, we’ll check it out. Anything else, Lieutenant?”

  “Not right now. Cormack out.” He switched off the radio and looked at Daniels. “Can you believe that? He’s dumping coordination duty on us. You’d think he’d at least make an effort to find his neighbors, especially with the manpower they’ve got over there.”

  She shrugged. “No offense, sir, but they’ve got their own problems to deal with. The Operational Guidelines are useless too, since we’ve lost all of our command officers.”

  Darren looked out the forward window at the blue sky and cottony white clouds. “Who is in command now, Daniels?”

  She flipped through a few pages on her clipboard. “Let’s see here. Colonel Fox and Captain Bartrand were relieved of duty and are missing. Major Emberley, Captain Maynard, Captain Ford, and Captain Kimura are all missing. So are Lieutenants Mancini, Morado, and Perez. Lieutenants Singh, Kaspar, and Lewis are all dead. It looks like you and Marsolek are the last remaining officers, sir.”

  “Does Marsolek outrank me?”

  “No, you’re the same rank. Give me a second to figure this out, sir.” Daniels turned on the computer console in front of her.

  “Be quick. We need to spare our batteries for the coms.”

  “I know,” she said with an air of impatience. She quickly brought up the crew files and flipped through them. “Marsolek is an engineer, so according to the Ops Guidelines, you’re in command.” She looked at him and sarcastically said, “Congratulations, sir.”

  “Gee, thanks, Sergeant. It’s everything I’ve dreamed of.”

  Darren sighed heavily. I didn’t want a command, ever. I just wanted to put in my tour and go home to open a business. This is about as far from what I wanted as I could get. He closed his eyes and dreamed of the small café he had always wanted to own; of the cozy tables resting on red tiled floor, taking orders from smiling customers while the smell of fresh baked pastries wafted through the air.

  Even though at first his dream appeared to have been dashed by his assignment to Project Columbus, Darren had a glimmer of hope that sometime after a colony was established, he might possibly be able to pursue his goal, even if it was on a different world. That glimmer was
buried and his dream crushed when Raphael had been destroyed. Instead, his reality was that he was in charge of hundreds of frightened and injured refugees scattered all over an island, far from their intended landing point.

  He grimaced and flipped the radio on, then fiddled with the frequency control. “Lieutenant Cormack to any survivor in pod four, please come in.”

  He repeated his request after two minutes and then once more after four minutes.

  “H-hello?” stammered a voice in his earpiece.

  “Cormack here, are you from pod four?”

  “I.. I think so. How do I tell for sure?”

  “Go to the back of the pod, there will be a large number painted on the rear ramp.”

  “Okay. Let me check.” There was a silence for a minute or so. “Yeah, this is pod four.”

  “Good. What’s your name?”

  “It’s Greg.”

  “Good. Greg, I need you to do something for me, okay? It’s something real simple.”

  “Oh, okay. What is it?”

  “I’ve got a group headed your way from a nearby pod to rescue you. We need your people to get ready.”

  “I-I don’t know what to do,” Greg responded feebly.

  “It’s easy, Greg. Just listen to me, okay? There’s a ladder that goes to the roof to an escape hatch. Four people go up top and watch for your rescuers, got it?”

  “Okay.”

  “Alright. Next get all your injured people and have them near the rear hatch so they’re ready to go.”

  “Uhm, okay.”

  “Then get some others to help you gather as many supplies as you can. If you run out of packs, fill up the flight suits and drag them behind you. Food first, then weapons if the keypads on their lockers aren’t busted. I’ll give you the code in a minute. Grab the med kits, and then as many of the hand tools as you can. Axes, saws, and shovels are the most useful, but anything you can take would be helpful.”

  “Okay, I think I’ve got it.”

  “Good. The access code to the weapons lockers will be zero four two two nine four, followed by pound. Repeat that back to me, Greg.”

  “Zero four two two nine four pound.”

  “Good. Just hang tight there and we’ll get you out, okay?”

  Darren could hear a relieved sigh from Greg. “Thanks.”

  “Cormack out.” He clicked the radio off, rubbed his eyes, and sighed. “Pods five and six?”

  Daniels looked back at her clipboard and cleared her throat. “Five is unaccounted for. Casualties assumed to be 100 percent. Six took a hard landing fifteen miles east of us. Sergeant Zhao reports that about a dozen passengers were wounded. His pilot was Kaspar, who was killed on impact.”

  Lost pod. 100 percent casualties. That’s around 160 people. Darren bowed his head. “Pod eight.”

  There was a slight hesitation before Daniels responded. “Unaccounted for. Casualties assumed to be 100 percent.”

  “Pods nine and ten.”

  “Pod nine is confirmed as lost at sea, with 100 percent casualties. Pod ten unaccounted for, casualties assumed to be 100 percent.”

  It seems like being in a rearward pod may have been a death sentence.

  “Pods eleven and twelve.”

  “We received word from Sergeant Leight from pod eleven that they made an emergency landing on shore, and other than minor injuries, suffered no casualties. He also reported that pod twelve crashed into the surf just off shore. He was unable to get a passenger manifest for their pod, but he said that forty seven survived from pod twelve.”

  Darren shuddered. He knew from the last report that more had survived the crash, but several were lost in the rescue attempt. He forced aside his growing despair and continued.

  “Pods thirteen and fourteen.”

  “Both unaccounted for, casualties assumed to be 100 percent.”

  “And the four specialty pods?”

  “All unaccounted for. Casualties assumed at two crewmen per pod. Sir, I remember…” her voice trailed off for a second. “I remember Doctor Nelson saying he would take shelter in med pod one. We have to assume he’s lost too.”

  Darren dug his fingernails into the padding of the chair. “Engineering skiff.”

  “Confirmed as crashed. Other than Captain Kimura, we’re unsure who was on board. I’ve marked down the casualties as four, since that was the capacity of the skiff.”

  “Escape pods?”

  Daniels flipped through her papers. “The records our pod received before the link to Raphael was lost indicate no pods were launched.”

  Damn. Darren closed his eyes and calculated in his head. We’re looking at probably a thousand or more dead. More than half of the ship.

  “Sir? Your orders?”

  He slowly opened his eyes and lifted his stare to the horizon. He hushed his voice. “Find all the emergency transponders you can from the cargo pods and see if you can map out their locations.”

  “Yes, sir,” Daniels said as Darren slid out of his seat. She looked up at him and caught his hand with her arm. “Sir, you may be in command of the mission, but don’t forget about our own passengers.”

  Darren nodded and turned away, then walked down the hall to the rear ramp. As he crossed the threshold to the outside air, the stench disappeared and the temperature dropped almost twenty degrees as he was met with a gentle breeze. His boots clanked with every step down the ramp. A group of passengers were gathered at the base of the ramp; about three dozen by his estimates.

  “Anyone here a hunter or hiker?” Darren asked as he reached the bottom. Nearly all of the men, as well as a few women, raised their hands timidly. “Anyone want to do a bit of scouting?” Many of the hands dropped. Darren counted the remaining hands and found ten volunteers. “Alright, all of you come with me, please.”

  They walked down the gentle slope of the bald hill until they were out of earshot of the other group. Darren looked back and saw the orange globe of Alpha Centauri B burning brightly just above the curved upper hull of the pod.

  “We need to know what’s in the immediate area around us, folks,” he said. “This hill made a great landing spot, but I want to see if it will be suitable for setting up the colony. The other pods are doing the same, and we’ll figure out what is best for all. I want to split you up into four groups and send you in different directions, see what’s around here.”

  “Out in the wilderness?” asked a short, wiry young man. Judging by the lack of facial hair and smooth face, Darren could not imagine he was older than sixteen.

  “That’s right. Two teams of three, two teams of two. Each team gets two rifles and two machetes. The larger teams will also get two sidearms. Also, each of you will be issued a survival pack. We’ve lost half the day so far, and I want you all back by nightfall. I don’t expect you to go very far today, just get a quick lay of the land. Tomorrow you’ll go back out and scout a bit deeper.”

  “What are we looking for?” asked the lone woman in the group.

  “General terrain features,” he replied. “Water sources. Interesting native plants and animals. Anything that you think could be used as a resource for building a settlement or feeding the survivors.”

  “What if we find aliens?” chimed a voice from the back of the group.

  “There was no alien radio contact on our approach. We didn’t see any signs of civilization in the original probe photos. We don’t believe there are any aliens on this planet, but if there are, they will be primitive. Don’t engage unless you’re attacked. Any other questions?” Darren scanned the crowd for a moment, but received no response. “Alright. I want you broken up into four teams. Work that out amongst yourselves, come up with team leaders, and return to the pod in ten minutes so I can issue equipment. Thank you all for volunteering.”

  Darren turned and strode quickly away to prepare the equipment for his new scouts.

  Gabrielle Serrano

  Planetfall +2 days, late morning

  Ex-Raphael sleeper pod eight crash
site

  Gabi rubbed her eyes and looked out of her upper level bed. Muted voices mumbled from outside. She smiled at her mother as she passed by.

  “Mama,” she called.

  Her mother quickly came back to her bed, pulled her out, and set her on the floor. “Good morning, Gabi. Did you sleep tight?”

  Gabi stretched. “Yeah. Mama, I’m hungry.”

  “Okay. I’ll get you something in just a sec. I want you to meet someone.”

  “Who is it?”

  Gabi’s mom took her by the hand and walked her to the end of the hall, where two other children – a boy and a girl – were huddled in the corner. Gabi stood behind her mom and peeked out around her side. Her eyes met with the girl, who looked bigger and older than Gabi. Her green eyes were surrounded by puffy red circles, and her blonde hair was a mess of ringlets. The boy was about the same size as Gabi, had the same green eyes as the girl, and a thick mop of brown hair.

  “Gabi,” her mother said. “This is Marya, and her brother Aidan. I was just going to get them something too. Maybe you could sit with them while I get breakfast.”

  Gabi nodded shyly and sat on the floor across from the two kids as her mother walked away. Aidan put his head down between his knees. Marya sniffed and looked at Gabi.

  “Do you know what my mom is making for breakfast?” Gabi asked.

  Neither of the children responded to Gabi. She shuffled her feet and looked down at the metal floor. Gabi wondered if she said something wrong to the children, or if they just didn’t like her.

  “What’s wrong?” she asked.

  Marya turned her head and rested it on her knees, staring at the wall beside her.

  They don’t like me. Why don’t they like me?

  Gabi’s mom returned with four brown plastic bags that looked like the kind that Haruka pulled food from when Gabi was in the jungle. “Breakfast is served. Marya, Aidan, you can pick first.”

  “But Mama, I want to pick first,” Gabi protested.

  “Manners, Mija. They’re our guests, so they get served first.”

  “But Mama…”

  “No buts, Gabi.” Her mom sat down and arranged the bags in front of the two other children. Neither looked up. Gabi’s mom placed her hand on Marya’s cheek. “Marya, come on. You have to eat something.”