Project Columbus: Omnibus

by J. C. Rainier

  They named the colony. They had to. My dreams… Concordia. They… how could they… His stunned reaction to the revelation engrossed him so deeply that for several seconds he blocked out another chant that rose from his companions.

  Finally when the crowd of settlers joined in, shouting “Concordia!” over and over, throwing their fists into the air, he snapped to his senses. He had to move quickly, as the column of blue uniforms began a slow, deliberate march toward Colonel Dayton. To the cheers and shouts of the crowd they walked, and Lieutenant Hunter Ceretti once again brought them to a precise halt, this time in formation behind the colonel. Dairus kept his feet moving, and broke away from the column to take a place beside Dayton. He lowered the butt of his staff to the ground and unfurled the colors.

  On the opposite side, Hunter took an Honor Guard from the remaining wall and marched them to the precipice just above the river. He barked order after order until a textbook twenty-one gun salute had been completed.

  “It is time for the next chapter of our history to be written,” Dayton said. “It is clear that we’re on our own here. What we make of ourselves is up to us.” He set the megaphone down and turned to Darius. “Strike the colors, Mr. Owens.”

  Strike the colors? What?

  Without hesitation, Darius Owens unclipped the Star Spangled Banner from the staff. Dayton took one end and Darius the other, and with a series of precise movements, folded the flag into a neat triangle, which Darius handed to a sergeant who stood next to Cal.

  What the hell is he up to?

  An aging woman, in a long dress, with bobbed, silver hair walked forward from the crowd, carrying a folded blue piece of cloth in her arms. It took Cal a moment to recognize her as Sarah Kimura, the wife of Dr. Tadashi Kimura. When she approached Dayton, he took and unfurled the cloth, which he then clipped to Darius’s staff. A slight breeze kicked up, lifting the new flag into the air.

  Some in the crowd cheered, some seemed aghast at what Dayton had done, while still others gasped at the sight of their new standard. It was a rather angular and modern silver angel on a field of blue, bearing the names of all three ships, as well as a single Latin phrase on its own tiny banner: DUM VITA EST, SPES EST.

  “While there is life, there is hope,” Dayton barked into the megaphone. “For all that we have been through so far, I still see hope everywhere I look. It will never go away, and neither shall we!”

  Pride in the commander’s dignity and optimism, as well as the colony’s resilience, swelled within Cal. He could not help but cheer at the end of the rousing speech. He was not alone in this sentiment; it quickly spread through the blue wall, and tore like wildfire through the crowd as it gained momentum.

  Concordia had been founded, with the resounding voices of more than two thousand champions.

  Capt Haruka Kimura

  13 May, Year of Landing, late afternoon

  Camp Eight

  Short green sprouts poked their way through the broken and cracked ground on the hill’s western slope. Haruka knelt next to a patch of the tiny plants, running the palm of her hand gently over their tops, letting them tickle her skin. Her disbelief melted away as soon as she touched the Earth plants.

  “Food. Of our own,” she remarked. “Growing right here. Growing.”

  “That’s right,” Troy confirmed as he loomed above her with his arms folded across his chest and a broad grin on his face.

  “What is it again, exactly?”

  “That’s millet over there. On the other side of the trail they’ve planted sorghum.”

  “Two different crops?” she asked as she rose to her feet.

  Troy nodded. “Thad wasn’t sure if one would grow better than the other, if at all. So he had the fields planted differently just in case.”

  “And what if one crop fails?”

  The smile disappeared from her civil engineer’s face. “Well, we’ll have a bit of a rougher time I imagine. Good news is we’ll know for next season.”

  A rougher time, huh? She thought for a moment. Not really comforting, especially when we’re placing such a gamble on having two crops grow. If both work out, we still don’t have enough to feed everyone. If one fails…

  “Are the Karches at least happy with everything?”

  Again Troy nodded in affirmation. “They were tired of sleeping outdoors. Their hut may be cozy, but they appreciate the privacy, not to mention the farm that goes with it.”

  “Good. What’s the next stop on our tour today?”

  “Nothing. That’s the last of the current projects, so I was hoping to move on to something new.”

  She smiled and nodded, glad that the weekly inspection was drawing to a close.

  “What’s next on your plate, then?”

  “Better storage. Maybe a warehouse of some sort. I was thinking of setting it up below the village along the river path, and maybe adding some other production buildings there later.”

  “Show me,” she replied.

  Troy turned down the winding dirt path away from the farm with Haruka in tow. After a couple minutes they left the exposed slope of the farm and entered the lush, pungent vegetation of the jungle floor. As they crossed over the main road to the colony onto the narrow river path, James Vandemark came rushing down from the village above, waving his arms furiously and calling for their attention. He skidded to a halt in front of them, and took a moment to catch his breath.

  “Captain,” he huffed. “They’re all together. Right now.”

  She furrowed her brow as she tried to guess what James was referring to. “Who?”

  “The conspirators. The ones who want to remove you from power. I saw them all go in the clinic, one at a time.”

  Damn it, she cursed silently.

  “All of them? Torres? The Lerner brothers?” she prodded.

  James nodded curtly. “And the Reibers, Maria, and Doctor Petrovsky,” he added.

  She cursed and spat on the ground. “I’m starting to get sick of all of this. If they want something, they should just come out and say it instead of hiding behind the clinic walls.”

  “We know what they want.”

  “And until they can find a suitable replacement to me, they’re not going to get it,” Haruka scoffed in disdain.

  Troy scratched at the stubble on his chin pensively. “So what do we do about it?”

  “Make a move. Force their hand.” Her hand fell almost instinctively to her belt, resting on the grip of her Beretta.

  Her companions exchanged cautious glances, and looked down at their respective weapons.

  “No offense, Cap,” Troy broke the silence in the softest voice he had ever used to address her. “If you want to storm in there armed, I don’t think seven against three are the odds I’d like to have, even if they’re unarmed.”

  “They’re not armed,” James confirmed.

  “And again no offense, but you haven’t exactly been at full strength lately.”

  Haruka’s blood began to boil, as much for Troy pointing out that her illness had again sapped her vigor as for the brazen daylight gathering of those who would cast her aside without a plan or vision for the colony.

  “Fine,” she snapped. “Find a few more guys to bring with us. You have ten minutes.”

  Both men nodded as they scrambled. James bolted down the path to the river, while Troy took his leave toward the beach.

  She took the time of solitude to pace back and forth, wringing her wrists and muttering curses about Maria’s manipulation of Torres and the Lerners, and she let loose several choice words about the Reibers’ lack of gratitude for what Haruka had done, not only for them, but Camp Eight as a whole.

  Yet for a brief moment she considered simply walking into the clinic and handing the reins of the colony over to the treacherous group, just to watch them collapse under the pressure. But the idea passed quickly when she weighed the consequences of what she believed would happen to Gabi. The brilliant and spirited young girl, whom she had met the morning aft
er Raphael’s disaster, had already met with more than her share of tragedy. Haruka couldn’t bear the thought of what burdens she might have to carry if her mother, Maria, were to crack from her already unstable mental state.

  No, we have to meet them head on and put this to rest. She took a several deep breaths and steeled herself, even as her legs felt tired and strained from Troy dragging her all over the colony for an inspection earlier in the afternoon.

  James returned first, bringing with him a face that was all too familiar: Nicholas Petrovsky, the son of Dr. Petrovsky. He was just nineteen, and still had a baby face under the so-called ‘beard’ that adorned his cheeks, but weeks of wading into the surf to fish had given him deceptive strength, not to mention a nearly bronze complexion. He was also openly critical of his father’s views on how the colony should be run, aligning himself more often with Haruka.

  James clapped Haruka on the shoulder and whispered as he passed, “That ought to stick in the old man’s craw.”

  Haruka was less than enthusiastic about using Nick as a pawn. Though he looked less overtly threatening without a firearm, she knew that the machete and knife on his hips were just as deadly. In her mind, she questioned the wisdom of bringing one of the conspirators’ children to confront them.

  She looked at Nick squarely in his cool blue eyes and asked, “Your father is going to be in there. Are you sure you want to confront him? You’re not going to do anything stupid, right?”

  Nick shook his head vigorously. “I know you’re just going to show him up. I’m just going with you to make sure they don’t do anything stupid. I don’t care if it’s because I scare them or because Dad is on their side. I don’t think they’ll try anything with me there.”

  She nodded, satisfied with his motives, even if steeped in teenage logic.

  Troy returned a couple minutes later with Seth and Jenkins in tow, both sporting their service pistols. Haruka greeted them, not stopping for a moment to question their loyalty, as she knew it to be true. Without hesitation she led them up the road and into the town square, stopping outside the Palm Palace to reaffirm their intentions and orders.

  “No one draws unless they do first, got it?” she reiterated at the end of the discussion. A chorus of bobbing heads confirmed the plan.

  They marched across the street, and Haruka threw back the clinic’s storm curtain loudly, letting Seth and Jenkins lead the way before stepping inside. It took a moment for her eyes to adjust to the darkness inside so that she could see that her opponents were indeed unarmed, but just as soon as they did, gasps arose from both parties within the humid, sweltering edifice.

  “Nick?” she heard Dr. Petrovsky ask. “What are you doing here?”

  Nearly simultaneously, Troy and James called out the names of their oldest children. Standing in the circle of conspirators were Will Vandemark and Gina Bryant, whose expressions changed quickly from shock at seeing their fathers to anger.

  The noise level inside the clinic rose sharply as the parents on either side began lamenting how their children could possibly betray them in such a manner, as well as questioning them as to whether they knew what they were doing, or if they knew what their actions meant. Counter accusations flew from the younger generation about their parents’ inability to see what was actually going on, and defiant declarations of their righteousness and capacity to think for themselves.

  “Quiet!” Haruka bellowed over the ruckus. A moment later the room fell silent. “I know why you all are meeting here. You think I’m some sort of evil tyrant or slave driver that needs to be replaced.” Her glare squarely met Maria as she spoke the words. “I’m here to tell you that I’m not going anywhere. You’d like to think that you know the stakes involved and how to run things here, but the truth is you don’t know a fraction of it.”

  “There are some in the colony who think we’d be better off under someone else,” Dr. Petrovsky rebutted. “But you’re so stubborn in your ways that you won’t even consider it. You’re working people until they’re physically exhausted, and putting people to task who aren’t ready for it.”

  “I’m sorry that I’m giving consideration to your need to eat, or to have a roof over your head, Doctor. Everyone in this room knows we don’t have nearly the manpower, food reserves, or tools that we were supposed to have at our command. If we’re going to survive out here we have to buckle down.”

  “Or else what?” Gina spat defiantly. “What are you going to do if I stop babysitting everyone’s kids when Kelly and Kristen need a break? Or if I don’t do a load of everyone’s laundry at the river?”

  “What if I were to slow down like you want, and bring back one less bucket of crabs? Or six fewer sharks?” Nick responded, his voice equally passionate. “I don’t care if I have to work sunup to sundown because I’m making sure there’s food to go around.” He glowered at his father. “And you should know that we’re stretched thin already. You’ve lost what, twenty pounds since we’ve been out here? How can you say we need to cut back on our duties when we’re already so close to starving?”

  “We’ve got fields planted now,” Emilia protested.

  “Not nearly enough to feed everyone,” Troy countered. “And we don’t got enough houses for everyone. I don’t know about all of you, but I know what happens after the dry season in the tropics on Earth. Hurricane season. Not saying it’ll be like that here, but if it is and we’re not ready, kiss your sorry asses goodbye.”

  Mark Reiber narrowed his eyes. “Is that a threat?”

  “Nope. A prediction.”

  “No, the threat is right there,” Maria shrieked as she leveled a finger at Haruka. “She comes in here to harass us with all of her armed thugs here, when we’re just talking, and don’t have a weapon between us. First she forces me to work, and now she forces all of us to accept her ways. With intimidation.”

  Haruka folded her arms across her chest and snarled, “I’m not threatening you, Maria. Besides, we’re not carrying anything we don’t have with us any day of the week. If you take a walk outside of these walls, for a few minutes, you’d see that the jaguars are still out there, not to mention other threats.”

  “Like kids you shoot in the head?” Dr. Petrovsky retorted. “When they’re starving and searching for food?”

  Haruka’s head snapped around to face the slanderous doctor. She gritted her teeth and replied, “Carney was a murderer. He was armed and dangerous, and had stolen from us before. And just what the hell did you expect us to do with him if he had been taken alive? Chain him up in the Palace for the kids to watch as Charlotte taught civics lessons? If you think that I’m a barbarous tyrant, look in the mirror sometime and see what your ideals look like in play here.”

  Silence descended for a moment on the room. Haruka narrowed her eyes and judged every one of the shocked traitors.

  “It’s going to take a lot more than all of your good intentions to run this village,” she continued. “Go on with your plotting and scheming if you want, I won’t stop you. But think carefully about the impact of any edict you would hand down. Think hard about the downsides, because they will come to bite you in the ass someday.”

  She spun on her heels and snapped her fingers as she walked out of the clinic, all six of her cohorts following close behind.

  Darius Owens

  21 May, Year of Landing, 08:13

  North Concordia

  A long, soft scraping noise heralded the arrival of the simple flat-bottom raft on the sand-and-silt landing on the north side of the river. Construction crews on both sides of the Fairweather River had been hard at work creating suitable termini for the ferry crossing. On the north side of the river rocks that had been dredged up and stacked to the side near a pile of timbers, materials all destined to become a short quay. A heavy loader stood idly by, mud caked on the claws of its stout scoop. Two men and four women idled by this pile in wait of their turn to board for the return trip to Gabriel on the south side.

  One of the two oarsmen sc
rambled off the bow, dragging with him a rope that was attached to the raft. He quickly secured it to a post that had been driven into the ground on shore, then signaled for the passengers to disembark. Darius stood up and nodded at the other oarsman and the tiller, then took his leave of the small craft with the four other workers that Thomas Dayton had requested for the day.

  Thomas Dayton. No longer a colonel. Darius paused on the shore for a moment and chewed his lip as he thought. He and the entire crew of Michael resigned the day after the remembrance ceremony. The day after unification was declared.

  No one challenged Dayton’s authority on the north side of the river despite this move. The south side was a different story. A few of Gabriel’s crew members were hesitant to relinquish their commissions, most notably Sergeant Marks. Darius couldn’t blame him for his apprehension; the man had sided with Colonel Eriksen out of blind loyalty. Marks had also been part of Major Kintney’s goon squad, and now he was left in the open without the protection of his superiors. Darius had a hard time separating what Marks did from who he was.

  The confusion amongst Gabriel’s ranks, both current and former, was further fueled by the revelation that Tyler Quinn, the ship’s engineer disgraced by Eriksen, had decided to run for governor. This maneuver was followed the next morning by Dayton stating his intention to seek the same office, and two days later by groups of colonists from both sides of the river calling for Calvin McLaughlin to be added to the ballot.

  As much as Darius admired the kid for his courage and fervor, the idea of an eighteen year old, who had never held a job in his life, becoming the leader of the colony in such a fragile state just did not settle well with him. When he had been called on by Dayton to inspect Michael’s computer servers, Darius had jumped on the opportunity. This was not so much to give him something to do as it was a chance to come to the north side of Concordia and find out from Calvin himself what plans he held.