by G J Ogden
“I'm not bringing her with us!” Ethan shouted back.
“We’ve got no choice!” Maria pleaded with him. “The launch has been activated, and without that control console, it cannot be aborted. The doors are sealed, there’s no way out, and in a few minutes the ship’s engines will ignite and this entire hangar will become a furnace. Nothing can survive!”
Ethan looked down at Summer and shook his head. “You proud, stubborn fool,” he said, angrily. “You should have let me go. It's my life to risk, not yours. I didn't want this for you!”
“Ethan, please!” Maria shouted again. “We have to go!”
Ethan heard her plea, but ignored it and continued trying to rouse Summer.
An artificial-sounding voice filled the room. “Emergency launch in five minutes. All personnel clear the hangar deck. All personnel clear the hangar deck.”
Ethan listened to the voice. Five minutes he thought, five minutes to save her, but how? He turned to protest to Maria, but another voice cut him off.
“I'll get her to safety.” It was Kurren. He was propped up against the side of the hangar, one hand pressed to his side. Blood was seeping between his fingers. Maria saw this and her eyes widened. She surged toward him, but Kurren raised his other hand, indicating Maria to stop. “Sal, it's okay,” he shouted over to her, wincing with pain. “It's a through-and-through. I'll live. But I won't survive the launch, not perforated like this. And you won't either if you don't get in that ship.”
“The blast doors are sealed, there’s no way out...” Maria argued back, barely containing her panic.
Kurren pointed and Maria’s eyes followed. “The hangar has a safe storage area, for munitions or fuel, or other volatile substances, like our Ranger friend here,” he said. “It’s not big, but it’s enough to shield us from the launch. But it can only fit two, just about. Me and Miss Crazy over there will have to become closer friends than either of us want.”
“Kurren, I can’t leave you, I need…” but Kurren cut short her protestations.
“It’s okay, I’ve had my time,” he said, trying to offer comfort. “There’s nothing for me up there now. I know you understand what I mean. You have it all ahead of you, Sal. So get this done and go live your life. Go, now!”
Tears ran down Maria’s face. She tried to speak, but no words escaped her trembling lips.
Still on his knees beside Summer, Ethan turned to Kurren. The artificial voice filled the room again. “Emergency launch in four minutes. All personnel clear the hangar deck. All personnel clear the hangar deck.”
“You promise me you will keep Summer safe and take her back to the settlement?” Ethan said, locking eyes with Kurren. The old soldier looked back at him, solemn and serious. More serious than Ethan had ever seen him. A large drop of blood fell from his hand and splattered on his boot.
“I'll keep her alive, kid. I swear. Now go.”
Ethan held his eyes for a moment, looking for any sign of deception, any hint of a lie. But he saw nothing to give him doubt. He looked back to Maria. She was fixated on Kurren with a look of desperate sadness that made Ethan feel even worse than he already did. More alien sounds began to emanate from the UEC ship. Throbbing, pulsing, artificial noises unlike anything Ethan had ever heard before. “Emergency launch in three minutes. All personnel clear the hangar deck. All personnel clear the hangar deck.”
Maria looked now at Ethan, on his knees beside Summer, his friend and comrade. She understood his pain and his conflict. “Ethan, I won't leave you,” she shouted to him. “Whatever we do, we do it together.”
“Sal, don’t be a fool!” Kurren said hoarsely, and for the first time, Ethan heard fear in his voice. “With or without him, you must get out of here, now!”
But Maria ignored him and continued to stare at Ethan. Her eyes burned into his soul. A jumble of different thoughts raced through Ethan's mind: Summer, and their childhood; his sister; Elijah; Dorman's death at the hands of Roamers; Administrator Talia's anger towards Maria and Kurren, and her warning of the danger they posed; the flashes in the night sky; Ethan's longing to learn more, and guilt at allowing his desires to overshadow all else. Then his mind turned to his feelings for this mysterious stranger. The woman who was looking at him now, in a way no woman had ever looked at him before, not even Summer. He knew then he would go with her. He would go with her anywhere, and do whatever was needed to keep her safe. He no longer cared about The Fall and the war that caused it; none of that mattered now. What mattered was saving Maria, to keep them together. Maybe he was selfish. He didn't know, and didn't care anymore. This was his decision, his way to move his life forward and stop obsessing about the past. With one last look down at Summer, he pushed himself unsteadily to his feet, staggered back to Maria and nodded.
Maria half-smiled, with what was more relief than happiness, and then raced over to the open door of the ship and stepped inside. Ethan looked back at Summer on the floor. Kurren was kneeling beside her, injecting her and then himself with a small device from a container placed on the floor beside him. He looked at Ethan and with a weak smile gave a thumbs-up signal. Ethan turned and followed Maria into the UEC vessel, stumbling over the lip around the door hatch, still groggy from the gas. Once he was inside, Maria slammed a button on the door frame, causing the hatch to hiss shut and seal. “Emergency launch in two minutes. All personnel clear the hangar deck. All personnel clear the hangar deck.”
Maria pushed Ethan into a seat and hastily buckled an elaborate belt over his waist and chest. “There are about a hundred things I should do before taking off in this thing,” she said, while working the mechanism, “but there's no time. So just sit back, and hold tight, it's going to be wild.”
The realisation of what was about to happen hit Ethan like a club to the head. He thought about saying, 'you're telling me this now!?' but his brain was a muddle and he was unable to get the words out.
Maria climbed to a seat at the front of the ship and buckled herself in. Above them, huge panels swung apart, revealing the black, open sky. The ship began to vibrate and Ethan felt the pulse of the engine resonating throughout his whole body. “Emergency launch in one minute. All personnel clear the hangar deck. All personnel clear the hangar deck.”
He looked out through the hatch window to where Kurren had pulled Summer into the small compartment that he'd opened in the side of the hangar. The solider looked towards him, but not at him, and held up a hand. At the top of the ship Maria waved back. And again, another bludgeoning wave of realization hit Ethan; Kurren was giving up his ride home to save Summer and to make sure that Ethan could go with Maria, to make sure the mission continued. He was doing his duty, and so much more. He understood the sacrifice he was making, and in that instant felt a deep respect for the older man; but also for Maria. She was saying goodbye to her comrade, her friend; a man who was injured, and despite his casual dismissal of the wound, could still be in danger of dying. She would never see him again, never know what became of him, or even if he lived or died. The finality of the moment hit him. He would also never see Summer again, never be able to say how sorry he was for how he'd acted, and for what he'd blindly led her into, without a thought for anyone but himself. He continued to watch as a huge slab-like door closed over the compartment, giving him his last glimpses of his best friend, who from child to woman had stuck by him and protected him all his life, and who he had now abandoned to the care of a practical stranger. Emotions finally overwhelmed him, and he wept openly.
“I'm so sorry. Forgive me, Summer! Please forgive me…” But the words were lost in the maelstrom of noise generated by the ship.
Without warning he was thrust back into his seat with a force unlike anything he had ever experienced. The noise was deafening, the vibrations truly horrifying. He screamed, though no-one could have known, the feeble noises emanating from his mouth being completely overshadowed by the ferocious, violent thrust of the ship's engines. The tears on his face were squeezed dry by the sheer force
of the acceleration. They were ascending and Ethan could see the insides of the hangar bay quickly slipping away. The pressure pushing him back into his chair intensified, and he gripped the seat arms with such power that his knuckles completely emptied of blood and went snow white. His vision began to darken, and he went to scream again, but there was no sound. His heart was racing and he felt like it was going to explode. Panic overwhelmed him. He tried to force his arms up to his chest to unbuckle the belts and get out. He desperately wanted to get out, but he could not move his arms. He could not move anything. His vision dimmed further and then, as the silvery light of the night sky gave way to infinite blackness, he too passed into darkness and unconsciousness.
***
Katie squeezed Elijah's hand as they both stood in the settlement grounds with the others, watching the object rise into the dark sky above the old, ruined city, a trail of dense, white smoke in its wake.
“What is that!?” Elijah wondered, excitedly, and when no answer came, he looked up and saw tears falling down his mother’s face, and he wondered why she was sad.
“Goodbye, Ethan,” he heard her murmur weakly, the words seeping softly into the night air.
Confused, Elijah turned back to the object. He watched in silence as it steadily rose higher and higher, until it was nothing more than a flash of light in the clear night sky.
chapter 18
Deep, black smoke belched into the air, twisting one way and then another as if it were alive. The flames burned with ferocious intensity and the heat was unbearable. Ethan tried to get closer, but was forced to back away. Or was he being pulled away? He tried to scream, to shout her name, but no words came out. Instead, out of the inferno he heard his name, an anguished shriek cutting though the roar of the flames.
“Ethan, help me!”
The words bit him like burning splinters. He fought, but he could not get closer, and still the fire grew hotter and the clouds darker. He fell to his knees, his face red with the heat. Then above the enveloping darkness appeared two bright shards of light, brighter even than the fire, intense against the black smoke. They hovered over the house for a moment, and then shot away, upwards, leaving them behind.
“No!” Ethan tried to scream, but again no sound. “Don’t leave them! Come back!” He felt his throat burn as he made the sounds, but he couldn’t hear the words. It was as if the blackness had also swallowed his voice. “NO!”
The house collapsed in on itself, a mass of flame and heat, and then the voice came once again, his mother’s voice, calling to him, begging him for help. “Ethan!”
Ethan opened his eyes and forced himself upright, arms flailing wildly around him. His heart pulsed violently in his chest and his face and body were soaked with sweat. His breathing was shallow and rapid, and his temples throbbed. He grabbed his face and drew sweat away from his eyes.
“Damn it, damn it, damn it!” he cursed, angry at his own mind for continuing to force these images on him. Through sheer force of will, he urged his breathing into a more natural rhythm. It was a routine that he’d become quite practised in over the years, when the nightmare came, as it did almost every week.
Soon he had regained control. He squinted against the intense white light of the room he was in, which was doing nothing to help his headache. He raised a hand to shield his eyes from it, but found his arm to be weak and heavy. With his eyes still barely half open, Ethan attempted to take in his surroundings. He was sitting on a bed and, as his eyes slowly adjusted to the light, he began to see more clearly where he had awoken so violently. The room had a clean, white design and from the materials used it looked not dissimilar to the type of rooms he had seen in the space port on the planet, just ‘newer’ and without the filth. Maybe he was still there, he thought. Perhaps Maria had been forced to abort the launch and had managed to find an area of the city that had been largely preserved, even after all this time.
He slid across and sat on the edge of the bed. Pain shot through his shoulders and arms. In fact, his whole upper body felt bruised and sore. In the room were various items of furniture and a host of objects he did not recognise. There was a single door with frosted glass in the top section, and a large single window on the opposite side. Outside this window he could see an interconnecting web of tunnels and curious dome-shaped buildings of various sizes, all starkly contrasted against the night sky. He got off the bed and was shocked by the coldness of the floor. He was not wearing any shoes, in fact he wasn't sure what he was wearing, only that they weren’t his clothes. They had been replaced by some lightweight, loose-fitting garments which were very comfortable, but wholly unsuitable for life in the settlement. Feet aside, however, Ethan didn't feel cold; the air in the room was warm, almost too warm.
He walked closer to the large window and placed a hand on it to steady himself. He felt oddly lighter and less rooted to the ground. Through the window he observed that the stars were far brighter than he was used to. It was an entirely cloudless and absolutely crystal-clear night and Ethan was struck by the beauty and intensity of it. He waited by the window, looking out for several minutes, his mind a jumble of everything that had happened in the past few days. Despite the intensity of the images in his mind’s eye, he felt oddly numb. He knew he should be wondering where he was, if he was in danger, and what had happened to Maria, and to Kurren and Summer, but he felt no urgency to deal with these questions.
He stood by the window, looking out, feeling the coolness of the floor on his bare feet. After his abrupt awakening, he found it soothing. In the sky beyond the last of the grey domes, he noticed that the moon appeared unusually large and bright, and also radiating a colour that he’d never seen before. And then the realisation struck him like a falling boulder, shaking him from his trance-like stupor. It was not the moon, but a planet, bright and blue against a backdrop of nothingness. His planet – he was looking at his planet from the moon base. He stood a little away from the window and looked on, awestruck, dumbstruck. They had made it.
“Pretty, isn't it?” The voice startled him and he physically recoiled. He was still feeling on edge. “I'm sorry, I didn't mean to scare you,” said Maria. She had entered the room without Ethan noticing, and was standing a few paces behind him. Without thinking, he went over and wrapped his arms around her. This took Maria completely by surprise, but she returned the embrace warmly. “Hey, it’s okay,” she said softly into his ear, “we made it.”
Ethan released Maria and stepped back a pace, returning his gaze to the window. Maria noticed the wetness of his clothes, and felt it on her cheek and neck from their hug. “Are you okay?” she asked, concerned. “Let me get the medics to check you out.” She went to leave, but Ethan stopped her.
“I’m fine,” he said. “Just, shock, you know. I maybe panicked a little. But I’m okay, really.”
“Are you sure?” said Maria, looking him over.
“I’m sure, Sal,” replied Ethan, smiling.
Maria liked it when he called her, ‘Sal’, and she smiled back. “Everything must seem a little unreal right now,” she said, nodding over to the window, with the vibrant blue planet framed in the centre, “but give it time. You’ll get used to it.”
She was dressed in a uniform, which was sleeker and more fitted than the utilitarian outfit she had been wearing when they first met. She looked good, Ethan thought, certainly compared to himself. He looked down at what he was wearing – loose fitting beige trousers and a thin shirt that buttoned up at the front. It was very comfortable, but compared to Maria, he felt quite under-dressed.
Maria sensed his concern over his clothing. “Don’t worry about what you’re wearing; we’ll get you something more appropriate soon.”
“Can I have my old clothes back?” Ethan asked, hopefully.
Maria hadn’t been expecting this. “Oh, I’m afraid we... er... got rid of them,” she said, sheepishly.
“Got rid of them?” Ethan repeated, mildly offended. “How? Where?”
“We sort
of incinerated them,” said Maria.
“Sort of incinerated them?”
“It’s okay, we’ll get you some new clothes,” Maria added, trying to sound positive.
Ethan took a deep breath and nodded. Katie had made the clothes for him, but now, like her, they were gone. The enormity of what he’d done was starting to hit.
Maria tried to change the subject. “You’re in the hospital wing,” she said. “You’ve been here for about half a day – a planetary day, we use the same measure of time up here.”
Ethan looked surprised. “Why so long?”
“The medics needed to attend to your injuries,” replied Maria. “They gave you a cocktail of medicines to help you get back on your feet, but it knocked you out for a bit too.”
“I still feel a little... strange,” Ethan said. “Like, I’m not quite on the ground. Does that sound crazy?”
Maria shook her head. “Not at all, gravity here is a little lower than you’re used to on the planet, so you may feel a bit lighter, but you’ll get used to it.”
Ethan had to ask Maria to clarify what gravity was, and though he didn’t fully understand the definition she gave him, he accepted the explanation. He turned around and looked out of the window again, trying to process everything, and trying to think of something to ask. He expected to have a million questions, but after a period of contemplation, all he could manage was a feeble, “So, we’re on the moon?”
Maria smiled, warmly. “I think I need to get the medics to check your head again, make sure nothing inside has turned to mush.”
Ethan smiled back. “My head does feel like mush. If I’d have known the journey here would have been so…”
“Wild?” Maria suggested
Ethan laughed. “Yes, wild!” he agreed. “If I’d known then I’d probably have stuck to fighting Roamers on a desolate planet with scant food and the constant threat of death. It seems a lot safer.”
