Gyaros Book One: The Mice Eat Iron (YA 17+ Sci Fi Adventure)

by Rohan Healy

  “*ding*, Shuttle will touch down in 10…” the countdown had begun.

  “9…8…” each second felt like an hour to Miles and the other passengers as they awaited their fate.

  “7…6…5…” Miles tightened and clenched every muscle in his body bracing for impact.

  “4…3…2…” ‘Forgive me Hellen, forgive me Chet.’

  “1…”

  The shuttle smacked into the rocky surface of the barren moon and began to roll along the surface at an incredible pace. The remaining retro rockets had done just enough to ensure that the passengers survived the initial impact, however they were far from safe. Inside the shuttle the passengers were being shaken violently as the craft bounced and slid across the sandy hills of the designated landing zone. The panelling and equipment were beginning to come loose as the men, Maxen excluded, screamed at the top of their lungs. Miles held tight to the rubber restraints and attempted in vain to stiffen his neck which was wobbling uncontrollably, his head bouncing painfully off the headrest. Suddenly the screens; which a few hours ago displayed the educational in-flight documentary, popped out of the roof and dangled dangerously just before the faces of the four convicts. The screens banged and swung wildly only inches from Miles’ face. He turned his head to the right to avoid being struck when he heard a loud snap. The screen belonging to Maxen had detached from the roof and was now bouncing and flying through the shuttle at speed, making a dent in anything it struck. It span wildly like an ancient weapon, with glass and razor sharp metal poking out on every side. Miles and Maxen raised their arms to protect their faces as the rogue screen wreaked havoc throughout the cabin, the shuttle rolling on and on. Miles flinched as he heard the screen bounce off Maxen’s robotic arm only inches from his left ear. But then the metal noise was followed by another, duller sound, like a low thud. And the ship was quieter all of a sudden, both the screaming of the other passengers and the bouncing of the screen had stopped. Miles carefully lowered his arms, as the shuttle continued to slide along the sandy moon, from in front of his face and saw the horrible sight, the sickening reason for the sudden silence. The screen had lodged itself into the neck of the dreamscape user. Presumably being in such a drugged out state he had failed to properly protect his face and neck with his arms. The deformed face of the Red Districts dweller now contorted in horror at the bloody mess of a man that sat slumped beside him, his mouth agape unable to utter a word.

  Miles felt sick at the sight but shook his head and swallowed hard, his attention now taken up by the unmistakeable feeling of slowing down. The shuttle righted itself by chance and had finally begun to stabilise and slide slowly across the slippery, sandy surface of Gyaros, until finally grinding to a sudden halt as it hit a large structure, a ruin of what was once the landing and docking station. The three remaining passengers sat there in silence, unable to move or to speak for a full minute. The silence was finally broken by the now distorted voice of the on board AI.

  “*ding*, Landing failed. Engines…critical failure. Life support…critical failure. Locking systems…critical failure. Navigation systems…critical failure. Scanning for life forms. Three life forms detected. Welcome to Gyaros.”

  With that the heavy restraints lifted and the men slid to the ground exhausted before shakily picking themselves up.

  “We’ve got to get out of here,” said Miles trying not to throw up as he glanced momentarily over at the dead man’s horrific wound. Miles, Maxen and the small man made their way to the back of the shuttle and attempted to open the heavy door. After an unsuccessful attempt to interface with the door’s control panel, Miles ripped the panel from wall exposing a mess of wires and nodes. He looked at it carefully, poking at various coloured wires with a piece of loose plastic he’d picked up off the floor of the wrecked ship.

  “Hmm,” he started, “it’s screwed, fried, there’s nothing I can do to get this door open without the proper tools. For fuck’s sake, we travelled 550,000 kilometres just to suffocate in this stinking piece of junk.” Miles pounded the door with his fist. Defeated and exhausted he placed his face in his hands and screamed in frustration.

  “Stand aside ladies, let Maxen handle this,” said Maxen confidently speaking in the third person.

  Miles wiped an anguished tear from his cheek as he and the short man gave Maxen some space, making their way as close to the front of the craft as they could without stepping in the puddle of blood that had now formed at the feet of the dead man.

  “Maxen that’s no ordinary door, it’s designed to withstand extreme heat and impact. I mean if it didn’t come off in that landing I don’t see what you can do to get it off.”

  “Yeah well you ain’t seen what I can do,” Maxen looked back and smirked before returning his attention to the door. A mechanical whirring sound suddenly filled the cabin and Miles’ eyes opened wide as he witnessed Maxen’s robotic arm transform impressively into what looked like a shiny metallic cannon.

  “You boys might wanna cover your eyes,” shouted Maxen over the increasingly loud sound of his arm as it charged to shoot. Miles and the other man crouched down and covered their faces as white light filled the shuttle and a massive explosion rocked the entire ship. The explosion was followed a moment later by the smell of fresh oxygen and the sensation of circulating air as wind swept into the cabin filling it with sand and dust. Miles squinted and could just about make out the silhouette of Maxen as he stood at the circular opening that was once the door of the shuttle. He stood up and made his way to the exit where he put his arm around Maxen’s huge shoulder.

  “You did it Maxen, thank you, you saved my life!” Miles shouted, smiling and jumping for the first time in twenty four hours.

  “Pssh, yeah well I was only saving my own ass, you were just on the right shuttle is all.”

  “We made it, we actually made it!” Miles shouted and laughed, “Can you believe it?!”

  He took his first steps outside of the shuttle and allowed his eyes to adjust to the intense brightness. He scanned the new world and gazed in awe at the huge red mountainous dunes of Gyaros, dotted between which were the dilapidated ruins of what was once the welcoming station and shuttle dock. Among the hundreds of crashed and abandoned Talos shuttles he spotted a structure that still looked somewhat intact.

  “Hey, c’mon,” he shouted back to the others, “I see a place where we can rest a while”.

  Maxen and the small man followed Miles across the rocky red sand toward the building, the intense heat beating down on them from above. The weather conditions were extremely dry and oppressively warm to the point where Miles removed the blue and red shirt that made up the top half of his Le Cinema Magnifique uniform and used it to cover his head and the back of his neck, his white long sleeved shirt covering his chest and back. The three outlaws eventually made in to the shade of the building and slumped onto the dusty ground. The structure was large and made of steel, it looked like a shuttle bay, thought Miles, as there were tools and machines that looked as though they would be used in the maintenance and transportation of the vessels once they had arrived. A giant red Talos logo covered one of the walls and old computer terminals lined the others, their screens smashed and their casing deteriorated. Miles sat on the dusty ground of Gyaros, he was now living the worst fear of every inhabitant of Carthage; a lifelong sentence of banishment to the lawless, forgotten colony of Gyaros. A place so inhospitable and void of basic necessities it is said that the mice eat iron.

  ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

  Chapter 10

  “My name is Miles, and this is Maxen, what’s your name?” Miles asked the small, deformed man, offering his hand. The shy little guy put out his withered hand nervously, looked up to Miles and in a croaky voice began to speak.

  “My name is Landi, Landi Grodes,” the two men shook hands, after which Maxen took a turn shaking Landi’s hand and formally introducing himself. Then Miles spoke.

  “So we need to work together if we want to survive. I can work with e
lectronics and Maxen here has a gun for an arm. Is there anything you can do Landi?” Landi thought for a moment, scratching his arm.

  “All I ever did was mine Chimerium in the Red Districts. I can dig, oh and I can fit into small places, but that’s about it, sorry guys.”

  “That’s okay, the main thing is that the more of us there are the safer we’ll be.” Miles paused for a moment, a perplexed expression forming on his face, “you mined Chimerium in the Red Districts? But mining and using Chimerium has been illegal since the end of The War of Unification, you must be mistaken.”

  Maxen laughed out loud, “Shit, you Green Districters sure have your heads up your asses. What do you think powers that beautiful city of yours? What, they tell you it’s all renewable energy? Solar power, wind and water? Maybe in the beginning but for the last thirty years at least they been mining that radioactive shit up from underground, hell man I told you I worked loading it onto the transport trains headed for the power generators in the Green Districts.”

  “I know but I thought you were just crazy. Maxen I worked in The Energy Department for five years, you can’t tell me that those plants were running on Chimerium!”

  “It’s true,” said Landi, “the Red Districts were created thirty seven years ago as a way to mine the huge deposits of Chimerium that sit below Elissa. The unskilled workers were sent to work in the mines, we don’t get much fresh food or water, and the constant exposure to the mineral causes us to…well, you know,” he trailed off, pointing to his disfigured face.

  “But wait a second, the whole pretext for The War of Unification was to stop the exploitation of Chimerium because of its effects on the planet. God damn it the reason Gyaros was colonized was because Carthage was becoming uninhabitable due to the effects of Chimerium! You can’t seriously expect me to believe that the Areopagus would allow it to be mined and used again, can you?!” Miles asked unable to believe what he was hearing. Every child raised in the Green Districts is taught about The War of Unification in which Carthage Corporation defeated Talos Corporation to unify the entire planet Medea under a single government, and abolished the extraction and use of pollutants including Chimerium.

  “Hannibal II and Hannibal III might have believed in preserving the environment but Hannibal IV sure as shit don’t. He’s the one that gave the order to open the Red Districts as a mining operation.”

  “I don’t believe this, ever since I was a kid I’ve looked up to Hannibal IV, we all do. I just, I can’t believe what you two are telling me. It can’t be possible!”

  “Look Miles,” said Maxen, “I really don’t care what you believe but the history and geo-politics of Carthage is not our main concern at this very minute. We need to get our shit together or we gonna die in this desert.”

  “You’re right,” Miles shook his head vigorously in order to refocus on the situation at hand, “We need water, and food, and we need to find a way to The Dustbowl.” He stood up and walked to one of the large windows belonging to the Talos building, the glass long since smashed and eroded away. He scanned the horizon for any clues. Dust blew violently across the flat surface forming mini tornadoes, and then he saw it. It was faint, barely visible, but it looked like a track. It was slightly lighter in colour than the rest of the barren ground and looked as though it was created by the movement of many feet over many years.

  “There, look, it’s a track, a path!”

  Maxen and Landi rose to their feet and walked over to join Miles.

  “Yeah, looks like a track to me,” said Maxen, “but we’d better circle the building and make sure it’s the only track, don’t wanna go walking off into the desert.” The others agreed and they split off to quickly make sure that was the only track.

  After a couple of minutes they all met back up in front of the Talos shuttle bay to report their findings.

  “I couldn’t find anything,” said Miles.

  “Me neither,” added Maxen.

  “Nor me,” Landi finished.

  “Okay then, we follow the track, we stick together and keep an eye out for trouble. Let’s all make it to The Dustbowl in one piece,” said Miles seriously.

  The three men shook hands again and began walking along the single, faded path. Not long into their journey tall rocky formations rose up on either side of the track, the dirt road winding now in between the two tall natural structures. This meant that the trio could see no more than fifty metres in front of them at any given time as the path would bend between the high rock walls. The track between the walls was only ten or so meters across, but on the plus side the tall walls created a large shadow that shaded them from the burning sunlight. They had walked about thirty minutes when Miles began to speak.

  “How long do you think it will take to get there? I haven’t eaten or drank anything in over twelve hours, in this heat I don’t know how long I can last without water at least.”

  “It can’t be too far, don’t give up on me now Greeny,” said Maxen.

  “G-guys, slow down. My little legs can’t keep up,” Landi panted, completely exhausted.

  “Here buddy, climb aboard,” Maxen lowered his robotic arm and Landi held on tight. Maxen lifted the little man up onto his muscular shoulders where he made himself comfortable, placing his hands around Maxen’s powerful neck.

  An hour passed without anyone uttering a single word, their mouths were as dry as the desert and when they swallowed it felt like their throats were lined with sand paper. The dusty air sucked all the moisture from their eyes, their nose, their mouth and their skin as they stumbled along the path, not knowing how close or far they were to their destination. Then Miles stopped.

  “Shhh,” he ordered the others and they too stopped.

  “What is it?” asked Maxen quietly.

  “Over there, that hole,” whispered Miles pointing to what looked like the opening of a small cave a few meters wide, something was moving down there.

  “What is that?” asked Landi, “it looks like a tail,” he whispered and began to climb down off Maxen’s shoulders.

  “Okay you boys stay behind me, whatever it is I doubt it’s friendly.” Miles and Landi took up position behind Maxen who began to walk slowly toward the cave, his arm transforming into its weaponized state once again. As they got closer the monstrous animal began to take shape, from behind it looked like a cross between a giant rat and a wolf, its long tail whipping back and forth as it engorged itself on the carcass of some poor dead creature. It had slick black hair like a rodent, but with the strong hind and fore legs of a wolf. It was clearly a product of the heavy Chimerium usage on Gyaros. The timid trio attempted to make their way past the animal without attracting its attention, taking small deliberate steps and holding their breath for fear of making a sound. But then, distracted by the sight of the grotesque, mutated animal Miles tripped on a rock and stumbled, causing the animal to turn and investigate the noise. ‘Oh shit!’ The three men stopped dead, Maxen charging his cannon as the beast turned to face them. Miles grimaced as the bloodied face of the giant rodent-like animal bared its razor sharp teeth and squealed intimidatingly at them. Its whiskers twitched and its beady red eyes glared as it began to slowly walk toward the ragged travellers.

  “Holy shit,” said Miles, “it’s the guy from the shuttle!” And sure enough there he was, half eaten, his neck slit wide open from the screen that killed him. The creature must have found the body and dragged it here from the crash site to eat, perhaps through some underground network of tunnels. The animal began to circle the men, hissing and growling menacingly as they turned to face it, Miles and Landi staying safe behind the impressive frame of Maxen.

  “C’mon you ugly piece of shit, come and get me,” said Maxen taunting the vicious beast. There were five lights on the side of Maxen’s arm, three of which were lit bright red. After another moment the fourth lit up, once all five were lit the beam weapon would be ready to fire. The animal then stopped and crouched, ready to pounce.

  “That’s it, come
to daddy you stinking rat faced fuck!” The rodent then let out an ear piercing squeal and propelled itself toward Maxen, flying through the air, its knife like claws outstretched. Maxen took aim and upon hearing the sound of the final light turning red he fired the weapon and watched as it’s white beam hit the creature directly in the face and ripped it’s body in two, only inches from making contact with Maxen. The two halves of the giant beast twitched and squirmed for a moment on the ground as Miles and Landi looked on in horrified shock. Maxen then turned and laughed.

  “We eat tonight!”

  Over the next hour Miles and Landi removed the body of the dead man from the cave entrance and covered it with sand and rocks as Maxen started a fire using some dried grass and tumbleweed that had blown into the cave, a blow torch being yet another handy function of his transforming arm. The men sat around the fire in the surprisingly cool cave and cooked up some of the giant rat meat, Maxen’s fire proof hand this time acting as a makeshift grill. They ate heartily and enjoyed the respite, though they knew that without water they would surely die. The cave was not as complex as they first thought, after fifteen or so meters it was a dead end.

  “Is there anything your arm can’t do?” asked Miles between bites of rat meat.

  “Ha! Well you know, I worked at the loading bay, there was a lot of heavy lifting, some welding, some cutting. When I lost my arm it was The Department that paid for the new one, and they kitted it out for a loading bay worker. A’course all the work on the loading bay these days is automated, damn bots took my job. I guess when they were attaching my arm they thought ‘hey, why the hell do we need the human part at all?!’”