“They spotted it right before you came. Nick’s still down there,” she exclaimed.
“This complicates things,” I said, wondering if we should head to the surface now and hope we could deal with getting Nick back after. It might be the smartest move, but I hated the thought of leaving one of us behind. There were too many unknowns.
“That’s not going to matter, because you’re all going back,” a voice said, coming from the far side of the ship where the rooms sat. The black-haired man in the suit emerged from the dim hall, gun pointed at us, a sideways grin covering half his face.
The training Slate had engrained in us over the last few months took over, and I assessed the situation. For now, I would keep him talking.
“Find anything you like, or were you having a nap?” I asked, my voice level.
A flicker of annoyance passed his eyes before he smiled again. “Those quick to joke are covering their own insecurities.”
I wasn’t sure if he was quoting someone or just making up something stupid and irrelevant, but I played along.
“I heard that men who wear suits all the time are covering their own soft desk-job bodies.” I shrugged, and he raised his gun, this time pointing it at me.
“Dean, are we good?” Mary called through the ship’s intercom system.
“Tell her to join us back here,” the man ordered me.
I shook my head. “Why would I do that?”
He moved the gun to the side, firing at Clare, who saw it coming and rolled out of the way. “Because if you don’t, I’ll kill this one.” He fired again, but Clare was already pulling her own gun from the strap on her leg. She shot the man as his beam struck her in the arm.
It hit him in the leg, and he stumbled, dropping his gun. I lunged at him, tackling the shorter man to get him away from the weapon. Clare groaned but walked over to us, holding her pistol in her left hand.
“What’s going on back here?” Mary’s voice carried across the room.
“I’m dealing with a stowaway,” I said while getting off the man, leaving my knee on his chest.
Mary came to my side as the man cursed me, tears falling from his eyes. I wasn’t sure if it was from the pain or the humiliation.
“What are we going to do with him?” Clare asked, her voice grim.
“Collateral.” Mary and I got him to his feet, half-carrying him toward the bridge.
“You won’t get away with this!” he yelled, but I was beyond caring what this man said. I only wanted to get to the planet.
“Where’s the colony located?” I asked him as we entered the bridge. We half shoved him into the communications seat, and he almost slid out, his leg wound obviously painful. I took his tie from around his neck and used it as a tourniquet on his leg, cutting off the flow of blood. He screamed as I twisted it a little more than I needed to. “Where is it?”
“On the eastern coast of the largest ocean,” he said, head slinking down. He called out some coordinates, and Mary quickly moved us toward the planet.
“Clare, are you okay?” I asked, and she nodded, holding her arm.
“It’s just a flesh wound. I wish Nick were here to fix it,” she said, and I agreed.
“We’ll have him back sooner rather than later. I swear.” I hoped I could follow through with the promise.
The planet approached quickly through the viewscreen. It was a beautiful sight. Having followed the hybrids to another planet, and having seen Earth a few times from space, I knew I’d never grow tired of seeing a world from this vantage point. It was awe-inspiring.
Still, no ships followed us, and that meant Slate was up there causing all sorts of issues for them. I took a seat at the helm and checked the radar. Four ships followed a single one that was unpredictably flying away from the planet. I silently wished him luck as we entered New Spero’s atmosphere. The ship shook slightly, and then we were heading down toward the location our now-passed-out friend had given us.
The comm-device beeped, receiving a message. “This is NS-001. Your ship is untagged. Identify yourselves.”
Mary looked at me for guidance. “No point in hiding it. Take us in slowly.” I reached over to the console and tapped the reply icon. “NS-001, this is Dean Parker, Mary Lafontaine, and Clare LeBlanc coming at you from the past, requesting clearance to land this bird.”
There was a pause from the other end before a crisp message came back. “Dean Parker, we’re sending you the landing details. Over.”
Mary keyed them in, taking us over a desert landscape at five thousand feet, slowly descending as we neared the landing pad. The terrain changed as small mountains jutted out from the ground, the land growing greener as we went. Eventually, we were able to spot structures, and I let out a whistle. When I’d first thought of a colony, I pictured straw huts and campfires. I wasn’t prepared for the small city we saw.
There were no high-rises in sight, but a few multistory buildings popped up all over the area. A city full of residential areas, commerce, and agriculture was evident as we flew over it all. My heart pounded in my chest. We were here. New Spero.
The landing pad was a few thousand feet long. Dozens of different types of vessels sat idly, and we chose a slot as close to the outbuildings as we could. If we needed a fast escape, we wouldn’t have to traverse the long runway.
“How’s the readout?” I asked, knowing Clare was working on gathering data from the probes we’d shot as we entered the atmosphere.
“Perfect. It’s warm, like a spring day in California. Within two percent of Earth’s atmospheric blend. This is amazing.” She stared at the screen, her pain all but forgotten as the scientist in her took over.
The ship settled down. “We better bring him,” I said, indicating the groggy suited man in the chair. I tapped his cheek with my palm a few times. “Time to wake up,” I said, unsure of how our first steps on the colony planet would go. We might need him as a bartering chip.
Mary and I lifted him by the shoulders, mostly dragging him back to the bay, where Clare hit the ramp icon to lower it. “Remember, we’re survivors. Whatever we find down here, we’ll make it. Together.”
Mary smiled at me, blowing a kiss in front of the dead weight we were carrying around.
We stepped down the metal ramp, warm air blowing against us. I held a pistol in my right hand, Mary had one in her left, and Clare was in front of us, a pulse rifle raised and ready. I suddenly wished Slate was there with us.
We reached the ground, which was some sort of sandstone-like rock, a good place for a landing pad when you didn’t want to waste a large amount of concrete. No one was there to greet us.
“That was a little anti-climatic,” Clare said, lowering her rifle slightly and scanning the horizon.
We set the wounded man down, which gained a few groans from him. He needed medical attention; he had lost a lot of blood before I’d used the tie on his leg.
A slight hum came from the direction of a nearby warehouse. I spotted a cart, like the ones from the base on Earth, coming toward us.
“Get ready,” I said, holding my pistol up, ready to look for cover if I had to.
It closed in on us, and I couldn’t believe my eyes. It was Magnus. The cart stopped twenty yards away, and a woman in uniform stayed in the driver’s seat as my old friend came rushing toward us. Clare still held her gun up, and I called at her to stand down. She’d briefly known the man, but he did look different. She listened and stepped out of the way as Magnus came crashing into me, his wide arms crushing me in a bear hug.
“Dean, you son of a bitch! Oh my God, it is you!” He held me back, gripping my shoulders tight. I saw his face then, the youth from his thirties gone, wrinkles creased around his eyes as he smiled at me, gray lining his hair and stubble. Tears were streaming down his face, and I found myself crying too. “Mary! I can’t believe you guys are alive.” It was Mary’s turn to be picked up and swung around by Magnus, and she squealed, matching tear for tear with the big man.
�
�You have no idea how good it is to see you, Magnus,” Mary said, wiping her face with her free hand.
“Magnus, before we do anything, I need you to call up to the base and tell them to stop chasing our friend, and to take it easy on Nick.” I didn’t want to break up the reunion, but I couldn’t let anything happen to my new friends.
He looked at me, confused, before cluing in. “No problem. Laura, comm the station.” The woman had been within earshot, and soon we heard her convey our message.
“They said Andrews is missing,” she called back to him. Magnus’ gaze found purchase on the body slumped on the ground. “The ships are calling off their chase.”
“I think I found him,” he said, grinning at me like old times. “We have a lot of catching up to do.”
THREE
“Is he going to be okay?” Mary asked.
Magnus nodded. “He’s fine. Already up and walking. Modern medicine has changed a lot since we last saw each other.” He waved his arm in front of him. “Even in this backwater planet we call home.”
“I’d hardly call what you have here a backwater anything. It looks like paradise to me,” I said, following the man down the street. People walked by on the sidewalks, heading into different stores. They were labeled with basic names – clothing, grocery, seeds – and I couldn’t shake the feeling we were in some sort of science-fiction socialist regime. I wasn’t going to judge it, because under the right circumstances, it had every chance to thrive. The problem was, humans rarely allowed for the right circumstances.
“I know we’re going to wait to get to my house to really talk, but, guys, how is it you don’t look any older? What the hell happened out there?” Magnus asked, leading us past the stores.
“It’s a long story. One Nat’s going to want to hear too. How many people live here?” I asked. I had a general idea, because a lot of them had left Earth.
“This city? About half a million, but we’re spread out over two hundred square miles. We have places set up all across the world. Different things grow in different biomes, and we have each city manufacturing various supplies. That way, we can trade and keep everyone gainfully employed and productive. It’s quite the setup.” Magnus looked happy about it, but I could tell he was dying to know our story.
“What’s your main export?” Mary asked.
“Agriculture. We have the planet’s best soil, and grow everything from food, to hemp for clothing, to bamboo for various things. I bet you didn’t ever think I’d be a farmer.”
I laughed. There was no way he was being serious. “Are we almost there?” I asked, curious to hear if Nick and Slate had made it planetside yet.
“Not quite. That’s why we’re taking this.” He led us to a camo-covered Jeep-like vehicle, and we hopped in. Mary took the front seat, I grabbed the back. I sat in the center of the rear bench, watching wide-eyed as Magnus fired up the engine and drove down the dirt road. We left behind what constituted cityscape on New Spero, and in a couple minutes, we were away from any signs of humanity. The only evidence anyone had been here before were the tire tracks in the grass we were driving in. “See all this? It’s mine.”
I looked around us, seeing acres upon acres of farmland, crops growing in the summer-like afternoon. At least it felt like afternoon. I really didn’t know what time it was and realized I knew next to nothing about the planet we were on. It was remarkable. If I took a deep breath, there wasn’t anything there to tell me I wasn’t on Earth, in middle America, somewhere much like the state I’d grown up in. I suddenly felt homesick, but for what or where, I wasn’t sure. It was just a feeling gnawing at my stomach.
We kept going for a few minutes. Soon Magnus turned right and drove down a dirt road leading up to a cabin. It wasn’t big, and smoke poured out of a chimney on the left side of the structure.
“Home sweet home,” he said, his words adding to the aching feeling in my gut.
“This is amazing, Magnus,” Mary said, her voice cheerful. I hadn’t seen her so happy in months and tried to picture me and her living in a similar place, quietly farming, minding our own business. No more intergalactic strife to deal with. I wasn’t sure how we’d manage, but I was willing to try.
“It’s not much, but it’s home. I know I didn’t have time to tell you anything, but we have a few surprises of our own.” He parked the vehicle and we got out. The ground felt soft under my feet, and it did feel alien for a moment. I quickly forgot all of that when I heard a bark. A dog barking, on this faraway planet, brought normalcy back to me in an instant. It woofed again, and my heart sped up. I knew that sound. It was from someone that had become my best friend during the Event.
“Carey!” I called. My hands were shaking as I looked for him. Another yap, and I spun to see him running at us from the house. Natalia was at the door, her hand covering her eyes, trying to see who was with Magnus. He’d wanted us to be a surprise. Carey bounded at us, and I ran toward him, so excited to be back with the little guy. His ears flopped up and down as he raced to me. “Carey!” I said again. He seemed to know it was me.
I fell to my knees, and the dog jumped on me, licking my face with fervor and love. I couldn’t recall a time I’d felt more relief or pure joy, and I sat there petting and talking to him, trying to explain why I’d left him. He didn’t seem to care at that moment, and we just shared that time together as equals on the ground. After everything we’d been through, this was exactly what I needed.
Once we’d both settled down, I noticed how different he looked. He’d aged well, but at eleven, he was heavier than he’d been, and his eyes didn’t have quite the same glow to them.
“Thank you for being there for him,” I said to Magnus, who I could tell was behind us by the large shadow. My voice was thick with emotion.
“Dean, we love that dog. It was our pleasure, really,” Magnus said, walking over and giving me his hand. I took it, and he pulled me up off the ground. Carey rubbed his head on my shins, and I heard more barking. Natalia was walking toward us, two other dogs in tow. They were cockers like Carey, one brown, and the other buff like the older dog.
“Magnus, who’s with you?” Natalia asked as she neared us. Our backs were to her, and Mary and I turned to her, tears already falling down Mary’s face.
“Nat,” Mary said, stepping over to our friend. It was then I noticed there was a small boy clutching on to Nat’s leg.
Natalia cried out in anguish. I almost reached for a gun before it clicked that she was just surprised by us.
“How? How are you here?” she asked, her eyes instantly red, puffy, and adorable at the same time. She embraced Mary, holding on tight.
“If you have a cup of coffee, we can tell you,” I said, and she turned to me, grabbing hold of my arms and pulling me into a big hug. She was so warm, and I hugged her back, telling her how glad I was to see her. “Who’s this?” I asked, crouching to be at eye level with the boy. The three dogs came over and played, rolling on the grass between us.
“These are Carey’s little ones,” Magnus said. “Charlie, the boy, and Maggie, the little troublemaker there.” He pointed to the brown one, who gave him a bark. They looked young, but they weren’t puppies any longer. “And that,” he nodded to the brown-haired hiding boy, “is Dean.” Magnus looked at me, a twinkle in his eye.
“We didn’t think we’d ever see you again. It had been four years. We wanted to… remember you,” Natalia said, sniffling as she held Mary’s hand.
It was quite the reunion, and I felt like I’d been through an emotional wringer. “Hi, Dean,” I said. He peeked out from behind her leg and looked at me, the perfect little combination of Magnus and Natalia. I was so happy for them. “Look at what you guys have accomplished out here. It’s amazing. It’s… kind of the dream.” I felt the loss hard. They’d had seven years together, building a family and taking care of Carey, and we’d just been on a journey across space for a few months. It was hard to wrap my brain around.
“It’s been nice,” Magnus
said, and I hardly heard him.
“Let’s go inside,” Natalia said, her accent still thick, but her voice softer than it had been.
We started the walk to their cabin, the dogs sauntering along. Carey stuck close to Magnus but looked back to make sure I was coming. I knew whose dog he was now, and to say it didn’t hurt would be a lie. I was glad he was a happy dog who’d had the opportunity to lead a safe and healthy life. I wasn’t sure if I could have given him that security.
The smaller brown cocker followed along behind me, playfully romping through the grass, her bark trying to get me to play along. I knelt and scratched her ears, which she rolled over for, kicking her back legs out for a stretch. “Well, Maggie, it’s nice to meet you. I think there might be some treats inside the house with your name on them.” At that word, she perked up and ran ahead into the house as Magnus held the door open.
Mary stayed behind after the other three entered the home. “Are you okay?”
“I think so. It’s just… a lot. How about you?” I asked.
She smiled. “I’m happy to see them. It’s just so weird. With the snap of a finger, we missed years of our friends’ lives. It’ll just take some time. Let’s go share stories and have a night where we don’t have to think about the next thing.”
We did have a lot of explaining to do to the powers that be; Andrews, the suit Clare had shot, was just the beginning. Our friends inside were high-ranking officers, and they were able to pull some strings to get us acclimated to their world before we got grilled the following day. I was grateful for it, but as I entered their house, I hoped the other crew were being taken care of.
“Any word on Slate and Nick?” I asked, taking in the cozy décor of their small home. It was sparsely furnished with homemade wooden furniture, a dichotomy to the futuristic screens on the walls and counters. Lights came on automatically; a clear screen above the mantel acted as a television. I recognized signs of Kraski technology everywhere.
The Survivors: Books 1-3 Page 45
