Timson was determined to find out.
“So as far as you know, you and the people of the colony are the only actual people on this planet?” Timson asked.
Gustoff nodded. He seemed disappointed.
“Yeah, I spent many years studying the maps that I’d forged in my spare time. In studying the maps and traversing the wild bush that surrounded the colony, I came to the conclusion that we must be the only people on this planet. But then again, who knows? There could be more of us. If you exist, millions of light-years away on another planet, then surely it’s not so far-fetched to think that there may be more people on this planet, let alone another planet. Third Earth. In the distance. Sitting undiscovered. Somebody just like me, looking up at the stars and wishing that he knew if there was more out there. But I’m the lucky one. And that’s all that matters to me.”
“Yeah, you are lucky. But let’s not get too ahead of ourselves here. Third Earth does not matter. Humanity only cares about one thing. And that’s finding new life - intelligent life - and new planets teeming with said life. Now we’ve found it. So who cares about third Earth, when Second Earth is so goddamn impressive?” Timson said, feeling warm inside as he formed a bond with the not-so-alien Gustoff.
It was a fantastic moment. Never in a million years … or more precisely, never in two-point-five-million light years did Timson think that he’d ever form a bond with an alien, let alone find one. It was a monumental moment. A moment for the history books. History books that would feature his face on the front cover. And the faces of his team, his crew, his comrades. Yes, Timson was happy. He stood up and looked around. The hut was adorned with ornaments and cooking equipment. Prehistoric cooking equipment. Equipment no doubt the colony designed and based on the information that Earth had sent into space hundreds of years ago. For all of this to come together, the time capsules, Gustoff, Timson and his crew, the Andromeda Galaxy, and Earth was spectacular. What were the chances?
“I suppose you’re right. Second Earth is just as important, if not more. I guess I’m just sceptical that anybody will care about the colony or the people on it,” Gustoff said, fidgeting with his hands. Timson noticed that Gustoff had a habit of twitching. He seemed restless.
“They will care. Trust me, they will,” Timson said, about to put an arm around Gustoff in an attempt to comfort him, but before he could, the hut door opened and a woman came rushing in. It made Timson and Gustoff jump off the bed. They were a little on edge. It had been a rough couple of hours. Timson didn’t recognise the woman, but Gustoff did. And he had every reason to. It was April, and nobody mattered more to Randy than April.
“Randy… um … space people? Something is going on with the aircraft you crash-landed in. There’s some sort of light shooting out of it. The sky, it’s gone purple. Have any idea what could be the cause of such a thing?” April asked, sweat dripping down her brow. It was obvious that April had ran to the hut. It must’ve been an emergency. If what she was saying was true, then it was definitely an emergency. Gustoff craned his neck toward Timson. Timson blinked a few times; his eyelids were sticky and moist. He needed a drink. Something to eat. And judging by the looks on his two teammates’ faces, they were just as famished. None of them had eaten in a very long time. But now was not the time to rest. He nodded at his two crew people and signalled them to follow him. The three of them ran out of the hut, and down a narrow passageway that lay between three larger huts. Timson thought that one of the huts looked like some sort of town hall. He ran past it and into a mass of people. The people were staring up at the sky. A massive beam of light was rising from the ground all the way up into the atmosphere. It seemed as if the light never ended. It looked as if it was stretching on for miles. It was causing the sky to discolour. But Timson wasn’t interested in the heavens. He pushed his way through the mass of people. They seemed to be hypnotised by the light. They didn’t pay Timson nor his two crew people any attention. Like insects to a light source, they were oblivious to everything else around them. And as Timson got closer, the source of the light became apparent. The pod was no longer visible. It had erupted into a brilliant flash of light that was fuelling the beam of light. And as he stared at the beam, he wondered what the heck was going on.
“Is that normal?” Someone said standing next to him. Timson didn’t bother answering. No words would leave his mouth. His tongue didn’t work. His teeth were chattering. Something was going on.
Something terrible.
Chapter Three
The airlock sputtered into life as Williams and his men stood in the terminal waiting for the doors to the Orion Traveller to open and let them pass. There was an excitement in the air. The Commander and his men were glad to be on board the big ship. Knowing that their own ship had lost communications was more than just a bummer for the men and their Commander. It was more than just a hitch. If the Orion Traveller hadn’t been in the vicinity, then they would have been stuck in space, with no way to hail anybody, for any sort of rescue. It was every space traveller’s worst nightmare. No contact. No way of getting home. But that was all in the past. Their ship was docked, and now they were on the Orion Traveller. The airlock terminal finished spraying jet air on the five of them. And after the hissing died down, a few seconds passed, and the doors to the Orion Traveller slowly creaked open. They were expecting to see a few people standing there waiting for them. After all, they were an unidentified ship that had just boarded with the Orion. And an unidentified ship boarding and docking with any ship warranted, at least, a few security personnel to subdue them and enquire as to what they were doing on board.
But there was no welcoming party. As the doors opened and the creaking echoed through the cleanroom terminal, nothing but darkness awaited them on the other side. Williams shook his head in disbelief. The outside of the ship had looked dark. It had looked deserted. Abandoned. But he didn’t think for one second that the Orion Traveller was actually abandoned. But on first inspection, it seemed as if his worst nightmares had been realised. Why else wouldn’t there be any lights on? Something definitely was not right.
“Something fishy is going on here,” the recruit said, standing directly behind the Commander. His other men were less vocal. Most of them remained quiet as they cautiously stepped onto official Orion Traveller property. They were now officially on board. And as they stepped into the darkness, the door behind them started to close, shutting them off from the cleanroom terminal and their ship. But they’d be able to get back on the ship, all they’d have to do is find the controls and open the doors. But Williams knew that there was someone on the ship to do that for them. After all, they were there to plunder some supplies. Well, borrow some supplies.
“It’s dark as hell in here,” one of the men said, standing next to the Commander.
Williams nodded, reaching for his headset and flicking a switch on his helmet. The head torch came on. Now some of the room was illuminated. His men did the same thing, switching on their torches. What was dark before, was now just barely visible. The shadows were playing tricks on their minds. The walls seemed to be coming alive; stretches of black long dark shapes danced around the room. But Williams wasn’t there to pay attention to the shadows. He wasn’t there to be scared out of his mind. He was there to get a job done and that job was to make sure that he and his crew could fly back home.
“What the hell happened here?” Somebody said, their voice sounding distorted in Commander Williams’s ear. Williams looked around, examining every inch of the walls, noticing a thick black substance dripping off the metal. The interior of the Orion Traveller so far matched the exterior. Williams remembered thinking as he approached the Orion Traveller how odd it seemed that none of the lights were on, and the ship was in total darkness. And now that they were inside the ship, he was thinking the exact same thing. But now he wasn’t only just thinking, his mind was racing. What on earth was going on here? Why was the ship dripping in a black substance? What was that substance? And was it dan
gerous?
“I hate to break it to you, Commander, but I have a really bad feeling about this,” somebody else said.
Williams and his men hadn’t really moved a muscle since entering the Orion Traveller. They’d just been standing there, gawking at the walls, and the interior. Williams didn’t know exactly where they were, he hadn’t prepped a schematic on his PDA systems, on account of the fact that he was never really planning on boarding the Orion Traveller, and now that he had no comms on his ship, the only way he was going to get a map for the Orion Traveller was if he searched for one himself. But there was just something about the walls that were putting him off. None of his inner suit systems were working. His scanners were being blocked by something. Something organic. And without his scanners, there was no way he was going to be able to track down any sort of lifeforms on the ship. Williams and his men needed to find the crew of the Orion Traveller. That, or they take control of the ship itself and fly back to the Milky Way Galaxy. That’s if the Orion Traveller’s communications are working, or they could be down just like their own ship. And if both the Orion Traveller and their own ships communications were down, then they were pretty much stuck in space.
“What’s the plan, Commander?” The recruit asked, sidling up to Williams. For a brief moment, Williams directed his attention to the recruit. He smiled at the recruit and shrugged his shoulders.
“I guess we split up, and look for the crew,” the Commander said.
His men groaned in displeasure. Nobody wanted to be walking around in the dark, black ooze coming from the walls, searching for crew members on a derelict ship. Especially when the ship looked haunted. Not that any of the men believed in ghosts, but you didn’t need to believe in ghosts to know that something was wrong here. Very wrong.
“You expect us to walk around in the dark?” The recruit asked, his eyes akin to the begging eyes of a puppy dog, as he stared at his master, Commander Williams. But Williams didn’t fall for that sort of tactic. He felt no pity or empathy for his men. They were soldiers. Their job was to risk their lives. Risk their lives for the lives and safety of others. So walking around in a ship that seemed to have had a power failure wasn’t warranting such feelings of empathy toward his men. In fact, he was feeling annoyed. Annoyed that his men were bitching and moaning about such a trivial thing as walking around in the dark.
“Yes, you will walk around in the bloody dark. And you know what you’re going to be doing in the dark? You’re going to be finding the men and women who act as the crew on this ship. Once you find them, you will contact me, telling me their location, and then we will all congregate together, find out what the hell is going on, and then we’ll get our comms unit up and running, shortly after that, we’ll make our way down to the planet surface, rescue the pod survivors, fly back up here, and then back home. Sound good to you recruit?”
The recruit nodded his head emphatically. He wasn’t used to making waves, so he just nodded and went along with whatever was planned. Who was he to question the knowledge or ability of such a high-ranking officer like Commander Williams? He knew his place. And his place was firmly at the ass end of the line. So that’s where he went, turned back around, and slowly dragged his feet toward the back of the line. As he passed his fellow men in arms, he heard various digs at his character. Some of the men were commenting on how short he was while others were commenting on how silly he was. But the general consensus was this, the recruit was a liability. He asked way too many questions, even as a newbie, questions that any person would know the answer for. Yes, this five-man team were at their wits end. And Commander Williams knew it.
He turned to his men and raised his hands in the air. Like somebody would if they were surrendering to the enemy. And quite frankly, his men were the enemy. There were more of them than there were of him. So, sometimes you had to tread a little lightly. Especially when you were about to deliver some pretty crappy news.
“Okay, we split up. Each of you will take one door, and then one corridor while fanning out in search of the crew. On the way, if you pick up or find anything of use, like a map, schematics, databanks, data sticks, memory sticks - you get my drift, then please pocket it and bring it back here. Don’t open the files, don’t do anything like that because most ships use encryption devices. Encryption devices that only people high up on the ladder can access. And seeing that I’m a Commander, I think it’s pretty safe to say that I’ll be able to gain a little access - if not complete access to the files on this ship. We’ll do some radio checks along the way, but I want complete and utter radio silence otherwise. If you do come across anything that looks suspicious, like a dead body with its throat ripped out, then please feel free to break radio silence,” Williams said, a smile creeping across his lips.
The five-man crew looked at their Commander, sharing the same expression on their faces, and that was an expression of fear. None of them could believe that this was what the mission had turned into. Prancing around in the fully pitch-black ship, with black ooze dripping down the walls, no comms on their own ship and no way back home. This was turning out to be quite the rescue mission.
“So, what are you guys waiting for? Get a move on,” Commander Williams said, flailing his arms slightly as his crew fanned out and took a door each. Before he knew it, they’d all disappeared. Williams was left all by himself, in what appeared to be the atrium. It was dark and dingy. No signs of life. No signs of anything other than that dripping black ooze on the walls. Williams didn’t dare approach the black gunk. He didn’t know what it consisted of. For all he knew, the black ooze could be the key. The key to unlocking the mysteries of this abandoned ship
***
Gustoff stared at the huge beam of light ascending above them, turning the usual blue shade of the sky into a crimson red. Randy’s heart was thumping in his chest, and Timson was finding it hard to keep his mouth closed as both men stood by and watched the beam stretching on for miles above. The pod was no longer there. Or at least, it looked that way. The light had consumed it. Metal, wires, fuel, glass … all gone, all consumed by the bright light.
“What’s going on here? Is that thing going to blow?” Gustoff asked, overly aware of his tone. He sounded scared. Frightened. Unsure of himself. Three attributes that Gustoff rarely found himself acting on. He’d usually suffer those attributes in silence. But today, today was a different kind of day. The sort of day that you wouldn’t wish on your worst enemy.
“It can’t be; they wouldn’t dare…” Timson said, stepping back from the beam. The light was making his skin glisten. A shiny and translucent filter seemed to engulf everything it touched. Gustoff noticed that the light - that the beam - was growing even more intense. April watched from afar, also taking a few steps back. She wasn’t no fool, and once she’d seen Timson and his crew begin to backpedal, she knew something bad was about to happen.
Timson quickly turned on his heels and faced the massing colony people behind them. He could tell that they were freaked out by the beam. And he couldn’t blame them. If only they knew what sort of danger they were in. But Timson knew. His two crewmates knew. They knew all too well. The problem was, they didn’t have much time. Timson couldn’t just continue to stand there and gawk at the colony people. Not when the beam was growing. Not when it was intensifying. At any minute, the beam could give out. And they’d all be history. Permanent history.
“Everybody, everybody needs to run,” Timson said, his hand shaking at his sides, rattling like hot metal inside a heat-sealed container. It felt as if the seal was going to break. As if everything he was feeling was going to explode from within his core, spraying the onlookers with dark red coagulated blood. But luckily, his insides didn’t come tumbling out of him. But his heart was still racing. His mind was firing on all cylinders. Pistons going up and down, up and down. The inside of his skull feeling like it was being violated by hot pokers. There was nothing he could do besides from breathe. The air was seeping out of his lungs, the sensation of ch
oking was slowly crawling up his throat. But then, then he managed to catch his breath. But the people, the people of the colony kept staring at the beam of light, not heeding his warning. But they would heed it soon. Or they would die.
“Everybody needs to run. That beam is going to blow. And when it does, it’s going to take everybody with it. The radius will be massive. We need to get out of here. Or we’re going to be eviscerated. Grab your loved ones and get moving!” Timson shouted. The people of the colony heard him then. There was no hesitation. Everybody began to panic. Everybody began to run. Everybody but Timson, his two crew mates and April and Gustoff. They stood there with the rest of them, staring at the beam, looking around as the colony reacted in an immediate and frenzied fashion. Gustoff turned to Timson and shook him out of his daze.
“We need to get a move on as well, right? There’s nothing we can do here. Where do we go, there’s nowhere to run?” Gustoff said, his voice sounding shaky.
Timson shook his head. He didn’t know his way around. He didn’t know how far the explosion would radiate. But surely Gustoff knew a safe place they could seek refuge in.
“You said this place is an island, an island on a cliff of some sorts, right?” Timson asked.
“Yeah, the cliff is far too high, there’s nothing but seawater below, that and a few caves,” Gustoff said, not taking his eyes off the beam that was growing in intensity as the seconds ticked by. They were running out of time.
Timson stood there thinking for a few seconds. He watched as the frenzied chaos around him unfolded. People were screaming and shouting, grabbing at their loved ones, holding their hands, tears running down their faces. All the while the beam was growing stronger, and stronger. The intense heat coming off it was burning the back of Timson’s neck. He could feel the hairs on his neck being singed by the heat. There wasn’t much time left. They couldn’t just stand there hoping for the best. There was no way to disarm the beam. There was very little they could do but run.
Second Earth: The Complete First Novel (Second Earth Chronicles Book 1) Page 8
