by John Murphy
Kerrington looked at him. “Why? So when other people die you won’t have to take the blame?”
“No. Because if we make it—when we make it—through this, it won’t come down that you quit halfway through. You’ve got to be a leader and keep leading, even when one of your team gets killed.”
Kerrington chewed on that for several moments.
Sowell continued, “Nobody gives a shit whether you’re in charge or I’m in charge. We still have to complete the mission. This isn’t a competition; it’s a qualifying mission. If you quit the role they gave you, it can only count against you.”
He let Kerrington ponder that for a bit. “Look, Stiles, I’m not here to stab you in the back. I’m talking to you now because I’m watching your back. My advice to you is not to quit the job they gave you. Keep your head, man. That’s the sign of a leader.”
They sat in silence for a few more minutes.
“Do you think Tucker’s death is gonna hurt my chances?” Kerrington asked. “I mean, of getting into Black Saber?”
Sowell stared at him for several moments. “I don’t know how they’ll judge things. But I do know one thing: if we don’t finish the mission, none of us will get in.”
Sowell stood up and joined the others.
A few minutes later, Kerrington came over, noticeably subdued. “All right, candidates. Let’s get moving.”
* * *
They continued through the caverns, always on a slight incline. Some passages were narrow, requiring the candidates to remove their packs and squirm through. Other chambers were vast, with ceilings over a hundred feet high, well beyond the effective glow of the light sticks.
In one such chamber, a tiny hole in the ceiling allowed a beam of sunlight to stab through the darkness. It made the cavern look like a cathedral. The candidates stopped to look around, lifting their face shields so as not to distort their view. The beam illuminated a pool in which red algae flourished. It looked like someone had poured blood into the water. The candidates stared at it, contemplating their lost teammate.
They removed their helmets and packs, almost in reverence. Although Kerrington hadn’t called for a break, they took one anyway.
Spalding broke the quiet moment. “Hey Mitchell, if you’re so smart, how come you didn’t warn Tucker about the raptor?”
The others looked sharply at Spalding, then back to Mitchell. The cruel question couldn’t be taken back.
Mitchell stared blankly at Spalding, as if she wasn’t quite sure he’d said anything. Then she fell to her knees, sobbing.
Sowell shoved Spalding. “You jerk! It wasn’t her fault!”
“Yeah, ya shithead,” Vasquez joined in. “If anything, it was Tucker who fucked up. He fetched those damn eggs.”
Kerrington stood by, saying nothing.
Mitchell covered her face with her gloved hands and sobbed. She knelt forward, trying to bury her face in the hard cave floor.
Sowell knelt by her side. “Hey, hey, Tyla…Tyla. It’s not your fault.” He put a gentle hand on her back. “Tucker screwed up. He ate the fruit that made him crazy and stole the eggs. It wasn’t your fault.”
Mitchell continued to sob. Sowell didn’t let up. “Tyla, come on. We need you. I know you feel bad. We all feel bad. But it’s not your fault. It’s no one’s fault. No one could have predicted what happened to Tucker. You’re an important part of this team. We’d be lost without you.”
Mitchell sat up, her face bright red. “But if I hadn’t screwed up, Tucker wouldn’t be dead!”
Sowell held his hand up, as if he could halt her crying. “No, no. Look, we could have all died in the desert if it hadn’t been for you.”
Mitchell was no longer sobbing, but her face was contorted and her breathing came in shuddering spurts.
Sowell rubbed her back. “Come on, Tyla. We need you, desperately. You’re the only one who knows how to get us out of here. We can’t make it without you.”
She thought about it a moment, then pulled out her nav tablet and threw it in a fit of fury. Vasquez caught it before it broke on the rocks or skidded into the pool.
“Take it! I don’t want to do this anymore. Someone else can take responsibility. I’m not perfect! I quit!” Mitchell went facedown again, sobbing loudly.
Blood surged through Killian’s muscles. Seeing that Sowell’s gentle approach wasn’t working, he stepped in front of Mitchell. “Mitchell, look at me! Look at me!” His voice echoed in the cavern.
Startled, she looked up, still heaving from her diaphragm.
“Spalding,” Killian said. “Come here. I need your help.”
Spalding looked around hesitantly, as if hoping someone would give him permission to deny the request.
Vasquez shoved him. “Go on, man! Apologize.”
“I…I…I’m sorry.”
Killian gestured to Spalding. “That’s not what I mean. Come over here.”
Spalding hesitated. “I said I was sorry.”
“I forgive you,” Mitchell said, “but I still quit.”
Killian grabbed Spalding’s shoulder firmly, but not too aggressively. He looked at Mitchell. “Mitchell, we need you to complete this mission. I need you. You know how important this mission is to me, and I can’t complete it without you.” He paused to let his words sink in, then added, “Spalding, here, I don’t need so much.”
Mitchell glanced back and forth between Killian and Spalding, wide-eyed.
Killian continued, “Mitchell, I need you to acknowledge that Tucker’s death wasn’t your fault. I need you to pull yourself together and help us complete this mission.”
Killian squeezed Spalding’s shoulder, digging his fingers into the gap along the neckline of his armor. Spalding winced with pain.
“I said I was sorry, man!”
Mitchell tensed.
“What are you doing, man?” Vasquez asked.
Killian directed his words at Mitchell. “Tucker’s death wasn’t your fault. Pull yourself together.”
Killian spun Spalding around and put him in a choking headlock. The release of pent-up anger felt good—too good. It would be easy to follow through with a simple wrench of Spalding’s neck, but he held back.
Spalding squirmed helplessly. “Ow!”
Still on the precipice, Killian said to Mitchell, “Pull yourself together or this will be your fault!”
“Tucker’s death wasn’t my fault!” Mitchell said quickly.
Killian released Spalding. “That’s more like it.”
Spalding stumbled forward, gasping.
“Just kidding around, man. No harm done,” Killian said. He patted Spalding on the back, maybe a little too hard, and then turned toward his gear as if nothing had happened.
Spalding was stunned at first, sucking in air, then he raised a belated fist toward Killian’s back. “Hey, fuck you, man. You can’t do that shit to me!” Then in a lower grumble, “You damn freak.”
Killian put his helmet back on. He knew he’d just made a mistake. It could have been worse, he reassured himself. His arms and legs trembled with energy, ready to explode. He channeled the energy into closing his face shield and attaching the oxygen tube, his arms and fingers trembling with adrenaline.
After several tense moments, Sowell spoke in a calming tone to Mitchell. “Good. Come on, Tyla. We need your guidance.”
Vasquez handed the nav tablet to Sowell, who handed it back to Mitchell. She took it and then retrieved her helmet.
Sowell turned to Spalding, who was still rubbing his neck. “We’re all pretty tense over Tucker’s death, Spalding.”
“That doesn’t give him an excuse to choke me. I’m not a fucking rag doll.”
“I understand where you’re coming from. It’ll be best to keep some distance,” Sowell said.
The candidates silently put their g
ear back on.
Killian moved forward into the cavern, carefully negotiating the slippery rock floor.
Focus, focus, focus.
What just happened could have been disastrous, but he’d managed to contain himself. That small victory would surely be lost on the others.
* * *
An hour later, the candidates emerged from the cool caverns into the dense, humid jungle that Mitchell had promised for so long.
When the candidates regrouped out in the open, Killian thought it wise to show contrition after tempers had cooled somewhat. Better to make amends than let animosity fester into grudges and vengeful acts. He opened his face shield.
“Spalding, I apologize for doing that to you back there. I don’t know what came over me.” He paused. “It won’t happen again.”
Spalding slowly opened his face shield and glared in return.
“Under the circumstances, with Tucker and all,” Sowell said, “it’s understandable that one of us might lose their cool.”
“Grief impacts us all differently,” Mitchell said. “I know I was being irrational. I apologize, too.”
“Just the same, it was wrong of me. I apologize for my behavior.” Killian held up his forearm for a solidarity sledge.
Spalding held back. They locked on each other’s eyes for a few moments, and then Spalding returned the sledge, a little harder than normal, but not so forceful as to suggest a threat.
“Sure,” Spalding said. “It was probably just the atmosphere.”
“Maybe, but I take responsibility,” Killian said. “I’m sorry.”
Spalding nodded at Killian, then pulled his face shield back down.
“Good, then. Apologies accepted all around,” Sowell said.
Killian appreciated Sowell’s ability to sort things out. The situation could have easily escalated in a rush of anger. However, grieving for Tucker wasn’t the true reason for his behavior. He had let his mask down, and that wasn’t good at all. He had to keep himself under control.
“All right, everybody.” Kerrington spoke for the first time since before the scuffle. “We obviously need some rest and to put things behind us.” He sounded deflated, unsettled, lacking his usual bluster.
Killian looked at him with mild surprise. Was Kerrington merely exhausted? Or was this the real Kerrington—scared, in over his head, and uncertain behind false bravado?
They retreated one hundred feet back into the cavern. They slept fitfully for the next four hours.
Killian kept fifty feet between himself and the other candidates, a repentant self-banishment of sorts.
Everyone appeared to be okay with that.
* * *
Reasonably refreshed, the group emerged from the cavern, then threaded their way through the dense foliage. Everyone kept a nervous watch for more flying predators.
Killian observed their behavior with trepidation. He had never gone into dangerous situations in Bangkok with rookies. Everyone he’d known had had experience. Yet here he was on a dangerous planet surrounded by amateurs.
Maybe not so much anymore.
The noise of the forest was immense, the loudest they’d encountered. Birds, insects, and mysterious tree creatures made themselves heard, but weren’t easily seen.
The candidates crushed through an array of brilliant red, yellow, and green low-lying plants. Massive tree trunks reached up to create a dense canopy overhead.
Two hours into the battle against the jungle, the candidates lifted their face shields and sniffed the air.
“I smell smoke,” Spalding said.
“Mitchell, what is that?” Kerrington called out.
Mitchell’s response had an uncharacteristically sarcastic tone. “Smoke.”
There was a long pause. They listened but heard only jungle noises.
“No kidding,” Kerrington said, “but what’s it from?”
“I don’t know,” Mitchell said. Then, unable to suppress her nature, she said, “It may be a fire started by lightning.”
The group accepted her explanation, flipped their face shields down, and continued their journey.
“It’s getting stronger,” Vasquez said. “I think we’re getting closer to the source.”
Sowell called out from the front of the line. “Up ahead. I see smoke in the air.”
Caution slowed their pace.
They reached a crater in the jungle. It was about 150 feet wide, scorched, and smoldering. At the center was the charred structure of a landing craft.
“Is that what I think it is?” Goreman asked.
Dohrn was the first to say what they all suspected. “It’s the shuttle!”
“Holy shit!” Spalding said.
Killian, Sowell, and Vasquez stumbled down through the blackened ash to inspect the shuttle. Their face shields were down to fight against the fumes.
When they reached the front of the wreckage, they examined the nose and missing windshield and were able to make out fragments of the letters “ORGE” on the otherwise blackened surface. It confirmed their morbid suspicion. It was the same shuttle that had brought them down to the planet’s surface.
The entire inside of the craft was gutted and black.
The three of them returned to the other five candidates, who were huddled on the outskirts of the scorched area.
“What’d you find out?” Kerrington asked.
Sowell flipped up his shield and gave him a somber look. “It’s the Valley Forge, as best we can tell.”
“Christ!”
“That’s probably why we lost comms,” Spalding said.
“Motherfuck!” Kerrington said.
Mitchell frowned. “But the communications didn’t go through the shuttle. We should be able to communicate directly with Blue Orchid. The shuttle was independent of comms.”
Kerrington looked around at the jungle. “We’re never getting off this frigging planet!”
“They’ve got other shuttles,” Killian said.
Kerrington turned to him. “This has been one huge disaster after another. Maybe they don’t have any others. Maybe Blue Orchid was shot out of the frigging sky. We’re totally cut off! We are frigging doomed!”
“This is horrible! I want to go home!” Dohrn said.
“But that doesn’t make sense,” Mitchell cut in. “There were two shuttles on board Blue Orchid. We’re in such a remote part of the galaxy, there’s no reason to suspect Blue Orchid is disabled or gone.”
“Think about it, you stupid bitch!” Kerrington snarled. “We haven’t had comms since we touched down. We are fucked!”
Sowell stepped between them. “You don’t know that! What we have is the absence of communications. That doesn’t mean anything happened to Blue Orchid.”
Kerrington gestured toward the craft. “We have a frigging burned-out shuttle right in front of your frigging eyes! What more do you need?”
“Sowell’s right,” Killian said. “We don’t know for sure. We should keep on with the mission.”
Dohrn turned to him. “The fucking mission? The fucking mission? Is that all you can think about, the fucking mission?”
“Yes, it is! That’s what we’re here for!” Killian said.
“We’re here for training!” Spalding shouted. “Not to fucking die!”
“Like the commander told us, we’re at war!” Sowell said. “People sometimes die in training!”
“That doesn’t mean we have to!” Dohrn said.
In Bangkok, Killian hadn’t had the benefit of comms. They were always cut off until the mission was over. Killian tried to temper the hysteria. “I know we’re in a difficult situation. In real combat you sometimes get cut off. The only way out is forward.”
“Noooooooo!” Dohrn screamed.
“What are you going to do, Dohrn?” Sowell asked. �
�Keep throwing tantrums? Is that going to fix the problem? It’s too late to opt out!”
“We are so screwed,” Spalding muttered.
“They have more than one shuttle,” Mitchell said. “They’ll send another.”
“I agree,” Sowell said. “We should move on. No use sitting here crying.”
Killian’s eyes flicked between Sowell, Vasquez, and Mitchell. “Let’s move out.”
Kerrington balled his fists in rage. “Fuuuuck!”
CHAPTER 23
13 Hours to Extraction
THE JUNGLE THINNED until the straggling candidates were again into dry scrub trees. Eventually, those gave way to knee-high bushes until all that remained were rocks and sand.
Exhausted, the candidates slowed. With no ability to carry water from the cave, they would have to rely on the fruit in their packs for the duration of the mission.
Killian volunteered to carry the explosive device on his pack. He cut a short length of rope and knotted it around the handle, with a large loop over the top of his pack, making it easy to put on and take off.
They took ten-minute breaks every forty minutes to rest and stretch. Each time they resumed, traveling seemed more laborious than before.
The formation was loose and strung out. They were no longer in their original order. Killian led the forward group of Sowell, Vasquez, and Mitchell. The second group of Kerrington, Dohrn, and Goreman lagged behind by sixty feet. Even farther behind was Spalding.
As they wandered between rocky hills, they came to a valley floor of sedimentary sand. It was crusted, similar to the hardpan desert plain they had traversed several hours before. What made this one different was the appearance of scarlet glass-like stones, polished by the sands. They stood out, inviting the candidates to pick them up and examine them.
Spalding discovered that the red crystals shattered when thrown against other rocks. He was soon doing it continuously. Everyone turned to observe as he threw one after the other.
Dohrn turned to Kerrington. “Can you tell him to stop destroying things?”
“Damn it, Spalding! Cut that shit out,” Kerrington said, reluctantly complying with Dohrn.
“Yes, General Bonaparte.” Spalding threw one final crystal.
