by J. N. Chaney
* * *
I stood next to my strike ship, pistol on my hip and a satchel on my shoulder. Several other vessels were currently landing in the east side of Verdun, each one carrying a few dozen new colonists.
I had asked Karin, Hitchens, and a handful of other people to manage and corral the new colonists while the rest of us were away. We had to get them new accommodations, jobs, food, and eventually brief them on exactly what it was we were trying to do here. I preferred to do the last bit myself, but given the task ahead of us, I decided to wait until we returned to the colony. For now, my team would accommodate our new friends as much as possible. We’d worry about explaining their future to them at a later date.
The good news was that we would finally have more help in and around the colony. That meant more labor for the crops, cleaning out the remaining buildings, and a laundry list of other tasks that we simply didn't have the time to do with our small workforce. It was hard work building a civilization, but I was certain we could do it once we had the numbers behind us. With enough people behind a cause, anything is achievable.
The sight of those ships landing was a nice reminder that we were making progress.
"Ready to go?" asked Abigail, poking her head out from inside the ship. "Or would you prefer to stand there all day, gawking?"
I gave her a look that suggested she had better watch the sarcasm, but it only made her snicker.
Freddy was approaching the landing pad as we spoke, but the other two crew members from Titan were already onboard. I had decided it might be a good idea to bring a few folks with some expertise on the mission, particularly when it came to ancient Earth tech. Each of them had been hand-picked by Dressler herself. She was currently riding in one of the other strike ships, but six members of her team made up roughly a quarter of our squadron.
I also made an effort to select a handful of well-trained soldiers from among Lucia's team. After all, there was no telling what we’d find at the bottom of that pit. For all I knew, we were walking into a den of trilobites, each one deadly enough to kill a grown man. At the same time, there was a small chance we could stumble upon a cache of ancient technology and we might need engineers proficient enough to figure out what it all meant. The fact of the matter was that we simply didn't know.
My time as a Renegade had taught me plenty, but the most important thing had always been to prepare for every possible outcome. That was especially true right now as we readied ourselves for the unknown.
“Captain!” called Freddie, waving at me as he neared.
“It’s about time,” I said, smacking his back. “Glad you decided to join us.”
He smiled. “Do you think Karin and Dr. Hitchens can handle the new arrivals?”
“I’d wager so. They’ve got plenty of help, including the rest of your ship’s crew.”
“Crew?” he asked.
“From The Galactic Dawn,” answered Abigail, poking out from inside the ship again. “I had a handful join the colonists. Jace and I agree that a few familiar faces might help with the transition.”
Freddie paused. “Can I ask which crew members?”
“Does it matter?” asked Abigail. “They’re all competent enough for the task.”
I snickered. “Don’t worry, Freddie. Petra’s not on the list.”
He seemed to relax, drooping his shoulders. “I-I see.”
“Did someone say my name?” asked Petra from inside the ship.
“Yeah,” I continued, still looking at Freddie with a composed look on my face. “She’s coming with us.”
He stiffened, his eyes widening. “W-What?!”
Abigail feigned surprise. “Did you forget to tell him? That was very irresponsible of you, Jace.” She shook her head. “Poor Frederick.”
“Sorry about that, pal. Looks like you’re just gonna have to deal with this little problem of yours,” I said, finally stepping into the ship. “Good luck.”
“Is that Frederick?” asked Petra.
Freddie visibly gulped, his skin turning chalk white in the process. I’d never seen the boy so intimidated. “Y-Yeah, I’m here, Petra,” he called, climbing inside.
“There you are!” she exclaimed, reaching out her hand from beneath her seat harness. “Didn’t you see me earlier chasing after you? I was trying to tell you that—”
“Save the talk for later, you two,” I barked, silencing them. “We’ve got a job to do right now.”
I strapped into the pilot’s seat, then tossed a mobile emitter on the dash. Sigmond appeared in a quick flash, his body approximately fifteen centimeters in height. He looked at me with his golden eyes and smiled. "I see we are ready to go. Very good, sir."
"Siggy, I want you watching those scans at all times," I told him. "The second you see anything dangerous, let me know."
"Understood, sir," he agreed. "Shall I inform the others that you are ready to depart?"
I tapped the comm in my ear. "I think I can handle that much," I said. "Boys and girls, this is Hughes. I want all ships in the sky in five minutes. No stragglers.”
“We’ll be right beside you,” said Octavia, who was piloting one of the other ships.
“Same for us,” said Alphonse.
“And us,” added Bolin.
Altogether, we had four ships, each one piloted by a pilot I knew could handle the worst of it. Bolin, Alphonse, and Octavia were all at the top of their class.
Second only to myself, of course.
The engines primed, and we lifted off the landing platform and into the free air, making for a smooth transition. I told the ship to move towards the eastern horizon, taking us away from Verdun, high above the clouds.
The other ships were right behind me, each of them equal distance apart. It would take us an hour to reach the chasm, bringing us across two continents and an ocean in the process.
SIX
We reached the chasm a few minutes earlier than expected. The sun was at its highest point and the wind remained calm with no sign of any hard weather.
Trilobites scurried along the dirt near the edge of the pit, exactly as Octavia had described them. I had never seen so many in one place before. I wagered none of us had before today. They crept and crawled from inside the hole, and I could only imagine how many remained unseen, deep inside the darkened earth.
The moment we were close enough for the scanners to register, a small holo appeared on the dash, floating beside Sigmond. It was a direct line-of-sight layout of the pit, the best we could get for right now, but one that would slowly grow and build the more we explored.
I touched the comm on my ear and signaled the other ships. “Follow my lead but put some distance between yourselves. Octavia, you hold the rear. Everyone else, stay between us, keep your wits, and try not to crash on your way down.”
“Understood,” said Alphonse.
The others were quick to agree, no objections among them. Once we’d formed our ship order, I edged my way closer to the chasm, enough so we were only about twelve meters from the ground.
The trilobites moved without interruption, giving no acknowledgement to our presence. Perhaps they knew, somehow, that we were no threat to their work, or maybe they simply didn’t care. Hard to say, since those creatures were still a mystery to us, but they were a question for another time.
For now, only the pit mattered.
We began our descent once everyone was in position, edging cautiously into the dark. I kept us moving at the same pace the scanners revealed the space ahead. The last thing I wanted was to go careening into a wall or an obscured ledge.
“How far do you think it goes?” asked Freddie, staring out his window.
“It can’t be more than thirty kilometers,” said Petra
“You think so?” asked her associate, whose name I thought was Verne, though I hadn’t taken the time to find out.
“There’s no way this goes further than that,” she insisted.
“You sound pretty sure of yourself,” said
Abigail from the front passenger’s seat. She didn’t bother turning around.
“That’s because the records show thirty kilometers is about the average thickness of the planet’s crust,” explained Petra. “If this hole is any deeper than that, I can’t imagine we’ll be able to follow it to completion.”
“She raises a good point,” I said.
“Are you a geologist now?” asked Abigail.
I sidestepped the question by going straight to Sigmond. “What do you think?” I asked, looking at the little Cognitive on the dashboard.
He stroked his chin, thoughtfully, although I couldn’t imagine why. “Petra raises an interesting thought.”
“See?” asked Petra.
Verne shrugged.
“However,” continued Sigmond, “given the advances in technology made since Athena’s departure from Earth, the Eternals may have found a way to burrow beyond the planet’s crust. For that matter, the geology could have changed to accommodate the terraforming process, making for a thicker layer than the previous iteration. I’m afraid there are simply too many unknowns.”
Verne looked at Petra. “You were saying?”
“Never mind,” she relented.
“Do not be discouraged,” said Sigmond, a bit of cheer in his voice. “Our scans are revealing more data by the moment.”
“Exactly,” said Abigail. “Wait a bit and you just might find yourselves with more answers than questions.”
“Or the opposite,” I countered. “Truth is, we don’t much know, one way or the other.”
Abigail and Sigmond both nodded. “Indeed,” said the Cognitive.
As we continued our descent, the holo filled, and with every centimeter of light came more definition to the walls. We did this for a while—nearly three hours—dropping through the endless, never-changing pit. It was devoid of anything, except for the trilobites, each one scuttling along the stone walls like insects. There were hundreds of them, I guessed, creeping between the cracks, coming and going to gods-knew-where.
It was like burrowing inside an anthill, only the ants were as big as a small child.
“Jace,” said Abigail, once some time had passed. “Do you think we made a mistake, coming down here together and leaving Verdun to the others?”
I could hear Freddie and the others talking behind us, immersed in a discussion about the trilobites. Petra was explaining a theory of hers, although I couldn’t hear much of it from the front seat. I glanced over at Abigail, trying to ignore the mumbling behind us, and chose to focus my attention on her. “You don’t think Hitchens and Karin can handle things?”
“I’m certain they can,” she answered. “But this is the first group we’ve brought home. I didn’t think much about it at the time, but in hindsight—”
“You think we made a mistake,” I finished.
She nodded. “At a time like this, when things are still so fragile?” she asked, pausing. “Maybe.”
I checked the time. “It’s just after midday, which means they should be in their new rooms. We’ve got time left in the day to make it back and deal with any major problems that come up. Once we’re at the bottom, we’ll—”
The holo flashed red, pulling our attention to Alphonse’s ship as it brushed against the pit wall. I watched the vessel ignite its stabilization thrusters, pushing away from the rockface and reorienting itself in the middle of the chasm.
A second later, something hit the top of our ship, shaking our hull with a loud thud. We held our seats, tension on all our faces, but the ship settled quickly with no sign of damage. I guessed it was a rock, then signaled Alphonse, asking what the hell had just happened.
“I’m not entirely certain,” he said, quickly, an uncharacteristic sense of confusion in his voice. “We were flying normally and then I lost control.”
“Siggy, run a system diagnostic,” I ordered. “Bring all ships to a stop.”
“Already underway, sir,” said the Cognitive. The holo magnified Alphonse’s ship so it took up most of the dash. There was a short pause while the data processed and the check concluded. “It appears one of the ship’s sensors is misaligned. I’m correcting it now.”
“How the hell did that happen?” I asked.
“Unknown, sir. As advanced as these vessels are, they are not beyond the occasional problem, like any working machine.” Sigmond pointed to the holo, which showed the ship’s sensors in red. “Rebooting system now.”
The light changed from red to green, suggesting things were back to normal. “How we looking?” I asked.
“All systems appear to be operational,” said Sigmond. “Mr. Malloy, you are free to resume control.”
“Thank you, Sigmond,” said Alphonse. “I apologize for our negligence, Captain.”
“Not your fault,” I assured him.
Abigail touched the side of my chair. “This might be a good time to leave,” she said. “We can come back later once the maintenance crew has a chance to—”
“What was that?” asked Petra, cutting her off. She sounded rattled, so I turned around to see what was wrong. She was looking around the compartment, like she was searching for something. “Did you hear that?”
“Hear what?” I asked.
She held up a finger to quiet everyone, then pointed to the upper hull. “Listen.”
We did as she suggested, saying nothing, and straining to hear whatever she was talking about. I was about to tell her it was all in her head when it happened again—a sudden, light tapping sound, steadily beating against the outside of the ship. It was the same spot where the rock had fallen, moments ago.
“What is that?” asked Abigail.
“Might be pieces of the walls,” suggested Verne. “You know, from where the other ship hit.”
“Or rain,” said Freddie.
I turned back to Sigmond. “Do sensors show anything?”
“Weather is clear, and I detect no falling objects, sir,” said Sigmond.
“That doesn’t make sense,” said Abigail, looking at me. “A sound like that doesn’t just materialize out of nothing. It has to have a source.”
I nodded, then tapped my ear. “Octavia, this is Hughes. I need a favor.”
“I hear you, Captain,” she responded.
“What are you doing?” asked Abigail.
“If we can’t use sensors, we’ll have to check it out the old-fashioned way,” I said. “Octavia, fly down closer to my position. Examine our hull and send the feed directly to me. There’s something on top of us and I’d like to know what it is.”
“Isn’t Alphonse’s ship closer?” asked Freddie.
“His ship might still be having problems,” I countered. “Best to play it safe.”
“We’re on the move now, Captain,” said Octavia. “Hold, please.”
When the comm went quiet, so did the rest of the ship.
We sat in silence, waiting for Octavia to get into position, and the sound of the tapping from outside the hull grew louder. It filled the cabin with a steady, constant beating.
All our eyes were fixed on the ship’s ceiling, at the spot where the sound seemed to be the loudest, and the vibrations the strongest.
“Captain?” called Octavia, her voice causing me to blink. I pivoted back in my seat to the holo.
“Go ahead,” I said.
The video feed popped up on the dash, showing the inside of the pit. Octavia’s ship had its outer light fixed to the top of ours. From there, I could see most of our hull, but only barely. The light seemed to reflect off of us so much so that it made it difficult to see. I was about to ask her to dim it when the light flickered.
And then it moved.
“What the—”
A loud cracking sound cut me off before I could get the final word out. Something dropped and slammed into the middle of our cabin floor, right between my chair and Petra’s.
I nearly leapt out of my seat as everyone frantically tried to move away.
There was a trilobite sitting
inside the ship, its mandibles clicking and clapping, almost like an insect. The spot above us had somehow melted away, although there was no smoke or steam.
Abigail tried to hastily unbuckle her harness, simultaneously reaching for her rifle.
The trilobite scuttled along the floor, first to Freddie, who cringed at the sight of it. “Get it away!” he screamed.
“Stay calm!” ordered Abigail.
Petra unbuckled her harness and, just as the trilobite was about to touch Freddie, kicked it.
The trilobite paused, briefly, almost like it was readjusting, and then made a hard dash towards Petra. It scurried up the side of her seat.
She yelped and pulled away, but the trilobite caught her arm and clamped it down against the chair. Immediately, it let out a sound that could only be described as sizzling.
Petra screamed as the trilobite liquified her entire arm, melting flesh and bone at the same time.
All of this happened in seconds.
I yanked my pistol from the spot beneath my chair, pulled around and aimed at the trilobite.
Petra collapsed to the side, her entire arm gone. Meanwhile, the trilobite was busy consuming its juices, using its mandibles to suck up the liquid.
I fired into its backside, but the shock of the bullet only caused it to flinch. When it didn’t respond, I shot again, piercing its shell for the second time.
Abigail, who’d finally managed to get her vest free and her gun ready, joined me in the assault. The trilobite took it all, so much more interested in consuming the arm than about its own well-being.
We continued until it finally let go of its grip on the seat and collapsed on the floor, motionless as it bled organic liquid from its chest—an orange goo that stank like shit and copper.
Freddie rushed to Petra, who had already passed out. Her forehead was covered in sweat, but she was breathing. Freddie gave me a quick nod to confirm this, and I swiveled back around in my seat, touching the control pad and ordering my ship to return home.
“Captain, what’s going on over there?” asked Alphonse. “I’m detecting gunfire and—”
