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.
Magnus keyed something into a screen in the kitchen, and a face appeared. He asked the man a few questions and was told the two men from the station were on New Spero, and that Clare was with them. We’d left her at the complex to wait for the rest of our team.
“We’ve built hotels for visitors from other cities to stay. Your friends are in the suites saved for city leaders. Much better than being cramped up on a ship for months, I tell you,” Magnus said after he ended the call.
“Thank you, Magnus,” Mary said. “Your home is perfect.” She walked around the living room and back to the kitchen. “Dean, maybe we can have something like this.” Her words were soft, hopeful. Little Dean came over to me, and I saw he was holding a wooden train.
“Of course you can,” Magnus said. “We’ll get right on it. I don’t want to speak out of turn, but there’s house a couple acres over if you want it. Share the land, so to speak. We built it…back then, hoping you would come claim it.”
It was all happening so fast, and I didn’t know how to reply. On one hand, it sounded amazing, but we had just arrived and had no idea what New Spero was really about. “I think we might like that.” I smiled at Mary, and she returned it. I knew Mary loved the idea right now, but her taste for adventure might kick in after a few weeks of feeding chickens and weeding a garden.
“Time for your nap, malen’kiy.” Natalia took her son’s hand, and he let her lead him into another room without complaint.
“What a cute kid. I can’t believe you have a son. The last night we saw you, you were just getting married,” I said, seeing his shoulders slump all of a sudden, like my words took the air out of him.
We sat in the living room, the smell of coffee flowing through the air toward us. I realized how tired I was then; sitting on the soft cushions, I had the desire to lie down and sleep.
“Dean… Mary,” Magnus said quietly, “we thought you were dead. Patty kept asking for word from you, from Earth, and eventually she stopped talking to us about you. I don’t think she stopped asking, but she could tell it was getting too hard for us to hear about you after those first few years.”
Carey looked up at me from the floor, his head turning sideways. “Come here, boy.” I patted my lap, and he jumped up, setting his head on my leg, letting out a sigh that he must have been holding for me for seven years. Soon his breath slowed, and I just rested my hand on his back, letting him know I was there.
“He’s yours, by the way,” Magnus said, looking at Carey from the other couch. Mary sat beside me, petting Maggie. Charlie was at Magnus’ feet.
I shook my head. “I can’t take him now; it’s been too long. He has his home now, his pack.” It hurt to say, but it was true.
“Tell us everything,” Natalia said, bringing a tray with coffee and cups from the kitchen.
“Where do we begin?” Mary asked.
“At the start.”
“You were married, and Mae arrived, beaten up. The hybrids escaped.” I said Mae’s name, and I could see they were aching to ask after her, but they knew she was dead. It was all over their faces.
We told our tale to them over the next few hours. The sunlight dimmed in the room, and soft lights automatically came on as we spoke. Natalia got snacks and we drank coffee, them on the edge of their seats at times, while at other moments, tears flowed freely from their eyes.
They learned about the Deltra still living on another planet. Magnus nearly stood as I talked about getting the smaller version of the Shield, and about Mary almost dying by the Bhlat warriors on that lone station far out in the universe. They sank into the couch and held hands as I told them about killing everyone at a Bhlat outpost. Natalia let out a cry as I told them the gut-punch of Mae really being Janine, the woman I’d fallen in love with. It hurt to bring it up and relive the story. Hearing that Slate had shot her took the wind out of their sails, and neither of them spoke for a few minutes.
When we got to the part about World President Naidoo communicating with the Bhlat, and how we thought she was going to kill us, Magnus turned red. “That bitch! We’re going to straighten all of this out tonight.”
“I think that Andrews guy is in her pocket,” Mary said.
“He has to be. If anyone ever shows up in our system, the station’s supposed to relay it to us and await instructions. Evidently, Naidoo asked Andrews to ignore our protocol and take you himself. I’m glad the slimy little slug got shot.” Magnus was still red, but Nat’s calming hand on his arm seemed to be working.
“That’s quite the story,” Natalia said. “Mag, I think its our turn.”
He nodded. “First, I need something.” He left the room, coming back with a bottle and four small glasses. He set them down on the large coffee table. I recognized the brand of Scotch as Magnus’ favorite from back on Earth.
“Is that…?” I started to ask.
“The one and the same. I’ve been saving this for something special. I’d say this constitutes something special, wouldn’t you?” The sparkle of my old friend was back in his eye. “Do you remember that day? We got the rings from that guy with the German shepherd.”
“And half a truckload of booze. Don’t you have distilleries here?” I asked, vividly recalling the day. It was only six months ago to me.
“We do, but there’s nothing like a bottle of twenty-year-old Scotch, aged a few more for good measure. God, I wish things had worked out differently that wedding night. I’m going to miss Mae.” He poured the liquid into the four glasses, passing one to each of us. “Even though she screwed us over a few ways to Friday, she was something.” He raised his glass. “To Mae.”
“To Mae,” we all said in unison, raising our own glasses in the air. I sipped the Scotch, letting the familiar burn ease down my throat.
“Our trip didn’t go so smoothly,” Magnus said, starting to tell us about their journey after we left. “That ship left with a thousand people, and we lost a hundred on the way from an illness we couldn’t cure. Now it’s nothing more than a common cold to us, but at the start, before we understood the way alien viruses worked, it was deadly. That was the least of it, but I won’t bore you with the details. The fact was, we arrived a month late, and our morale was low when we lowered to the surface.”
“My sister Isabelle?” I asked, fearful at what the answer would be.
Natalia’s face softened. “She’s fine, Dean. She lives out in Terran Five.”
I relaxed, nervous and excited to see the sister I hardly knew any longer. “What happened then?”
“They knew the layout of the planet from their first trip, but we didn’t know everything. The weather patterns surprised us, and the wildlife was so unique,” Magnus said, pausing for a drink, “but it was paradise to us. Free from the bull of Earth politics, we did what needed to be done. We started at ground zero here and built everything you’ve seen.”
“How did you end up bei
ng farmers?” Mary asked, a hint of laughter in her voice.
“I still work for the colony, obviously, but we wanted more. When Dean was born, we left the house we’d built in the city and gave it to a younger couple just starting out. We wanted to be away from the noise and people for once.” Magnus set his hand on Nat’s, squeezing it lightly. “She deserves a quiet place to raise a family.”
“You both deserve it,” I said.
We sat in the living room for hours, talking about all the stuff between their landing and now. We drank to old times, we picked away at a light dinner, and before we knew it, we were all tipsy and exhausted. I asked Magnus to pass word to the crew that we would see them in the morning, and Mary and I headed to the guest room Natalia demanded we stay in.
Mary was already breathing deeply as I pulled the blankets over my shoulders. I heard the light pitter-patter of footsteps approach our room, the door squeaked as it pushed open, and I recognized the sound of Carey jumping onto the bed. He came over to me, sniffed my face, licked it, and curled up between my legs.
I slept like I hadn’t in months.
FOUR
From the helicopter, we got a much better view of the settlement. We’d been so distracted when we’d lowered in our Kraski ship that none of us had caught a good look at Terran One. Now, flying over at a low altitude, I could make out all the different farms, then neighborhoods, as we headed for the base. Fields of varying colors stretched out beyond the horizon, a grid of sustenance and prosperity.
Magnus pointed landmarks out to us. He also described how each neighborhood had all the necessary supply stores, hospitals, and schools, so the locals didn’t need transportation to other areas. It reminded me of old city planning for lower-income areas. They wanted everything necessary along a bus route or within walking distance. For a colony, it made a lot of sense.
It blew my mind to see how far they’d come in just seven years. The amount of work that must have gone into creating what we were looking at had to come at a price. Magnus assured us that they owned worker robots for much of the labor.
In the distance, I spotted a large mountain, pristine lakes mottling the landscape near it, and I knew where I wanted to visit first. I wondered if there was anything resembling fish in that water.
We neared the base, a large structure by the landing pad we were at the day before. As we settled toward the ground, I spotted my friends near a bay door. Clare, Nick, and Slate stood looking no worse for wear, and I silently thanked whoever was listening for bringing them back in one piece.
“Time to make history,” Magnus said, opening the heli door. Mary got down, I ran out after her, and we jogged toward the building. The copter lifted and left us in silence after a few minutes.
We greeted our crew, Mary going for hugs with the two men we’d left in space, me following suit with what started as a manly back pat but escalated into a ‘thank God you’re alive’ embrace. “Everyone okay?” I asked, getting assurances that they were.
Slate grinned at us. “I was having fun up there. I think someone needs to train those pilots better.”
“Speak for yourself. Those guards were ready to rip my head off,” Nick said. Now that we were just a few feet apart, I noticed the red lines in his eyes and a bruise on his cheek.
“Did they hurt you?” I asked, anger boiling under my skin.
He shook his head. “No worse than I’d expect. I’ll be fine. I’m just glad the call came in when it did. I think they were ready to push me out an airlock.”
“I heard the news but wasn’t going to believe it unless I saw it,” a new voice said, coming from the doorway. “If I live to be a hundred, I doubt you’ll find me more surprised again.”
“President Dalhousie!” I called, happy to see the woman who made all of this happen.
She fluttered my comment away with a flick of her wrist. “No more ‘President’ for me. Just call me Patty, please.”
Patty had been a fit, healthy fifty when we’d last seen her, but the woman before us had been through a lot. She looked like she’d aged twice as much as Magnus. She was now a small gray-haired woman, but the fire in her eyes was still burning bright. Her once long hair was cut shorter, giving her a grandmotherly look.
“I’ve been filled in by the others, but come on in. We need to talk.” Patty hugged us tightly and turned, leading us into the large base through a steel door with guards at it.
“Still need guards?” Mary asked.
“This is a colony, not Utopia. Humans will always be humans, and yes, we do still need policing, and a military for space and New Spero,” Magnus answered for her.
We were led down a wide hallway, which ended eventually, and we turned left past a door that required Patty’s thumbprint to open. We found ourselves in a metal corridor, and I had flashbacks to climbing the tube on the Deltra station, Bhlat clomping around trying to kill us. Mary seemed to notice a change in me, and she grabbed my hand.
The corridor went on for a couple hundred feet or so, at an ever-declining angle, before opening into a large, cavernous room. Screens were set up at numerous long desks, with a massive screen front and center, where it looked like they could air multiple feeds at once.
“What is this?” Clare whispered, stealing the words from all our mouths.
“This is New Spero Central. We have feeds from all major centers here, and we watch for anything out of the ordinary.” Patty walked toward the front row of desks, where five workers sat, headsets on, screens showing various city shots and views from fence lines.
“You spy on everyone?” Slate asked. The question was so unlike the soldier, I hoped his being around me for a few months hadn’t made him question authority. Or maybe it was a good thing for the man who’d obeyed someone his whole adult life to be a free thinker.
“We don’t spy on them. This is a new planet. We watch for anything that might pose a threat to the people. We’ve saved countless lives with our perimeter cams catching predators lurking too close to villages and cities,” Magnus said, and I felt better about it all. If my old friend was behind it, then I would blindly follow his lead.
“What kind of predators?” Mary asked, stepping forward to squint at the screen’s images.
“Daniel? Can you bring up the feed from 1179, please?” Patty asked, pointing at the large screen in the front of the room.
It showed a snowy landscape, the area fenced with a twenty-foot-tall barrier. Red lights blinked on the concrete fence posts. It took a minute to see them, but once I did, they were everywhere. They were white, almost blending in with the snow. I couldn’t tell how tall they were, but they had to be four feet at least. The camera zoomed and paused to show us three of them in a cluster, reminding me of a cross between a lizard and a wolf. Long thick tails left lines in the snow behind them, powerful snouts sniffing the air.
“Holy crap,” Slate said, unblinking as we watched the video. It started up again, and we watched as they approached the fence, trying to touch it but getting shocked by electricity. A couple of them repeated the effort and failed, but were still moving, as if the shock was nothing more than an annoyance.
One of the creatures ran over to a concrete fence post, which was at least three feet wide. Another one stepped up, and they used each other to lift themselves up, until there were three of the animals stacked on one another, the top one jumping and grabbing hold of the top.
“We lost twenty people the first night we met these guys. That’s why we watch the feeds live.”
My stomach sank as I watched dozens of the things get lifted and climb over the fence. They were smarter than any animal I’d ever seen. Patty showed us another video of people forming a violent riot, and how they were able to subdue it quickly. It appeared all wasn’t paradise on this colony planet.
“Now, enough about us and New Spero. Tell me how you came to arrive seven years later, looking like nothing has changed, in the same ship you left Earth on,” Patty said.
“Should we wai
t for Heart?” Slate asked, looking around the room.
Patty turned to Slate, looking at him silently for a minute before speaking again. “The general isn’t with us any longer. He passed away two years ago: heart attack.”
Slate deflated at that and sat down in one of the swivel chairs at the long desks.
“A lot has changed for us. I think you know the new general.” Patty pointed at Magnus, who just shrugged when we looked over to him.
“Someone had to do it, and it might as well be someone I trust. Me,” Magnus said, getting a tense laugh from our group.
“I’d say congratulations, but I’m sure you’d rather be sitting on your porch sipping sweet tea than worrying about invasions and space station turncoats,” I said, clapping him on the arm.
“Speaking of which, where is Mr. Andrews?” Magnus asked Patty.
“He’s fine. Almost good as new. He’s finding a new home at Terran Three.” Patty tilted her head toward the screen, showing the city covered in snow. “He claims Naidoo threatened to hurt his family back on Earth, but I call BS on that. His accounts have shown some interesting deposits over the years. Either way, I apologize for your treatment, everyone. Can we have the story now?”
We moved to the back of the room, where a guard brought in refreshments. I guzzled water as we went through the trip, and my own personal emotional rollercoaster. I was ready to put it all behind us after this telling.
When it was over, Patty mopped her face with a hand, and looked to have aged another year. “After all we’ve been through, she wants to cut a deal with them. That might explain something.”
“What?” I asked.
“It takes a month to get a message to and from Earth. We’ve sent messages to them but haven’t had a reply in over a month. I was hoping there was just a technical issue on Earth, but it could mean two things. Either they’re choosing to not talk with us” – she paused, leaning forward in her chair – “or they aren’t able to talk to us.”
The Survivors: Books 1-6 Page 46
