by J. J. Green
Cariad and Cherry were squeezed into a narrow space on the roof of the Leader’s residence. Cariad had looked for Osias’ body among the ruins as Cherry had guided her there, but she hadn’t been able to see him. Most of the place had been burned to ash, so it wasn’t surprising.
So many deaths. With the loss of the babies on the Nova Fortuna along with all the reproduction equipment, the colony’s death warrant was already signed. It was only a matter of when its execution would take place. If they survived this moment and into the future, the end of the colony wouldn’t happen in Cariad’s lifetime, but at some point several or even many generations hence, a final few inbred humans would be the last gasp of humanity in the galaxy. The efforts of the thousands of Nova Fortuna Project participants and those of Steen, Mina, and the rest of the Guardians’ creators would have been in vain. The flickering flame would finally go out.
Cries of fear and despair rose all around. The tsunami was nearly upon them. The terror of the colonists was almost palpable. Cariad was frozen, hardly able to watch what was about to happen yet also unable to tear her gaze away. Cherry’s grip on her arm was hurting. She took the woman’s hand and together they faced whatever fate awaited them.
The wave hit the settlement fence, sparking screams and shrieks. A man slipped, fell, and was immediately dragged under. The water rose higher, reaching the hanging legs of settlers as they clung on. It was sweeping through the wires, which wavered under its weight. But the fence was holding.
The wave advanced, picking up the burnt remains of the settlement buildings, until the water was no longer visible. Only a tide of black and gray debris moved closer, engulfing the ruins of houses. It was as if destruction had taken physical form and was bearing down on the settlers, preparing to devastate whatever lay in its path.
The wave hit what was left of the hospital. The part of the building’s roof that remained intact was crowded with figures. Cariad clasped Cherry’s hand tighter. Her heart was in her mouth. But as the wave passed around and through the hospital the structure stood firm.
The Leader’s residence was next.
“We’ll be okay,” Cherry said. “We’ll be okay.”
“I hope so,” Cariad replied.
“But just in case we aren’t,” Cherry went on, “I’m sorry for being a bitch.”
Cariad turned to her, tears of terror and gratitude in her eyes. “No. I’m sorry. For everything.”
The two women returned their gazes to their potential approaching deaths. The building shuddered beneath their feet as the debris piled against it, driven relentlessly on by the swirling water. Cariad gasped, remembering to breathe.
The wave pushed on, testing the strength of the only thing that stood between her and oblivion. The building was holding. The water was all around them now, and the Leader’s residence hadn’t collapsed. For the moment, they were safe.
Chapter Forty-Two
It took Ethan and Rudra all day to walk to the settlement. Ethan had fashioned a crutch from a broom Rudra found in what was left of one of the farmhouses. He could walk but only slowly. The pain from his wound hampered him and the crutch quickly began to hurt the underside of his arm. Rudra couldn’t travel much faster anyway as he was forced to carry Ganika. Both men also faced the challenge of navigating the sediment from the tsunami.
The wave had obliterated the fields and the crops that had been growing in them. The road was also gone from sight, though Ethan guessed it probably still lay fairly intact somewhere underneath the mud. They had to guess the direction of the settlement but the layout of the farm buildings helped. Most of the structures had withstood the giant wave, as had the fence around the lake.
Ethan would never forget the sight of the wave approaching. First, he’d noticed the cloud of smoke rising into the sky from the spot where the settlement lay, then he’d heard Rudra gasp. Turning, Ethan had been greeted by the sight of something impossible. The ocean had risen up and traveled inland, an hour’s flitter ride or farther.
He’d never heard of such a thing. But he’d barely had time to wonder what could possibly have caused the wave before he’d realized he and Rudra and Ganika stood a good chance of being swept away by it and drowned.
They had no time to run. The water was traveling too fast. And where would they run to? There was no high ground for miles around.
“Hold on,” Rudra shouted. Like Ethan, he’d reached the top of the fence.
“I am,” Ethan shouted back. Then the wave had hit. Ethan felt the force of the water in the trembling of the wires. For long seconds, His pulse surged in his ears as he waited for the fence to fall, carrying him into the murky, rushing water.
Then the crisis point seemed to pass, and Ethan and Rudra watched in horrified fascination as the wave pushed on, drowning the fields, turning the land into a shallow sea. Later, they’d waited hours for the water to subside, until clinging to the fence wires became painful and Ganika grew frantic with her requests to go down.
Ethan had little idea of what they might see when they reached the settlement, but even so he wasn’t prepared for the bare, burnt out, muddy devastation that awaited him. He recalled the plume of smoke he’d seen that morning, which had been driven from his mind by subsequent events. The settlement had been burning, of course. But why? Had there been another Natural Movement attack? Had an arsonist set fire to the place?
The first people they saw were at the settlement’s electric fence. The colonists were fixing it—a sensible precaution as night would arrive soon, bringing sluglimpets with it, though Ethan guessed their numbers would have been significantly reduced by the wave.
Both Ethan and Rudra were too tired to shout loudly for help. But as they hobbled closer, wading through mud, a young woman noticed them. “Hey,” she called to a fellow worker and pointed at Ethan and his companions. The man saw them and climbed down from the fence. He walked over, looking at the two men curiously.
It wasn’t until he was closer that he finally realized who they were. Giving a shout of surprise, he turned to the woman who had alerted him, and called, “It’s Ethan! Ethan’s back.” He said to Rudra, “And who are you?”
“My daughter and I were dragged into the lake by the thread creatures.”
“You don’t say,” exclaimed the man. “I heard about that. And you survived?”
“Well, here we are,” Rudra replied, rather nonplussed.
Shouts and calls were rising up all through the settlement as the news was passed along.
“Here,” said the man. “I’ll carry your girl.”
After some small protests, Ganika allowed herself to be passed into the stranger’s arms.
The woman who had first seen Ethan and Rudra had come over. “Lean on me,” she said to Ethan. “You walked all the way from the lake? You must be exhausted.”
Ethan gratefully put an arm over the woman’s shoulders, easing the pressure of his arm on his makeshift crutch. He hobbled a few steps. A crowd was gathering at the fence. The gates were open, and settlers were passing through, staring at Ethan.
He wondered what they saw. He was crippled and disheveled to an extreme. Probably many of them would hardly recognize him as the man who had played a role in the Gen rebellion. He didn’t really mind what they saw or what they thought, however. He was only profoundly glad to be free from captivity and back home.
Though another disaster had clearly befallen the colony, they would be able to rebuild it in time. As he understood, plenty of materials remained stored aboard the Nova Fortuna. And as soon as he had a chance to clean up, he would comm Cariad. She would probably come down to see him soon and he could tell her how he felt about her.
A figure burst through the crowd, then stopped dead. It was Cariad. What was she doing down from the ship? She was staring at him.
“Ethan,” she gasped, “what happened to you?”
But before he could answer, she ran to him. She was in his arms, holding onto him like she was holding on to life itsel
f. “I can’t believe it. I thought you were dead.”
Ethan’s crutch dropped away. He was balancing on one leg, clinging to Cariad as she was clinging to him. “I thought so too, for a while. But I made it back.”
“You did.” Though it hardly seemed possible, Cariad gripped him closer. “You made it back.”
Cariad & Ethan’s story continues in...
THE SCYTHIAN CRISIS
SPACE COLONY ONE BOOK 3
Author’s note
Welcome to the end of The Fila Epiphany. I hope you’ve enjoyed the ride so far. The Nova Fortuna colonists certainly have a lot of challenges ahead of them, haven’t they?
The fila in the book are inspired by an order of marine animals called siphonophores. The Portuguese man o’war is the most well-known of these organisms, but there are many other weird and wonderful examples that you can waste considerable amounts of time watching on Youtube (believe me, I should know).
The tsunami that inundates the settlement is a megatsunami. Unlike tsunamis caused by tectonic activity, megatsunamis are the result of a large object or large amounts of material falling into an ocean or sea. In The Fila Epiphany, the object is the colony ship, but in Earth’s history megatsunamis resulted from landslides and meteor impacts. One of the most famous impact craters is at Chicxulub, and the effect of the impact is thought to have resulted in a tsunami 100 meters high that spread into Florida and Texas. In the book, Geisen slows the fall of the ship, so the effects aren’t quite so devastating.
Ethan’s attempts to communicate with the fila are based on my many years of experience teaching English as a second language. I used to teach complete beginners without being able to speak my students’ language. The kind of bootstrapping technique that Ethan figures out was often the only way of teaching in those circumstances, though I had an advantage over him in that my students used language and not another form of communication.
As the series progresses, we may see more of the fila, though I’m not promising anything. If we do, it might be wise to never expect to have a clear understanding of how they think. After spending large portions of my life living as an expat, it’s only too clear to me that it’s extremely difficult to put yourself in the mind of someone who grew up in a different culture. I think that if we ever do encounter extraterrestrials, it’s going to be nearly impossible to truly understand them.
The third and final book in the Space Colony One trilogy is The Scythian Crisis, which comes out in the autumn of 2018. If you’d like to discuss the series or just say hi, pop over to my reader page on Facebook. I’d love to see you there.
J.J. Green
New Taipei City, Taiwan
July 2018
P.S. One last thing, if you enjoyed The Fila Epiphany, an honest review would be much appreciated, even if it’s only a few words. You can leave a review here.
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ALSO BY J.J. GREEN
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A SCIENCE FICTION COLLECTION
LOST TO TOMORROW
DAWN FALCON
A FANTASY COLLECTION
(Amazon.com links. Scroll to the end of the book to go to your country’s Amazon.)
Copyright © July 2018 J.J. Green
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No part of this book may be reproduced in any written, electronic, recording, or photocopying without written permission of the publisher or author. The exception would be in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
First Edition.