A Dark Horizon (Final Dawn, Book 3)

by T W M Ashford

  As he watched citizens fight desperately over seats in the evacuation shuttles and stand shivering outside their front doors, Jack wondered how much of the arson had been committed simply as a means to stay warm.

  Everyone jumped as something rattled against the Adeona’s underbelly.

  “Relax,” said the ship. “We’re not under fire. Not yet, at least. It’s just some of the citizens throwing cans at us.”

  “Why?” Klik was aghast. “We’re trying to help!”

  “They don’t know that.” Rogan shrugged. “We’re in a mining ship. They might think we’re here to scavenge scrap from the wreckage.”

  “We can’t help all of them, anyway,” said Brackitt. “Let’s press on before somebody finds something less harmless to pelt us with.”

  The scenes on the ground didn’t grow any less bleak the further through the city they flew. They passed other spacecraft sent by the Ministry. The rescues seemed to be picked almost at random. Some ships were barely large enough to pick up the small families they were sent to collect. On the other hand, one commercial frigate was so big it had to hover above a stadium. The survivors crowding inside were taken up to it in phases via a rotating cycle of transport shuttles.

  Jack turned away from the windows and spoke to Rogan.

  “We must be close, right?”

  “The conference centre should be just up ahead,” she replied. “Note the emphasis on should – not everything is where it’s supposed to be anymore. We don’t even know if this place is still standing.”

  “We’ll do what we can,” said Jack. To be honest, he didn’t really know what the words were supposed to mean. If they turned up and found the research team dead, what could they do? All he knew was that he wanted – needed – to do something to make up for the growing guilt he felt about stealing the empty Solar Core for Everett in the first place.

  Had he known Everett would do this… had he known Everett even had the power to do this…

  “Is that it?” Klik knelt on her seat and pointed out the windows. “That bulbous sort of building over there?”

  Jack squinted. This part of the city – further towards its outskirts and the vast oceanic nature reserve beyond – had been hit particularly bad by the quakes. It was hard to tell which of the few buildings left were still upright, if any, and which were the gored innards of giant subterranean pipes and tunnels dragged up to the surface. Shards of metal and rock jutted out in every direction like crossed swords.

  The ruined buildings, the misshapen landscape – the ground which hadn’t yet been swallowed by the seas reminded Jack of the Earth they’d left not so long ago. Had it been like this in the last few hours of humanity’s life? Or had all the people died out long before their sun started tearing their planet apart?

  “Hmm?” Jack spun around. “Did you say something?”

  “That building at which Klik’s pointing,” said Rogan, sending a brief and curious glance in Jack’s direction. “She’s right – it’s the conference centre. It’s leaning, though. Looks like the foundations have been damaged. Heavily waterlogged, too. If anyone’s still alive in there, we won’t have a lot of time to get them out.”

  Now they were only seconds away, Jack could identify which of the various collapsing towers they were headed for. It was bulbous, and kind of reminded Jack of a mushroom – the submerged root of the building was comparatively narrow, yet its uppermost floors branched out in every direction like a cap, offering its guests a panoramic view of both the city and the neighbouring nature reserve. It was only listing ten or eleven degrees towards the east, but he trusted Rogan’s judgement. If she said it was coming down imminently, he believed her.

  The was just one other tiny problem.

  “Erm, guys? I don’t see anyone waiting for us on the roof.”

  “Bolts. Something must have happened to them.”

  Brackitt shook his head and enlarged the screens so that they magnified the rooftop.

  “Not necessarily. Even ignoring the way the conference centre is tilting, the landing pad is completely coated in ice. We could probably still land, but there’s no way anybody’s going to risk walking across it to get to us.”

  “So they could still be waiting for us inside,” said Jack.

  “Could be.” Rogan shrugged. “Without thermal imaging, it’s hard to know for sure. Pretty risky to go in blind.”

  “Well, we can’t just give up and go back empty handed.”

  “And we can’t just rush into an unstable building, either.”

  “No, but—”

  “Guys. Stop arguing.” Klik got up and wandered over to where Brackitt was sitting. “Look over at the cafeteria windows.”

  Jack and Rogan crossed the cockpit to join them. On the side of the conference centre closest to them was a dining hall filled with curved booths and transparent pillars designed to dispense food-canisters. The wall-to-ceiling windows weren’t much help given how little light there was either inside or out, but one of the fluorescent strips installed in the cafeteria’s ceiling flickered on and off.

  Underneath its epileptic gaze stood a little, pale-blue girl, a thin pair of antennae protruding from her forehead.

  She waved at them.

  “Get me over there,” said Jack.

  “How?” said Klik. “Are you going to swim down through the front door and then climb the sixty storeys to get to her?”

  “If I have to.”

  “Don’t be ridiculous. There isn’t time.” Rogan stood tapping her metallic finger against her thigh as she silently studied the top floors of the building. “Adi. How close can you get your loading ramp to those windows?”

  There was a second’s delay before the ship answered.

  “If I angle myself upwards and keep my thrusters stable, I reckon there’ll be a couple of feet between the end of my ramp and the edge of the floor in front of us. Close enough for people to jump.”

  “That’ll have to do. Jack, you’ll need to jump over with Klik and get everyone across, presuming it’s not just the girl trapped in there. I’ll stay on the ramp and pull them on board one at a time.”

  “We still need to get through the windows,” said Brackitt. “There’s—”

  “Don’t worry,” said the Adeona. “I can deal with that…”

  “Wait!” Jack realised what the ship had in mind a second too late. “We don’t—”

  The Adeona spun her left-side rotary cannon and fired off a couple of shots. They decimated the glass of a window a dozen metres down from the girl, who ran off screaming into the darkness of the cafeteria.

  “—want to scare them off,” Jack finished with a sigh.

  “Come on.” Klik grabbed his arm on her way out of the cockpit. “Rogan’s right. We don’t have time to waste.”

  He took the steps down to the cargo bay two at a time. The Adeona had already begun to angle herself upwards when he got to the bottom, and the loading ramp was halfway descended. They stepped out across it as if they were walking the plank. The harsh wind whistled around his helmet.

  The Adeona scraped the underside of her cockpit against the lip of the conference centre’s roof. Jack winced and stuck out his arms for balance. She came to a stop with the end of her loading ramp a little under two feet from the broken window, just as she’d said.

  They jumped across, Klik a little less hesitantly than Jack.

  With the exception of that one flickering fluorescent light, it was as dark inside as it was in the freshly-sunless outdoors. The night-vision filters in Jack’s helmet rectified that problem, as did Klik’s naturally adaptable eyesight.

  Plates of half-eaten food still lay on the tables. The sun’s disappearance must have happened halfway through everyone’s lunch break. At least the cafeteria looked largely intact, besides the general listing of the building. The only damage Jack could see was a few overturned chairs and some food canisters that had rolled off the tables.

  Yet the whole place was deserted.


  “Hey, little girl?” Klik’s voice carried uneasily through the empty hall. “We didn’t mean to scare you. Are your parents here?”

  No answer. Jack didn’t blame her. If the Adeona had fired a Gatling gun in his general vicinity the first time they’d met, Jack probably wouldn’t have replied either.

  “Let’s check the other side,” said Jack. “Keep your wits about you. These scientists might think we’re raiders, and for all we know this building’s a minute from collapsing. If you feel something start to rumble, get running.”

  “Besides my stomach, you mean? There’s nothing good to eat on that ship of yours, you know.”

  They pressed forward, Jack all-too conscious of how little time they probably had left. He didn’t much like sneaking through the dark without a weapon in his hands, either. He’d grown accustomed to the ship’s old Raklett rifles, but they’d lost them all back on Krett.

  Stop being silly, he told himself. You’re looking for researchers, not mercenaries.

  “Hello? We’re know you’re in here. We’ve come to get you out. The conference centre’s due to topple any moment.”

  Nothing.

  “Seriously, people. The sooner you get on our ship, the sooner we get to leave too.”

  An old, frightened face – blue and sporting the same pair of antennae as the little girl – peered out from inside a dark, uninviting corridor on the other side of an open doorway.

  “You’re the rescue team?” asked the alien. “You came for us? Why?”

  “No clue.” Jack took a step forwards; the scientist shrank back again. “Look, we don’t know who you are or what you do besides study jellyfish. We don’t care. Your planet is dying and the Ministry sent us to get you, and that’s what we’re gonna do.”

  Something big exploded a few blocks away and illuminated the cafeteria in a brief, orange light. Some sort of power station left to overload, Jack reckoned. Or a bomb. The aftershock trembled through the tower’s floor.

  “And we’re going to do it now, understand?”

  The old researcher nodded and gestured for everyone else to follow him out of the corridor. A couple dozen other scientists hurried across the cluttered hall towards the open window, some of them gasping in surprise when they spotted the Adeona hovering like an open-mouthed whale on the other side.

  “What is that?” asked Jack, stopping a scientist carrying a large vat of liquid in her arms.

  She stepped back and clutched the tank even tighter.

  “Specimen,” she replied indignantly.

  “Fine. Whatever.” Jack let her continue but raised his voice so that everyone else could hear him. “Only bring essentials with you. Do not go back for—”

  Somebody tugged at his hand. He looked down.

  “Is Mr. Squiggle an essential?” asked the little girl from before. Her face downcast, she held up a stuffed toy shaped like a squid.

  “Of course he is, darling.” Jack knelt down beside her and pointed at the Adeona. “Make sure the two of you get on that ship, okay?”

  She hurried off. Jack gave the corridor a cursory sweep for anybody who may have been left behind and then headed back to the ship as well.

  Rogan stood on the loading ramp, helping to escort people from the window into the ship’s cargo bay. The older alien took his time hobbling across, as did the woman with the jellyfish in a jar. The little girl hurried over with barely any hesitation at all, followed by Klik.

  Another rumble, this time from a fresh earthquake. The metal of the tower began to groan. A plate slid off a table and smashed.

  “Quickly now,” yelled Jack, suddenly aware that he would most likely be the last person to get back on the ship. “There we go, nice and easy…”

  The building lurched again just as the last scientist hopped across onto the loading ramp. Rogan hurried him into the ship and Jack made the jump shortly after.

  “Is that everyone?” he asked the oldest of their group. The wrinkled alien looked around the group of survivors and nodded.

  Another bout of tugging at his hand. Jack glanced down and once more found the little girl’s face looking up at him.

  “Yes? What’s up?”

  “My mummy and daddy aren’t here.”

  “Are you sure? It’s quite busy. Maybe you just can’t see them.”

  The girl shook her head.

  “They work on a different floor.”

  Jack stood up straight, drenched in white-cold panic. They work on a different floor. Of course. He had wondered what a little girl was doing attending a research conference, hadn’t he?

  Rogan and Klik saw his expression and rushed over to join him.

  “What’s the matter?” asked Rogan.

  “The girl says her parents work on another floor,” he replied, keeping his voice low. “There must be hundreds of people still trapped inside. There could be a day-care facility for all we know.”

  The Adeona pulled away from the window and started to level herself out. Her loading ramp remained open.

  “You can’t go back in there,” said Rogan, the apertures of her eyes stern and wide.

  “I have to,” Jack hissed.

  “No, you don’t,” Rogan hissed back. “I know you want to be the hero and make up for everything that’s happened. I know you want to put things right but you can’t. It’s suicide, Jack. We were sent to get the research team and we got them. Mission complete. We can’t—”

  “Save everybody?” Jack stormed back towards the loading ramp. “We can at least try.”

  “Come on,” said Klik, taking the tearful little girl’s hand and leading her towards the back of the cargo bay. “Let’s leave them to it. You haven’t introduced me to your friend there…”

  “You did good, but that building’s coming down.” Rogan blocked Jack’s way at the top of the ramp. “Adi, get us out of here.”

  “It’s not down yet,” said Jack, pushing past her. “Change of plans, Adi. Take me back to the—”

  Another quake shook the ocean city. It was immediately followed by an almighty cracking sound like that of an oak tree being felled. Whatever foundations the conference centre still had left under the flooding water crumbled away.

  Slowly, like a slab of glacier breaking off into the sea, the tower collapsed. A mushroom cloud of concrete and seawater erupted and then rained back down. Only a graveyard of steel and glass remained where the sixty-storey building had stood before.

  The breath left Jack’s lungs. To think he’d almost rushed back inside.

  “You’re welcome,” sighed Rogan, shaking her head.

  She turned to help the survivors, leaving Jack to stare at the wreckage alone.

  4

  The Great Divide

  The hangar of the Ministry rescue cruiser was no less busy than when they’d left. Other ships glided in, paused long enough only for their refugees to be unloaded, and then rocketed back down towards the planet again.

  The Adeona set herself down in the same bay as before. Plenty of fuel still sloshed about in her tanks, but she couldn’t help noticing the service automata operating the cruiser’s pumps. Maybe she could convince one of them to top her up…

  Her loading ramp opened. The researchers remained inside even after it had descended fully – Jack, Klik, Brackitt and Rogan had to gently usher them all off the ship. Klik kept hold of the little girl’s hand the whole time. She kept asking when her parents would arrive. None of them knew how to answer her.

  A transport shuttle lay in wait for incoming refugees on the left-hand side of the hangar. Once filled, it would ferry them over to where the asylum ships were docked. Nobody knew where they’d be taken from there.

  “New arrivals?” asked a horned, four-foot rodent in full maintenance gear. It used a data pad to cross-check the Adeona with her allocated rescue assignment. “Researchers?”

  Jack nodded. “Erm, yeah. They—”

  “Okay, everyone. Listen up.” The rodent ignored Jack and raised its voice
so all of the scientists could hear. “Exciting news. You’re being relocated to the Yavos Research Aquarium off Peeva-J. Everybody follow me to the shuttle over here – for your own safety, do not deviate from the advised route. If you need something, raise your hand and…”

  The little girl, dragging Mr. Squiggle across the hangar floor behind her like a ball and chain, looked around hopefully at Klik.

  “It’s okay,” said the oldest researcher, taking her other hand. “You’ll be safe with us.”

  “Will she?” Jack whispered to Rogan. “They’re not her family.”

  “Better to go with them and have a promising career in biology than get lost in the Ministry refugee system,” said Rogan. “Poor thing wouldn’t last five minutes on her own.”

  “Better than being back in that conference centre,” added Brackitt. “And it’s not like we could bring her back to Detri with us. Gonna be hard enough explaining Klik’s presence as it is.”

  Jack wasn’t particularly looking forward to that conversation either. Detri was supposed to be unknown to everyone except the automata who sought sanctuary there. Tork, their rickety mayor of a sort, would probably blow a gasket. Literally.

  Oh well. That was tomorrow’s problem. Their work here wasn’t done yet.

  “There’s Minister Glessant,” said Jack. The tall, black-robed alien was stood in the same spot as before, still worrying through the same digital checklist. “We should let him know how we got on.”

  The minister barely glanced up at them as they approached.

  “You’re back,” he said, his voice laced with stress.

  “We are. Your research team is back in one piece, too. We… we couldn’t save anyone else in the conference centre, though.”

  “Uh huh.” Glessant continued to focus on his data pad. The items on his agenda scrolled past in a blur. “The Ministry appreciates your assistance…”

  The crew anticipated the minister’s next words in silence. Jack cleared his throat when none came.

  “Is there anything else we can do to help?”

  “Sorry,” said Brackitt, pushing his way to the front of the conversation. “Excuse me. Jack, can we have a word with you? In private?”