The Survivors | Book 15 | New Beginning

by Hystad, Nathan

  Our spacesuits were lightweight, but also had electrical components all throughout, making them easier to walk in and move our limbs. One shock could disable the suit’s functions. It would leave Slate with little oxygen, but that would have to be enough time. Otherwise, I’d drag him through the portal to Earth and remove the helmet. I convinced myself of all this in the span of seconds, and Slate’s attention returned to me.

  “Step away from the stone.” Slate’s voice was calm again, his eyes squinting as he spoke.

  “Okay.” I started for him and saw his finger tensing beside the trigger. I feigned tripping and fell at him, holding the capsule out. It pressed to his uniform, sending electrical sparks over his spacesuit. The noise was deafening, and the shock sent a loud alarm through my earpiece as his mic malfunctioned. His arms went rigid, and his rifle fell to the floor.

  “What have you done?” Slate asked. He was unable to move, but I could see him struggling within the material.

  “Slate, I love you like a brother. This isn’t you, but I’m going to fix it. Trust me.”

  He was like a bull trapped in a cage. His eyes went wild, his mouth contorting into an angry scowl. “Dean Parker, you won’t get away with this!”

  “Don’t use up your oxygen. The suit is fried and needs to be reset.” I tried to speak calmly, but it wasn’t helping. I left Slate standing there, shouting threats at me from inside his helmet. They were muffled, difficult to hear without his mic working, making him easier to ignore.

  I ran to the controls, regripping the claws, and started again.

  Deactivate the entire network. Stop the drones, stop the organic beings. Deactivate your entire network!

  I waited, worried it was too late. Nothing happened.

  Slate continued to struggle, thrashing in his suit. His forehead knocked against the inside of his mask, and I feared he’d use any remaining oxygen far too early, if he didn’t break the barrier first.

  Deactivate the network! My thoughts were pleading, desperate. My friend had to be okay. I had to help him. With Magnus gone, not to mention so many more, like Terrance and Kareem, I couldn’t lose Slate. Not him.

  My shoulders sagged as I realized no help was coming. This was it.

  The screen read: Network… deactivated.

  I read the message twice in disbelief.

  Slate’s eyes had rolled up, and his head hung limp in his helmet. He was no longer struggling.

  Permanently deactivate. Never allow anyone to operate the network again.

  The message spelled out on the screen in English: Permanently deactivated. Network shut-down complete. The screen turned dark, and I laughed, pumping a fist in the air.

  “Slate! We did it! Slate!” I ran to him, but he was still unconscious, and I couldn’t tell if he was breathing or not.

  I went to work, trying to restart his suit using the arm console, but it was damaged. Small burn marks ran along its edges, as the charge had been too strong. He needed air.

  His suit remained upright, but too far from the portal. I had to be touching him for the Shandra to carry us both through.

  It seemed to sense my urgency and began glowing. Green. The color of the portal system.

  I ran behind Slate, grabbing his legs and tried to help him walk until he accidentally toppled over. The spherical stone was humming now, growing brighter, and I saw the symbol for this island in my mind’s eye. This must have been what it was like for Jules. Four circles intertwining, each a different size.

  With Slate knocked out and scarcely breathing, I pictured the symbol for New Spero and set my glove to the portal.

  ____________

  Jules estimated they had three minutes before detonation as Dean kicked the stands out from the device. It shook and rattled as it fell to the ice, making her heart pound even faster. If it went off now, they were dead.

  It was so hot. Sweat poured over both her and Dean’s faces as they watched it melt through the ice. It began to sink into the hole the heat was creating, sending water pooling across the cavern.

  “It’s not enough.” She was hoping the thermal device would thaw through the ice and into the water below. It would at least mitigate the damage.

  Her pack by the door was beeping, and Dean stared at it. “What’s that?”

  Jules ran to it, opening the bag. The sphere glowed, blinking erratically. “It wants to assist us.”

  “The toy? From Sarlun?”

  “It’s not a toy. It… was the reason I figured out Yeera’s passcode.” Jules saw a hologram extending from it.

  “Wow. What do you think it wants?” Dean asked.

  Yeera stopped shouting, and her voice carried through the room. “What happened to me? Where am I?”

  Jules couldn’t know if the woman was really free from her persona, or if she was trying to trick her.

  “Let’s find out.” Jules held it in her palm, feeling the buzz of the device. The ball lifted from her hand, moving for the unit filled with thermal generator fuel which was now deep into the ice. The sphere followed into the hole of its own volition.

  The ball stuck to the boxy unit, and it glowed hotter, causing it to lower much faster. Soon it was out of sight, and Dean wrapped his arms around Jules. They didn’t have enough time to run through the tunnels, and if the thing blew the ground, running for a minute wouldn’t accomplish anything.

  They held each other, Jules pressing her face into Dean’s neck as they waited.

  “I mean what I said. About loving you.” His voice was shaky.

  “So did I.” Jules held tighter as the explosion rocked the ground under their feet.

  Twenty-Two

  Voices called out behind me, but I didn’t turn around as I detached Slate’s helmet. “Slate!”

  I started to undo his spacesuit, seeing that he wasn’t breathing. Someone pulled at my shoulders, and I fought them, my attention focused on helping my friend.

  “Dean, stop resisting!” It was Mary, and she hovered over Slate. Natalia was on the other side, and they set to work. I staggered away under someone’s firm grip and removed my own helmet. I inhaled the musty air of the Terran Five Shandra room and saw Magnus behind me. He let go, smiling apologetically.

  Mary and Natalie began CPR on Slate, and I could only stare, silently praying he’d be okay.

  “How long has he been like this?” Mary finally asked.

  “Three minutes. Maybe more.”

  “Zeke?” Loweck emerged from the corridor, her orange skin flushed from exertion.

  Natalia blew into his tilted mouth, inflating his lungs, and he coughed.

  “Zeke!” Loweck ran past me and Magnus, kneeling at her husband’s side. “My sweet Zeke.”

  All the pent-up emotions, the fear, the worry, the dread slipped from my body, and I stumbled. Magnus was there to catch me.

  “He’s going to be okay,” Natalia said, setting a hand on Slate’s arm. He tried to sit up, and Loweck helped him.

  “Dean… how are we on New Spero?” he asked.

  I almost laughed but couldn’t bring myself to. “You really don’t remember?”

  “No. Nothing. You were trying to shut the drones down… and then...”

  I smiled at him. “We did it, buddy. We’re home, and you don’t have to worry about this ever again,” I said. He’d been through enough. He didn’t need to know about the awful things he’d said to me. About trying to kill me.

  “We did it?” Slate asked. Loweck was crying, and Mary rushed over, pulling me into a hug.

  “Did you doubt us?”

  “Not for a second.” Slate laughed, letting Magnus help him to his feet. “Well, maybe for one second.”

  “What are you all doing here? Where’s Jules?” I asked, peering around the room.

  “We were hoping you’d know,” Mary said, and all the recent tension crept back into my spine.

  I blanked, trying to think about it. “She was going to Shimmal for a day with Patty.”

  “We know t
hat, but they didn’t return. Sarlun has no idea where they went. He thought they departed and came home.” Magnus crossed his arms over his wide chest, and I leaned against the wall.

  “They must be in trouble. We have to go—”

  Mary stopped me. “We were waiting in case either of you showed up. Sarlun is working on it. He’ll…” A tablet chimed from near the Shandra’s doorway, and she darted for it. Tears formed instantly, and I sensed it was bad news.

  “They sent him a message. Dean, we need to go.”

  ____________

  The ground shook fiercely, and the cave rumbled, pieces of the ceiling collapsing all around them. Jules and Dean were on the floor, him shielding her protectively. She wept, wishing that this wasn’t it. That she could have a full life.

  There were so many things she’d never been able to do. It wasn’t fair. Maybe their actions had helped save Shimmal, and part of her was okay with that, but she didn’t want to die. Not like this.

  At least she was with Dean. He was warm pressed against her. His breaths were hot and quick, his cheeks wet. More chunks of ice fell around them, and she heard Yeera’s anguished shrieks.

  The ground cracked, creating a deep fissure across the room, and the slope caused them to slide toward it.

  Jules cried out, grasping at the slippery surface with her fingers, but nothing caught. Then she saw it. A huge chunk of ice fell, blocking their entry into the gaping hole. The entire cavern collapsed around them.

  ____________

  The shuttle landed as the snow stopped falling. We were in the middle of nowhere. “What were they even doing?” Mary asked, but I didn’t have the answer. Natalia was silent, and Magnus sat across from us, a looming presence.

  It was dark out, but I spotted Sarlun near the peak of a sunken building. Ice lay in huge chunks all around, and gaping cracks in the ice spread for what appeared to be kilometers in three directions.

  “Dean, Mary! We were too late.” Sarlun waved us over, and his words struck with a new ferocity.

  “Where are they?” I asked, my voice trembling.

  “We received two messages. The storms… it blocked their transmissions, but they said a researcher had the DNA modification, like Slate. They came to investigate and ended up learning she was attempting to destroy the ice continent. They must have interrupted her plan, because the explosion here at the Core was inconsequential.”

  “Inconsequential!” Mary bellowed, beating her hands against Sarlun’s chest. “Those are our kids!”

  “Where are they?” Nat asked firmly.

  “We don’t know. We haven’t…” Sarlun stopped, his snout drooping.

  “Then they could be alive,” I whispered.

  “The entire cavern system collapsed. We’ve done…”

  I ignored him. It was cold, and I wished I’d kept my spacesuit on as I ran toward the freezing debris. “Take it apart.”

  Sarlun was beside me, staring at the wreckage. “What do you mean?”

  “I want you to pull every damned hunk of ice away, Sarlun, and do it now!”

  He nodded, turning to the rescue crew. He barked orders in his native tongue, and I trembled, staring at the crack in the surface. For a moment, I swore I felt Jules beneath the mess. She was alive. She had to be.

  ____________

  They’d drifted into a deep sleep, but her eyes blinked open now. Dean was there, closely snuggled with her. Jules was so cold, her lips hardly able to move. Somehow the collapsing ice had failed to crush them. The large hunk that had blocked the fissure acted as a barrier, protecting them from the remaining debris. But they wouldn’t last much longer. She was sure of that.

  “Dean…” Jules heard voices from beyond a layer of the frozen grave encompassing them.

  Piece by piece, the cubes were removed by enormous mechanical hands, freeing the pair from their tomb.

  “Over here!” someone shouted in Shimmali. She felt something beside her, and she clutched the cold sphere-shaped device, cradling it in her arms. It had helped them, causing the bomb to melt through the surface much faster than it would have alone.

  “We survived?” Dean’s eyes were red-lined and puffy. His painkillers had subsided hours ago, and he looked like he was at death’s door.

  More ice was plucked from nearby, and Jules sat up. Everything was blurry after lying in the cold for so many hours, so she heard Papa before she saw him. “Jules!”

  “Papa!” She tried to stand, almost slipping on the wet ice beneath her. She surveyed the area, seeing most of the Core structure gone, giving way to open sky. It was dawn already, and her dad looked as tired as she felt.

  His strong arms picked her up, and then her mom arrived, both embracing her tightly.

  Jules only heard the soft cooing of Natalia as she attempted to comfort her son. Soon she was demanding a medic care for Dean.

  “He’s hurt. He needs help. We stopped Yeera, but she might still be…” Jules noticed Sarlun behind them, arms crossed, and he shook his head slowly. Jules identified the watered-down blood where the doctor had been before the collapse. No one would be able to survive tons of ice falling on them—except for her and Dean, apparently.

  When her mom finally released her talon-like grip, Papa held her at arm’s distance, frowning at her. “I thought you lost your powers?”

  “I did. We got lucky. I was sure we were going to die, but Sarlun…”

  The Shimmali leader greeted them, staring at the sphere in her arms. “Are you saying this device assisted you?”

  “It did. It melted the ice, forcing the bomb deep into the ocean below the surface. It saved us. And Shimmal.” Jules still had the ball in her palm, and Sarlun reached for it.

  “I don’t think it wants that,” Jules said.

  “What do you mean? Wants? It’s not sentient,” Papa said.

  “How do you know? This thing has already helped us twice. I’m not letting it go,” Jules said defiantly.

  “There’s no argument from me. If that contraption kept you safe, I want it on you at all times. We should have Suma and Clare take a look, though. And I’ll see if Regnig has ever heard of something like it.” Papa grabbed her other hand. “What were you doing?”

  Dean was loaded onto a hovering gurney, and he lifted a hand, wiggling a finger toward her. “Can we talk about it later?”

  Her parents sensed the urgency in her voice, and they stepped apart, letting her follow Dean into the transport.

  She heard them arguing with Natalia behind her, but that wasn’t important. Making sure Dean received the care he needed was her sole purpose.

  “You did us a great favor,” Sarlun said, surprising her at his light steps. She didn’t know he’d been trailing after her.

  “We were just trying to help Slate. Is Uncle Zeke okay?” she asked, hating that it had taken her this long to ask.

  “He’s fine. Your father stopped the threat. Again.” Sarlun wrung his hands, seeming nervous for some reason as Dean was loaded into the medical shuttle. Natalia jogged over and climbed in, while Jules spotted Magnus standing off to the side, a blank expression on his face. Sarlun’s voice broke her concentration. “We are at your disposal, Jules. If you or Dean ever require anything, come to me. I’ll help without question.” He stepped closer, his snout flicking to the side. “I mean it, Jules.”

  She felt the power behind the words. She could only nod, not fully understanding what he was offering. “Thank you, Sarlun. I couldn’t let her destroy Shimmal. I love this place. You and Suma are family. What of the other sites? She had bombs…”

  “We read your first message from the Sub-Base. It came through when the storm began clearing, and we were able to determine what she’d done. We stopped the one at the Catoleel nest, but were too late on two of the detonations. They’ll affect things for a while, but we’re working on solutions. The Core is the most important, and what you did here has saved our planet from certain turbulence.”

  Jules jumped in beside Dean’s mother.
“I’m glad we could help.”

  The door closed, and the transport lifted off, heading for the capital, where Dean could get the treatment he needed.

  Jules gaped at the destruction from high above. Slate was safe, and she and Dean had lived to see another day.

  Twenty-Three

  Three Weeks Later

  Terran Thirty was abuzz with activity. Hugo stared out the viewscreen, chatting endlessly about the project and telling me all about his classes. I listened intently at first, but the latest adventure had me with more questions than answers.

  “Dad, are you paying attention? We saw a slug! It was bigger than you! I couldn’t believe that they lived on asteroids…” Hugo trailed off as we started our descent toward the future home of the Alliance Academy. We wanted it to have the same grand appeal as the Gatekeepers’ Academy, but with far more reach. Only so many were enrolled on Haven each year, and to outfit an entire fleet, comprised of dozens of Alliance of Worlds member populations meant something ambitious.

  I could picture the fields now: the landing pad with our fighters for training, the combat zone, the classrooms where strategy, leadership, and team-building would be engrained into generations of fleet soldiers. The idea may have been mine, but it had taken on a life of its own once the others started getting involved.

  “Dad, did you hear me? Slugs!”

  “I fought those slugs one time. Nasty things. Scared the crap out of me,” I told him as I pressed through the ship’s exit. We were here.

  Drones hummed above us as they set to work on the main dwelling, and I spied Magnus with Jules near the entrance.

  “You could have paid more notice, Dean. Hugo is just excited.” Mary sauntered up close, matching my stride. I hadn’t spent much time with Jules over the last few weeks, not since we’d been contacting all of our Alliance members, trying to spread word of what had transpired. We’d learned that there were more than twenty incidents across their planets that we could attribute to the abductions and DNA modifications.