by LM. Preston
“Pull back! Pull back!” Damien yelled to all that would listen as he pushed his cruiser in reverse to fight against the magnetic pull of the black hole in front of him.
“Carter! Fix it, man! It’s your job, now fix it!” Dakota yelled as he worked furiously to control the cruiser. The cruiser jerked forward as Carter adjusted the power source, and it crashed head-on into Damien. It threw Damien’s cruiser into the middle of the black hole.
“Dakota! Look! Oh my God! Damien’s cruiser’s getting sucked in! Pull back! Pull back!” Carter yelled.
“Damien, Tacitus, we are coming for you! Everyone pull back! Head to the ship now!” Dr. Bridges commanded the other Cadets. They all started to turn and fly back toward the mother ship as the team of astronauts tried to make their way closer to Damien’s and Tacitus’s cruiser from either side.
“Eirena, we are close enough to pull him. If we all release our ropes, we can help him with the pull. You, me then Scott and Raiko!”Aadi called.
“We are with you! Say when you want us to grab him!” Scott replied.
“Crap, Carter, compensate!” Dakota yelled as their cruiser lost control and plowed into the back of Damien, pushing their cruiser further into the black hole. Dakota’s and Carter’s cruiser was pulled even deeper into the middle of the black hole.
“Captain, pull back Cruisers A1209, A1210 now! They are being sucked in,” Dr. Bridges called and tried to get the main ship to take over the control of Damien and Dakota’s cruisers.
“We cannot pull back the cruisers. I repeat, we cannot pull back! The mother ship controls are locked! Pursue them and bring them back! There was an explosion below, and we have a situation here. Send back the remaining Cadets now!” wailed Dr. Faulkner.
“Now is our only chance, Scott. We are closer to them than the astronauts. Attach the cables and power back!” Aadi yelled as his muscles tensed from the impending danger that he could not control.
“We are ready!” Scott called back. He and Raiko put in the coordinates for the best position to throw the cable and pull Damien and Tacitus out of the black hole.
“You pull on Damien and Tacitus, and I’ve got Dakota and Carter. On one! Three… two… one!” Aadi called as his palms started to sweat. I have to get this perfect. It’s life or death, he told himself. He put in the coordinates that caused his hook cables to be thrown precisely at Dakota’s and Carter’s cruiser. Scott and Raiko throw theirs seconds behind Aadi’s. However before either could attach to their target, a huge surge pulled them all forward deep into the hole.
Neither Aadi nor Scott anticipated the surge. Their cruisers collided and caused them to bounce off in opposite directions, hitting both of their intended targets. Scott and Raiko rammed into the back of Damien and pushed them both further through the hole. Then, they were out of sight through the other side of the anomaly. Aadi and Eirena lost control and crashed into Dakota and Carter. Aadi growled in frustration. How this could go so wrong? he screamed in his head.
“We’re going down. Pull, Tacitus, pull!” Damien said.
“No! No! Hold on, and we will try again!” Aadi said, and banged his hand on his controls.
“We are losing power fast! We are going to crash!” Dakota said.
“Help! Help!” Carter said as all communications dropped off during their disappearance through the center of the black hole.
“Aadi, we’ve sustained too much damage to help the others. We have to save ourselves. I have no control of the left jets, and we are going to land whether we want to or not!” Eirena said with a tear of frustration streaming down her face. She blinked and looked angrily at the controls as she watched one engine and then the other start to fail.
“Looks like we are going in… hold on!” Aadi replied as he looked up to see the middle of the hole suck them in.
“We are not alone. It looks like several of the astronauts that were so-called ‘protecting’ us are gaining fast,” Eirena said and squinted her eyes in disgust.
“Yeah, but the back of this thing is closing fast, and they can’t save us. They have to save themselves. Only about four of their cruisers made it in,” Aadi replied as he fought the controls, gave up, and then pulled out the manual controls.
“Let’s go manual, Eirena, for more hands-on control. We are not going to land smoothly, as our wheels are jammed and one engine is dead. We are falling fast,” Aadi said. He heard Eirena switch to manual control behind him, and he took a deep, calming breath.
“Done. Let’s get this over with!” she said as she braced her feet on the floor and controlled the shaking forked steering wheel with all the strength she could muster. She grunted as she fought the pressure of falling.
“Look… see that planet there? Let’s aim for it. Now, Eirena, now!” Aadi screamed, and sweat spilled inside his clear helmet. The helmet started to deflate its rounded shell to soften and fit his skin as they descended. His stomach muscles tightened with the force of his pull on the wheel. They looked down at the deep brown, red, and white planet that would be their landing pad and took a deep breath.
Aadi fought the urge to cry out in frustration, but the ship was not cooperating with his attempts at control, and Eirena sounded just as frustrated with her grunts and swearing. The planet was coming closer, and they could no longer control the cruiser as they fell. They tried to contact the astronauts that followed them through but lost site of the other cruisers long ago. The communications channels they had seemed to be cut off when the black hole started to close. Aadi’s hands shook in agitation and frustration.
“Ugh. C’mon, dang it!” Aadi screamed.
“Keep your cool, or we will surely crash and die! We can do this, Aadi. Just stay focused.” Eirena yelled. Aadi shook himself out of his frustration and pulled deep inside for the strength needed to pull up the cruiser as it fell through the cloudless sky of this new planet. Just as they broke through the surface, Aadi sighed in relief. He blinked when he saw a bright flash of light as it passed by their ship. It appeared to be a red ball of fire.
“Is that firepower? Someone’s shooting at us!” Aadi yelled.
“Then maneuver away from it, Aadi! Now, here comes another one!” Eirena yelled. Aadi’s arms and legs ached from the strength he used thus far, but he pushed his mind past the pain and pulled down deep to dodge the flashes of lights that came their way.
“We’re hit and going down fast!” Aadi called out.
“I know, but I’ve got a trick up my sleeve. Aim to land over that mountain to the left!” Eirena said loudly over the noise of the fighting engine.
“Okay, here we go! All or nothing!” Aadi said as he pulled left, and they were out of sight of whatever was firing at them. They looked down to see the ground as it came up fast and hit their landing spot with several jerky bumps that caused their heads to snap back to the point where Aadi felt his neck would break off.
“Ahh! Ow!” Eirena called out as her head jerked back and she fought to hold still enough to not lose control of the cruiser. They slid over the red sand-packed land, and the nose of the cruiser hit the side of the mountain with such force that the front half of the cruiser bent in on the impact.
Chapter 41
They both sat there and breathed heavily in and out from the exertion of fighting the crash. Aadi shook his head and looked up at the sky that held not one moon, but two. He looked around to see that it must have been just turning night when they started their descent, as darkness was quickly upon them in this world. Upon crashing, he spied the red dessert terrain and the mountains of red dirt. There was very little plant life around, and what was there was appeared yellowed and spiked. The land looked barren and harsh, and he was shocked to see ice formations on the ground around them. He continued to look around and thought that they should probably hide their cruiser if they went exploring. Since it was obvious there were beings that knew that they were there, and he didn’t know if those beings were friendly. Even still, Aadi figured every type of world had good a
nd bad beings.
“Eirena, we need to hide the cruiser before someone finds it and us,” Aadi said, still breathless from the crash.
“I don’t know if I want to go out there, Aadi. I don’t trust TEGRC. What if our suits don’t really work?” Eirena said with a slight wheeze in her voice. She seemed to have trouble focusing on breathing, and her hands shook from the shock of the crash. “Truthfully, Aadi, I never wanted to come to space camp. I never wanted this!” Eirena yelled as her whole body started to shake uncontrollably.
“Me either, Eirena, but we are here, and we have to fight to survive. Take calming breaths and sit tight. I’ll go out and check around until you are ready to help.” Aadi said and thought that deep in his heart, he feared going out there too. But for Aadi, in everything he did, he shrugged off his fear and did what had to be done. Today was no different. He figured that being here was still safer than being on the TEGRC ship in the infirmary or The Cave. At least here, he had a fighting chance. The poor kids they left back on the ship were at the mercy of TEGRC, and from what he was learning about the company, they had no mercy - none at all. So Aadi keyed in the sequence to open the cruiser but didn’t open it all the way, just enough so that he could squeeze through the opening. He knew if the air quality was not like that of Earth that the cruiser would continue to adjust the oxygen that was released inside, and Eirena wouldn’t suffer any adverse effects of a changed air environment.
“Eirena, close the door as soon as I get out. Monitor the perimeter to make sure no one is going to sneak up on us, and I will dig out some of this mountain where that small cave is. Then we can push this in and cover it with some of this dirt,” Aadi said.
“Okay,” Eirena answered as she refocused on the controls and pushed the manual wheel back into the console.
Aadi squeezed out of the opening and climbed onto the dented front of the cruiser to look at the damage. He heard the cruiser door immediately close shut as Eirena saw he was clear of the hatch. He slid down over the side, not feeling the effects of the environment around him. He realized it must be extremely cold since his suit started to warm up. He looked up at the black sky with red streaks. Few clouds set high up into the dark, inky sky. He snapped himself out of his observance and started to get to work by inspecting the size of the cave that he wanted to push the cruiser into.
He walked over to the cave and saw crystals in the dark red sand. If he weren’t forced to land here, he would have thought it was beautiful. However, he had no time to appreciate it as he put on the night vision on his helmet and started to walk into the shallow cave. The cave wasn’t that tall, so he figured it was best, because the cruiser would fit snugly in here. He would still have enough room to move around to do repairs of the cruiser. He had to get the cruiser fixed fast since their helmets would only give them oxygen for twenty-nine more days. Although the helmet would not break or deteriorate the DNA of the species used to excrete air would, and it would stop producing air for them to breathe.
Aadi touched the cave walls and surrounding dirt to see how hard it would be to manipulate, and although it was hard-packed, it was movable. So, Aadi started to use the cutting beam from his helmet to dig up some dirt he would use to throw over the back of the cruiser to close it up into the cave so it wouldn’t be so obvious to a curious eye. He knew from looking around that there was no plant life around here like there was at home - nothing at all green in color. So, he figured using dirt was the best option.
Eirena sat in her seat deliberating about getting out to help Aadi when she heard a noise under his seat. “What the—” she said as she heard a muffled sound coming from Aadi’s backpack. She climbed into his seat and reached under to find Ebu crawling out on the floor between her feet.
“Oh!” she screamed as she looked down, surprised to see Ebu. “Ebu! Ebu! Am I so happy to see you!” Eirena said, and she reached down before Ebu could take full shape and lifted him up into her arms for a hug.
“I am happy to see you and Aadi are all right. I wanted to come out, but I thought I would be more of a distraction than help during the crash. However, I knew Aadi and you would find a way for us to land in one piece,” Ebu said, and he unfolded his form to its full height.
“I don’t know, Ebu. It was pretty sticky there for a moment,” Eirena said as she put him down. He sat on the front console.
“Well, I better go help Aadi. I know what is damaged, and it’s really not that difficult to fix. They put some spare parts in the cabin under the cruiser, so we should be fix like new in just a few days,” Ebu said. Eirena put in the sequence to open the door just enough for Ebu to climb through. Eirena continued to watch the location device to make sure no one sneaked up on them. She sucked in her breath and decided she needed to stop licking her wounds and get out and help.
As Eirena climbed out, she closed the door and went over to Aadi, who had widened the cave and had a huge pile of dirt on the side of the opening.
“Hey, thanks for giving me some time. What do you need me to do, since there seems to be no one coming at us now? We better move quickly,” she said and put her hands on her hips to look at the cruiser.
“Okay, we be better start moving the cruiser in. Three of the wheels are descended, so we only need to push on this one side to get in inside the cave,” Aadi said. He went to move toward the cruiser. Eirena and Ebu followed. Aadi and Eirena managed to push the cruiser into the heart of the small, shallow cave. They went outside and pushed the dirt pile into the middle of the mouth of the cave and hoped to give anyone who came by the illusion that the cave was part of the mountain.
“Well, I am tired, so we should probably sleep in the cruiser, Eirena. Ebu will keep watch for us so we both can sleep” Aadi said. He was looked Eirena over and noticed she looked like she was about to drop. Exhausted from the crash, he felt ready to collapse also. He used every bit of strength he had landing the cruiser and then digging up dirt to hide it.
“I give on this, Aadi. I am not going to fight you. Did I mention that I am glad Damien is not my partner? I am so tired I could sleep standing up,” Eirena replied as she hurried to the cruiser and opened the door. Aadi and Ebu followed her to the cruiser and closed the door behind them.
They tried to adjust the seats so that Eirena could recline completely and Aadi could lay back in his seat. Ebu sat perched on the console with his finger inserted into the cruiser hard drive.
Aadi looked at Eirena and said, “No, you didn’t mention that. Ditto for me too. Goodnight,” he said and realized that she was already asleep and snoring. He closed his eyes and thought of his mom, but she didn’t appear. He wondered to himself if the telenex was out of whack or if he was just too tired for it to work. I’ll just try again in the morning, he thought, and then he yawned and went to sleep.
Chapter 42
Aadi woke up to a tap on his head, so he took his hand and swatted it away. It kept thumping him, and he wiggled away from the offending touch.
“Stop!” he grumbled. The tapping kept on, and then came shaking. “No. Leave me alone!” Aadi growled.
“Aadi, time to get up. It’s light out. We have to hurry if we are going to fix the ship,” Ebu said in his ear.
“Ebu, leave me alone. Shut down and go to sleep,” Aadi mumbled.
“Aadi, it is important. We have to get started. Wake up,” Ebu insisted. Nevertheless, Aadi refused to open his eyes. “Aadi, you are being difficult! I will wake up Eirena then,” Ebu said and gave Aadi a final push.
“Fine… fine! I am getting up,” Aadi said. He sat up with his eyes still closed. He fought through his aches and his exhaustion to slowly open his eyes. It appeared dark since the cruiser was in a cave, but he reached over to the controls and cut on the cruiser lights.
“She is not waking up either. You two are slugabeds!” Ebu complained.
“Where did you come up with that word?” asked Aadi with a laugh.
“I made it up!” Ebu said, gently shaking Eirena and rubbing her face.
“I see you are a lot gentler with her than you were with me. No wonder she isn’t waking up,” Aadi said.
“Well, I don’t know how to deal with girls except to be more gentle,” Ebu said.
“Well, I am hungry, so I am going to get my sustenance bar from my bag. Move back there with her,” Aadi said. He reached under his seat and grabbed his backpack, then reached in and pulled out a rectangular bar that was indented into six pieces.
“Hmm… they say that one section should keep me from getting hungry or thirsty for about a week if I keep my mind off of food,” Aadi said, then broke off a piece. He then checked to make sure that the cruiser door was secured so he could take off his helmet and still breathe in oxygen. Aadi moved around a bit as he noticed his suit felt tighter and then did a big stretch. He took off his helmet and popped the corner of the bar into his mouth.
“Hmm… it tastes just like chocolate peanut butter crunch” Aadi said as he put his helmet back on. He looked back at Ebu to see that he had given up trying to wake up Eirena and just sat next to her.
“Move, Ebu. I’ll wake her up,” Aadi said and turned around in his seat while he shook her arm vigorously. Aadi never really initiated touching Eirena, but something was a little different about her. He noticed that her arms seemed thicker somehow. He couldn’t put his finger on it, but she seemed bigger, as though she had started to get a little bulky. He looked her over and noticed that she even seemed a bit longer.
“No, it can’t be,” Aadi said as he shook his head. Ebu started to rub her face through her helmet again.
“Um… um…” Eirena started to moan. “No, stop! You’re hurting him! You’re hurting him!” Eirena yelled, then started to punch out toward Aadi. Aadi grabbed her hands and held them down toward him.
“Eirena! Eirena! You are having a bad dream. Wake up!” Aadi yelled.
“Oh… I am sorry. Did I hit you?” Eirena asked sheepishly and breathed in hard. She sat up and shook her head, then stretched.