by Ryan Frieda
Captain Steele then went looking for the birds. He had wanted to see something so simple for such a long time. He moved closer to the trees and he heard and saw them fly off. He stood there staring at them, knowing he would never see such a sight again. He went back to the water to look for fish and he found some. He stared at them swimming and he followed the stream uphill. As he came up the hill he could see a mountain in the background with a bit white snow on top of it. He also came across a much bigger peaceful flowing river. He looked into it and saw bigger fish. He knew what he had come across was amazing and a miracle of science. Living creatures on a floating island that was inside a gas giant, that was in a solar system that was out in intergalactic space.
“Jamie are you seeing what I am?” Captain Steele asked.
“I am and I can't believe it,” He heard Jamie say.
Captain Steele wondering if there were any animals wondering around on the ground and asked Jamie to do a scan. He kept walking around the island in awe of what he was seeing and hearing.
“This place is incredible. It's so pristine and beautiful. It's so diverse and alive. How?” Captain Steele asked.
“I am not sure John.”
Captain Steele continued his journey across the island's surface. He had had his fun and needed to start working again. He started moving to try to find the edge of the island so he can get some closer readings of the change in atmosphere. He went up a hill and toward the west. After going up he noticed a desert just on the other side of the hill. It was an incredible transition of environments. Off in the distance he could see the brownish orange storm of the planet. He looked overhead and could still see the stars as plentiful as if on Earth at night and color nebula overhead as well. It was an incredibly beautiful view, unlike anything he had ever seen. So much so that he knew it had to be some kind of portal. But who made it? Whoever it was, he didn't really care as he found it was far too awesome to really care about who made it.
As Captain Steele moved through the desert and over the sand dunes and away from the center of the island he noticed the sky slowly change back to the planets brownish orange storm. He came to the edge of the island and could hear the wind blowing. He allowed his helmet to cover his head again. He started to approach the edge to get some readings. He stood right on the edge and looked down and he could see nothing but the storm. He set up a scanner right there to get some readings and sat down. He checked the time and noticed he had been on the island for only three hours. He wished he could just stay forever.
“We should keep this place a secret Jamie. Only a few should know about it. It's far to amazing,” Captain Steele said.
“I agree John,” He heard Jamie say.
After a while Captain Steele stood up and went to the scanner and looked at the info. The scanner said it failed to pick up any anomalies. He picked it up and walked several miles along the edge and set it up again. As he was sitting down he was about to remove his helmet when his suit gave him a “warning” signal. He grabbed his rifle and scanned the area.
“Not another one of these...” Captain Steele whispered.
Captain Steele looked around and found nothing. He knew his suit was never wrong, and if it gave him a warning it was because there was something going on. The warning sign shot up so fast and disappeared that he didn't know what it was warning him about. He stayed at the high ready, ready for anything that might come his way. After a while he felt a sever pain in his body and fell to one knee. His suit gave him another warning and it popped up and disappeared too quick to read.
“Jamie, do a scan. I'm getting warning signals. What's going on?” Captain Steele said.
“Nothing is there John,” He heard Jamie say from the other end of the com.
Captain Steele immediately lowered his rifle a bit and pain ceased shortly after words. He kept his helmet up and sat down and waited again. After several hours he went to check on the scanner. He had received a few more warning messages that appeared and disappeared too fast for him to read. As he reached the scanner and looked at it he saw it failed to collect any data. He thought it was very odd that a scanner designed to detect anomalies couldn't do so. Anything outside mankind's current knowledge should register an anomaly and should pick it up the information relating to the anomaly.
Captain Steele considered exploring the island some more but first he wanted to take one more look over the edge. He found it extremely odd to be able to look down and see an atmosphere raging around below him. As he stepped to the edge he thought he saw a glimmering object just below where he was. He had his suit magnify his vision and zoom in on the object and he noticed it appeared to be some kind crystal. He decided he was going to scale down there to try and get it. If nothing else it would be a neat keepsake.
Captain Steele used the suits boots to create a hole in the edge by kicking them into hand holds. He climbed down carefully. He climbed down nearly 40 feet before he noticed that he would need to be climbing at an angle that would leave him hanging upside down. He thought about forgetting about it but he knew it may be of some importance.
“Jamie, bring the ship around to my location. I may need you to pick me up,” Captain Steele said.
“I can't John. You are too close the storms edge. I can't maintain that stop for too long. I can however float above the island and drop lower when needed.”
“Go ahead and do that,” Captain Steele replied.
Captain Steele continued down the edge of the island. He was climbing downward without ropes or a harness at an angle of 55 degrees with his back facing down. He was creating hand holds as he kicked the rocks. He realized that this idea was uncharacteristic stupid of him. He then noticed that his suit displayed a warning symbol that said “pathogen”. He looked around for the shinning object and saw it was about 10 feet away and he decided to go for it because he was already so close to it. He grabbed it then started to head back up. His suit issued a warning symbol again with the same word “pathogen”. He made it to the top and climbed over the edge onto the desert. That's when he noticed the ship wasn't there.
“Jamie! Where are you?”
“John! I've....ing....act...you.” He heard Jamie say.
Captain Steele's suit flashed the warning again. He then felt a sharp pain hit him. He looked out across the desert and knew that he had somehow been infected with a pathogen and that things where about to get much worse.
“Jamie, get over here now! I need an extraction.”
Captain Steele tried to run forward and fell to the ground. The pain was intense. He got back up and moved forward while trying to contact Jamie again.
“Jamie I need you now!”
“Where.... Okay... Need loc.... at birds...” He heard Jamie say.
It sounded like she was trying to reply to two different situations.
Captain Steele kept running toward the last location he knew that his ship was at. He noticed his DSSM suit flashes a warning signal again and it said “pathogen”. His suit should be trying to treat him for that pathogen.
Captain Steele was running across the desert when he noticed that part of the island broke away then returned to where it was before doing so. A part of the island then appeared high into the sky as if it had broken off, then it returned to where it should have normally been. It was like a he was watching a movie that was skipping back and forth. As he was running he fell into a hole in the ground that wasn't there. He knew at that point that he was hallucinating. He was either hallucinating that everything was okay when it was not, or that everything was not okay but he was seeing it as if it was okay.
“Jamie, status!” Captain Steele yelled.
“Incoming... look at.... John... birds,” He heard Jamie say.
Captain Steele looked up and saw pieces of rock falling onto him suddenly change into birds. He knew he was in danger. He was still trying to get out of the hole he fell in. He climbed using his hands on what he saw was a tree but in the back of his mind he knew that it may not have been a tree. He
climbed up and out of the hole. He looked around and saw a gap in the island that he didn't want to take his chances of walking over in case it really was a gap. He looked around and saw a tree that went over the gap and thought that was the best idea. He climbed to the top of the tree and walked on a branch. He continued along the branch until the branch wasn't big enough to support his weight and he stopped. He knew he was hallucinating and he wasn't sure what he was really standing on. Maybe it was a tree, maybe it was a rocky ledge. If it was a tree was he really at the point where it wouldn't support his weight? He wasn't sure. Maybe the tree was just a hallucination that was replacing what was really there, or maybe he was standing on perfectly fine ground and he was hallucinating that there was a whole in the ground. Maybe he was standing on a large piece of flat land by what he was really seeing was simply a tree.
He wasn't really sure of anything. Was there a rocky ledge where the branch was and does it ends where the branch ends? Maybe the branch has nothing to do with what really existed and he could take that step of faith and step off of the branch and not fall to his death. He needed to make a decision. Last thing he knew was the island was actually falling apart, and that that lined up with science because of the storm. One wrong step and he could be falling for thousands of feet or even into the storm of the gas giant. There was no way on knowing until he took a step.
Captain Steele stepped off the branch. He looked and he saw he standing in the air. He ran across the air, knowing that he was hallucinating. He knew there was something beneath his feet, but he couldn't see what it was due to the hallucinations.
“Jamie! Help me!” Captain Steele yelled.
“Sending... birds... follow the path!” He heard her say.
Captain Steele suddenly felt an incredible amount of pain and saw a path show up on his DSSM's read out and started following it. He felt the pain again and fell to the ground. He got up and ran anyway. He could start to hear the island break apart but all he saw was the peaceful desert. Maybe the island wasn't falling apart and he was hallucinating sounds now. It made him sick to his stomach to hear the island's rocks break up yet see nothing of that sort. As he ran he would scan in advance of his movements to see where the path was headed just in case he hallucinated something else later and the hallucination would disappear. He didn't know if the path was really the correct way to the ship or a hallucination, but its all he had to go off of so he followed it.
Captain Steele kept moving in the direction his DSSM was telling him to go in. At times he wasn't sure if what he was seeing was correct or incorrect. He felt his sense of direction was even being manipulated. He felt, heard, and saw things that defied logic and at times seemed logical.
Captain Steele continued to run while occasionally seeing the island break up into pieces. He continued to run unsure of where he was headed, or what was real and what wasn't. From time to time his DSSM would tell him he needed to run in another direction but he kept running in the direction he was previously running in. He knew he had to trust Jamie and his DSSM to get him through it and that the temporary changes had to be the hallucinations. The pain became so intense at times he would collapse onto the ground. He sometimes felt the ground give way and he would get up and start running. He didn't care how much pain he was in, he knew he needed to continue to move. As he was running ahead he felt the ground give way beneath him and he started to roll. He was able to roll himself onto his side and slide down the slope controlling the direction he took.
As Captain Steele slid down the hill he was hallucinating that was sliding up a mountain. He felt an intense amount of pain but could tell he was sliding down a hill because of how it felt and the fact that it didn't make complete sense to slide up a mountain. From time to time he couldn't feel what direction he was going in and what he saw confused him. He knew he couldn't slide up a mountain, and the more that he thought about that the more pain he was in. He then just decided not to question the reality of it too much. He saw that he was sliding up the hill dodging trees and rocks. From time to time he would suddenly collide with an invisible object because the hallucinations was causing him not to see anything. At other times he would collide with an object that he saw but didn't exist because of the hallucinations.
“Jamie, get here now!” Captain Steele yelled.
“JUMP!” He heard Jamie yell.
Captain Steele bent his knees, angled his feet even with the ground, and pushed off from the ground. He could feel himself flying through the air, being thrown about by the wind. He knew that he was in the storm of the gas giant. He curled himself up into a ball, awaiting Jamie to catch him with the ship. He could feel the wind hitting him hard. He counted the seconds waiting for Jamie. Just as he was getting close to one minute he felt a large object hit his back. Jamie had caught him with the ship.
“Hang on John were getting out of here.”
Jamie shut the outer airlock door and flew the ship outside the atmosphere of the gas giant as Captain Steele fell asleep.
Chapter 15
Year Before, Decades After
Captain Steele stood beside Runner, Ruthless, Catalyst, Shadow, and Ark Angel. They were the only survivors of training up to this point.
“You are about to embark upon on your last mission. The best of you will be the best of the best of the best. Only one of you will be selected. Grab your gear and head out.”
Captain Steele wasn't sure where they were. They had been in a ship for at least two weeks in a cramped 3 by 6 foot room and kept away from each other and in complete darkness, This is the first time they've been together, been let out, or seen light in two weeks. He grabbed his stuff which included a basic mission suit containing five days of oxygen, five days of food and water, a rifle with two magazines, a grappling hook, a primitive first aid kit, three grenades, a blowtorch, and a mission's manual containing the details of the mission.
Captain Steele put on his suit walked towards the airlock of the ship. The airlock opened and all he saw were asteroids. He immediately had a bad feeling about this mission. He jumped out and headed towards one of the asteroids. After landing on it he checked the mission's manual. It said a ship that was responsible for killing civilian traveling ships was coming by in thirty five days and they had to capture it by either killing everyone on board or capturing everyone on board then drop it off at the drop point. He quickly checked his oxygen levels and noticed he had five days worth. There were six people with five days of oxygen, that makes a total thirty days of oxygen total. He knew that the only initial way to survive would have to be to kill the others to survive. He might be able to make a makeshift home in the asteroid depending on what other gear his team had but still that wouldn't initially be enough oxygen to survive without some difficult choices and clever ingenuity. He also knew that the harder he fought the heavier he would breath and the quicker he would burn through his oxygen. He also knew that others would burn through their oxygen faster the longer they fought causing the oxygen levels to drop even more. Also, he had to be careful because he only had two magazines of ammo as did everyone else and no knife to kill with. If he used all his ammo he wouldn't have any for the ship that comes by in 35 days. He knew that his best option would be to shoot them to death and take their ammo and oxygen immediately. Any conflict with his team would waste necessary ammo and oxygen.
Captain Steele looked out toward his teammates that had come to be his family. He knew they hadn't checked their manuals yet and didn't know what was coming. They landed on the same asteroid he was on.
“What is our mission?” Ark Angel asked him.
“Trust me on this one,” Captain Steele said, “Don't open that manual. Trust me on this one.”
Ruthless opened the mission manual. Captain Steele knew what was coming. He quickly stepped up in front of Ark Angel as Ruthless looked up and raised her rifle. Captain Steele grabbed the rifle as Ruthless fired a round at Ark Angel. He pulled it away from Ruthless as Ruthless let it go.
“Trus
t me!” Captain Steele demanded.
Ruthless came right back at Captain Steele as he swung the rifle forward smacking Ruthless in the face. Ruthless reached for the rifle and grabbed it.
“NO!” Ruthless said.
Captain Steele let go of the rifle as Ruthless grabbed it and pulled it away from him. This caused Ruthless to fly off the asteroid and into space.
Captain Steele grabbed his rifle and pointed it at Ruthless.
“DON'T MAKE ME!” Captain Steele yelled.
Ruthless raised his rifle at Captain Steele and Captain Steele fired 5 bullets into Ruthless' face mask cracking the face mask. Ruthless got two rounds off striking Captain Steele's leg. Ruthless stopped firing and quickly started to panic as he realized that air was leaking from his suit and he had been shot in the face. Captain Steele knew everyone needed that air. He pushed off the asteroid and headed towards Ruthless.
“Stay put and don't try anything. I'm going to help you,” Captain Steele said.
As Captain Steele reached Ruthless, Ruthless stopped moving. Captain Steele reached out and grabbed Ruthless. He started to push the face mask together putting the cracks in it together to help keep the air from escaping. Ruthless then grabbed Captain Steele and started to pull his helmet off. Captain Steele then started to let go of Ruthless' face mask so the cracks opened again and Ruthless started to loose air. Ark Angel and Shadow flew over to stop them from fighting as Catalyst floated off in a different direction.
Ark Angel and Shadow reached Ruthless and started to pull him off Captain Steele as Ruthless pulled the air hose out of Shadows helmet. Shadow tried to reattach it as Ruthless grabbed her own rifle and tried to fire at Shadow. Captain Steele grabbed Ruthless' face mask and tore it off. Ruthless was immediately exposed to vacuum and he started to panic. Captain Steele grabbed his own rifle and shot five bullets into Ruthless killing him. He then reattached Shadows air hose and started to drag both Ruthless and Shadow back to the asteroid. As he did Catalyst threw a grenade toward them.