By Dawn's Early Light

by Jason Fuesting

  Eric watched out the open side hatches as two crewman with in purple vests drug a long fueling hose away and flight crew in green led other parka-clad figures toward him. One by one, the crew chief and the woman in the gold vest got the new arrivals on the transport and into a seat. Eric noted based on body shape, at least two of parka-wearing people were women. With the last of the seven new arrivals seated, the crew chief leaned back and pounded on the back of the pilot’s seat. The pilot nodded and nudged the throttle off idle. Four armed and camouflaged troopers climbed in both sides of the transport, took the last seats, and pulled the hatches shut as the engine whine spooled up to a full throated growl.

  The transport lifted from the deck and slowly swiveled toward an enormous armored door that opened to the blackness of space. Crossing into the black, the engine noise vanished leaving them in an eerie silence. One of his companions coughed to break the quiet. Eric was still lost in the beauty of the planet beyond the cockpit when the crew chief spoke up several minutes later.

  “We just got word that our primary LZ is too dangerous for us to attempt a drop, but the weather pattern looks like it will open up a small window at a secondary point, so we’re going to be dropping you a fair bit higher than planned.”

  “How high is high?” one of his new male companions asked.

  “Just short of six thousand meters,” the crew chief answered. “If the weather guessers are right, you should have anywhere between fifteen minutes to an hour to find shelter. While I cannot stress enough the importance of getting off the mountain as fast as you can, getting caught without shelter up there will be fatal. Keep your masks on, find shelter, and wait the storm out. It should break overnight. Any questions?”

  “Six thousand meters? Are you kidding me?” the man said, “High altitude pulmonary edema ring any bells with you? Are you trying to kill us?”

  “Look, buddy, I like it about as much as you do. I don’t make the flight plans, an’ I don’t fly ‘em either,” the chief retorted, “I just make sure this shit-show stays in one piece. If you want, you can get out now. No? Good. Next question.”

  “How long can we expect our O2 to last?” a familiar voice asked. I know that voice. Eric leaned forward but couldn’t see the man’s face. Svoboda?

  “We’re dropping our spare case of cans. It’s all we can do.”

  “That doesn’t answer the question, Chief,” the familiar man groused.

  “No, it doesn’t. Next question.”

  “Nearest settlement?” Eric asked.

  “Down slope. Anything else?”

  “Food? Water?” the familiar man asked.

  “We’re dropping two cases of supplies with you. That should last you to the bottom if you’re not slow about it. As for new water, you’ll be surrounded by snow. Get creative. I hear heat works. Try not to eat it frozen if you want to live long, you’ll cool off faster than you think.”

  “Topographic map?” one of his companions nearest the left hatch asked. “Compass? Rope?”

  “No, no, and no. Planet is under information quarantine. If you don’t have it on you, you don’t get to bring it with. We didn’t plan to drop you there, otherwise you might’ve gotten one or both of the last two.”

  “Fuck me,” the guy by the left hatch sighed.

  “Weapons?” the woman seated to his right asked. The man Eric thought might be Svoboda and the two troopers next to him chuckled. His memory was still fuzzy, though, so he wasn’t terribly sure.

  The crew chief shook his head and smiled. “These guys have orders to shoot anything that presents a danger to this flight. That would make an awfully short trip for you. Nothing further? Good, this is the mark forty-two individual atmospheric mask.”

  Behind him, Eric knew the others were trying to open the crates dropped with them. He reflexively shielded his eyes against the transport’s down draft despite the mask he wore. A face appeared in the doorway above. The face furtively glanced back into the aircraft. Moments later a black case tumbled from the doorway. Eric jumped out of its path as it augured into the knee-deep snow. The engines above roared and he hazarded another glance skyward in time watch it pirouette and thunder into the angry clouds above.

  Eric watched the clouds billow long after the transport had vanished into them, reveling in the eerie windswept silence. His eyes fell to the black case at his feet. Using his weight, he dragged the case out of the divot it had made. As he knelt beside the case fumbling at the latches Eric heard boots crunching toward him. He looked up, but behind the mask and the parka, the man barely looked human.

  “Guess those bastards aren’t completely soulless,” his visitor said.

  Eric squinted through his mask’s lenses. I know you from somewhere. Who are you?

  “Looks like a vehicle survival kit. Let me help you get that open, Eric.”

  “Do I know you?” Eric asked as he opened the last latch.

  “Know me? You feeling okay?”

  “No, I--I’m feeling okay, I guess. Headache started when we got off the shuttle, but I’m fine. Doctors on the Shrike said I had some kind of brain injury.” Eric surveyed the case’s contents. Several foam cut-outs were empty, but the majority held what appeared to be useful items.

  “Oh. That’s not good. Really not good,” the man said as he stood and clambered over to the cliff’s edge. “We need to get you off this mountain, fast.”

  “I don’t see that happening,” Eric sighed, pulling his arms in close. The cold was beginning to seep in where it could. His fingertips were already beginning to burn despite the thick gloves.

  “I don’t either, Eric.” The man shook his head and leaned over the cliff’s end. “Not without some drastic measures. Come with me.”

  Eric wallowed through the snow after the man. One of the crates had been opened, it looked as if an argument was taking place. Muffled by the masks, the voices were too faint to hear, but the body language was clear.

  The man leading him stripped off his mask and barked, “Excuse me!” Everyone else stopped and turned. He waved them closer as he fit his mask back on.

  “Folks, I’m going to make this quick,” the man said to them once the crowd was close. “I grew up on a world that makes this mountain look like a hill. Unless anyone has more relevant experience, I suggest you listen. Objections?” The crowd glanced at each other uncomfortably. “No? Good. First of all, if you think we’re fucked, you’re right.” He forestalled grumbling with an upraised hand.

  “That said, we can get off the mountain before the storm hits. It’s possible. Maybe not probable, but it’s possible. The more we argue, the more oxygen we burn through, and the less probable getting off this rock gets. Are we clear?”

  Most of the crowd nodded.

  “Good. If you want to live, we have a very small window of opportunity and very limited choices. No one is going to like any of those choices.”

  “What choices are those?” one of the larger figures asked.

  Jeff? Yeah, Jeff.

  “Well, in case anyone hasn’t noticed, we’re above the frost line by good margin. No trees, only lichen, moss, and maybe some scrub under the snow. Unless there’s a cave near here that means there will be no shelter. We can’t say here.”

  “Well, no shit, buddy,” another man in the crowd growled.

  “The problem is, the air up here is way too thin. Without these masks, we wouldn’t get enough oxygen. These masks are supposed to supplement not replace external oxygen, so those tanks will empty far faster up here than down the mountain. Right now, they’re capped for max-output. We can up the cap, but then we’ll only run out faster. The only solution is to get down as fast as possible, hopefully to an altitude where they’re not necessary. Otherwise we get to experience firsthand what hypoxia feels like. First reduced judgement, then euphoria followed by death.”

  “Well, let’s get walking,” the same man said.

  “There isn’t enough time. Even if there’s a cave nearby for shelter, at our c
urrent consumption rate we won’t have enough oxygen to wait around, much less get down the mountain.”

  “Okay? So what’s your plan, Svoboda?” one of the women asked.

  Svoboda? Eric’s brow knit. Memories lurked just beyond his reach clouded with further confusion as half-formed memories were seemingly pulled from his grasp.

  “We jump.”

  “What?!” several spouted as the entire group recoiled.

  “Fuck that,” Eric reflexively spat, his stomach gone cold. Several of the others emphatically nodded.

  “Look, how many of you are getting headaches right now as we speak?”

  Several raised hands.

  “Doc, and I’m not sure what your experience is, but you sounded like a doctor up there. What are the early signs of high altitude sickness?”

  One of the figures looked at the rest slowly before his shoulders slumped, “Headache, nausea, fatigue, rapid pulse, swelling of the hands, feet, and face.”

  “My friend here,” Svoboda shook Eric’s shoulder, “Already has a brain injury the Provost gave him on the Shrike. Would it be fair to expect he’d be more likely to suffer cerebral edema, even with the supplemental oxygen, Doc?”

  “It would.”

  “Any idea how long he’d survive untreated if that’s what’s causing his headache?”

  The doctor looked at his companions. “Twenty-four hours, if he’s lucky.”

  Svoboda pulled his mask up and spat on the ground. The spit bounced off the snow, frozen.

  “Folks, it’s somewhere around thirty below. It won’t be long before the cold starts in on us. Between the cold and the lack of oxygen, we’ll get tired, prone to panic, and worse yet, stupid. The faster we get down, the more likely we are all to live. Does anyone have a better option?”

  “What’s wrong with walking? Or sledding down?” Jeff asked.

  “With slopes that steep? We don’t have the right gear. No snow shoes, no climbing gear. Walking is too slow and we’d probably fall anyway. Also, storm coming and no shelter. Say we get lucky, then maybe we get a quarter of the way down before the cold and thin air get us. Sledding or sliding might work, but in the end stopping is still a problem. Beyond that, we don’t really have anything to make sleds out of,” Svoboda told the man. “Look, I’m not happy about jumping either. It’s dangerous as hell and the only doctor around here is with us.”

  “Won’t we cause an avalanche?” one of the women asked.

  “Anything likely to fall would have been shook lose by the transport. I looked over the edge already. It’s pretty steep but starts to level out near the cloud bank below us. If we’re lucky, and I’m not saying we are, we’ll shave at least a few hundred meters off the trip down. That by itself might be enough for some of us to survive.”

  “What if someone gets hurt?” Jeff asked.

  “Well, this is a huge assumption, but if there are trees on this planet, I’m presuming the tree line won’t be too far past those clouds. We’ll send some folks to get something to make a stretcher or sled of some sort. We’ll have to make do, just like we would if someone got hurt trying to hike down. Landing in the snow won’t be the hard part, stopping will. In the end, we either spend the next twenty-four hours, if that, slowly freezing to death or we jump. If things go poorly, we’re dead a lot faster and hopefully a bit less painfully. If things go well, we get to the tree line and we all survive.”

  “You people are fucking crazy,” the woman who’d stayed silent so far commented.

  “I didn’t say it was particularly sane, lady. I just said it’s our best chance of survival.”

  “Not mine,” the man next to her said. “He’s going to get everyone killed. Let’s get going, Shelle. Anyone else coming with us?”

  The group didn’t move. As the two turned to walk away, Svoboda piped up, “You might want to stay long enough for us to divvy up the supplies.” The pair froze in their tracks.

  Under Svoboda’s guidance, the group emptied out the two supply crates as equally as possible amongst themselves. Every person got four meal packs, including water, and an extra canister of oxygen. He also gave the two the spare compass from the black case, an ice axe, and a length of rope after telling them to tie it between them. Those that stayed used a few more minutes to pull apart the crates and making improvised panels to slide down on.

  Eric stood at the edge of the cliff face, shivering in the cold and staring at the clouds below while clutching the metal case containing the last of his belongings. Shame the tanks on my old suit are empty.

  “Okay, before we go, remember this: Do not land straight on your feet. Keep your legs bent, knees and ankles together, and your arms and hands on your chest if you don’t have a case you’re holding onto. Do your best to keep hold of whatever you have. We will need it down there. When it starts to level out, use everything you can to slow yourself down. Be aware the snow will try to pull it out of your hands.”

  “Let’s hurry the fuck up before I either freeze or get second thoughts,” Jeff blurted.

  “Fair enough,” Svoboda said. “See you down slope.”

  Jeff nodded and stepped off into thin air. One by one, the rest jumped until only Eric and Svoboda remained.

  “Eric,” the man said, clapping him on the back, “My clan has a saying that might help you. Audentes Fortuna Iuvat.”

  “What’s that mean?” Eric asked.

  “Fortune favors the bold,” Svoboda said and shoved Eric over the side.

  Eric’s stomach flew straight to the back of his throat which opened of its own accord. Multiple seconds of uncontrolled screaming that sounded vaguely like “Shit! Shit! Shit!” fogged the inside of his mask. Stars shot through his vision from the back of his head bouncing off the steep snow embankment. Somewhere along the slide, the adrenaline surge burnt through the fear, leaving him wide-eyed and blinking through the slowly clearing lenses at the rocks they had missed from above surging up through the mist at him. His brain switched gears from “shit” and elevated directly to “fuck.”

  The first several rocks whizzed past him as he dragged his heels in a vain attempt to steer. Eric grunted as his luck ran out and he glanced off one of the stone sentinels. Feeling vanished from his left arm. He fumbled for the case, barely holding on to it. His eyes widened as the cloud cover thinned below. There was no tree line, just another cliff.

  “Motherfucker.”

  Time and thought seemed to lurch to a halt. I’m dead. This is it. The headache he’d been fighting off surged, and as he blinked, he saw another image overlaid over the empty clouds below, a planet hanging in the blackness of space. He couldn’t breathe. It’s okay. Let go. Pain flared, forcing tears from his eyes. Memory snapped back into place as he cleared the cliff face and gravity’s pull seemingly vanished. They pushed me out of an airlock. They tried to kill me!

  Wind whistling past brought him back to reality. He looked down. Oh shit! Everything went dark.

  Eric blinked. Everything hurt.

  Why is my face freezing?

  He tried to move but his limbs felt like they were gripped in a vice. Slowly his vision sharpened and he realized he wasn’t wearing his mask. He looked up at the small circle of light above him. His mask was embedded in the snow between him and the light.

  Got to get out of here. I am not dying alone in some snow drift somewhere. Fuck that.

  He still couldn’t feel his left arm, but he could move it, if barely. He shook snow out from under coat that had found its way there when he’d hit. Eric lost track of time as he struggled to free himself. As the light dimmed above, the weight in his gut receded as he realized he’d make it. With a delirious heave, Eric drug himself from the hole he’d punched into the snow on impact and flopped onto his back to find it was snowing.

  Absentmindedly, he slid the mask over his face as he laid there panting. His skin began to tingle as the trapped warmth of his breath thawed his cheeks. I’m alive. He smirked. I’m alive! It started as a giggle, but quickly p
rogressed to deep belly laughter. Eric pulled himself up into a sitting position. Trees down there. We made it to the tree line. We made it.

  “Fuck you, I’m alive! Alive, you hear me? Alive!” Eric cackled as he reconnected the oxygen line to his mask and started shaking more snow out of every crevice.

  “Hey, who’s out there?” he heard a muffled voice ask. Eric looked in the voice’s direction and initially saw nothing. What’s that? He crawled forward, finding another hole in the snow a short distance away.

  “Hello?” Eric said as he peered down. “Are you okay?”

  “I’m a bit stuck? Cold, too.” Eric recognized her immediately.

  “Give me a second, I’ll get you out of there, Leah,” Eric told her as he surveyed the hole. “Can you reach up here?” He leaned in, trying to keep from collapsing the tunnel, but she was just out of reach.

  “Hold on.” Eric looked around again, spotting his case where he left it. I could empty that out, use it like a big scoop. Movement caught his eye as he started to rise. With the falling snow, it was hard to tell, but the figure appeared to be wearing the parka they’d all been wearing.

  “Hey, you!” he yelled. The figure stopped. “Yeah, come here, I need some help!”

  The figure clambered through the snow towards him.

  “You hurt?” the figure asked.

  “Nah, Jeff. Leah’s stuck down that hole. It’s not real solid, though. Don’t want to cave it in.”

  Jeff nodded slowly. “What are you thinking?”

  “Well, I was thinking I could empty my case over there and use it like a scoop, but it might be faster if you could hold on to me while I crawl in after her.”

  “That could work.”

  With Jeff holding his ankles, Eric creeped forward into the tunnel entrance and wrapped his gloves around Leah’s.

  “Pull!” Eric yelled over his shoulder. His left arm burned and his fingers spasmed under her weight, but he managed to keep his grip with some effort until she was on the surface.

  “Holy shit, what have you guys been eating?” Jeff asked, out of breath. Inches away from her face, Eric saw a very unamused pair of eyes looking at Jeff behind her mask. Her eyes locked with his momentarily and darted away as she snatched her hands back.