It pulled the trigger.
Nothing happened. Andrew chanced to tilt his head and saw – to his surprise – that at some point he had flipped the safety back on.
He backed up two steps as the thrall tried again to fire the weapon. The airlock doors closed. Finally, the thrall figured it out, and the last shot slammed into the door. Andrew hit the lock button with great force and turned away with Mariela in his arms, not bothering to watch the Thrall try to claw his way in with what remained of his driven, demon-powered stamina. The vision of himself alone persisted, and Andrew began to despair.
He brought Mariela into the main hold and laid her down on the floor. He found a weak pulse and quickly bent down to breathe into her, his helmet peeling away as he did so. He pressed his mouth against her cold, pale lips. He pushed hard and felt her collapsed lungs resist, then peel open slightly. He looked around; he had forgotten where he placed his medkit. He bent down again and pushed out another hard breath into her mouth. The lungs gave way again. He took a quick second breath and pushed with all his might.
She sputtered and coughed, wracking with the effort. He leaned back. Suddenly, he remembered where his medkit was. He returned a moment later with an oxygen tank and a mask, which he placed over her head. He opened the valves and allowed the gas to flow in. Her weak breaths continued.
Then her eyes flipped open. They crossed and moved erratically, then blinked and found him. She coughed and sputtered again.
“Breathe slowly. You tried to inhale the atmosphere and it collapsed your lungs.” He smiled at her, then stood up. With a touch of his wrist computer, the engines started up. He went down to the airlock and checked the window. The thrall was lying on the ground, his rifle next to it. Far beyond the body, at the colony, there was a plume of white gas venting, kicking dust up into the atmosphere.
“You can keep it,” he said, panged to leave his favorite tool behind, but too exhausted and afraid to open the door and retrieve it.
He sighed, then headed back up to the hold, where Mariela was sitting up, leaning against a padded bench.
“We still need to get off this rock,” Andrew said. “The lifts…” He trailed off, meeting Mariela’s gaze. Gently, he picked her up and put her on the bench. She leaned over, holding the oxygen mask close to her face, and curled into a slight fetal position.
Andrew watched her slow her breathing, then strode up to the cockpit and began the sequence for take-off. He was alone, he realized, and the vision of the future became memory, a thing of permanence.
He waited for his future self to alert him of anything, but it was silent. The part of his mind that could see the past was replaying memories of the colony, but those were too painful, too weird, for him to attend to. His former self, Andy, was strangely silent.
“Always alone,” he said aloud, checking over all the systems on the computer readout.
With the engines on full, the ship lifted off. Andrew could see the venting plume better now. It was bigger than he expected, but he knew the vastness of the caverns would still take time to decompress. He hoped it would not be too long. He said a silent prayer, knowing the act would prod Andy, but not caring. He begged and gave thanks, his hands trembling on the ship’s control sticks. The wrtla still beckoned, threatened, was raving to be released, but the prayer pushed him – and Andy – into a barred well of darkness. He looked up. He put a routine into the computer during the automated liftoff to put out a bulletin when they approached the next beacon to stay away from the planet.
He took over the ship’s guidance and brought it slowly up to orbit, where he set the computer to work on the trajectory for the closest settled system. He breathed out heavily. As the ship moved out into space, readying itself for a rapid acceleration past light speed, he went back to the hold.
Mariela was laying on the bench, sleeping softly, the oxygen mask slightly askew. Blood was caked in her dark hair, and circles still hung under her shadowed eyelids. Andrew sat down cross-legged in front of her and leaned against the wall, watching her slowly breathe.
“Not so alone.”
Andrew closed his eyes.
End.
About the Author
David Van Dyke Stewart is an author, musician, YouTuber, and educator who currently lives in rural California with his wife and children. He spent the majority of his 20s as a musical performer and teacher in California and Nevada before turning his attention to an even older passion: writing fiction. He is the author of Muramasa: Blood Drinker, Water of Awakening, the Needle Ash series, and Prophet of the Godseed, as well as numerous novellas, essays, and short stories.
You can find his YouTube channel at http://www.youtube.com/rpmfidel where he creates content on music education, literary analysis, movie analysis, philosophy, and logic.
Sign up to his mailing list at http://dvspress.com/list for a free book and advance access to future projects. You can email any questions or concerns to [email protected].
Be sure to check http://davidvstewart.com and http://dvspress.com for news and free samples of all his books.
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