She tried pushing off the ground, but her pack was too heavy. Shrugging out of the straps, she left it on the roadside and rose on sore, shaking legs. Catalina cast a glance behind her to her pack, her lifeline. There was no way she could lift it anymore. Not until she regained her strength. She could come back for it later. What she needed right now was water. Turning, she stumbled toward the fuel station and convenience store. She wanted to run, but she didn’t trust herself not to trip over her own feet.
By the time she reached the Seven Eleven and pushed open the doors, Catalina was gasping for air and her heart was pounding in her chest. She hadn’t run, but that was the fastest she’d ever walked in her life.
Her eyes flicked over the aisles. The store was dark inside and it took a moment for her eyes to adjust. Some of the aisles had been scavenged already, but there was still a ton of food, and drinks were everywhere. Caty spied warm cans of soda and this time she did run. She snatched a Coca-Cola from the shelf and pulled the tab right off. Her hands shook violently, spilling soda everywhere. Grabbing the can in both hands she managed to steady it and lift it to her lips. She guzzled. Coke streamed around her lips and down her neck, soaking her shirt. It was wet. She’d almost forgotten what wet was.
As soon as the can was empty she reached for another and emptied that one, too. She was about to reach for a third when a sharp, stabbing pain erupted in her belly, and exploded upward, rising fast. A loud belch thundered from her lips, and she grimaced.
Leaving the sodas where they were, Catalina took an extra moment to search the aisle and find a bottle of water instead. She unscrewed the cap and sat down to drink it.
Another sharp pain erupted, and she belched again. At least there was no one around to hear. Catalina took another sip of water.
“Not very lady like.”
Catalina froze. Her eyes darted to the source of the sound. A hunched shape sat in a dark corner at the end of the aisle. “Hello?” she tried. Her heart began pounding again. She’d found another survivor! How long had it been since she’d heard another human voice? Maybe she was hallucinating.
When no answer came from the shadows, she began to see the hunched shape as a pile of blankets. She shivered. Thinking about blankets made Catalina realize how cold she was. She was wearing a windbreaker, but under that her shirt was soaked with Coca-Cola.
Catalina frowned. “Hello?” she tried again.
Still no answer.
Definitely a hallucination. Catalina stripped out of her jacket and then took off her soaked shirt. She was just about to go steal one of the blankets when she saw them move.
“You’re pretty,” the voice from before said.
Catalina snatched up her clothes and hugged them to her chest. “Who are you? Why didn’t you answer me?”
“Not used to talkin’. Been a while, a long while since anyone’s come through here.”
Catalina nodded uncertainly. “You’re the first person I’ve found since… it’s been a while for me, too,” she said.
The shadowy bundle of blankets moved again and a blinding light snapped on.
A flashlight. It shone on her face and she flinched away from the light, holding up a hand to shield her eyes.
“I was right. Very pretty.”
Catalina felt a chill run through her that had nothing to do with the cool air or the fact that she’d removed her jacket and shirt. “I need to get going,” she said, pushing off the ground to stand on her aching feet. “Long way to go still.”
“What’s the hurry? It’ll be dark soon. You might lose your way. Stay here. Plenty of food and water to share.” The shadowy mound moved again. “Besides, we have a responsibility now.”
Catalina began edging toward the door, still holding the bundle of clothes to her chest. She remembered the Berreta pistol in her bag, and suddenly she regretted leaving her pack on the roadside.
“A responsibility?” she asked, and then cursed herself for asking.
“To humanity. We have to repopulate the species.”
Caty nodded. “Oh. Yes, that’s true,” she said. “Maybe I should stay, but I left something outside. Let me just go out and get it first.”
“I’ll come with you.” The shadow kept advancing.
Caty backed away as fast as she could. Her legs trembled violently, and her heart thumped in her chest. She shook her head. “No, you need to stay here. Guard our supplies.”
“I already took care of the bugs. They won’t be comin’ back.”
“Bugs?” Caty’s mind spun and raced; she tripped over something, crying out as she fell. Thud. A painful jolt went up her spine. Then a rotten smell filled her nostrils, and she gagged. The flashlight skipped down to a big yellow mass at her feet. It took a second for her eyes to recognize the hazmat suit.
“Bug,” the shadowy man said, flicking his flashlight up and down the body. Caty caught a glimpse of a pool of red blood and she gasped.
“You killed him?” she shrieked, hugging her legs up to her chest.
“You takin’ their side, woman?”
“No, no,” Caty said quickly, trying to avoid provoking the man.
“Don’t let your eyes fool you, they ain’t human anymore. Space bugs infected ‘em all, got ‘em to start this war. Damn near killed us all! Hey… you ain’t with them, are ya? How do I know you’re human? Suppose you should convince me.”
Catalina couldn’t even speak. It was all too horrible. This person, whoever he was, had obviously lost his mind. He’d killed one of the rescue workers who’d come for him.
“Nothin’ to say? Well. I think I know a way to find out if you’re human or not. Come here, girl.”
Alarm bells sounded in Caty’s head. Something fierce and primal rose up in her. She shook her head and bounced to her feet, her blood buzzing with adrenaline. The shadowy form kept advancing.
“All right,” she said, trying to sound agreeable. “Come get me.”
“I will,” the shadow promised, reaching out for her.
She raced in past groping hands and kneed the man where she imagined his groin should be. The shadow cried out, and she turned and ran for her life. She burst through the doors and ran across the parking lot, back the way she’d come. It was almost perfectly dark now. Too dark to see more than fuzzy outlines of things. She couldn’t see her pack, but she took a guess and ran to where she thought it must be. The door chimes were her only warning.
“Fucking bitch!” the shadow roared. “I’ll kill you!”
Instinct tickled in the back of her head, and she dove, hitting the ground with a spray of gravel.
Boom!
The sound was deafening. The pellets in the shell went whistling by overhead.
“Where are you, bitch?”
Catalina’s lungs were burning, heaving for air, but she willed them to be still. Rolling onto her back she turned to see the shadowy figure scanning the ground with his flashlight. It wouldn’t be long before he found her like that.
Boom!
This time he shot one of the filling stations, and suddenly Catalina realized the danger she was in. A madman was chasing her, shooting a shotgun in a fuel station.
Chuk-chuk.
He’s reloading! Taking advantage of the brief respite, Catalina scrambled to her feet and ran. Gravel skittered underfoot.
“What was that? I know you’re out there! Just you wait you little bitch!”
Catalina sobbed and ran as fast as her tired, aching legs would carry her.
Boom! Then came the roar of an explosion and a sudden flash of heat and light.
“Oh, shit!” the man screamed.
The shockwave hit a second later, an intense blast of hot air that knocked her flat. She hit her chin on the ground, scraping it raw. Catalina’s ears rang. She blinked and saw that the darkness had been replaced by a flickering orange light.
She rolled onto her back just as it began stinging with a thousand pinprick stabs of pain. Shrapnel.
The gas station was o
n fire. There was a human torch dancing around screaming and… laughing. Catalina looked on in horror, unable to tear her eyes away until the figure collapsed and lay still.
This was what humanity had come to. The only human being she’d met in months and he’d tried to kill her.
Caty watched the gas station burn. No need to light a fire tonight. She could lay out her sleeping bag right here and no animals would dare come close, except maybe the more dangerous human kind.
Catalina thought about hiding out in the Seven Eleven, but the thought of being in there with that dead rescue worker was too horrible to bear.
She ended up laying her sleeping bag under an elm tree to one side of the blazing gas fire. The spot she picked was far enough away that she wouldn’t catch fire if there were any secondary explosions or gas leaks, but close enough that the light and heat would still be useful.
Catalina lay awake, wide-eyed and blinking, watching as tongues of flame danced and noxious smoke clogged the air. She had her Beretta balanced on her belly, firmly clutched in both hands, just in case. Her pack rested beside under her head, the comforting lump she called a pillow. Sleep came for her, weighing down her eyelids, making them flutter. Her thoughts became scattered and disjointed. She wondered why the fuel station and the convenience store hadn’t burned up in the forest fires that had obviously swept through in the wake of the attacks. She also wondered if there were more survivors. The presence of that rescue worker in a hazmat suit told her that someone was still out there, trying to make order out of the chaos.
That was when she noticed the hover parked in the fuel station. It was nothing but a flaming wreck now. They’d been passing through, trying to fuel up while they continued their aerial search for survivors. Rescue workers had come here, assuming it was a likely place for survivors to hide out. Catalina wondered if there were more bodies lurking between the aisles of the Seven Eleven…
Her eyes grew wide, and she shivered. She was never going to fall asleep.
*
“Wake up!” Alexander shook her shoulders.
Catalina sobbed. “You left me! You left me here to die!”
“I had to go.”
“You didn’t!” she insisted.
“I go where they send me, remember?”
“I didn’t ask you to join the navy!”
Alexander shook his head, his eyes full of sorrow. “You’re going to be okay, Caty… wake up…”
“Wake up, ma’am! Wake up!”
“Ma’am?”
Catalina blinked. Men in bulky yellow suits loomed over her. One of them was shaking her by the shoulder, a loud voice saying, “Ma’am, wake up please!”
Caty sat up quickly, her heart already pounding in her chest. “Who are you?”
It was a stupid question.
“We’re here to help. Are you hurt?”
Catalina nodded. “Not bad. What happened? How many cities got hit?”
“Please try to remain calm. We’ll explain everything as soon as we can. Do you feel sick? Nauseous?”
Caty shook her head. “Please. I’ve been alone for a long time. I need to know. How bad is it?”
“We lost eleven cities. The rest of the missiles were intercepted. Reds lost fifteen or more, but it’s hard to be sure.”
“New York?”
“And Washington, Chicago, Houston, Miami, LA… Most of the Alliance is still fine, though, especially the South.”
Catalina breathed a sigh of relief. “And the fleet?”
“We lost a lot of ships, and the space elevator, but so did they. There’s a cease fire on right now.”
“How many ships did we lose?”
“Ma’am, I’ve answered your questions. Now I need you to cooperate. We need to keep moving. Is there anyone hiding in the store?”
Catalina shook her head. “There was. He…” She swallowed thickly.
“We know. One of ours called it in before he died. Come on. We need to get you to a shelter.”
A shelter. Survivors. Despite the news that eleven major cities had been turned to radioactive dust, Catalina felt so happy that she could dance. She smiled and climbed to her feet, tears streaming down her cheeks. This wasn’t the end of the world.
Not yet.
Part 2 - Wonderland
“Throw your dreams into space like a kite, and you do not know what it will bring back, a new life, a new friend, a new love, a new country.”
―Anaïs Nin
Chapter 14
70 Days Later, May 18th, 2790
(The Lincoln’s Frame of Reference, Now Separated from Earth by 420 Days)
Alexander’s eyelids fluttered open. His head felt like it was stuffed full of cotton. As he gradually became aware of his surroundings, his heart raced, and his palms began to sweat. He felt something choking him. Then he noticed the tube protruding from his mouth and he hurried to pull it out. He gagged as the tube came out, but his stomach was empty so no danger there. Once he was free of the invading apparatus, he closed his aching jaw and swallowed. There was a bad taste in his mouth, and his tongue felt swollen, but otherwise he was okay. Alexander began disconnecting the remainder of his life support, starting with his nutrient line.
He had to force himself to be gentle with the equipment and suppress his urgent need to get out of the G-tank. He could feel the walls closing in, suffocatingly close. To keep the panic at bay he focused on what lay ahead.
The very fact that he was alive and awake right now meant that they were about to arrive in Wonderland. He’d been half expecting to die in transit and never to wake up again, but instead here he was, about to make history.
When he was done disconnecting his life support, Alexander unstrapped himself from the tank harness and took a few shaky steps toward the door. His knees buckled and he fell. A lifetime of doing push-ups saved his nose, but a sharp stabbing pain in his wrists and knees reminded him that gravity was back. At this point it was being generated by deceleration as they flew engines first into Wonderland.
Alexander pushed off the ground with a grunt and stumbled toward the hatch. He waved the door open and stepped out of the tank. The air was freezing! Doors slid open to all sides as the rest of the crew came floundering out of their tanks. Alexander opened his locker and removed his bundle of clothes. He worked quickly to separate his uniform from his combat suit, and in the process his comm band and pocket watch clattered to the deck. The watch landed on its end and sprang open.
Cursing, Alexander bent to pick up the delicate gift. As he did so, he checked the date and time. The hands pointed to three and nine—3:45—and the date read May|18|90. Alexander tried to remember the date they were supposed to have arrived. Then he recalled marking it on his comm band’s calendar before entering his G-tank. Alexander picked up the comm band and strapped it around his wrist. He powered it on and checked the calendar. The dates recorded there confirmed it: they’d entered the tanks exactly 70 days ago, meaning they were on schedule. That was reassuring.
Alexander hurried to get dressed. Once his combat suit was on, he withdrew his helmet from the locker and tucked it under his arm.
“Captain.”
Alexander turned to see Commander Korbin ambling up to him. She was obviously taking it easy, giving her legs time to adjust to walking again.
“Commander. It’s good to see you again. Part of me was afraid we weren’t going to wake up.”
“I’m glad we did. Now all we need to do is find a way home before our supplies run out.”
Alexander smiled. “We haven’t even technically arrived yet. We still have a planet to explore. Speaking of which, we need to get to the bridge. Who knows what we’re going to find on the other side of the wormhole?”
“Well, the Alliance sent probes ahead of us, so we already have some idea.”
“Probes that captured only a few minutes’ worth of data. Anything we discover after those first few minutes is all uncharted territory, assuming of course that we don’t suffer the
same fate the probes did.”
Alexander turned to address the rest of the crew. Doctor Crespin and his nurses were still busy checking the crew’s vital signs, so Alexander waited. As soon as the doctor was done, he clapped his hands and called out, “Wonderland awaits! Everyone to your stations!”
The crew filed into the elevators in the central column of the room. Alexander rode up one floor to the bridge with the rest of the bridge crew. They strode out and up to their control stations on the far wall. Alexander stopped in front of his station and regarded his helmet with a sigh. After a momentary hesitation, he slipped it on, and it sealed with an automatic hiss. Reaching for the rails on the armrests of his acceleration couch, he lowered himself down. Korbin eased down beside him while the rest of the crew hurried up the access ladders mounted on the walls.
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