Savage World

by Jennifer Slusher

  “How do you get used to it? Losing people? Is it part of the job for you?”

  “It is.” Tom glanced at her and shrugged before looking out the window. “Ground troops. Bullet catchers, that's the way it is for my lot.” An ugly memory invaded his head, making Tom frown. In that moment, it was hard to feel the nonchalance he needed for his answer. “It's the job but not one we ever get used to, no matter how many years we've got under our belts. It's when you stop caring, stop giving a shit about the bloke watching your back…”

  He should have had Lisa's back but had chosen the ship instead.

  Clearing his throat, Tom snagged Jules's cup of coffee and took a sip before handing it back. “When that happens it's time to quit.”

  So, it didn't get easier, Jules thought bitterly, not missing the dark shadows on the man's face. “Six months ago, I was just a pilot,” she said quietly, wondering if a friendly squeeze of the arm would be accepted. “The only person I was responsible for was my ship and my LIO. Now, I have a whole ship full of people I'm responsible for. Sometimes, I think I got this. I can do this. Other times, like right now, I wonder what the hell I was thinking.”

  “Life's like that, Jules,” Tom propped a boot on the flight console. “Sometimes, it doesn't give you a choice. Most of the time, life's a bitch that just sneaks up on you and screws you right and proper.”

  “Charming. Get your foot off the ship,” Jules replied dryly, shoving his leg.

  He was right of course. Not that she'd tell him that. Jules knew she had it easier than most. Yes, she'd lost the man she considered family but too many had lost so much more. She'd had no family alive when Sol was destroyed, having lost her mother when she was young and her father three years before. If the worst thing to happen to her life with this upheaval in human civilisation were her new responsibilities, she had no right to complain.

  “That's me, luv,” he winked, dropping his foot to the deck with a thump. “Prince fucking Charming.”

  Prince Charming? Hah. Jules studied his profile as he looked out the window, apparently noticing the clouds. In that moment, she decided she was glad he wasn't the fictitious man in question. Tom Merrick treated her like Jules, not Captain Curran. He had no filter, said exactly what was on his mind, whether it was appropriate or not. Before the Exodus, she might have wanted someone more refined, but the truth was he treated her like an equal. She hadn't expected that, not when some of her own, supposedly refined peers still had trouble doing so.

  “Is that bloody normal?” Tom asked, indicating the clouds and stirring Jules out of her reverie.

  Right. Storm. Alien planet. NOT the time to realise she might be attracted to this Shark.

  “No, actually,” she replied, sitting up to activate the HUD. Pointing to the graphs on the display, where are least two were pegged to the right, she continued. “There's a lot of electricity in those clouds. Atmospheric levels are at five hundred million kilowatts. I've never seen anything like it.”

  Fascinated by the indigo masses and the spidery webs of electricity, Tom only nodded. “I wonder if it's normal for Gaia,” he ventured, looking back at her. “Are we talking hurricane scale? Can we take off if it gets too bad?”

  The idea of riding that monster out didn't appeal to him, especially on the heels of Macon and Edward's deaths. Just then, a gale blew across the shuttle, making some of the people outside turn their backs to it. In the distance, the trees had started to bend and sway with gusts sweeping across the flat space like an invisible creature on the run.

  “Possibly,” Jules frowned, not looking forward to the possibility. “We could take off but with the ionization so high and all that lightning, we really shouldn't be in the air. As it is, we're going to have to shut everything down but the red systems. The shuttle has surge protection against high electrical discharges, but I don't want to test it against what's happening out there.”

  “I hope everyone took a bloody shower before they left,” Tom grumbled even though he couldn't complain if he got stuck in closed spaces with Jules for a while. At least the cockpit was bigger than his closet on the Ruthie. Against his will, the idea about asking her if she'd like a shag and a bottle of scotch resurfaced in his mind.

  Jules eyed him dubiously. She couldn't tell what he was thinking but decided it most likely wasn't anything professional. Men.

  Oh, this was going to end well, Tom thought silently.

  X

  Sky Crabs

  As Jules and Tom watched the approaching clouds, the wind whipped up again, scouring the windshield with grit and dirt. Overhead, Tom heard the sharp drip, drip, drip of water against the hull as fat raindrops splattered against the glass. Outside, a handful of Sharks and Squints were rushing to cover or gather equipment to get it under shelter. Down the corridor behind them, they could hear everyone gathering inside the shuttle. Overhead, thunder rolled again, loud enough to make both officers raise their eyes upward.

  “I do not fancy riding out a hurricane again,” Tom grumbled.

  “Again?” Jules stared at him. “How many have you…”

  “Four. Last one was the Deimos Colony evac two years ago. Everyone survived but my platoon got caught on the island during the storm, along with about a hundred colonists.”

  “I remember that,” Jules nodded, the revelation hiking her opinion of the Major up another notch. The evac had been a mess, both politically and in real life. A mud dam had collapsed at a critical juncture, forcing the remaining colonists and military personnel to abandon the base camp and take refuge in caves in the surrounding mountainside. Was that him? The kind who never mentioned his actual heroics but was larger than life everywhere else?

  “I'm going to check on the corporal,” Tom announced. As well as his Gunny and his medic. Make sure they both hadn't gone nutter on him.

  “I'm coming with you,” Jules stated, tucking her now empty coffee mug against the windshield as she stood up. She rolled her neck, popping it in relief before following Tom.

  * * *

  “She's going to be all right,” Maya spoke up, addressing the Gunny as she secured a blanket over the now sedated Ren. He barely moved, only nodded to acknowledge her. Was he going to stand there the whole time? Would Colin have… her stomach twisted, and Maya shook her head as she went to the small sink to scrub her hands once more. She had to stay busy. Maybe check her pack once more. A noise like a banshee's wail caught her attention, making her look up. “What was that?”

  “A bloody big storm,” Tom replied as he slid past Derick, one hand quickly gripping his friend's arm. “How is she?”

  Free of her uniform and body armour, Ren seemed small and too pale for Tom's liking. Accustomed to her lively personality, seeing her like this, with tubes poking out from the blankets and the various machines pinging around her, made Tom feel she was setting up camp on death's door. Perhaps she had been. Tom dismissed the thought immediately.

  He had to, for Derick's sake.

  Maya nodded at Captain Curran when she appeared behind the Major, addressing all three of them. “She was lucky. The tentacle missed the femoral artery.” Had been bloody fucking close, though. “There was some blood loss, but it wasn't significant. Our supplies could keep up. There was also minimal muscle damage, considering.”

  “What about the toxin she was dosed with?” Tom asked, hating the dullness in his medic's tone. Maya and Ren were a set, beams of light bouncing against each other, elevating the mood by always cracking jokes and being snarky. Back on Regis, covered in mud and burning leeches off people, they'd kept the colonists laughing.

  “It's definitely some kind of paralytic. The anti-toxin we have on hand appears to be working and I handed everything over to Doctor Adelaide for analysis. She mentioned making something specifically for that creature, so we'll have it on hand.”

  “Thank you, Lance Corporal,” Jules said kindly. “Does she need to go back to the Olympus?”

  “No ma'am,” Maya answered, glancing at her friend.
Despite knowing how important this mission was, she wouldn't have hesitated to say yes if she felt Ren was truly in trouble. “She's stable and will be back on her feet in twenty-four or forty-eight hours.”

  “That's good to hear,” Jules relaxed at the news and saw Tom and Derick doing the same. “Now, this storm. We think there's a lot of electricity in it. We'll need all non-essential systems shut down.”

  “I can do that,” Maya nodded, moving towards Ren's side. “I can use check her vitals the old-fashioned way.”

  “Great. Make sure she's strapped in, just to be safe,” Tom exchanged a brief look with Jules as she headed for the door. “Let us know if anything changes, Mayday.”

  Pausing for a moment, he debated trying to find some words of comfort to give his medic solace but dismissed the notion almost immediately. Tom was smart enough to know the only 'cure' was time. Turning away from her, he found Derick standing behind him instead. The big bloke was looking over his shoulder at Ren, a war of indecision on his face. Tom didn't need to be a mind reader to know why he was floundering. Derick wanted to stay with Ren, but duty was calling.

  “You coming, mate?”

  That did the trick. Derick snapped back to the here and now, getting the mental jolt he needed to reach a decision.

  “Right then. Come along, we got shit to do,” Tom told him, giving his thick bicep a hearty slap and headed out. Derick was right behind him.

  * * *

  In the main compartment, the noise of so many people gathered in one spot drowned out the whistling wind and whatever was being tossed against the hull. Someone had shut the hatch, so Tom hoped that meant everyone was indoors. The voices died down when he entered with the Gunny behind him.

  “Carry on,” Tom muttered, spotting Jules in the corner with Dr. Hall and another squint. Both scientists were wearing an expression of urgency that immediately put him on guard. “What is it?”

  Dr. Hall nodded towards the face he didn't know. “This is Dr. Dmitri Andropolis, my meteorologist. Andy has been part of my team on almost every survey mission I've…”

  “Right, he's an expert. What's the problem?” Tom cut in impatiently. Jules winced in the corner of his eye. Well, he'd warned her.

  Before Olivia could answer, Dr. Andropolis, a thin bespectacled man with sallow features, answered just as quickly. “It's this storm. It's not exhibiting any of the characteristics of a naturally occurring weather front.”

  “And that means what?” Tom asked, looking from Dr. Andropolis to Dr. Hall. He knew better than to look at Jules.

  The droll look the scientist gave him made Tom suspect this guy liked military as much as the military liked his lot. Which meant they wouldn't be chatting over a cuppa and cucumber sandwiches any time soon.

  “I reviewed the external sensor readings in the cockpit,” Andropolis explained, his expression showing genuine worry. “I wanted to record the atmospheric levels for review later. I noticed how the storm was formed. From what I observed, the storm is a thunderhead or a cumulonimbus, usually formed by upward currents. These usually become tornadoes and cyclones.”

  “Okay, with you so far,” Tom returned, wishing the man would get to the point. “This one is a bit strange. We are on an alien planet after all. It wouldn't be just like the ones in Sol.”

  Andropolis let out an insulted huff and shoved his glasses up his nose with his middle finger. “Of course, I know that! We are in trouble Major! Storms, even alien ones, follow patterns. This one doesn't. It didn't form by upwards currents. It's like it just appeared out of thin air.”

  “Okay. That means what to us?” Jules intervened before one of the two men strangled the other. “It has been generated by something. Storms don't just appear out of nowhere.” As a pilot, she was more cognisant of weather patterns than most, save Andropolis himself. Atmo training required entire units to read the weather, temperatures and wind currents. Storms took time to manifest. They simply did not spring out of nowhere like Athena, fully formed.

  “OH MY GOD!!” The shout grabbed Jules's attention sharply. Just when she located the speaker, others started shouting.

  “HOLY FUCK!!”

  “Major!! Captain! LOOK OUTSIDE!”

  * * *

  Jules sprinted towards the observation window, Tom following close behind.

  He found her, face pressed against the observational portal long enough to unleash curses potent enough to wake her mother from the dead before bolting for the rear hatch.

  “Jules, wait!” Tom hurried after her, not bothering to peer through the observation portal at what sent her into such a state of panic. It was enough that it had. Tom reached her just as she activated the hatch, allowing the wind to rush into the airlock vestibule. Cursing, he shielded his eyes against the grit but caught sight of Jules hurrying out to the edge of the ramp, riding it down to the ground.

  “Have you lost your mind?” Tom yelled over the wind, wishing she'd be just a little cautious for the sake of his sanity. “Jules!” he shouted again, following her out and grabbing her arm.

  The wind whipped at them both, tearing her dark hair from its braid. Tom could see she wasn't even paying attention to him as the long strands lashed against her cheek while the pelting rain soaked her uniform. Above them, neon blue lightning crackled against the underbelly of the clouds, casting an eerie glow over everything.

  “Jules, get inside!” Tom held fast on her arm, prepared to throw her over a shoulder if he had to when she grabbed his sleeve.

  “Tom, look!” she yelled, thrusting her free hand towards the clouds.

  He raised his eyes to the air and forgot all about the wind and the rain.

  “Holy fuck.”

  Balmain Bugs, that's what they are.

  It was his thought at seeing massive creatures moving in and out of the swirling purple clouds. Balmain Bugs, the nickname given to the butterfly fan lobsters native to his parent's homeland of Australia. Except these were flying, not scavenging about in the ocean.

  Iridescent colours swirled along huge, flat carapaces and rippled towards fat tails that trailed blue and green tendrils of electricity. They moved in and out of the clouds with purpose, like a pod of dolphins chasing a ship. And they were easily the size of the Firefly.

  “It's them! They're making the storm!”

  “Come on!” Tom tugged her arm, making his words a command. “We need to get inside, now! I don't know if those bloody sky crabs are friendly or not, but I rather not find out while we're out here!”

  This time she listened, ducking her head and allowing him to pull her into the airlock. The wind seemed to scream in anger at their retreat to safety and the gusts chased them into the airlock, forcing Jules to grab Tom by his battle harness.

  Bloody oath! Tom slapped a hand on the controls and half-turned, throwing an arm over Jules's shoulders as stuff too big to be called grit scoured against them. He pulled her to his chest and squatted, burying his face in her shoulder as the wind became a howling demon. Christ on a friggin' crutch, how long did it take the fucking hatch to close? It had to be that damn wind!

  He wasn't sure when the hatch closed but when there was much less noise and no wind tearing at them, he lifted his head. Rubbing the grit out his eyes, he tried to assess the situation. There was no blood and none of them were finding God so everything was Mickey Mouse. He'd take it. When Tom's eyes were finally clear, he patted Jules's back. “Look.”

  As if just now realizing the wind had stopped, Jules popped her head up and swept her hair from her eyes with one hand. “Oh wow.”

  The airlock deck was nearly covered in leaves and dirt and broken bits of vegetation. Wow was right, Tom thought as he rose to his feet, pulling Jules with him. About to ask if she was all right, he chuckled instead and pulled a twig from her hair.

  “Stop laughing,” Jules wrinkled her nose at him.

  “Am I interrupting something? I mean, we got this big storm going on…”

  Tom and Jules stepped back from ea
ch other so fast that Derick chuckled, making Tom glower at him over Jules's head. “Laugh it up, Big Foot,” he grumbled.

  Derick opened his mouth, but he was silenced by Jules.

  “Both of you, come on. We need to get everyone strapped in,” she ordered, pushing past the big Gunny.

  * * *

  “I think we should stay put,” Olivia offered, joining the two officers in the cockpit. “They may pass right over us and not even see us.”

  Jules didn't like that idea, but she supposed Dr. Hall had a point. She could tell Tom was of the same mind. “Makes sense,” she shrugged. “If we stay here, it's 50/50 they see us. If we take off, they will definitely see us. We need to avoid any action that could be taken as provocative.”

  “Seven hundred meters… Six hundred…” Derick's voice echoed down the passageway towards them. “Those things are moving fast!”

  “Sky crabs,” Tom called out helpfully.

  “They look more like sky lobsters!” was Derick's reply.

  “Sky crabs is easier to say!”

  “Really?” Jules gave Tom's arm a shove and shot him a dry look.

  “Sorry,” Tom threw her an embarrassed smile. “You were say…”

  Something hit the hull of the Firefly hard enough to make the ship shudder. Thunder clapped so loud and so close, it was like it was inside the shuttle. Tom was thrown against his harness as Dr. Hall tumbled out of view. Beside him, Jules was bracing a boot against the console as again, something crashed into the ship, less violently this time.

  Screams and shouts came from the passenger area as the unmistakable scent of heated metal reached Tom. Taking cue from Jules, Tom planted a boot against the console.

  “What the fuck was that?”

  Tom didn't recognize the voice.

  “Lightning hit the hull!” Derick announced.

  “Doc, back to your seat,” Tom ordered the scientists but found he was talking to the woman's back as she hurried down the corridor.

  Lightning crackled again, rocking the Firefly once more. Jules realized one side was being lifted off the ground. Before she could call out a warning, the shuttle slammed back to the ground as cries for quiet were drowned out by another ear-popping crash of thunder. Something moved against the glass in front of her and Jules gasped. “TOM!”