by Drew Avera
Anki donned the helmet, feeling the cold gel envelope her face and neck, it would be comforting if it wasn’t so damned distracting, she thought as she reversed the thrust and tried to back out of the Seratora’s confinement. It was a moot point, the transport was stuck and she was screwed. She shifted the throttles back and forth hoping the rocking motion would tear it loose. Anki winced as sounds of ripping and tearing steel erupted around her. The monitor showed the Seratora cracking into pieces like glass. Her hand kept shifting the throttle, forward and backwards, the transport rocking in its cradle of death. And then it tore loose.
Chapter 16: Brendle
Brendle had never seen a ship go nova before, but it was mesmerizingly beautiful in such a sickening way. The grotesqueness of the situation was heavy on his heart as he watched arms of violent radiation reach across the horizon. Part of the explosion encapsulated the hull of the Telran and for the briefest of moments he thought the destruction might have claimed his previous ship as well. There was no way to truly know, though, because the light seemed to scatter across the expanse and be held in place, moving ever-so-slightly outward before the rays collapsed in on themselves. After that he was effectively blinded by the light and left in the silent rage of an alien moon’s grip.
He stared, mouth agape, as the rain of fire and metal fell to the surface. He knew he should be afraid, but there was nowhere to run, nowhere to hide that could save him from the onslaught if it chose to take him. So he stood and watched death let loose from its chain. The ground quaked as heavy steel structures dropped from the dark, propelled by the force of the explosion and welcomed by the gravitational pull of the moon. Brendle almost lost his balance when chunks of debris landed near him, but he still didn’t run. He was numb and devastated simultaneously. The sky burned in crimson regret as the unknown ship left its place in the dark for a rocky grave. Everywhere there was fire raining down, scorching the ground below and smoking with the nauseating smell of burnt chemicals. He knew there was radiation from the reactors, or from the explosion itself. There was too much energy to not be radioactive to some extent, another form of death presenting itself. Starvation or radiation poisoning, Brendle thought. But there was an option for salvation in the hell he was witnessing.
Brendle ran for the mass of burning metal.
He didn’t know exactly what he was looking for, but maybe he would know it when he found it. The bulk of the debris was scattered across the horizon in all directions, but he made his way through the field of falling dead for the largest structure. If he could salvage any of it, then maybe he could find a way off the moon. Maybe there will be a transport ship of moderate functionality, he hoped.
The ground opened to a steep crater he didn’t see coming because he was looking up towards the hazards falling towards him. Brendle tumbled, his body racked by rocks as inertia punished him, scraping his skin and bruising in its assault. He came to rest on his back, grit and grime covering his face. He was out of breath and hurting all over, but hope was over the ridge and down a steep embankment, where charred metal awaited him. He climbed to his feet and hobbled until the ache in his legs faded enough to run. Climbing the ridge was difficult, as dirt and rock shifted under the weight of his feet. He slid down and had to start over several times before he finally made his way to the top, cresting over the edge and collapsing as his hungry lungs gasped for air. The thin atmosphere made it difficult to catch his breath, but the only thing going through his mind was, I don’t want to die here, like a mantra, a battle cry.
He rose again, smoke filling his lungs from nearby destruction, and he sprinted. Everything, every danger, every fear fell away as he made his way to the rising structure burning in the distance like a candle. The flames lapped against the steel and reached out to the sky with fiery fingers longing to hold onto what it once was. Brendle collapsed before it, the flames burning the air around him. He panted and crawled his way to the burning hull, to the hope that lay in wait to be discovered. It was too hot to touch, so he removed his jacket and patted down the flames, snuffing it out with the only thing available to him. They obeyed; the first thing to go his way since the Telran left him behind. At least without the flames, the air was getting easier to breathe, Brendle thought as he sat down next to the charred remains. It towered over his seated body, an ominous black. Streaks still filled the sky, but the worst of it seemed to be over, for now at least.
He had to wait for the heat to dissipate before he could claw at the remains, but at least he had made it. Brendle looked up at the sky one last time before his body gave in to the exhaustion. He fell back, his body warm against the rocky surface, his lungs tired from the torment of smoke engulfing them as he ran. With the relative danger gone he allowed himself to rest, but not for long.
There was nothing organic in the whole heap of burning metal that he could find. That could be a good thing, Brendle thought as he dug through more of the wreckage in hopes of finding a way to communicate off the moon, he wasn’t exactly in the right headspace to find dead bodies at the moment anyway; he had enough death haunting him than to have to worry about seeing the ghostly remnants of previous life laid out against the cataclysm here before him. Of course, when was anyone ever really ready to find a dead body? There was one thing he knew for a fact; this moon was no place for him to be. It was a deathtrap and one that he was thrust upon for spite. He needed a way off this rock before he died. Of course, the raining debris might decapitate him before he found what he needed, but it was better not to think about things like that. If it happened, it happened; otherwise he had work to do.
The scalding burn of hot metal against his flesh caused Brendle to yelp in pain. He cut his hand as he pulled away and dark blood was beginning to pool in his palm before he had the chance to realize it was happening. “Dammit,” he hissed, removing the tucked-in portion of his shirt and tearing it with his good hand. It wasn’t the best bandage, but it was what he had for the time being. It wouldn’t serve him any justice to bleed out and die as the sky fell around him. Besides, if he’d have been smart, he would have worn gloves for this kind of work. If he’d have been smart then he wouldn’t have sent a message home that made him look like a traitor and got himself into this mess in the first place. It’s all about perspective, he thought, as he wrapped his hand tightly; the sting of the tender flesh coursing through his nervous system. He had to be smarter if he was going to survive. It’s the things you didn’t think about that had the highest potential for killing you.
Brendle looked up at the sky, the forefront of the horizon burning away atmosphere and fuel as whichever ship lost the fight was engulfed in raging flames. The battle hadn’t lasted for very long. He had seen the streams of ordnance being launched in both directions, lighting the sky like falling stars. The finality of the losing ship going nova meant there was a lot of death dealt in a single hand. A part of him wanted to say a silent prayer for those dead and dying above, but another part of him hoped it was the Telran. Better yet, he hoped it was Ilium burning alive as he sat in Brendle’s former console in Combat Control. What better way to administer justice than by the fires of your enemy’s own doing?
A glimmer to his left caught his attention. It was something falling. Perhaps another large section of debris, but this one looked a little too controlled to be scrap. Brendle jogged to the top of a rocky hill, away from the burning fumes and smoke, and tried to find the object again. His eyes narrowed, struggling to find it against the glow of the inferno above. It took a moment, but the falling object fell below the burning horizon. No, it was flying below the horizon. It’s a ship, albeit a small one, he thought. Pulling out his com-unit, he tasked himself with trying to synch up with the vessel, to use its communications system to call for help. But it was his luck that the ship was Luthian, the computer system inside of it revolting with as much fury as he imagined any of their soldiers would put up if hailed by a Greshian. Brendle didn’t have much choice, though. This might be his only way off the ro
ck. He just hoped that trying wasn’t going to get him killed any quicker than the gods had intended. He also hoped he could change his luck and rely on some skills he hadn’t had much use for since joining the Greshian Navy.
One of the joys of a childhood with a mostly absent father was getting to grow up with bad influences. His mother hated his friends, but spending a lot of his time on the streets, getting in and out of trouble, had taught him a few things that life in the Greshian Navy had not. That skill set of hacking into foreign networks became a game changer when he was sixteen. Brendle remembered the thrill of hacking into a Torian’s com-unit and being able to access personal information. It was all innocent fun, at the time, and he did it purely for the chance to eat a free meal. It was the risk of getting caught that made him do it again and again, almost as if the risk of getting caught was a myth. It seemed that way, at least until he got caught. The Torian man in question was an ambassador from Torachea. Politics―not being something Brendle spent a lot of time contemplating― had brought this man to seek refuge from his own government because he had been the one to commit his people under Greshian rule. The citizens of Torachea had revolted, but like most one-sided battles, they were crushed by the Greshian Empire. The fact the world was left alive showed the mercy that Greshia had bestowed upon them. That mercy was why the man didn’t make a big deal out of Brendle stealing from him, because charging a Greshian with theft would have been a slap in the face to what the Empire had done for that man and his people.
It was also a learning experience for Brendle of what wrath felt like. The ambassador might not have reporting Brendle to the police, but he did notify Brendle’s mother. That turned out to be worse. But skills learned often came back to be of use. It had been eight years since that life-altering moment. His life had seen more ups than downs since then, excluding his current predicament, but he was breathing, so there was hope.
His fingers flew across the screen of his com-unit as he tried to hack into the flight control system of the transport. It took several attempts, but he finally managed to get past the security protocols. The first thing he noticed was whoever was in the transport was not trained as a pilot. The transport was burning hard and losing lift at an alarming rate. He needed to get it back under control to slow the descent, otherwise it would be hot molten metal at the bottom of a crater by time it made contact with the surface.
Brendle’s fingers glided along his screen, lowering the throttle and manipulating the flight control surfaces so it caught more air, thus slowing it down significantly. The problem then became it being a heavy ass rock in the sky ready to fall straight down due to a lack of thrust. Brendle’s years in the Greshian Navy had taught him many skills when it came to flying spacecraft. Most of what it taught him was that he was a shitty pilot with varying degrees of luck. As the transport stalled, Brendle cranked up the throttle and maneuvered the transport to head in his relative direction. The heading change actually increased its lift momentarily and bought him some time, but it was still falling rapidly. He cussed under his breath as he struggled to increase upward pitch hoping the increased drag would slow it down enough to not end in a fiery crash. Whatever effect he might have seemed negligible, but he had to have hope, or something. Dumb luck’s the best luck if it was all you have, he thought as the transport shifted, the nose rising slightly before it touched down onto the moon. “Touch” was perhaps too weak of a word for the seeming calamity that followed.
From his vantage point he watched the transport skid across jagged rock, tearing the exterior hull to pieces. Sparks flew and smoke heaved as the craft tumbled across the terrain in shrieking fury. He imagined the occupant was being jostled around quite a bit, but surely it was survivable, he hoped.
He put his com-unit in his pocket and ran towards the crashed transport. Smoke infiltrated his lungs and obstructed his vision, but he kept low, trying to breathe semi-clean air. Whoever was in the wreckage could be badly wounded, and if there was a fire then he’d need to put it out before it could damage the communications equipment onboard. He felt bad thinking about it in those terms, but he was trying to survive. I’m trying to help the other person survive too, so that has to count for something.
The more the smoke cleared as a stiff wind blew across the terrain, the more he could smell the smoldering plastic and composite of the transport. It had a very distinct, nauseating stench that probably killed more brain cells with each breath than any other chemical reaction, save for chemical warfare, but that was borderline barbaric. Brendle’s nostrils burned as he crested the next hill and approached the crater left behind. It penetrated several meters though broken rock and clay and finally came to rest on its starboard side. The crumpled hull looked worse than he imagined it would. Perhaps it was heavier than the display had read when I seized control, he thought as he looked at the crash site, burning and charred parts littering the landscape for as far as he could see. Not all of it belonged to this transport, he knew, but it made the scene seem all the more devastating.
His heart was pounding in his chest and he was overcome with nausea. He doubled over and vomited; the smell and exertion finally taking their toll on him. He didn’t know what was waiting for him in the craft below, but as he wiped his lips with the sleeve of his jacket, he thought about the relevant hostility he could face if the person inside knew he was a Greshian. The smart thing to do was go in armed, weapon drawn, ready to fire in self defense. But that wasn’t how Brendle wanted to represent himself. He wasn’t Greshian Navy anymore. He was his own entity, abandoned by his people. He was no more a part of them than the person inside the transport. His hand found the handle of his gun, patting it to make sure it was there. Satisfied, he began the descent into the crater in hopes of salvaging whatever he could and finding a way off this rock.
Chapter 17: Anki
Anki’s transport fell away reluctantly, revealing the horror of a ship tearing apart at the seams. She watched through teary eyes as the destruction engulfed everything around her. The dark opened before her, framed by flames and jagged steel. The transport vectored away from the carnage and burned hard away from the collapsing Seratora. Anki’s heart rattled in her chest, her breathing bordering on hyperventilation. In the distance she saw a Keshnarian moon, the gray rocky orb reflecting the burning light of her ship. The light increased in luminosity and her transport buckled as turbulence formed around her fledgling spacecraft. The monitors showed debris flinging past her, cracking against her ship in a fiery haze of destruction.
Did I escape only to be killed in this bucket, she asked herself as the fear gripped her tight. She had little pilot training, but she knew enough to steer the craft and try to avoid being ripped apart by chunks of the Seratora scorching past. The transport was hit, causing it to list uncontrollably. It took a moment for her to realize that the craft was rolling as the image of the Keshnarian moon continued to change perspective on the monitor, floating to each corner of the screen every few seconds. She closed her eyes to fight the urge to vomit. Anki’s hands found the manual controls and tried to calculate how much counter thrust was needed to control the spin. It was difficult with her eyes closed, but as the shifting sensation of her stomach finally settled to something less nauseating she figured she had done it.
Through opened eyes she saw the monitor shrouded in flames. She couldn’t tell if the transport was on fire from the Seratora going nova, or if it was entering atmosphere. Either way it’s terrifying, she thought as she gripped the control with her sweaty hands. The transport bucked and another scattering of large shards of burning material beat against the hull. The strike knocked the transport into a different trajectory, aimed directly for the moon. Anki tried to shift the control, but the transport wasn’t responding to her commands. Her eyes darted across the console and found a button designated as a flight control reset switch. She shrugged and pressed it, but nothing seemed to happen; at least not anything significant. Each pull on the control was negligible, but it was the
only thing she could do as the moon grew bigger.
Hitting atmosphere jarred the transport and jostled her inside the cockpit. She winced, feeling like she had been kicked in the stomach as her body slammed forward, the lap belt being the only thing holding her to the seat. There was a bit of good news, though, she noticed as she pulled the control back. The front of the transport rose slightly in relation to her movement. It wasn’t a significant change, but it did slow the transport down. If nothing else it’ll make the crash slightly less devastating, she thought. It was a sense of humor as much as it was an innate desire to soften the blow of knowing she was about to die.
Anki’s transport bucked again, rolling slightly, but not uncontrollable. She noticed a shift in thrust as well, which meant the drive was faltering or the change in attitude was affecting the drive’s performance. She wasn’t experienced enough to tell the difference. With no input from her, the shift corrected itself, leveling out and decelerating. She looked around the cockpit, confused. The ship was in manual mode which meant she was supposed to be in control, as stupid a decision as that was turning out to be. I’m not a fucking pilot, Anki thought as the transport shifted again. Her hands on the controls were useless again. Did the autopilot reengage? There was no indication either way, but the moon was growing larger with each passing moment. She could see the debris field from the Seratora burning against the landscape. Her heart sank. There was nothing anyone could do, there were no survivors. How could there be?
Another lurch in the transport drove her thoughts away from the burning pyre below. The jarring maneuvering of the ship was accompanied by an alarm as it raced towards the ground. She knew better than to brace for impact, but fear made her do it anyway. Her elevation was redlined; if the ship didn’t correct itself, she would be a crater in the dirt like the rest of the Seratora. It was imminent, regardless of how much she wished it wasn’t. Time slowed down.