Harbinger

by Stephen Christiansen

  Eric made his way back into the landing craft and headed toward the back. He did his best to ignore the smell of Vincent’s spilled blood that was starting to permeate the ship. If he let that get to him then he was sure that his system would never want to eat again.

  The cargo hold was completely torn apart. Both of the land rovers had tumbled upon each other and had smashed each other. Their chassis were destroyed. Their tracks were ripped off. Engine and transmission pieces lay everywhere. Glass had shattered and metal was broken and twisted. Liquid was leaking from the rovers and had spilled across the bottom of the cargo bay. Eric knew that it wasn’t fuel, these things ran on solar energy, but still it couldn’t be good.

  The crates and boxes of supplies were in worse condition. They had completely broken open and had spilled their contents all about. Packages, parts, computer pieces, food supplies, water, broken equipment and everything else that had been back here and had been stored in an organized fashion was now strewn in all directions.

  Eric slowly picked his way into the mess, debris, and wreckage. The last thing he wanted to do was to twist an ankle and fall just wrong. There was no one here to help him. Any injury now could prove to be fatal. He knew so little in the field of medical training that he was sure that he would bleed out or at least not recognize a potential threat. On top of that, there could be different bacteria and viruses in the air that, although wouldn’t be hazardous to his lungs since he was still alive and breathing, they could still cause greater infections. He also didn’t know what creatures this planet might have that could potentially be attracted to blood. No, it was best to be safe on the side of caution, almost paranoia, than to take such an unknown risk.

  He had to push several items aside, carefully as to not create a cascading avalanche that would bury him alive, before he found was he was looking for. Most of the boxes of MRE’s were squashed or destroyed. Their packaging was torn open and their contents lay among the rubble around his feet. However, he had been able to find a few that were still intact. With any luck, with more light, he might be able to find more. Until then, these would do.

  Some of the MRE’s were nasty tasting like the Chow Mein that had never been perfected. Others included beans and rice, spaghetti and meatballs, and even chili Mac which was at least tolerable. The packs would also include a bag that would chemically react with water to create heat. These would heat up the cold MRE’s and make them more palatable.

  Eric never really enjoyed the taste of the MRE’s. He did have the misfortune of having to eat some during his basic training. There had even been a time when he had been given one to eat during a morning routine that he had simply chucked out the back of the truck when no one was looking instead of facing the displeasure of eating it cold. However, he was willing to put up with these as an inconvenience, at least long enough for the Terraformers to start producing crops and to find wildlife to hunt. Now he would have to put up with the MRE’s for pure survival reasons.

  On the upside, these things were high in calories. They were also supposed to give a well balanced meal. In a pinch, these could feed an army and by the huge amount that they were carrying, it could feed an army for a very long time. The best thing about these was the fact that they could last for many years, didn’t take up a lot of space and were easy to prepare.

  Well, they would have been easy to prepare if he had water. Since all of the water had been spilled all over the floor of the cargo bay, he couldn’t use the chemical bag inside the MRE’s. He would have to heat them the old fashioned way. Fortunately the MRE’s also came with matches.

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  Eric sat over his small campfire that he had built from the fallen debris of wood from the trees that had broken from his less than perfect entry onto this planet. There had been plenty to choose from since the forest floor was now littered with them, and it was easy to get the sizes of wood he needed. The only real problem he had was lighting the matches.

  He had built his fire low and had wanted to ring it with some rocks, but he couldn’t find any in the area. The thought about hauling out debris from the wreckage crossed his mind, but hunger had won out. The only thing he took time to find was a pot to cook in.

  The meal of chili Mac ended up being the best meal he had eaten, or at least that was the impression that he had after he finished it. It was probably because of the shock his body was in, the lack of food in his system and the fatigue that was setting in.

  Eric hadn’t realized just how tired he was. A quick yawn was followed by a slight closing of his eyes. It would be for just a minute…

  Eric woke with a start. The sudden smell of smoke brought Eric to his full senses, as did the realization that he had left the campfire burning and unattended. He really hadn’t meant to close his eyes for any length of time and he wondered how long he had been out.

  His eyes took in the scene before him. The wind had picked up and had tossed several hot embers toward the wreckage of the ship. His understanding of the rovers not having liquid fuel had been accurate. What he had forgotten to take into account was that the landing craft did have fuel. Solar energy wasn’t efficient enough to bring the craft back out of the atmosphere if it was needed.

  The embers had ignited a fuel leak and were slowly running toward the crash site. It wouldn’t take long before the fuel tanks were reached and everything inside would go up in a fireball explosive that would not only burn everything in its path, but would send hot, flying shrapnel in all directions.

  ‘Slowly?’ Eric thought.

  For one moment, for one brief moment when his adrenaline had kicked in, Eric thoughts were quicker and sharper than his body movements. It was as if he was seeing things in slow motion. Yet, the fire was burning in real time.

  During that moment, everything had become clear. The engines of the landing craft never responded correctly. He had trouble lighting the matches and starting the fire. He was tired, and now this fuel fire was burning slower than he had expected it would. Back on Earth, it would have blown by now. The only thing that would have caused all of this would be the lack of oxygen in the air. Although this was going to be a detriment in the long run, it did give him an advantage now. It gave him time to...run.

  Eric’s body was in full motion before he even registered what he was doing. His arms pumped hard. His legs moved as quickly as they could. He could feel his lungs start to feel heavy as breathing became labored. He could feel lactic acid already start to build in his thighs. He could feel…

  The explosion rocked the area and blasted everything around it. Trees groaned under the shockwave. Branches were engulfed in fire. Metal pieces were thrown with incredible speed and were impaled into anything that got in their way.

  Eric felt the concussive force of the explosion. His body was expelled through the air and hit hard against one of the nearby trees. He felt consciousness give way and everything went dark.

  Chapter: 45

  Eric had no idea how long he was out. The illumination around him hadn’t changed, but the fire had. The flames were non-existent. That really didn’t say much since there was less oxygen here, the blaze could have burned down quickly and he could have been down for only a short amount of time. Yet he doubted this. His body was sore from where he had been laying on the hard ground suggesting that he had been down for a while. And since he didn’t know how long the “night” was going to be here on this planet, he really didn’t have any concept of time.

  As he pulled his aching body up off the forest floor, Eric looked back at the wreckage one last time. The destruction was complete. There was nothing but blackened char for metal of what used to be the ship’s hull. All of the electronics and chemicals mixed with the engine fuel had created enough heat, even with less oxygen to feed it, to consume everything that was aboard.

  His thoughts went out to Vincent. Whatever he had done, or not done, he had at least tried to put them
down on a habitable planet. Being impaled in such a fashion and dying was horrible enough. Now he was burned to a crisp and was going to be left here, on an alien planet.

  He wondered if Vincent had any family. He wondered if he had any friends for that matter. He wondered who he should tell once he got off this planet.

  That thought alone almost made him laugh. He wouldn’t know where to start looking. He had no leads to go on. He had never known the person and probably never would hang around him if he had. They had nothing in common except for their military training and even then, Vincent reminded him of his drill sergeant, and that wasn’t really a compliment. As a matter of fact…

  Eric looked toward the crash site again. He was going to consider Vincent one more time, he was going to try to understand the man better or even at least give him the benefit of the doubt. However, something had caught his attention, something that had made him stop and gasp out loud.

  The wreckage was gone. It had simply disappeared. One moment it was there, the next it was gone. It was as if it had never been there or had at least vanished into thin air. There was no trace that it had even existed. There weren’t burn marks, a small crater where it had landed, blasted shrapnel, or even broken branches from where they had come through the forest. Even the trees were unmarked in any fashion.

  Eric’s eyes scanned the area in search of something, anything to tell him that he wasn’t losing his mind. He saw nothing, nothing at all and he was about to dismiss the existence of the ship all together if something else hadn’t caught his attention. There were footprints.

  Footprints had shown up in the hard ground. They had come from over the hill behind him and had meandered around the trees. They zigzagged everywhere. The booted prints seemed to be humanoid in appearance.

  Eric spun in place looking for the person that had snuck up on him. His eyes darted everywhere. Whatever this creature was, it was close. It was right on top of him. It should be…

  Him. It was him. They were his footprints. Eric could have laughed at the absurdity of it all. He had been walking, for who knew how long, and he hadn’t even realized it. He had been so lost in thought that he hadn’t even realized that he had wondered aimlessly away from the crash site. Now he had no idea where he was or what he was going to do.

  Then he heard it. Laughter had echoed all around him. Someone thought that his predicament was funny, here all alone on this god forsaken planet. If he could get his hands on…

  That voice. He knew that voice. It was his. He was laughing.

  Eric stopped. He had to hold it together. He was in shock and he hadn’t even noticed it. His body had become cold and it was hard to think. He had lost all measure of time and distance. He had lost all sense of orientation and of self-preservation. He was lost and almost didn’t care.

  Even though he knew and understood this, he still found himself wandering. He simply couldn’t stop putting one foot in front of the other with no direction to go. Over and over, on and on he went.

  It was only when his body could take no more, did he drop face down to the ground in convulsions. His system couldn’t handle everything that he had been through. Darkness came over him one more time.

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  When Eric woke he had realized that his rational thinking was starting to come back to him. His moment of shock had worn off. But that was now the least of his problems.

  He found that he was now hungry, more like starving. He couldn’t remember the last time he had eaten a full meal. It was fortunate that he at least had the MRE, but between the stress and all of the walking that he had done, the meal had worn off. He needed to get food. He also needed to get water. He knew that he could survive quite some time without food, but it would only be a few days without water before he dehydrated and died.

  His ears picked up the sound; the sound that he was sure was going to save his life. He could hear water, or at least something that sounded like water. Perhaps he hadn’t been wandering around aimlessly all along. Had he seen the river while they were flying overhead? Had he heard it when he first made his campfire but had forgotten about it once shock had set in? Had he walked over here by pure sub consciousness? He didn’t know, and now he didn’t care.

  His body raced through the forest and around the trees. He had to make his way toward the sound of water. There, he might even find food. His body slammed against the trees, his feet slipped across the hard ground. His heart pounded and raced. His body rose over the crest of a slight hill.

  There, at the other side of the small hill, was the river he had heard. It was a sight that he desperately needed to see and a need that his body desperately needed to fill. It was a wide river, perhaps thirty feet wide, and ran swift. It seemed to be shallow, but Eric knew better. Clear water only looked shallow, it was probably deeper than he thought and the undercurrents were probably faster than he suspected.

  The water had a slight purple tint to it and a slight smell of rotten eggs. The coloring was probably due to some mineral runoff while the horrible stench was probably due to a nearby source of sulfur. Eric doubted that either would have an ill effect on him, but it didn’t matter. His body would dehydrate without water and this was now his only source.

  As Eric bent down to the river, he caught his reflection in the water. The reflection of the twin moons upon the river gave him enough illumination to see his features.

  He was thin. His clothing hung like rags on his gaunt body. His cheeks had caved in. He shook his head.

  ‘No, it’s only the reflection of the moonlight.’

  That thought alone disturbed him. How long had it been? Had it been hours? Had a full “day” gone by? Had two? Yet, during all of this time the illumination around him hadn’t changed. It was still in a twilight phase, with a little light from the night sky from the moons and the stars, between the darkest of night and the time not yet turned to dawn.

  Eric almost spat out the water as he tried to drink it. Yet, despite its horrible taste, he forced it down along with several more handfuls. His body needed this.

  Eric’s stomach rumbled and he understood what else his body needed. It needed food. Food was the only thing that was going to keep him going.

  And he knew that the lack of food was his fault. He should have grabbed everything out of the landing craft that he could before he thought about eating. He had been foolish to give into hunger. He should have relied on his military training and not his stomach.

  It was also his fault that he was in this situation He should have seen the signs of space sickness on the doctor and perhaps even on Vincent. He might have exhibited some himself. If he had been more careful, more observant, more thoughtful and mindful of the situation at hand then he might have been able to prevent Vincent from taking a landing craft and would have prevented the destruction of the Harbinger.

  On top of that, he had two shots with his sonic blaster at point blank range and he still failed to hit Richard. This was pathetic by anyone’s standards, let alone for a security officer with military training against a private doctor who had none.

  What he should have done was put everyone on lock down and keep them there. Instead he had given in to everyone’s fears and insecurities. Now they were all dead because of him. He couldn’t keep the CEO from dying when he was assigned to him and now he couldn’t keep the scientists alive. He had proven himself to be useless and worthless.

  He needed to be out here, all alone. There was nothing more that he could mess up. There was no one else that could die under his protection.

  He also deserved this. Since everything was his fault, he deserved to be stranded on some deserted world. He deserved to starve to death on some alien planet away from everyone else.

  Tears started to run down Eric’s face as depression and guilt set in. He had never felt like this before. He had never felt such disrespect for himself, his training, or anything that he had done. His
spirit was crushed. His soul was wrenched. He started to sob.

  Screams of pain came from his inner being. Wails of anguish came over him. Sorrow hit him like a fist.

  Emotional exhaustion finally set in followed by physical fatigue. Eric simply didn’t have enough energy to stay awake and he didn’t have the emotional strength to even care. He closed his eyes and let darkness overcome him once again.

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  Eric’s eyes fluttered awake. His body hurt like hell. The ground was uncomfortable, the running river was loud and he was surprised that he was even able to find any sleep at all. Although, he was sure that it was the depression that had set in that had drained him.

  But that was gone now. He had come to his senses. He had really done the best that he could. In fact, he doubted that he could find anyone that could have done better. Vincent sure hadn’t. Doctor Richard Atkins sure hadn’t. Hell, no one had. They had all lost their minds. This was their fault not his.