Keller nodded sharply and turned to lead the way. Everyone shuffled after him, grouping up tightly this time, their hands on the grips of their rifles.
Andrew trudged along in a daze despite Harper’s warning. Damn it all to hell, he thought. This was why he’d gotten out of the Marines. It was all too familiar. His mind flashed back to the desert, his ears ringing from an IED explosion that had left his Humvee drifting with the engine chugging reams of acrid black smoke. Streams of bullets came crunching through the doors, pink mist exploding in his face, tasting like pennies in his mouth. Monte and Tim were jerking spasmodically with the impacts, their eyes already rolling up with death—
“You okay, Miller?”
Andrew blinked, and turned with wide, staring eyes to see Harper walking beside him.
“There was nothing you could have done,” she said again, her voice dull and grating.
He nodded and sniffed, his eyes slipping over to the fore. “There never is.”
The sergeant nodded, and they observed a moment of silence together for the ghosts that haunted them.
After about half an hour of that silence, Andrew had recovered enough to begin thinking about what had happened. Rain had poured down. Then came the mist, which had somehow made them hallucinate. An actual monster had used that confusion to grab Edwards and run off with him. Then came a flash flood through what had apparently been a dry riverbed. Andrew realized there was a problem with pressing on, and he jogged up next to Keller to discuss his concerns.
“We have to go back,” he said.
“What? No.”
“It isn’t safe out here,” Andrew insisted. “The mist made us hallucinate. We’re lucky we didn’t lose more men to friendly fire.”
Keller jerked his chin to indicate their surroundings. “You see any mist? We’re good, and now we know to avoid low-lying areas when it rains. We’ve already suffered the worst.”
“And what happens when night falls? Humidity goes up and we’re in the soup again. Not to mention, we didn’t see what took Edwards. One of those creatures could be stalking us as we speak.”
Keller glared at him. “You wanted to come, remember?”
Andrew scowled in response. “What’s so important about this damn storage segment?”
“You mean besides food, guns, and farm equipment? Dig deep and find your balls, Miller. We’re not going home until we find Eden Two. You want those deaths to mean something? We press on.”
Andrew saw red. He wanted nothing more than to knock Keller’s teeth out, but the man was right about one thing: Cox’s and Edwards’ deaths would be for nothing if they gave up now.
They marched on, the trees and scenery blurring together and gradually fading with the light. The beams of their tac lights lit the way as they marched through the night. Andrew’s legs were aching, his feet sore, his stomach burning and growling for food, but he kept it to himself, waiting for someone else to call a break. That break came when they reached a dew-streaked clearing of crimson grass.
“We camp here for the night,” Keller said, stopping and turning to them from the middle of the field. “Let’s get a fire going and dry ourselves out!”
“You heard the man,” Harper added, clapping her hands. “Let’s find some wood and hope it’s not too wet to burn!”
Andrew went with a group of four, gathering broken branches from the forest around the clearing. Soon they had a giant pile of them in the center of camp. Keller doused it with a whole can of kerosene from his pack, and then lit it with a barbecue lighter. They pitched their tents, and Harper assigned watches for the night.
Andrew waited to hear his assignment, but it never came. “What about me?” he asked.
She flashed a tight smile and shook her head. “You sit this one out, Miller. Get your sleep.”
He knew what that meant. She’d seen the look in his eyes after they’d lost Cox, and now she didn’t trust him. “I’m okay, I swear. And I’m not going to be able to sleep anyway.”
Harper held his gaze for a long moment. “All right. Dry off and then take the first watch with Private Taylor.”
“Understood.”
Everyone sat around the fire, using their packs for stools while they warmed themselves and dried out their soggy jumpsuits. Conversation was sparse. People dug through their packs for rations. Andrew did the same, taking big bites of a chewy protein bar, his gaze flicking around the fire, checking for threats. The blue fabric of their jumpsuits was stained brown and black from their ordeal in the forest.
Despite Andrew’s concerns, nightfall didn’t bring the mist. He heaved an uneasy sigh, and some of the tension bled out of his shoulders.
After a couple of hours of sitting by the fire, Andrew felt his suit crackling around him, the fabric crunchy with dirt and sweat, and then his body began adding a fresh layer of sweat from underneath. Harper stood up and nodded. “First watch, you’re up. Everyone else, let’s get some sleep.” She nodded to Andrew and Taylor and they both rose, their hands on the grips of their rifles.
They stayed close to camp, one on each side of the ring of tents, sweeping the beams of their tac lights back and forth endlessly. Two moons blazed overhead from a bright dome of stars—one a ruddy yellow eye, the other a bluish-gray sliver.
After about an hour, Taylor came tromping up behind him, the long grass rustling loudly past his legs. Andrew started with the sound and swept his gun around to blind Taylor with the beam of the tac light at the end of the barrel. Taylor threw up a hand to shield his eyes and hissed out a curse.
“Check your scopes,” he muttered.
“Sorry,” Andrew replied, and dropped his aim.
Taylor vanished against the night, nothing but his suit and the whites of his eyes visible in the flickering orange glow of the dying fire. “Take a moment and look up,” he said.
Andrew did, and once again saw the two moons and a bright dome of stars sparkling overhead. “Not bad,” he breathed.
“Yeah. Real pretty,” Taylor said. “But there’s a problem.”
“And that is?” Andrew asked, lowering his gaze.
“The stars are in the wrong places. There’s nothing familiar here.”
“Why would there be?” Andrew asked.
“We’re only four light years from Earth. All the same constellations we see from Earth should be visible here, too.”
“You’re probably just turned around.”
“Even if you rotate a particular constellation, it should still have the same number of stars in it, and the same relative distances between them, but nothing about this sky looks right,” Taylor breathed. His face was turned up to the sky, eyes darting among the stars.
Andrew regarded the other man. “Are you an astronomer or something?”
Taylor shook his head. “Just a hobbyist.”
“Then maybe you need to find a new hobby.”
“Yeah. Maybe.”
“You should get back to your post. We don’t want anything sneaking up on us.”
“Right.” Taylor headed to his side of the camp.
Andrew’s gaze followed him. What if Taylor was right? He remembered the woman who’d come to him aboard Eden, saying that they weren’t actually going to Proxima.
And what had happened to her, anyway? Andrew hadn’t seen her since they’d landed. Was that because there were too many colonists and he had yet to bump into her, or because Hound had killed her?
A shiver coursed through his spine, and he looked away from Taylor, his focus on the jagged shadows of the distant trees. He swept his tac light across the darkness, checking that nothing had sneaked up on their camp while his back was turned, but the field was clear. Andrew let out a shaky breath that fogged in the chilly air, reminding him of the hallucinogenic mist.
One thing was for sure: wherever they were, it wasn’t safe.
TWENTY
Roland
Roland came to, suddenly feeling claustrophobic in his compact sleeping bag. He unzipped it, and
flung the cover away from his sweating body. Camp had been on lockdown since the storm yesterday, and Roland was relieved. The last thing he wanted was to be hauled away by some four-legged monster. Poor Neve. Also, poor Rollie. Now he was the only person charged with maintaining the treatment plant. Such was his luck.
The interior of Eden One was mainly empty since they’d cleared out the stored supplies, and there were three hundred people crammed into it who were sleeping, or attempting to slumber, in the noisy structure. No one wanted to be outside in the tents, not with dangerous local wildlife on the prowl.
Roland thought about their perimeter and had an idea. He mumbled to himself at the ineptitude of the blue suits in charge. Shouldn’t they have been prepared for something like this? Every ecosystem has a food chain, even alien ones. It didn’t seem like rocket science to Roland.
He found Kendra near the exit, with Val and Diane curled up beside her. They seemed so peaceful as they dozed, and he nearly stumbled, waking the FBI agent from her slumber. He tapped her foot, and her eyes darted open in an instant, her arm protectively covering Diane.
“It’s just me,” he whispered. “I need to talk to you.”
Kendra nodded and squeezed out of her sleeping bag. Diane made a smacking sound with her lips and rolled over, but Val was roused by the movement.
“What is it?” Val asked.
“I need your help,” he said. “Where’s Tony?”
Val pointed a few feet away, and Roland spotted the familiar mop of hair. He went to wake the boy, and soon they emerged from the excessively warm confines of Eden One into the fresh morning air.
It was getting bright already, but there weren’t many people awake yet. Yesterday had pushed the limits of everyone involved, and their tired minds and bodies were paying the price.
“What is it, Rollie?” Tony asked.
“The perimeter. I have an idea. Where would we find things like electrical supplies for the residences?” Roland asked Kendra.
“Damned if I know. My sister might,” she said.
“Good. Can you find her and meet us in the mess hall?” Roland asked, and Kendra nodded, pulling Val along with her. She was taking the role of protector seriously.
“What are we going to do?” Tony asked.
“We are going to… eat. Then help protect this colony.”
* * *
Roland knew Hound would have acquired only the best equipment, and he arranged the fifty motion sensors into a plastic crate. They were wireless, as he’d hoped, and he passed one to Tony.
“These are meant to act as a switch for a light. You walk into a room, the light activates. Make sense?” Roland asked the teenager.
“Sure. That’s pretty basic,” Tony replied.
“Good. We’re going to mount these onto these empty cylinders.” Roland used a tie strap to attach the motion sensor to the container. The water treatment plant had floating balls holding a net up, whose purpose was to keep small fish and plants away from the intake tubes under water. They came in holders much like a tennis ball package. Now they were going to act as the stands for their perimeter sensors.
The two of them were alone outside the camp, and they settled to the ground, placing the devices on the containers one by one and organizing them into neat rows inside the crate.
“Good work. Okay, you carry that, and we’ll strategically set them around camp,” Roland said.
Carrie had given him the go-ahead with his project, and he was glad they were open to suggestions. This wasn’t going to be the most secure system, but until they created a fence, or at least had protected accommodations, it would have to do.
Even from here, Roland saw that the drones and robotic machinery erected large structures at the center of their colony. There were at least three hundred of the one thousand colonists temporarily working on the construction projects, and those people would be doing their regularly assigned tasks once the colony was running smoothly.
Roland wasn’t certain of the planned timeline, but at the rate at which the buildings were being erected, he estimated they would be sleeping in their own rooms within the week. It was exhilarating to think about. Hound might not have considered local predators, but his plans to start a colony were sound.
“You think we’re going to be safe here?” Tony asked Roland.
“I think so. Come on, quit dawdling, we have to place one every few hundred feet.” It wasn’t perfect, and there would be gaps in the perimeter, but it was better than nothing.
Roland had a tablet in his hand, and they tested each of the devices as they planted them on the ground. The base was mostly soft red grass in this region, making their trip simple. They’d have to warn the entire camp to stay within the boundaries; otherwise a guard would be alerted, and Roland really didn’t want anyone to be shot because of his idea. He’d seen a few of Keller’s crew with guns, and in his opinion, they didn’t look bright enough to hold a pencil without poking themselves.
The trip around the camp took an hour, combined with the testing, and by the end, Tony was sweating. He set the crate on the ground. “You could have carried it too, you know,” Tony told him.
Roland waved dismissively. “I have the tablet.” Tony rolled his eyes, and Roland repressed a laugh.
“All set.” Roland scanned the tablet, which showed a map of the region, and the fifty sensors on it. If anything moved past their barrier, they’d know about it.
“Thank you for your ingenuity, Roland. And Tony, for assisting him.” Carrie arrived and reached her hand out for the tablet.
Roland hesitantly passed it to her. “No sweat. Sorry, Tony, too soon?”
The kid wiped his brow with his arm and sarcastically laughed.
“Roland, if you’re done here, would you mind checking on the treatment plant? I’d like to have it operational by the time Keller returns,” she told him.
His shoulders slumped. “Can I borrow Tony again? With Neve… gone, I could use the help.”
Tony shook his head slightly at Carrie, who grinned. “Sure, why not? You two make a good team.” She wandered off, staring at the map on the tablet.
“It appears you won’t get rid of me that easily, kid,” Roland told Tony, and they stopped for water before making the trek to the lake.
They chatted about the predators, and discussed how strange it was that Hound was still missing, but Carrie and Keller didn’t seem overly concerned about it. Roland found it quite off-putting. Soon they were through the path, and at the edge of the water.
“Let me show you around,” Roland said. The grass was dew-covered in the shade of the strange trees. Tony’s eyes darted about as they walked toward the facility on the side of the lake. It wasn’t much, but somehow it was Roland’s little piece of paradise on this new world.
“This is it?” Tony didn’t sound impressed.
“Well, this is the control room. Most of the magic is done inside and underneath.” Roland stepped to the edge of the lake, standing on a rocky shelf. He pointed to the murky water. “See those tubes?”
They were immense, and hard to miss. “Yep.”
“The intake brings lake water in; it runs through the pipe, removing large debris, before entering the filtration tanks. There it runs through tiny microbial filters, removing anything we don’t want to be ingesting. Someone brighter than me will be checking the final results, tweaking the levels and microns of the filters until we have the perfect blend. Think of it like a winery. We’ll have the finest water this side of… the Milky Way,” Roland said, kissing his fingers and spreading them out in front of his face.
“For a guy who knew nothing about this a day ago, you’ve picked up a lot,” Tony told him.
“Kid, you must learn to adapt quickly on… Proxima, or wherever the hell we are. Only the strong survive. Darwin was a smart man,” Roland said. A sound caught his ear, and he motioned Tony to follow him around the facility.
A woman’s voice carried from a short distance, and Roland walke
d a roughly-foraged path through the strangely-shaped trees toward the water. In a secluded cove stood Reverend Shelley Morris, her back to Roland and Tony.
“And here’s the counter to Darwin, our very own fraud,” Roland muttered to Tony.
“We are here on Eden, our New Earth. As our friend Peter said ‘But, in accordance with his promise, we wait for new heavens and a new earth, where righteousness is at home’,” Reverend Morris said.
Roland was beginning to see why she bothered Andy so much. He highly doubted God intended for Earth to be rebuilt on an alien world, but Roland was the first to admit he really had no idea what a higher power would aspire to. Morris sure assumed to know a lot, and she was creating a dangerously loyal group out of the colonists.
“We will be baptized in the water of our New Earth, so our sins of the Old can be sloughed from our skin, like scabs,” she said, making Roland cringe at her choice of words. “Who’s first?”
“I’d like to, Reverend.” Roland spotted Veronica, Kendra’s short-term laundry partner.
“Everyone needs something to believe in,” Tony said softly.
“Sure. Let them have this. As long as I’m not asked to fish for any bodies in the lake after they’re done,” Roland said, turning to leave. His foot stepped hard on a twig, the piece of wood snapping loudly.
“Roland and young Anthony,” Morris’ voice echoed.
“Great,” Roland muttered. He spun around, raising his hands in the air. “What a pleasant surprise. We were just heading into the water for a game of polo. Tony, did you remember the ball?”
Tony gaped at him.
“Matthew tells us, ‘On the day of judgment people will give account for every careless word they speak’.” Morris frowned at him, and Roland noticed a few others of her small congregation shaking their heads.
“Then I guess you’ll have a list to account for as long as the Bible, hey, Shelley? Oh, by the way, in case you missed it, judgment day already happened, and we survived,” Roland said.
Final Days: Colony Page 16