“No, ma’am,” David replied. “All systems nominal.”
“So how come I’m suddenly getting all these messages? Did they get backed up somewhere along the line?”
David gave a noncommittal grunt. “Unlikely. I guess it’s just your lucky day. Do you want me to come over and take a look?”
“No,” Lyndsey said quickly. “I’m sure you’re right. My last message must’ve finally caught someone’s attention.”
She returned her attention to the comms panel, selecting the most recent message and planning to work backward until she unraveled the whole truth.
Urgent update, she read. That sounded promising, so she hurriedly read the rest of the message.
Revised Mission Parameters - URGENT ACTION REQUIRED
In the light of recent disruptive cyber-attacks by the self-styled Terran Alliance, all launch windows allocated to the Galactic Resettlement Corps have been canceled with immediate effect. This is to ensure the safety of passengers and crew. Please be advised that in the current operating environment, it is impossible to dispatch a ship to your location, and as a result, the proposed mission to rescue the settlers of planet V536 has been postponed indefinitely.
“No,” Lyndsey whispered. “They can’t do that. They can’t just…” but her voice deserted her as she read on.
Further, it has become necessary to terminate our contract with your employer. With immediate effect, all seeding operations are to be suspended. Please note that it is your employer’s responsibility to arrange for you and your crew to return to Earth, but since no launches are currently scheduled, our advice is that you prepare for an extended stay on Planet V536. Your priority is the survival of your crew.
We have simulated a range of options, and our recommendation is that the fleet should return immediately to base camp in order to make use of the supplies stockpiled in your landing modules. We have calculated that the base holds enough supplies and equipment to maintain your crew for an extended period.
These are your new priorities: conserve energy, ration your supplies, and maintain the morale of your crew.
Good luck and may God have mercy on your souls.
Message ends.
***
Lyndsey burst in through the cockpit door, surprised to see Kyrksen alone. She’d instructed him to have a co-pilot at all times, and one of the techs should’ve been there with him. But it hardly mattered now. “Stop the truck!”
“What the hell are you talking about?” Kyrksen stared at her, a derisive sneer curling his lips.
“Stop the goddamned truck!” Lyndsey snapped. “We’re turning around.”
“But that’s ridiculous,” Kyrksen protested. “We’ve only been back on track for a few hours. If we stop now, we’ll never—”
“It doesn’t matter,” Lyndsey interrupted. “The mission is over. Finished. The company screwed us over and the GRC hung us out to dry.”
Kyrksen’s face fell. He ran his hands over the controls and the drone of the truck’s engines grew less strident. Lyndsey was thrown forward as the truck slowed, and she grabbed the back of the pilot’s seat for support.
Kyrksen opened a comms channel and began speaking immediately. “All trucks, this is Kyrksen in truck one. Come to a halt and wait for further instructions. Kyrksen out.” He turned to Lyndsey. “What about the drones? Do you want them called back?”
Lyndsey nodded. “See to it. Then call a meeting. I want all the pilots in here in ten minutes. I’ll be waiting in the back.” She turned to leave, but Kyrksen called out to her.
“Wait! You’ve got to tell me what’s happening. What’s the problem? Why do you say the mission’s over?”
Lyndsey hesitated, her hand on the cockpit door. “The GRC has suspended all launches. The settlers are stuck here, and so are we.”
“No.” Kyrksen shook his head. “That doesn’t make sense.”
“The Terran Alliance has attacked the GRC, and this time it’s serious. No launches at all. No rescue mission. No recovery ship. Nobody is headed this way. Nobody.”
Kyrksen’s hand flew to his mouth, and he stared out through the windshield, his eyes glazed. When he looked back at Lyndsey, he seemed to have aged five years in as many seconds. “What are we going to do?”
Lyndsey gave him a meaningful look. “They’ve told us to go to base camp and dig in. They reckon we can use the supplies to hang on as long as possible.”
“But that’s…that’s…” Kyrksen held out his hands in a show of exasperation. “We haven’t been back there for seven years. The symbiont around there will be well into phase two by now. It’ll be three feet thick and searching for minerals, eating into the substrate. There’ll be nothing left alive for miles in every direction. Nothing. Not even water. There’ll be no way to resupply. We can’t survive on emergency rations, not for long. It’s just not possible.” He unfastened his safety harness and stood shakily, his voice rising. “We can’t go back there, it’ll be suicide. Please, you must see this, Lyndsey. We’d be better off heading into the—”
“Don’t be a fool,” Lyndsey snapped. “You said it yourself—the symbiont will catch up with us in the end. We can’t run from it. But at base camp, we could dock with the landing modules, and then we could leave these damned trucks and concentrate on staying alive. That has to be our best hope doesn’t it?”
Kyrksen clutched his scalp. “No! Have you asked Alec? What does he think about this?”
“I haven’t told him yet. I’ll announce it at the meeting.”
“What a goddamned mess,” Kyrksen muttered. “What a monumental screw-up.”
“That’s something we can agree on,” Lyndsey said. “But we have to rise above it. Call in the pilots and tell Crissy to withdraw the drones. I’ll go and get ready. And Kyrksen, at the meeting, I might need your support. I hope I can count on it. We need to show a united front or the crews will fall apart, and we have to avoid that. Whatever happens, we have to keep the fleet together or we won’t make it.”
Kyrksen held her gaze for a long second, but his usual glint of devious rebellion was dulled by despair. He nodded. “Understood. We’ll head to the base camp. I don’t like it, but I have to accept it. I can’t see what else we can do.”
“Thanks.” Lyndsey chewed her lower lip. “The settlers—how long do you think they’ve got?”
Kyrksen sniffed. “A few years. The symbiont mat in those parts wasn’t developing as fast as it should, but eventually, it’ll be dense enough to reach phase two. And as you well know, once the symbiont digs into the substrate, it will start forming structures, and then it’ll take more than a little wall to hold it back. They won’t stand a chance.”
“That’s what I thought,” Lyndsey said, then she turned and walked back into the main compartment, taking her place at her workstation and ignoring the anxious glances she was getting from David and the other techs. What was it that the message had said? Good luck and may God have mercy on your souls. She snorted under her breath. It would take more than good wishes to get the fleet all the way back to the base camp and then hold the crews together for years on end while they waited for a ship to take them home; it would take a miracle.
She thought of Connor and the others, placing their faith in each other, in their community. When she’d first read the message from Earth, for a split second, she’d considered taking the fleet to join them on the hill; if they pooled their resources they could try and weather the storm together. But she’d known, deep down, that Connor’s high ideals would surely flounder on the barren rock of this desolate planet. Ultimately, the settlers’ dreams of a shared future would not be enough to keep them alive. If a rescue mission had been launched quickly enough, they might’ve stood a fighting chance, but as the situation stood, the settlers were destined to meet a dreadful end.
The image of Siobhan’s determined expression came to her mind, and a swell of pity rose in her stomach. The young woman had reminded Lyndsey of the person she used to see when
she looked in the mirror. But that version of herself was long gone, swallowed up by years of compromise and necessity. It hadn’t been particularly difficult for Lyndsey to rise in her chosen field; she’d simply been better than everyone else. From the beginning of her career, she’d dedicated her life to the goal of opening up new worlds for settlement. She’d led the effort to develop the symbiont, certain that it was a step in the right direction. She’d never looked back, never doubted the necessity of the mission. But what had she sacrificed along the way? Where was her conscience, her soul?
Something stung the corners of Lyndsey’s eyes, and she dabbed at them with the back of her hand. Tears would serve no purpose. She’d made her choices, and now she’d take the consequences. But what had the settlers done to deserve their fate?
I should’ve told them the truth, she thought. I shouldn’t have hidden it—not from them. But she shook her head, dismissing the idea with the contempt it deserved. There was no way she could’ve risked the information leaking to her crew. Only a very few members of her team knew the real nature of the symbiont. As second in command, Alec knew most of the details, and Crissy had been given a few salient facts to help her set up the drones correctly. That made a grand total of three people on the planet who’d been given a privileged glimpse of the truth, although Lyndsey was pretty sure that Lara, with her expert knowledge of lifeforms and ecosystems, had her suspicions. Four of us.
No one else had a clue. No one. Not even Kyrksen, despite the way he constantly tried to lord it over the others. Lyndsey allowed herself a grim smile, imagining Kyrksen’s reaction if he ever found out that his much-vaunted knowledge was little more than a web of half-truths and convenient lies.
In reality, the symbiont was more advanced, more virulent and destructive than the others could guess at. And if they ever discovered the brutal nature of the biological storm they’d helped to unleash on this planet, Lyndsey would be hard-pressed to maintain order, and perhaps, as their leader, her own life would be in jeopardy.
The truth wouldn’t have saved the settlers anyway, Lyndsey told herself. There’d been no point in shattering their dreams. Better to let them live on in hope. In the absence of a rescue mission, they’d be struck down by the symbiont eventually, but in the meantime, they’d live life as best they could. And perhaps, if they were lucky, their end would be swift. I envy them, Lyndsey thought. Unlike her, they’d never have to live with the knowledge that their hopes were futile and their efforts in vain. Like every other living thing on this planet, the settlers were destined to be absorbed into the seething mass of blue-green symbiont that would cloak every square inch of the landscape and choke the oceans.
The processing phase, when it finally arrived, would reap a bitter harvest, but at least the settlers would never know that the seeds of their destruction had been sown before they’d even landed on this planet. It was a wonder they’d survived; the odds had always been stacked against them. But somehow, they’d made it this far. Perhaps their luck would hold for a little longer, and maybe a few of them would still be alive when the processing ships finally arrived, but it didn’t seem likely. The house always wins, Lyndsey thought. Every single time.
Connor and his friends had been living on borrowed time, and now there was nothing they could do to save themselves. Nothing at all.
RIFT
Colony B Book IV
PROLOGUE
Planet V536
The man was lucky; he knew that. He had food and water. He had the huts. At least, that’s what he called them. The buildings had fancy names. Proper names. But he preferred huts.
Yes, he was lucky. But there was one downside, one problem that gnawed away at him like an ache in his bones, and there nothing he could do about it. He was lonely. That was the top and bottom of it. He missed Deborah.
Deborah had been strong and determined. Clever too. She’d kept him going when things had gotten tough. And she’d rigged up the power supply. Without it, he wouldn’t have been able to keep the green stuff away, and that was the most important thing. Plus, with the power on, the filtration system kept the air inside the huts perfectly safe, and it made the water drinkable and ran the recycling systems. And the indoor lighting—well, that was certainly a comfort in the long, empty evenings.
Shame about the comms though, he thought. Deborah had tried to get them working, but something was missing. The command module, she’d called it. It had been removed, presumably by the people who owned the huts, and without it, the comms couldn’t be coaxed back into life. There was no way around it.
What was it she’d said? I’m not a miracle worker. You can’t make a silk purse out of a sow’s ear.
The man smiled. He’d always liked her little sayings. They were one of the things he missed. One of the things.
Not a miracle worker. To him, she had been just that. She’d made the days bearable, made this place a home. I’ll visit her later, he decided. He had no flowers to leave at her graveside, but he’d sit by her for a while and dust off his happy memories. God knows that wouldn’t take long; their time together had been too short. He tried to visit her grave every few days and spend at least half an hour there. It wasn’t enough to repay her kindness, her warmth, her generosity, but it was something. And it was all he could offer. If only I had something to take her, he thought. Lilies. That was what you left at a graveside, wasn’t it? White lilies.
“She’d have liked that,” he murmured and sat up with a start. Had he just said that out loud? He cocked his ear, half expecting to detect an echo of his own voice. He talked to himself all the time, but it was disconcerting not to know whether he’d just been doing it. It was as if he was losing his grip; the border between thoughts and actions becoming blurred and muddled. If you carry on like that, you’ll lose it completely, he told himself. You’ve got to keep it together.
He stood and crossed to the window, looking out beyond the chain-link fence and staring out across the bizarre landscape. Deborah had fixed the fence and locked the gate too. Nobody could get inside without his knowledge. He was safe. Locked away from the outside world.
The man let his gaze roam over the surreal forest of twisted living statues, marveling at the way the light caught the blue-green branches and made them glisten as if they’d been freshly painted. It’s grown since yesterday, he thought. The trees were getting wider, stronger, reaching farther into the air. He stayed at the window, lost in thought until he caught sight of his reflection in the grime-smeared glass, a foolish grin on his lips, his eyebrows raised in an exaggerated expression of dumbfounded amazement. What the hell am I doing? Grinning like a goddamned idiot! He scraped his hand down his face, muttering, “Trees! They don’t look anything like damned trees. Green and tall but that’s about it.”
He scowled. Real trees, like they had back on Earth, were beautiful, soaring into the sky, brimming with life. But the gnarled and twisted structures growing outside were nothing like that. They were ugly, deformed, gangling things, crowded together and stretching to the horizon in every direction; more like an infestation than a forest. Oh, they were alive all right, that was for sure. But they didn’t harbor life, they destroyed it. To touch them meant certain death.
“Oh, Deborah,” he whispered, “why did you do it? Why did you try? We had everything we needed right here, didn’t we?”
But, as always, he knew the simple answers to those questions. Deborah had been an engineer, a problem solver. She’d been compelled by her curiosity, driven to find out more. She’d done what she had to do.
The man stared at the glass, and for a moment, his reflection faded away, replaced by a vision of Deborah’s face; her sweet, kind face. Look at me, moping around, he thought. If she could see me now, what would she say?
He allowed himself a small smile. “She’d say, we’ll get through this,” he murmured. “She’d say, you can do it, so pull yourself together, Parkins. Pull yourself together.”
CHAPTER 1
The Rover
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“She’s late,” Siobhan said, strapping herself into one of the rover’s rear seats. Taking his place next to her, Ben gave her a shy smile, and she returned it, but she left it that, determined to keep things professional during the trip.
In the driving seat, Cate drummed her fingernails on the control panel. “Yes, she is. And I don’t like hanging around in here. Gives me the creeps.”
Siobhan glanced out the side window, but it was dark in the cave, and all she saw was her own reflection. “She won’t be long.”
Cate tutted under her breath. “Maybe we should go without her. To be honest, I’m not even sure why she’s coming along.”
Ben shifted in his seat. “Come on, Cate. We’ve been through this. These trips aren’t just recon—they’re good for people.”
“Sure,” Cate agreed. “It’s good for folks to get past the wall once in a while. Great. But when they keep us waiting, it puts a kink in my routine, and you know how I feel about that.”
“Oh yes, we all know about that,” Ben replied with a broad grin, but when Siobhan cast a frown in his direction, his smile vanished.
“What do you say, Shiv?” Cate asked. “Shall we go without our passenger? I mean, she can’t be too bothered if she doesn’t even turn up on time.”
“Give her a little while longer,” Siobhan said. “It’s a long climb up here, and Tessa is still carrying an injury.”
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