Proxima

by Chase Hildenbrand

  Their line of defense, gone.

  Where was Ray? Or the Proximian hunters?

  Ann stole another look through one of the holes in the side of the craft. For a moment, all was calm. Then she saw them.

  Raiders.

  Out of the jungle they walked, fifteen raiders donning bulky bronze armor to beef out their tall, slender frames. Each carried a type of gun she had never seen before. They were most reminiscent of pistols, but sported lengthier barrels with a pulsing red orb attached to the top. Their heavy boots clanked with each step.

  The hunters must’ve been killed, Ann assumed, for these raiders to be walking out of the jungle so freely. The one in the middle, whose armor featured a series of diagonal multi-colored stripes, spoke loud in its native tongue and raised its arms in the air as if asking if anyone was left to challenge it.

  Overhead, a Z48 retreated back into the sky. The lead raider aimed its weapon and fired at it. The pulsing orb grew brighter before the discharge. A red streak emanated out of the weapon and landed a direct hit on the Z48. The craft wobbled briefly before losing power and plummeted back down to the ground disappearing behind the tops of the trees only to be replaced a second later by a rising fireball.

  “What do we do?” Salena whispered.

  Still with one eye watching through the hole she said, “I don’t know.”

  Then she saw their only hope. Inside the Z48 was a PL-6 rifle still in the weapons locker. But how could she get to it without alerting the raiders of their presence? She needed a distraction.

  “Do you hear that?” Salena asked.

  Ann strained her ears and heard a rumbling noise deriving from the jungle. The rumble grew in intensity and she felt the ground begin to vibrate beneath her. With a thunderous roar her distraction presented itself.

  Bursting out of the tree line came one of the mammoth creatures with the ring of horns around its face. One of the hunters rode atop the beast steering it using reins while Ross followed behind firing his PL-6 at the line of soldiers. With a sweep of its head, the horns impaled two of the raiders’ armor and knocked two others to the ground. The hunter charged the creature with impunity. Some of the raiders managed to fire off shots at the creature, but its hide was too thick to cause much damage. It groaned in pain, but continued its reign of terror as the raiders had no choice but to spread out, though they did not run away.

  “Be right back,” she told a trembling Salena.

  Ann took advantage of the chaos and raced around the Z48 and through the cargo door. She found the weapons locker in the back and said a silent prayer it was unlocked.

  Jackpot.

  She grabbed the lone PL-6 and it hummed to life as she depressed the charge button. On her way back out the cargo door she saw a familiar body thirty feet out lying motionless on the ground. Ray’s body.

  No.

  She started to run to him, but as she stepped out the hefty beast, having taken one too many shots from the onslaught of weapons fire against it, fell at last. Its horns dug into the ground causing a shower of dirt as it slid to a grinding halt. The hunter tumbled off its back and was immediately disposed of by the surviving raiders. At some point while she was getting her rifle, Ross must have fallen as well because he was nowhere to be seen.

  Nothing left now to lose, she raised her rifle and took aim at the lead raider. She fired—her shot went a touch wide and only nicked the breastplate of its armor causing the alien to whip around, but not fall. When it turned to face her, it grimaced into a frightening snarl.

  Seven of the raiders remained and each now faced her.

  “What’s going on?” Salena asked from outside the craft.

  “Stay down and be quiet.”

  Salena must have obeyed because she said nothing further.

  The lead raider said something to the one on its left, who then raised its pistol and fired at Ann hitting her PL-6. She quickly dropped it before it overheated and burned her hand. Then they were on her. Four ran to her and shoved her down to her knees. She tried to fight them off, but it was in vain. They held her down as the lead raider casually walked to face her. For the second time recently she found herself in a lower position than a Proximian with authority who had to lean down to study her.

  Its vertical eyes gazed into her own. It was so close she could smell its awful breath, nearly making her gag, but she remained stoic. It reached out with its hairy gray hand and scratched her cheek with its sharp thumbnail, enraptured by the blood that leaked down her face.

  It grunted and gave another command to the others. They lifted her up and held her elevated in the air. The other raider who was standing nearby then came to her with something in its hands. A needle. She was terrified, but ready to die if it gave Salena a chance to live. The Proximian injected the needle deep into her neck. Seconds later, consciousness slipped away as she closed her eyes, head falling to her chest.

  Salena waited longer than what was likely necessary to come out of hiding. She considered it a miracle to have not been discovered, but was near a state of panic about being the only survivor. She spied through one of the holes on the side of the Z48 and watched the raiders carry Ann into the jungle followed by the harrowing electric whirl of their vehicle taking her away.

  The loneliness was eerie and she had no idea if anyone else lived from the other Z48s that landed earlier. And what was with the emergency radio call before the attack? She heard them say they lost control of the ship. What did that mean? Was help coming?

  It took all her strength to remain standing. The physical and emotional toll of the day was a weighty burden threatening to bring her to her knees and crush her. Never had she felt so empty.

  With each heartrending step she limped through the bloodshed. Already the smell of death lingered in the air. The fires had all burnt themselves out by now, but black smoke still filled the sky above.

  Ray. His body lay flat on his stomach just ahead. She wanted to run to him, but couldn’t find the energy. Tearfully she walked until she stood next to him then knelt down to his level. She placed a hand on his back and cried.

  As she grieved her attention was drawn to her hand resting on Ray’s back. She wiped her tears and watched her hand subtly rise and fall. He was breathing. He was alive!

  “Ray!”

  Carefully, she rolled him over onto his back. He had a grisly wound on his left shoulder that would require immediate attention. She forced herself to sprint to the Z48 and find the first aid kit—knowing there must be one on board. After sufficiently ransacking it, she found the kit stashed in the back under the rear seat. Brilliant place for it, she thought.

  She cleaned Ray’s wound the best she could then she laid on the ground next to him, holding his hand, and wept.

  Chapter 24

  THE COOL BREEZE flowed over Ann, bringing a chill to the dried blood on her cheek as she struggled to wake up. The brisk wind was colder than she was used to on Proxima. Her eyes fluttered open and she found herself staring up at a starry sky. She was on the planet’s nightside.

  She laid on her back, strapped down, on the top of one of the hovering transport vehicles she glimpsed through the trees back in the jungle. Standing tall on either end of her helpless body were two Proximian raiders holding on to railings, their gaze fixed ahead not yet realizing she was awake. Her wrists and ankles strapped to the vehicle, she tried pulling them free, but they were bound too tightly. Another harness belt held her down at her waist.

  Turning her head, she was able to descry her surroundings. The jungle environment was absent—replaced by flat plains lit by the bright moonlight from the planet’s dual moons. She lifted her head and saw beyond the figure blocking most of her view to behold a singular mountain in the distance and they were heading straight for it.

  Electric lights emerged out of the ground dotting the landscape as if triggered by the vehicle’s presence. The protruding lights offered the vehicle a visible pathway to the mountain, reminding her of an airport runway l
it to guide planes to the ground.

  They pulled up to a stop at the mountain’s base, the peak thousands of feet above them. She decided against feigning unconsciousness and tried to fight back when they unstrapped her arms and legs, but they kept their control over her with ease. When they lifted her upright she saw a cave elevated above the base of the mountain. The spacious mouth was filled with light causing the several guards who were posted around the exterior to appear in silhouette.

  The raiders tied her hands together and forced her off the vehicle, a far enough drop to the ground that Ann thought herself lucky not to have sprained an ankle. Gun to her back they marched her to the looming mountain. A cluster of rocks impeded their path that were easily climbed over by the taller Proximians, but a struggle for Ann who was two to three feet shorter with her hands tied in front of her. She could tell their patience was wearing thin as they aggressively shoved her onward bruising her back with the ends of their guns. Several times she tripped on the rocks and landed hard on her front.

  Her body felt broken after the agonizing climb to the cave’s entrance. The guards offered her curious glances and little else as she hobbled inside. The cave had a downward slope, long ago the stalagmites had been filed down to nubs on the floor. The cave narrowed and the walls grew tighter the further they walked. Hundreds of feet in, the cave abruptly ended at a steel door. One of the raiders placed its palm on an adjacent scanner. It beeped three times and the door slid up with a grinding crunch that reverberated off the cave walls.

  What lay beyond the door was one of the most prodigious sights Ann had ever seen.

  She was standing on a platform overseeing the capacious hollowed out interior of the mountain.

  Thick pillars of stone interconnected the bottom to the top to keep the mountain from collapsing and between the pillars was a city. The space inside the mountain was immeasurable. A hundred buildings, some towering fifty stories tall or more, spread out before her while she stood a few hundred feet above the city’s ground level.

  Vehicles of several types roamed roadways, some on the ground and others in the air, while hundreds walked from place to place. Glass walkways connected the buildings at different levels in a series of skybridges.

  At the top a bright light shone down on the city with the same color temperature as the red sun the planet orbited around.

  Ann wanted to remain where she stood gazing down at this marvel of engineering, but she was almost immediately pushed to keep moving. The raiders forced her to take a pathway to her right leading into a tunnel instead of to her left where what looked like service elevators could have taken her down to the city. The tunnel was dark, barely lit by dim bulbs hung to the stone from wire. Water leaking from the tunnel walls pooled in spots under her feet. Further and further they travelled down the path until Ann estimated they were at least a thousand feet below ground, well below the level of the city.

  Then she heard voices—human, cursing at the approaching raiders.

  At the end of the tunnel were ten holding cells, five on each side. The raiders aimed their weapons at the prisoners inside the first cell where Ann was literally thrown into, landing hard on the stone floor. One of the raiders spoke in its deep clicking voice and shut the door behind her. Ann heard the click of a lock.

  People rushed to help her off the floor. Bloodied and bruised, they were especially careful lifting her up.

  “Thank you,” she said.

  They helped her to a bench that extended along the width of the side wall. She looked around at the people confined with her in the cell. She recognized some from Inizio including, to her immense relief, Blaire, who sat on the far end of the bench looking despondent.

  “Blaire! You’re alive!”

  Her friend looked up and they locked eyes.

  “Ann!”

  Blaire broke into a wide smile as she jumped out of her seat and ran to Ann wrapping her arms around her.

  “Ow! Careful, please.”

  “Sorry, sorry. I can’t believe you’re here.”

  Blaire took a seat next to Ann and grabbed her hand.

  “How are you holding up?” Ann asked.

  “Me? Look at you! I’m fine. Just some small cuts when I tried to fight them off. Ann, they came so quickly—out of nowhere. And so violent. We barely had time to send out a distress call.”

  “Adam’s dead.”

  Blaire looked away, paused.

  “I know. I saw it happen as they dragged me away. He was going for our weapon, but he foolishly kept it locked away in a safe. He just couldn’t get to it in time.”

  “I fired a PL-6 at one of them. They got me anyway. I’m afraid nothing could’ve prevented this.”

  “We should have looked harder for signs of life. We were just too excited to get down here to thoroughly scan the planet.”

  Ann had been thinking the same thing. Not one, but two civilizations were overlooked. Both were well hidden, but their scientific tools should have discovered them. They were too hasty.

  “So, where were you?” asked Blaire.

  Ann filled her in starting with meeting Ray in the small village of mud huts, to meeting the Past Keeper, then running through the jungle to warn the camps only to be too late. She told her about the reinforcements coming down from the STS ships only to be ambushed themselves, a calculated move on the Proximians part to maintain their presence to strike again once help arrived.

  “What do you think they want from us?”

  “I don’t know, Blaire. None of it makes sense. They’ve been waiting on us for so long. Perhaps they think it’s kill or be killed?”

  “Or maybe they saw the damage we did to our planet and don’t want that to happen here.”

  “That’s a great point. I hadn’t considered that. Either way, we need to figure out what to do next. We’re locked down here and they might have remotely taken over our ships in orbit. I don’t want to say we’re stuck, but...”

  “How could they take our ships from us? I mean, clearly they’re intelligent, but wouldn’t their computer equipment need to mesh with ours? At least in some way?”

  “If they were observing us before we left, maybe they picked up enough of our tech to properly mimic it here. We don’t know what they’re capable of.”

  “What’s our plan?

  Ann looked over herself. Felt each ache, each bruise. She rubbed a hand over the dried blood scraping it away. There was only one thing they could do.

  “We wait.”

  Liam and Percy stood outside the Proximian Council’s chamber doors waiting to be called in. Two weeks had passed since they left Mars behind with a plan to resettle the passengers and crew of The Hawking on Earth, specifically the coastal community of Haven Springs in the eastern North America region. The site was chosen since the majority of those on The Hawking were familiar with the area formerly known as the northeast of the United States.

  On the voyage from Mars to the Earth, Liam filled everyone in on the situation. As he predicted, most wanted to stay and resettle on Earth. They said they left Earth behind to start new lives and now was the perfect chance to do just that. He couldn’t blame them. He was asking for volunteers to fight a battle light years away

  Percy was the first to step forward for the cause. Crouch, Rednour, and a few others from the bridge crew and security team volunteered as well. With Debra’s help, half of the pilots agreed to stay on and even some passengers. All in all they had nearly four hundred voluntarily enlist.

  Assuming they could convince the council to lend them a ship.

  Zale returned to her EPSD post the day after she walked with Liam to the park. She wished them luck and apologized for doubting them.

  Now everything came down to this meeting.

  The council’s headquarters was located in the old city of Columbus in North America. The site was chosen because the first Unity Summit was held there one year after the Proximians arrived on Earth. To this day, a picture hung in the building’s lobby
of a Proximian leader shaking hands with President Foster. Liam and Percy both enjoyed seeing that upon entering.

  The city had certainly changed over the millennium—quadrupling in size and resembling Pearl City more than the Columbus he was used to. Personal vehicles soared through the city’s skyline. Many buildings now surpassed twenty-five hundred feet. The old American White House was highlighted as one of the continent’s more popular tourist attractions.

  Percy grew impatient, bouncing his leg as he sat. An exasperated Liam was about to tell him to stop when the doors finally swung open. A Proximian wearing what passed for a thirty-second century suit spoke to them and an electronic translator coming from its lapel translated in real time.

  “Please, come in. I am Dyran of the Wrykes.”

  “Hello. I’m Liam Donovan. This is Percy Alvarez.”

  “Pleasure to meet you. I believe we have a mutual friend, Zale Alday.” Dyran led them into a conference room featuring a long oval table where eleven other Proximians waited.

  “Yes, she mentioned she had a friend on the council.”

  “Indeed. Please, have a seat.” Dyran gestured to two empty seats on the near side of the table. Liam and Percy took their seats that were brought in before their arrival to meet the needs of the human body instead of the Proximian’s more slender frames. Dyran took the empty seat on Percy’s right.

  “We understand you wish to speak with us regarding matters concerning the other four ships of your venerable fleet,” Dyran began.

  “Yes. Thank you for agreeing to see us on such short notice. As you know, our ship malfunctioned and we never made it to your native planet. We must assume the other four completed the trip successfully. However, it has come to our attention that the planet wasn’t as safe a destination as we initially believed when we left many years ago.”

  Liam paused to give the council a chance to confirm or deny, but they did neither.

  “We’ve learned that there may be a violent society living on the planet that could endanger our fellow humans as they attempt to make a home for themselves. Is there truth to this?”