by J. N. Chaney
“Iris, damage report,” Stacy yelled.
Arun had a red holo card out. She was shouting something to Elon, who piloted The Orion from the ship’s bridge.
Elon’s voice came through worried. “What’s going on? Are you all right?”
“I’m patching Elon through now so we can all speak together,” Iris informed everyone in a very calm tone. “We need to exit this level immediately. The next turbine is unstable and will blow any minute. We need to evacuate the ship. We are being pulled out of slip space. With the Navigation Core damaged, I have no idea where we are or where we will be when we are pulled out.”
“Head for medical,” Stacy told the suits carrying their wounded. “We’ll be in contact as soon as we can.”
The suits nodded and left in the first elevator.
The rest of us got into the second elevator in a hurry.
“Why are you talking about evacuating the ship?” Elon asked Iris though the comm unit.
“Navigation and a single turbine are going to take us down?” Arun asked.
Ricky hit a button on the holographic elevator wall and we were off.
“No, but we could be exiting slip space anywhere in the known or unknown galaxy,” Iris explained. “We could be headed for a black hole or a sun for all I know. It would be prudent to prepare for evacuation.”
The elevator doors opened, and we walked out into the Assembly Level. People were screaming, looking to one another for direction as we exited, but that’s not what caught our eyes.
We looked past the shaking of the floor beneath our feet and the sounds of tearing steel to what lay outside the ship. The slip stream that was usually multicolored lights of blues, oranges, yellows, and greens, was now turning clear for the first time since we left Earth three weeks ago.
We were drawn toward the glass to see where we had been kicked off course. When the multicolor of slip space finally evaporated, my heart sunk.
We were outside of a massive planet that resembled Earth, in as much as there were large bodies of water and landmasses. The bad news was, we were so close to the planet, its gravitational pull began sucking us in toward it. Slow at first but steadily stronger.
I was no scientist, but I understood a no-win situation when I saw one. Without the turbines giving us power, we weren’t getting out of this gravitational pull. We were going down.
“Get as many people into escape pods and escape ships as you can, right now,” Arun said in a defeated tone. “Elon get yourself into a pod—that’s an order. We’re going down.”
“Maybe I can pull us up somehow once we get closer to the ground, maybe—”
A rumbling filled The Orion along with screams and cries for help. Another explosion went off somewhere, losing the connection with Elon altogether.
“Elon. Elon, can you hear me?” Arun shouted. “Elon, come in!”
Only silence answered her desperate cries.
“I’m going for my brother,” Arun said, taking off at a run. “Get as many people to safety as you can. Go!”
Stacy, Ricky, and I leaped into action, heading for the escape pod level in the middle of the ship. The Orion was equipped with enough pods to house every single person in The Orion, should the need arise.
I was part of the team that installed the escape crafts in place. Thousands of smaller cargo ships lined the perimeter of The Orion in a single ring. Along with these ships were also single and double manned escape pods that were built for a single purpose, surviving a crash.
“Everyone, please make your way to level one hundred and fifty where the escape pods are located,” Iris’ voice was magnified over the comm system in The Orion. “There is enough room for everyone. Please, in an orderly fashion, make your way to level one hundred and fifty.
Orderly fashion my ass, I thought to myself as we ran for it along with everyone else on the level. There’s no way this ends well.
Reaching the elevators, there was already a mass of people cramming into them. We joined them all, squishing ourselves into one.
“I’ll be in contact,” Iris said as the doors closed with her on the other side. “I need to make sure as many people reach the escape pods as possible.”
“Be safe,” Stacy said what I was thinking.
Iris nodded, and the doors closed.
I had no idea what death would be like for a Cognitive. I imagined somewhere on board was a power source that gave her shape and thought. Right now, that didn’t seem important. We were crammed in shoulder to shoulder with a group of people crying, asking what was happening, and angry they didn’t know. I was the last to get into the shuttle, so I was pressed up against the closed doors with Ricky’s elbow in my back.
“We’re going to all exit when the elevator doors open and head for an escape ship or an escape pod,” Stacy shouted over the noise in our steel can. “You’re going to be fine.”
“My son!” a man shouted from the back somewhere. “I have to get my son. I’m not leaving without my son.”
More shouts like this filled the elevator.
“Everyone is being instructed to get to the escape bay as soon as possible,” Stacy informed them. “The best bet of finding your loved ones will be there.”
The elevator doors opened, and there were people everywhere, running, shouting, crying, and screaming. We stepped out on the floor as a groan from The Orion reminded us of how dire our situation really was.
The level was wide open with white tile underneath and a large, bright screen overhead. A video played of a smiling woman going through the motions of calmly securing herself into an escape pod. She never stopped smiling and grinning, as if she were about to embark on a vacation instead of trying not to die in a horrible crash.
“Let’s go, let’s go,” Ricky said, grabbing both myself and Stacy by the arm and running forward.
“I can’t,” Stacy pulled away going to an elderly woman who had tears in her eyes. The grey-haired woman looked around confused. “They need our help.”
Ricky looked at me, motioning for me to follow. I glanced around. There were elderly, kids, and even a few adults, who were either held stock still by fear or genuinely didn’t know what to do.
“Dean,” Ricky shouted. “Let’s go!”
My eyes landed on an old man who had tripped and fell. He was being trampled in the rush of people arriving on the elevator to get to pods. A line of blood gushed from the right side of his face.
Oh, here we go again, I said to myself. Are you really going to do this?
“Go!” I shouted to Ricky. “I’ll catch up.”
He started to argue, but I didn’t listen.
I elbowed my way to the old man, shoving people aside and receiving a few shoves myself. I leaned down, grabbing the terrified man by the arms and lifting him up. I directed him over to a ship that was already filling.
“Th-thank you,” he said.
“Get on a ship,” I told him, leading him to the open hatch. “The ship’s autopilot will take you to the planet.”
He nodded numbly, obeying my instructions.
I helped a confused family, then a little boy find his father and on and on. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Ricky helping as well. I would have to give him a hard time about that later if we survived this.
I lost track of time, but it couldn’t have been more than a few minutes when things turned from bad to worse. Escape ships and pods were beginning to fill up. One by one, they disengaged then broke away from The Orion. Whether it was a malfunction of one of the ships taking off, or something else altogether, I’ll never know. One second, I was leading a family to a waiting escape ship, and the next, a tear the size of a small ship burst through the far side of the escape level.
Cold air acted like a vacuum, sucking people out. Hundreds, maybe thousands of Transients were pulled off their feet and thrown out into the frigid air beyond. Their screams echoed as they were grabbed by the hungry hands of space and ushered to their graves.
The p
ull took me off my feet like a giant vacuum cleaner. I slid across the tile floor toward my death. My arms flailed widely, as I tried to grip anything that would keep me rooted to my spot, but the floor was too slick, and there was nothing to hold onto.
“Got ya!” Ricky said, latching onto my right arm with his own. He anchored his body to an escape pod entrance set into the wall with his left arm and feet. “I wasn’t going to leave you that easily.”
I grabbed onto his arm, pulling myself to the steel rod he used to anchor himself. Looking through the tangled hair that had fallen in my face, I had slid dozens of yards from my previous spot. All around us, people were already in ships or sucked out into the atmosphere.
“We’ve done all we can,” Ricky screamed over the sound of the rushing wind. “It’s time to go!”
I knew he was right, even if I didn’t want him to be. Abandoning The Orion was like admitting defeat. We had worked so hard together to stop the sabotage, but in the end, it didn’t make a difference.
“Dean!” Rick screamed. “It’s time to go! We have to go, now!”
I nodded.
He reached for a lever beside us, opening the two-person escape pod and climbing inside. I joined Ricky, taking a last look at The Orion before I closed the hatch.
The wonders of humankind were truly boundless and so was their hate. It had taken years to build a ship like this and only the anger of a few to bring it down. I slammed the seal shut in front of me before I could get too deep in thought for my own good.
A lever I twisted in place, ensured the circular hatch was sealed airtight. The single steel bar was a bear to maneuver, but I put some muscle into it, and it finally agreed to fall into place.
“You ready?” Ricky said as he opened the secure clear glass the disengage button was under. “If we die because we stayed a few minutes longer to help those people inside their own escape pods, I’m blaming you.”
“I’ll keep that in mind,” I said as The Orion spasmed again. I clipped into the five-point harness, tightening the strap around my waist as well as my shoulder. “Do it!”
“Here we go!” Ricky yelled, slamming his fist onto the button that would separate us from the falling Orion.
Chapter 23
As soon as Ricky hit the disengage button, we were jettisoned into the air. We didn’t fall away from The Orion— it was more like we were shot out from the ship.
My stomach twisted inside my gut as I held onto the harness at my chest. I gritted my teeth, trying to hold back from yelling.
Ricky wasn’t holding back at all. He was calling out for every saint, god, deity and higher power I had ever heard of.
“Oh, Virgin Mary, save me. Save me!” Ricky was yelling. “I promise, I’ll never gamble again if you see me through this.”
The fall felt like an eternity. I focused on what I knew about the escape pods. They were equipped to take a fall like this. They had measures to hit their own thruster once they were a certain distance from land and again, to deploy a landing buffer when we were about to make contact with the planet.
This knowledge really didn’t help as we waited for the inevitable end of the fall.
“Help us! I’m sorry, I repent from my evil ways!” Ricky screamed. “Just don’t let me die. Not like this!”
The sphere righted itself, and the thrusters kicked in, slamming my tailbone hard into the seat. The seatbelts pressed against my shoulders, knocking the air out of me.
Glancing out the window to my right, The Orion was still falling. Breaking into multiple pieces, it scattered across the planet like a jigsaw puzzle. While the bulk of the ship headed somewhere to the north, smaller pieces that resembled comets, landed haphazardly around.
Hundreds, maybe thousands of escape pods and shuttles made their way down to the alien planet below. Overhead, two strange suns shone brightly. One was almost orange while the other was a bright yellow.
“We-we made it,” Ricky said, breathlessly as we descended to the planet below.
“Not quite yet,” I reminded him as the thrusters slowed our fall. “We have one more—”
A pop sounded from outside the sphere as the landing bags were deployed.
The air was really sucked out of my lungs this time as our pod landed down. A violent tremor rocked our ship one last time. Ricky was coughing. He touched himself over his arms and chest.
“We made it! We’re alive,” he said. “I don’t have to haunt you in the next life now.”
My brain immediately kicked in to action. We were on an unknown alien planet, only halfway through the journey to Kronos Five. We had no idea of knowing if the planet we were on had any water resources, let alone breathable air.
“There’s a holo pad here somewhere,” I said, releasing myself from my straps and digging into the supplies every escape pod was equipped with. “I remember from the training videos we had to watch.”
“You actually watched those?” Ricky asked, also unclipping himself and reaching for his groin. “Oh man. I feel like my balls were sucked into my stomach, we landed so hard. There goes the idea of ever having kids.”
I ignored Ricky for the time being, looking into the side compartment between my seat and the right side of our escape pod. Sure enough, a holo pad came away in my hands from a section of the seat.
I opened the display searching the strange menu. I clicked on the tab that said environment and read the data as it appeared in front of me.
Location: Unknown
Temperature: 75 degrees Fahrenheit
Air Breathability: Positive.
Fresh water sources: Detected.
Life forms: Detected.
I hunched back into my seat, grateful after reading the display. Ricky followed along with the readout as well.
“Life forms are the other survivors from—from the ship, right?” Ricky laughed, nervously. “I mean, we’re not talking about aliens, right?”
“I’m sure it's just the other survivors,” I said, waving away the idea. “As far as anyone knows, we’re alone in the universe. No intelligent life, unless the government has been hiding something like in those old conspiracy holos.”
“Right, right, of course,” Ricky said, trying to convince himself that was the case. “I’m sure that’s true.”
I grabbed the holo pad again, searching for the option to communicate with either The Orion or the other escape crafts in the area.
“I really wished I would have watched those training videos now,” Ricky said, looking at me helplessly.
“It’s all right. We’ll figure it out,” I said, maneuvering around the options menu. “My eyes landed on a button labeled communication. I tapped it, opening a screen that showed another button with the word “talk” on it. I pressed it down. “Hello, can anyone hear me out there?”
I released the button and waited for a response.
“Hello, hello can you hear us this is—” a voice I didn’t recognize, answered. “Oh god, what is that? What is that? Some kind of mist. Help us—”
Ricky looked up at me horrified. Static cut through our transmission. I pressed down the button again.
“Say again, say again,” I said swallowing hard. “Do you read me?”
Static.
“There has to be thousands of escape pods out there. Why don’t we hear any others?” Ricky asked.
“Maybe it’s only meant for short wave transmission? Maybe our antenna was damaged in the landing? I’m not sure,” I responded. “But we’re not going to figure it out in here.”
“Did you hear those people on the other end before it went all static?” Ricky looked at me shaking his head. “No thank you. They were terrified. Something was coming for them. I’m not going out there.”
“Well, there’s not exactly a future for us in here,” I said, maneuvering around my seat and beginning to take stock of our surroundings. “We’ve got to find others. We have to see if The Orion is salvageable.”
“Salvageable,” Ricky said, shaking hi
s head. “You saw what happened, right? The ship completely broke apart. There’s no way it survived. “We’re stuck. We’re stranded here. Wherever here is.”
I was getting annoyed. I knew all of this as well as Ricky, but what was I supposed to do? Roll over and die? That wasn’t me. I was a lot of things, but I sure as hell didn’t give up.
“You can stay here if you want,” I said, finding a black backpack on the opposite side of my seat. “But I’m going out there.”
“Dean, it’s over, man,” Ricky said, staring out the right window. “We’re dead. We’re never getting back. We’re never going to be found. We’re—”
“Stop it,” I said, reaching across the narrow space between us and grabbing his collar. My anger took over. I stared my friend in the face, trying to put words to my feelings. “Maybe it is over. Maybe we all die here, but I’m not going to die without a fight. It’s not who I am. It’s not who you are. We’ll find a way to survive. We have to.”
I realized what I was doing and pulled myself back, trying to contain my frustration. I released Ricky’s bunched up collar and fell back into my seat.
“I’m sorry,” I said. “I’m sorry, Ricky. You didn’t deserve that. You’ve been nothing but a friend to me.”
“It’s okay, man,” he said. His eyes never left the window to his right. “Hey, is it just me or is that another escape pod?”
I turned to follow his gaze. With his right pointer finger, he directed me to what looked like a sloping grass hill a hundred yards to our right. A white sphere like ours had landed on the slope. The hatches were closed. Whoever was in there, they must still be inside.
“Ricky, you got to listen to me,” I said, trying a different approach. “Maybe it’s like you said, and there’s no getting off here. Maybe we’re all dead anyway. But I’d rather spend the last breath in my lungs trying to live, rather than roll over and die. We’re survivors, both of us. Tell me I’m wrong.”
Ricky slowly nodded, then turned to look at me. The glazed expression of shock was gone from his eyes. “You should have been a coach or a motivational speaker or something,” Ricky managed to say with a smile. “Okay, fine. Let's grab whatever we can and take a look outside. What’s the worst that could happen? We die from a wild animal attack?”