by David Ryker
He nodded, still grinning. “Yeah, we’re all here. It’s good to see you, Red. We thought you were done for, for sure.” He breathed a sigh of relief and then pulled the rifle up and leaned it over his shoulder. “This planet — and I say this having been to a lot of them — fucking sucks.”
I couldn’t help but laugh. “You’re telling me.”
“Freezing cold at night,” he started spouting, “and a billion fucking degrees in the day, I mean, what kind of sick fucking people want to settle on a place like—”
“Mac.” Alice’s voice was tempered steel.
My head turned. She was standing on the edge of the trench, rifle in her hands, too. She looked okay — roughed up a little, and she was wearing different clothes than she had been when we’d come in. But despite that, her air was different. Physically she was fine, but something was off.
She stared down at him, cast a cursory glance at me and nodded, restraining a half-smile, and then looked over towards our ship. I followed her gaze. Fish was there, beckoning Everett down. She looked like she was still in shock and was gawking at him like he had two heads.
Alice turned back toward me and cleared her throat. “Volchec?” she asked, her voice even.
I set my jaw and shook my head. “She’s in the ship — a crate in the cockpit.”
Alice looked down and kicked some dirt off the lip into the trench. “If you need anything, get it quickly — I don’t want to stay out here for another minute. Let’s get the hell off this fucking planet.”
Mac pulled me into an embrace before I could say anything. “It’s good to see you, Red. We thought you were dead. The environment here… and the local fauna — well, I don’t need to tell you about it. We were only doing a fly-over before booking off the surface, but it was a good thing, too.” He punched me in the arm and it almost bowled me over. “Why didn’t you send up an emergency distress call or try to raise someone using the ship’s—”
“It was under a meter of earth. We were digging it out when we ran out of water.” My voice was hoarse. I was still dying of thirst, but my guts were already churning from the first drink I’d taken — I checked my watch — more than twenty-five minutes ago now.
“And you made a run in the dark?” Mac cocked an eyebrow. “You got a deathwish, or you just thought it’d be more fun?”
I swallowed, feeling my dry throat fold in on itself. “We weren’t going to last another day, and in the heat…”
“Yeah, yeah.” He waved me down. “It doesn’t matter — you weren’t dinner for one of those things, and that’s all that matters.” He slugged me in the arm again. In my bad arm. My shoulder ached, but I didn’t say anything. “Still, it was a close one. You’re one lucky sonova—”
“MacCalister.” Alice’s voice again. “Volchec’s body — come on.” She slung her rifle over her back and motioned him toward our ship.
“I can help,” I said, turning with him.
“No,” Alice said coldly. “Get to the ship, get cleaned up — something to eat and drink if you need it. We’re leaving as soon as we can.”
I watched as Fish helped Everett down off the ramp. She looked over at me, and then at Alice as she approached. She stopped only for a second, nodded and put her hand on her shoulder, and then brushed past toward the open tail of our Tilt-wing. Everett watched her go in silence.
Alice jumped up and pulled herself into the hold. Mac was already jogging down to where she was.
“Fish,” Alice called out to him. “Keep a perimeter. You see any of those things… Light them up.”
Fish affirmed and turned to face outward, shouldering his rifle. Mac got to the tail, pulled himself up, and then disappeared. I heard his voice in the darkness as I headed to meet Everett, shrugging off the rucksack and dumping it on the ground. “What a fucking mess,” he said, but Alice didn’t reply.
I cracked my back and stretched out my arm. Everett tucked herself under it and we stumbled towards their ship. Where the hell they’d gotten it and what the hell had happened, I didn’t know, but we’d find out soon enough.
We got in through a side door and stared around the halogen-lit cabin. It wasn’t as spacious as the Tilt-wing, but it would do.
It was deadly apparent, though, that it was a scavenger’s ship. In the hold at the back, through an open hatch, bundles of ship parts and other scrap were sorted by type and pinned to the walls in heavy duty nets. At the front was a cockpit with two chairs. Behind on the walls were benches with weapons racks and storage bins over them. Just behind were fold-out bunks stacked two high on either side. Opposite the door was a sizeable locker with a honeycombed hole pattern in it. Inside I could see rifles, handguns, bigger weapons, equipment, and other ordnance stacked up. To the side of that was a unit and sink, a refrigerator and a bunch of latched cupboards. The opposite was a small cubicle big enough to fit a toilet and a shower, but probably nothing more.
But it wasn’t any of those things that caught our eye. We stepped inside and followed a dried blood trail to the pilots’ seats. A thin spray of scarlet covered the left-hand window and headrest. To the right, I could see splatters on the arm of the chair and the right-hand console. Under the controls, I could see a couple of stray teeth.
“Doesn’t look like they asked nicely.” I looked over at Everett and she shrugged back at me.
“I’m not complaining,” she replied, turning toward the kitchenette. She opened the fridge and pulled out a bottle, not bothering to check what it was before she popped the top and drained the contents.
I watched her do it, licking my lips, but before I could ask her to toss me something my stomach turned over, gurgled loudly enough to pull Everett’s interest, and then told me that I needed to confirm the location of the toilet immediately.
I was still in there when I heard the crate with Volchec’s body in it being loaded into the ship. Shortly after, we lifted off. By the time I got out of there, we were already clear of the planet and hurtling through space.
I felt the throttle ease off and I stood up, groggily, clutching my stomach. I hit the flush for the fifth time and listened as the tubes sucked it out of the bowl and jettisoned it into space. I put my hands against the wall over the sink and steadied myself in front of the mirror. I was sweating, cold — feverish. I stared myself in the eyes. They were bloodshot. I looked pale. Fuck.
I wobbled out into the ship and staggered toward the cockpit, slumping down onto one of the benches. Everett was sitting opposite with Fish. Mac and Alice were up front, running through flight checks and talking about our route — where we could go on our limited rations and fuel.
Mac looked over his shoulder, grinning at me, no doubt ready to crack a joke, but the smile faded quickly. He unstrapped himself and got up hurriedly. “Jesus, Red — you look like shit.”
Everett was pushing off, too. She’d been resting her eyes, a ration pack clutched to her chest, but now she was moving as well. Even Fish was on his feet.
My heart was weak and fast in my ears. I could hear water rushing nearby. My arms felt heavy, my breathing tight.
Hands were on me. Two sets. My shoulders, my neck. Distant voices echoed in my head. Everything was in slow motion, lurching with each blink.
“Are those things poisonous, did they bite him?” It was Everett’s voice.
“Don’t think so.” Mac.
“Something environmental — a plant in the forest, or—” Everett again this time, panicked.
“Did you drink any water on the surface?” Mac again. Clinical.
“No — we only ran out this afternoon. This was the first run that we made. We wouldn’t make it ‘til morning… We needed to— shit, it wasn’t a quick trip — what if he—”
“Drank some.” Mac said that one; almost dejectedly.
“Idiot.” Everett’s voice was cutting, even though it was distant and muffled.
“Fucking hell,” Mac sighed. “Uh… Uh…” I could see him running his hands through his hair, turn
ing in circles as he searched the ship. “Shit, I don’t think there’s anything—”
“What is it? What could do this?”
“How should I know? Bacteria? Parasite? Could be anything.” Mac’s voice was devoid of emotion now. He’d flattened out, his war-brain kicking in. Getting worked up wasn’t going to accomplish anything.
“What can we do?” Everett’s voice was reserved, quietly hopeful.
Mac exhaled slowly. “I don’t know. We need to get him to a doctor — to a hospital, or…”
“Or he’ll probably die.” Alice’s voice cut through the running noise in the ship. She turned over her shoulder, but didn’t get up. “He drank water out of a stream on an alien planet — his system was utterly unprepared and now he’s infected himself with some unknown pathogen. If it’s hit him this quickly — in an hour, and he can’t stand on his own — it’s anyone’s guess how long he lasts.” Her eyes came to rest on me. Something was different with her. She seemed utterly cold.
“We have to do something.” Everett was nearly pleading now.
“I’m not sure there’s anything we can do.” Alice was iron.
“We have to—”
“We need to get away from this fucking place — far away, and—”
“He’d do it for you—”
“We can’t just—”
“For fuck sake, Kepler! He did do it for you! Draven. Telmareen. He came back for you — saved your life!” She was screaming all of a sudden.
I wanted to reach out, to touch her, but I couldn’t. All I could do was lie there, my arms like stones.
Alice turned back to the controls and muttered something under her breath before reaching down to the center console. She tapped the screen quickly, deftly. Searching the data with spider-like fingers. She dialed in and tapped on an entry. She expanded it and locked in the coordinates, turning back to us. “There’s one planet that’s within hyper-distance that’s even inhabited, but it’s a long-shot. I doubt they’ll even have the facilities to treat a human.”
“Why not? Are they not humanoids? There must be a Federation embassy there, an outpost?” Everett’s voice was frantic against the methodical tapping and switching of Alice. She was at the helm and her hands were steady.
“There isn’t,” Alice called out, her hands tightening around the controls. “There’s no Federation outpost there. There’s nothing there. No humanoids. No humans.”
“What?” It was Mac now, hauling himself back toward the cockpit. “So why the fuck are we going there if it’s uninhabited?”
Alice’s mouth curled a little — maybe incredulously, like she couldn’t believe we were going there. Maybe with the thrill of it. I couldn’t tell as I stared at her out of the corner of my eye. Hers came to rest on me for a second, and then went back to Mac. “I didn’t say it was uninhabited. Now strap in, this is going to be one hell of a ride.”
7
We dropped out of hyper just outside the atmosphere.
The planet was huge and blue and hung overhead like a giant orb. Alice twisted the controls and it loomed over the right-hand window and then appeared below us.
The ship rattled and juddered as she wrestled us down quicker than she should have. The hull twisted and warped and flames grew over the windscreen. She silenced the alarms and quelled the emergency lighting, pulling us back up and then rolling us sickeningly over again as the artificial gravity gave way to the pull of the planet. The engines whined and we swung down vertically, shrugging off the fire and plunging into a thick blanket of cloud.
The thundering of re-entry swapped out for real thunder and rain speckled the ship. As we sank lower, it hammered like bullets.
They’d strapped me upright and my head lolled in circles as Alice piloted us in. She reached up and opened the comms and the cockpit filled with static. A calm voice cut through it.
“You are in Aelock airspace. Identify yourselves immediately, or we will destroy your ship.” It was even and cold and there wasn’t a hint of doubt in anyone’s mind that it wasn’t serious about doing it.
I stared groggily across at Everett sitting opposite. “Aelock?” I mumbled, wincing as pain exploded in my guts.
She looked grave. “This planet — you’d better be fucking dying for us to risk coming here.”
Alice glanced over her shoulder, glaring at us. We both clammed up as she cleared her throat. “We need help — we have someone on board who’s very sick. He needs immediate medical attention.”
“Humans…” The voice replied with disdain. “Do you know where you are?” It was almost humorous; disbelieving, even.
Alice looked over her shoulder at me again, checking if I was actually about to die. She looked disappointed that I was — but not because of the fact that I was going to die, but rather that it meant we couldn’t peel off the surface and get the fuck out of there. “Yes,” she said, “we do. But we are friends of your kind—”
“Friends?” The voice laughed this time. “Your kind use and destroy us. Friends.” It scoffed. “And how do you intend to substantiate this claim?”
She let out a mixture of a groan and a growl. “Don’t blow us out of the sky, and I’ll show you.”
There was silence for a moment and then the voice rang in the cabin. “Very well — you’ll have your chance. Proceed as directed.”
“As directed—?” Alice started saying before the line went dead. The ship started vibrating and then wobbled in the jetwash of the two ships that descended out of the cloud either side of us. They were fixed-wing crafts — not space capable. Sleek bodies and wide wings, darkened glass cockpits mounted on top of the nose.
They hung on either side of us. Alice looked each way and then sighed, calling out but not taking her eyes off the sky. “Red, how good is your relationship with that rig of yours?”
I picked my head up, raising an eyebrow. I couldn’t think straight — couldn’t get my mind out of my guts. I processed her words and nodded. “Yeah — we’re… But he’s back on…” I looked toward the back of the ship, realizing that he was still on that planet, half buried in the sand somewhere, cooking in the dirt. “It was… it was good,” I finished solemnly.
“You’d better hope so — because I’m staking all of our lives on it.”
We lumbered down into worsening weather, breaking through the swirling mist and into thick bands of rain.
The planes guided us down toward a skyline carved in black against the storm. A bolt of lightning flashed behind it, the towering buildings standing strong against the buffeting wind.
The skyscrapers grew until they stood around us, the planes slowing down as a lane of flashing lights guided us toward a raised pad standing in the heart of the sprawling city. Lights burned up and down the towers, disappearing into the storm above.
The planes overtook us and peeled off, climbing vertically and rolling back over out of the city. Ahead we could see bodies beginning to file out of the base of the building the pad was in front of.
Alice pulled the nose up and eased off the thrusters. The jets passed low over the lip and vaporized the standing water on the landing pad, sending plumes of steam into the air. She set us down and we slid a few meters before she killed the engines. They wound down and she jumped up from her seat, running toward the hold. Mac was up as well, ejecting and checking the magazine on a heavy-looking pistol. Alice called down from the back of the ship. “No guns!”
Mac’s eyes widened. “You can’t be serious.”
“No. Guns.” She enunciated the words forcefully, unpinning the netting on one of the bundles secured to the wall.
I watched, my breathing fast and shallow. My tongue had swollen up in my mouth and my head was pounding.
She came back to the cockpit, something in her hand, and motioned at me with the other. “No guns. Get him up.” She pointed her finger at Mac. “And keep your mouth shut — this isn’t just unprecedented, it’s fucking crazy. Say your goodbyes now, because the second this door open
s, we might just eat some bullets.”
Everett and Mac pulled me to my feet and walked me to the hatch. My legs were numb. Alice was standing in front. I could see her shoulders rising and falling with each breath, her fists clenched at her sides. One was empty, the other was wrapped tightly around a metal cylinder. It was black, but nicked and dinged a little. At the back of it there were a series of connectors, and hanging off them were hacked-off wires.
She hit the door release and it whirred open, letting the storm in. It whipped through the cabin and the temperature plunged. I felt the cold lick of rain on my face and raised my hand to it, touching my clammy skin.
Alice stepped down onto the pad and Mac and Everett carried me after. The scene in front of us was beyond belief. I knew exactly where we were, though I hadn’t thought I’d ever see it.
Standing there in the rain were five figures. Three were standing at the front, a trio of representatives, and at the back two more, a stretcher between them. The rain smashed into it and hazed off in a gray cloud.
The three at the front stepped up, their metal parts gleaming in the light of the city. The one in the middle was near two meters tall, his shoulders broad. His face was a worn canvas mask reminiscent of a human’s, its two spherical eyes, emitting a faint green glow, moving over us, the lenses inside zooming in and out as they focused on our faces in turn. Slung across its shoulders to keep the rain off was a long green cloak, hood clinging to its domed steel skull.
Its frame was metal and stark, a patchwork of exposed rods and hinged joints and pistons all pumping slowly. It’d no doubt been clad in some sort of identifying dress or plating before it’d fled here, to the planet run by androids, but that was gone now.
The other two were less robotic, but more unnerving. The one on his left was female and draped in red robes. Her features were oddly human, but it was just a face-plate mounted on the metal backing. It was unmoving, no doubt lacking fine motor drivers to imitate expression, but otherwise, it was unsettling. I wondered if the mouth opened when it spoke.