by J. N. Chaney
“What do you think happened to them?” Ricky asked.
“I don’t know, but that footprint means they made it this far,” Arun said. She looked up at the Orion, then to either side, searching the area again.
Unlike the previous day, the sky had cleared and the suns gave us a clear line of sight with plenty of illumination.
“Captain Harold?” Arun shouted to the area around us. “Captain Harold, can you hear us?”
No one responded.
“Perhaps we should see if we can follow the prints,” Tong suggested. Iris had been right. His English was nearly perfect now. “With so much debris, it will be difficult, but perhaps we can pick them up again.”
“It’s the best lead we’ve got,” I agreed, following the trajectory the prints were headed.
We continued, finding a print here or there for the next fifty meters before I stumbled on a book in the debris. It wasn’t the book itself that caught my eye, but rather the dried blood on its cover.
I knelt down to examine it and confirm it wasn’t something else, but there was no denying the substance was blood. There was more of it splattered on the ground near the book. I was sure of it now. Being a gladiator, I’d gotten to see my fair share of the stuff.
“I don’t think there is any doubt they were here and something went wrong,” Arun said as she, Ricky, and Tong peered over my shoulder.
“What did you find?” Stacy asked over the comms.
“Dried blood,” I answered. “A lot of it.”
“Where the heck did they go?” Ricky asked. “What happened to them?”
Something Tong said in passing hit me like a ton of bricks.
“Tong, what did you call these mountains?” I asked him. “When we brought them up for you to see on the map. You had a name for them.”
“The Mountains of Death,” Tong said. “However, they earned that name for the bloody conflicts my people had with the Rung here during the Blood War. There shouldn’t be anything vicious enough to take out a group of your kind. The only creatures that could pose a threat are the werelions, but they travel alone and would not dare confront a group.”
“Ahead of you.” Stacy’s voice sounded dry in disbelief. “Look up.”
I knew something was wrong by the way she said the words. Stacy was a leader like Arun and Elon, not easily shaken.
I looked back at her through the windshield of the crawler. Wide-eyed, she pointed with a finger to the ceiling. I looked up, following her gaze. Hanging from the underside of the Orion were bodies.
15
The corpses were definitely human colonists. Each one was hung upside down by their feet, swaying gently in the wind. They were grouped together in a tight circle. It was easy to miss them amongst the debris hanging off the Orion. There were cords, doors, wires, and everything else you could imagine hanging from the ceiling above us.
They also had to be four or five stories overhead. The moment stretched on as we all fought to comprehend what our eyes were telling us. They were too far to see exact details, but it was easy to tell they weren’t moving.
“We must go. We must go now,” Tong said. He wasn’t looking at the ceiling above us anymore; he was searching the mountainside all around us for anything that moved. His eyes darted this way and that in paranoia. “I was wrong. I do not know how they know, but I was wrong. We must go now. Please, we must go now.”
“Who?” Arun asked. “Who were you wrong about? Are they here now?”
“The Rung, the faction of Remboshi who worshiped technology and broke off from my kind.” Tong pointed a finger to the bodies hanging overhead. “This is how they claim their territory. This is what they do to their enemies. Somehow they must have found a way to hide from or fight off Legion. They are here.”
While Tong spoke about the Rung, I examined our area for the hundredth time. Still nothing. The mountainside we were on sloped steadily upward to our right. To the left, it went down before the next mountain began its own upward ascent.
“Well, I think we have our answer as to what happened to Captain Harold’s group,” Ricky said under his breath. “We should cut them down. It doesn’t feel right leaving them like that.”
“How did they even get them up there to begin with?” Stacy asked.
“We should go. We should go now,” Tong said.
“You said the Rung created Legion to kill your kind, but then the virus became self-aware and tried to overtake everyone,” I said, looking to Tong for his thoughts.
“Yes, yes, that’s right,” Tong said, nodding. “We could not defeat Legion. The Remboshi went into hyper-sleep to wait for a time when the Dawn would come. I awoke when you arrived.”
“Can we assume the Rung did the same thing?” Arun wondered out loud. “Perhaps they too went to sleep. When the Orion crashed, it triggered them to wake as well.”
“It is possible.” Tong wrung his hands together. “Please, we must go now. The Rung possess weapons of great power. If they are here in these mountains, they will be back soon.”
I looked over to Arun. The Eternal caught my eye. I knew we were thinking the same thing.
“I don’t like leaving them here either, but it’ll takes hours to scale that thing and cut them down,” I said.
“The communication section of the Orion was destroyed in the crash as well,” Arun said. “I can be sure of that now.”
“What?” Ricky asked. “How?”
Arun pointed a long finger to where the end of this particular Orion section rested against the mountainside.
“Because the communication section of the ship should be right there and it’s not,” Arun explained. “We’ll check quickly to see if there is anything salvageable, then we should move on. Hurry.”
We jogged the rest of the way to where this end of the broken Orion touched the ground. We passed right under the hanging bodies. I knew I was too far to see their eyes. Still, I swore they followed us.
My imagination ran wild with thoughts of hearing whispers on the edge of the wind. Maybe the dead did talk up here, but I wasn’t going to wait around to find out.
At a jog, we reached the end of the Orion in a few minutes. Arun was the only one who knew what she was looking for, while the rest of us stood watch. She handed me her blaster as she went to work digging through the remains of what had once been a mighty ship.
Part of me felt a bit dirty, like we were some kind of salvagers taking from the dead. The Orion was once proud and new; now there was nothing more than wreckage left to grow old, rust, and eventually be lost to time.
“It’s not much, but it’s all that’s left,” Arun said. “At least all I can see.”
I looked over to a small pile of equipment Arun gathered by her feet. As a mechanic used to working on cargo bay doors, vehicles, and such, I didn’t have the first idea of what was needed to make long-range communication operate.
Stacy hopped off the crawler and brought a large, empty container with her from the back of the bed. Quickly, she, Arun, and a frightful Tong placed the items inside and carried it back to the crawler.
Ricky and I followed close behind. We shared a moment where our eyes locked, then Ricky made a cringing expression. I nodded.
THUNK!
Something hard hit the side of the crawler.
THUNK! THUNK!
“Run,” Tong yelled, throwing the crate into the back of the crawler. “Run! They’ve found us!”
Mutt was going ballistic, barking at the space behind us. I ran, turning to fire blindly at whatever was attacking us.
Ricky and I both let loose with a series of red blaster fire from the ends of our weapons. I was too busy running forward to aim, much less search the area for exactly who was shooting.
Stacy jumped behind the wheel of the crawler and shifted it into reverse. Arun and Tong didn’t bother going into the front of the cab; they jumped into the back.
“Mutt, get in,” I yelled, reaching the crawler and finally turning to see who w
as shooting at us.
They looked smaller, like Tong, with green scaly skin and metal body parts coming from under their long cloaks.
More enemy rounds hit the steel fender and hood of the crawler. I couldn’t tell what they were using for weapons. They weren’t blasters, that was for sure.
Mutt bounded into the back of the crawler and I hopped on next.
Arun crouched behind the cab of the crawler in the bed of the vehicle. She returned fire, covering Ricky and me.
Ricky made it to the other side of the crawler. I offered a hand down as he threw his hands on the side of the bed.
“Go! Go!” Ricky shouted as I hauled him on board.
Stacy hit the accelerator, slamming us all forward as the crawler took off like a rocket in reverse.
One second, Ricky was grabbing onto me, climbing aboard. The next, he was slumped in my arms. Pain filled his eyes, and I hauled him the rest of the way aboard by the back of his jacket.
We fell in the back of the crawler together, my hand sticky with Ricky’s blood.
Enemy fire was still coming our way. Arun did her best to return rounds, but there were too many of them. Stacy could have won a medal for the way she tore backward in the crawler.
But her driving skills would have to wait to be rewarded for the time being. I rolled Ricky over on his side. His body shook so hard, it was clear he was hurt badly.
Tong crawled beside me to help. Together, we found the wound on Ricky’s left side. The projectile left a smoking hole where it hit him right under the armpit.
Tong wasted no time securing one of the blankets we’d sewed the night before. He jammed it into the wound to stop the bleeding.
“I’m sorry, I’m sorry.” Ricky winced. “I’m better than that. I’m sorry.”
“Hey, hey,” I said, rolling him onto his back so he could look up at me. “None of that. You’re going to be fine. You’re okay.”
I wasn’t a doctor. I didn’t know if any of that was true, but it was what he needed to hear. Ricky was in shock and going on and on about how sorry he was for getting shot.
Stacy tore down the path we’d come, leaving the sounds of the enemy weapons behind.
Arun fell to her knees beside Ricky. She went over to his left side, where Tong was applying pressure.
“What’s going on back there?” Stacy asked from the cab. “Is everyone all right?”
“Ricky’s been hit. Get us out of here,” I answered.
“Hold on,” Stacy said. She slammed the wheel to the right, turning us in a sharp one-hundred-eighty-degrees, then forced the crawler from reverse to drive and we were off again.
“You are going to be just fine,” Arun said, looking down at Ricky. “Ricky, you are going to make it.”
“Arun, Arun, I just want you to know that I think you’re a beautiful—a beautiful woman.” Ricky coughed up blood as he said the words. “I want you to know that I admire you not only for that, but for your spirit—”
Ricky was going to say more, but a coughing fit took him. More dark red blood fell from his mouth. His body convulsed at the action.
“Stop talking,” Arun told him. She held his right hand tightly in her own. “You stop talking now and save your energy. You’re going to be okay, Ricky.”
I wanted to believe Arun’s words more than anyone. It was hard when Ricky’s normally tan, smiling face was pale and spattered with his own blood.
16
Arun and Tong went to work securing an actual bandage on Ricky’s side from the supplies we brought. They stopped the bleeding for the time being, and Arun administered a sedative to help him rest.
We propped Ricky up against the side of the crawler. He fell in and out of sleep.
“We need to get to my installation as quickly as possible,” Tong instructed us as we sat in the back of the crawler. “We have medical supplies there that will be able to save your friend.”
“What did he get hit with?” I asked. “What kind of weapon?”
“Our weapons are unlike your own,” Tong said, shaking his head. “We shoot metal projectiles through the air at great velocity. Although the piece of metal is no larger than my finger, when it is lodged inside the body it can do great harm.”
“Like one of our own old school bullets but longer,” I said, taking in the length of Tong’s finger. “We used to have weapons like that on Earth. They’re relics now. We invented newer and better ways to kill each other.”
“I should have brought the Heal Aid,” Arun said quietly. Her eyes never left Ricky’s barely rising chest. “I knew I should have. We only have two working Heal Aids at the Orion. I was afraid if we took the extra one and something happened to the one Doctor Allbright uses, the entire colony would be in jeopardy, and now because of my decisions…”
Arun allowed her voice to trail off.
“You did the right thing,” I said, not really trying to make her feel better but running the scenario through my mind and deciding what I would have done. “I would have done the same thing. Ricky’s a tough kid. He’ll make it long enough for us to get him some help.”
“I’m following the directions we set up before we left the Orion,” Stacy said through her comms. She stayed behind the wheel after we made our escape. “We should arrive at Tong’s installation before the suns set—sometime in the late afternoon if we don’t run into trouble.”
“Got it,” I said. I turned to Tong with a raised eyebrow. “What were those things shooting at us? The Rung?”
Tong nodded. “I don’t know if they too went into a hyper sleep to be woken when the Orion crashed or if they have been in hiding this entire time. All I know is where Genesis stood when my people and I were put to sleep. Legion ran wild over our planet. The Rung were nowhere to be found.”
Genesis, I thought to myself. I keep on forgetting this planet’s name is Genesis.
“I need your word, Tong,” Arun said, her normal calm leadership attitude gone. A dangerous look lived in her eyes. “I need your word that you can save Ricky if we get to your installation.”
“Arun Drake,” Tong said, using her full name. “If we can get there in time, my species has healing tools specific to treat this kind of injury. If we can get there in time, Ricky will live.”
That seemed to be enough for Arun at the moment. She placed her back to the cab and stared at Ricky’s sleeping form.
His chest rose slowly then descended and repeated the process. I had a feeling Arun was watching him breathe, making sure he didn’t stop.
I never even thought about what this whole mess would look like without Ricky. He was addicted to gambling, said childish things at times, and cracked inappropriate jokes, but our lives were better for having gotten to know him.
I didn’t want to think about trying to survive on Genesis without him.
Mutt made his way over to Ricky and placed his snout in the man’s lap. He whined before lying still.
I moved over to Ricky’s other side and sat by him. The events of the morning cascaded through my mind again. Questions like how many Rung were there? Would they attack the Orion? How were we going to get into Tong’s installation if it was in the mist marsh? All of these questions went unanswered.
Stacy drove all morning following the heading we had plotted out in advance. Our road took us through the forest to the south and the unknown beyond. Stacy maneuvered us through the forest, finding an old overgrown path Tong directed her toward. It clearly had not been maintained in a very long time. Trees fell over the road in sections, as well as bushes and overgrowth, but Stacy always found a way around.
It was while we were sharing a midday meal on the road that Ricky finally stirred. His eyes blinked open, taking in the scene around him.
“Oh, it wasn’t a dream after all. This sucks,” Ricky said.
“How are you feeling?” Arun asked, immediately going over to his side. “How’s the pain?”
“Not great.” Ricky winced. “I feel like I’ve been shot by a blas
ter round that’s still inside of me.”
“You’re not far off,” Tong said, chewing on his protein bar-jerky-smashed apple concoction. “The weapon that found you sent a metal projectile as long as my finger into your body. It’s inside of you now.”
We all looked at Tong, deadpan. He just nodded and took another bite.
“Not helping,” I said, then looked back to Ricky. “We’re going to get you some help, buddy. Tong’s people have medical devices that can help you. We’re going to reach his installation soon. You just have one job. All you have to worry about is hanging in there.”
Ricky nodded.
“You’re going to make it and you’re going to be fine,” Arun reassured him. “You can tell me whatever it was you were saying before, once you’re well.”
Ricky nodded.
Arun and Tong engaged Stacy in a conversation about the best route to take to their destination and timing.
I took the opportunity to sit next to my friend. I wasn’t going to tell him this, but he looked like death warmed over. Gaunt and flushed, Ricky looked how I felt after a match in the pit.
“That bad, huh?” Ricky asked.
“What?” I asked.
“You’re taking a seat like you’re going to comfort me or something.” Ricky sighed then winced at the action. “I’m going to die, aren’t I?”
“What? No,” I said, shaking my head. “Can’t a guy just sit down with his friend?”
“We are friends, aren’t we?” Ricky said with a loopy grin. “I’m glad we’re friends.”
“Those painkillers Arun gave you might be kicking in,” I said, looking over to Mutt, who still had his head in Ricky’s lap. “I’m not here to comfort you or anything like that. That’s Mutt’s job.”
“His furry ears tickle my fingers.” Ricky grinned then winced again. Another coughing wave hit him. I could see the agony clear on his face as his chest convulsed with each cough.
“Easy, buddy,” I told him. “We’re just a few hours away now. You are going to make it.”
“We’re a few hours away from some creepy mist land with monsters inside,” Ricky said, shaking his head. “What if we can’t get past them to the installation?”