《Planetfall》
Chapter 1
Gavin sat in his cubicle and stared at the grey wall waiting for his shift to start. This grey wall was the same color as the other four walls in his small sleeping cubicle except this was special. On it was a brightly colored poster of a company CEO pointing outward toward the audience in stunning vid 3d. The CEO had on a confident smile, he was tall and broad with perfect hair and perfect teeth. You could tell by his perfectly manicured hands that he had never had to work a hard day in his life. Yet the poster¡¯s caption read in big bold black letters ¡°OPPORTUNITY IS WAITING IN THE FRONTIER.¡±. There was a beautiful woman on his arm. Her perfectly done up face, and alluring, sculpted body seemed to scream, ¡®You could have me if only you work harder¡¯. Gavin found himself hating that woman with every fibre of his being. Not enough hate that he wouldn¡¯t think of her while lying in bed. Both people stared out with a happiness Gavin had never felt, nor had his parents who had spent most of their lives slaving away in the mines. He saw hope in the depicted eyes. The hope on their faces was what had first drawn his eye to the recruiter¡¯s office on his home planet. In all honesty it hadn¡¯t taken much convincing for him to join the navy and wind up on this ship. He¡¯d been applying for an academic licence for three years and been rejected. His parents had been supportive at first, but when it became apparent that he wouldn¡¯t get it, they had just looked tired. He¡¯d even considered applying for student loans but had ultimately opted against it due to the interest rates being so high that his great grandchildren would still be paying off the dept. He gave up the life of study that he had always dreamed of for this cubicle, on this ship, in the middle of space. Oh well, at least he was fed, if you could call what the cooks served food. That¡¯s what his parents had told him before sending him off facing down starvation themselves. When the company ¡°moved on¡± as it was called, they left once resource rich planets with site¡¯s barren and populations so poor they couldn¡¯t even afford the trip off world to new jobs.
Gavin shook himself, ¡°You have it fine asshole, you actually lucked out with your job.¡±
He had in fact. The military always needed bodies and though his slight scrawny form wasn¡¯t especially suited to combat, it was fine for support staff. Having done the mandatory 3 months of basic training, he found himself on the maintenance crew of the company warship, Dawn of Reason. Everyone said the captain was different, and in the six months he had spent on this ship he hadn¡¯t seen one person treated unfairly. As far as he could tell all the sailors on the ship seemed to love the captain.
Unfortunately, Gavin got to work with the one man on the ship the captain absolutely loathed. Gavin had come from a mining planet; his father had been a miner and one thing he could say of all the miners they were hard workers as society demanded. Trevor on the other hand had to be the single laziest person he had ever met. Granted he had little experience with non-miners or off worlders. He had seen Trevor spend hours staring at a broken piece of equipment without picking up a tool or lifting a finger to fix the problem even when the ships metrics were down, and it was underperforming. When asked about it he would say he was thinking.
The other coworker in his department Danny was actually pretty good. Whenever she was tasked with a problem she would quickly and efficiently come up with a solution. Often times the problems that Trevor had spent hours ¡°considering¡±. She had been born on a ship and had spent her life fixing them. She was probably the only person Gavin had ever seen who actually enjoyed their job.
Suddenly, Gavin was thrown from his chair and ended up sprawled on the floor. He was violently shaken from his revere when the entire ship was rocked by a deep explosion. The projected poster collapsing in on itself Alarms started blaring as he struggled to stand up. the artificial gravity was obviously interrupted because he was tossed about like rubber ball in a small space. When he finally gained his feet, he saw that the holo had been replaced by a window with the captain¡¯s face upon it. She looked startled, her grey hair was standing on end a bit, and she seemed to be panting between breaths as she addressed the crew.
¡°Impact. We have been thrown off course and been nocked into the gravity field of a class C Planet. Expect landfall in 5 minutes. Get to the escape pods, and good luck.¡± The captain¡¯s image disappeared, and Gavin stood there staring at the place where she had just been before shaking himself. He grabbed his Techbit, an earpiece that connected him to computers and showed holo displays, then rushed out the door to his cubicle. He made his way toward the escape pods located at the aft of the ship. He raced across the metal catwalks thanking his sergeants for the fitness regimes they had made him complete as part of basic training. Sliding down the railing of a stairway he continued stumbling for a bit before catching himself. He reached the compartment with the escape pods and entered his code for access. The panel slid open, and he rushed through looking for any unused pods. A crewman he didn¡¯t know jumped into one of the last few pods and blasted off immediately he turned to the last one left in this section. Gavin rushed toward it and hit the launch button as he came through the door waiting as the door closed, but the pod didn¡¯t launch.6 He pressed the button again and after a moment started slapping it repeatedly. Looking to the touch screen above the button having a horrible sneaking suspicion. He checked the maintenance logs. In Big bold letters the computer screen flashed his doom. This pod was last inspected by Trevor Briggson.
He slumped against the door to the escape pod. Well, that was it. He was going to die. Wait. ¡®No fuck that I¡¯m not dying. I have to punch that asshole¡¯. He accessed the pods computer through his techbit¡¯s interface then rushed through settings to find out what was blocking it. Engines: good, Hull integrity: good, Safety systems: good, Life support: bad. He quickly sorted through the data looking for the section that was holding him up and he found it. The air purifier filter hadn¡¯t been changed recently. Figures the computer wouldn¡¯t let him run the ship without the air purifier because it was afraid it would kill him. ¡®Well staying on this ship is definitely going to kill me so fuck it¡¯. He jumpered around the input, then checked the launch sequence. It was good so he hit the launch button. The whole task had probably taken a minute or two to find the problem and bypass it. How close was the ship to crashing? was it already to late? Then the escape pod launched and he sighed with relief. ¡®Not today mother fucker. Not - His escape pod hit something, and Gavin was thrown about losing consciousness when his head hit the ceiling. Gavin woke with a start a while later and grabbed the back of his head which stung like a bastard. He looked at his hand that had come away sticky and saw some blood on his fingers. That wasn¡¯t good in a survival situation. His instructor from basic had told him a head injury could make you do dumb things. He would have to find a med pack to patch himself up. He was pretty sure he could find one on the escape pod unless it was Trevor who was assigned with keeping them stocked. Then he was probably going to die. He brought up his Techbit¡¯s HUD a holographic screen that surrounded him and scanned his vitals. Besides his head and a few other cuts and bruises he was fine. Not bad all things considered. He started looking around the ship for the emergency pack and found it lying under the seat in a compartment. It had food, water, and the med pack. Gavin shot himself up with a stim pack filled with a dose of stem cells and nanites which would heal his injuries over the next half hour until they and passed from his body. He looked around and found natural light pouring in from a hole in the roof. Preceded by a frantic look for the respirator that was supposed to be in these escape pods. Then paused, ¡°If the air was going to kill me that easy it would have already done it.¡± Rechecking his Techbit anyway just to be sure confirmed it. The air was almost earth norm with a few trace elements off.If you spot this narrative on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.
¡°First bit of luck I¡¯ve had all day.¡± Gavin got up grabbed his pack and tried the exit button. It did nothing.
¡°And there it is.¡± He tried the manual release, but nothing happened. Then shoved on the door hard ¡ nothing. He tried again and kept trying for five minutes, calling for help from anyone who might be out there. There was no response. Gavin tried not to think about that and what it could mean for his survival. Slumping to the floor and looking around for anything that might help him, he spotted a pistol in the weapons locker moving to grab it. The superheated bolt that the gun fired should be able to cut through the ship¡¯s armour. He pointed it at where he expected the hinges were, turned his head away, and fired. The white-hot slug tore through the hull like he¡¯d hoped leaving a hole 25 centimetres across, but he was peppered with slag which burned slightly. Stim pack should fix that. Aiming at where the other hinge should be, Gavin repeated the process. There was no big bang of the door hit the ground, so he looked back and found the door still standing. Putting the gun in a holster he belted it onto his hip, Gavin put his shoulder into the door again. With this final shove he felt his weight move forward through the door and as the door hit the ground, he rolled over top of it to land with his face collecting a mouth full of dirt. The first thing he realized about where he was included that there was an approximation of dirt on this planet. He spit it out quickly. ¡®Really hope there wasn¡¯t some alien virus in there.¡¯ With his luck so far, he¡¯d probably be wearing his organs on the outside no matter how many stim packs he had. Lying face down he brought his knees and elbows together underneath himself and raised up to kneel while looking at his new environment.
It was a nightmare. He was at the center of a giant crater made by the Dawn of Reason¡¯s crash site. Burning wreckage lay all around him. Some of the slate grey metal glowed red hot from entry and crash. One of the giant spire like engines sat in front of him mostly disintegrated from the impact. ¡®Lucky the fucking thing didn¡¯t explode,¡¯ he thought.
The ship sat in a deep depression at the end of a long canyon made by the crash. Surrounding that was a dense jungle of yellow and orange foliage. The sky of this new planet was a mix of red and orange clouds. Where the temperature on the ship had been climate controlled, here it was oppressively hot and muggy, making his maintenance uniform immediately stuck to his body. He could hear muffled screams from around him in all directions. Basic escape pod protocol was to land in a place of relative safety, but he had launched his pod so late it probably dragged him in the general direction of the ship. It had set him down as close to other pods as its limited navigation could muster.
Gavin assessed the Techbits map function and was unsurprised to see the Unknown topography flash across his vision. The technology ran off the ship¡¯s scanners or automated drones so it was no wonder he couldn¡¯t see anything. However, it did show his relative position to other Techbits so he decided to move in the direction of a small group that was forming a few hundred metres to the North of him. He adjusted his pack and made his way toward the others hoping he wouldn¡¯t just come across a bunch of mangled bodies. Picking his way through the crash site careful not to touch the still burning metal that surrounded him, the air smelled of smoke and hot metal. He eventually heard voices ahead behind what he assumed was the remains of a bathroom. He came a mound of debris and saw a cluster of people standing around in a huddle. They stood around a man lying prone on the ground. Blood coated the officer¡¯s navy uniform so much you could barely tell what its original color had once been. The blood came from a large hunk of metal that stuck out of the unfortunate man¡¯s chest on the right side. He convulsed and screamed weakly as a couple medical personnel tried to stabilize him. As Gavin drew closer, he could hear their strained conversation as they tried hopelessly to save the man''s life.
¡°Keep that stable.¡± stressed the leader who Gavin now saw from his bit was the ships doctor. He hadn''t really had any need to visit him in the six months since he had been stationed on the Dawn of Reason, but he had seen him around the ship. His name was Thritz, and he was a somewhat portly middle-aged man who was balding the hair he had remaining turned grey. He was currently trying to carefully remove the steel shard protruding from the man''s chest while using a stim sealer to heal closed the wound as he went. Judging by the grim look on the doctor¡¯s face Gavin guessed that it wasn¡¯t going according to plan. The stem stim sealer should repair any damage that was caused by both the initial wound and the removal, but it obviously wasn¡¯t enough to save the man as his movement and cries were getting weaker by the second.
¡°Where the hell is that blood replenishing pack?¡± Thritz snapped to his subordinates. A woman was pulling a pack of pink liquid when the man on the ground expired. Thritz and his team all slumped as the light left the man¡¯s eyes, Gavin¡¯s holo-display updating the man¡¯s name from green to faded grey indicating no life signs. Thritz looked hopelessly at those around him.47
¡°Well, any of you sorry sacs of shit hurt?¡± Everyone had suddenly found the ground at their feet exceedingly interesting indeed as no one would make eye contact. Thritz threw up his hands in disgust and instructed his team to treat the crew''s wounds. As the most senior officer present, he was to assume command of the crew and start organizing search parties. Gavin approached the closest medic to have her give him a once over. She quickly looked him over and concluded that he was fine, the med kit had done its job, before sending him off to get organized with the others. Thritz was talking to a senior soldier present a man by the name of Simms. He was a big heavily muscles man with short, dark, cropped hair and wearing green fatigues.
¡°What the fuck happened? Were we attacked by another company fleet or what?¡±
¡°As far as I¡¯m aware sir the markets are in a state of stability right now so there isn¡¯t any real need for conflict. Besides the command staff never really gave us any indication that we were under attack. No incoming ship warnings or anything so if they did hit us, it was fast as fuck, and nobody saw it coming.¡±
¡°Probably another hostile takeover from a rival, I remember Skytech tried that in 58. Nearly 5 billion died before we beat those assholes out of our star systems.¡± Thritz grumbled.
¡°Regardless we should probably be on the lookout for an attack of some kind. We need the captain and the other command staff. All our maps are down sir we will need someone from maintenance to restore them.¡± They both turned to Gavin who had been standing there awkwardly waiting to talk to them.
¡°You, what¡¯s your name? You¡¯re from maintenance, right?¡± He noted looking at Gavins uniform. ¡°Why are the map systems down?¡± Gavin looked around him to the completely destroyed ship and sighed. Probably best not to explain how the map systems worked. People always expected everything to work all the time when it was needed despite obvious problems that were hindering it.
¡°I¡¯ll look into it right away sir.¡± He knew it wasn¡¯t going to work but he tried any way to access the ships programs from his Techbit and was completely unsurprised when it told him he didn¡¯t have a connection. He tried contacting the ship LIA for assistance, but it had probably been destroyed in the crash and didn¡¯t answer him.
¡°I can¡¯t connect to anything sir. Both the ships systems and the LAI that usually runs them are down and not responding. If we want the map back, we will have to restore them or get some drones up and running to ping off our Techbits.¡± Thritz sighed.
¡°You know how long its going to take us to find Drones in this mess? Simms is heading for the Bridge. You can go with him and see if you can restore the LAI. Long range communications and power are also going to be an asset, so you¡¯ll have to look at getting those too. I will organize the rest of these assholes and see if we can¡¯t find some drones. We are going to need some of those any way¡±. Gavin nodded and stood by Simms as he organized the crew into a search party for the captain. It took ten minutes, and, in that time, Gavin had been scanning the names he could see on his Techbit for the captain he thought he saw somewhere to the west of their current position with a few other names. He tried to contact her but with the power in a shotty state and with the Limited Artificial Intelligence offline that wasn¡¯t going to happen.9 He spent the rest of the time watching people organize into search parties for equipment or personnel. They all looked like they were in a state of shock. He could only imagine what his own face looked like. Many had torn uniforms or sported cuts and scrapes and a few broken bones that took longer to heal with traditional med kits. Simms collected him and they set out for the captain to regain some order to this fucking mess.
Chapter 2
Gavin moved with the other sailors and a couple soldiers toward the captain¡¯s pin on his Techbit. The Techbits could show the relative location regarding you and approximate distance but that was it without some help from the ships AI or input devices like drones. It also showed vital signs which in this case indicated the captain was alive and had elevated levels of adrenaline. It wasn¡¯t a perfect system however and couldn¡¯t monitor for injuries such as a broken bone. There were several other crewmen around her, but they were stationary, so Thritz had sent one of his doctors along just in case. While they moved, they searched for survivors and any technical equipment that Gavin could use to restore the ships LAI or any drones they could launch. Gavin was walking beside two crewmen who were in an argument about what had happened to the ship.
¡°I¡¯m telling you it had to be them; they¡¯ve been doing bombings and kidnappings for years.¡± One man shouted excitedly while the other berated him.
¡°The FPD is a fucking myth man the CEOs are full of shit. It was probably a rogue asteroid or something.¡± The man shouted back. The FPD was the Free peoples for Democracy, basically a terrorist association that had popped up a few years ago trying to bring democracies back and free the people from the oppression of the companies. Gavin had to agree with the second man to be honest. He doubted the FPD had balls to pull something like this off. There had been news reports from the neighboring company¡¯s holdings maybe 10 years ago of some Democratics rising up and taking over a single planet. Apparently, they had broken out into civil war within a few months. CEOs liked to remind people of that any time they have to pull off a planet leaving it to die. ¡®See this is what happens with democracies, they all fail. You could have that all the chaos or the stability of free markets.¡¯ They really needn¡¯t have bothered, people knew the histories how the governments of old earth had collapsed, and companies had taken over and ushered in a new era of prosperity in space. Gavin tried to ignore the two. It was a common conspiracy theory that the Democratics were coming to get you and your children if they misbehaved. Anytime something went wrong people brought out the same old stories.
Eventually Simms came over and reprimanded them for making up bullshit to scare people. Gavin found where he estimated one of the Cargo bays had landed behind a bulkhead and motioned to Simms. The man came over and directed for everyone else in the group to look for any supplies lying around. Gavin in the meantime started looking around for a way in. There was a tear in the structure about 20 metres down, so he went that way he found a long hallway full of door going straight up. The one on the left should lead to the cargo bay and it was only 10 metres away from him. He motioned to Simms that he was going to start climbing up the shaft and the big man came over to look.
¡°I¡¯ll send a runner to Thritz, and he can get people to try to open this. We need to make for the captain. I¡¯m kind of worried that they haven¡¯t moved at all in the last little bit.¡± A crewman was sent, and they continued to move toward the captain and the rest of the officers. It took them 15 minutes of further walking to reach the bridge. The front of the ship was constructed of a clear material that was shaped like a dome so the command crew could get a 360-degree view of the space around them. That bubble had been shattered upon planetfall and now lay in shards around them the glass fading to opaque. A black foam spilled out like juice from a melon. The foam flooded the command module upon impact to save the flight crew. As they made their way forward through the ocean of shattered glass, their boots crunching as they walked, they could see from their techbits that Captain Alvarez was somewhere inside the dome. All the other flight crew around her had since developed grey icons around their names and the captain''s icon showed her with an elevated heart rate.
A roar suddenly rang out from inside the dome and the search party all stopped in shock. ¡°What the fuck was that?¡± Gavin thought but it was Simms who actually said it aloud.
¡°Weapons out tactical formation people.¡± Simms said, all business as he entered first. Gavin drew his pistol bracing for anything as they slowly got closer to a crack in the dome where the sound had emanated and where their captain currently resided. The room, currently set at a 45-degree angle with the planets surface was laid out with terminals and chairs surrounding the captain¡¯s seat and terminal on a raised platform. At the back of the room stood the most horrific thing Gavin had ever seen. It looked like a giant gorilla standing at 3 meters tall with oily black skin. It was powerfully built but it looked like every limb was made up of multiple disjointed bones of the same type making the thing look like a man with elephantitis only, instead of fat it had horribly disfigured bones. It had no eyes that Gavin could see but the top of its head was covered in delicate blue glowing feelers that moved constantly back and forth as if blowing in an invisible wind. Its mouth was perfectly circular with teeth along the edge and what looked like an inverted sucker inside the cavity. It reminded Gavin of a maggot''s mouth. The monstrosity was pounding on a door at the back of the module until, that is, Gavin tripped on the metal floor as they moved inside the space and gave a startled curse. The beast turned and roared deafeningly at them with an underlying high-pitched warbling sound. Its mouth cavity vibrating as it produced the sound. Then the creature started toward them with giant talon arms raised.
¡°Open fire!¡± Roared Simms as he stumbled back firing his rifle point blank into the creature. However, Gavin and the others couldn¡¯t get a clean line of fire while Simms was in the way and the thing moved amazingly fast. In long loping strides that seemed somehow graceful, it charged towards Simms even as he blasted chunks off the creature and its blue blood spattered the walls.1 The monstrosity smashed a giant clawed limb down on Simms who screamed in agony. It then lifted the poor soldier up a meter off the ground, clamped its maggot like tongue down on his head silencing his screams, and with a great heave and a horrible popping sound, ripped Simms¡¯s head clean from his shoulders. Gavin and the others stood stunned for a moment before they all opened fire on the creature which had already been severely wounded by Simms. It disappeared in a cloud of superheated slugs for a full minute and even then, they kept firing until the creature had been reduced to a pile of steaming goo with the vague shape of what it had once been. They probably would have kept firing except that a commanding voice roared out.
¡°HOLD YOUR DAMN FIRE, YOU IDIOTS.¡± Gavin and the others looked up to find the captain marching toward them her uniform disheveled and her steel grey hair whipping in the wind. She had come from the barricaded side outside the bubble, a large metal panel was lying beside the door indicating she and the other officers who were now making there way from that room had barricaded themselves inside to hide from that creature.
Captain Alverez was a short woman with an angular severe face. She surveyed Simms body with frown then turned toward Gavin and the rest of her crew. ¡°I want a situation report.¡±
Another soldier stepped forward and updated her on what had happened to their group over the last hour since the crash. The captain listened in stern silence occasionally interrupting with a question. Once the story had been told she instructed them to take her to Thritz.
Gavin raised his hand. ¡°Uh, Ma¡¯am I¡¯ve actually been ordered by Doctor Thritz to get the communications back up and the ¡ uh map system. To do that I¡¯ll need to access the bridges computer and see if the LIA is still functioning enough to help with any of this.¡± Gavin said nervously as he had never spoken to someone of such high rank and was still shaken from the horrors he had just witnessed.
¡°Fine, get to work the LAI system is in the room we just left. His names Joe.¡± Gavin gave her a befuddled look.
He hesitantly asked, ¡°Does Joe stand for anything Captain?¡± To which the woman barked a laugh.
¡°No, its just what we call him.¡±Did you know this text is from a different site? Read the official version to support the creator.
Gavin made to go in that direction instructed and stumbled once again, his legs had suddenly become weak. The adrenaline dump had caught up with him. The captain came over and helped him to his feet.
¡°Are you alright? Did that thing injure you?¡±
¡°No Captain, just nerves getting to me I guess.¡± She nodded clapping him on the shoulder.
¡°I understand son, but we need to get back to the others. We will get some food into you okay. Is this your first-time seeing combat?¡±
¡°Yes, Captain. I''ve only been out of basic for about 6 months, I¡¯m in the maintenance department.¡± The captain nodded knowingly.4
¡°Everyone feels shaky after seeing combat and they usually don¡¯t have to fight giant alien monsters. You did good son but remember that old saying, a minute lost is profit lost.¡± Gavin felt that statement didn¡¯t really help him, but with the captain¡¯s help Gavin shakily got back to his feet. He grabbed a ration bar from his pack and made his way toward the LIA storage room.
The room was small with black panels covering the walls and, in the centre, there was a small hexagonal dais about a meter tall and as wide in diameter as his hand.5 He checked for power first and found that it was still flowing. The LIA served an important function, so it probably had its back up power installed somewhere in case the crew all died and there was no one to restore the main grid, it had to be able to autopilot the ship back to company space. He asked it what was blocking communications and it simply responded in a mechanical voice that all comms systems were offline. Then asking it to find the fault it had, the computer replied that it didn¡¯t have any. Gavin looked through the programming for the system and found the computer was right in that it had no faults, but it still couldn¡¯t access the system. He tried what every maintenance person since computers had been invented always tried first, he power cycled the system. It might be able to see what the problem was then if it was able to reboot. He flipped a switch on the inside of the dais and the room went dark. Waiting a few seconds then turning it back on, he watched as the computer booted back up.
¡°Joe, can you access any of the comms systems now?¡± The computer responded by stating that the long-range comms systems were offline and the short-range comms systems didn¡¯t have enough power from the ship to function properly. Gavin smiled and remembered when Danny had once told him this of power cycling ¡®50% of the time it works every time.¡¯
¡°Can you bounce a signal off drones and get our comms up that way?¡± The computer replying that it was possible but that it could only access a limited portion of the drones. If they wanted more systems online, they would have to get more drones up and running. The computer the queried as to if he wanted to remotely access the drones to start them up. Gavin gave an affirmative and the computer was able to start about 300 drones from various launching bays all over the remains of the ship. He could hear the roar of the engines as hundreds of drones took to the sky and started a surveillance protocol. It took a minute after that before he saw the basic comms system come back to life. Now able to reach the captain on his Techbit and pass on the good news, various other systems started to come back online with his workaround and the drones continued to paint a map of the surrounding area.
¡°Joe, can you tell me which planet we are on?¡±
¡°We are currently on the 4th planet of the Carellio system going off our last known position.¡±
¡°Any idea who owns it?¡±
¡°This planet is not currently registered with any known company.¡± Gavin frowned. It was exceedingly rare to come across a planet that could support human industry and not be owned by any company.
¡°Any human settlements or comms other than our own you¡¯re picking up?¡±
¡°Nothing within my current range.¡±
¡®Well, that¡¯s more than I expected I guess.¡¯ Gavin thought.
¡°Loss of four drones southeast of this position. Now five. Now six.¡± Joe said. Probably another fucked up animal. Captain will probably want to know about it though.
¡°Show me final video logs.¡± Joe found the required feed then brought it up linking to his Techbit. The holo showed the drones camera sweeping over a vast forest that stretched to the horizon, mostly consisting of the same oddly colored trees that were in this area. Terrain was largely dense forested hills with a line of mountains off to the north. As the drone panned its camera in a circle, it brought into focus some sort of low-lying red cloud. Much like the other clouds Gavin had seen on this planet, but this one was darker somehow. The cloud was a few kilometers in area and roughly 300 high. Probably some sort of storm system. The drone flew into it and its feed almost immediately went dead. He pulled up the feeds from the other lost drones and he found the same thing. They flew into this cloud and their feeds all went dead. Probably losing signal from interference from whatever fucked up weather this planet had.
¡°Designate one of the drones to track that cloud but maintain distance of about 5 km and start scanning it.¡± He thought about it for a moment then added, ¡°If the drones aren¡¯t too damaged from the fall, see if they can be restarted when that weather pattern dissipates or moves off.¡±
¡°Acknowledged.¡± Gavin quickly checked where the cloud was in relation to them, about 800 km away from their current position moving in the opposite direction.
¡°How long before a map can be rendered?¡±
¡°Approximately 5 minutes and thirty-two seconds¡±.
¡°Okay contact me when its ready.¡± He would get a copy, but he also set it to go to the navigators and the captain.
Gavin left the control room unsteadily due to the flooring¡¯s angle and made his way outside again. The captain was still outside talking to various officers to coordinate search and rescue, as well as the setting up of a base camp near their current position instead of where Thritz was. All remaining crew were currently converging on this position. Gavin saw a few familiar faces amongst them and sighed with relief. Danny and Trevor looked dishevelled but alright. His colleagues having been the only people who were nice to him since he was stationed in the maintenance department of this ship. Danny was a middle-aged woman with short dark hair and her uniform was usually crisp and maintained. Currently there was a rip in her jacket on the left side, she was covered in dirt, and there was dried blood on her face. She maintained the standard required PT training for all soldiers, so she at least was trim and fit. Trevor on the other hand was a short bald man with wisps of grey hair poking out of his head. His disheveled uniform had probably been that way before the crash, and he was one of the few crew members who was fat. Gavin moved up to them.
¡°Of course you would survive.¡± Gavin joked as he punched Trevor lightly in the arm his anger from earlier having faded with relief at seeing them alive. ¡°When was the last time you actually serviced the escape pods you dick?¡±
¡°About the time I was servicing your mother you little shit.¡±
¡°As it¡¯s been a few decades since a woman last looked at you, I can believe that.¡±
¡°Trevor is basically a cockroach; atomics might singe off his remaining hair.¡± Danny pipes in.
¡°Eh fuck you guys.¡± Trevor said with a smile. Danny explained what had been happening to them since the crash. Apparently, they had been at their posts in the maintenance wing playing cards when the alert had gone out so they¡¯d grabbed some of the first escape pods. Unfortunately, Trevor¡¯s pod got buried in the soil upon landing and they had had to dig him out.
¡°Did you get the comms back up?¡±
¡°Yeah, just finished messing with Joe. The drones are building the map now and there¡¯s some kind of weird storm over there.¡± He indicated the direction the red cloud had been in. As if on cue, the map icon showed up on his feed, so he was able to grab the icon with his hand and flicked it toward the two of them. They all opened it up to examine the full color 3d rendered map that the drones had delivered after covering the first 1000 square km. There were two sections that were fuzzy red indicating the drones couldn¡¯t get a clear picture of those areas for whatever reason. Gavin frowned as he did a quick check that he hadn¡¯t lost anymore drones, so what was that other blank spot? He heard someone calling his name and he looked up to see the captain beckoning toward him. He, Trevor, and Danny made their way over to the cluster of officers surrounding her.
¡°Oh fuck, Trevor you survived. I¡¯d hoped we would have at least some good news today.¡±
¡°Good to see you too captain.¡± The captain turned to Danny. ¡°Chief warrant officer Taylor can you explain to me what these red patches are?¡±
¡°Captain if I may?¡± Gavin interjected after a nod from the captain and Danny he continued. ¡°This one is some kind of weather system that blocks drone signals we lost six drones to it before I redirected them. I¡¯ve got them monitoring it from afar.¡± He pulled up the image to show to her. ¡®That¡¯s funny from this map it looks like its closer to us now. Wind must have changed¡¯ Gavin thought. The Navigation officer interrupted them.
¡°Captain, I think your going to want to take a look at this.¡± He stepped up beside the captain and pulled up the feeds from the drones closest to the other anomaly. Gavin peered over the captain¡¯s shoulder and felt hope for the first time that day. The other anomaly turned out to be a city.
Chapter 3
As Gavin looked at the city longer, he noticed things that didn¡¯t really make sense to him. The city had all the things you would expect from a city. Skyscrapers, roads, buildings but they were all wrong. What he thought was a road stretched from the top of one of the skyscrapers to the ground at an impossible steep angle. All the buildings including the skyscrapers were oddly proportioned. No two buildings were alike anywhere. Some stretched from an impossible narrow base up to giant masses of twisting, undulating parapets. Buttresses that would in turn have structures sprouting from them at inconceivable angles. They would twist in on themselves in ways that made his eyes cross. There was no way that those bases could support that much weight, basic physics should say that the buildings should collapse in on themselves. Everything was constructed of a red stone, not like any city he had seen with the usual synthetic steel or concrete. The whole thing actually hurt Gavin¡¯s eyes to look at it, not just the angles. It just seemed wrong to him. It wasn¡¯t just the architecture that disturbed him, there was a weight to the city that he could sense even through video. The red sun of this world reflected off the stone in a haunting way. Looking at anything felt like staring through thick red soup or blood. He could feel a headache coming on just from looking at the horrible place.
¡°Man, I need to get me some of whatever the guy who designed that place was smoking when he thought that fucked place up.¡± Trevor said. The captain nodded. Gavin noticed that no one was looking at the city directly anymore once they had gotten that first look, they all tried to look at it from the corner of their eye.
¡°Who cares how it looks if they¡¯ve got communications systems.¡± the captain spoke in an authoritative voice trying to draw everyone¡¯s attention back to their survival. ¡°Anyone see any company logos on those buildings?¡± The crew surrounding her all shook their heads. Gavin could feel the tension in the air as everyone returned their eyes to the projected image directly, only to wince, then turn their heads aside again. ¡°Its odd that no one from that city has come out to meet us since we landed, even a rival company would be out here picking us up for ransom.¡± The captain mused. ¡°How many life signs do you detect from that city? I can¡¯t see any people. Where are you all?¡± This last question she asked to herself. The Navigation tech punched in a few numbers on her virtual keyboard and cocked her head to the side in confusion before answering.
¡°Captain, I¡¯m not picking up any life signs from that city at all¡±.
¡°What?¡± Captain Alverez asked surprised. Gavin looked at the city directly again regardless of the pain, while the captain conferred with the tech. ¡®It¡¯s abandoned? Who would build a city like that? Where did they go?
¡°I want the some of the drones to comb over that place. I want to know everything about that city. If the scans aren¡¯t giving us what we need send troops in. Only once the city is fully mapped from a distance do I want them sent in there though. I¡¯m sure a bunch of those monsters are hiding in there. I want our men to look at every street if they have to, in order to find me something I can use to call out to the company.¡± Alverez instructed before dismissing them to start focusing on their immediate problems.
Most of the crew were sent to set up a perimeter in case one of said monsters showed up, while others made camp, and the rest including Gavin were to find as much useable equipment from the ship as they could. Gavin spent the rest of the day climbing through the silent halls of their ship with some pilots using gear to scale the wrongly orientated corridors. He was climbing through one section with an auto climber, using a headlamp to peer into rooms as he passed. He¡¯d often see a dead crewman lying in a broken, shattered way staring sightlessly out at him. One woman was hanging out of a doorway with her head lolling the opposite way from her body. Her mouth hung open impossible wide, her jaw obviously broken, the skin was tearing and blood leaked from her mouth. Her eyes followed him as he passed. Bile rose up in his throat and it was all he could do not to wretch. She reminded him of his sister Sammy who had died in a mining accident years before. Crushed to death by a rock loader.
The salvage crew made their way to the hangar bays and did what they could to extract the vehicles in there. These were horror shows as well, with dozens of bodies piled in heaps against what had once been the walls. Large pools of blood were collecting underneath them. All body locations were marked for other crews to come pick them up later. The captain wanted them to focus on transport ships to send an expedition to the red city as it was being called, probably tomorrow after everything was settled here. A lot of the transports were damaged, but they were able to get them up and running, and the pilots were able to get them out of the hanger bays. The ship had a bunch of short-range fighters that were useless for escaping the planet, but they pulled as many out as they could. Several of the hangers had their doors buried underneath the ship so they had to cut into the side of the hull to access them. The crew that worked with Gavin were solemn and outside of the work there was very little conversation. A lot of people had died and most had lost friends. But they worked with the efficiency they had been trained for and were able to get a large portion of their mobile equipment off the ship as well as a lot of the basic survival equipment and food. It would take days for them to get it all. 18
When Gavin finally stumbled into one of the newly constructed shelters, he was exhausted and extremely hungry. He¡¯d eaten some of his rations from the escape pod but needed some real food so badly. He sat down at the camp mess, built like the shelters from a kit. Danny and Trevor sitting across from him looking equally as exhausted. Danny had been assigned setting up some sentry drones to deal with any more wildlife this planet had to offer, and Trevor had helped her by repairing the damaged ones. The shift schedule was out of wack, but they had been newly assigned to the day shift. The food was pretty good even though it was just freeze-dried ration so far as the cooks were still sorting out the fresh food. Gavin had got some sort of meat he couldn¡¯t identify mixed with a bunch of gravy over pasta. He tore into it and finished his plate in a couple minutes then sat back drinking water from a canteen. Trevor had likewise attacked his food. While Danny was picking at her food with a fork, pushing a meatball from her spaghetti in a circle.Stolen content alert: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences.
¡°What¡¯s wrong?¡± Gavin asked with concern.
¡°I¡¯m just thinking about my kids. I was supposed to go on leave next month. I really hope we can get off this rock before they start to worry.¡±
¡°You think that¡¯s bad; I was supposed to retire in a few months.¡± Trevor piped in. Both Danny and Gavin ignored him.
¡°I¡¯m sure that city will have communications links to use. We will be home in no time.¡± At least I hope so. Gavin pasted a reassuring smile on his face even if he didn¡¯t feel it, he hoped that he was able to convince her. He thought about that woman with the broken neck and his smile faltered a bit, but he pushed through for his friend and mentor. His face actually starting to hurt with pushing his smile so wide, which only made his thoughts circle back to how the dead woman¡¯s mouth had torn into an impossible wide grin. Danny smiled, nodded, and their conversation turned to other things such as what work they were assigned to tomorrow and the equipment that they still had to set up.
Gavin heard a ping from his Techbit, and saw a communication come from the captain and command staff. He had to scroll past the usual legal drivel of a corporate coms, such as the representative did not necessarily have the views of the company. It was locked into every communication protocol. When he finally got to the actual meat of the coms he slumped in his seat a little. Unfortunately, a few of the corporate lawyers had survived. Their own staterooms had built in escape pods to make sure the company would be represented under any circumstance. The message listed the total missing or dead crewmembers. There were a lot of names on that list. Gavin hadn¡¯t been really close to any of them, but he had known a few of those names. Of the roughly 2000 crewmembers about 800 were missing or dead which given the circumstances was remarkable. After the list of names was more corporate drivel.
THESE EMPLOYEES HAVE PASSED BY NO FAULT OF THIS COMPANY AND ANY STATEMENTS CHALLENGING THIS WILL BE SUBJECT TO DISCIPLINARY ACTION UP TO AND INCLUDING TERMINATION. AT WHICH POINT YOU WILL BE STRIPPED OF ANY COMPANY PROPERTY AND WILL BE LEFT ON THE NEAREST HABITAL PLANET. So basically, if you challenge us, we are going to leave you here with nothing to die, fucking company. He doubted the captain would want to do such a thing, but she was bound by strict company policies to follow procedures and would probably be subject to a similar fate if she didn¡¯t. He heard similar grumblings from all around the mess hall. Trevor went on a long if whispered rant about how the company didn¡¯t give a shit about them and they were worth less than garbage to them. After a while Gavin had to leave because it was all making him depressed. He walked to his assigned bunkhouse, found his cot, and went to sleep or tried to. In between tossing and turning trying to get to sleep, he was also subject to some vivid dreams.
He walked into his family home as a child. It was a small home a single story given at a favorable mortgage rate to company employees who worked on their mining worlds. A two-bedroom, single story bungalow with washing facilities and, a small kitchen. Their house looked exactly the same as the ones beside it on the block with slight color changes. This was a suburb of section 41 residential. Houses stretched for kilometers in every direction with distant snow-capped peaks to the north and west. The sound of ore carrier engines blasting into the atmosphere could be heard in the distance. It was the little details that made the home theirs. the lines they had drawn on one door frame to mark the children¡¯s heights, and the scuff marks on the concrete walls that showed where some rough housing had taken place. The ancient blue furniture dad had brought from his first company job on another world, before he had met mom. The couch had a permanent indent from his father¡¯s butt. After a hard day at work as most were, he would fall into that couch and watch the company entertainment package, complaining that it was shit while drinking a cheap beer. Just as he remembered it. Gavins¡¯s mother would come home from her own job and try to quickly make up some food before dragging herself to bed.
He sat down at the kitchen table and found that his family was all sitting around him. Family meals where they had all been together had been rare except for corporate holidays. His sister, who had died in the mines at 18, was sitting there talking and laughing with everyone as if her eyes weren¡¯t the milky white of death and her dark hair wasn¡¯t sticky with dried blood. The rock loader incident had nearly destroyed her body. She hadn¡¯t been able to afford insurance, but the company had graciously paid for the funeral. Gavin stretched out his hand toward her.
¡°Sammy?¡± Samantha¡¯s head snapped around to look at him the move must have dislodged something because her head lolled to the side and swung down across her chest, then it turned impossibly slow to meet his gaze. Her face flashed to the dead woman from the ship and swapping back in rapid succession, before finally settling on Sammy¡¯s disfigured visage like a demented prize wheel settling on a new car. Blood was dribbling out of her mouth and pooling on the table, into her plate of food, but she hardly seemed to notice. Neither did his parents who were talking and laughing as if nothing was wrong. Gavins¡¯s sister continued eye contact with him with those milky white eyes that had once been blue. Then she started screaming.
The dream had switched and he found himself walking down a long hallway. The hallway was constructed of the same red stone as that city the drones had found. The stone was course and freezing to the touch. The passage was very narrow, so narrow that Gavin could barely turn around and had to keep walking forward his body angled just to move forward with one shoulder leading. Both shoulders scraped against the stone as he walked. It looked as if it was getting narrower and narrower, but he never felt more than the constant pressure on his shoulders as he walked. Periodically there would be offshoots to the tunnel, but in the logic of a dream they didn¡¯t make it any less tight or easier to progress. Instead of the red stone he saw rooms from the Dawn of reason. Rooms with the dead staring back at him, their blood running in rivulets, their bodies suspended, pressed by gravity into the walls. He was travelling down this tunnel for what seemed like an eternity and he had the distinct feeling that someone was walking up behind him. When he managed to turn around with great difficulty no one was there. But when he continued walking forward all he heard was the scrapping sound as if some one was dragging their feet while walking behind him. The sound kept getting closer and closer. He tried to crane his neck to look at them. It was one of those fucking face rippers, he knew it. Only in a dream could one of those massive things fit in a tunnel like this. They were coming to eat him. He panicked and desperately tried to turn, tearing his clothing as he did yet he still couldn¡¯t see them. He turned back and continued forward he could feel a claw reaching out just beginning to tear into the flesh of his neck and then he woke up