Final Days: Colony Read online

  Blue suits milled about three rows below, red lights flashing off their suits as they clomped around with heavy metallic boots. They were just now helping people out of the bottom row of cryo pods, shouting orders to them as they did so.

  “Follow the emergency light strips to the nearest shuttle!”

  “What’s happening?” someone screamed.

  “Don’t panic! Head to the nearest shuttle. Everything is under control!”

  Boom. People screamed and fled, leaving their pods at top speed, legs stumbling, arms flailing. “Slow down!” one of the blue suits cried. “Proceed in a calm and orderly fashion.” Two people slammed into each other and went sprawling.

  More pods began hissing open in Andrew’s row. He tore his eyes away from the scene below to see who it was.

  “Hey! Be careful!” someone shouted up to them. It sounded like Carrie.

  Andrew’s row lurched into motion as the row of pods below theirs rotated down.

  “Look out!” a blue suit cried just as a familiar scream tore through the cryo room. Andrew saw Kendra go flailing out of her pod to the deck below, falling two stories.

  “Kendra!” he cried in a thick, gravelly voice.

  Thud. She landed on her side and lay still.

  More of the crew scrambled. Andrew cast about frantically, found handholds, and began climbing down. Holding onto the lowermost set, he dropped the remaining six feet to the ground, and landed in time to a shrill roar from the ship’s emergency klaxons. Andrew bent his knees as he hit the deck, but his muscles were clumsy and weak, and his legs folded under his weight.

  Sharp pains radiated from his feet and knees. He struggled to rise, glancing up at the cryopods as he did so to make sure that Val wasn’t also in danger of falling. She had her pod open too, but she was clinging to the handholds. Another muffled boom shook the ship as Andrew scrambled to Kendra’s side amidst a second wave of evacuating passengers. Dr. Hartford was already there with Carrie, checking her vitals. Kendra’s eyes were open, blinking. Relief coursed through him.

  “Are you okay?” Andrew asked, breathlessly as he fell to his knees beside her.

  “I...” Kendra winced as she tried to move, then abandoned the attempt with a shallow gasp. “My shoulder...”

  Andrew glanced at the doctor. He was passing some kind of scanner over her. The screen showed a real-time view of her bones. “Nothing broken,” Dr. Hartford said slowly. “But that shoulder is dislocated.”

  “Well, that explains the blinding pain,” Kendra said through clenched teeth.

  “Can you pop it back in?” Andrew asked.

  Carrie looked to the doctor, her eyes wide and expression grave. She began shaking her head. “We don’t have time,” she said, just as the deck shook with another muffled rumbling sound.

  “No we don’t,” Hartford agreed. “Let’s help her up.” He nodded to Andrew. “Grab her good arm, would you please, while I lift underneath with Carrie.”

  Andrew nodded quickly.

  “On three,” Hartford said. “One, two... three!”

  They heaved together and Kendra screamed, but they got her on her feet. She stood swaying, leaning hard on Andrew. “Follow the light strips!” Carrie said. “Quickly!”

  Andrew glanced back at the pods. His row came swinging down with a mechanical whir, and he shook his head.

  “We’ll wait for the others,” Kendra agreed.

  Carrie looked like she was about to argue, but then more pods began opening, even higher up this time. “Doctor! I thought you said you had this under control!”

  “I did! It’s not my fault power is fluctuating and waking them up prematurely! We must have taken a hit in the reactors.”

  “Then find a way to override those manual releases!” Carrie snapped.

  “How? They’re manual!”

  Carrie muttered something under her breath and spun away from him. “Get me Hound!” she said, speaking into an ear piece. “I don’t care if he’s busy! If he doesn’t want pancakes instead of colonists, you’ll tell him to drop thrust to point two Gs immediately!”

  Andrew ignored the rest of their conversation as Val, Tony, and Roland came racing out of their pods. He hobbled over with Kendra to greet them. “Let’s go!” Roland cried.

  “Hello?” A small voice called out. It was familiar. Diane. Andrew looked up to see her leaning out of her pod, four rows up. “I can’t get down!” she said.

  “Diane! Be careful!” Kendra cried.

  “To hell with it,” Andrew muttered. “Roland, help Kendra to the nearest shuttle!”

  “Dad...” Val began.

  “You go with them!” he snapped. “And hurry the hell up! I’ll be right behind you.”

  The deck shuddered once more.

  Val shook her head, eyes wide, but Tony grabbed her hand and started pulling her toward the exit. “Come on!” he said. “Your dad can handle this. Let’s go!”

  Andrew nodded to him, grateful that Tony was taking his responsibility to protect Val seriously. Then he vaulted toward the wall of cryo pods and spent a moment glancing around for some way to climb up. Carrie swept in and showed him the rungs on the sides of the pods. “Just like a ladder,” she said. “Got it?”

  Andrew nodded quickly, putting hands and feet to the rungs and launching himself up as fast as he could. He reached Diane’s pod in seconds and wrapped an arm around her waist. “Ready?” Her head bobbed once. “Wrap your arms around my neck,” he said.

  She clambered onto his back like a monkey, her arms constricting his windpipe. He gritted his teeth, tensing the muscles in his neck to keep air flowing. “Hold on tight,” he managed as he started down. Halfway to the deck, the pods began sinking, and he lost his footing. Diane screamed as they fell a foot and a half before Andrew’s arms pulled straight and stopped them.

  His feet touched the deck just as something punched the whole ship sideways. He and Diane fell over together, and people screamed from open pods on higher rows. A few of them nearly tumbled out. Andrew glanced up and saw someone waving to Diane. It was Jennifer, her guardian and teacher on Eden.

  “I’ll be right up to get you!” Andrew said as he held out a hand to help Diane off the deck.

  “No!” Jennifer replied. “Just go! Take her to the shuttles!”

  Andrew hesitated for a second, torn with indecision. He saw Diane peering up at him with big worried eyes.

  “Go!” Carrie screamed, adding impetus as another group of ten passengers sprinted past them, heading for the exit. Another row of pods began rolling toward the deck. Andrew made a snap decision and swept Diane up into his arms. “Let’s go, kid,” he said and raced after the others.

  “But what about Jenny?” Diane asked.

  “She’ll be okay. Don’t worry.” But for all he knew, that was a lie. Worrying was probably a good idea right about now.

  * * *

  Andrew followed the emergency light strips to a broad corridor lined with wide doors on both sides. All of them were open, and several crewmen were waving people on. Andrew spotted Roland’s shaggy head of hair through a set of doors to the right, and squeezed in behind a middle-aged couple. On the other side of the doors he found row upon row of seats, half of them already occupied. All of the doors led to the same shuttle, a large craft with room enough for a few hundred colonists. Maybe there were more shuttles on other levels, or maybe they were mounted inside the ship on racks like the cryopods. It didn’t matter. This shuttle had space, and he’d made it. Andrew shuffled down a row with half a dozen vacant seats, squeezing past people’s knees as they fumbled to strap in with four-point shoulder harnesses.

  “I’m scared,” Diane whimpered, wrapping her arms tight around Andrew’s neck.

  “It’s okay,” he said, breathing hard.

  That sent his mind hurtling back to when Val was little—all those interrupted nights spent comforting her after a bad dream. Her mother hadn’t always been around to do it. As a nurse, she’d had to work plenty of nights
at the hospital.

  Andrew accidentally kicked a woman in the shins as he shuffled by. “Watch it!” she snapped.

  “Sorry,” he muttered.

  At the sound of his voice, Kendra and Roland both turned around. Val and Tony were next.

  “Over here!” Kendra called.

  Relief flickered over Val’s face. Tony smiled tightly, and Roland gave him a blank stare.

  Andrew found a pair of empty seats between the four of them, and dumped Diane into one. He spent a moment struggling to buckle her in. Voices trickled to his ears as he fumbled with the restraints.

  “Let’s go, let’s go!” said one of the blue suits.

  “We’re in!” That sounded like Carrie.

  “Where’s the pilot?” Eric Keller’s voice.

  “This way!” Carrie replied, pointing.

  “Punch it, Lieutenant!” Eric added, his voice muffled by the rising roar of engines.

  Andrew finally finished snapping the restraints over Diane’s chest and adjusting them with the tabs. “That feel okay?”

  She nodded. He sat down beside her and hurried to strap in himself. That was when he noticed that the doors were all closed, and everyone was seated—blue and white suits alike.

  The deep thrumming roar of the engines became deafening as Andrew struggled to free one half of his harness from the gap between his chair and the one beside it.

  Then came a gut punch of acceleration, and he was plastered to the back of his chair, barely able to move. His head pounded with an instant headache. All around the cabin people screamed in terror, but Diane’s screams were the worst. She was just a kid. Andrew fought through the g-force to grab her hand. “Hang on! It’ll be over in a second!”

  The acceleration eased, but didn’t disappear. A brilliant field of stars came scrolling into view on both sides, the doors doubling as viewscreens. Dead ahead, a broad black panel that ran almost the full width of the shuttle glowed to life, revealed a stunning view of the world below: thick, towering white clouds; gleaming blue oceans, a deeper color than any he’d seen on Earth; land the color of rust, striated with green; gray ridges; black and purple splotches. It was as alien as anything he could have imagined. The sheer variety of colors raised intense curiosity about what might be down there.

  A bright flash tore across one of the viewscreens to Andrew’s left. He turned to look, and saw a dozen more peppering the darkness of space. Silvery specks raced by them, heading for the planet.

  The actinic pulses of light began to dazzle Andrew’s eyes. People exclaimed and pointed to them; then their acceleration eased completely, and suddenly he was weightless, in danger of drifting free. He yanked the other half of his harness out and clipped it over his chest before that could happen. The forward screen began glowing orange around the edges as the planet swelled to fill the entire view. The silvery specks around them began glowing, too, and they grew fiery tails like falling meteors.

  And then two of them exploded with incredible bursts of light. The passengers cried out in alarm; some of them began sobbing. Another familiar voice rose, strident above the din:

  “Oh ye of little faith!” It was the reverend. “Hound would not have brought us this far just to let us die! We will reach the promised land! New Earth awaits!”

  For once, everyone ignored her.

  Andrew grimaced and held on tight to his restraints as friction with the atmosphere began slowing their shuttle, causing the harness to cut into his shoulders.

  The planetary surface seemed to be racing up too fast. Greens and reds pricked through the clouds, the deep, deep blues of the water, and the mysterious black and purple patches.

  Then the viewscreens blanked out in the same instant.

  “What the hell?” he cried.

  Echoes of that concern rose all around him. People were clinging to each other in distress.

  A deep voice crackled through the cabin, louder than the rest: “This is Lieutenant Wallace, your pilot, speaking. Please, do not be alarmed. We had to retract the external cameras to prevent heat damage from atmospheric entry. Rest assured, I don’t need them to bring us to safety. We’ll be landing in approximately ten minutes. Hang on tight.”

  Those minutes passed like hours, without even the comfort of being able to see where they were going. The shuttle rocked and bucked, shaking them up. Finally, Andrew felt it level out, then slow. And then it stopped altogether, and he thought he felt them slowly dropping down.

  The viewscreens glowed to life once more, revealing a vast field of vibrant red grass with bright green flowers. Dead ahead, a lake sparkled in the pale blue sun shining from a deep indigo sky. The sun hovered just above a ragged line of gray and white mountains that ran all the way around them, like the rim of an ancient crater from a giant meteor. Those jagged slopes swept up sharply from the ground, carpeted with black and purple vegetation that ran continuously to the far edge of the shimmering lake.

  The shuttle touched down with a subtle thump. Flying creatures flitted away on both sides. One of them sported all the colors of the rainbow, like a toucan, but it had six translucent wings, making it seem more like a giant dragonfly.

  The cabin grew so quiet that Andrew could have sworn he heard those creatures buzzing, but it was only the ringing in his ears. Then the intercom crackled with: “Welcome to Proxima Centauri b! You may now unbuckle your harnesses.”

  The sound of buckles clattering filled the air, and Eric Keller stood up from the corner of the front row, near the forward viewscreen. Carrie joined him a split second later.

  She spoke first. “The air is breathable, and scanners indicate that we should have no problems with foreign pathogens. Allergic reactions cannot be ruled out, however, so if you’re worried, you’ll find oxygen tanks and masks under your chairs. The masks can be used independently of the tanks to filter out particles from the air.”

  A few dozen heads ducked as people reached for their masks.

  Andrew noted that Eric Keller wasn’t wearing one. Neither was Carrie. He decided to risk it. He glanced at Diane. “What about you?”

  “I’m not allergic to anything,” she declared.

  He grinned and returned his attention to the two blue suits standing in front of the shuttle.

  “It’s time to go outside and see our new home!” Carrie said, her voice steeped in excitement. But it wasn’t catching, and no one made a move to head for the viewscreen-doors.

  “What was that we saw on the way down?” someone asked.

  “What was what?” Eric Keller asked, his head tilting curiously.

  Andrew jumped to his feet. “The silver things racing around us,” he put in, thinking he knew where that line of inquiry was going. “A few of them exploded and burst into flames. What the hell happened up there? Why were we evacuated? It seemed like a battle… like alien spaceships were attacking us. Or each other.”

  Eric burst out laughing. “Alien spaceships?” he blurted between booms of laughter.

  Carrie smiled.

  “Well...” Andrew glanced about, feeling the color rise in his cheeks as people looked to him. No one else was laughing, but Eric was definitely making fun of him.

  “You can all relax,” Eric said, his eyes skipping around the cabin. “Miller’s aliens were actually meteors. We had the misfortune of entering orbit in the middle of a meteor shower. That’s why we had to evacuate. The ship was taking damage from the impacts.”

  Andrew frowned, wondering if he should buy that. A few belated chuckles joined Eric’s laughter from a moment ago, but Andrew wasn’t ready to let him off the hook yet. He’d seen explosions. “Since when do meteors explode in space?” he demanded.

  “They didn’t. They were colliding with us and the upper atmosphere. A high velocity combined with a loose composition—possibly a mixture of ice and rock. Ever seen an ice cube explode when it hits a glass of warm soda? Same thing. This was space ice, not aliens.”

  More laughter issued from the other passengers. People beg
an standing up and filing out of their rows, heading for the exits. The viewscreen-doors blanked and slid aside, revealing more doors in the outer hull; these had actual windows in them. Airlocks, Andrew realized. He turned away from Eric, shaking his head in annoyance, and helped Diane out of her harness. “Ready to see our new home?” he asked her.

  “Oh yeah!” she said. “You bet, Mr. Miller.”

  Andrew caught smiles from Val and Kendra as he led Diane toward the airlocks. “You can call me Andy.”

  “Sure thing, Andy.”

  As he reached the end of his row, Kendra whispered to him, “You should be careful who you pick a fight with.”

  “He owed us an explanation.”

  “Just be cautious, that’s all. Keller makes my skin crawl, and I’ve seen enough guys like him to know he’s dangerous.”

  “Yeah,” Andrew replied. He couldn’t argue with her there.

  The outer doors of the shuttle slid open with a hiss as different air pressures suddenly equalized. Alien sights and smells greeted them as they shuffled toward the open doors. A few people hastily donned their air-filter masks.

  “Listen up everyone!” Eric said. “Before you go too far, make sure to take a survival pack from one of the crew. We’ll be unloading them from storage in just a few minutes.” He was holding up a pack for everyone to see. It looked heavy.

  Andrew couldn’t imagine everyone carrying one of those everywhere they went—especially the kids. “What’s in them?” he asked.

  “Water, food, a compass, a knife, matches, a blanket, a raincoat—among many other things. And, of course, a tracking device.”

  “A tracking device?” Andrew echoed, pausing before the airlocks to glare at the other man through the crowd. People shouldered by to reach the exits, jostling him back and forth. “What the hell for?”

  Val and Tony slipped past him, taking Diane with them. The little girl went skipping through the airlock beside Val. Andrew looked back to Eric for the answer to his question, and saw the other man threading toward him through the eager swell of departing passengers. Eric held out the survival pack as he reached Andrew. “Here,” he said, “take mine. You seem like someone who’s not going to wait around for one from storage.”