"Arrival" Part one
Note: This is (one of several upcoming) a side story, set in the same time frame and general location as my Alternate Universe story 'Homecoming'. You can read it first, if you want to, but I hope this will be able to stand on its own - and if not, well, there's tons of spoilers for the other story in this one, and vice versa.
Since I couldn't pack in any more of my ideas about this setting (no spoilers yet!) into 'Homecoming' without bogging down the (sad little) plot even more, I'd decided to write some side tales, to help fill in the gaps - things that wouldn't fit, like more of the crew's reactions. Well - that was the original idea - it's grown and taken on it's own life. This might end up being considered the main storyline when it's done, and I might end up calling 'Homecoming' a side story (which happened to end over a year before I started this)! Enjoy! :)
*Emphasis marks*
[Indicates thoughts]
~~~~
(Zoe)
[I am not going to die. I am not going to die. I am not going to die.](James)Fighting to keep her breathing calm, Zoe leaned on the wall as she walked, trying to keep the weight off her hurt ankle. The fact that the wall kept shaking wasn't a big help.
[I am not going to die. I am not going to die. I am not going to die.]
She kept up the mantra, trying to concentrate on something other than the pain. She had to get to her bunk. All nonessential personnel - including junior lieutenant's from the astronomy department - were supposed to get out of the way as soon as an attack started. A sudden, awkward fall when the alert first went off had delayed her progress considerably. By the time she'd gotten to the corridors, they were almost empty. The only people she'd seen had been too far away to call out to for something like a minor injury, and had looked to be too busy and too much in a hurry anyway.
[I am not going to die. I am not going to -AUGH!] Zoe felt the universe suddenly tip around her, and the floor flung itself into her face painfully.
"Who the fragging hell keeps shooting at us and why the holy hell hasn't God killed them by now?!?" She shoved her way back onto her feet, bitching out loud, but not quite loud enough to be heard over the alert sirens.
[I'm going to die.]
"No, I'm not," she decided with a mumble. She could see the corridor that led to the room she shared with her husband a few dozen feet further down. "I can make it," and she started limping again. "I'll be able to sit down. Then when this is over I can call for a medic. Almost there. Almost there. Almost there."
Keeping up her new mantra, she made it to her door. Punching open the control, she staggered into the doorway. "Kev?" she called out. "Kevin?"
[Damn. It's not his shift, he wouldn't have gone to engineering, would he? It's much too early for the first shift to start. Wait, don't be silly - that's got to be where he is. But what if he's hurt?]
Zoe took one step inwards, then stopped. New orders were coming in over the loudspeakers. "Oh, no . . . HOW THE F*CK AM I SUPPOSED TO GET ALL THE WAY TO A FRAGGIN LIFEPOD!?!" Then she stopped. [Evacuate?] She was on board one of - if not *the* - strongest, most advanced, armed-to-the-teeth warship in the entire Earthforce fleet. The crew was equally impressive - who - or WHAT - were they fighting if they were actually losing!? Or not - the frequent violent shakes that had been going on for the better part of an hour had given way to a low, steady vibration, but not to normal stillness. [She didn't turn on the self-destruct, did she?] Zoe wondered in a panic, unsure what the odd vibrations meant and the odd way her head was feeling, but then both the vibration and feeling suddenly stopped.
"Zoe? You ok?"
Jumping with fright, she managed to look over her shoulder and sighed in relief. One of Kevin's friends was standing in the doorway, a bulky marine whose first name was avoiding her at the moment. "My ankle is either broken or sprained. I don't know but it hurts and I can't walk on the damned thing." She pointed at the emergency compress she'd semi-successfully wrapped around her injury. "I was working alone and the lab's comm went down at the same time the lights did."
He nodded. "I'll carry you. You're light enough. Kev asked me to check here on my way out."
"So he's ok then?" She asked as she was bodily scooped up into his grasp and he took off down the hall at a light run.
"Watch your head! Yeah, but engineering is shot up. Expect him to be cranky the next time you see him. One of his eyebrows got singed off. Tuck your head in!"
Zoe could see the number of people in the corridor was increasing, and curled down closer to her impromptu ride, the scent of smoke mixing in with sweat and the cheap detergent that was used to clean the dull green fabric he wore. They were at the entrance to the pod bays within two minutes, and Zoe found herself tucked and buckled into the fourth seat in a pod seconds before it was sealed. "See you on the flip side," and her ride closed the door.
Zoe blinked around at the other three. She was the only one in the deep blue of the usual earthforce uniform, and she suddenly felt overdressed. "Any clue what's been going on?"
"Not a one." The woman on her left said. Zoe didn't know her.
"We were attacked, an' I don't know by who, or what, bu' they fought like hell," mumbled a man wearing off duty clothing, an emergency brace on his right arm, and a medical skintab on his neck.
"We must have won, though, the shaking stopped before I even got here," Zoe added.
"Yeah. Shows what happens to anyone stupid enough to mess with the ship of God," a second man said, also in sleeping attire.
"Why haven't the pods been unlocked yet? I don't want to die here!" The other woman worried out loud. The insignia on her maintenance-style overalls was for supplies, and the faint grease smell identified her exact station as a cook.
"I don't know - there! Bail us out!" The indicator switch had changed colours, and a loud clicking sound announced that they were unlocked.
Flashing a grin to the other woman, the man without the broken arm reached over and grasped the release handle. "Brace yourself!" And he cranked it down to 'eject'.
~~~~
Several minutes had passed in the weightless environment, and the cook's stomach had run out of things to vomit, so Zoe decided things could only get better. The air recycling systems soon cleared the scent, so the four of them managed to settle down and try to rest. Gradually, the slow rotation of the pod caused by the occasional spurt of a manoeuvring thruster allowed them to see for themselves what their surroundings were like, as the images were picked up by the sensors and displayed on the little console. Other life pods showed up as blinking dots, with several floating not too far away. The wounded EAS Sophocles had made it into orbit of the planet they were drifting towards, but the radiation she gave off didn't bode well for their home. An extended sweep showed a huge gas giant, and several other planets nearby, but it was the inhabitable one they were heading to. Studying the numbers, Zoe realised from the orbits that they were in fact heading for a moon, but the others didn't seem overly concerned by that bit of information.
"As long as we can breathe and eat, I'm happy," the second man said, "but we need to get him to a doctor to get a cast on, instead of just a splint." He pointed to the injured man, who was now dozing lightly from the painkillers in his system.
"Do you know him?" Zoe asked. The other two just shook their heads. "Well . . . I don't suppose either one of you is higher ranking than me. No? I guess I'm in command, then. The first thing we should do when - hang on. Is that reading accurate?" She pointed at the console, which had changed to a visual display of the moon they were moving towards. They were on the opposite side from the local star, and a network of glowing lights was spread thinly across the darkened landscape. The mark of cities.
"Looks like we'll be landing in someone's backyard. I hope they're friendly." The second man said. "I'm James Cevry, by the way. Private, first class, just assigned to engineering in the latest crew postings from the Black Mercedes. I think you're my supervisor's wife. Lt. Zoe DeClerke, right?"
She nodded. "I hope this isn't a first contact situation," Zoe admitted, "I didn't do too well in that during basic training." [Yeah, I failed it miserably. But I'm not supposed to admit that, now am I.] "From our course, we'll likely be over the dayside again before we land, in a few more hours. That should help. I can't think of any known colonies in this area of space, most of the stars here are barren, which is why we were going to skip these sectors. Lucky for us, this system has an oxygen world."
"When can we go back to the ship? Shouldn't it have picked us up by now?"
"What's your name, cook?"
"Private Tara Barnett, Sir."
"You see that radiation insignia on the screen? That's our ship. As of half an hour ago, anyone who might have been still on board would be dead from a radiation blast. The engines were evidently hit several times during the battle and were damaged enough that the choices were down to either blowing up completely, or letting the buildup of power flood out of containment, which had the nasty effect of radiating the entire ship. Assuming that both the ship and ourselves live through the next few weeks or months, we might be able to get back to her after the radiation levels drop to safe zones again. Might. I don't know. Our duty now is to maintain the chain of command, and assemble the crew together again. After that, it's up to whoever is still in command to decide."
"Yes, ma'am."
"For now, we wait until the pod lands. It will be several hours, so try to sleep. Both of you." Zoe was both tired and cranky, and was feeling moreso as the realization of what had happened started to sink in.
Whatever it was that had attacked them, it wasn't around anymore. Which was lucky, because they all knew the scattering of lifepods were just so many sitting clay-duck targets if their attackers returned. But for all the time that she scanned, Zoe saw no sign of anything that wasn't from their ship in the space around them. Whoever had built the tiny, dim cities below them, they had nothing - not even weather and communication satellites - in orbit. Zoe was not sure what to think.
~~~~
"There goes my backyard comment," Cevry casually said to her as they looked out the open hatch to an empty landscape, then he climbed the short jump down. "This place looks rather barren. Probably from the high altitude."
She looked around as he moved to circle the pod. Tiny shrubs, pools of water, and lichen dotted a gravelly landscape. The closest terrain was basically flat, with a few sloped hills. Sharp, white-clad mountains were visible in the distance, and she he could see the start of a forest a few hundred feet away, downslope. It was cold enough that Zoe could see her breath as a slight fog when she glanced down at it.
Cevry returned to her view. "There's the treeline, over there. Maybe the wood will burn . . . damn, it's cold. And it will probably be getting dark soon, from the local star's position. Can you hand me a blanket? The wind is trying to cut me in two. So, DeClerke, any ideas?" He held out his hand to help her jump down. "Look at the damage to the other side - no wonder the air pressure changed so fast when we hit. One side of the pod's been crushed."
"I don't think I'm going to enjoy being in command," Zoe muttered as she was helped to the ground, then hopped out of the way for Barnett to come down. "Right off the bat, I'll let you all know that I'm feeling very open to suggestions, okay? Holy - that *is* a mess . . . I hope at least some of the integrated equipment still works. Cold - warm up - if we keep it in the crater the pod made, a fire might work. If the wind lets up enough to start one . . . the rest of the ground is too damp," she observed, poking at the squishy soil with her fingers. Her ankle was hurting a lot less thanks to an injection of painkillers, and she'd had Cevry bind it up tightly to keep it from swelling any further, but it still hurt. She tested her weight on it gently and had to clamp her teeth shut to keep from screaming, but it held some of her weight. Just sprained, then. Her head hurt from the sudden, but thankfully mild, decompression, and her hearing was less than clear as her systems sorted out the new pressures. She could still smell residual blood from the nosebleed they'd all gotten. "Sanov, do you want to try to come down yet?"
"Not if I can help it, ma'am," the worst-injured among them called down. "I can feel how cold the wind is from in here. If you're taking votes, I vote we stay put until someone either finds us, or another pod lands close enough that we can contact them. We don't know where we are. Getting lost is not a good idea."
"You can't walk anywhere with your leg hurt," Barnett pointed out to her.
"But we need to build a fire, for warmth, and we can't do that hiding inside the pod," Cevry added.
"I hope the others are doing better than we are," Zoe muttered, pulling her blanket closer for warmth. "Toss down a trio of insta-heats, Sanov, and open one for yourself. There's plenty of gravity here; the food will stay down. Ok. Here's what's going to happen. You two, being uninjured, are going to walk down to those trees and try to find some wood to bring back. We don't need logs, but we'll need fuel. Sanov and I will try to establish contact with anyone else from the ship and prepare the ground as best we can to hold a fire in place. There's a flammable startkit in the storage bins, if my memory serves me, we can use that to get a flame going. Whether or not this wind will let the fire stay lit is another question. Maybe we can shelter it in some way. If not, then the pod is insulated, and we get to snuggle under blankets for warmth until morning. We were after the first group to land, but there's bound to be others coming down after us, some of which have to end up close enough for contact. If we didn't have these hills in the way, we might have been close enough already, but line of sight is missing. Get going, you two, we're not getting any warmer standing around here."
"Yes, Sir," they replied in unison, and started across the mushy grasses towards the trees. "At least we've got water," Cevry called back as he pulled his foot out of a particularly soggy spot. "Ugh, it's cold though."
"One good thing," Zoe commented to herself. "Sanov! Reach your good arm out, I need back in. Might as well start to purify some, so we can have a decent drink."
~~~~
Unable to keep a fire lit for more than a few minutes from the combination of wind and moisture, the quartet soon gave up until morning, levering the hatch back until it was almost in place. The air recycling systems had shut down at impact, along with most of the equipment, but every half hour, they continued to check the comm unit for a signal. They were sending the standard message every few minutes, but were unable to get it sent far enough to reach anyone; they were even unsuccessful at trying to bounce the signal off the uncooperative atmosphere. Its systems were all internal, and could operate independently of the pod, but unless another pod came down nearer to them, the four in pod 68 were going to be completely isolated. It was showing the faint static that resulted from signals detected, but they all originated too far away for the struggling little unit to pick up. Huddled with the others under blankets, Zoe did not sleep well in the bitter cold and the too-thin air. None of her companions fared better.
[I hope Kevin's okay. He can't die, we're only two months away from our fifth anniversary. I hope he's not too worried about me. By morning - maybe by afternoon - someone will be close enough to talk to, hopscotch messages along. Find out what the hell happened. If we were attacked, who was it? And WHY? There hasn't been any big problems with the Alliance, not since - ]
[The Drakh? But weren't they all killed next to Earth? No. If they figured out how to use First One technology, they must have been smart enough to have a few ships and stuff in hiding. Doesn't matter anyway. They have to be dead now, or else we would have been totally destroyed. Gah. I joined up to study stars and stuff, not get caught in politicking. I hope Kevin's okay.]
[He has to be . . . ]
~~~~
Blinking awake, and wishing he had the room to stretch out the multiple kinks and cramps that assaulted his body, James Cevry first noticed how cold and sore he was in the pre-dawn air. The second thing he noticed was a static-filled transmission, coming in from the comm unit. Shoving anything and everyone out of his way, he reached over and grabbed the console. "Cevry here! We hear you, please repeat! We hear you, over."(Zoe)" . . . is Lt. Jocylen. Can you tell us your position? I repe . . ."
Fiddling with the frequency to try to nail the signal down a little better, Cevry shifted off the wriggling bodies to let them get up. They were all suddenly wide awake, and looking at the comm unit. A slow grin spread across each face at the news.
"I repeat, this is Lt. Jocylen, calling from pod 112. Can you tell us your position? We can't find you on our scope. Is your tracker signal turned on and functional? Over."
"Lieutenant, this is Private Cevry, pod 68. The tracker says it's working, but we aren't certain. The environmental controls also claim to be working, but they sure as hell aren't. Have you been able to establish contact with anyone else? We seem to be too far away to reach anyone. Over."
"Cevry, this is Jocylen. We hear you. Contact is established with pod 26, and through them, a relay count of over 300. Where are you, and who's in command there? Over."
"Thank you, lord," he muttered, then said into the microphone, "Junior Lieutenant Zoe DeClerke, sir. We're just above the treeline, but I can't give you a more exact location yet. We were damaged upon impact, a lot of the equipment is non-functional. Our flares are damaged, too, otherwise we'd send one up. Do yours function? Over."
"Cevry, this is Jocylen. Our flares work, we'll send one up in a few minutes to help you estimate relative position. Do you have any injured? How many are with you? Over."
"There are four of us total. One sprained ankle, one broken arm. Do you have a medic with you? How close to the others are you and what are your injuries? Over."
The radio signal paused for a moment before answering. "There are four here as well, one with a broken leg and another with serious burns to her arm. No medics among us, sorry. The rest of the pods seem to be scattered along a series of valleys to the south of us, so I'm guessing you're north if you were too far to radio them. We'll contact the next pod, and get back to you, then both of us will send up a flare. Then we'll figure out how to get you down to us. They're all gathering in the center, according to the others, there's a civilisation here and they seem to be helpful. Which reminds me, there's a message that is supposed to be passed on at every new contact, captain's orders. Over."
"We hear you, Jocylen. What's the message? Over."
"Message follows: Be nice to the locals, they'll only get violent if you do so first. We'll need their help to get home."
"What?" Cevry looked at the other three, puzzled. Zoe just shrugged back at him, and pointed to the microphone then herself.
"I don't know what it means exactly, it was just passed to me - starting at the command crew - that there seems to be a population of some sort here. I don't know who yet, we should be weeks away from any known colonies for the Alliance. Must be a new, completely alien civilisation here. Over."
Zoe reached over and held onto the offered mike. "This is DeClerke. We saw lights from cities on the way down, so yes, there is a substantial population here, but I'm not sure how far it is to the nearest settlement. Are communications established enough yet to pass on names to check for? Over."
"Hi Zoe! This is Sam, but I guess you know that. No, not yet, we're still figuring out locations and injured. Inside of a day or so. The crew is quite scattered, it will be probably a couple weeks until we're fully assembled. My first priority is figuring out a safe route for you kids to follow to meet us here. The scanner is having trouble with the landscape, but there seems to lots of gullies and ravines between us, most with water in them. Is that it for a few minutes? We'll contact the other pod, arrange a flare. The local star will be rising in about half an hour, we can use it as a reference point if need be. We'll holler a 60-second warning first for the flares. Over."
"Last message, then. Talk to you soon. Over!"
"Over an- hello. Guys? There's a light, coming up the valley from the south. But 26 didn't say - we'll get back to you. Over." The radio dimmed back to background static.
Puzzled for a moment, Sanov spoke up. "A light? Coming their way? But if it wasn't pod 26, then who - locals, maybe?"
"Could be," Cevry added. "Well, if the command crew says they'll help us, I guess we can trust them to know what's going on. Maybe the Captain has information on where we are?"
"If there was any information on this system, I'd know," Zoe said firmly. "Even if there was only a 'classified' label on the whole system, and not any more information. But we weren't near any suns that had any planets, at all. Or we weren't supposed to be . . . unless some of the 'fighting' was turbulence from a really strange gravity well? If we've been shoved really far off course, it could explain a lot. I'd have to get a reading on the nearby stars, find out our galactic position, to be sure."
"That might be it, but I'm not an expert by any means," Barnett said. "Who's hungry? There's plenty of rations, if we don't eat them too fast."
~~~~
"There it is!" Cevry cried out, arm stretched to indicate the direction of the flare. "They're at least . . . I don't know how many miles. With your ankle, it might be a two day hike. Hopefully not much longer, but the terrain isn't exactly built like a level deck around here. But it's almost due south of us, judging by the sun . . . And there's the second flare. 26 is further. A lot further. The ground looks to be a lot more level once we get down into the valleys . . . but it would still be several days of hiking, even when we get past 112."
"At least the scenery is good," Zoe quipped, then picked up the microphone. "Jocylen, any change in the light from your upcoming visitor? Over."
"No, they've still got the light on, and it's creeping our way - possibly on foot. Damn, I wish I had permission to use my gun, I hate waiting like this. From Torres' guess, they're moving pretty slow, so if it's a vehicle they're either not powered very well, or it's big enough it has trouble getting through the trees. And 26 never saw any signs of a road, or the light. Over."
Over the next few chilly hours, Jocylen was gradually able to add more details, then a whole stream of information arrived in bits and pieces as the source of the light approached pod 112's position. He had to share the information with the rest of the pods first so that it could be passed to the command group; but after each message was acknowledged, he repeated a shorter summary to pod 68 so that Zoe and the others were kept up to date as well. He was able to tell them that it was several lights, not very bright ones, travelling in a group. Then his scout passed on from her position 50 feet up a pine tree that the lights weren't electric, they were an enclosed flame, which Jocylen was able to confirm for himself as the focus of their attention entered the small clearing the pod had set down in. "And you guys are not going to believe who's carrying them. Horses!"
"Say again, Jocylen? I don't think we got that last bit. Over."
"Horses! Honest to god, four legged hairy beasts that live on Earth and maybe a few agricultural colonies. Five of them, they've each got a *lantern* on a pole strapped to their sides, with a bunch of boxes and baskets of stuff. Oh, and one old man. He seems to be human, but he isn't saying anything. He wrote 'hello' in a little paper notebook he's got, maybe he can't talk out loud - can hear us, though. What the hell is a human doing out in the middle of nowhere? We're weeks and weeks away from any known Earth colony. Anyway, the med scanner says none of the stuff with him is poisonous, and he's just started to wrap a decent bandage around Zimmer's burned arm. I guess God was right about the locals helping us . . . I've got a case of pyroenvy. It only took him a few seconds to get a fire started for us, and there's a pot of tea - or maybe it's soup - warming on it already. I don't know what we were doing wrong before, but we're warming up now. Huh?" There was a brief pause from the radio. "He's pointing up the valley towards where you are. Four. There's four people up there. Any idea how to - oh, good. He's got maps with him."
"Thank you, lord," Zoe muttered to herself.
"Where? The treeline, we don't know exactly. Hang on. He's writing in the notebook . . . pointing . . . we need landmarks. Umm . . . are you near a large boulder, shaped like a lopsided capital B, turned on it's back? The top is facing north-west. About three meters from the base to the top - it's as big as a house, you should be able to see it if it's near you - there's other landmarks we can sight for if not. Over."
Cevry blinked, then poked his head out of the hatch for a second to check before ducking back inside. "As a matter of fact, yes. Just over a mile to the east. Over."
"Then we know where you are, Cevry. My finger is on your map location right now. Hold on." The volume dimmed slightly as a muffled question was heard, then a slight pause before Jocylen's voice returned. "He's nodding. We might find a way to reach you guys. Any thoughts on that? Over."
"Good! We're cold, any chance he could get a fire going for us, too? Over."
"He's looking at me and nodding. Hang tight, we'll be there in just a while to help. Over!"
~~~~
As the mist steamed off the marshy soil in the early afternoon sun, Zoe's small band was warming up around a small fire, eating stale rations and some tasty dried meat and fruit the old man had brought with him. He came with two packless horses and an uninjured member of Jocylen's group, a strongly built marine who called herself Torres. While walking the three companions up the steep hills, the old man had found time to slingshot a large rodent - he scrawled out in his notebook that the animal was only medium sized for it's species (though Sanov exclaimed his father's dog was smaller than it was) and after arriving, had skinned, cleaned, and started roasting the beast.part 2Everyone around the fire thought is smelled wonderful. A few more jotted notes, passed around to the crewmembers, explained what he wanted: to bring higher group down to meet the lower, then to go down into a main valley and wait for others who would be coming, while collecting everyone else on the way. He asked that all equipment that was usable - or had any kind of electrical charge at all, no matter how useless it seemed - to be gathered up and brought back with them, as all the pods had to do.
"Wouldn't it be easier to leave the broken stuff here? There's no-one around to steal it!" Barnett asked.
A slight scowl and one line, printed in capital letters, stopped her protest. "NO LITTERING ALLOWED."
A quick radio check with the others, hopscotched along to check with more crewmembers, showed that they too were meeting up in groups and heading into the main valleys, collecting together. Zoe asked if there were any objections, but the others all agreed it was the only thing to do - because of both common sense and their orders. Rapidly, they gathered the equipment up, trying to make it down the winding valley to meet up with second pod before nightfall. The three crewmembers who were fully functional stripped the pod bare of anything even slightly electronic, and wrapped it all up to be strapped onto the horses. Zoe chose to use the emergency crutches until her ankle healed, as the branches of the trees were too low for an unskilled rider to avoid, freeing up the second mount for supplies. The only thing not sealed away was the comm unit, which was fashioned into a backpack of sorts and carried by Cevry. They left mid-afternoon, waiting only for the rodent to finish roasting, and the ashes to be cooled down enough so that the old man could place his hand flat on them without feeling heat. The animal they munched on gratefully as they descended, and it tasted far better than the ration packs or even shipside meals had been, especially considering how hungry the small group still felt.
The only unusual event during the hike was when Sanov, getting a little ahead of the others, stopped in surprise. "Are one of you guys humming? That weird noise is back again."
"What noise?" Cevry asked, coming over a small rise.
"I don't know, I could barely hear it - and it's gone again anyway. Jeez, it's weird the way it keeps fuzzing in and out. Don't look at me like that, Torres, I'm not crazy. I heard something! Way off somewhere - maybe someone from 112 is singing or something."
"Or something . . . " She said dryly.
Scowling, Sanov kept his mouth shut for the rest of the walk.
They made it to the second group just before dark, and shared out the cooled remainder of the rodent with Jocylen and the two who'd remained with him. Zoe was quietly glad to turn her authority over to him, and all eight soldiers rested a little easier that evening: warm, well-fed, and wrapped up snugly in a small assortment of spare clothing and blankets the old man had brought with him. A few other groups they contacted also had a few scattered locals, all of which seemed human. As of nightfall, there were no explanations of why the colony was so far away from Earth territory that had been passed to them. News from pod 26 said the largest group of locals seemed to be with the main - command - group, and that they all seemed friendly.
They weren't really expecting the radio to beep at them, but it did, just after the night turned completely dark. The eight earthforcers were gathered around the small fire in the middle of the clearing where pod 26 had gently set down, having sat or laid down and sipping a hot drink. Some of them were already falling asleep. The old man had gone off about an hour before, into the trees a short ways to string up a hammock. He was just barely visible as a silhouette, past the small herd of grazing horses. "Pod 112, come in please! Hello! This is 26, pick up! Are you able to reply? Over!" Private Mazu's voice crackled loudly to them over the radio. She sounded less than calm.
Stretching, Jocylen got up and picked up the mike. "We hear you, pod 26, and we're fine. You're still awake? Over."
"Well, you see, we got some news. We - uh - found out where we are. Over."
"Don't keep us in suspense. Where are we? Over."
"Promise not to freak on me. I just found out myself. The Captain recognised the leader of locals as soon as she saw him, but, it takes time for news to filter down. Has - has the old man you've mentioned seemed to know what you want before you even ask? Over."
Jocylen looked at the others for a moment, wondering what was going on. "Kinda. Well, yeah - the obvious stuff. It's just 'old man of the mountain' type wisdom, I guess. Why? Over."
"Well, have you heard rumours about bunches of telepaths who fled the war and eventually settled their own world? Over."
"Yeah, everyone's heard those stories. Urban myths - the whole bloody lot of them were massacred off by the Psi Corps or the rioters, 'cept for the few hundred left who'd been hiding. The biggest cross-species genocide since the First Ones went around blowing up whole planets for fun. We all know what happened. What of it, 26? Next you'll be reminding me that we need to breathe air. Get to the point. Over."
There was a short silence from the radio. "That *is* my point, 112," Mazu snapped at him. "Guess what world we're standing on. Seems pretty solid to be a myth. Over."
The entire group, in perfect sync, turned to face the direction of the local. The dim outline that was their guide raised a hand to wave hi, then dozed off again. The radio crackled again - "I mean, we all know that there were deaths - hundreds of thousands of human telepaths alone, never mind the other species - but consider the thousands of teeps who just plain vanished, and the ones the Rangers took into custody - who then disappeared - what if - just maybe - some of them lived? And ended up here? There might be *thousands* of them on this little green dustball - and what about the families of teeps who vanished without a trace? What if they all came here? It's really far out of the way - they might have. . . Over."
"Okayyyyy. . ." Torres muttered out loud, sitting up in her blankets. "There goes MY eight hours of rest. How many tee- uh - puh - people - do you need to get the kind of city lights we saw from orbit? More than thousands! If they're all mindrippers- screw this, I ain't getting sleep now."
"Crickets and Crackers! Well, that might explain why there was nothing on the computers for anywhere around here - and why the Captain had said we weren't going to stop for days more - well - until the attack, anyway."
Reaching over to take the radio back, Jocylen asked socially, "So, how's the brass taking our location? Over."
"Generally okay, but cautious. Commander Carlson has flipped, but Captain Ivanova and most of the rest seem to be okay with it. Better scanned than dead, I guess. And they're saying most of the locals seem a bit afraid of Ivanova, or at least really careful - her reputation has preceeded her, methinks. Her having apparently killed teeps during the war and all that. But they're helping us, and we need all the help we can get for now. We don't know if the ship will be fixable, we might be stuck here. Over."
Barnett shook her head in confusion, and leaned towards the radio. "Captain God doesn't mind being on a planet full of telepaths? Jeez, wha'd she do, hit her head? Over!"
Zoe repeated her observation for the rest of them. "This place is a moon, of the gas giant, not a planet. I could tell by the orbit."
The radio crackled to life again. "I don't know if she was injured, but the main scuttlebutt has to do with how the - um - the people here - were used to fight back the First Ones in the war - we know she'd have worked with at least one or two to have survived the Shadow-ship attacks, ISN splashed her over their main news briefs enough times about the subject. And once she got used to Gray, she even stopped threatening him - hell, she even admitted that one time that he was the best pilot on the ship. Over."
The woman with the bandaged arm snorted, and raised her voice enough that the radio would pick it up. "You don't believe those old rumours about living spider ships, do you?"
Jocylen spoke up again at this point. "I do, I saw them when they were still around. Friking terrifying things, blacker than space and a dozen sharp spikes for a vessel from Hades - I heard them scream in my brain, and I *saw* the way they'd destroy anything in their path. They're the jackasses who left that plague laying around - you remember - the one that's been dropped on Earth? End of the Human race? The Quarantine, thanks to the Drakh - you recall *those* things - nasty little Shadow-ship worshipping freaks that, as we learned an hour ago, had swarmed in against us *seven* to *one* and beat the snot out of *our* ship? Remember that? If telepaths are responsible for letting us live through the First One war - and then giving us a safe place to crash instead of going to Kingdom Come - then I'm glad to have them around. Besides, Gray was nice enough. The old guy here seems to be nice, too." He paused momentarily, then directed a question to the microphone. "Gray . . . any idea if he made it out? Over."
Pod 26 was slow to speak. "He was flying in the fight. None if the pilots flying in the fight made it." There was silence from other end for a few seconds. Then, "Rest in peace. I hate to end on a bad note, but the name search you had us put through hasn't turned up any news on any of your families yet. Try not to worry, though, there's lots of crewmembers who've only checked in by numbers, not names, we seem pretty darn scattered. I'm sure they're all fine. Over."
"Over and out," Jocylen said.
Zoe, by now very worried about her husband, rolled over in her blankets to face away from the others. She didn't want them to see her as she started to cry.
A final crackle came over the radio. "Over and out."
~~~~