Hays Landing, Near Brisbane
“Over the course of a year, about 1 000 tonnes of rock hit the Earth every year, about the mass of 5 or so, cars.” “And how much is going to drop on us tonight?” “Dunno.” How do you not know you study this shit?” “Just because I study space, doesn’t mean I’m a…” Kaylee and Garrett’s quibbling was halted by a third voice echoing off from the road “ha, left you two for a minute and your already arguing?” Garett flashed a grin, “Ay, Laura, I was starting to think you were dead.” There was a laugh from the night “You’re not that lucky.” Stepping into the light of the campfire, Laura dropped the bag she’d been carrying, the tinkle of glass indicating the contents of several bottles. Flopping back into a camp chair she ran her fingers through her shoulder length black hair, letting out a low sigh as she did, the chair creaking slightly as she sank into it. The act eliciting a slight chuckle from the older of the two Smith siblings, “What, got tired hauling beer? Should’ve spent more time in the gym then in the labs.” Laura growled at her boyfriend’s jab and retorted with her own. “And perhaps if you’d studied a little harder in school you could find a safer way to almost qualify for Centrelink.” Before the man could respond, his brown-haired younger sibling cut in: “Ok, I’m just gonna drink the pack and stare at the sky and if one of you two brainlets survive you can have whatever is left, sound good?”
The two glanced at her, glanced at each other, before taking a dive for the bag, Laura made it first, hooking onto a handle and yanking it towards her, only for Garett to crash into her, scrabbling past and grabbing the bag, with a laugh, Laura rose again, trying to leverage her size and strength to gain control of the bag, it would have worked, if not for Garrett whipping her legs out from under her with a quick and efficient swipe. Now on his feet, Garrett took a step forward and with an efficient twist pried Laura’s hand open, pulling the prize free and slinging it over his shoulder. “Ha, guess there are some perks of almost qualifying for Centrelink after all, eyyh?”
The bag suddenly disappeared from his grip courtesy of the blond astronomer, who proceeded to scurry back to her chair, yanking a bottle free as she did, a bubbling giggle sounding in her wake.
Half chuckling, half sighing, Garrett lent down, offering a hand to his fallen friend whilst quipping. “Well, I say I won fair and square, K cheated, wouldn’t you agree Laura?” Rising to her feet and dusting off her jacket, Laura grinned and with a horrible pantomime of a British accent replied. “Why absolutely G my dear, a filthy cheater through and through.” Unperturbed Kaylee replied, “Cheat, not cheat, the only thing that matters is that I, not either of YOU’S got the objective so therefore… I win.”
“Oh, get hit by a meteor.” Laura snapped, a wide grin stretching across her broad features.
“Not likely.” The waifish Smith sister replied, an Impish smile appearing. “The closest thing in history to an asteroid induced death was a dog in Egypt.”
After some negotiating, the three friends divided up the spoils, albeit somewhat unevenly and sat back to watch the ‘fireworks’ the only sounds being the crackling of the fire, the chirping of frogs and bugs, and the gentle sloshing of the water.
“There!” Kaylee’s shout cut through the serenity the gunshot
“Where?” came Garrett’s slurred, bleary reply.
“In the sky dickhead!”
“Holy …” Garrett’s voice choked off as his eyes found their bearing, Laura swore under her breath, above them, to the northeast, the sky was on fire. Across half the sky green and purple flame swirled in a silent, fluid dance, broken up by brief white streaks of light. Almost reluctantly Laura turned her eyes away from the magnificent conflagration and glanced to her friends, the two of which were both sitting transfixed, their faces bathed in the unearthly light from space.
If you discover this narrative on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the violation.
Laura tried to speak, her brain struggling to generate a single meaningful remark to the display before her, but no sound came, what could be said. Whilst she struggled to speak the light began to change, slowly going from purple to green and then slowly to bright, burning white, snapping back to shower above her Laura felt her heart hammer with terror. One of the bright white lights had grown considerably larger, no, gotten significantly larger. “Guys!?” Garrett’s voice yelled back, “BITE FUCKING DIRT!” Advise that Laura didn’t quite register, instead running away from the incoming projectile which slammed into the ground with such force that Garrett and Kaylee were both lifted a good couple meters off the ground by the impact, before being thrown a couple more by the blast of dust.
Wheezing Garrett clambered to his feet, blinking the dust out of his eyes and looking around. The fire had been completely snuffed out and anything that hadn’t been tied down had been thrown dozens of meters. Looking down at his sister he tried to ask if she was OK, and at that point noticed the shrill ringing that was humming away. Opting for a physical approach, he grabbed his sister by the jacket and rolled her over, quickly giving her a once over for injuries, plenty of bruises on her face and arms, doubtlessly more on her back, a nose bleed and by the looks of it a concussion, leaning down a placing his hand under her nose his worries were somewhat assuaged by the presence of breath, albeit shallower then he would have liked, but it was there.
However, his relief was quickly crushed as the condition of the third member of their group overtook his sister’s in terms of urgency, standing and spinning around, his gut churned as he failed to spot her, turning to face the impact site Garrett swore, stumbling towards the cloud of dust and the pit that had opened up mere moments before. Taking a few moments to catch his breath Garrett pulled his shirt up and over his face.
Choking on dust and smoke Garrett plunged forward, stinging eyes squinted against the detritus. As he pushed forward his foot caught on something, sending him stumbling. Reaching down his hand grasped the leather of Laura’s jacket, throwing her over his back firefighter style and began stumbling out.
As Garrett and the unconscious Laura cleared the haze, Kaylee was slowly leveraging herself into a sitting position, blinking dust out of her eyes she watched in slack jawed silence as Garrett deposited his girlfriend on the ground before collapsing himself. After several seconds of silent wordless eye contact, they both turned to look at their friend, her clothes had been utterly ripped and singed beyond recognition, with small puncture wounds from the shrapnel running up and down her body, her face was several different colours of purple with a black chunk of… Something embedded just above to her left eye, stick outward like a horn. But it was her arm that drew the most attention as ¾ of it was wrapped in some sort of bluish silver metal, seemingly having formed around her extremity in the vague approximation of a hand, 3 crude stubby fingers and a thumb extending from the ‘hand’
Rising unsteadily to her feet, Kaylee soaked in the scene around her, to the North, the distant glow of bushfires was already rising over the trees, the area around them had been obliterated with several smaller craters dotting the immediate landscape. Turning to the closest crash site, she took one step forward and immediately took two steps back, a yelp slipping from her mouth. The noise jolted Garrett from his triage who also turned to the crash site… and the object that lay within it.
Lying in the hole, staring back at them almost judgementally was a metal head the size of person, its dead eyes shining black despite its recent introduction to atmospheric friction.
[New Operator connected… Nervous system integration 8% and rising.
> Commencing Assessment
> ENERGY Storage… 6/10
> MASS Reserves… 5/10
> Mission Directives… MEMORY CORRUPTED
> Accessing Warchive… ELITE UNITS UNAVAILABLE… ADVANCED UNITS UNAVAILABLE… BASIC UNITS… AVAILABLE
> Commander Status… PENDING.