The first few sensations to return from darkness, first and foremost amongst them was excruciating pain. The kind that Alex had only felt a handful of times throughout his life. Thankfully. Every muscle group was sore in at least one part and stiff in another. A new source of pain flared out and pressed itself against his temples giving Alex the impression his head was stuck in a vice. A thought he was beginning to entertain as a means of alleviation.
Only briefly after his mind had processed the body-wide discomfort was he able to begin expressing his suffering through controlled contractions of facial muscles. Then, the ability to move entire limbs returned, then his sense of sight and hearing came back a short time later.
He started by taking in a deep breath, his ribcage protested fiercely against being expanded, muscles bruised and bones with small fractures told him that taking in too much air was bad. Despite this protest, his chest cavity didn’t seem too keen on him releasing his muscles either as they had also flooded his perception with pain as he let out an agonising hiss through clenched teeth.
Even opening his eyes proved to have become a Sisyphean task. His eyelids were like a curtain that weighed heavily over his eyes. Trying to lift them up required more strength and focus than he had ever thought was needed for such a task.
Upon opening his eyes, after a few unsuccessful attempts, blinding light slowly bled into his vision placing a tremendous strain upon his optical nerves. When his eyes finally adjusted, the first thing he came to see were the remains of the Atlantis’s bridge. There was no shrill call of alarms or the hissing of fractured gas pipes but instead a high-pitched ringing permeated his ears. Not to the point that he could not hear anything else, but the lack of any other audible stimuli told Alex that there was no more power. Neither did he see emergency lighting flash across his view.
Small blue arcs of energy danced across panels followed by loud, sharp cracks sending out lots of bright orange sparks were all that was left to indicate that the bridge was a functional starship command centre only moments ago. Alex was able to lift his groggy head off of his chest and tried to unbuckle himself with his left hand, when it didn’t comply with him and instead responded rudely with weakening pain. When he looked at it and saw his left arm bent out of shape his mind didn’t even flinch in alarm. At least not immediately. His shoulder was pushed far behind his collarbone. Further down his dislocated arm were two of his fingers dislocated with one of them bent almost all the way back. He used his right arm, which he thankfully prayed was undamaged, to try grabbing his left shoulder and pulling it forward in some crude hope that it would pop the limb back in place.
He stopped after only his first attempt. Nerves flared up and intense pain spiked through his shoulder, gripping his neck.
He forewent any further attempts to fix his arm. Then unbuckled himself before standing upright, his legs were fatigued, calf muscles cramped, his knees wobbled, and they barely held his weight up. He was only standing for a few seconds before he nearly fell face-first into the floor. A spell of dizziness had struck him so suddenly that it had messed with his sense of balance that almost thrust him back down into his seat.
For the first time since waking up, he took notice of the massive white scar streaking across his peripheral. The absence of the HUD projection told him his helmet visor was cracked badly. Seeing no further use for his helmet, which had also lost its ability to cascade, was swiftly removed and tossed aside immodestly. Without his helmet obscuring his vision he was better able to see the bodies of the bridge crew spread about. One officer towards the left was still strapped to their chair with their arms limp and their head pulled back and over the rear of the chair, vertebrae jutting out the front of the neck like sharp ridges.
On his right, several more officers were unconscious or dead, without getting up close and checking for a pulse Alex had no way of knowing for sure. He did however have one method to try that did not involve checking the entire ship. Using his free hand he tapped on his Wrist-Pad. Dull shocks of pain were generated by the impact on the surface of the device. He was about to speak when he forgot to bring the device up to his face, he had not forgotten the pain of trying to budge his shoulder a moment ago. He was, however, able to hesitantly move his elbow and cradle his forearm and nurse it against his chest and lean in before speaking.
“Captain Rowan to anybody on the Atlantis, please respond I… I am broadcasting on an open frequency, if you can hear me please respond.” He said, biting down on the pain.
His chest convulsed, and then his throat itched as he fought back against the urge to cough. But one convulsion was enough and he broke out into a coughing fit, he felt the phlegm inside his throat getting hacked up and he put his right hand over his mouth in time to catch it. When he looked down on his gloved hand to see the product of his own body’s internal machinations, he was shocked but not at all surprised to see the blood staining his glove. The thing that surprised him the most was not the unsightly presence of his blood but the overall sensation that he felt fine after that fit.
Alex looked around his surroundings to check for anyone else who could have survived the fall from orbit. He spotted Samantha’s limp form resting idly in her chair. Her head drooped to the side, her arms were limp. Then without a second to question the legitimacy of his actions he shook her body to provoke some kind of reaction from her. Soft moans could be made from inside her helmet. Gentle sounds of breathing accompanied by her head moving on its own volition. Slowly her eyes opened to show her large golden pupils to Alex. He could see in them the pain that occupied her mindset.
Her hand flew to the side of her head, massaging the sides of her helmet, groaning in discomfort.
“…Alex?” She asked softly.
Alex smirked in response as he clapped her shoulders. “Welcome back to the land of the living!”
She gently yet forcefully pushed him aside and began standing up from her seat. Likewise, she removed her helmet, only hers was able to cascade behind her head and began scanning the bridge. Her lower jaw hung on its hinge, she had a look of disbelief across her face as she studied the corpses and infrastructure damage.
“Good thing Savannah has a breathable atmosphere,” Alex said. “otherwise, we’d have been screwed when the hull was breached.”
The human captain tried to speak in a jovial, uplifting tone of voice as though to suggest that they should be looking on the bright side of things. Except it wasn’t working.
“They’re all dead…” Samantha uttered.
She continued to scan the bridge and the bodies that littered the ground around them. She had only been a commanding officer of her own ship for less than three months and already in that time she had lost her ship, her First Mate, and a majority of her crew.
“We don’t know that for certain,” Alex said. “We are alive, so somebody else had to have been lucky.”
Samantha had scoffed at him. She didn’t believe him, how could she when she was surrounded by so much supportive evidence of her own narrative?
Only a few seconds later, Alex caught something moving in the corner of his eye. Followed by sounds of pained moans and muffled chest coughing. Both Sam and Alex rushed over to the source that came from the very front of the triangular-shaped bridge to find none other than Clemens hunched over his keyboard with a bloody cut on his forehead. His arms had started to position themselves where he could push his hunched-over, damaged body from the console. Alex was the first to stop him from moving any further and wrapped one arm around his neck. Samantha did the same and together they were able to stop the injured helmsman from exerting himself further than he was capable.
“Take it easy, Clemens.” Alex groaned softly as he took on the extra weight.
Clemens's face had been bruised and bloodied; the whites of his eye were now an angry red as blood ruptured from the extreme impact. Dark blue blotches with bright purplish hues around his eye socket had swollen immeasurably, and across his forehead, blood seeped from a wide cut that cut across his forehead and merged with droplets of sweat. The resultant blood/sweat mixture trickled down Zachary Clemens’ face alongside blood dripping out of his nose. As the two commanding officers hoisted him out of his station they took note of the fact that he didn’t seem to be in pain whenever they moved him, perhaps a positive sign that nothing internally was broken, dislocated, or badly bruised. Aside from his eye that is.
He looked up to see the cracked and shattered windows. Bright light from the two stars reflected off the damaged hull and into the bridge. Outside, the burning keel was half buried in Savannah’s earth while several stacks of smoke and gas hissed from fractures along the streamlined hull. The entire time Alex had suspected his balance was damaged and that was why he struggled to even walk in a straight line. Now that he could see outside he knows that it wasn’t his balance that was off but the bridge tower had bowed from the impact.
The duo lowered Clemens onto one of the command chairs and let his weight slump down into the cushions for support. His knees started to ache trying to carry Clemens. The man weighed more than he looked, far heavier. Not that Alex had any way of determining his helmsman's weight, nor did he have any plans in place for finding out. After settling in, the young cocky pilot’s head rolled from side to side in a half daze while mumbling incoherently.
Samantha dusted her hands while looking over to Alex. “We gotta get off this ship, are you able to contact anybody?”
“Already tried that,” Alex shook his head then gestured with his Wrist-Pad “Either this thing’s busted or nobody can hear me. Are you able to check to see if anything on this ship is still working?”
“Let me try then.” And she held her own Wrist-Pad up to her muzzle after typing in a few prompts. She scoffed half amusingly. “Major structural damage, no propulsion. Engine reactor is busted. All systems are on battery power right now and… and you won’t believe this, but one of the X-ray emitters is still functional.”
“Great, so we got something to defend ourselves with!” Alex’s voice perked up. A small glimmer of hope entered his mind at the prospect. Samantha gave him a look that said he was making a bigger deal out of it than it actually was.
She opened up a channel on her Wrist-Pad, summoning forth a tone of voice that could command a response from whoever listened. “This is Corvette Captain Hammer broadcasting on an open frequency. If you can hear me, respond!”
A few seconds passed and the sound of static filled the bridge. Hope filled the two captains with the idea that there were going to be survivors.
“…hello… -anyone hear me?” a crackled voice spoke.
In that instant, Alex’s heart nearly leapt out of his throat. Then took a leap closer to Samantha and tilted his head towards her Wrist-Pad to listen closely. Still nursing his sore, dislocated arm.
The voice came in distorted, small bytes of sound came through occasionally but nothing to form a coherent word. Static filled the radio waves. Then the signal started to clear up, the voice came through only this time it could be understood. It was a voice only one person he knew possessed.
“Doctor Grayich, is that you?” Alex spoke into Samantha’s wrist.
“C-captain Rowan? Thank god, I thought we were the only ones who survived.”
“We? Doc, you got survivors with you?” Alex struggled to phrase the question in a way that didn’t show just how relieved he was to hear the news.
“…-essir, there’s seven of-… in the infirmary. Myself included.” The dragon said through the static. But it was enough to give Alex an idea.
Clemens stirred in the captain’s chair, he placed a hand on his forehead and hissed in pain. Turning away from him, Samantha held up her wrist.
“Are you badly hurt, is Dr. Meddles alive?”
She must have been referring to her own CMO, Alex thought. Grayich didn’t respond but he must have left the radio on as nothing but strange sounds and static could be heard. Then finally he returned.
“I’m sorry madam, Captain… -ulkhead caved in and got Docto-… -les… If it is any consolation, I can say that it was quick and painless.” The young dragon said mournfully.
Samantha didn’t respond, when Alex looked at her she had a look on her face that seemed more hurt than anything by this. He gave her a nudge on the shoulder which seemed to have snapped her out of her stupor and into the present to which she regained her composure.
“As for myself… seem to have broken one of my wings and I have injured my ribs… I know I sound calm…-collected, but make no mistake I am in a great deal of pain.”
“Will you be all right, can you move?” She asked with a hint of concern.
Liyurch responded promptly with a heavy breath. “Yeah, I am good in that regard.”
“Are you able to leave the infirmary and find your way off this ship?” Alex asked. He held onto Samantha’s wrist when he spoke before she quickly jerked it away from him. Casting an annoyed glance in his direction with a sneer that revealed her teeth for a split second.
“I-I think I can. But is it safe to breathe outside?” The dragon said with a voice that trembled under the weight of uncertainty.
“Savannah is a safe world, doc. Just grab everything essential, get everyone to find a way out of this ship and we will regroup.”
Samantha looked over to Alex. Then she chose to cut the call, then gestured to Clemens with her head. “So how do we get Zachary out of here? More importantly, you need to get that arm of yours looked at. You’re not in any shape to carry Clemens any further than the door.” She gestured to his dislocated arm and broken fingers.
He tenderly raised his injured forearm to inspect his fingers. Huffing nervously at the thought of what he had to do next. He brought his right hand over them, and swiftly jerked his wrist to the side, letting out an audible wet crack followed by a sharp jolt of pain shooting up through his arm, it had felt like that the network of neurons that transmitted the agonising sensation up towards his brain carried an intensity that made his neck tense up. A brief yelp escaped his lips, its high pitch a result of pain and shock.
While he thought to himself, Alex found humour in the high notes he made while his face clenched and twitched as he tried to control and suppress the discomforting sensation. He looked down at his left hand, eased the grip his right hand had over his fingers and removed it altogether. The two left fingers that were dislocated only a moment ago had shifted back into their rightful place but motor control still eluded him.
Samantha looked at him with shock, the sound was loud and sickening enough that Clemens snapped out of his dazed state with a disgusted look on his face.
“Dude, what the fuck!? Do you even know what you are doing?” Samantha called out.
“Sort of… I took an advanced first-aid class. Believe me I wanted to wait until the doctor can fix it but I am afraid our circumstance won’t allow that.”
Clemens made a gesture with his hand pointed towards Alex’s shoulder. “Well, you gonna do your arm as well?”
“No, I think I will leave that to the professionals.”
His lips curled upwards, the pain a numb, tingling sensation that was only present at the edge of his mind. Still there but not taking up as much of his attention as it used to.
“How do you feel? Any soreness or broken joints?” He asked Clemens.
“Y’know that feeling when you stub your toe? Imagine that feeling in everything. My chest feels like I got stepped on. And not in a good way.”
“You think you can manage to walk on your own?” Alex asked with the intention of dismissing that last statement as soon as possible.
He nodded. “Yeah. Gimme a second.”
Clemens slowly raised himself off the seat, slowly rising to full height. The scrawny man almost lost balance when he nearly reached full height and he let go of the armrests. Both captains lurched forward in preparation to support Clemens when it looked like he was going to fall over.
But the young pilot raised a hand dismissing their attempts at help as he slowly walked away from the chair.
“So where do we go?” Clemens asked.
Both Alex and Sam looked at each other. Alex had only planned as far as getting out of the crumpled ruins of the Atlantis. Samantha didn’t seem like she planned further than leaving the bridge.
“There was a massive hull breach from when that ship struck us. Chances are likely that re-entry exacerbated that hole. We could get to it and see if we can climb out of it.”
Samantha piped up with “What about the airlocks? We can just climb out of those.”
“Look around, there’s no power!” Clemens shook his head. “How are we meant to open the airlock? By hand? Don’t those things weigh like two hundred kilos?” Clemens looked over to his Captain as if he were asking a legitimate question.
“We prime the explosive bolts then. They are chemical-based charges not electrical.”
Sam’s words made sense; it was a legitimate method of getting out. In the event of an emergency the idea of believing that the power grid would be unfazed in space was foolhardy at best. Solar flares, magnetars. Pulsars were just a few of the naturally occurring phenomena that would cause both ship-wide electrical issues and emergencies in the worst of scenarios. Relying on digital systems in space meant greater efficiency in systems so long as you were far away from anything. Those that travelled in denser, populated regions with stars and comets and micrometeoroid storms meant that so much as a hull breach could disrupt individual systems and bring about catastrophe. With this in mind, it was no wonder that for all the advancements in technology that manufacturers of starships started to look at simpler, outdated means of keeping these systems as active as possible. Systems such as chemical lighting, manual cranks on door frames, sometimes small explosive charges that could be primed by setting off a chemical based timed fuse.
The narrative has been illicitly obtained; should you discover it on Amazon, report the violation.
Her suggestion didn’t seem all that bad, however, in the back of his mind, Alex could tell something was wrong with it. In the span of a second his mind had gone through the phases of trying to figure out what is wrong, knowing the answer is on the tip of his tongue, then suddenly realising what it was all along.
“It’s a good idea,” Alex started. “But we don’t know how high we are from the ground. I’m willing to at least bet that we can find the breach on ground level.”
Silence overcame the bridge, even the abscent dull hum of gravity plating made it seem way too quiet. Then the Lykan nodded agreeably.
“Alright,” She said. “We’ll go with your plan.”
The door behind the bridge was left ajar on an angle that blocked half the available space. Samantha took the lead having no issue pushing aside into the wall with her superior Lykan strength.
No power, severely compromised infrastructure and possibly busted hydraulic lines meant that the door panels were nothing more than airtight panels that were on small wheels. With enough strength anybody could simply push them aside as though they were nothing. And that is exactly what Samantha had done.
The corridor looked as compromised as one could have guessed. Panels from the walls and ceiling were violently removed and created a pile of debris. The ceiling had caved in about five metres ahead of the trio, support beams bent downwards and with it the radiation shielding found within the inner hull. Only two metres in front of them was the steep set of stairs that led down to the deck below. The hatch that would cover the hole was thrown off its hinges and wedged itself into the wall. Alex was the first to go down the steps. His conscious mind was praying for the stairs to not suddenly give way underneath him. Only a couple of steps creaked and groaned under duress which still proved enough to set Alex’s heart racing in anticipation. Then his feet were firmly planted on the floor without incident. He spun around and gestured for Clemens to come down next.
The idea was that if Clemens were to go first and his feet gave out underneath him while traversing the steps he could harm himself and risk further injury. At least Alex’s feet were steady and stable enough to descend, his dislocated arm notwithstanding. And Samantha hardly looked as though she survived a fall from the heavens. Clemens was already half way down the steps when his knees buckled slightly and caused alarm in the two captains. His hands flew in the blink of an eye to steady himself against the railing and the wall, Clemens took a moment to regain his balance and assured the two he was going to be fine before making the rest of the descent without further incident. Finally it was Samantha’s turn, she rapidly descended the flight of steps in a rush, when she was four steps above the floor she pushed herself off and landed on both feet with a loud thud. The hull around them groaned in response.
“Show off.” Alex mumbled.
Thoughts about the structural integrity continued to persist in Alex’s mind regarding just how much damage there was and how much could it take for it to come crumbling down on top of their heads. He looked over to Samantha. A small part of him wanted to scold her for nearly upsetting the delicate balance of infrastructure they were in which could have brought down the entire hull down on them. But ultimately he decided against that. The Atlantis was sturdier than that, but all things considered, it was more comparable to a house of cards rather than a purpose-built corvette designed to operate in space.
The deck below matched the corridor above them. Displaced metal walls decorated the floor, broken cable wirings protruded outward from the gaps in the walls. Some still carried a live charge made evident by occasionally letting out a startlingly loud crack that made the trio jump.
After walking down the corridor for twenty metres the trio of officers rounded a corner. While the path ahead was vacant of debris, the walls and ceiling panels remained attached to their fixtures with the exception of a pipe that was forcefully shaken from its fixture and sprayed its contents all over the floor.
But what had proven quickly to be an unsightly view was the body of an Atlantis crewmember impaled through the chest by loose piping that was shaken loose from the ceiling. A Satyr with a masculine physique remained suspended mid-air, their arms drooped to the floor, their legs gently swayed side to side. Two hollow pipes dripping with clear liquid and jagged edges protruded through their back covered in viscera. The pipes probably supplied water to a nearby junction, they supported their ensnared victim upright two feet above the ground. Blood dripped down from their penetrated wounds and pooled at their feet.
Alex and Clemens took the time to mourn silently. Samantha was the first to act and proceed past the victim. She made sure her movements were respectful to the dead, her back pressed firmly up against the wall and took great care in avoiding setting her boots in the puddles of blood. Alex and Clemens followed suit.
The trio followed pace, continuing their descent to the lower decks until they found some breach they could egress from. Their encounters with the dead did not cease after their encounter with the impaled Satyr they shuffled past. When they did find someone who was alive it had given the two captains and pilot a sense of relief and a reason to feel better about their own survival. The shadow of survivors' guilt started to wash away as more and more were discovered.
On the port side of the Atlantis, the site one of the alien's volleys hit and rendered a significant portion of the hull into molten slag. When the Atlantis crashed it provided an opening about 3 decks high from which survivors could escape. Alex and Samantha instructed Clemens to stay back with the small group of crew they had amassed while they tentatively inspected the edge of the melted deck plate and support beams. The destruction had obliterated everything within a twenty-metre radius around them. Below and above had also been vaporised in a similar manner. Folds of liquified metal made the surfaces of some of the walls look like they were melting. Plasma scorched the region with charcoal. Alex and Samantha looked up to see if anything above them was at risk of collapsing down on their heads. Then they inspected the deck below them. Behind Clemens were twenty-three survivors among seven separate species that they had encountered along their way. Many suffered injuries ranging from mild cuts and bruises in similar or lesser severity like Clemens has to devastating lacerations and even crudely amputated limbs. A decent handful of their posse seemingly survived with no injuries of any kind. Shortly after the trio bypassed the impaled crewmen Samantha had set her Wrist-Pad to send out a repeating message along with an active beacon calling out for anyone to respond if they could as well to follow their beacon. So it proved to be a source of relief to Samantha to hear that there were many survivors scattered and trapped throughout the vessel.
It had also proven itself to be a relief to Alex as well as he heard the voices of Major Fёdorov and Gabby Hazaari to be among the living.
The totality of those who survived could not be counted accurately due to the chaotic and ever-shifting figures who were present. Optimism began to fill the hearts and minds of those present with each new member of their crew.
The charred metal still radiated with heat. A warm comforting presence could be felt through their magnetic boots, insulation material was able to shield their feet from any thermal damage that could be felt through their boots. Wiring and support trusses were twisted and warped beyond any functionality. Bits and clumps of dried grass and damp earth filled the deck below them. Seemingly pouring in through the breach. Chunks of grass were chewed up and overturned by the ship and caught on every edge inside the Atlantis. Alex jumped down; his boots fell through the soil with a loud whoomph. The warm, moist soil dampened his fall but it did not cushion the sudden ceasing of inertia in his dislocated shoulder, springing alive so suddenly with overwhelming, eye-watering pain.
“GAaAgh!” He clutched his shoulder as his face twisted in grim agony. He muttered as quietly as he could, “Dammit, should’ve known that would happen!”
Samantha crouched on the edge of the deck. “You okay?” She asked with a nod.
He flashed her a thumbs-up. “I’ve been better.”
The pain subsided slowly, but his strained voice gave away any sense of composure he tried to project. He hissed out each breath he took as he felt it go away.
The gap in the hull was as wide as his shoulders were wide, earth churned up by the impact seeped in creating a small hill that led outside. He thought for certain that he was able to make his way out through the gap. Alex reached out with his right hand for the jagged outcroppings of metal to help elevate himself through the skin of the Atlantis. In an instant he felt his fingers burn. In the span of a second he had felt the brief delay between feeling the skin burn and his brain actually registering the sensation as pain. Born of that pain was a sense of clarity as Alex began to wonder about the Atlantis’s construction. More specifically about how the hull plating was designed to expel heat energy. After only a few seconds of dwelling on the matter he dismissed the question as he also remembered that ships weren’t meant to enter the atmosphere let alone be subjected to an intense re-entry burn. At least most of them weren’t.
When he first set foot outside the Atlantis among the first sensations he felt were that of warm dry air kissing his face with a subtle but comforting breeze. Golden yellow grass plains reminiscent of wheat fields went on as far as the eye could see.
Roughly over a couple hundred metres away rested a singular small hill that was covered with the same waist-high golden yellow grass that surrounded him. On top of that hill was a small rock outcropping that jutted out from the ground. Further away beyond the hill, he spotted ranges of dark grey mountains lining the horizon for as far as he could see the distance. Each mountain had snow covering its craggy peaks, creating a near-white line that ran at the tip of those mountain ranges for as far as the eye could see. Through the breaks in the peaks and above some of the smaller mountains rolled the fluffy dark storm clouds, small pulses of light flashed from within the clouds followed by the rumble of thunder moments later.
The grass swayed gently with each breath of the wind creating waves of golden light shimmering among the stalks that flowed through the fields.
Looking back at the Atlantis, the charred black and grey ship with its nose buried in the dirt looked out of place among the steppes. Small fires lined the ditch carved by the Atlantis. Smoke billowed out from the ground where the Atlantis once released its intense heat load.
“Alex!” A voice from behind called out.
He spun around after snapping out of his awe of the protected world and made his way through the large laceration of the hull. Above him, Samantha looked down on him from her crouched position.
“You called?” He asked, craning his neck to meet her gaze.
Samantha cocked her right eye ridge and threw her hands out as if to nonverbally prompt him. “How’s it looking out there?”
“Area is clear.” He nodded. “There is a ditch dug up from our descent, looks like it goes on for a few miles. There’s a small hill ‘bout that way, looks like a nice spot to regroup.” He gestured in the direction of where he spotted the hill.
Samantha wore a thoughtful expression on her face for a few seconds, she brought her hand up and stroked her snout. “All right, I’ll start sending people down.” Then she turned around and said to someone. “You sure, you’re good… all right, take it easy. One step at a time.”
For a moment, Alex was confused. Thankfully it wouldn’t be a state of mind he would endure for much longer as Clemens entered into view and tenderly approached the edge to let himself down. Alex still rushed over and placed a supportive hand just in case the pilot’s legs gave out from underneath him.
Clemens rose to full height before dusting himself off. He looked at Alex with a grin, and slapped Alex’s right shoulder before moving past him and into the breach after being directed where to go. Samantha was already helping the next abled person to the ledge when Clemens could be heard whooping outside.
“Holy shit! Haha, I am the greatest in the universe!” His voice reverbed off the hull and echoed off into the distance.
Over time both Alex and Samantha had settled into a rhythm of helping down injured crewmembers. She would grab one at random and walk them over to the edge and then help them get down while Alex would brace himself for their descent and escort them through the breach. After a while, Samantha volunteered one of the other survivors in her place as she ran an open radio channel and informed any other survivors to meet them there.
Alex likewise had shuffled his duties onto another crewmember. A Minotaur with dull chocolate brown fur that stood nearly two feet taller than Alex. At first glance he assumed that he was from the Atlantis crew but upon closer inspection of his dirtied uniform he felt something akin to pride at seeing the Phoenix patch emblazoned on their shoulder.
Taking the time to properly inspect the surroundings in greater detail he studied the surface of Savannah with great scrutiny knowing he may never get a chance to ever do so in his lifetime.
The waist-high grass went on for as far as he could see. The sky shone brightly with the same colour as that on Terra. High above the horizon but still far away from its zenith the binary stars shone their orange and azure lights through the mostly cloudless sky. Having never been on Savannah before Alex watched the suns and wondered Is it morning or afternoon in this part of the world? Is it spring or summer? Is the sun rising or setting? I cannot really tell.
The survivors gathered on the small hill one by one, almost covering every square inch of the hill by sitting down. Most of the biped species sat cross-legged while others, mostly the quadrupedal species had sat down on their haunches or rested comfortably on their cushioned pelvic bone. Grayich was among the group in the centre, multiple canvas satchels draped over both sides the dragon’s body. Grayich’s right wing was flattened against his body with a tourniquet fastening it in place. The young dragon tended to a human woman with bright red short-cropped hair with a tourniquet around her forehead before the doctor sliced off the bandage using his own claws.
Grayich looked up to see Alex approach him before dismissing his patient. His nocturnal eyes briefly glanced at Alex’s dislocated arm and widened. Grayich walked over with the intent of getting a closer inspection of the damage. “Spirits above! What happened, sir? Does it hurt?”
“I’m fine for now, doc. Only hurts when I bump it or try to move it, otherwise it's not bothering me.” Alex said calmly.
Grayich gave a short nod in reply, pointing to the ground. Alex knelt down on one knee before the dragon circled around him. One thing Alex didn’t expect in the slightest when he felt the young dragon’s hand, or more accurately, his claws, touching his skin was the sheer strength contained within Grayich’s spindly digits. The sharpness of his claws were also a clear reminder of the creature’s power and lethality. It had felt like finely sharpened sickles digging in and hooking inwards inside his body and holding on to his shoulder blades.
Yet in a strange paradox, the immense strength within his fingers and the sharpness of his claws were equal in parts to the gentle movements the young doctor made alongside graceful articulation as he tactilely examined his patient. Eventually, as he was kneeling and allowing the dragon to examine him Alex had started to wonder if the dragon’s strength came from natural means or if he worked out.
CRACK!
Alex lost all concentration when he felt something inside him slip into place within his collarbone. The sound of a wet crunch was audible enough for several onlookers to turn their heads in his direction. This, along with the brief yelp Alex had let as the limb was moved back into its rightful place.
The yelp startled other survivors, making them jump in their place. With another forceful push from the doctor, Alex had forced out a growl, clenching his teeth in pain which disappeared quickly.
Grayich walked in front of Alex, his head gently cocked to the side. “How does it feel, can you try rotating it for me?”
He complied, waving his arm around in a clockwise motion and rotating his shoulder in a clockwise manner and to his own surprise he felt very little pain.
He raised his eyebrows in astonishment. “Hmmph… I don’t feel a thing, almost brand new.”
“Well sadly not. I wish my imaging scanner survived so I could make sure it actually is in where its supposed to be. Just don’t put too much strain on it for a few days until your tendons heal.”
“I’ll live. Tend to everyone else, doc.” Alex got up off his knee.
In the time it took for everyone else to be evacuated he was able to separate the two crews and get a headcount for both the Phoenix and the Atlantis. Samantha could be seen leaving the breach as a trail of survivors snaked its way through the waist high grass and up to the top of the hill. Metal groaned and shrieked loudly that it could be heard from their gathering just before several parts of the vessels dorsal section caved in with a loud crash.
“Un-fucking-believable!” Samantha said as she climbed up.
“I counted at least 127 of your crew survived and 205 of mine survived.”
Samantha placed her hips as her jaw slackened. “That’s just under a third of my total crew…”
“How do you think I feel? A little more than a fifth of mine survived. And I lost my ship” He said sternly. Each word punctuated to hammer his point across.
Thunder rumbled, the ground trembled slightly. The mountain peaks still under the shroud of thundering clouds and bolts of lightning flashing within and out of the veil of dense vapour to strike the peaks of the mountains.
The oncoming storm showed no signs of dissipating or easing down any time soon. In the blink of an eye a white trail of smoke appeared far away between him and the mountains, the impact struck the steppes with a loud dull thud followed by a slight rumble in the ground. Dirt was kicked up ten feet into the air. When the smoke trail was followed back up into the sky before it vanished and diluted by the gentle summer breeze, the sky could be seen with streaks of flame and smoke racing towards the ground as though the sky was filled with tears of fire.
He looked up at the foreign, alien sky; the binary stars shone brightly in the distance. Both were similar in size and intensity of light. The smaller one was much more alien to his perspective; the star shone brilliantly bright blue tones that contrasted, yet simultaneously nearly blended in with the bright blue sky it was viewed in.
Across the vast open expanse of sky streaks of blue and green danced brightly. At its zenith rested one of Savannah’s moons, the streak of shattered rock formed a tail that stretched out from the main body of the moon, or what was left of it. The tail of asteroids had changed the vista to give the moon the shape of a teardrop slowly falling across the sky from east to west. At least what Alex considered was east and west. Another, smaller moon with a more oblong shape existed closer to the horizon but just above the cloud layer in the distance.
Alex felt ashamed as he grinned at the spectacular meteorological display. Ashamed to see beauty and awe at such a horrific encounter that they barely survived. The energy released from their nuclear warheads finally reached the planet as did the debris from them and any asteroids flung away from their firefight entered the atmosphere. Most were incinerated before hitting the ground, some let out sonic booms midflight, and only a handful struck the ground.
Samantha looked up at the sky around her as more debris left streaks of fire in the sky. “This is gonna suck when STARCOM rescues us. If they know we are here to begin with…”
“Yup. Crossing into Draconic space without authorisation, entering Savannah’s orbit and potentially endangering her inhabitants.” Alex responded unenthused. “Must be at least half a dozen laws we broke.”
“I have faith we will be rescued,’ Said Grayich as he walked up to the captains. “The draconic patrol will no doubt take notice of the aurora borealis and the remains of the nukes and investigate. And I do not think the Atlantis is something that could be hidden from orbit.”
Alex looked over to Samantha, exhausted from the whole ordeal, and sat down on the hill facing the wreckage of the Atlantis. It sat there sadly in its final resting place, a tragic end to see such a young ship buckled and broken. The most likely outcome for the Atlantis once STARCOM knows where they are would be for them to salvage the ship or simply strip it of every valuable material and then leave the empty corpse here to rust as a modern tribute to Terran starship construction.
Both Lykan and Human commanding officers stood up and left the hill of survivors. Then they both walked away from the Atlantis’ wreckage for a hundred feet in complete silence, save for the gentle swishing of grass in the wind. Samantha led Alex away, presumably to talk out of earshot of everyone else. Then she stopped and turned to face him.
“Okay, now is the time to tell me,” She said. “What hole in Hell did those things crawl from?”
Alex cocked his head to the side in confusion. But Samantha wasn’t having any of it and glared him something fierce that spoke to something deep inside that said “Don’t try to avoid the issue.”
“I don’t care what clearance I do and don’t have. I don’t care if I am even allowed to know.” She continued. “After all this shit you owe me an explanation!”
Alex thought about it for a minute, thinking of all the various ways he could phrase his response vague enough to avoid giving her anything classified. Or perhaps even consider telling her the truth. But all that was disrupted when she pushed him on the shoulder as she barked at him to respond.
“Hey, don’t bullshit me!” She said with a stern voice.
Then, with a deep breath, Alex relented.
“They are aliens. Unidentified lifeforms.”
“Yeah, no shit.”
They were found on some frontier mining colony about four hundred-plus lightyears from here. Whether they’re from that planet or somewhere else I cannot say. What I do know is that they are aggressive and kill us for no reason.”
“That’s where you discovered them?” Samantha asked, she looked at him with disbelief. But Alex shook his head in response.
Alex began to recount how he encountered the creatures and the death and destruction they were responsible for. All the while, Samantha looked more shocked with each passing second. By the time he explained to her how he lost Milo and the Phoenix, Samantha scoffed in response.
“Yeah, thanks to my brother; supposedly your friend.”
“Sam,” Alex adopted a soft tone. “I was ready to die. I stood by the control panel, ready to scuttle my ship as per protocol… I knew my duties. Milo on the other hand… I felt him sink his teeth into me before I was thrown halfway across the engine room.”
Samantha took a step back. Shock, surprise, and disbelief could all be seen on her face. She was about to say something before Alex spoke first. “When I woke up, I was on the Captain’s yacht which had launched just in time for me to see the Phoenix get scuttled.”
“H-he… What…”
“Sam, listen. I know nothing I say will bring back your brother. But you deserve to know what happened. And if you still hate my guts, then I accept your decision.”
“He bit you?”
“Yeah,’ he nodded solemnly. “But I don’t have lycanthropy if that’s what you’re concerned about. Just a few puncture wounds in my shoulder.”
While speaking, Alex craned his neck to the side as he unzipped his suit and pulled it apart to expose his wound. Samantha closed in to examine it up close and a look of worry was plastered on her face.
“I’m not angry at you Alex. I am saddened by the loss of my brother. On top of that, I also got another one locked away for life and it feels like I am losing my family around me and I cannot do anything to stop it. I’m just angry in general and I took it out on you… unfairly I might add.”
In that moment she let her hands fall to her sides, her shoulders went limp. Her tail no longer swaying with the wind but instead fell to the ground as her ears pointed down. Alex took a step closer and placed his hand on her shoulder. He knew she didn’t mean it, she was grieving. The loss of Milo, the loss of her younger sibling being sent away, never to be set free again, it was all too much loss for her to handle.
“I forgive you.”
Distant rumblings in the sky filled the silence with vibrations permeating the air. It sounded cleaner, louder than the muffled explosions created by the storm clouds in the far-off distance. Alex’s own mind imagined the sound to be that of another piece of debris breaking the sound barrier as it careened toward the surface.
I miss him too, Sam He thought to himself. His first and lifelong friend, a constant presence, an element of his life that always stayed the same and a good companion. And now he was gone and all he could do was blame himself for the loss of his friend.
And yet, reliving the events in his head, he worried that it was becoming apparent that there wasn’t anything he could do to change the outcome. Nothing he could have done would have convinced Milo to obey him and let himself be killed in the line of duty. He was loyal to a fault, stubborn and would always act without thinking and a distinct lack of self-awareness at times. But in a way it might have been all these put together that placed his friend in jeopardy more than anything. The troubles of seeing someone you care for being taken away and being helpless to stop anything. His heart ached and yet he couldn’t show the pain, he had to be strong.
It took him a few seconds to realise that the pain in his chest was from Samantha’s large arms wrapped around him and pushing him against her body. Her face arched down next to his as she sniffled. Alex could feel her chest spasming rhythmically along with her irregular breathing, moisture fell from her face and down his back while he tried to suppress his own emotions from welling up. Instead he breathed laboriously along with Sam and returned the comforting gesture she imparted on him as his heart throbbed in pain at the loss of his friend.
After a minute of letting their emotions flow freely, Alex’s training and authoritarian self regained control and returned him to a composed state. Slowly he got his breathing back under control and slowly did he cease the production of tears flowing from his eyes. After he regained enough composure, Alex gently pushed himself from Samantha who had also done the same thing. Both captains straightened their space suits and sniffled away the last of their emotions before Samantha had asked.
“What do we do now, captain?” She asked.
But in truth, Alex had no solid ideas on where to go next. Most thoughts that swirled around his brain involved sitting down and waiting for the Dragons to show up and rescue them. But even if they could see the ruins of the Atlantis and the huddled, gathered masses of the surviving crew they were still going to be in need of communications with them.
“Well, first thing’s first,” He started. “Set your Wrist-pad to an open frequency and broadcast a distress signal. It ain’t gonna signal back to Terra but at the very least it’ll let the dragons know we are alright.”
She nodded and worked on it, during that brief interlude of silence, more rumblings from the sky could be heard. Alex looked up out of curiosity and saw a ball of fire larger than most others falling from the sky. Its trajectory came from the pale teardrop in the sky. A brief flash of white followed by the sound of thunder cracking echoed and boomed around the open valley. Its screeching descent arced over Alex’s head until it collided with the Atlantis creating a large fireball of debris raining down around it.
The hill where the survivors had gathered was far enough away to not pose the survivors at risk of debris and slag raining down on their heads. Samantha and Alex hurriedly rushed over to the survivors to check on them, when they were certain no one was injured, they had turned their attention over to the smouldering, the burning impact left in the Atlantis. Black smoke billowed out, rising high into the air with small wickers of flame visible from within the fragmented hull.
Most of the survivors jumped up and gawked at the blaze. Several pillars of support beams collapsed under the heat as it converted the battle-ready materials into soft, malleable slag creating a bowl in the Atlantis filling up with slag and insulation materials burning up to create the smoke. Already the black cloud had reached heights that could be seen from miles away, perhaps even low orbit. It wouldn’t be long before the natives of Savannah would notice and come running to tell them to leave this world or viciously attack them.
Savannah's only native wildlife were a handful of insect species, some game animals and several species of lorikeets, budgies, and swallows. Upon hearing a brief description of the planet one could be forgiven for believing the world to be a near perfect candidate for colonisation were it not for a few lesser-known factors surrounding the planet. First among them that the planet fell under the protection of the Draconic Navy and the second being it already being colonised by lesser-known species of Terran.
Nemean Lions, Manticores, Gryphons, Pegasi, and Hellhound species were all centralised on this peaceful world. Small colonies of other larger species such as Naga’s and Lykans had also been formed on the surface following a more tribal, simpler way of life believing that going backwards was the way to ‘live life the right way’.
Alex personally didn’t see the appeal of living a simple life, at least not to the extent that some people have gone. But it must have been important to the Dragons if they were so keen on fiercely protecting it.
Then in that instance, Alex thought back to what he learnt from Armadra on the Galaxius Mons. Along with the basics of Draconic philosophy taught by Liyurch Grayich, about how their fondness for the natural world around them was tied to their own nature. Now, did he finally understand why they were so insistent on defending Savannah. Now he knew why they were territorially aggressive against anyone trespassing in the Sataama system.
Shudders and high-pitched creaks broke the muffled rumbling of the fire. Small clangs and crashes came from the impact of the hull. Strange sounds came from the impact site, Alex was quick to dismiss it. Pushing the thoughts aside in favour of the idea that it was just the heat expanding the metal and causing everything to come loose. But he was not too certain that was the reason. Some of the sounds he heard could not have come from the fire, or the heat, or the crippling infrastructure. Then he heard a warbled shriek coming from the Atlantis and in that instance, he saw two long limbs with no digits on the end, except a serrated edge of chitin.
His heart stopped in his chest and his eyes widened as he grew cold as he watched the figure come out of the fire. There it stood, a silhouette against a backdrop of bright orange and dark grey smoke, the alien creature. And not just any, its secondary set of limbs protruded out from its chest to grab onto the ledge as it pulled its own weight up and over. More limbs than he’d seen before on the camera feed appeared as they pierced into the metal and allowed a steady crawl down the side of the hull.
Its come to finish us off… what the hell do we do to stop it!?