It's been six days since Executive Officer Malik Rosen abandoned the colony ship Starlight Journey as she disintegrated above an unknown world. His lifepod had splashed down in one of the foreign planet’s sprawling oceans, far from the other survivors that had escaped the Journey on that fateful day. Devoting himself to finding his crew, Malik fell into a rhythm of sending out distress calls, searching for land with the pod’s onboard drone, and battling flying snakes. He passed the remainder of his time enjoying one-sided conversations with one of the local denizens. The denizen in question happened to be an alligator the size of a school bus.

Oddly enough, as the days passed, it all started to feel ordinary. Unremarkable. Routine. Perhaps it was a coping mechanism for the stress he felt from trying to survive on his own in a hostile world. Maybe it was his way of projecting familiarity into his life to combat the loneliness that made every memory feel as if it were bound in barbed wire. Regardless of the reason, an arrogant corner of his mind had begun to believe that he knew what to expect from this alien world.

Before the night was over, all that false bravado would crumble like a starving poet’s dream.

*****

Malik was fairly certain he would have thrown up if he hadn’t been concentrating on the monitor displaying the drone’s camera feed. The lifepod jerked and leaped among the crashing waves like a bucking bronco while rain lashed against the hull in torrential sheets. The heavy rain pounded out a drumbeat for the marching storm as the wind howled a banshee’s discordant dirge.

Each time the craft dipped and spun, Mal felt his stomach rise into his throat and threaten to spill past his lips. Twice he’d felt the acrid burn of bile in the back of his mouth and had to close his eyes to bring himself back under control. Thankfully, the urge to paint the waterlogged floor with his lunch began to subside after the first half hour.

The pain in his sore shoulder, however, only grew each time he was thrown against the harness of his crash couch. Like a ragdoll at the mercy of a spoiled child, Malik’s arms flopped and his legs swung, oftentimes in different directions. He even managed to bite his tongue once, learning the hard way that he was better served by keeping his mouth shut and his jaw clenched.

Next time I end up on a waterworld, I’m bringing a submarine. Or a plane. Mal thought in frustration as he kept his blue eyes glued to the drone’s display. He’d carefully guided the drone around the far edges of the thunderstorm to keep it safe from the wind whipping across the ocean. Unfortunately, the squall was pushing his pod further away from the drone, so he had to swing the reconnaissance craft out wide to avoid the worst of the weather. It would have been even worse if the drone had been operating at the end of its battery life.

It's a damn good thing I got in the habit of never pushing the drone to the extreme of its range. If I had, it might not have made it home today. Score one for paranoia, I guess. I bet Oscar will be proud.

Nearly two hours passed while the storm raged outside the lifepod. Thunder, like the grumble of a hungry giant’s stomach, was an ever-present companion. Malik was almost thankful for the noise, considering it kept him from hearing the sound of his untethered gear striking the craft’s tritanium walls as the lifepod was tossed around like a toy in a bathtub. He could only hope that he could salvage some of the more sensitive medical supplies once the storm passed and he got the craft dried out.

Stupid, stupid, stupid, Mal chided himself as he checked the plot of the drone’s course for the 497th time. One of the first rules of sailing is ‘stow your gear.’ I got lazy. Catherine would put me on KP duty for a month if she knew how lax I’ve been.

Malik’s jaw loosened as a lopsided smile tugged at his lips. His expression was bittersweet, filled with a longing that he couldn’t quantify. He struggled to find the words to express the emotions her memory evoked, but the harder he tried the faster they slipped from his fumbling grasp.

Then he bit his tongue. Again.

His head rocked back, slamming into the crash couch as he hissed. “Sonofabitch…”

*****

The sun had long since set by the time the storm began to subside. The dark, oppressive clouds that had loomed over the roiling ocean for hours gave way to a clear, star-studded sky. Waves that had flung his pod across the churning sea smoothed to an unnaturally calm surface that looked more akin to an underground lake than open water.

Mal waited until the roaring thunder had faded to a distant murmur before he finally slapped the buckle of his five-point harness and stood up from the couch's wobbly legs.

So was that a hurricane? It definitely felt like a hurricane. Or maybe that was just a run-of-the-mill storm here? Malik wondered as his bare feet sloshed across the pod’s flooded interior. It wasn’t a complete catastrophe, but seven centimeters of standing water ensured that everything that had been on the floor was soaked. This meant that Mal’s first order of business was to fish as much of the equipment out of the water as he could. He was careful to mind his left shoulder as he moved but was pleased to find that his shoulder was only a minor impediment. Rather than being dislocated, the damage seemed to be nothing more severe than a heavy bruise. That rare piece of good fortune made the pod’s clean-up less disheartening than he’d expected it to be.

Stolen from its rightful place, this narrative is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

At some point between pulling his ratchet from the water and finding one of the wayward tubes of SAG, he heard the drone land in its charging bay. Even though he’d been confident enough in the improving weather to set the autopilot, he still felt a wave of relief when one of his most important tools was safe and accounted for. He celebrated Ayespy’s return by pausing in his treasure hunt long enough to clean the gash over his eye and pack it with a fresh coating of wound gel.

I wonder if Oscar is still nearby? Mal thought as he dabbed at his face with the only dry towel he could find. With his first aid seen to and as much of his gear as he could salvage retrieved from the ankle-high water, it was finally time to crack open the hatch and drain the pod. Water swirled around his feet as he shuffled toward the door with a slow, lurching gait like a zombie in a cheap horror vid. His right hand rose distractedly to slap the release button for the MAG locking system that sealed the pod shut. His mind was already turning toward other things, like clearing the water from the floor and where to send the drone tomorrow, when he heaved the door open.

The wondrous sight outside brought every thought in his head to a screeching halt.

The becalmed surface of the ocean sparkled in shades of cyan and teal in an almost hypnotic pattern as if the sea were covered in ripples of starlight. Cavorting across the scintillating water was strange fish that shone with a bioluminescent glow to match the beautiful shimmer playing across the sea’s exhausted waves. While Mal watched, eyes filled with child-like wonder, schools of the fat, shining fish frantically skimmed the water.

The reason for their hectic pace became apparent when a familiar-looking prehistoric alligator burst through the surface. The sea monster’s wide maw yawned open to expose its thick tongue and cavernous mouth. The leviathan’s large, ivory teeth gleamed like a purple shirt beneath a blacklight, but the massive predator didn’t bother employing those dangerous weapons. Instead, its heavy tail flexed beneath the water to send it rushing across the ocean’s surface where it scooped the glowing fish into its mouth by the dozens.

“Holy shit, Oscar!,” Mal shouted, his blue eyes blazing as brightly as the ethereal scene before him. “Is that you?”

Rather than reply, the crocogator shot Malik an unimpressed glance with its large amber eyes.

Mal could swear he saw his friend grin before it turned and went back to feasting on the fish that raced across the sparkling water.

For a time, Mal watched the mesmerizing scene in awestruck silence. I wonder where the glow comes from? It's like the storm scattered crushed gemstones across the water as it passed. Or maybe the waves churned the glowing fish food up to the surface?

Mal’s face went through a rapid series of expressions from open amazement, to quiet contemplation, and then, finally, to desperate hope as he turned on his heel and darted back into the pod. He paid no heed to the splash of the water beneath his bare feet as he virtually lunged the last steps toward the drone’s control panel. A glance showed the current charge at just above thirty percent.

It would have to be enough.

Anxiety and anticipation created a heady cocktail that made his hand shake as he tapped the launch button.

“Come on. Be there. Please let it be there,” Mal muttered to himself as he took manual control of the recon drone. It immediately began to gain altitude, rising higher and higher into the clear night sky until the pod seemed to be nothing more than a dark blot on a canvas of twinkling lights.

Lights that, from this height, looked suspiciously like a road.

He began to chew on his lip as he throttled the drone up to max speed. Like the Yellow Brick Road from old mythology, the glittering carpet upon the sea stretched toward the horizon. What Mal wanted to know was what lay at the end of it.

Time passed and he watched the drone’s energy reserves like a miser studying their bank statement. With every minute that passed, the drone grew inexorably closer to the end of its battery life. Soon he would have to make a choice. Press on or turn it back. To press on meant losing the drone for good. To turn back meant losing an opportunity he may never have again.

It was no choice at all.

One hour turned into two. By now, the lights cast across the ocean had become muted and faint. Twice he considered turning the drone around in the hope that it could limp home on the last of its charge. Twice he stubbornly denied his mounting fear and chose to stay the course.

The drone had less than five percent of its charge when the glowing motes dancing upon the sea faded into oblivion.

“No. It has to be there. It has to be.” Mal hated the way his voice cracked with the strain he felt across every inch of his body. As a bolt cinched too tight, he felt like any more pressure could just strip him of the strength to hold on himself together. A kind of numbness began to ooze through his body like cold molasses. He felt it growing as he watched the last minutes of the drone’s camera before it plummeted from the sky. When it fell, it would bear a large piece, perhaps the largest piece, of Malik’s hope with it.

He ignored the alarm that warned of two percent power. Like a fiend desperate for a fix, his blue eyes stared unblinkingly at the monitor as if to will a miracle into existence.

And will it into existence he did.

At first, he thought it was a trick of the light cast by the large moon hanging high above, but as the drone rapidly approached Mal pumped his fist in the air and let out a whoop that had Oscar’s eyes turning toward the pod.

There, displayed across the monitor showing the drone’s camera feed, was the unmistakable form of an island. Five minutes later, Mal landed the drone at the inland edge of its sandy shore.

After nearly a week adrift upon a strange sea, Malik Rosen finally had a destination to travel toward.