Total pages in book: 86
Estimated words: 80439 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 402(@200wpm)___ 322(@250wpm)___ 268(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 80439 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 402(@200wpm)___ 322(@250wpm)___ 268(@300wpm)
All the bits and pieces of insulation wrap around me as they come flinging out of the walls, and cushion me in part. Everything is taking the load and strain of the terrible thing happening. Everything, somehow, except me.
I’m not sure how I am still alive. I assume I won’t be for much longer.
The part of the ship I am curled up in starts to rush through dense undergrowth, which slows the progress of the wreckage until finally we come to a rest.
I am alive.
I’m not even injured.
That’s amazing. I don’t know what the odds of that are, but they have to be practically zero.
“I’m alive!”
The thrill of existence washes through me. I can’t believe it. Adrenaline and excitement are pumping through me as I realize the hands of the gods themselves must have been wrapped around me in order for me to survive.
I clamber out of the broken brig and I stand atop my particular wreckage and I look out at…
An absolute sea of death and destruction. Bits of ship and bits of crew indiscriminately spread across alien terrain. It almost doesn’t look real.
Above me, the sky is roiling with fiery clouds. Something to do with our crash, I think.
I am lucky to be alive.
So many are not. So, so many. It seems to me that I might be the sole survivor.
The brig must have been specially shielded or maybe otherwise somehow protected. The rest of the vessel seems to have broken up like it was made of tissue paper. I don’t understand the engineering decisions, but I guess falling out of control through a random planet’s atmosphere was never part of the design brief.
The aftermath of the ship’s crash is…
Silence.
I really thought there would be more people coming out of the wreckage, but I don’t hear anyone.
“Hello?”
I call out. My voice sounds thin.
No other voices come back.
I sit down on the ground and I try to process what just happened, but of course I can’t. The human brain was never made to understand a crash that wipes out an entire crew. We were made to maybe fall from cliffs at worst, not come blasting out of the universe and into an alien planet.
I am alone.
More alone than I have ever been.
I try to come to terms with reality.
I can breathe the air on this planet. That’s a good thing. I don’t know what kind of animals are here. I don’t know what kind of aliens live here. I don’t know anything.
I’ve survived, but that doesn’t mean I’m not going to die if I can’t work out what to do with myself. I probably need shelter. I could take shelter in the ship. I should stay here. They’ll send help.
And I survived, and even if nobody else did, there has to be some useful stuff in the wreckage. Food supplies, maybe. Shelter, for sure.
CHAPTER 7
Ido not know how many days I spend in the wreckage—or even if it is more than a day at all. It gets light and dark and light again, but my mind is not working the way it should and I am not counting the way I should, and after a while I can’t deal with the growing scent of death. I’m afraid of seeing someone I recognize. I’m afraid of seeing, well, him…
Functioning more on some theoretical sense of what should be done more than actual real human thought, I carry what I can in a pack, and I dress myself in discarded uniform pants. I have boots, leggings that fit me well, a pair of over-pants that don’t, a sweater, a thick jacket that is also too big, and a bag full of items I’ve somehow managed to forage from the wreckage.
I start to walk toward a forested area. I want to be away, but not too far away, in case rescue comes. I know that I will stick out. I took a radio device, and some other wired things that I think might register if someone was looking for a survivor.
Just as I leave the wreckage site and slide into the trees, I hear voices.
What a beautiful thing.
The sound of humans has never struck me so profoundly before. I open my mouth, prepared to cry out for help and recognition, but something stops me before I do.
I peer through the leaves of the bush I happen to be in and I see people moving through the wreckage. They’re not survivors though. They’re not wearing our uniform.
They’re big men wearing dark clothing, with red insignia.
They are Vikar.
I know it instantly.
I crouch down in the undergrowth and watch them as they move through the wreckage. They’re looking for something. I wonder what. Not any tech or supplies, because they walk past all sorts of interesting things that I’d take if there weren’t a limit to what I can carry.