Missed a chapter? Go to the Table of Contents to catch up.
Chapter 25
Nicolas Carver: 2053
“I want him dead too.”
Carver couldn’t believe his ears. Those were words he would never have expected from Zach. While Zach had been quite disruptive recently—breaking Ryker out of custody, reaching out to Wilford, stealing the dropship from OSE—saying he wanted Carver dead was beyond the pale. After everything Carver had done for Zach, and those were the thanks he got?
The second Zach discovered what Carver had done, he overreacted in exactly the way Carver knew he would. He never stopped for a second to understand Carver’s reasons, never considered that maybe Carver was doing the right thing, even if it was the hard thing, the messy thing. He could never understand that real leaders need to make tough choices. They don’t always get to do what’s popular. Sometimes they get none of the credit and all of the blame.
It was Carver who had gotten the last survivors—the only survivors—off that flaming planet, only to discover that the Gateway was gone. The Gateway would have been there from the beginning if Zach hadn’t pulled his little dropship stunt. Instead, Carver had to maintain the sanity and morale of the survivors, rationing food and water in the hopes that the Gateway would return before they all starved to death.
Then, when Zach finally returned with the Gateway, Carver had again done the responsible thing and tried to put everything behind them. They had more important things to deal with than some petty disagreements from the past. But Zach’s warped sense of morality couldn’t just let bygones be bygones. Instead, he wanted Carver dead.
What an arrogant asshole.
Zach would have been nothing without Carver. He would have lived his life working some minimum wage job if Carver hadn’t handed him an education and a top-notch job at OSE. Carver was there every step of Zach’s life, watching out for him and constantly helping in any way he could. He should have let the kid rot.
Carver’s eyes struggled to focus in the dim light of his containment vault. The unending machine hum ate away at his sanity. Metal ridges rubbed against his back and dug into his shoulder blades. What a time to be alive, he thought, conjuring enough willpower to sit up. Minutes seemed like hours. Hours, like days.
Despite his best efforts, Carver’s mind turned again and again to the thought of what Zach might do to him. Would he leave him in the cell for the ride to Alpha Cen? Would they put him on trial? That didn’t seem plausible, but Carver couldn’t imagine Zach would just jettison him out to space. Or would he?
A few sharp beeps echoed outside in the hall, the sound of someone punching an access code into the control panel outside the containment unit. The door opened with a flash of white light. A silhouette stepped in.
“Get up.”
Ryker Gagarin: 2030
Why? Why did his mother have to go? As he looked at her through the quarantine glass, all Ryker could think of was what he could have done differently. Could he have spent more time by her side during her final hours? Could he have badgered the doctors to do more? No. It was pointless. It wouldn’t have prevented her demise. There was nothing they could do.
He traced the hair on her head with his eyes. Her brownish-gold locks maintained little of their former beauty. Instead, they were coated in cold sweat and clinging sand. Ryker suppressed a sob.
“Ryker,” Zach whispered from the tent’s entrance. “It’s time to go.” His voice was soft, without the uneasy edge it had maintained over the last several weeks. But no amount of kindness could move Ryker from his current position on the dirty ground, starting at his mother’s corpse.
Corpse. The realization that his mother had not just passed but had wholly and irrevocably died struck him. Ryker wished he could hear her voice one last time.
“Ryker,” repeated Zach. “I’m so sorry.” He hesitated before continuing. “My dad’s waiting.”
“I can’t just leave her.” She didn’t deserve to be discarded by her only child, left for the elements. Left to rot.
Zach bit his lip and looked out through the flap of the tent. “I’m sorry, but we have to go. They’re leaving.”
Kayla’s head drooped a bit against her pillow. “Easy there, Ma,” Ryker choked. “Don’t go falling over.” It was pathetic. He knew that. She was gone, and there was nothing to do but accept it.
When his father died, grief had led Ryker to the crater, to bringing back that irogen, and, finally, to the mysterious outbreak of the Red Plague. He didn’t know whether it was his and Zach’s doing, but the timeline was too coincidental. His sadness could have very well been the downfall of the colony. With that in mind, he calmed his nerves.
“Okay… Okay, let’s go,” Ryker said and slowly rose. As he walked toward the exit, he gave one last look to his mother, feeling that if he looked away, she would cease to exist altogether. He would forget her face, her voice, her touch. “Rest easy, Ma,” he whispered.
Then, he looked away.
Zach Croft: 2030
Quinton ushered Zach and Ryker through the empty streets of Prescott. The colony was deserted, deceased, broken. In the dead of night, even the buildings seemed sickly. Canvas doors and tents hung motionless. The few remaining street lamps flickered.
Zach couldn’t believe they were leaving. It was astounding how terribly things had gone wrong. From the moment they touched down on the planet, they were doomed. It was as if someone had cursed them. Any time the colonists experienced a period of relative peace, some other disaster upended their lives. Well, no more. Never again. It was over now. He was going home.
The way Quinton had framed it, giving people the option to leave Prescott was a way to hedge their bets. Those who went home could gather help and develop a vaccine, while those who stayed could try to do something with the resupply ship scheduled for a few weeks out.
“We can’t put all our eggs in one basket,” Quinton had explained, “If we do, and we’re wrong, we’ll all die. This is our best chance for at least some of us to survive.”
Zach didn’t fully buy that explanation. It felt like his dad was trying to clear his conscience. Quinton wanted to leave. But by giving people the option to stay or go, he wouldn’t be abandoning anyone; those staying behind would have chosen to do so. He wouldn’t have to force anyone’s hand. Everyone was free to make their own decisions.
As Zach and Ryker passed each dilapidated structure, Zach pictured the sickly people cowering inside them. He pictured their dead-grass hair, their bubbling skin, their tears of blood. He imagined what it would be like if he, too, was resigned to dying alone, with no one willing to be by his side for fear of contracting the illness.
Guilt pooled in his stomach as he thought about his hand in the situation. But before he could dwell on it too long, Quinton tugged him and Ryker through the last stretch of the town and into the sandy expanse beyond it.
In the distance, Zach saw the source of the muffled voices: a long line of people was assembled at the colonial airlock, fenced in by hip-height rails. The airlock was round and towering, bridging the gap between the colony and the long glass tunnel that jutted from it. At the end of the passageway, a dropship sat on the launch pad, steam swirling beneath its glowing thrusters. Small groups in twos and threes climbed its ramp and disappeared inside.
“What’s the line for?” Zach asked Quinton.
“Security checkpoint.”
“Security for what?”
“We can’t risk letting anyone who’s sick slip aboard.”
Zach nodded. It made sense, but it was still a depressing thought, a grim reminder that so many people were forced to choose between saving themselves and leaving their friends and families behind or staying and risking almost certain death.
As they drew closer to the line, the muffled voices revealed themselves to be angry shouts. On both sides of the security line, enraged colonists yelled at the deserters, cursing them for leaving the sickly behind. The crowd surged against the security fences, seething with rage. They pointed fingers, shouted obscenities, and threw sand at the people in line. It was hard to believe that they had all been laughing and eating burgers together a few months earlier in Big Bear.
Zach looked up at his father. Quinton was staring at the chaotic scene, his eyes drained of all life. He gulped, took the boys’ hands, and strode forward.
A guard in blue and black fatigues received the trio as they approached the line, placing his hand protectively on Quinton’s back and leading him and the boys through the raucous crowd. “This way, sir.”
Quinton looked nervously at the long queue of colonists. “How many people have boarded?”
“A little over a hundred.”
Quinton nodded, but the uneasy look lingered on his face.
The guard led Quinton and the boys down the line, instructing the other colonists to step aside. As Zach passed them, he marveled at the guards’ ability to tune out the vitriol being hurled at them from both sides of the line. They kept their eyes straight ahead, seemingly deaf to the shouts of the protestors.
Suddenly, a cup of dark liquid flew from somewhere in the mob and splattered on a man in front of Zach. He flinched as the deep purple fluid dripped from his jacket and suitcase.
“You can’t just leave us!” the man who threw the cup yelled.
More voices shouted from the crowd.
“Fucking monsters!”
“We know you’re not coming back for us!”
“Is there anything we can do about them?” Quinton asked the guard, motioning to the protestors.
“I’m afraid not, sir. We don’t have the manpower to do crowd control right now. Who knows—maybe a few of them will wise up and get in line themselves.”
“I can only hope—”
“Oh, and here’s our brave leader!” one protestor hollered, pointing at Quinton and beginning a slow clap. Others joined in the ironic applause. Soon, the entire mob was shouting at Quinton.
“Look at him! Not even waiting in line to leave us all behind.”
“Bored of your job, are you?”
“Jumping ship?”
Zach cowered from the protesters, tugging his father’s arm for attention. “Dad—”
“Ignore them.” Quinton squeezed Zach’s hand and locked his eyes on some nonexistent object ahead of him.
“Are they going to hurt us?” Ryker asked.
Quinton eyed the escort’s gun and shook his head. “We’ll be okay.”
At the front of the line, barricades had been set up to keep the protesters out and to regulate who got onto the ship. At least a dozen soldiers stood guard around the safe zone at various intervals, but only a few held guns. One man stood with a shaky hand over his holstered pistol, looking nervously from the line to his comrades. A thin sheen of sweat covered his forehead, and his foot beat anxiously against the sand. Zach noted the man’s name tag, which spelled KENNER in bold white letters.
Where the security line met the barricades, two men in hazmat suits stood with tablets in one hand and flashlights in the other. They asked colonists their names, scanned their ID cards, then shone the light into their eyes to look for any signs of infection. If their eyes were clear, the guards sent the travelers to the dropship and prepared for the next few people.
When Quinton’s group arrived, one of the hazmat-wearing guards quickly checked them for signs of illness, then sent them on their way.
As Zach passed through the barricade, he watched the next group of colonists step up for inspection. One of the men stood with a sleeping boy in his arms, leaning forward uncomfortably as one of the inspectors shined a light in his eyes.
“You’re clear,” the guard said. “Now, the boy.”
The man glanced at his son, then cocked his head at the hazmat-wearing guard. “He’s sleeping. It’s the middle of the night.”
“Sir, we need to see his eyes.”
The frustrated line grumbled at the man, urging him to speed up. His lips curled into a nervous smile. “Come on. Aren’t you a dad?”
“Not anymore. Show me his eyes.”
The man turned bone white. After a beat, he reluctantly shook his son awake and whispered in his ear. The boy gave a confused look, to which his father returned one that said, “It’ll be okay.”
Impatient, the guard used his pointer finger and thumb to angle the boy’s face toward his own, then shined a light in each of the boy’s eyes. He paused. His arm fell gravely to his side as he shut off the light and took a few steps back. “Sir, you can’t board.”
“Please. I need to get him help,” the man pleaded.
A few guards rushed over and took the man by the arms, guiding him forcefully away from the entrance.
“Please!” the man shouted. “Help us! Someone—” He struggled against the guards’ grips, but they were too strong. Two men from the crowd hollered at the guards as he was pulled away from the line.
“He’s a kid!”
“Let him go!”
Suddenly, a fist collided with one of the guard’s faces. He faltered, grabbed his jaw, then returned a powerful punch. The attacker fell to the ground.
Infuriated, the protestors turned their string of profanities on the guard and moved to grab him. The guard pulled a baton from his belt and swung it at the crowd, commanding them to step back. Several men lunged at the guard, trying to overtake him. The baton collided with one of the men’s faces. Blood spurted from his nose. More guards then charged into the fray, their batons swinging.
“Time to go,” urged Quinton’s escort. Strengthening his hold on Quinton’s back, the guard hastily led him through the airlock and into the tunnel, tugging Zach and Ryker along for the ride.
Shouts pelted the trio from behind. As Zach looked over his shoulder, the queue and protesting crowds morphed into a single, outraged mass. In what seemed like an instant, the railings were knocked over. The angered colonists began stumbling over the barricade. The guards shouted at them to back up, raising their rifles to show they were serious. The crowd was undeterred, and they continued to shout at the guards as they advanced.
“What are you gonna do, shoot me?”
“Go ahead! We’re dead anyway!”
Down the tunnel, several soldiers stood at the base of the dropship’s ramp. As one noticed the party approaching, he ran over and looked to Quinton’s escort for answers. “What the hell is happening out there?”
“The civs are getting rowdy. Get back to your place and stand guard.” With that, the escort led the group the rest of the way into the dropship.
Once on the dropship, Quinton seated Zach and Ryker before being called off to another part of the ship. A tight circle of guards stood at the entrance. Some leaned against the frame of the blast door, making wild gestures at the colony. Others craned their necks to listen for news from their breast pocket radios.
A burst of gunshots rang out from somewhere down by the colony. Desperate calls for backup echoed through the walkie-talkies. The guards at the entrance reacted, unslinging their rifles and running back down the tunnel. One of them ducked into the dropship.
“Where’s Quinton?” he yelled.
“He’s in the hold down below!” someone answered.
A few more gunshots tore through the air, coming from what sounded like a single gun. Between the gunshots, the adrenaline-filled roars of the guards echoed in the distance, telling the gunman to hold his fire. But the voices were no longer coming through the radio.
They were coming from the tunnel.
“Goddammit, Kenner!” a guard called.
“Go! Now!”
Though the rest of the yelling was almost unintelligible, Zach could tell that the guards were pleading for the colonists to get back. A moment later, a blood-covered soldier limped up the ramp as fast as his legs would allow him and fell into the arms of the one remaining guard at the entrance.
“They’re— they’re coming!”
“Whose coming?”
“All of them! Everyone!” The guard fell from his comrade’s arms and slumped on the ground, clutching his seemingly dislocated shoulder.
A moment later, Quinton emerged from the back of the ship and ran up to the entrance, pulling the injured guard inside.
“What do we do?” the other asked.
The tunnel was glass, so even from the dropship’s elevated state, Zach could see the mob of hollering people rapidly approaching, filling the width of the tunnel with their staggering numbers. A few meters ahead, a line of guards ran for the ship as quickly as possible. One did so in a backward manner as he fired more panic-stricken shots into the crowd. He managed to land two or three before he was overtaken by the mob.
As his bullets met their marks, the colonists tripped and stumbled over their spasming neighbors, calling for the guards’ heads. The crowd swallowed two more soldiers, leaving nothing but the men’s desperate screams.
“What are you waiting for?” a voice shouted behind Zach. “Close the doors!” Zach turned to see a man he recognized as Councilman Faren unbuckling his seatbelt and rushing toward Quinton.
“We have to wait for the guards!” Quinton yelled.
“There’s no time! We need to go now!”
“We can’t just leave them.”
“It’s that, or we all die.”
Quinton stared out at the tunnel, biting his lip as his eyes traced the guards’ path. They were almost to the ship, but the mob was too. Seeing Quinton, a flicker of hope crossed the soldiers’ faces. A few raised their hands as if to get his attention. One called out to him.
But then, someone in the crowd threw a rock at the man’s back, and the soldier fell to the ground. The mob trampled him moments later. Faren tried to push past Quinton to engage the door himself.
“Quinton—”
Quinton pushed Faren away. He stared off into nothingness briefly before slamming his fist against the door frame and turning back into the ship. “Damn it! Close the door.”
A moment later, the airlock shut.
A dozen frantic hands reached the blast door and began banging on it. Muffled voices plead for someone to open the door. The pounding grew faster and faster until their muffled screams were drowned out, and two hundred other hands replaced theirs.
Quinton stared at the closed blast door in numb horror, his head slowly shaking back and forth. “How long to launch?” he asked, his voice sounding distant.
“Five seconds!” the pilot replied.
Five.
Four.
Three.
Two.
As the engines kicked on, Zach heard Quinton whisper, “I’m sorry.”
Zach Croft: 2053
Zach glanced at Ryker as they passed a group of people in the hall. “I apologize for what I said earlier. Things got out of hand, you know?” Zach found himself replaying their fight and reached up to feel the bruise forming on the side of his head.
Ryker scrunched his face. “It’s fine. Wasn’t my proudest moment either.”
“It’s not just that. It’s…” Zach took a breath, craning his neck. “I should have found a way to come back for you.” They walked by the hydrofarm entrance. They saw lines of greenery sprouting from murky waterbeds through the glass doors. It was incredible the thing was still working after so many years.
“We were just kids,” Ryker said. “There’s nothing you could have done.”
“I could have talked someone into it.”
“Really? You’re good, but you’re not that good.”
Zach nodded, cracking something barely discernible as a smile. “I know it sounds silly, but for the first few years after Prescott, I stared at the sky every night, hoping to see your ship fall from the brightest dot up there. Even though they said you were dead, I still did it.”
Every night after dinner, he’d sweep his plate into the sink, grab his cheap telescope, and post up in the backyard. With the pool quietly churning beside him, he’d align the lens to the sky. Cora would come out periodically. Sometimes, she’d carry bowls of ice cream she had prepared for the two of them. Other times, she’d come bearing only the time. “It’s midnight. Mom says we have to go to bed.”
“Why?” Ryker asked. “Not to prod, but a dot in the sky isn’t all that interesting.”
Zach breathed a bit of laughter—the first bit he had in a while—and eyed his shoes. “I don’t know. I guess I was hoping you were still alive. But,” Zach sighed, “eventually…”
“You gave up.”
Zach nodded. “I’m sorry.”
“It’s okay. I did, too, sometimes. A lot of times.”
Over time, Zach stopped going outside. Sarina noticed. After all, he’d done it for years. She had been washing dishes when she asked him about it.
“Aren’t you supposed to be on the terrace right around now?” she asked, dragging her hands across the embroidered rag.
Zach shook his head slightly. He walked over to the fridge and pulled out a grape soda. He was about to go back to his room when Sarina spoke again.
“Hey.” She dropped the cloth into the drying rack as she approached Zach from behind. “I know. I miss them too.” She ruffled his hair. “We’ll get through this. Trust me.”
It seemed like a lifetime ago. So much had happened recently that Zach hadn’t even given a second thought to Sarina or the fact that he never got to say goodbye. He also never got to say thanks. To appreciate her for taking him in when nobody else would. She didn’t have to do it, but the better side of her told her it was the right thing to do. Zach sighed. At least she was with Victor now.
“How did you do it, Ryker?” Zach asked, coming back to the present. “Coping with so much loss, all by yourself?” He couldn’t imagine what Ryker had gone through. To have nobody left to turn to and nowhere else to go? A normal person would have been crippled by it in a matter of months. But somehow, Ryker wasn’t.
Ryker briefly looked at the line of windows beside him. “I told myself I’d make it back. No matter how long it took. And then I did.” His eyes went glassy. “And now here we are. Right back where we started.”
A voice crackled over the radio on Zach’s belt. “Zach. Ryker. Did you guys release Carver?” Zach shot a worried look at Ryker and held the radio up to his mouth.
“What are you talking about?”
“His cell is empty. He’s gone.”
Want to keep reading? Don’t want to wait?
You can buy The Forgotten Colony on Amazon today. The Kindle ebook is only 99 cents, and can be read on any smartphone, tablet, or computer via the free Kindle app.
jbryderauthor.com 