Chapter 9

Ringing drowned out anything else as a stinging, pale blue light came from everywhere. Slow-motion blurred surroundings and a haze of dust made everything feel like a dream -or more accurately, a nightmare. Phil rose from his seat with extreme difficulty after unbuckling the restraints. Everything hurt to his core. From the depths of his hips, through his back, and into his chest and skull, a dull ache with intense heat and weakness was everywhere. Trying to steady himself through the severity of it, he turned and held onto his seat, hoping to find the rest of the crew also getting up. He could hardly breathe.

Clarity returned to his vision. Still, he could hear no more than intense ringing, but he could feel a breeze, and it was still much brighter than expected. Things seemed almost bleached in the pure white-blue light of this planet’s sun. He tapped his broken wrist computer and suddenly it hit him - the back half of the ship was missing. No one else was moving.

“Oh, shit.” Phil said with misery as he choked back a gasp and tears. The surge from his gut gave him the urge to vomit. There were only five seats left in the ship beside his own, and only three were occupied. He hurled.

Darek, Adrienne, and Allen were all hanging unconscious in their seats. Phil could feel the heat generated by the friction on the hull wafting over him on the air. It smelled like burnt, scraped rocks, ozone, and asphalt after summer rain.

Phil heaved again painfully a few times, yelling through each contraction. He struggled to slow his hyperventilation, looking around at the wreckage again, shaking and weak. “Guys.” He said fearfully, with a cracked voice. He winced at the pain of tensing his muscles, almost unable to produce a sound. “DAREK.” He said louder and grunted again, “ADRIENNE. ALLEN. Oh no, come on guys, get up.” The pain numbed his mind, making him feel he was half asleep and fighting his own body. Phil braced against the nearest support he could find and gathered strength to move towards his crewmates.

He forced his limbs to move toward their seats. Allen’s calf was just about folded in half against a crumbled section of floor with blood showing through his pant leg. Darek and Adrienne looked mostly intact, though battered. He got close and checked - they were all breathing.

With a huge sigh, tears snuck out through his relief as he settled himself to the ground as best he could. He needed time to process. Running his hands through his thick brown hair, he let his eyes roll upward as they closed, and he disappeared inside himself. He drew deep, slow breaths and exhaled them with purpose, trying his best to push the negativity of the experience from within.

Juliet, Lunara, and Lori flashed into his head. They were gone. The ship had split, and they weren’t in it. He fought the images of their faces in their final moments that kept flashing through his head as he tried to calm himself; fear, panic, sweat, tears streaming. Intense scenes of them being ripped out of the ship, plummeting, conscious of everything, and terrified until they hit the surface with all the force the ship had streamed against his will. It was more than he could bare. He shifted and threw up again, yelling in agony through and after each convulsion. My ribs are broken he pulled short painful breaths My ribs are broken. Exhaustion and shock overcame him. His vision slid away in a heavy blanket of dripping purple darkness, and with that he lost the sense of his body. Completely overwhelmed, he passed out against the remnants of the ship facing Adrienne and Darek.

***

Phil came to when he heard the clanking of metal. Blinded, thirsty, and aching, he waited for his eyes to adjust, too fatigued to bring his hand up for shade. When he could finally make out colors and shapes again, he looked to Adrienne’s empty seat and his heart jumped. He turned his head through the burn of every individual muscle fiber in his neck. He could make out the shape of Adrienne from behind - her hair plumed out and wild. She was pounding a large rock into the side of the ship frantically.

With great effort, Phil stepped to make sure Darek was still breathing, then went over to Adrienne. She jumped, startled by him when he put his hand on her shoulder. Her face was different than Phil had ever seen it before. It was devastated but simultaneously vacant- a hundred-yard stare. Her cheeks were wet with tears that continued to stream from her puffy eyes.

“I can’t get the emergency compartment to open. Allen is hurt, I need supplies. I can’t get the supplies.” Adrienne’s speech was as tear stained as her face. Her eyes stared forward, not really focused on anything as she spoke.

He took the rock from her and swung a few times. The pain in his body sapped his strength, making his attempt weaker than hers. She grabbed it back from him and unsuccesfully pounded the compartment with a frantic yell.

Phil didn’t know what to do, so he guided her to sit and took the rock from her. He did his best not to grumble and groan as he maneuvered in next to her. She stared emptily ahead. Trying to look at her face without being too obvious, he knew he could do nothing more at this exact moment. He put his arm around her and pulled her head into his shoulder. He felt her tears start to shake out, they made no sound until she squeaked a breath in. He knew she was terrified; he was too.

Phil closed his eyes and held her tight while focusing on bringing in positive healing energy. He imagined a rope of white light dashing from the stars surrounding them in the universe, full of energy and meant just to help. The rope in his imagination, as wide as he was, rocketed down and met a sphere of white light in his core. As if plugging in to some massive power source, the sphere surged a shock wave of light outward and grew, feeling warm as it enlarged. It vibrated with positivity and filled his entire body in a rush. He continued to fuel it with his mind as he held her. Guiding the light and allowing it to flow, he directed it to pour over and through Adrienne and wash away her hurt, to restore her confidence and strength, and to comfort her. He let it flow as fast as it wanted. He could see the rope up close, it looked like a dense river of stardust; it felt pure and endless. He let this flow continue, giving himself over to it, disappearing into it. In his mind’s eye, he and Adrienne floated amongst the stars, surrounded by extremely distant clouds of nebula that could have been luminescent colored pools. The beam of light flowed directly into him and surrounded them both with the energy of the universe, with their source of life. In his mind, they remained safe and sheltered in a sphere of light at the center of it all. He basked in this flow, separate from the world they were now marooned on, giving Adrienne all he could, and allowing his body to take in what it needed.

***

Phil awoke to Darek leaning over him and tapping his shoulder gently. His arm had fallen asleep from the angle Adrienne rested on it. “Hey Phil… I’m glad you’re alright. I came-to a minute ago. Allen is hurt, I need another pair of hands getting the emergency compartment open. Gotta move fast. You think you can help?”

At that Adrienne jumped up, looking to Allen. Phil found himself disappointed at the absence of weight at his side. Allen was in the same shape as before, but Phil noticed she didn’t look quite so upset about it. Set with a purpose, she moved to the compartment and assessed it. “I tried to break the lock at the handle, I couldn’t get it either.” She said.

“Well look over here, it’s not the handle, it’s the side wall. This part is pinched in so the door can’t swing open, we have to pry it out somehow.” Darek said. Instinctively, he patted all his pockets to check for tools. His eyes shot wide as he pulled a flathead screwdriver from his left pocket. Adrienne stared with incredulity and Phil cackled a laugh, then groaned in pain.

“Dude, I forgot I reverse pickpocketed you today! That’s been in there since lunch! HA! Ow. Oh my gosh!” Phil said.

Stammering back to reality and realizing it wasn’t a dream, Darek bent down and started working to pop open the door. Adrienne looked at Phil while she waited. Unable to decide what look to give him, what he saw was half ‘You’re an ass’ and half ‘my hero.’

He got up to take a closer look at Allen. A pop, crack, and cheer of success let him know Darek got the door open. Adrienne rushed to tending Allen’s mangled leg.

Deciding it was best to let her work, Phil walked off to look at the scene from outside the ship.

He took in as much of the landscape as he could, Adrienne talked through what she was doing to comfort Allen, her voice was so tender and caring it distracted him. A metal scrap snagged his pant leg as he stepped off the open back end of the ship. His body hurt everywhere.

All around them were tree’s, but spread out so as not to feel like a forest. They looked similar to things from Earth, but with variations in color, needle and leaf structure, height, and bark type. Not like Earth tree’s, but not unfamiliar. The ground was covered in soil and overgrown by short grass in areas that got direct sun. Rubble of dirt and torn grass was pushed up in front of the ship as it plowed into the planet, leaving a dirt track behind. In the distance, not too far ahead of the ship’s direction, was a thicker tree line. Phil felt the sharpness of this sun on his exposed flesh. The sky was massive and blue; it had an electric vibrance to it. Clouds streaked and poofed about. The smell of the crash was still overwhelming, but he noted a pine-like sharpness when the breeze blew.

“We got lucky with this weather, huh? It’s the perfect temperature.” Darek said.

“Do you think we hit those mountains?” Phil gestured, along the very obvious gouge carved into the planet’s surface from their impact; trees were downed. A few peaks reached up in the distance, not high enough to accumulate snow.

Darek stepped into the trail their crash left. “I don’t know, it looks like we crashed in a nice straight path here and it points off to the side of the mountains. But maybe we did, maybe that’s what happened to the back end.”

Phil nodded agreement and kicked random branches, tumbled rocks, and observed the leaves of the vegetation, trying to avoid spending too long looking at the ship itself just yet. “I really don’t like this color light. It feels like its bleaching things out.” He said.

“Yeah, I feel ya.”

Phil turned to find Darek taking the opposite approach. He was closely inspecting every inch of the ship. “I think I can see where we got hit while we were up there. The dents are up higher and bigger, with different colored scratches. The crash remnant looks more scorched and did a good job staying at the bottom, look.” Phil came close and remembered how scary and surreal it was to be clattered around in a tin can floating through space with no way to control it.

“I can’t believe we landed straight, we were spinning and tumbling up there.” Phil said.

“Hm. I didn’t even consider that.” Darek replied.

“I can’t believe the back tore off like that. We should go look for the others.” Phil said.

“You think they’re alive?”

“We are.” Phil stared off into their crash path, feeling sickened by the replaying imagery of the crash in his head.

“But we don’t know where the back fell off. It could be a hundred miles away. How can we?” Darek asked.

“I don’t know.” He turned and heaved, struggling to restrain a yell. He could smell the sweaty musk of stress in his uniform as he wiped his mouth, wincing at the sharp sting in his chest. “I’m going to walk around; I need a minute.” He headed for the nearest tree line.

***

The daylight was dimming when Darek limped around the rocks and past the tightly packed bushes to where he finally found the source of the weird sounds he heard. Phil was curled up, leaning his back against a large boulder. Tears matted his face. He sniffled as he drew deep breaths in, surprised at seeing Darek, but looking positively elated.

“Hey, Phil man, it’s okay, I think we’re all just in shock.” Phil nodded but didn’t change his gaze or expression. “Plus, we’re on an alien planet we know nothing about. Just take deep breaths and try to pull yourself back to here and now. You’re good.”

“I didn’t think you’d come looking for me.” Phil said with a muted look of excitement, fear, and realization on his face. “That’s what I came back here to do actually – calm down.” He was clearly engaged in complex thoughts. “I think something knocked a few brain cells back on. Now that the shock is fading, I feel different. I’m happy despite everything. We survived. I feel like I’m actually in every moment, like I haven’t been my whole life before now – only a few times. I think that’s what’s got me. It’s overwhelming is all.”

“Hm. I’m still shaking, and my gut is still clenched. You’re not happy; you’re in shock, Phil.”

“Do you remember the day after our first moon base operation?”

“How could I forget? That was the last time I almost died.” Darek responded.

“Darek, sit down for a sec. Come, breathe with me.” Tears aside, Phil could see Darek was the one who was really agitated and needed calming. Darek sat reluctantly. Phil started up right away and they slowed their breathing to a steady locked pace. Three seconds in, a short hold, five seconds out. Over and over, they breathed, taking the pace gradually slower as they went. Calm tingled into him.

After a few minutes of that, Phil spoke. “I’ve been thinking - and I remembered some things. Remember what you said to me after you woke up that day? You were so grateful that we survived, that I saved you. You thanked me for your existence. And you told me from then on you were going to live every single day. You did. I’ve admired that about you since then.”

Darek smiled.

Phil continued. “Remember back in academy? With professor Thompson - With time comes change, and change over time equates to evolution? The environment occupied in that time shapes life; it causes the change. All life evolves. We know it’s physical changes over many generations, but we also know it can happen mentally to the individual.”

“Yeah, that was a great class.”

“That’s what I’ve been thinking about back here. We have a conscious mind; we are in control. It’s not fate, or destiny or pre-determination. Its determination, desire, and doing. Individuals can evolve, but those are evolutions of mind. The evolution of mind involves hard work and persistence in the areas of your personal environment. By changing the environment your mind exists in, you change the way it exists. It will mold itself to be best suited to its environment. Your current environment determines the evolution of your mind. Do you remember learning about that?”

“Yeah, it was all about choices, decision. He used to say it different ways like ‘Experience many things.’ ‘Constantly change your environment to evolve more rapidly.’

“Right! And look at our environment. It’s entirely different.”

“True, true.” Darek agreed

“Life gives to those who seek. Make your environment most suitable for the mind you want, not the mind you have, and learn in all you do. The change and growth and evolution will come. Evolution you control.”

Darek stared at the ground ahead of him, but nodded in almost imperceptible waves as Phil spoke. He smiled to one side, remembering back to their days in astrophilosophy class. That was back when he and Phil were unspoken enemies. He could smell the lecture hall in their Earth Union Academy building; synthetic, clean, and could feel its cool temperature. It was always chilly. He and Phil had just entered the nano-robotics specialist program and their nearly equal skills poised them against each other from the start.

“I remember. That guy changed the way I see a lot of things. Didn’t click for a while - actually, not until that day on the base. But I do remember. What are you thinking now?” Darek said.

“I always thought I knew and believed those words, but I feel like I never fully got it until just now; now that our environment is so completely different. Nothing about this is the same as what we know, and we don’t know what to expect. Our minds will evolve to survive here, we get to shape that. It really is just us. It’s up to each of us to realize and begin to act. We can adapt to the situation.”

“Darek, I’m going to be what I want to be, even if we’re only hours from death. I go on my terms, knowing I chose to be everything I wanted. I am going to survive, I’m taking charge of my existence completely, it’s mine. This could be our new home. I don’t have to be anything I was before, don’t have to take any of my old shit with me. This could become a great life, more awesome than we ever thought. I’m in control. And you’re in control of you. Let’s just be mindful of it and make it everything we want it to be. It’s the only way to survive this, we should try to enjoy it.”

Darek nodded understanding.

Phil slowly got himself into a standing position and looked at Darek after wiping his face clean. With a big smile and wide eyes, he spoke again “I don’t know man, it feels like the drop buzz is still buzzing inside me. I just feel good... great… ready.”

“Ya know, I was pinning it on anxiety and shock, but maybe you’re right, I definitely feel it too. It’s there, and it does make me feel good. Maybe we can just push on. Well, I mean we have to, if we do nothing we’re done here.” Darek said as he lifted himself to stand with Phil.

“Right, good point. Darek, we just got handed a whole new environment. We never made it to commander because what? We said we didn’t want responsibility? Were we just afraid? Of what, though? Having to do it our way? Even though we’re both great at what we do because we do everything our way, anyway. We can do whatever the fuck we want now, because what we want is usually the right thing. We’re here, and probably to stay. We SURVIVED that crash. I vote to live. I’m taking advantage of it, and I’m going to love every second of the rest of my life – whatever that means. I want to soak in these moments, every one of them. We’re the first humans to explore a new planet outside the solar system, dude.”

Darek smiled and shook his head. “That is crazy. No one else has made it to another system yet. Wow.” They both smiled with a chuckle and wrapped an arm around each other’s shoulders so they could move more easily with their injuries. Heading back towards camp, they started to discuss the daydreams of their new future.

“What if there’s a beautiful river system nearby and we can domesticate some sort of indigenous animals and be alien farmers?”

“Ohh that would be awesome. Maybe they’ll look like little dinosaurs but taste like chicken. What if it’s exactly like Earth, and it just feels like we moved to another country, but like, the chickens are green?”

“What if there’s intelligent life?”

“What if there’s not?”

“What if the girls managed to survive?”

At that question they both stopped walking and looked at each other with sorrow in their eyes. Losing crew is not easy, especially when it was a meaningless death of an accident. And even more so when they had known and served with them for so long. Just… gone.

Diffusing the sadness of the silence, Darek asked another question. “What if we’re just stoned off our asses back in the lab lounge and we’re tripping this whole thing?”

Phil lightened, thankful for the change of topic. “That would be crazy as hell… however given that we’ve been at this for so long at this point, oh yeah, and we left the moon base on a ship and warped to another section of the galaxy… I’m thinking that unlikely. Besides, neither of us felt anything, and the alarm went off right after we started.”

“Yeahhh. Just wishful thinking.” Darek said. “That would give us a way back. I wish we could get back and figure out what happened. I feel so bad for Lunara, Juliet and Lori. I wish they made it too. I can’t believe they’re just gone. I hope they survived and are fine. But if not, I hope they went peacefully and are back home resting now.”

Phil nodded his agreement with Darek and they started their walk back to the crash site again. Solemn, but no longer sad, they discussed solutions to their current problems; food, water, shelter, injuries, Allen.

***

“Alright, I found him trying to shit behind a tree.” Darek announced loudly to Adrienne and Allen as they approached the shipwreck.

“What!? NO HE DIDN’T!” Phil protested, and they laughed. “I was thinking.”

Darek mouthed “thinking” as he made air quotes and squatted into the position of “the thinker.” Adrienne couldn’t help but chuckle, Allen had his eyes closed and missed it. Adrienne was shaken up but overall uninjured. She was taking care of her brother; whose condition was no better after resetting his broken leg. He looked seriously pained, laying on the ground outside the ship with his head propped against a rolled emergency blanket.

“Okay, guys. Phil and I have decided to live, not just survive. We’re going to make the most of what’s happening here and we’re thinking we should start by following our crash path to see if maybe the girls made it.” Darek said.

Adrienne eyed the path and made a face at them.

“We have to start somewhere. Based on the sun, it looks like we crashed in a Northwest direction, which means following the crash trail takes us Southeast. If this works like Earth, water should flow South, and there’s mountains there so water should flow into the valleys between. That direction of travel will hopefully get us somewhere more helpful. We’ll just heed the natural features and take a route in that direction that will also offer us the best chance at survival.” Phil said.

“But what about Allen? There’s no way he can walk.” Adrienne said.

“I thought about that. Back on Earth, my dad used to teach me survival stuff. He always said he wanted me to be prepared in case things ever got bad again. Conveniently, he taught me to make a sled for carrying supplies. We can do basically the same thing and make a stretcher. It’s been a while but I think we can do it.”

“Sounds thrilling.” Allen grumbled.

“But guys, we need food, medicine, shelter, water. How are we going to travel if we don’t have those things? The emergency supplies aren’t going to last us much more than a week. They weren’t meant for intergalactic excursions.” Adrienne poked at their plan.

“Well, Adrienne…” Phil began. “Thing is, we don’t have those things here either, we’re going to run out of emergency supplies regardless. If we stay, we get no closer to them. If we go, we at least have some chance. I don’t want to give up. We can’t make it if we stay right here, but I know we can make it.”

Adrienne nodded her approval. “They are right,” Allen said. “We have to move to survive, that’s basic training.”

“Phil, what other survival stuff do you know?” Adrienne quizzed.

“I’m rusty, it’s been over twenty years, but I can probably get us going and surviving… yeah, I can do it. Starting with a stretcher for Allen. There’s lots of good wood back there to use that we luckily knocked loose when we crashed. We should rest for the night before we get started.” He eyed the few stars beginning to poke out. “We can figure out what supplies we have until it gets too dark, let’s sleep in what’s left of the ship tonight.”

The others silently agreed.

***

At first light Phil, Darek, and Adrienne rummaged through the debris looking for anything helpful. Adrienne started to scout a direction, looking for any kind of food after doing a quick visual inventory of supplies from the escape ship. Phil and Darek got to work on building. They gathered the right sized branches and wove them together using small more nimble branches and lengths of vine collected from nearby. They used the seat restraints to secure the main posts and padded it with torn grasses. The day seemed to fly by, and night rolled around quickly. They decided it would be best to wait until daylight to move.

“Is it me or did the day feel ridiculously short?” Phil asked.

“Yeah, there’s no way they’re twenty-four hours like home. Way shorter. I felt like I needed hours more sleep this morning too.” Darek replied.

“Mm. Me too. Makes sense now. I can’t get over this… moon?” Phil said while admiring the massive streak in the sky where a spherical moon ought to be.

“Yeah, I wonder what happened.”

This night was not as dark as their first. It looked like something had smashed the moon a long, long time ago. Because of this, there was a central mass like an egg yolk, cracked across the sky with the huge sprawling debris field of the white reflecting plenty of light. The stars were incredible, but foreign. It was like looking at spilled glitter, there were so many and so randomly scattered. Something was making them twinkle in and out, almost as if the stars were falling snow caught in a beam of light, landing briefly on the atmosphere, then melting away from existence with a spark. They were so mesmerizing, Phil quickly faded to sleep.

Adrienne had been laying on her side watching him. They were all exhausted, but she couldn’t sleep. She knew when Phil was asleep; she learned from their time in the barracks of the moon base station that he always twitched a big twitch, then started a slow but louder exhale that caught on his lips. Taking one last glance in the remaining red glow of their fire, she rolled cautiously to her back to avoid aggravating her sore ribs. It was a whole different world. We must be at a high altitude, she thought. The sky felt surrounding and full of depth. After a few moments, she realized she had been distracted by its beauty. Nothing on Earth ever looked like this. There must be no artificial light on the planet. Even if they hadn’t managed a fire, there was enough light that she was sure they’d still be able to see, especially with the faint glow coming from some of the surrounding plants. Finally calming herself, and temporarily letting go of her concern for Allen, Adrienne took in one last bit of sparkling sky and rolled to her side again. Unable to keep fighting her fatigue, she quickly drifted off as she looked at Phil.

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Copyright © 2021 by G. S. Dunn

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