The landscape loomed ever closer: vague shapes of dormant volcanoes, dusty plateaus, rocky headlands from long-dried up seas.
Cloye, blinking against the massive force, kicked in the main stabilizers. Her cheeks and brow were oozing with sweat, practically dripping from her pores, but a determined gleam rested in her eye.
Yul recognized that level of tenacity...it could be the difference between life and death. The pod’s navigation system seemed much simpler to operate than the aphid fighter’s with its reduced number of controls. Fortunate for them, otherwise they would have been ripped apart.
Cloye released what reverse impulse power remained before impact, halting the pod’s descent as much as possible.
Their breaths caught in their throats. The drab features of the landscape flashed by at alarming speed. Yul’s jaw sagged, Hresh’s eyes pinched shut.
The ship tore in on a shallow angle, the pod’s tail glancing off a patch of sandy landscape, dragging like an anchor. The nose kicked upward. While the hull bucked and rocked, skimming many times on the soft, sandy surface, it finally came to a skidding halt before two rounded boulders.
Silence. The rush of air, escaping gas from somewhere within. The drip of liquids, internal fluids. A fine dust billowed around the windows.
Yul struggled to rise from his seat. Groggily, he loosened the straps. He kicked off the light aluminium panel that had fallen from above. No broken bones. He staggered to his feet and loosed Cloye from her straps. She seemed dazed but was breathing normally. He pushed debris and air bag parts out of her way while Hresh murmured at her side deliriously.
As Yul helped her up, he wondered if he were in some fantastic dream. Miraculously, the ship’s functions seemed intact. Lights still powered the console and the cabin air seemed breathable. But no hull breaches, audible or visible. And yet the hiss of air implied the cabin’s life support system had been compromised.
Yul stumbled over to gaze out of the viewport. The pod had flipped partially on its side and all he could see through the filmy glass was a greyish brown featureless plain and some daylight.
“Good work, Cloye,” he croaked. “You saved our asses.”
“But for how long?” She coughed into her helmet.
Bloody hell, she looked rough. Sweating like a pig, with dark circles under her eyes. “We need to get out of here, investigate our surroundings.”
“Ship’s functions are minimal,” she said. “Not enough juice to lift us. Too much exterior damage.” Cloye coughed again.
“Why not stay here?” Hresh suggested. “We have air.” He crinkled his nose at the bleak glimpse through the dust-caked glass.
“Ship’s sensors show life at twenty miles distance,” mused Cloye. “Wait. Some closer, three miles.”
The ship’s sensors beeped. Cloye frowned, her eyes blazing.
A cause for concern? Yul did not know.
“There are life readings?” he asked, tossing Cloye her weapon.
Hresh grunted sceptically. “Or as easily, death. One of the locust or squid colonies. I don’t doubt this world is a home planet.”
Yul ignored him. He reached for the air lock ring which was tilted up at 45 degrees at shoulder level. Fortunately, the depressurization chamber was above them, rather than under. When the ship had come to a rocking halt, it had settled one side up, otherwise they would be in a bad way right now.
One by one, they climbed up into the air lock chamber and Yul locked the seal behind them and forced open the outer hatch. He slid down the shiny, grey fuselage. Cloye and Hresh were right behind him. An arid landscape spread before him. Scattered rocks dotted the plain and what looked like mesas not far away. A crater lurked in the distance like a blasted off mountain top about eight miles off. The sun’s pale white light gleamed on the southern horizon. Mid morning or late afternoon? Yul was undecided. Air was thin here, less than 50% human-breathable oxygen content. A slight breeze wisped from the northwest. He guessed it had warmed here recently, for his suit’s climate sensors reported the subzero temperatures now hovered just under zero. He knelt and grabbed a handful of the sand at his feet, letting it trail through his fingers. A fine, colourless loess. The softness of it had saved their lives.
“I don’t like this place,” muttered Hresh, casting anxious glances around the inhospitable terrain.
“I’m guessing it doesn’t like you either,” remarked Cloye.
Yul examined the boulders pressed to the ship’s starboard reach where one of the pod’s wings lay sheared. The long shadows draped over the hull’s stern like phantom fingers. Goliaths—probably eroded long ago, carried by melting glaciers during a distant ice age, thought Yul. The ghostly landscape left a hollow pit in his stomach and a chalky feeling in his mouth.
“I’m figuring the lifeforms the sensors picked up are in that hollow over there,” pointed out Cloye. “About three to four miles away. Guess we could hike over and investigate.”
Yul registered a slight breeze on his suit monitor. Wind had picked up from the northwest. His suit air was at 72%.
“Well, we’ll all die here without food, shelter and oxygen. We seem to have no choice. Let’s go.”
* * *
Soft grey shadows fell over the dusty soil. Everything was too quiet, not even a breath of wind now stirred or whistled around the few peglike rock forms they passed. Their footfalls fell in dull thuds across an endless plain.
The dusty crater loomed ahead, a dipping blemish amongst a vaster expanse of others like itself. As they approached, Yul halted, knelt, scrutinized what looked like tracks, three-toed reptilian ones, neither Zikri nor locust, but perhaps a mix of both.
