As I pried open the squeaking, rusty metal door, the first thing that hit me was the smell.
“Ack—there better not be something rotting in there,” I said, pinching my nose.
It was three steps beyond musty. A gag reflex warped my insides as the stench settled into my lungs. I stepped back to give myself a minute more of fresh air and to let some of the sodden, contaminated air dilute through the open door.
There must be some fabric or bedding inside—a delightfully thick, plushy material that served as an excellent breeding ground for mold.
Alien mold.
I wondered what the biologists and mycologists back on Earth would give to study the mold from . . . well, wherever this planet was.
My eyes scanned the orange-tinted sky as I sucked in a breath of mold-free air. It was late afternoon, but the light was as dim as early dusk on Earth. From experience, I knew the sky would remain this way for at least another few hours.
Although it had been difficult to get used to at first, I felt I was properly acclimated to the dimmer sunlight. In fact, it was one of my best clues as to where I was. The slightly-more-orange-than-yellow sunlight and the lower solar intensity had me believing this planet orbited around an orange dwarf star.
But . . . that really didn’t narrow it down much. Orange dwarfs were one of the most common stars in the galaxy, second only to red dwarfs. And plenty of them had habitable planets.
I let out a deep sigh, hopefully pushing some of the airborne mold spores farther away. It didn’t matter which one of those habitable planets I was on, I still had to survive. And, unfortunately, surviving meant sifting through musty and abandoned pods.
Clutching my shirt over my mouth and nose, I poked my head through the narrow doorway. The pods were small and rectangular, not much more than one by two meters. As I suspected, a small group of sickly green emergency blankets were stacked in a corner. I didn’t bother with them. If the smell hadn’t already warned me, the black polka dots covering the green fuzz would have.
A pile of plastic shards took up the other side of the pod, likely the remains of a storage crate. It was useless to carry or store in anything now. Not that there was anything inside to protect. Except for the twisting purple vines with matching leaves, the rest of the pod was empty.
“Europa’s Ice!” I swore, kicking one of the vines.
This whole pod was a bust! There were no supplies, no tools, no ultra-preserved nutritional provisions. I’d been traveling northwest for three months, and the closer I got to the mountains the more wrecked and empty the pods were.
It might be time to change my route. Perhaps I should head south instead?
“It would be warmer at least,” I said, rubbing my arms. It was mid-fall on this planet already. Summer had lasted for only two months, so I knew this hunk of rock was probably closer to its star than Earth was to Sol. Which was to be expected for a planet orbiting an orange dwarf.
The closer proximity to a star was somewhat concerning due to the potential for higher levels of solar radiation, but I figured if the orange dwarf was stable enough to support the wildlife I saw around me, then there wasn’t much to worry about. And if my assumptions were wrong . . .
Best to ignore that train of thought for now.
The barren pod taunted me as I swept my gaze over it again. Those menacing purple vines completely covered two whole sides of the pod, inside and out. Skegs, that was some serious vegetation.
I wiped my sleeve against the edge of the door. Dozens of frantic scratches littered the frame. It didn’t take a genius to realize it had been pried open, likely by something with lots of muscles and lots of claws. Thankfully there weren’t many large predators on the planet—at least on the parts I’d seen so far—but the few predators I’d come across were not to be trifled with.
“A bloody Munkrave pack must have gotten in,” I muttered.
I would have left the pod right then and there, but I was getting low on supplies, which was inspiration enough not to give up so easily.
Crouching down, I began digging through the purple vines. Something could have been left behind, after all. A stray nutrition pack accidentally kicked to the side. A handheld solar heating unit hidden under a blanket. A boring extendable wrench. I would have accepted anything, really.
But, after thirty hopeless minutes, I scolded myself for having any optimism in the first place.
“Forget it. I know there’s nothing here,” I said to the vines as I stepped back outside. My back ached as I stretched, loosening the taut muscles.
Compared to the inside of the pod, the foreign woods were inviting, the air fresh and rejuvenating. The trees were strangely similar to Earth pines, but the needles were bigger and glistened a menacing shade of black, the smooth bark a deep maroon. The low-growing grass underneath my boots was black and brown, with hints of red.
The way the orange light hit the forest was actually kind of beautiful. And a bit surrealist. I didn’t remember ever taking the time to admire nature this way back on Earth.
Then again, I didn’t remember much at all about my life back on Earth. Just little snippets of personal memories here and there.
Yet, I knew with certainty that I was from Earth, and that Earth had pine trees that looked different from these pine trees.
My only solid memories began about three months ago. I’ve remembered a few inconsequential things during that time, like how on my sixteenth birthday my parents finally consented to me genetically altering my hair so that it naturally grew with shades of pale blonde and snowy blue, my favorite color. Or how I recalled staying up late reading and studying for something that was important to me. I just had no clue what that something was.
Overall, I knew my parents were not too shabby, and that I could work hard for something I cared about. And what Earth pines looked like.
But none of that useless information actually told me why I was here, what had happened to me, or how I could get home and find my parents.
Hopefully my brain would continue to dredge up more memories. Or maybe I would find answers somewhere on this planet. There had to be something here that linked me to my past, right?
I glanced back at the pod. It would be decent shelter for the night, although I didn’t fancy sleeping with all the mold and vines. Shaking my head, I quickly scraped that idea. No, I’d be better off setting up camp outside, using one of the walls as a barrier against both the wind and potential predators.
Another six or so hours of low daylight were still left, but there was no point in moving on farther today. Better to set up camp and lay a few traps for small game.
The small bag fastened across my back held the last of my supplies. I slid the bag off, setting it down on the brown grass, still expecting a soft crunching noise that never came. The grass was very much alive, even though my brain kept telling me it looked dead.
After riffling through the bag for a minute, I found a braided length of rope to use for my snare. The rope had been a prize from one of the first pods I’d found back in the plains. That pod had been the motherload! So pristine, so plump with rations, clothing, solar lights, and tools. I hadn’t left the area around that pod for nearly a month. Probably wouldn’t have if the Munkraves hadn’t gotten to it.
I absolutely hated Munkraves. Their curling talons, their rat tails and beady rat eyes, their triangular canine teeth, their ashy skin and drooping red fur, their screeching howls. And, Luna Bless Me, that awful stench. A pack of Munkraves might as well be a cove of rotting bodies. They were that disgusting.
Surviving in the wilderness I could—apparently—do, but would I call myself a fighter? No, no I would not. Sure, I could throw a punch, but hand-to-hand combat and expert marksmanship were not within my skill set. It was probably just pure luck that I hadn’t yet needed to go toe-to-toe with some crazy alien creature. Pure luck that I was still alive at all.
I wrapped my knuckles on a nearby tree trunk. I relied on pure luck a lot. No need to jinx myself now.
After grabbing my rope, I twisted it into a loop with a slip knot. Snare ready, I hoisted my bag over my shoulder and wandered through the woods for several minutes until I found a suitable location for the trap.
I plopped a few pink and black berries down as the bait. They weren’t poisonous, though they had an odd and bitter, pickle-like flavor to them. I ate them whenever I found them but only because they were food. However, the Kreeplets I hunted went nuts over them.
Kreeplets reminded me of Earth rabbits, but longer with salmon pink fur, and three tiny horns on their heads. Those horns really hurt to get stabbed with, as I’d found out not three weeks ago. The little animals scurried along close to the ground, always twitching their front legs for some reason, creeping around like they were trying pull off a robbery. It was almost comical. That, and their obnoxiously pink tufts, made them semi-cute. In an ugly sort of way.
Kreeplets tasted like under-cooked crawdads with too much dill. But, like the berries they favored, the rabbit-wannabees were not poisonous, and they saved me from starving to death.
Once my snare was set up, I meandered through the woods, collecting a few plants I knew from experience were edible. When I finally made it back to the pod, a few stalks of a blue and black relative of lettuce and a small vegetable that marginally resembled a turnip were tucked beneath my arms.
I set the plants down near my dormant fire pit before gingerly pulling a tarp out of my pack, taking a few extra seconds to unfold it. The tarp was weathered and sported several small rips. It’d been my only blanket for the past month as well as my makeshift tent, my protection against a violent rainstorm, my extra storage bag. But it was nearing the end of its life. I’d been hoping to find a replacement in this pod.
“Maybe the next one,” I said ruefully as I continued setting up my makeshift camp, humming the tune to some ancient Italian opera.
Which reminded me . . .
I stood, glancing around the clearing for a small rock. After finding a suitable candidate, I snatched it up and walked to the front of the pod. Clutching the rock like a stylus, I etched my symbol onto the wall by the door.
Early on I had the bright idea to mark each pod I came across. Not that there were that many of them—only a dozen or so—but I hadn’t known that at the time. Plus, it helped me keep my bearings whenever I got turned around.
I finished my chicken scratches and stepped back to make sure my tag was legible. It was the letter F, followed by a tilted pound sign. My parents loved the pun, and they used to reassure me that I was no "accident". I didn’t remember much about them, but I liked that they had a sense of humor.
Task complete, the rest of my evening was spent skinning and cooking my Kreeplet and vegetable dinner. Once the night sky had become more shadow than muddied golden hues, I fetched my snare and another piece of braided rope from my pack and hooked little bits of shredded metal onto them, orienting the metal scraps so that they would clang against each other any time the ropes moved. It was my makeshift alarm.
I hung the rope and bell security system low to the ground between a few trees nearby. It wouldn’t do much, but it would warn me if an animal got within ten meters or so while I was sleeping. I finally had a situation where being a light sleeper was practical.
Alarm system successfully deployed, I snuggled into my worn tarp and stared up at the stars. They sparkled cheerfully at me, but I found it difficult to be cheerful back. Not a single constellation was recognizable.
There was no moon to dampen the stars’ brilliance tonight, but that was because this planet didn’t have a moon. It did, however, usually have a substitute: a large gaseous planet orbiting even closer to this solar system’s sun than the current cosmic island I was stuck on. It whisked around the sun every two months or so, but tonight it was a "New Jupe".
I called it Jupe for short and as a precaution in case I ever did get back to Earth. I didn’t want to confuse everyone—or myself—by calling it Jupiter. Plus, whenever it hid behind this system’s sun, I got to say "New Jupe" in my head . . . which was unfortunately something I looked forward to now.
As the cooler temperatures settled in, I burrowed deeper into my tarp, closing my eyes against the unknown. I really, really hoped the next pod I found would be more fruitful than this one.
***
An eerie green glow surrounded me. There was a whirling noise like an engine sputtering, but it sounded far away. Small lights flashed in front of me, but they disappeared so quickly I couldn’t tell where they were coming from.
The green glow shifted into a strange shade of blue, condensing onto every surface of my skin. The weight of the blue light became heavier and heavier until it pressed down all around me. And kept pressing.
Fear bubbled up inside me as the strange blue light squeezed tighter.
It was going to crush me! I tried to reach out, tried to get away. But my hands kept hitting an invisible wall.
Panic replaced the air in my lungs. I couldn’t even scream.
I pounded my fists on the invisible wall, but it wouldn’t budge. A soft metal tinkling noise overwhelmed the whirling background noise, growing louder and louder until-
My eyes flew open. I lay still, unmoving, unthinking, gasping softly for breath until I realized I was outside under an open sky.
An open sky that was still swathed in empty outer space and far-off hope.
The suffocating blue light was gone, but the metal tinkling noise remained.
I didn’t hesitate. I snatched the rusty dagger next to my head, rolled upright, and scanned the area for the animal.
I blinked hard, forcing away my mental grogginess from the nightmare, allowing adrenaline to flow through my veins.
Only trees and shadows were visible, but there were strange, hushed noises—almost whispers?—coming from the opposite side of the pod. The predator must be behind me!
I spun, risking a peak around the edge of the pod, but couldn’t see anything moving. Munkrave packs usually wouldn’t be so stealthy. Was this a new creature local to the hills and mountains I hadn’t encountered before?
If so, I needed to find better cover before they got to me. I knew I only had seconds.
Fortunately, I was surrounded by trees under a Jupeless night, lending me plenty of hiding spots. Leaving everything in my camp behind, I sprinted as silently as possible to a cove of trees a couple of meters behind the pod. Dagger angled away, foot and hand perched against the tree, I was ready to either climb to safety or fight whatever arrived.
Or so I thought.
I was, in fact, monumentally not ready for the two humans who walked out from the woods into the small clearing by the pod.
I gasped, the sharp sound echoing and bouncing around the trees like they, too, were surprised at the sight. Both humans whipped their heads in my direction, led there by my sounds of shock. I was ensconced in my hiding spot, so they didn’t immediately see me. My limbs were frozen from disbelief, otherwise I would have jumped out and introduced myself.
There were other humans here! Europa’s Ice, I wasn’t alone!
Were they here to rescue me? Would I finally find out what happened to me? To my parents?
Tendrils of warmth filled my chest, and I could feel a grin stretching my lips almost unnaturally.
And then, almost instantly, all of my budding happiness saplings shriveled up and died when one of the humans shined a light directly into my eyes—where did he get that?—and shouted, “There’s a person!” at the same time the other one yelled, “Get her!”
My brain hadn’t entirely caught up with the situation, but my instincts knew how to pick up the slack. I was running away from the two humans before I even registered what I was doing.
Behind me, twigs snapped, leaves crunched, and shouts rang out, but I didn’t dare look back. I sprinted harder, feet thumping against the black pine needle floor, suddenly terrified that these two members of my own species might be worse than Munkraves.
I wove through the gothic forest, ducking under branches, jumping over exposed roots and felled trees. I may not be a great fighter, but I had enough endurance to keep running until they fell behind, giving me a chance to hide and figure out what in Luna’s name to do next.
My heart pounded, sweat beading on my forehead as I plotted an escape plan in my head. An odd stinging on my arm distracted my thoughts. I ignored it at first, thinking I’d scratched it on a prickly bush or accidentally rubbed it against pine sap.
But that was too much blood for a few scratches.
My hand was getting wet now from the dribbles of blood rolling down my arm. How did I manage to do this much damage to myself? I glanced up just in time to see the answer.
An old-fashioned arrow was sticking out of a tree only a meter in front of me.
Europa’s Ice, they had bows and arrows! What kind of backward humans—
A twang whooshed above me, and I instinctively ducked behind a tree, banging my injured arm in the process. I let out a muffled grunt of pain, clutching my wound with my free hand as I tried to stop the bleeding. It hurt like a son of a slagger, but not as badly as it could have. The arrow probably only sliced through skin, but I couldn’t be sure until I properly inspected it. And now was not the time for that.
“I think I got her!” one of the humans yelled. It was a man’s voice.
A crunching noise and a woosh of air told me he had just dashed past my hiding spot.
Did the other human follow him?
I quietly turned to run in the other direction while I had the chance, but I froze almost immediately.
The other human stood in front of me, a knife level with my eyes.
He didn’t say anything, but his eyes were wide, his lips parted, his jaw tight. He looked just as scared as I felt. Maybe I could reason with him? Or catch him off guard and run away?
The first human returned before I could do anything. I felt a pinch of irritation at my own hesitation but shoved it away. The arrow human would probably have just shot me if I’d attempted to run. And at such close range, it would have likely been fatal.
The human smiled, his teeth sharp and menacing like the arrows he favored. “Good job, Eoghan,” he said. His voice was gruff and raspy. Older but not old.
The knife human—Eoghan?—gulped, glancing between me and the other man. “What should we do, Jarl?” Eoghan said, voice quivering slightly. He sounded younger, maybe closer to my age. In this lighting it was hard to tell what either of them looked like.
The arrow human—Jarl—glared at me. “Who are you?” he said a bit louder than necessary.
I pinched my lips together and glowered back.
I had just spent three months alone and somehow surviving on an alien planet, and when I did miraculously see other humans, they tried to kill me!
I already hated this Jarl guy, and I wasn’t about to explain that I was stuck here with little to no memory. That seemed an impossibly stupid thing to admit.
But, other than the truth, I really didn’t know what to say. I haven’t exactly had much conversational practice these past few months, and I didn’t even know if I’d been good at it before then.
So, I remained silent. Maybe the less I said, the more information I would get. Or maybe I could try talking to the other human—Eoghan—when Jarl the Brute wasn’t around.
“Hey, you deaf or mute or somethin’! Who the hell are you, and what are you doing near our camp?” he bellowed in my face.
They had a camp? There were more of them?
“Hey, Jarl, maybe you should take it easy," Eoghan suggested.
“What if she’s involved in all this, Eoghan?”
“Well, maybe but—”
“We need answers!”
“Yes, but her arm—”
They both glanced at me, Eoghan shining the light at my arm. I was glad I couldn’t see what they saw.
“If you don’t start talking . . .” Jarl threatened, hoisting his bow up. An arrow was perched and ready for flight.
“Jarl, slow down!” Eoghan scolded. Jarl glared at Eoghan but didn’t lower his bow.
“Come on, let’s just take her back to Nabukko. Have Merula talk to her,” Eoghan offered.
There we go! Evidence that he was the reasonable one. As long as "Nabukko" and "Merula" weren’t worse than Jarl.
Jarl contemplated this for a moment. Shadows from the light smudged the weather patterns on his face.
Finally, he nodded. “Tie her up first,” he commanded.
“Her arm is bleeding, though,” Eoghan said.
“Tough.”
“Come on, Jarl, let me at least put some gauze on it.”
“We shouldn’t waste resources on an enemy.”
Eoghan lowered his knife and looked at me. “Do you have any medical supplies with you?”
I nodded. There were a few strips of gauze and an herb that reminded me of sheppard’s purse in my bag . . . which was back by the pod.
I looked in the direction I thought the pod was, and Eoghan seemed to understand. He faced Jarl. “Let’s go back to her camp. Look around and stuff.”
“We already searched that container months ago.”
“Maybe we’ll find something she was hiding,” Eoghan said. It was obvious he was just trying to give Jarl a non-humanitarian reason to go back.
Jarl bared his teeth at me and grunted, but he finally lowered his bow and moved aside. “You go first. I’ll walk behind in case she bolts,” he said with a sharp-toothed smile. Why did he look excited about that idea?
Eoghan gently grabbed my non-injured arm, prodding me forward, and said, “Let’s go.”
It took maybe ten minutes to get back to the pod. I immediately headed for my pack. Jarl tensed behind me, readying his bow in case I pulled out a weapon, but I wasn’t going to bother with escape attempts yet. With Jarl controlling that bow, it would have been pointless. I didn’t feel like dying after surviving here for so long, and I also didn’t fancy getting any more injuries. I was already worried about my arm getting infected. It seemed my "pure luck" had finally expired.
I pulled out my gauze, a water canteen, and the medicinal herb I kept wrapped in a small piece of cloth. Dawn was just beginning, lending me a little more light to work with.
Eoghan dropped to a knee, startling me. “Here, let me help with that,” he said, reaching for the supplies. Although I was suspicious of his motives, I didn’t argue. Trying to clean and wrap a wound one-handed wasn’t easy.
Eoghan rinsed off my arm with the water. The blood had congealed, and most of the bleeding had stopped, so the injury wasn’t as bad as I had initially feared. If the arrow had gone through the center of my arm or gotten lodged in it . . . I shuddered. I liked having a working arm.
Eoghan glanced up as I twitched from the thought of losing an arm. As nice as he was to help me now, I didn’t know him and I didn’t trust him. I quickly looked away, scanning the horizon instead of letting him see the emotions on my face.
He finished rinsing off the wound before packing it with the herb, carefully wrapping my gauze around it and tying it off at the end. Dried blood crusted my lower arm and hand.
“The Doc can take a look at that when we get back to Nabukko,” Eoghan said, gaze still fixated on my arm.
“Don’t make empty promises, Eoghan,” Jarl snapped. Eoghan gritted his teeth, but his back was still turned away from Jarl, so the man didn’t notice.
Eoghan stood and surveyed my quaint camp. “Gather anything you want to take,” he said softly.
I knew what he must see, and I felt a little offended. None of my possessions were glamorous, but I was proud of my small pile of worn and torn items. Maybe because they represented my ability to survive on my own with the odds stacked against me. Yes, I knew my camp was pathetic looking, but that wasn’t the point.
“Just leave it. There’s nothing here with value,” Jarl said. I glared at him and changed my mind. I would take pity over being thought of as trivial.
“First rule of scavenging, Jarl. Anything has potential value,” Eoghan countered.
Jarl rolled his eyes. “Whatever. We should get a move on. Otherwise Nahova will send out scout guards to find us,” he said.
Eoghan nodded his consent then looked at me. “Grab your stuff,” he said a little more forcefully, though still not harshly.
I took the hint, folding my tarp before stuffing it in my pack along with a few other items I hadn’t returned to my bag last night after dinner.
Unfortunately, my dagger was lost somewhere in the woods. I must have dropped it after Jarl shot me with the arrow. Skegs, that was a shame. The dagger was my only weapon.
Once everything was secure, I carefully swung my bag over one shoulder and headed into the woods.
“Hey!” Jarl shouted after me. “Where do you think you’re going!”
It was a gamble that Jarl wouldn’t shoot me in the back, but I was feeling a tad ornery at the moment. I kept an even pace, and—to my credit—didn’t look back even once until I reached the trees where my snare-turned-alarm-system hung. One of the ropes was torn, but the other was still good. I bent down and began untying them.
“Ahh, that was what Jarl tripped over earlier,” Eoghan said, laughing.
“Well, I didn’t expect to have to avoid booby traps on a scouting trip!” Jarl said.
A scouting trip? That sounded routine. And structured. Just how big was their camp? Which Institution were they representing?
And, above all else, why were they here, on this planet?
I finished untying the ropes and stuffed them into my pack before swinging the bag over both shoulders, taking care not to bump my throbbing wound. The herbs helped, but now that the adrenaline was wearing off, the cut was starting to sting.
I inclined my head toward Eoghan to signal that I was ready, pointedly ignoring Jarl. Eoghan took the hint and gently ushered me forward.
As shoddy as my new situation was, I still had a meager hope that these other humans could help me, or at least provide some answers. Only time would tell.
