Citadel: First Colony (14 page)

True, she hadn’t yet gone outside.

And his warning to wear an EVA suit—that really ticked her off. As if she was too incompetent to know how to keep herself safe!

Again, to be fair, he was just looking out for her. He was doing what he would do for any Blue Collar under his command. Maybe that was what really bothered her. Maybe she didn’t want to be just any Blue Collar under his command. Maybe she wanted ... something else.

These were half-formed ideas, and she wasn’t exactly comfortable with them.

She had spent the past few hours watching the dots and blips that represented the men as they moved toward the ravine. She had never spent so much time on a planet before. She preferred the comforting curve of the walls of a ship. The womb-like feeling of safety that she only felt when she was on a starship in space.

The shuttle was a close substitute, at least for the time being, but the sight of blue sky, clouds, and trees out of the shuttle windows were incongruous and strange to her. They were constant reminders that just outside of these walls was a world of biology and nature, not the cold expanse of space to which she’d become accustomed. She wasn’t home, just in a place that looked a little like it.

That’s why she was angry, then. Not at Mitch, not really. Not at the suggestions he had made, which seemed to imply she was both incompetent and silly for being frightened. She was angry that she was caught up in a situation that was totally out of her control and out of her realm of experience.

But those sounds ... that smell. Those might be real, and they seemed to be coming from outside of the shuttle. Outside ... where bugs and animals and maybe even strange, alien people might be.

Reilly reached up and flipped the switch that closed the cargo doors in the back. Anything that might be out there would have a hard time getting through the steel and titanium and re-entry insulation of the hull. There might as well be a mountain between her and the outside world. But still, she felt unsafe. She felt unsafe because there was something unknown happening around her. And after a lifetime of knowing every aspect of her world, of her existence depending on knowing what was happening around her at all times, the unknown was something she simply couldn’t tolerate.

She would have to go outside.

There were no weapons onboard. Mitch had removed all three remaining disc guns and handed them over to Captain Somar before they’d left base. But there were plenty of pipes and other objects. After rifling through one of Mitch’s tool kits, she came away with a large, metal wrench. Its handle was coated in rubber, which gave her a good grip. She hefted it a few times, smacked the palm of her hand with it, and satisfied, deemed it a worthy weapon. Just in case.

She left the cargo door closed and opted instead to go out of one of the emergency exits on the port side of the shuttle. She popped the lock and pushed the door open slowly, checking to make sure no one, or no
thing
, was waiting out of sight for her. Carefully she climbed down to the surface, holding the wrench at the ready. When she reached the ground, she quickly spun, looking for any sign of trouble.

There was nothing.

Nothing except for the faint smell of ozone in the air. The vaguely metallic smell was setting her on edge, big time. Electrical fires were a real danger in space because they were difficult to put out and they fed on the much-needed oxygen of the enclosed space. Not to mention that whatever system might be burning could potentially mean the difference between life and death. So for her entire life, Reilly and every other space rat she’d known had been keen to the smell of electricity, the smell of ozone and smoke.

The air was thick with it now. Maybe Mitch was right after all. Maybe there was a short somewhere. It was silly of her to start imagining monsters when it was probably just some relay or cable jarred loose on the outside of the shuttle. If a cable was loose, it might be whipping about and causing the noises she’d heard.

It was the simplest explanation, and she was suddenly angry with herself for being so paranoid. What an idiot! What a moron! What a ... what a ... what a
girl
! She’d gotten all squeamish about being alone, without the big, strong men here to protect her. When, in her entire life, had she ever needed some guy to be her hero? She was every bit as tough as Mitch or Alan or Thomas. She could probably take them. Well, maybe not Mitch. But she could hold her own.

After a few minutes of cursing herself for being foolish, she came to her senses and realized that if there really was a problem with one of the electrical systems, she would have to find it and fix it. It might be something non-critical, but it might be something important. Either way, she’d have to search it out.

The mild paranoia she’d felt before still lingered a bit, but it was fading. The daylight actually helped, despite its strangeness to her. Being able to see all around you, she supposed, had its advantages. Still, she figured she’d keep the wrench handy. It had a comforting heft in her hand, and besides you just never knew.

It was warm out here. The climate control system in the shuttle had been one of the few systems that had remained undamaged, and inside it had remained a cool and comfortable 72 degrees. Out here it felt like it might be in the 90s. And it was humid. Within minutes of being outside, she felt sticky and oily from her own sweat.

She hated that feeling. Humidity was always low on a starship, and if you sweated at all, it would quickly evaporate into the air, leaving you cool and dry. But here the air was saturated with moisture, and the sweat had nowhere to go. It was one more reminder that she was stuck on a planet’s surface instead of floating happily above it.

She followed the smell of ozone, carefully checking before her as she went. If a cable had broken loose, it might snake out unexpectedly from beneath the shuttle. Some of the systems on board had as much as 50,000 volts coursing through them, and the amperage could get unbelievably high. It was the amperage that killed, she knew. Just a slight contact from some wildly whipping cable could be enough to fry her.

She should have worn the EVA suit after all. Damn.

Reilly made a slow circle around the edge of the craft, and came finally to a place near one of the exterior data and power ports. These were non-critical systems, at least from the point of view of shuttle operations. They were one half of the physical connection made between the shuttle and another vessel, such as a starship or even another shuttle. These ports were used to physically link power and computer systems, nothing else.

She sighed in relief. If this was where the smell was coming from, she had no worries. She could leave it be until they returned to Citadel. But she had to be sure, and so she leaned in to get a better look.

The metal around the port was charred and blackened. Some of the interior components looked as if they’d been fused, and some of the contacts were burned beyond recognition.

That was strange.

A few of these components weren’t close enough to make contact with each other accidentally. Two of the power contacts were even insulated, so they couldn’t possibly come in contact with other components. And yet those two were the most charred in the bunch. It was as if someone had shoved something into the port, making contact with both power nodes at once.

She looked around to see if maybe a stray piece of debris was lying nearby. It was possible that during the crash something had gotten wedged in this port. Maybe Mitch had missed it when he did his inspection. Or maybe, since this was a non-critical system, he’d decided to leave it be until they’d returned from the rescue.

But there was nothing on the ground and nothing in the port that could have caused a short like this.

“Reilly,” she heard a voice say from behind her.

She whipped around quickly. Were the guys back? How could they have gotten back so quickly?

But there was no one behind her. In fact, she could see a great distance in almost every direction and there was no one for miles.

Had she imagined it? Was she cracking up? This was, after all, the longest she’d ever been on a planet’s surface. Who knew what kind of psychosis a space rat might go through if they were stuck planet-side for too long?

“Reilly,” she heard the voice again. This time it seemed to come from all around her, or nowhere at all. It was confusing. It was like hearing an echo and not being able to identify the source. She stepped away from the shuttle and looked out over the rocky terrain, toward the distant tree line.

“Hello?” she said aloud.

There was no answer. And she realized that her voice had been a bit soft, a bit quiet. She was scared. And being scared made her mad.

“Hello!” she shouted, forcing strength into her voice.

Still nothing.

Then a thought occurred to her. Maybe she was hearing the radio! Maybe the guys were calling her from their location. They could be ready to be picked up, right?

She started making her way around the shuttle again, back to the emergency exit that would lead her back inside.

“Reilly,” she heard again as she rounded the back of the shuttle.

She was sure now, this was not coming from within the shuttle. It was impossible. The radio wasn’t that loud, and the ship was insulated for sound. Unless the doors were open, no sound could get in or out. She had closed the emergency exit behind her, and so wherever this voice was coming from, it wasn’t coming from inside. It was out here, with her.

She whirled and faced the open expanse of the rocky terrain that stretched out before her. She looked up into the sky, defiantly. She was daring whatever it was to speak to her again. “I’m here!” she shouted. “What do you want?”

“Nothing, nothing,” the voice seemed to say. It was like a whisper, only louder. It was coming from all around her, but from nowhere at the same time. She spun around several times, trying to spot someone or something that might be responsible. She refused to acknowledge the thought that was rising in her mind.

This is all in my head
.

“Reilly,” the voice said again, and this time it was close. She turned and saw him standing there, an impossible vision that she knew ...
knew
could not be real. And yet, here he was.

Her father. Dead for more than a decade. Dead since she was a little girl. And now, here he stood on an alien planet and looking exactly as she remembered him.

“Reilly,” he said, and smiled.

“Daddy?” she whispered.
This is impossible. This is
impossible.

“Why are you here?” he asked her.

She was having trouble understanding. The words were clear, but with them came ... something else. With the words came meaning. He wasn’t asking her why she was at this location, on this rocky terrain. He wasn’t asking why she was here with the shuttle. He was asking her, clearly, why she was on this world. Not as in, “How did you get here?” but as in “What is your purpose here?”

“We crashed,” she said. “We crashed here. We’re ... trying to find the others. The colonists.”

“The sleeping ones,” he said.

“Yes.”

“There are many of them here. A lot of dreams. New dreams, new stories.”

“ok,” she said. She wasn’t entirely sure what was happening. She knew this couldn’t be her father. Was it an alien? It had to be. It wasn’t her father. Her father was dead.

“Dead,” her father said. And the word conjured all sorts of images for Reilly. She suddenly remembered her father’s funeral. She then remembered every funeral she’d ever been to. It was like having a conversation with someone you knew, with someone you had a close, personal relationship with. It was like when one conversation led naturally to another, so you begin talking about your favorite food and end up talking about the nature of the universe.

It was like talking with someone who shared all of the same in-jokes with you. Someone who had your complete trust. Only she didn’t trust him. This wasn’t her father. This was some ...
thing
. She fought. She struggled. She stepped away from him.

“Please,” he said. “Please, tell me.”

“What are you?” she asked.

And now she began thinking of other things. She thought of infants. She thought of laughing about stupid jokes. She thought of sex. She thought of the chapel services she had (rarely) attended. One thought after another after another, and each leading into one inevitable string of thoughts, seemingly without end. And it was threatening her. It was overwhelming her. It was flooding her, drowning her.

“No!” she shouted. She suddenly felt the heft of the wrench in her hand, and without thinking, she swung it outward, aiming for her father’s head. As it made contact there was a bright flash, and the smell of ozone amped up. There was the sound of unbearably loud static, of popping and sparking.

She turned away from the vision of her father, stumbled, caught herself, and then made her way slowly to the shuttle’s emergency exit. When she reached it, she looked back, expecting to see her father there. But he was gone. No trace, and nowhere for him to go.

And suddenly Reilly felt a little confused.

Could she have imagined it? Could he have been some delusion, dredged up from her stressed brain as she dealt with these feelings of paranoia and fear about being so ... so
exposed
?

He had seemed so
real
a moment ago, but now he was fading. Now he was slowly becoming something vague, barely remembered. She did remember, she still held the idea of what had happened in her mind, but the specifics seemed to be draining away. Her father? What had brought
him
up?
Oh yes, I thought I heard his voice. I imagined him being here. Was he here to rescue me? I must really be cracking up.

And by the time she had climbed up into the shuttle, she was laughing at herself. She felt silly. She felt like she had let the stress of the whole situation get to her.

Have to remember to tell Mitch about the data and power ports,
she thought.
He’ll want to fix those.