Marooned on Giri Minor
It is a very uneasy night as you keep vigil at the entrance to the cargo hold. Eventually when the desert goes silent again Munro does turn off the handlight, only to flip it back on at the slightest noise. But there is no sign of the little black creatures again, nor any further shouts from Ibanz.
You are envious of Munro's patients, who have been sedated in the absence of any effective pain meds. Morning cannot arrive too soon.
When you nod yourself awake, your first surprise is that you ever fell asleep at all. It is dawn, but you notice that the lieutenant and Dr. Munro are gone. The mystery of their disappearance is quickly resolved when you hear the sounds of their footsteps.
"We found Ibanz," Oviedo-Nandez says, "but those little bugs were thorough. For things no bigger than your thumb, they didn't leave much for us to recover."
"One thing is clear," Dr. Munro says, "no one is stepping outside of this cargo hold once the sun goes down tonight."
"Agreed," the lieutenant says.
The day ahead of you seems very grim. Whereas yesterday the entire camp seemed enthralled by the well-drilling process, and the symbol that it represented of ingenuity triumphing over adversity, today it seems more evident that your fate is now completely out of your hands. So few NutriRations remain that everyone chooses to fast instead.
The only task that requires completion is to remove Ibanz's remains from the desert; and since no one dares to dig in the ground for fear of what living creatures you might arouse, the body is wrapped instead in a sheet and laid inside the burnt-out half of the ship. You spend much of the day inside the cargo hold trying to think of happy stories to tell Yiggy and Easa--anything to avoid focusing on the present.
Ensign Arcy, sitting in the sunlight with her broken arm, is the first person to notice the incoming spacecraft high in the dusty sky, but with Ibanz's hallucinations still fresh in your memories everyone withholds their excitement. It's not until the two shuttles circle directly overhead and then set down about 100 meters away from your camp, their landing thrusters throwing up clouds of dust, that you accept this is a real event, and not some delusion.
Teams of people in naval uniforms descend from each shuttle and rush toward the survivors, assessing the health of each person with a WristComp. The last person to step out is a dark-complexioned man, not tall but broad-shouldered and confident. He approaches Oviedo-Nandez, but the lieutenant calls you over.
The man flashes a curious look, but then says, "I am Captain Javid Ynthramanni of the Starship Orion. We received a distress signal about twelve hours ago from Commander Andrade and Lieutenant Nimjey. They said we'd find more survivors here."
As the injured passengers are loaded onto the first shuttle, Captain Ynthramanni takes a brief tour of your camp, and is especially impressed by the well.
"So Giri Minor has finally been colonized?" he says.
"Not really," you say. "We had no food. You came just at the right time."
"Right," the captain says. "Let's get you all back to the Orion and find you something to eat."
You are envious of Munro's patients, who have been sedated in the absence of any effective pain meds. Morning cannot arrive too soon.
When you nod yourself awake, your first surprise is that you ever fell asleep at all. It is dawn, but you notice that the lieutenant and Dr. Munro are gone. The mystery of their disappearance is quickly resolved when you hear the sounds of their footsteps.
"We found Ibanz," Oviedo-Nandez says, "but those little bugs were thorough. For things no bigger than your thumb, they didn't leave much for us to recover."
"One thing is clear," Dr. Munro says, "no one is stepping outside of this cargo hold once the sun goes down tonight."
"Agreed," the lieutenant says.
The day ahead of you seems very grim. Whereas yesterday the entire camp seemed enthralled by the well-drilling process, and the symbol that it represented of ingenuity triumphing over adversity, today it seems more evident that your fate is now completely out of your hands. So few NutriRations remain that everyone chooses to fast instead.
The only task that requires completion is to remove Ibanz's remains from the desert; and since no one dares to dig in the ground for fear of what living creatures you might arouse, the body is wrapped instead in a sheet and laid inside the burnt-out half of the ship. You spend much of the day inside the cargo hold trying to think of happy stories to tell Yiggy and Easa--anything to avoid focusing on the present.
Ensign Arcy, sitting in the sunlight with her broken arm, is the first person to notice the incoming spacecraft high in the dusty sky, but with Ibanz's hallucinations still fresh in your memories everyone withholds their excitement. It's not until the two shuttles circle directly overhead and then set down about 100 meters away from your camp, their landing thrusters throwing up clouds of dust, that you accept this is a real event, and not some delusion.
Teams of people in naval uniforms descend from each shuttle and rush toward the survivors, assessing the health of each person with a WristComp. The last person to step out is a dark-complexioned man, not tall but broad-shouldered and confident. He approaches Oviedo-Nandez, but the lieutenant calls you over.
The man flashes a curious look, but then says, "I am Captain Javid Ynthramanni of the Starship Orion. We received a distress signal about twelve hours ago from Commander Andrade and Lieutenant Nimjey. They said we'd find more survivors here."
As the injured passengers are loaded onto the first shuttle, Captain Ynthramanni takes a brief tour of your camp, and is especially impressed by the well.
"So Giri Minor has finally been colonized?" he says.
"Not really," you say. "We had no food. You came just at the right time."
"Right," the captain says. "Let's get you all back to the Orion and find you something to eat."
END OF PART I