Chapter 2
Autumn hummed quietly into the silence of her room. Three bunks filled the space, enough for six female soldiers, even though she was the only one there. The sun hadn’t yet risen, though the heat of predawn pebbled beads of sweat over her skin.
Before the alarm could wake her, Autumn shut it off, rolled out of bed and began her morning ritual. Twenty push-ups, twenty sit-ups, twenty jumping jacks, and ten burpees. Three repetitions of each.
By the time she had showered and gotten dressed, the rest of camp had finally awoken.
“Ready for another collection of the good stuff?” Her commanding officer spoke from the doorway of the female dorms. His voice hinted that either he or her or both of them were actually robots.
“Yes, sir.”
From the doorway, he tapped at a screen in his palm and walked away, not once having looked up during their entire exchange.
She might as well be invisible.
Her thoughts turned once again to the alien woman she had met. Since that afternoon, Autumn had thought about her far too often, imagining different ways they could see each other again. Only to remind herself that the beautiful creature was nothing more than a hallucination.
The stomp of boots finally arrived, and Autumn joined the troops on autopilot. She ignored the bravado and whiff of testosterone that she couldn’t escape no matter how many walks into the forest she took.
It had been the reason she had broken protocol in the first place and stepped outside of the long line of trees. The planet had been scanned multiple times and come back with zero life signs, so the order of isolation seemed ridiculous to say the least. If there was no life on the planet, why did anyone care if she wanted the fresh air of the beach.
“They’ve upped our quota,” Marshall said as Autumn slipped into the copilot’s seat. Every grunt knew how to pilot the water collectors, and all had to join in on at least one collection per week. Today was Autumn’s turn.
Autumn took in the cockpit with interest. The lack of space always pushed her to her limits in terms of comfort. Always smaller than she remembered from previous dives. The front shield was a deep dark gray, which made the space feel even tighter. The two chairs were identical, though the grooves in the floor allowed the pilot’s chair to move along a set pattern, while the copilot stayed in one spot.
Lifting her legs just enough to allow air to move between floor and the soles of her boots, Autumn entertained herself with the fact that the copilot’s seat swiveled.
“So we might be out here a bit longer than the normal dives.” Marshall continued to chat as though they sat in this small space together on a daily basis. Or the stray thought entered her mind, as though they might even be friends. But they weren’t, were they?
She watched him move the pilot’s chair along the paths. To Autumn it looked almost like a capital E, each end of the shorter lines stopping in front of the three consoles below the dark gray blacked-out screen. “But at least you’ll get more hours in this baby, far better than the quick dives most of the others have been on. Maybe you can level up to pilot rank faster.”
Marshall wasn’t a bad guy. In fact he was one of the only ones who bothered to talk to Autumn. Usually when his job demanded it or when they were alone. Right now, Autumn wasn’t sure which situation held priority. But either way, he spoke to her kindly and never snarled. She couldn’t guarantee it didn’t happen when she couldn’t hear, but there was no point dwelling too much on that.
“How many gallons do we need today?” Autumn forced herself to engage in the conversation. She did vaguely understand the main goals of the mission. The briefing she had been given had been incredibly simple and non-specific: keep the water collector pilots alive until they complete their quota of collection.
If the quota had gone up, that usually meant another mission had gone south, either from one of the unit’s previous dives, or one of the other nearby planets.
Autumn knew she should be concerned, worried about those back home who had water rations and restrictions. But the truth was, she hardly thought about them at all. She had spent too long trying to escape them. No way would she waste her thoughts on those happily left behind to their own ignorant existences.
“We need to collect double for the next three weeks.”
“Shit.” Autumn looked over at Marshall to see his grimace and nod as he returned her expression.
“Yep. So, let’s get started on Lesson 101, how to not crash the water collector.”
Autumn watched closely and listened just as hard as Marshall went through the start-up procedures. The world hummed around her, vibrating through the chair and into her chest. She smiled, and it amazed her how natural it felt when smiling had never been a common thing in her life. Nothing had been quite like she imagined when she had signed up as an interstellar protector. The smiles and joys hadn’t suddenly happened. Friends hadn’t suddenly appeared. But moments like this, learning something she would never have had a chance to do back there, made the continued questions and struggles of her existence entirely worth it.
“That looks good on you.” Marshall laughed. “Smiling definitely suits you.”
“Excuse me?” Autumn’s enjoyment dropped to her feet, her face losing the lift of enjoyment in an instant. “Did you just tell me to smile more?”
“Oh shit, I didn’t mean it like that.” Marshall groaned at himself. “Well, I guess I did. But fuck. I’m just a jackass. I’m sorry.”
Now Autumn laughed, not quite feeling as good as last time, but liking Marshall a little more. This situation wasn’t exactly uncommon, but she’d never had even the hint of an apology before.
“It must be tough,” Marshall said, maneuvering the ship through the water. “Being the only female out here.”
“Better than back home.” Autumn couldn’t believe the words had slipped out of her mouth. She couldn’t believe a lot of things lately. Images of Soulara, naked and shimmering in the sun, came to the forefront of Autumn’s mind.
“You too, huh?” Marshall chuckled, scattering Autumn’s strange but beautiful imaginings to the back of her mind.
“You too?” Autumn didn’t want to assume Marshall spoke about himself, though she sensed that was precisely what he meant. She wouldn’t be like many of the idiots she had to train with. She would know the details before jumping on a scrap of information and creating the rest.
“I joined to get off planet. Most of us pilots did.” Marshall said it as though it were entirely inconsequential. But the words hit Autumn hard in her plexus.
“Really?” Truth be told she hadn’t spent a lot of time with the pilots, but still the information surprised her. Perhaps she was more like the idiots with her assumptions than she would ever want to be.
The pilots had different workout regimens and times. They generally stuck to themselves. Autumn had believed the shit the others said about them thinking they were better than the lowly grunts. She should have known better. She would from now on.
“Oh yeah. Nothing like needing to escape to make you want to learn to fly.” Marshall chuckled. It would be far too stupid to hope to become friends with him, but not being enemies would be just as good.
“So you signed up to fly, but instead you’re diving into deep water, as far away from the sky as possible.”
Marshall gave her a cocky grin as they descended deeper into the water. “Yeah, but once I saw what it was like down here, I couldn’t complain. It’s like nothing I could have ever imagined.”
“Same here. That first dive was mind blowing.” Autumn wondered what the hell was wrong with her. First her loneliness created hottie hallucinations, and now she was chatting with one of the pilots as though getting to know people had always been so smooth and easy for her.
Before Autumn could say anything else, a boom slammed against a steel metal door and resounded in the cockpit. Overlapping the sound, the world around them shook, hard.
“What the fuck was that?” Autumn didn’t enjoy this vibration nearly as much as the revving of the engine. This wasn’t a buzzing sensation that filled her chest with excitement. This shaking threatened to remove the flesh from her bones and crack her teeth as they snapped against each other. She’d never experienced something like this while underwater before.
“Hang on a minute.” Marshall was all concentration and focus as he centered his chair in front of the three consoles that dominated the cockpit. He flicked switches and tapped buttons. Autumn could hardly keep up with the speed he moved, chair flying along its designated paths while his fingers and head never seemed to stop.
Autumn’s breath sped up. She closed her eyes and counted backward from ten, forcing her mind and body to create the illusion of calm. Her blood still roared a little too loudly in her ears, but she opened her eyes to see the front screen had turned from a deep dark gray to a world of colors.
Autumn stared, transfixed by the scene in front of her.
Before she could say anything, another sound shot like a gun through her skull. The water collector tilted to her left, almost lifting her from her seat as she was held in place solely by the belts that crossed over her chest.
“Marshall?” Autumn asked, the tremble in her voice not becoming of a soldier, not even a grunt. But she didn’t fight her way off that damned planet to die on another one in the middle of an ocean filled with sea monsters.
“It’s all right, Walton.” Marshall’s voice carried a calm that might have washed over Autumn if the water collector didn’t then list to the right. Another almighty crack rang around the small cockpit and echoed in her brain.
Autumn reached down and held onto the seat. Her fingers curled around the edges of the thinly covered metal. She stared in front of her, trying to let the rainbow of beauty wash over her. Even as fear fought against her minimal composure, she couldn’t deny how the purple coral filled with pinprick holes intrigued her, or the way she ached to move in time with the waving seaweed. It all but shone in a green like she had never seen before. Vibrant and rich, it caressed the thick clear glass she looked through, and for a moment Autumn entertained the idea that the weed lived, and the buzzing in her ear was its call for her to join it.
This did not bode well for her sanity.
First the naked alien hottie and now a death wish to embrace a moving water plant.
Autumn gasped as a splash of red swam in front of the glass screen. She leaned forward, eager to see more of what had just passed her sight. The belt held her in place, and while her fingers flew to the buckles, they hesitated, thumbs resting too lightly on the buttons to trigger their releases.
“Did you see that?” Autumn looked over.
“See what?” Marshall looked up from the screens. His eyes widened when he looked at Autumn. “Are you okay?”
“No.” Autumn wondered where the fear had gone. She certainly wasn’t okay—something had snapped inside of her.
The sudden calm frightened her even more than the panic.
“Red, bright red. It moved directly across the front. Fast, too fast but long, really long. Did the sensors pick anything up?” Automatically, she turned to her station and started clicking buttons to see if she’d missed something on the sensors.
“Red?” Marshall furrowed his brows and looked skeptically at her.
But then it flashed again, this time heading in the other direction. Moments later another bang against the ship from the left, but seconds later one echoed from the right.
Autumn’s head rocked back and forth as though she were one of those stupid things the kids found at the historical pits. The plastics were eaten away even as the springs continued to move back and forth, turning the half-rotten heads in to things of nightmares.
“You saw it, right?” Autumn called out as she held tighter to the controls on her computer.
“Yep, I saw it. I’ve heard about them.”
“What the hell are they?”
“Fish, Walton. These are real fish.” She could have sworn Marshall’s words held excitement and glee as he spoke. Fish? That wasn’t like any of the fish she had seen in the historical archives. But she had to concede that fish, all sea creatures really, had died out long before she had been born.
“I’m getting us the hell out of here. Now hold on.” Marshall pressed more buttons and pulled levers to add to the intermittent tapping on the screen.
“I’m calibrating the sensors to see if we can get a clear image of the…fish.” Autumn stumbled over the word because it was still uncomfortable on her tongue.
The colors Autumn had previously admired flew past. They blurred together, tails of light trailing them as though the colors themselves were trying to keep up with the water collector.
Fish.
Autumn played with the word, tasting it on her tongue. It didn’t sit right, bitter and filled with an untruth she had no reason to believe.
“Go ahead and start scooping while we dive so we can meet our quota.” Marshall pointed at the second screen that Autumn had ignored since they’d started their dive.
“Is that safe?” She furrowed her brow and stared at it.
“Safer than sitting still and being attacked by fish.” Marshall let out a low chuckle, loud and full of amusement.
For a flicker, a blink of Autumn’s eyes, a face appeared and disappeared as Marshall kept their speed. Autumn hadn’t even had time to gasp or curse.
Another hallucination?
What the hell was happening on this planet?
Her fingers shook as she grabbed hold of the controls to collect the water. This was her job, from beginning to end. Get the water, bring it back to Earth, save the planet. Her own sanity didn’t matter. She was there to keep her people alive.
But what if the scans were wrong? What if there was life here? What if they had still been sent to drain this planet in the hopes of saving a people she doubted would ever learn to respect nature more than their own greed and selfishness?
What if everything was a lie?