Nathan Hystad - The Survivors - Books 1-3

My stomach sank as I watched dozens of the things get lifted and climb over the fence. They were smarter than any animal I’d ever seen. Patty showed us another video of people forming a violent riot, and how they were able to subdue it quickly. It appeared all wasn’t paradise on this colony planet.

“Now, enough about us and New Spero. Tell me how you came to arrive seven years later, looking like nothing has changed, in the same ship you left Earth on,” Patty said.

“Should we wait for Heart?” Slate asked, looking around the room.

Patty turned to Slate, looking at him silently for a minute before speaking again. “The general isn’t with us any longer. He passed away two years ago: heart attack.”

Slate deflated at that and sat down in one of the swivel chairs at the long desks.

“A lot has changed for us. I think you know the new general.” Patty pointed at Magnus, who just shrugged when we looked over to him.

“Someone had to do it, and it might as well be someone I trust. Me,” Magnus said, getting a tense laugh from our group.

“I’d say congratulations, but I’m sure you’d rather be sitting on your porch sipping sweet tea than worrying about invasions and space station turncoats,” I said, clapping him on the arm.

“Speaking of which, where is Mr. Andrews?” Magnus asked Patty.

“He’s fine. Almost good as new. He’s finding a new home at Terran Three.” Patty tilted her head toward the screen, showing the city covered in snow. “He claims Naidoo threatened to hurt his family back on Earth, but I call BS on that. His accounts have shown some interesting deposits over the years. Either way, I apologize for your treatment, everyone. Can we have the story now?”

We moved to the back of the room, where a guard brought in refreshments. I guzzled water as we went through the trip, and my own personal emotional rollercoaster. I was ready to put it all behind us after this telling.

When it was over, Patty mopped her face with a hand, and looked to have aged another year. “After all we’ve been through, she wants to cut a deal with them. That might explain something.”

“What?” I asked.

“It takes a month to get a message to and from Earth. We’ve sent messages to them but haven’t had a reply in over a month. I was hoping there was just a technical issue on Earth, but it could mean two things. Either they’re choosing to not talk with us” – she paused, leaning forward in her chair – “or they aren’t able to talk to us.”

“Why didn’t you tell me?” Magnus asked, clearly frustrated.

“We didn’t want to worry you. You have enough on your plate,” she replied.

“You wanted me in this position, you have to tell me everything. Would you have held this back from Heart?” he asked, receiving a blank stare from Patty.

“The Bhlat are coming for Earth, one way or another,” I said. “Naidoo opened the door for them and invited them in. What do we do about it?”

“What do you mean? We need to worry about New Spero’s safety now. We gave those people a choice, and whoever’s on Earth chose to stay, knowing the dangers. They were all part of the Event, just like all of us. The universe is a dangerous place,” Patty said.

This wasn’t the president I remembered, always worried about everybody. She was older, tired, and jaded. “It may not be your job to help Earth, but I’ll be damned if we’re going to sit back and wait for the Bhlat to come to us too. Let’s look at it like we’re going on the offensive, and saving Earth is the positive result.” I thought speaking her language might help my cause. It appeared to.

“It takes two months to get back. It could be too late by then,” Slate said.

“Or they chose not to transmit because they knew we were arriving and would blow up their story. It might not be too late at all. Maybe a carefully worded message would do the trick,” Mary said, making a lot of sense.

“Another thing is bothering me,” Patty said quietly.

“What’s that?” I asked, wondering just what else could be wrong.

“The hybrids.”

I couldn’t believe I’d been so selfish to forget them. “The hybrids,” I repeated, a flush coming over my skin. “Where are they?”

“We thought they were trouble. As far as we knew, Leslie and Terrance were terrorists, and were the reason you were lost to us. They were killers, and we couldn’t trust the lot of them,” Patty said.

Dread set in. “Where are they?” I asked again.

“They’re in a prison in Russia. Half the world’s leaders wanted to ship them into the sun, but we compromised on prison. Forever.”

She looked terrible, the guilt of their anguish evident on her face.

“We have to do something!” I said, remembering the friendly faces we’d met in Long Island. Seven years in prison, and I doubted I’d get the same reaction from them. “I know where they’re welcome. I’ll send them there to have new lives.”

She nodded, but it seemed a distant, noncommittal action. “If we get through this, you have my word that you can do just that. I’m sorry about Mae too, for what it’s worth.”

An alarm chimed from the front of the room, and Daniel, the officer on the computer, called back to us. “General, you’re going to want to see this. Trouble in Terran Five again.” The screen showed us the white lizard-wolves stalking toward the city, this time in a different area. It looked like they were crossing a frozen lake.

“Wait, they aren’t coming for the fence,” Daniel said as we watched them change direction. It was snowing, wind blowing fiercely, causing a white-out. He zoomed in a mile or so, and we spotted a blurry barn. A group of people were outside, surrounded by horses.

“What are they doing outside like that in a storm?” Magnus yelled. He jumped on to a computer and tried for a few minutes to contact Terran Five. “No luck. The storm must have killed the transmission tower. All this technology, and we still use waves to communicate with each other. Come on, Dean. We have to go help them.” He tapped the face-to-face calling program, trying for any contacts under the Terran Five: Operations listing. They all failed.

If those creatures were that close, I knew there was no way we’d make it in time, but we had to try. “Are the other Terrans closer?”

“Good call. Dan, send a request for assistance to Terran Four. We’re taking a cruiser. Anyone else?” Magnus asked.

Mary and Slate ran after us, heading toward the landing pad.

T he ship was smaller than any we’d ever been on, more the size of a helicopter than anything I’d seen, but it acted much the same as the larger Kraski ships. Two seats up front, two in the back, and as much room as a cube van in the back for storage. The walls were lined with climbing gear, medi-kits, and weaponry: everything we needed for a rescue mission.

We’d tossed on suits before getting on board, and they reminded me of the modified space suits from our recent adventure. These didn’t have the helmet attached, and though they were thin, their primary function was to fend off the cold, with an extremely high puncture rating. That would help prevent one of those lizard-wolves from biting our extremities off.

“How far is Terran Five, exactly?” Mary asked, sitting up front with Magnus, who was acting pilot on the vessel. Slate sat in the back with me, his large frame tight against the undersized suit he wore.

“Eleven hundred miles as the crow flies,” Magnus said, the landscape of the planet zooming by as we flew near top speed toward the Arctic-like city. “That makes our trip a quick twenty minutes. Those monsters can go fast, but they were skulking along that snow, the storm probably slowing them some.”