Nathan Hystad - The Survivors - Books 1-3

“How do we get back?” he asked.

“Don’t you want to know where we are?” I asked, scanning the room. It was a far cry from the rocky floor we’d left behind. This room was manufactured, the floor a solid metal alloy, the walls silver and smooth. A stone, much like the one in the cavern, sat behind a glass case; the same icons were visible on the screen. I walked away from it, seeing the drawings etched on the metal walls. Wherever we were, it was eerily similar to the place we’d just come from.

“I’d prefer to go back and help the others.” Slate was touching the glass screen above the stone, but nothing illuminated or moved. It was dark.

He was right. They needed our help. My fiancée was in danger and trying to rescue my sister. If I ever needed to get somewhere to assist, it was now.

“Why did it work back there?” I asked under my breath. My heart rate was fine now, my mind clear. “You felt nothing? No draw to that room, or to the light?”

Slate shook his head. “I felt angry. Angry at you for walking into it blindly.”

I couldn’t blame him. “Let’s look around, and maybe we can figure out how to get back. This has to be some sort of teleportation device. I wish we knew where it sent us. Probably to the opposite side of the planet.” I held my gun up, moving to the side of the room, wishing there were lights so I didn’t have anything jump out at me from out of the darkness.

“This time let’s stay together, okay?” Slate grumbled, moving in front of me. If he wanted to take the lead, I’d let him. I’d already shown there was a glitch in me. My back twitched, reminding me of being shot on one of the Kraski vessels during the Event. I had Mae’s… Janine’s blood in me still. That was it.

“I think the device picked up on my blood being alien. Maybe it recognizes the Kraski DNA and allowed me transport.” I was grasping at straws, but it was the only thing that remotely came close to an explanation.

Slate looked thoughtful a moment before turning to me, grabbing me by the shoulders. “Dean, if that’s true, what was it doing on New Spero? I thought this was an unspoiled planet. If there’s a device that allows Kraski transport, then –” He stopped talking, letting go of me, his shoulders sagging slightly. “We aren’t on the other side of New Spero now.”

I didn’t reply. Instead I walked to the doorway, which didn’t open. The power was down here. Slate grabbed hold of a manual lever, and pulled hard, the cords of his neck straining as he did so. Eventually, the door popped, hissed, and slid open.

The hall beyond was dark, ominous. My imagination told me there were creatures out there, ones that would attack as we passed any corner. Another part told me we were on a station where the entire crew was killed in an intergalactic attack, their spirits lingering and angry, waiting for redemption. With a quick shake of my head, I tried to let my childish fantasies dissipate, leaving me calculating the facts.

“If there’s no power, maybe we can find a backup system and turn it on.” If we could get power to the area, the touchscreen with the icons might lead us back to the cavern. It might have worked because there was no power needed for the carvings.

Slate didn’t reply; he just began moving quietly and efficiently down the hall. I tried to emulate his movements, making more noise than him, but not enough to put a target on our backs. We tried a few rooms along the way, manually opening the doors, but none of them proved helpful. It all had an unused feel to it, like it had sat empty for a very long time. I was left feeling queasy, and suddenly wished we were back at Magnus’ farmhouse, sharing a meal and laughing about the rescue we’d successfully pulled off. I focused on that feeling and set it as my intention. Now I just needed to get from here to there. That was the hard part.

“This place feels wrong,” Slate said, whispering the words near my ear. Our speech was muffled slightly by our oxygen masks, and I wondered at how much time we had breathing from them. We hadn’t had enough time yet to have their newly advanced technology explained to us.

“It feels old.” It all felt very far-future, but ancient at the same time.

We kept moving, seeing no signs of life anywhere. Eventually, we made our way to a large doorway, which opened into a massive room. Clear crystals glowed ever-so-softly in the middle of the room, casting an unwelcoming glimmer over the entire area. As we neared them, we could see they were encased in a tall glass cylinder that stretched from floor to ceiling, appearing to go on for at least fifty feet.

“Either this is part of a ship’s engine, or this powers the facility we’re in. I wish I knew more about advanced alien civilizations.” I meant it as a joke to lighten the mood, but even I couldn’t smile as I said it.

“I think we know enough for my liking.” Slate looked intense, like he was reverting from the fun-loving soldier we’d started to see on our journey together.

I turned to him, looking him in the eyes. “Other than the obvious,” I said, waving my hand, palm up, around the room, “is something bothering you?”

He seemed like he was going to slough off my question, but his mouth twitched. “I was up there, flying around space, avoiding being blown to smithereens by some inept New Spero station pilots, and I got to thinking, what if? What if I do die here? What if I’ve lived my whole life bent on revenge for my brother dying, before finding out there was no one to blame? The Event nearly destroyed our world, and many of us came out different people, but I was still a soldier for the same people I hated for sending us to war in the first place.”

“That’s in the past, Slate,” I said softly.

He ran his big hands over his close-cropped hair, and I could feel the frustration emanating from him. “What if I never find a good woman? What if I never have a family of my own? What if I die here, never getting an ending to my story, when it’s been so full of anger and resentment up to this point?” His words were getting quieter as he went, and I wanted to give the guy a hug and tell him it would be all right. But truth be told, I could empathize with his story, even though it was so far removed from my own.

“Tell you what. Let’s figure this out.” I pointed at the crystals in the tube. “Then we can find our way home and you can retire, meet someone at one of the colonies, and live that dream out on New Spero.”

“Do you think we’ll actually ever be safe, no matter where we go?” he asked.

I didn’t know, but the threat looming over our heads with Earth and the Bhlat clouded my thoughts. I resolved right then and there to make it my business. We’d been thrust, whether fairly or not, into the middle of the battle between the Deltra and the Kraski, and then the Bhlat over all of them, and unless we resolved it, we would never be truly safe.

“I’m going to make that happen.” I felt foolish for saying it, but Slate nodded, accepting that I meant what I said.

His jaw took on a hard line, a new resolve that we’d need to figure this puzzle out. We spread out over the room, looking for anything that might have power left in it, or a manual switch to turn on. A half hour later, we’d both found nothing and were back in the same spot we’d started the search from.

“Now what?” he asked.

“We keep searching.” I led the way back out of the room, upset we hadn’t found anything, but sure the answers were out there, within the metallic walls of the strange structure. The weight of the bag of supplies on my back was starting to get heavy, and I knew I was about five minutes from asking Slate to carry it for a while. I was glad I’d brought provisions into the caves. It looked like we might end up needing them after all.