Nathan Hystad - The Survivors - Books 1-3

Watching Mary sweating like that, getting ready to kick someone’s ass, was a turn-on. I wondered where that primal emotion came from.

Clare was thin, and her glasses were off to the side of the room. As an engineer, she said she hadn’t spent much time worrying about athletics, but Slate said she was a natural. Mary wasn’t the biggest fan of the upbeat nerd, as she called her, but was willing to admit she was a useful addition to the crew, especially since she’d helped convert some of the alien technology on board to better suit our human needs.

The two women strapped on gloves, and Slate made sure their headgear was on firmly. Mary tugged her ponytail and planted her feet. Clare moved hesitantly, a feint, before attacking from the left. Her kick hit Mary in the side, who grunted and jabbed with her right, catching Clare in the head.

The smaller woman went down, and Mary was on her, two quick shots, before Slate stepped in and pulled her off.

“She’s down,” he said angrily. Clare was down on the ground, turtling her head, and Mary moved back, hands in the air.

“I’m sorry, got a little too into it.” She reached her hand out, and a heavily-breathing Clare grabbed it, letting Mary help her to her feet.

“No sweat. I’ll get you next time,” Clare said before guzzling some water.

Slate looked at me and raised an eyebrow, as if to say he was impressed with their cordial behavior. Frankly, I was too.

Mary grabbed a towel and started for the washroom, where I knew she’d take a quick shower. I still couldn’t believe we had a Kraski ship with a human shower and toilet on it.

“Everything okay?” I asked, when we were out of earshot of the others.

“What do you mean?” she asked.

“You just about took our engineer’s head off back there.”

“I just got a little too into it. And honestly, since you’re asking, I’m getting a little frustrated. I’m a pilot, but I usually get to leave my jet, not follow a bogey across an unknown universe. To top it off, I’m tired of Clare giggling at every little joke you say and batting her eyelashes under those Buddy Holly glasses she wears.”

The truth came out. “I get it about the ship. We’re all getting restless.”

She sighed, closing the door behind us, and started to take her workout clothes off. I didn’t want to be presumptuous, so I hung back, thinking I might be reading the room wrong.

She stepped into the now-steaming shower and stuck her arm out, wiggling her finger for me to join her.

“You don’t have to ask me twice,” I said, shucking my uniform in record time.

There were still some things we could do to ease the tension, and it wasn’t easy on a small ship with very little privacy. We chose our times carefully. This time, she just didn’t seem to care. She was taking what was hers.

Fifteen minutes later, we heard the speakers throughout the ship. It was Mae. “They’re out of the FTL drive. You guys are going to want to see this.”

M ary’s hair was dripping into a puddle on the bridge deck, and she was wearing a bathrobe, while I’d rushed and slipped my uniform back on. Doctor Nick winked at me as he entered the room, but I didn’t care about any of that. We were about to find out where Leslie and Terrance were headed. Were there Bhlat down there? Was this one of their conquered worlds?

“Our cloaking tech is working, right?” I asked, wishing I’d asked when we came out of the wormhole.

Clare was on her tablet but nodded. “One hundred percent active. They can’t pick up our signal, or see us, unless they fly into the side of the ship.”

We had slowed to our normal drive, getting closer to the world below. The hybrids ahead of us were nearing orbit, and they hung there for a time, allowing us to get caught up.

The planet looked amazing. It had been one thing to see your own planet from outer space, seeing familiar clumps of land look so alien from that height. Seeing this new planet was life-changing. My whole perspective on life somehow jarred at the sight. There were other planets out there with life. Scientists and theologians had debated the point for centuries, and we were seeing one firsthand.

I looked over, and everyone’s faces mirrored what mine must have looked like. Excitement for finding the hybrids but mixed with curiosity.

“Enough drooling, everyone,” Mae said. “This could be a Bhlat world. We have to be cautious.”

She was right. We waited, Mary having time to get dressed before taking over the helm from Mae.

“Can we send the probes down yet?” I asked.

Clare shook her head. “Great idea, but their signals aren’t hidden. They only make a small signal, but we should still wait.”

We didn’t say what we were waiting for, but I kept assuming they were going to lower planet-side. As if they read my mind, the ship started moving, descending through the planet’s atmosphere.

There were clouds on the large planet. It was hard to tell from our vantage point, but Clare said the world was a third larger than Earth. The system’s star was slightly closer, percentage-wise, to the world, which would make it warmer than we were used to.

We kept tracking the target ship as it crossed across the planet, and once they were far enough away, we flew in closer.

“Launching probe now,” Clare said. I stood beside her, watching the readout numbers scan across her screen. It only took a few minutes before we had the answers we needed. “Surface air temperature appears to be around 35 Celsius, and the air is within ninety-five percent of Earth’s, surprisingly. No toxins read that can be harmful, but we’ll get a better read when we land.”

“We’re going down there?” Nick asked, looking doubtful of the move.

“What choice do we have? Wait until they leave and blast them?” Slate asked, then answered his own question. “Actually, that’s not a bad idea.”

Mae shook her head. “We need to see what brought them here. If there’s a base, or a danger to Earth, it’s up to us to bring the fight to them,” she said, standing straight in her Earth Defense uniform.

“How about life-forms?” I asked.

“We aren’t there yet. We don’t have those kind of readings, but we’re picking up some images.” Clare pushed the pictures from her tablet to the main viewscreen with the press of a button.

The shots weren’t high-definition from this distance, but we could make out some buildings, and what looked like crops near a river. The green lush landscape overtook almost everything, and I was reminded of the thick deadly landscape in South America.

Clare switched to the map, and we saw the hybrid ship’s icon land near the marker she’d placed on those structures.

“Bingo,” I said. “What are we waiting for? Let’s go in.”

Clare looked ready to say something, but Mary cut in first. “Let’s wait a few hours, until the sun is set on that part of the continent. The cloaking works much better in darkness, under the cover of the night sky. They’ll never see us coming.”

We spent the next couple hours planning our move, and when it was all settled, we lowered toward the planet, nervous energy palpable on the bridge of the ship. We couldn’t make out a lot in the night sky, but the world was beautiful, unspoiled by pollution, and most importantly, humans. It made we wonder for a moment what would happen to Earth if the people were all gone from it. Would it reclaim the cities like in those post-apocalyptic movies? Would New York be covered in trees, and would deer walk down Fifth Avenue, making a home in Central Park?

We decided to scout a spot close enough to get to the village by foot, but far enough not to be spotted. The landing area was an empty copse of trees, which each stood over a hundred feet tall, surrounding the location. The ground was soft, and Mary decided to hover there rather than keep the weight on the grass. It was similar to a rainforest, and the chances of sinking into the bog-like terrain were high.