“Hey!” He snapped at the dazed veterinary technician. “Check your harness and cover your head!”
Wesley looked at him and nodded, then burst into action as the words filtered through. In seconds was fitting his helmet to his suit and then leaning forward to assume the ages-old crash position. Jeremy was again reaching for his own helmet when the keening noise hit a crescendo and metamorphosed into a sharp roar that made the shuttle tremble.
A new roaring noise replaced the previous one. Jeremy managed to twist the seals on his helmet in time to prevent depressurization. A hole in the wall on the opposite side of the shuttle showed a turbulent sky outside. A strange thought slipped through his mind even as he processed the smoke and flames visible through the opening, ‘ Better sky than space. ’
The shuttle jerked again underneath him. It was a brutal strike that slammed him into his seat and forced his upper body to slam into the wall behind him. His head, protected by his helmet only marginally, met the wall with equal force.
Chapter 3
“On your feet Sinclair!”
Jeremy opened his eyes long enough to squeeze them shut against the harsh light that speared into his brain. He made a gagging noise and waved his arm weakly, trying to push away whoever was trying to torture him.
“Wake up, sailor!”
Her jerked, the words reaching into a deep part of his brain that reacted in spite of years of neglect. Squinting heavily he stared down at himself and saw he was wearing his environmental suit. In spots it was stained, some of it green, some brown, and some a reddish brown that looked less like dirt and more like-“
“Stand up, damn it Sinclair!”
He looked up and saw Lance Corporal Kate standing over him. She had a standard issue plasma rifle in hand. Her Marine combat uniform, part armor and part environmental suit, was scratched and stained much like his, except she had more of the reddish tinted stains on hers. The other thing he noted through his squinted vision was that the visor on her helmet was up, exposing her face to the atmosphere of the planet. He could understand why, the visor had cracks running along it.
“What happened?” Jeremy croaked as he tested his body and climbed, slowly, to his feet.
“I lost one of my men and I’m pressing you into service until things are resolved,” Kate snapped. She pushed the rifle in his hands. “You know how to use one of these?”
Jeremy glanced down at it, then looked back up at her. He shook his head slowly. “I won’t…I can’t. I’m not in the Navy anymore. Administratively discharged, Ma’am.”
“You hit your head again, Sinclair? Don’t call me Ma’am, I work for a living!” She glared at him then lowered her voice. “I don’t care what happened between you and the Navy, The pilots are dead and so are two of my Marines. We lost three civilians in the crash too. We need to be organized and the stronger we can present ourselves, the better our chances of survival! You get me, Navy?”
He looked down at the rifle in his hands again. Turning it over he checked the manual controls on it, identifying the subtle changes that had taken place since he had last held one. “It’s been a while and I only used one on the range. What are we up against?”
“No idea, just be ready to use it if you need to. What rank were you?”
“Just a spaceman,” He mumbled. Jeremy looked past her, his eyes adjusting to the light Heavy cloud cover helped. Off in the distance he saw darker, angrier looking clouds. Storm clouds, and based on the wind on his face they were coming towards them. His gaze fell to rest on the ruined hulk of the shuttle. Gaping holes in the side and back gave testimony to how rough the landing had been. He shook his head, amazed anyone had escaped it, and turned back to look at Lance Corporal Kate.
“Well Spaceman Sinclair, you keep an eye on your people and keep them in line. Something happened to our shuttle that knocked us out of the sky. No idea what it was but I know we weren’t under fire. No idea what’s out here but we have to assume the worst.”
“Okay,” he said, nodding. He walked passed her over to where Dr. Rice and the others were sitting and standing. Their hushed conversation quieted as he approached. “Everyone okay?”
Synnamon stood up from where she sat on a rock and walked past him. He followed her a few paces until she spun to face him again. “Back in the military Mr. Sinclair?”
He shook his head, then realized he still held the rifle. He slung it quickly over his shoulder, then realized that her eyes had followed the movement. He’d practiced it hundreds of times but thought he’d forgotten it. Damn muscle memory. “They lost two Marines, she asked me to stand in, in case there’s trouble.”
“So what’s your story? Why is there no record of military service in your file?”
Jeremy looked away from the suspicion in her narrowed eyes. There was no record because Jeremy Sinclair had never been in the military. Jeremy Sinclair was only fifteen years old, by all accounts. “Doctor, it’s a long story and right now is not the time for it, okay? Please?”
Rice stared at him for a long moment, then nodded. “I expect to be told. Everything.”
He sucked in until he couldn’t hold anymore air then let it slowly. The aches in his body and his head remained firmly in place. “Fine, Everything. Now how is everyone?”
“Scared, shaken, bruised, cut, and traumatized. Including me.”
“Yeah, I bet. You’re holding up well though. We need to keep that up.”
Jeremy turned back to the others and saw them all staring at the two of them. He opened his mouth to say something when Lance Corporal Kate’s voice cut across the group. “Grab what you can carry, we’re heading for the LZ in 10 minutes! Navy, you stick with the civilians, Potter has point, I’ll be at the rear.”
He turned to look at the Kate and shrugged. She sighed then walked past him. He stared after her and realize that the next two years were going to be the longest of his life.
A distant noise floated across the wind, causing him and several others to stare into the distance. It had sounded like something out of an movie. Outside of special effects he couldn’t imagine anything that would be loud or primal enough to make a noise like that.
Chapter 4
Jeremy grimaced time and again at the noise the ‘civilians’ made as they walked through the outskirts of the jungle. The alien trees they walked through were sparse, growing no more than twenty feet tall. Far more prevalent were the strange looking bushes with thick leaves and exotic but beautiful flowers. Dr. Bronislav warned them all away from them, stressing the unknown nature of the alien flowers and how they could easily secrete a poisonous substance for self-defense.
Twice the point Marine and Lance Corporal Kate detoured them around strange mounds that rose out of the earth. Jeremy agreed, something seemed both natural and unnatural about them. After nearly an hour of stopping and starting a raised hand from the Lance Corporal caused Jeremy to roll his eyes and halt the doctors and techs. She motioned for him, drawing a deep sigh. The breeze felt nice but it wasn’t enough to compete with the high humidity. His environmental suit was overloaded trying to keep him cool and, he could tell from the looks on the faces of the others, so were theirs.
“Stay quiet, Potter saw movement up ahead.”
“Thought there wasn’t any indigenous life here?” Jeremy had read all the reports and studied the sensor sweeps. Lots of plant and animal life, but no sign of any civilization or intelligent species.
“Animals,” Kate said. “Six legged cat-like things.”
“How many?”
Kate shrugged. “He saw one but he’s pretty sure there’s more.”
Jeremy bit back the urge to laugh. He didn’t know much about animals but he’d had enough basic classes on higher level mammals to know that cats weren’t social animals.