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Reckless

Chapter 1

By Debora DyessPublished 2 years ago Updated 2 years ago 12 min read
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Nobody can hear a scream in the vacuum of space, or so they say.

So, I thought, why scream. Either I’d ace the landing or I wouldn’t. And, besides, my comlink was still open. The last thing I wanted was for my fellow Warriors, my flight crew and… well, let’s face it… everyone in the entire fleet to hear my little girl, scared-for-my-life yelp as I landed. Or crashed.

That is not exactly the legacy I want to leave.

Or to live with.

I tightened my grip on my stick (yes, the one I steer with), clenched my teeth and fought the urge to bellow.

My ship broke through the clouds in the atmosphere of this strange planet and… Land.

Shaz! I thought. I’d hoped for water. At least a little water. Not an ocean where I’d be swimming for days or gobbled up by some creature just itching to get its teeth into a nice, juicy Warrior such as myself. No… Not that much water. Just a little water, deep enough to take the body of my craft but not too deep...

Ah… Looky, looky.

A lake, just the right size. Better yet, considering the almost-unresponsive stick in my hands, right in my trajectory.

So I shot for the lake.

It had started like any other day. I was late and half-asleep for briefing, got my ass chewed by the LT, made my excuses, made my apologies and shuffled off to the flight bay. That was, as I said, fairly normal.

What wasn’t normal was the fact that I didn’t take the time to do a once-over on my ship. That’s not a big deal, you know. It only keeps me alive.

I trust my flight crew. Truly. But one of the most important things my dad, no slouch pilot himself, taught me during my first few flight lessons was a flight pre-check. In an ancient cro- dusting plane from the late Americas that was vital. And that's where I learned to check my own. Check my own plane. Check the flight plans. Check weather conditions for myself, back when weather conditions made a difference. Check my own. And, for the most part,, I’ve carried that into my life. I check my own everything. In an age of almost total automation, that’s not the norm but it is for me.

Usually.

I’d stumbled, half-drunk from a raucous night-before, to my cockpit, nodded a short acknowledgment to my flight chief and climbed in.

He stood there, looking surprised and doubtful. Maybe a little confused.

“What?” I barked. My head was still pounding. My mouth was dry and all the coffee in the caf that morning hadn’t helped either situation in the least. I’d pitched down about a gallon of water, too, but the night’s stupidity was still right there – in my poor, aching head, terrible attitude and incredible carelessness.

“Well, uhhh…” He scratched his balding head, shoving his cap back a couple of inches to get to just the right spot. “I thought ... uh… You usually…”

“And today I’m not.” I pushed the indicator that closes the canopy and gave him a terse smile and a thumbs-up.

Thumbs-up. Stupid, right?

I’m a great pilot. I’m probably giving you the wrong impression of myself. It’s been such a long time since any of us have seen combat action, though, that I get careless. I get lectures about it from my partner and my LT but late-night card games, especially Triminke, still keep me up late more often than not. Now, if you’ve ever played Triminke, you know that ale goes hand-in-hand with those little, round cards. I think it makes for a better, more exciting game. And I fly just fine the next morning, especially since it’s been so long since we’ve seen any combat action. We appear to have won this particular war. Finally.

I gave the flight chief another, more meaningful smile and shot myself out into the depths of space, that stupid thumbs up playing through my mind.

Because now I’m hurling toward a planet that nobody knows in a ship that went ka-plooey as I neared these chunks of rock. Five chunks of rock, to be specific. I was just lucky that one has an atmosphere that won’t kill me. It won’t do me any favors, but I’ll be able to breath without grabbing my throat, choking out my last, pathetic words for no one in particular to hear and keeling over.

Lucky, my ass.

I pushed my uncooperative vessel toward the small body of water and hoped for the best.

Water landings are typically not my thing. Don’t take this wrong, but I just hate water. I’m not afraid of it. Nope. I’m afraid of drowning. There’s a big difference. Not that anyone else I know acknowledges that fact. They all laugh and cat-call when we’re on R&R on a beach at any one of a dozen planets. I ignore it, of course, being the bigger man. The bigger sentient being. Because I’m not afraid of the water. Like I said, I’m just afraid of the drowning part.

But a water landing is easier on the craft. If you don’t submerge your vessel beneath tons of waves where tides can move it dozens of meters before you get its bearings to recover, that is. And if you don’t drown, yourself. It prevents minor damage to the body.

Both the ship’s and mine.

So, I steered toward the little lake, hoping for the best as my headphones crackled.

“I’m tracking you,” my partner, Vansh Laski announced, his voice all business, just like him. He’s a great guy but such a total tight-ass. He’s all about promotions and proper behavior and bull like that.

I pondered that phrase ‘bull like that’ as I counted the seconds to impact. I’ve never seen a bull, not even in pictures, and I'm pretty sure there's more to the old saying than that. But now really wasn’t the time to mentally plow through old Earth vernacular.

“I appreciate it,” I said aloud to Vansh. I meant it.

For all our differences, he’s probably one of my best friends. I knew this was killing him. It would kill me. To watch as his disabled ship descended into the unknown, as dramatic as one can make that sound, unsure of his next few breaths and heartbeats… I shuddered. I was glad I wasn’t in his place.

My place was bad enough, though. This thought flittered through my mind: ff I nailed this landing and walked away, I knew I could count on Vansh to track my ship and bring help. In that scenario, I had nothing to worry about.

In the other scenario, I die.

And if I die, I still have nothing to worry about.

Those thoughts didn't provide much comfort. I hadn't landed yet, either successfully or unsuccessfully. Those were the only two options that I thought of, though.

The universe is warped and perverse that way. Maybe it's my own mind that's warped and perverse. Who knows.

I braced as I neared the water. Stupid, sure. But it’s an instinct that I just haven’t ever been able to quench. I knew in my brain that my safety gear and, even disabled, the ship itself would be more protection than my knees locked and me leaning back and shutting my eyes. But I did it anyway.

Evidently, none of that worked. Not the ship, not the protective gear, not the locked knees, angle of my body or closed eyes. Because as the ship hit the water, the world around me went dark and cold.

When I woke up, I thought for just a fraction of a second that Vansh and some of the other guys were playing tricks on me. I could feel water around my legs. It was icy. Frigid. Arctic. And any other synonym you can think of to put in there, it was that cold.

Anyway, the water was like ice, and it was climbing.

Climbing? That didn’t make sense to my muddled brain at all. How were the guys getting the water to inch up my legs?

I shook myself awake, ready to chase Vansh, Cordis, Loome and whoever else was in on this prank out of my room, down the warrior wing of the ship and into the caf or the Admiral's office or wherever they chose to run.

But when I opened my eyes, Vansh wasn’t there. Neither were Cordis or Loome.

Nope.

Slimy, gray water was pouring into the ship, inching upward with every beat of my uncontrollable heart. And, as fast as it was beating, water would reach my mouth and nose in less than a minute. Far less.

I hit the hatch release to open the cap. Nothing. I thought maybe I heard a fizzing sound as the hydraulic system of the ship died but it was probably all in my head. I don’t think the systems on a AXR7A actually cry out when they die. Regardless, that exit was out unless I could force it open.

I reached up, pushing with all my strength against the thick canopy that protected me in space and would very probably make me drown now.

Not afraid of the water, remember? Just of the drowning.

A combination of sheer panic and determination swept through me. Once, twice, a big breath and a third attempt and… The canopy swung open.

Blinking in surprise, I snatched at the tracking device and tried to rise out of the water. Cursed. Disabled my security harness and struggled to lift my body from the cockpit sets. It was like trying to lift a moon. Even without the restraining straps, my legs were numb and, for a second, I wasn’t sure I’d be able to escape. The thought of Vansh standing over my bloated body, shaking his head and muttering, "Shouldn't have had that last shot of Diamled, old buddy" filled my mind like a scene from an old movie. I tried again.

And I wiggled and floundered and slipped out of the ship. No drowning today, I thought with kind of a mad, ecstatic smile on my face, even though my left knee was killing me. I ignored the shooting pain and clutched the tracker, splashed toward the bank of this little pond and climbed out. I cursed myself for not grabbing the emergency kit because I needed to check my injury. Instead, I slumped onto the blue-green grass for a long time.

Probably at least 30 seconds.

Then I heard the noise of someone or something approaching.

I’d call them aliens. But I was the alien here. I forced my nearly frozen arms and legs to push myself off the ground to hustle my alien ass into the underbrush nearby.

Three men stepped up to the water’s edge. They looked a lot like us. They were tall, broad-shouldered, humanoid. No extra arms or legs like we’d seen on some planets. No extra eyes or mouths or ears, which always creeps me out. Just guys. They looked so much like us, in fact, that I nearly made the mistake of calling out to them. Nearly. Not quite.

The men were pointing and jabbering. I didn’t know what they were saying. Not yet. It always takes the Language chip in my head a few sentences to make sense of any new dialect. Longer for an unknown language. This was taking longer.

Then one of the locals pointed to the wet spot where I’d thrown my body onto dry ground. It wasn’t dry anymore. It was drenched. The outline of where I’d lain on the grass, crushing it down with my weight, was as clear as sun. Then they looked toward me and pulled some pretty scary and ferocious looking weapons from their belts.

The natives didn’t have guns or lasers or anything like that. But those swords and knives… They made my mouth dry up again and sent my heart, already racing, skittering around my chest like a lost Whizner.

Most people have never interacted with a Whizner. They’re native to Zusia and fly, swim, and run a little fast than a man can run. And they bounce off everything. Trees, buildings, fences. I had one bounce off my boot once and, while it hurt, I was so busy laughing at the silly animal that I barely felt it.

But that’s what my heart seemed to be doing now. Pounding, taking up every inch of my chest, beating around in my ears and temples, stealing my breath.

One of the locals, a big guy that probably out-weighted the others by twelve metrics, pointed in my direction, right at me, and threw a nasty, curved blade. It slashed through the trees.

I’m pretty sure that, if I hadn’t been injured and half-frozen, I would have managed the situation far better. I’m sure I’d have dodged the attack, done some evasive maneuvers and stayed under cover until Vansh and the others came to get me.

But I was injured. And I was half frozen. I didn’t dodge or manage evasive maneuvers.

I stared down at the blade sticking out of my body for a second. I'd caught it right in the chest, on the wrong side to slice my heart in half, but… It didn’t feel as bad as it looked but it had to be bad. I knew it was bad.

As I raised my weapon at the big man, my comlink came to life again. Vansh’s voice, faint and far away, said, “Help is on the way, buddy. Hang in there.” My finger closed convulsively on the trigger and I heard the pulse of the laser and, almost simultaneously, a cry of pain and surprise.

The big man and I fell at the same time.

We were probably both dead.

Sci Fi
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About the Creator

Debora Dyess

Start writing...I'm a kid's author and illustrator (50+ publications, including ghostwriting) but LOVE to write in a variety of genres. I hope you enjoy them all!

Blessings to you and yours,

Deb

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