The Trappist Adventure-Chapter 2

We both stared at the overhead skies for what seemed like hours, but was probably less. As a kid, I imagined being an astronomer or an astronaut. I would spend hours watching the heavens, star gazing, and dreaming of being out there amongst the planets. Now, I had nothing to say or share with the doctor.

The sky was different, and there were celestial bodies before our eyes. They hung there. I felt like I could reach out and touch one of them like low-hanging fruit. I was staring at two planets that didn’t belong where they were and a moon.

A light in the sky shone through the strange magenta hue of the world above us. Was it a passing comet, a shooting star, or something else? After a lifetime of science fiction, was any of what ran through my mind possible? I thought I was losing my mind, but Elizabeth saw it too.

“What am I seeing?” asked Elizabeth.

I wanted to give her a reassuring answer or at least sound intelligent, but I had nothing but sounds rattling around my head. Words such as other and planet didn’t form a coherent sentence when I heard them. What effect would they have on Elizabeth?

However, there we were. There was no denying what we both saw. We weren’t in Kansas anymore. We weren’t on Earth anymore.

“I think this is another planet,” I told her.

Another planet. The idea was unbelievable, even to someone with my imagination. However, there we were.

“Look,” announced Elizabeth, pointing into the distance.

A line of smoke flowed into the air, rising over a hill on the opposite side of the valley. I had binoculars in my pack. Staring through those, sighting in the smoke, it wasn’t just one plume going into the clouds.

“There’s an industrial center,” I told Elizabeth.

The center sat miles away, on the other side of rugged terrain, terrain foreign to both of us. On Earth, it would take me a day to get that far. With the doctor in tow, it was going to take longer. I might get her through a hike in the Rockies after dark, but what kind of challenges were in front of us here?

There were caves not far from where we were. I knew, standing there, I could keep us safe, at least until the next sunrise. I watched the horizon until the sky turned darker and told Elizabeth to follow me. Without knowing more, we needed a place safe from the elements and from being discovered.

“Where are we going?” she asked.

“When I woke up, I was along the river. It’s not too far,” I explained.

“So?” she wondered.

“There’s a civilization out there, but we don’t know what we’d be walking into, and the skies are darkening. We need a place to hide until morning, and the caves I saw along the river will do.”

Elizabeth and I went to the riverbed. It didn’t take long, and we were along the same rock walls I followed. The skies continued to darken as a beautifully vibrant nightfall betook the river valley. There was nothing like it on Earth, except for maybe in movies. We found our way to a cave, stopping to admire the luminescent scene.

“Traeger,” Elizabeth said, “look at it. Have you ever seen anything so incredible?”

As darkness fell, a glow grew from the roots of the plants. Up and down the river, the light was incredible. Blues, reds, beautiful greens, bright orange hues, and all from the different life along the riverbed, glowing brighter as the light combated the blooming darkness. From the water, a shiny aura floated upward.

Creatures in the river showed similar characteristics and glowed, their light blooming as the darkness slowly swallowed the valley around us. Seeing that, I found a long bamboo piece, or as close to bamboo as I could imagine. With my knife tied tightly to one end, I walked softly to the shore.

“What are you doing?” Elizabeth asked.

The first order of business when facing any challenge is survival. We were going to need to eat. I launched my new spear into the water and drove the homemade tip into a fish the size of my leg. Pulling the fish from the water, I held it in the air. My father taught me survival skills as a child. He might not have seen me using them on an alien world, but I’d like to think he’d have been proud.

“How do you feel about seafood?”

I handed off a canteen and told the doctor to get some water. Once I covered our necessities, we set our camp up in the cave. After gathering some wood, we sat around the fire. The odor of the roasting fish was different here than on Earth.

“I’m not sure about the water,” admitted the doctor.

“Here,” I said, holding out my hand.

The doctor handed me the canteen. I wasn’t sure about it myself. All that glowing material in the water would make us sick, or we’d be fine. Either way, without it, we were dead. I took in a mouthful, tasting it as it swooshed around. I smelled a slightly sweet odor, but it was tasteless.

“I think it’s safe,” I told Elizabeth.

“Thank god,” she sighed, taking the canteen and drinking her fill of the alien river waters.

Doctor Reimer’s smile lit up the cave as much as the fire. She seemed relaxed as she sat there, watching me turn the fish every sixty seconds. We both were questioning our predicament as I cooked. I knew we would try getting to civilization on the other side of the mountains. After that, I didn’t know how well our adventure would treat us.

There was no way to tell how two strangers might be received, especially where we were. Would we be safe, or would we be the enemy? We’d have to recon the area and see what kind of people were there.

“It’s not five-star, but it’s edible,” I told Elizabeth after taking a small bite with my fingers.

“Great,” she smiled. “I could eat a whale.”

After we ate, we sat quietly for the longest time. Elizabeth sat across from me, her back against the side of the cave. She had a somberness about her. Of course, I sat against my side of the cave with my M4 in hand. Admittedly, I was scared.

Finally, after a lengthy and awkward silence, Elizabeth spoke up.

“I guess…at least we’re not alone,” she sighed.

She had a point, as bad as it was. I could make it across the valley faster on my own. Having an academic along for the ride was only slowing down me finding a way home. Now, I had to get her home too.

“True,” I replied.

“It is…sort of beautiful,” said the doctor, pointing to the light.

I watched the glowing flicker as the bubbling waters passed by us, admittedly enjoying the magical view. I had never seen anything like that, not on Earth.

Not on Earth. That phrase was one to swallow, but what choice did we have? Even as we sat there, the three strangely colored moons overhead reminded us we weren’t in Kansas anymore.

“Are we going to die?” asked the doctor.

Hearing the fear in her voice, I moved over to her side of the cave. Sitting beside her, where I could still keep an eye on the outside world, I put my arm around her shoulder.

The doctor leaned into me. It seemed to comfort her that I was closer. I looked at her green eyes. Faining a smile, I told her the story of a famous hero.

“So, when the crazy doctor, the reporter, and the football star landed on the alien world, I’m betting the emperor never figured he’d be taken down by some dumb jock,” I told her.

“What’s your point?” she asked.

“The reporter had a football star, you’re stuck here with a firefighter and soldier,” I explained. “I’d say, I like our chances.”

The doctor chuckled. She looked up at me with those big, beautiful eyes and smiled. Putting her hand on my chest, she curled up next to me.

“Thanks, hero. But, my dad was a big fan of that movie. I saw it a hundred times when I was a kid,” she told me.

A hazy view awaited me when I opened my eyes. There must have been something in the fish or the water that acted as a sedative. I had to shake off the doped feeling. There was a noise outside the cave.

Elizabeth was still asleep. She was out cold, so much so that she didn’t stir when I moved her off my shoulder.

I clung to the cave wall, edging closer to the entrance. Before I got close, a bright light hit me in the eyes. I scrambled backward, hoping not to be seen. No, there was no way anyone saw me. The light was coming from something overhead.

As it passed us by, I crawled to the edge and used the scope on my M4. Looking into the air, I found the source of the light. There was a gunship flying overhead. It was patrolling the river valley through the mountain.

I wondered, did it know we were there? Was it looking for us?

The craft flew over the river until disappearing as the strange humming sound subsided. When it was gone, I let my rifle rest. I crawled backward, disappearing into our hideaway.

Soon, it was morning, and it was time to start working through the mountains. It would take two days to get to the other peaks and could scope out the terrain. I had no idea how rough the terrain would get, and remaining out of site was paramount until we knew what kind of civilization there was. The last thing I wanted to do was end up on some extra terrestrials’ serving platter.

“We’ve got to move,” I told Elizabeth. “It’s daytime, and I don’t know how long that’s going to last on this rock.”

Elizabeth and I made it to the clearing around the mountain. Before we ventured further, we filled the canteen.

“Don’t drink much at one time. Just sips,” I instructed. “We need to adjust to the chemicals in the water.”

“Is that why I feel hungover?” she asked.

“It’s a guess, but I think so,” I told her.

We walked for about two hours, then stopped for fifteen minutes. After two cycles cycles, we were along a thick, densely covered area. It was still daytime, but the canopy was so dense darkness ruled the ground. I propped my M4 and gave the doctor a spare light.

“Stay close,” I told her.

Hiking through the woods at night isn’t easy. We were doing it through a dark, thickly forested area in the morning, on an alien world. Even as I was making the long trek through the mountains, I still couldn’t believe it was happening.

There was a noise, similar to when the doctor was nearby the first time. I held up my arm, motioning for her to stop. Looking around, Elizabeth asked me what was wrong. When I looked up, I knew what it was. We weren’t alone.

“Look at the size of those things,” I told her, shining a light into the eyes of a winged, pointed-eared, leathery creature.

“That’s as ugly as you want to see lost in the dark,” said Elizabeth.

As we made our way through the woods, keeping our eyes on the humongous, leathery-skinned beasts, our world was completely upside down. Then, Elizabeth screamed.

I turned, looking through the darkness, hoping to see her. She was gone, or so I thought. I could hear her crying in the dark of the night. Slowly, carefully, I followed her voice through the woods. As I got closer, I still couldn’t see Doctor Reimers. Then, I heard her call out to me.

“Give me a hand!”

Looking down, there she was. Elizabeth fell into a hole. She’d fallen into a six-foot impression in the soft terrain between two trees. I stood there shining my light on her predicament and saw the horror.

“Get me out of this hole, would you?” she begged, her mud-covered hand outstretched.

Elizabeth didn’t know she wasn’t in a hole. She was in a footprint from the foot of something larger than I’d ever seen.

To be continued...