The Trappist Adventure: Chapter 3

I turned around, surveying the area closely. Elizabeth was in a hole, or rather, a footprint. Whatever made that footprint was large, powerful, and likely would look at us like food. There was nothing around us. Then, I looked up at the trees. They were taller than on Earth. I wondered what lurked up there.

"Can you walk," I asked Elizabeth.

"I think so," she answered.

I reached down and grabbed her hand. She climbed out of the six-foot depression. She brushed herself off and realized what I had come to know. Wherever we were, the indigenous weren't what we might have imagined.

"That's a footprint," she said, stunned.

"Yep," I answered.

"I fell in a footprint?" she rhetorically asked.

"Yep," I answered again.

I realized the shock of seeing a footprint that size was like a cat holding my tongue. Grabbing Elizabeth by the arm, I pulled her along as I moved away from the footprint. She kept looking back, repeatedly saying she'd fallen in a footprint. The doc struggled with wrapping her head around being in a footprint.

"How?" she asked.

"We're not on Earth anymore, and quiet down. I don't want to meet the thing that left that print in the ground," I insisted.

I knew we would run into life we wouldn't fathom, but nothing big enough to leave footprints the size of that hole. As the doctor struggled to believe what happened, I focused on getting us out of the area without being eaten. The last thing I wanted to contend with was an alien giant that looked at me like a snack pack.

"I wish we'd taken pictures of that," said Elizabeth. "Nobody is ever going to believe me."

I thought to myself, why would I tell this story? Nobody would believe me, and the government would lock us up. I promised myself I'd keep my lips closed on this one. I suggested Elizabeth do the same.

"Why?" she asked. "This is the find of the century."

"For one thing, I doubt Uncle Sam wants us talking. For another thing, we could end up on lockdown in some lab. Either way, the end isn't favorable," I promised.

After we made it a few miles from the edge of the woods, I scouted a clearing suitable for a campsite. With the doctor tagging along, I estimated we would travel for two days before getting to the opposite side of the valley. The terrain wasn't friendly, and Doctor Reimers was curious about every oddity we saw.

The indigenous fauna was reflective during the day and glowed at night. She couldn't help but stop to look at every other plant along the way. Then there were the creepers.

Creepers flew overhead every thirty minutes, slowly surveying the territory. They appeared to be hunters, or perhaps scouts, and tracking something. I feared they were after the doctor and myself. Our heat signatures were no doubt detectable with their technology.

Creepers were silent, running on an advanced equivalent of stealth technology from Earth. We barely heard the whisper of their power source as they flew overhead. They were large enough that they shook the ground before being directly overhead. Besides the doctor's insane curiosity about the alien world, having to hide every thirty minutes wasn't helping our progress.

Another difference I noticed was the air. It was thinner than Earth's air. It reminded me of the air at ten thousand feet, breathable but not as rich with oxygen. Even I was getting exhausted faster than I imagined.

We camped along the treeline, building a makeshift shelter. It would do for the night. At dawn, we needed to get moving.

"Can you believe any of this?" asked the doctor.

She was making a dirt sketch, copying the stars and moons she could see. If only we had a camera. Getting home without tangible proof of where we were would make the story sound unbelievable. That was when I remembered the tablet in my bag.

Digging through my pack, I finally found it beneath some papers. There was only a seventy percent charge. It wouldn't last long. But Elizabeth took it with a smile on her face.

"Great," she gleefully said. "Now, we'll have some proof of our grand adventure."

After I set up camp, and it wasn't much, I set out to find something to eat. I still had the silenced M4 I was fighting with, and fortunately, I had plenty of ammunition. All I needed was to find something small enough to bring back, skin it, and cook it over the small fire.

Thank god for my hunting experience. It made me a proficient killer. On Earth, I'd killed deer, bore, and multiple small creatures. I wasn't on Earth and wondered about the hides of the larger specimen we'd seen.

Elizabeth and I set out to find dinner as she trailed close behind, taking pictures along the way. It didn't take long before we stumbled across some indigenous life. I felt horrible for doing it, but the rumbling in my stomach told my brain to pull the trigger.

Two hours later, we were picking the meat from the bone. Whatever the four-legged beast was, it had a slightly spiced taste. Even the doctor's refined tastes didn't mind the flavor.

"So, you're a hunter," she commented, biting down on a slab of meat the size of her face.

"Occasionally," I told her. "When I have to be."

"I'm glad," she smiled, a piece of meat between her teeth. "I'd hate to come all the way to space just to starve."

My watch went off, warning me that the creepers were due to fly overhead. It meant taking the rest of the cooked meat with us, killing the fire, and hiding beneath the shelter. The doctor grabbed our dinner while I put the fire out.

Hiding along the treeline beneath the homemade shelter, we were nearly invisible, but it was almost pitch black. Elizabeth and I huddled in the dirt. As the darkness surrounded us, enveloping us into invisibility, we heard the slight rhythmic hum of the creepers as they flew overhead.

"I can't believe how dark it gets here," she whispered.

She was right. After a hundred camping trips, nights in the woods, and years gazing at the stars, I'd never been in such perpetual darkness. With the majestic light of the moons above, the brilliance of the stars in the system, and the creepers going overhead as their spotlights combed the area, the light didn't seem to make it to us.

"The plant life here is reflective. It's why it glows so brightly beneath the reddish sun," she explained.

"What kind of doctor are you again?"

"Medical, but I was always kind of a nerd. I applied to NASA once, for a mission they needed a med tech for," she told me. "I didn't make the cut."

"Obviously, it was their loss," I assured her, as she rested her head on my forearm, staring through the blackness to the depths of space.

Elizabeth asked, "What would they do if they found us?"

It was a good question. We hadn't engaged with the beings of that world, not yet anyway. At that time, we knew little about where we were and even less about the population of Trappist. Up to that point, all I'd seen was evidence of a technologically advanced race of militarized beings.

"You, they'll probably experiment on, or keep as a slave," I told her.

She was intelligent, controllable, and might be a conduit for them to learn about humanity. If their race was as advanced as I imagined, killing the doctor served no purpose.

I was in trouble if they were an aggressive race. As a soldier, I pictured torture, experiments, or worse. I found myself praying for a peaceful race of beings. Otherwise, I feared I was screwed.

"There, they're gone," I sighed.

"What now?" asked Elizabeth.

"To be on the safe side, we get some sleep. They'll be back in thirty minutes, and thirty after that," I explained.

Elizabeth curled up next to me, falling asleep on my arm. I stayed awake for a while. After the experience I'd had, I was exhausted enough that I slept.

I felt the warmth of the morning sun wash over me. Opening my eyes, I watched the grim darkness disappear. As I peeked through weighted eyes, the world came to life. Even the plants perked up, taking in their first dose of the sun as the night gave way to daylight.

I nudged my trusted sidekick, urging her to wake up. Her first response was cute. Meaning to or not, Elizabeth rolled more against me and wrapped her arm around my shoulder. She nuzzled against my neckline like a lover sharing her first morning with someone special.

For a moment, I forgot why I tried to wake her. Under different circumstances, I'd call that a morning to remember. After the war and all the fighting of the past years, spending my mornings like this wouldn't be so bad. When I finally returned to my senses, I nudged her with a firmer touch.

"You'd hate me if you completely miss what I'm watching," I whispered in her ear.

"Ten more minutes, then I'll let you go home," she responded, still only half conscious.

Let me go home. I wondered, is the good-looking doctor guilty of dragging a man off to her abode for some fun on occasion? She'd fit right in with me and the guys at the fire station, presuming any of them were alive.

"I'm flattered, doc. But let's get back to Earth and a real bed before we start the walk of shame," I joked.

Elizabeth opened her eyes and jerked away as she realized where she was and what she was doing. After wiping the slight drool from her mouth, she faked an apology.

"What's happening?" she wondered.

"Not much, just enjoying the brilliant sunrise with a beautiful girl...if freaking outer space."

That got her attention. Elizabeth turned and watched the direction I pointed her to, seeing how the plants changed colors and seemed to wake from a nightly slumber. She reached for the tablet I gave her and tried to record the scene for when we got home someday.

While a cup of coffee was impossible, we did have the dried meat from last night's kill. I clipped two sections of it away, and we called that breakfast. Before long, we were on our way again.

We were close to the top of the mountain at nightfall on the second day of our trek. I found us a cave to hold up in, and it was open enough to start and stay warm. The area I sought out wasn't far from our location. As much as I tried, Elizabeth was too curious not to come with me.

After setting up camp, we walked toward the descent point, finding a place to stay hidden from the creepers. I had binoculars. I pointed in the general direction of a city.

"Holy shit!" exclaimed Elizabeth.

Holy shit happened to be the only words for what we were seeing. Just a mile or two from where we were was a sprawling metropolis bustling with life. With protection on all sides, this miraculous example of intelligent life would prove hard to enter. Still, I couldn't help but watch in awe.

As I surveyed the area, there were signs of an industrial civilization in front of me. Roadways entered the city from eight different directions. I imagined them all amply guarded.

"Look over there," Elizabeth suggested, tapping on my shoulder.

Turning in the direction she pointed, there was a spaceport, for lack of a better term.

"Jesus, it's the size of LAX."

She wasn't wrong. I didn't need the binoculars to see the towers or count the craft on the ground. One side of the infrastructure showed signs of militarization, judging by the number of idle but matching craft. Watching a larger craft, like a freighter, as it took off was a thrill for the little boy in me.

"I wonder, will this place be a hive of scum and vilainy?" I questioned out loud.

"It only took a few days on a foreign planet to reference the greatest science fiction movie of all time," Elizabeth said, smiling at me.

For a brief moment, I contemplated asking her to marry me. Elizabeth was sexy, independent, intelligent, brave, and knew the reference. She even gave me a nod for not referencing it sooner.

I guess, for lack of a better way of explaining it, we lost our focus. As I went to turn, a sudden 'thwack' sound was all I heard as the bottom of a rifle hit me between the eyes. As the lights dimmed, I saw Elizabeth grabbed by two soldiers in black armor as she tried to check on me.

We were screwed, I thought as I passed out.