Chapter Two – Eos Settlement

 

 

Even though it was my weekend off, that Saturday morning was unlike any other. I’m not sure if it was the quietness, or the dark gray paint peeling off the walls that made it unusual, or maybe it was the stillness of the air; like a gloomy night in a cemetery that relayed this feeling of silence. At this point I didn’t even want to get out of bed; I’ve never had so much time on my hands to search the corners of my mind, but it seems Kim was at every turn, even though my thoughts wandered from time to time, Kim never left my mind. I lay there not moving a muscle, not wanting to disturb the calmness I felt before the storm, a shit storm of running from everyone and everything; a glimpse of my future? Where will it take me, where will I end up, and Kim, will my eyes ever see her beauty again?

“What The Hell Am I Doing!?” I screamed out loud in frustration. I must have laid there for hours, thinking, with no answers to any of my questions. Then I did the one thing I should have never done, I got up! I sat there, staring out the window, counting the stars; have you ever done such a thing? What a waste of time, I only did it to keep from thinking of Kim, I guess. It was tearing me apart from the inside out; not knowing if she were still alive, was the worst thought ever. “Will I ever find you my love?”

             Then a knock at the door scared the shit out of me, awoke me from this waking nightmare I was in. Lucky for me, it was only Crystal; at that point I wasn’t sure if this was a good omen or not?

            She stepped in and closed the door; pressing her back against it. She approached me slowly, stepped over to my side and sat on the bed next to me. “I checked on the flights leaving tonight and we’re in luck; a cargo ship called the Gull, low security, and with an atmosphere, is departing at 10PM sharp. Its destination is a shipping port on Encelandus, one of Saturn’s moons. ETA about four months; do you think you can put up with me for that long?”

            For some reason she placed her head on my shoulder, and grabbed my hand. Her actions in some way made me feel better. But why? That was a true mystery to me; was it the fact she needed comfort from a past love like me? More likely due to the fact she was clairvoyant? “Putting up with you, not a problem, I’ll be asleep.”   “Lucky for me,” she smiled slowly letting go of my arm, it was funny: the warmth of her touch seemed to bring me back to life, and the thought of seeing Kim one day again.

            “Wonderful!”

“Get your things packed; we need to leave soon.”

            “And it starts,” I mumbled, not like one of those “I’m okay” mumbles. More like one of the “I’m F’ed” mumbles.

            “What…?” she said, checking her bag. “Did you scan your tracking tag into the new one?”

            “No, I’ll do that now, but I might need a hand,” I said, pulling off my shirt as I turned my back to her.

            “What the hell…?” she said, as she ran her fingers cross my back, feeling the ridges from another life. “What the fuck happened to you? Damn!”

            “Scars from my tour in the 2359 Mars wars, my last offensive a little over ten years ago; it was the battle at Valles Marineris.”

She started working on my tracking tag, prying it out; “ouch!” I mumbled, but I still didn’t flinch.

            “I remember that one,” she said. “Which side?”

            “The highland settlers.”

            She stopped working and gazed at me. “But wait, I thought everyone was massacred in that battle?”

            “We had over 200 ships and 30,000 thousand soldiers, and only three of us made it out alive.” I said. “In the beginning, that is.”

She went silent. “Oh, I’ve got to hear this one!”

I swallowed my spit and cleared my throat. “Bringing back thoughts of those days is something better left alone.”

“Oh no, you’re not getting out of this one,” she then kissed me on the cheek. “As you wish; I remember it so well. I was flying an attack F-wing fighter, with a crew of three, it had two rail guns, and a hundred bomb capacities. We had just dropped half of our bombs over a supply depot. I headed low to avoid radar and set a course around the far mountain to the camp. I pitched down into a valley and entered into a delta pattern. Just then from out of nowhere, we were hit on the left wing with a shot from a land based plasma canon, can you believe it? The F-wing violently pitched right, then left and then I lost control. ‘Hang on boys!’ I can remember seeing their faces even to this day; we were all ready to die at that very moment, flames shooting out of the control panel, alarms going off everywhere, and systems showing red across the board. I fought the controls the best I could, but then she started to respond. I was just able to bring up the nose in time. Dan, my co-pilot and Jeff, my gunner, were still in one piece; at least I thought. Then I heard Jeff scream, “Pull up! Pull Up!” just before we hit. We crashed on the far side of the west ridge coming out of the valley. Somehow we survived the impact. I thought I would have blacked out, but I didn’t. Looking over I saw Dan; he was okay. Jeff was alive but in rough shape, we carried him for at least 5 clicks, fighting the wind every step. The blowing sand made sight almost imposable; it felt as if I were getting sandblasted to death. Exhausted and almost at our knees, I saw a cave on the side of the cliff. We placed a camouflage force-field up at the entrance, and heated some stones to keep us warm. I remember it like it was yesterday, Jeff was so badly injured, right-side ribs crushed and bleeding badly. I tried everything, but I just couldn’t stop the blood; I’m glad he passed out before the end. We couldn’t bury him in the cave, stone floor and all, and going outside were way too risky, so we left him there, sitting up against a large rock, gun in his hand as if he was still ready to fight, hopefully this gave him a little dignity in his death.”

            Just then she stopped working again on the tracking chip, as if mesmerized, or in disbelief at my story. “I don’t know what to say, it must have been bad… shit!”

            “That wasn’t the worst part of it all. After five days passed; the search parties missed us twice. We started to run out of food and were low on air from giving the cave an atmosphere. We had decided to take our chances outside, I remember Dan mapped the nearest settlement, so we ventured out, and headed for the Eos settlement, where we thought help was waiting?!”

            She turned me around quickly, face turned white as a ghost; her hands started to tremble, and her eyes wide as a half dollar. “H-o-l-y shit! -You were at Eos!? No Fucking Way!” she then looked down for a moment. “The story’s that came out of there were… well, unbelievable; the Cloaks tortured those people for months, just for fun… and food! I couldn’t even imagine the pain, and horror; it was a massacre above all others on record, but from what I know, no one survived it!”

            “Yeah, Jeff was the lucky one, I guess.” I said, in a low key voice, looking down in sorrow. “It seemed like just another station on Mars, but they set traps and we walked right into one, stripped us and into a 4 by 6 cage I went; they put Dan into the adjoining cage. I remember seeing so many being tortured, they would scream, begging to be killed, the Cloaks just laughed more. Dan was petrified, losing his mind more by the day, and then they pulled him out of his cage after a week or so. They started removing his body parts one piece at a time, first his right leg one day, then the left the next, just so he couldn’t run, then his arms.”

“That should have killed him!” she said.

“No, the Cloaks burned wounds so he would stay alive; they wanted us to stay alive. Slowly, day by day he would lose a piece of himself as they laugh and cooked them, eating them in front of us. And I was next on the dinner list, the only thing left of Dan at the end was his torso and head, no ears, or tongue, and then they started on his organs, doing their best to keep him alive, it was sickening, but worst of all they left his eyes for last, so he could see everything until the very end. I will never forget the screaming, it went on night and day for weeks; it was endless. I still have nightmares about it.”

            “How in the universe did you not go mad!?”

            “I don’t know? I were the last one left with no body parts missing; until one morning they were eyeing me up, as if I was dessert, saving me for last. I remember being frozen with fear that morning. I hadn’t slept for days, I remember hearing doors open and footsteps coming closer, and then, an explosion on the south wall; it knocked me to the floor; shouting, gun fire, and yelling. Lucky for me Ulea attacked the settlement, the troops systematically wiped out the Cloaks. I was so glad to see Ulea troops killing every last one of those bastards! They also killed the rest of the hostages but me, the rest were missing too many body parts to be saved. I remember hearing their words; ‘Please - kill me - Please!’ they screamed. ‘BOOM,’ right in the head, the walls were filled with splatter patterns, as if some bad artist was trying to make a living off of his art. Most of the walls were covered in brain matter; they killed everyone. It was a humane way to die by any standards. I was the lone survivor of the Eos settlement. The courts wrote me out of all records and granted me mercy, due to the hell I went through. Some mercy, they said I would be useful to them at Mars command and said I would be released after 20 years of good service. It was more to keep an eye on me, making sure never to say what really happened at Eos, they were hiding something.” I didn’t tell her about Kim, and how I ended up here at Alpha 32, I figured there was no reason for her to know.

            She held me and started to cry; empathy, I’ve never seen before, well maybe a little when I was a young boy and my dog died, but not like this. I guess because she was clairvoyant, she could see and feel my pain, my past horrors, a reflection of them that is, but still the depths of my sorrow did not extend to her pain.

            “I will never let that happen to you again- I promise!” she said, holding me; we sat there in silence for some time, like a memorial to those that died, it was a time I cherish to this day.

She then stood up gazing down at me. “I’m sorry Tim… but we must be leaving now.”

She seemed speechless at this point, so I nodded my head in approval. We packed what we could and made sure to take only what we needed, and then we headed down to the docking bay. On the way there, I fought to remove those past memories from my mind; my friends, solders to the end, I will never forget you my brothers!