Camp Sunrise: The Last Option
Posted on 31 Mar 2023 @ 2:15pm by Chief Petty Officer Ibis Xeri & Major Porter Wallace & Olivia Winetrout
Edited on on 25 Apr 2024 @ 4:00pm
Mission:
M3 - Into the Deep
Location: Korix, The Island
Timeline: MD09 beginning ~0450 (time of tower explosion) ending ~0515
1759 words - 3.5 OF Standard Post Measure
It was dark as they limped along the path to the meeting point Wallace had set. Ibis wasn't sure how much time had passed. The sun had set and she had no means to know. The rain was getting stronger, still fine, but blowing in gusts. Olivia, Ibis half carrying her under the arm, wasn’t in a condition for running, although she wasn’t dragging her feet. Ibis knew she felt repentant and wasn’t interested in making it worse. She was trying to keep up. All Ibis could think was to make it to the Z’ala orbital hopper at the guard station before the window of opportunity closed.
The only lights were the distant sulfur-yellow work lanterns set into poles. It was just enough to dimly make out the fork in the trucking paths from the mine where the Kelbonite shipments were sent up to the mountain. She started searching for any signs of Wallace and Ikemba.
“You scared the shit out of me.”
Wallace and Ikemba appeared out of the gray mirk like holograms, and he wrapped the teenager into an embrace. A layer of tension peeled off his shoulders with a hefty sigh.
Olivia was convulsing with shame as Wallace hugged her.
“You’re alright?” he asked the teen, before looking at Ibis, “She’s alright?”
"Fished her out," was all Ibis said on the matter. It was obvious from her exhaustion and the emotion in her voice that it hadn't been a simple call out of the pool. "We're okay now."
“Okay. Good. Good,” he bent over a little and pushed Olivia’s wet hair out of her face. “We’ve got to move, okay? As fast as you can.”
Olivia nodded her agreement. Her lungs hurt, everything felt faint and dizzy, but more than anything she didn't want to disappoint Wallace again.
Wallace took point, leading them off the path and snaking around dunes. The rain started to fall in globs that stung when they struck. Every few minutes, Wallace would stop and motion to Ibis to join him. His night vision was poor and the rain didn’t help matters; hers was better. Was it a Korinn up ahead? Or a tall bunch of grass? A rock? They pressed on, precious minutes counting down.
At one point, Wallace held up his hand and covered his lips with his finger calling for silence. He listened intently and then told Ibis and the kids to stay where they were. He walked in a half-crouch up the nearest dune, when he neared the top, he fell onto his belly and crawled the rest of the way where he paused. He lifted his head, inching it higher and higher, then scanned the horizon before starting back down.
“It’s already begun. The comm tower is burning and I can see flashes from fighting northeast of here,” he told Ibis. “We’re still maybe 1200 meters from the pad.”
The better part of a mile! They weren’t moving fast enough, or in a straight line. “How are we going to close that in time? They'll have called the rest of the guards in by then.”
“We solve the problems we can solve. Right now our problem is that we need to get to the pad. That’s the goal. Nothing else matters. Then we readjust the plan.”
Precious minutes passed by while the family negotiated the final maze of dunes. Halfway there, a rumble came crashing across the island from the west. Both Ibis and Wallace knew what that sound meant: the mine rig was a burning wreck sinking into the mine and the Irix were heading out to sea. They were truly alone now.
As if to punctuate their predicament, Wallace suddenly grabbed Ikemba and dropped to the ground, motioning Ibis and Olivia to do the same. They heard the whine of engines pass nearby and the flicker of red and green illuminations as it sped over the dunes. Wallace’s stomach sank: that was the space-worthy craft that they’d meant to be on, no doubt flying to try and stop or attack the escaping Irix.
Ibis was covering Olivia on the ground, but turning her head, aghast to see the Z’ala ship, their one chance, leaving without them on it. "No. No no no." She was crying into the ground as if she could will it to go back.
Wallace was suddenly crouching over her, hand on her shoulder. “Ibis. We’re fine. We have options.” He looked up to the north to the volcano. “I know where there’s another ship.”
The so-called temple was really just a dozen tan, mud-brick buildings surrounded by a low six-foot wall. Wallace had only ever studied the place from a distance, most of that years ago before his eyes went. He remembered, however, once spotting a lift built into the rock. It was still where he remembered it to be and it deposited the small family a few yards from the low gate on a single hinge, big enough for a couple of Korinn to walk through side by side. Now, spying through its red-painted metal slats, he could form a better picture of the place.
The dozen buildings were each three stories tall and about half the size of some of the smaller buildings on Starfleet Academy’s campus. Six buildings formed a forty-yard wide courtyard at the center of the compound. The others were formed around the exterior of those buildings. Wallace guessed that from above, the shape might be reminiscent of a six-pointed star. All the buildings were nestled closely to one another; so closely, in fact, they almost touched each other at their widest points. Wallace guessed that he might squeeze through the gap, but anything larger would have a problem.
The plaza was their target: it doubled as a landing pad. The Pyrryx craft was still sitting in the center. A long gray ship with two v-shaped wings that sprouted out its side and slanted downward until they nearly brushed the ground.
“This ship is still there,” Wallace whispered. “I don’t see the Pyrryx, maybe they…” he shrank back from the gate.
Ibis pushed herself flat, pulling Olivia to the side as well. She didn’t speak for fear of tipping off whoever Wallace had just seen. By his countenance it wasn’t just some slow walking Z’ala in a fishbowl helmet. It was something scary.
“The Pyrryx is moving around it. Looks like he’s prepping the shuttle. Or maybe just turning it on so he can use its communications system.”
“No.” It couldn’t be allowed to get a message out. The entire planet would suffer, all of the Irix that had just reached the open sea… everyone. “What can we do?” She practically mimed the question with her lips.
He bounced his head off the wall once. Oh, damn. “I’m going to have to lead it away from the ship. You get the kids to the ship. Take these,” he pulled the data recorder and the PADDs from the satchel.
“What?” Ibis pushed them back towards him, refusing to take them. She was trying not to speak above a whisper, but commanding him none-the-less. “No. That’s not an option. You said we had options, Major.”
He reached out and put his hand on her cheek. “Ibis, listen and don’t interrupt. This is the only way to solve this problem right now. This is how we solve it. When you get on that ship and you take off, then the problem will become getting me off this rock.”
Ibis was shaking her head the entire time, trying to understand how he would survive long enough for her to get help back before he couldn’t run any longer. Trying to figure how to overcome the scatter if she could get to a transporter. If she even got to the Pathfinder. If and maybe. If there was something she could detect, something to latch onto. But she had nothing, no comm tag or signal booster that a transporter could spot in the scatter. Or did she? Her fingers came back to her brooch. It was a long shot… but it was something. Feebly, she unfastened it, and pinning it over his heart, she said, “You have to outlast it. You have to. You’re my everything.”
“I can’t make that promise. Sometimes the sacrifice has to be made. If I don’t make it, remember what I said on the beach. Okay? You’ve saved me already and I wouldn’t change a thing.”
She couldn’t fight it. She knew everything he said was true, that there was no time and besides themselves, an entire planet’s safety was in the balance. As he pressed the data recorder and padd back into her arms, Ibis pressed her lips to his.
Wallace let the kiss linger for as long as he dared, before gently easing Ibis away. He reached out to Ikemba, ruffled his hair, told him to be a good little man and then reached to give Olivia a hug. “I’ve got to go, okay? Ibis is going to need your help for what comes next, so stay close to her.”
Olivia latched on to Wallace. Angry at him for leaving, angry at herself for messing everything up so that he had to go. “I’m sorry,” she finally said, the words breaking a dam welled up inside. “I’ll stay with Ibis. I promise. I’ll watch Ikemba. I promise.”
He stroked her hair. “You didn’t do anything wrong. You’re brave, hardheaded, and amazing. And none of this was your fault. Something was bound to go wrong, it always does. I’m so happy that I get a chance to fix it. Your mom was a doctor, Ibis is a scientist, but this is what I do. Okay? I’m just going to work.”
Ibis clutched the data recorder and padd to her chest and took Ikemba’s hand. She tried to make her breaths long and even, to prepare for the run to the ship. Her heart was screaming no, but she nodded anyway.
He stepped over to the gate, opened it slowly, enough for him to snake through, and took a deep breath. Steady, old man. Steady. Wallace looked back, “Get our kids home safe, Chief Petty Officer. That’s an order.” Then he was gone.
