Actions On the Terminal Objective
Karl remembered what the chaplain had said. He sat down and looked at the smoke on the horizon.
Smitty rubbed his eyes. “I can’t see any more,” he said. “My cyanide tabs — Jesus, I lost my cyanide tabs!” He patted the grass around him with his hands. “Baker! I lost my cyanide!” He grabbed Karl’s pant leg.
Karl panicked and kicked at the dying man, again and again, until his leg came free. He scrambled away with one hand held jealously over his first-aid kit with his own precious cyanide tabs. Smitty lay weeping on the grass.
“Smitty,” he said. “Take it easy. I’ll find them for you.”
Karl searched the grass, careful to keep out of reach. When he found the tabs he said, “Put out your hand, Smitty. They’re right here.”
Smitty took them and struggled to sit up. He unscrewed the cap from his canteen, popped the cyanide in his mouth and took a long drink. “So long, buddy.”
“Good-bye, Smitty,” said Karl.
Smitty lay down on his side, facing away, and curled up. The MPs stood on the other side of the concertina wire, watching through their protective masks. Karl moved as far away from them as possible, lay down on the grass and listened to the shots and yells echoing from the ravine.
~*~
“Suppose you’re right,” he told Tina. “Maybe the Fleet’s lost. Maybe it never left Earth. There won’t be any spare parts or equipment and the electricity will never come back on and we’ll eventually run out of everything we brought. Suppose it’s all true. I could handle that. I could even handle that my parents and my sister… My real sister.” His voice broke. “But I can’t stand not being with you.” They sat in silence on the bed.
“You’re not my sister,” he blurted. “We don’t have to pretend any more.”
She drew back. “What will they do when they find you gone? Wouldn’t it be better to just finish your tour? Can’t you wait until then?”
“That’s what you said before,” he said angrily.
“Karl, not so loud,” she whispered. “Please!”
Grabbing her arm, he shouted, “‘Wait until we get to Paradise,’ you said. Now it’s, ‘Wait until you finish your tour.’ At least let me stay tonight!”
“You’re hurting me!” she said, struggling to twist away.
A key clicked in the door. They both froze. The door swung open and a dark figure stepped inside. A man’s lowered voice said, “Tina? Sweetie? Is everything okay? Is there someone here?” A tall man wearing an officer’s uniform stepped into the candlelight.
Karl leapt to his feet. “Who is this?” he shouted.
The man drew a pistol, pointed it at Karl.
“No,” cried Tina. “Jason, don’t. Please!”
Karl looked at her, then at the footlocker he’d noticed earlier.
“I’m sorry, Karl,” she sobbed. “I’m so sorry.”
~*~
The sound of a medicraft drowned out Karl’s last memory of Tina. The MPs led him from the quarantine area and turned him over to the medics, who hustled him through a decontamination station and strapped him into a gurney. “Where did you guys come from?” he asked. “I didn’t think there were any aircraft still flying.”
The medics, dressed in white with white masks over their faces, didn’t answer. He remembered Smitty and tried to tell them, but they couldn’t hear. Anyway, it was too late for Smitty.
The take-off pressed him down and he watched the ground shrink away through a window. In the ravine, just visible beneath the trees, was the trench, filled to overflowing. Off to the west a column of smoke rose from the ruined village. Beyond that, in the distance, shining like copper in the setting sun, was the ocean. Somewhere along the coast was the settlement and the hospital.
But instead of heading west they flew inland. There were rivers and forests and meadows, all green and unspoiled, just like he and Tina had imagined during the long journey from Earth. They flew high above dazzling snow-capped peaks, then descended into a wide valley. He recognized it from the stories Tina told during the first months of the trip, when homesickness and the ship’s sustained acceleration had threatened to crush his will to live. A herd of wild, horse-like animals, just like the ones he’d tamed for riding in his own stories, ran fleet-footed across a golden field. The craft banked, following a wide, clear-running river to a waterfall at the head of the valley. There, just up from the foaming pool at the base of the fall, nestled in the tree-line, was the log cabin he’d planned to build for Tina and himself, where they would live together like they did in the parts of his stories she didn’t want to hear.
The cabin grew larger as the medicraft slowed and began its descent. The craft dropped faster, lifting him up against the straps; faster still, in free-fall now, the ground rushing up. His breath caught in his throat. His muscles strained with the anticipation of impact. He squeezed his eyes shut and screamed as they smashed into the ground.
Pain exploded in every muscle of his body. His arms and legs thrashed involuntarily and he doubled up, gasping for air behind the clogged filters of his mask. The convulsion gradually subsided and everything became calm again. He lay still, wondering if he was alive. When he opened his eyes he found himself lying on the grass in the quarantine area.
The ravine was quiet now, the mission complete. He stretched out on his back and gazed up into the darkening sky. When the ascending shadows had chased the last flecks of sunshine from the treetops he threw away his protective mask and unwrapped his cyanide tabs.
Christian Roberts is a retired electrical engineer and former US Army Ranger trying for a second career as a writer. His short story, R.I.P., won first prize in the Olympiad of the Arts contest in Santa Clara, California. His work has also appeared in Peccary Magazine, Fusion Fragment, The Cynic Online Magazine, Short Fiction World Magazine, Tryst E-zine and Sinister Tales magazine. Christian currently lives in Coyote, California.