Lost in the Colony

“UAGHHHHHHHH!” The screams of his comrades echoed through the abysmal hallways of the abysmal colony of the abysmal planet, long repeated throughout his mind. He couldn’t take it any longer, the horror, the despair. It overwhelmed him as he sank to his knees and scrabbled at the wall for support. His mind withered, his vision blurred, everything was collapsing beneath him. But before he could slip into the peace that would be death, he noticed a light in the distance. “A light, a light!” he thought as his mortal husk summoned some unknown energy from some equally mysterious source and propelled him forth.

He scrambled down the twisting hall, staggering from his wounds. Hoping only to reach that light, that light that seemed so close, yet so very far. Finally, as he rounded a corner, he saw the light emanating from a doorway. He floundered down the hall and rushed into the embrace of the light only to find, to his horror, it was himself looking upon himself.

“We go there,” Jebediah stated calmly, as he raised his shaking fingers and pointed towards the black shadow of the colonial settlement, “It can’t be any worse than the mess that we’re in now can it, anyways that was our destination to begin with.”

“Makes sense, we’ll have to cross the last twenty-five feet or so without cover, so wait for him to reload, then we go,” Isaiah concurred quietly, as he listened to the blasting of the cyborg’s LB2K.

“Low ammo . . . commencing reloading,” Isaiah heard over the ringing in his ears as the incessant blasting ended.

“GO! GO! Get to the colony!” Isaiah shouted, as he grabbed Jebediah and Samuel from their positions behind the boulders. They leapt from cover and began bolting towards the colonial settlement.

“Trickery completed . . . shoot . . . kill . . . destrooooooy!” the cyborg screamed. Brrrrr… brrrrrrrrum-bum-bum-bum-bum-bum.

Thinking the cyborg needed to reload, the trio assumed they had at least five seconds to make it to the colony. But they were gravely mistaken, this sudden attack caught them off guard as they darted out from the cover of the boulders. The laser bursts hurtled towards them. They flew past them, sizzling flesh, singing hair.

“AHHHH!” Isaiah screamed as a laser burst tore through his left shoulder.

“GUAHHH!” Jebediah gasped as another thrust through his thigh.

Is this the end? They despaired as the torrential stream of bursts stripped every glimmer of hope from their eyes. But alas, the firing ceased, the cyborg truly needed to reload.

Jebediah, Isaiah, and Samuel stumbled across the last ten feet or so to the open blast doors of the colonial settlement, flung themselves inside, then slammed the doors shut behind them. Cachunk. Jebediah slid the iron bar of the door down, firmly locking it into place as Samuel and Isaiah collapsed onto the frigid floor. A few final bursts from the cyborg’s LB2K could be heard slamming into the impregnable doors of pure irodinium behind them.

“Gluagh!!!” they faintly heard the cyborg screech in rage.

“Well boys, we’re safe… for now,” Jebediah sighed as he slumped against the wall, caressing his wounds, “We best be getting to the medbay now to heal up our wounds before they get infested.”

Jebediah proceeded to pull out a rinky dink headlight from his NRA bag and switched it on. The cold light which emanated from it illuminated their surroundings. They were in a large room with a clunky-looking welcome desk situated towards the back. The room, at one point in time, may have looked decent, but now it was decrepit. Puddles were scattered across the cold iron floor; water and oil dripped from the ceiling; cobwebs weaved through the toppled chairs and tables, resting upon scattered objects. Posters on the walls were warped from the wet, casting phantasmic shadows of the smiling faces which they once were.

Jebediah hauled himself to his feet and limped to the welcome desk. He glanced around and found a map framed on the wall behind the desk. “Alrighty boys, I found the map. Samuel get yur butt over here and navigate us ‘round,” he ordered, scrutinizingly glaring at the lazy luggers.

The trio gathered around the map; Samuel studied it, then hurriedly proceeded to explain the route to the medbay in a drawn out, overly complex manner.

“Ya think you can really remember that Samuel… seems awful complex to me.”

“I was being sarcastic ya ding-dong,” Samuel sighed at Isaiah’s ignorance, “it’s just down that hall to the right.”

“This aint’ the time for sarcasm. Move out.” Jebediah commanded.

They grabbed their gear, passed the welcome desk, and headed towards the back set of doors. Being used to all doors sliding open upon approach, they slammed face first into them. “Ughh,” Jebediah groaned, “Blast it, forgot the powers out. Here come help me try to force it open Isaiah.” They grabbed onto the sliding doors. They tugged and tugged, yet the doors wouldn’t budge an inch. “Blast it, these confounded doors must be locked. Samuel, find the security room on the map, there’ll probably be a skeleton key there to manually unlock the doors in case of a power outage.”

“Alrighty big boss,” Samuel sighed with a hint of sarcasm. He pulled out the map and scanned it, “One problem… the security room is on the other side of the door.”

“Doors are only meant for those who do not possess the power to walk through walls,” Isaiah muttered; he unslung his LB2K from his back. Brrrrr… brrrrrrrrum-bum-bum-bum-bum-bum. Jebediah and Samuel ducked for cover as the bursts blasted through the door, filling the room with the sound of lasers instantaneously searing through the weakened metals. The bursts pinged off the iron floors, ceilings, walls, and anything else that stood in their way, echoing off into the darkness of unknown depth.

“Well, that solves that,” Jebediah sighed as the blasting ended abruptly. He ducked through the crumbling remains of the entrance, emerging into the corridor on the other side.

Samuel began to follow, but whipped around, shoving his finger in Isaiah’s face, “Next time you attempt something as stupid as that, it won’t be a door we’ll be shooting.”

“Ok, ok, he did say to blast it though…”

The trio exited the “welcome room”, as they justifiably dubbed it, and proceeded down the hall on the other side of the door. They navigated around objects that lay scattered in their path and quickly made it to the doors of the med bay, which were slid partially open. With a bit of a squeeze, they managed to slip through the doors. “Alrighty lads, let’s get healed up and be on our way to the refinery,” Jebediah grunted. He grabbed a med kit and plopped onto a bench.

The three wrapped their wounds; Isaiah bound his shoulder; Jebediah wound a few layers of bandages around his thigh. “Samuel’s got no injuries, lucky bugger,” one of the two commented and in response Samuel claimed it was “skill”. After a few minutes in the med bay, they had finished up their impromptu medical treatment.

Isaiah glanced at Jebediah’s bloody bandages with concern, “Ya think you’ll be fine? Those wounds look pretty serious…” The oozing masses from beneath the bindings bulged slightly as he rose to his feet; his stubborn hands dismissed Isaiah’s offer of assistance, only accepting the wall as support.

“Shuddup ya good for nothin! What does someone like you know bout medicine anyways…” Jebediah grunted an irritated response, second-guessing himself at the end, “Honestly though, we need to get serious now, who knows what that blasted tin can out there is up to...”

Samuel once again pulled the map from his bag and searched for the fuel refinery. Once he got a bearing on its location relative to theirs, the trio set out from the med bay and began trekking towards the refinery. They padded through puddles and weaved through the debris that littered hallway after hallway.

“Halt!” Jebediah whispered, fist raised, “What’s that noise?”

“It’s just me stubbing my toe every 10 seconds! Blast it, why’d those confounded settlers have to be so messy.”

“Isaiah… its abandoned. What did you expect it to be like?”

Jebediah glanced around the hallway, swiveled his headlight; there was nothing to see across the flat walls of the corridor, except for the scattered objects and the pattern-breaking streaks of the ventilation shaft; no movement in the distance. Satisfied that there were no threats ahead, he turned around, “Come on you two, let’s shut up and…” Jebediah’s reprimanding broke off.

Samuel and Isaiah glanced at each other in confusion. Jebediah had turned around and was staring at them, eyes wide, eyebrows raised.

Confused as they were, they managed to ask, “And what?”