Free Survivor by Saffron Bryant Page A

the main entranceway.
The door was set into the side of the ship which was now a wall,
metres off the ground, far above them. Like the rest of the ship,
the doors were out of place.
    Codon reached the wall first and used a
fallen table to climb up and press the green button. The door swung
upwards, leaving a gaping hole. All Nova could see was dark sky
outside, it filled the doorway and seemed to press in on them.
    Codon didn't take the time to look. He
climbed higher on some fallen shelves and hauled his body over the
door's edge. His feet dangled inside.
    Nova didn't need to look to know that it was
as bad as she'd feared; his expression said it all.
    "What? I-" Codon spluttered. "It's all
gone."
    "Let me look."
    Codon dropped into the ship without a word.
Nova stepped past and lifted herself into the doorway. Below the
dark blue sky was the desert, but the smooth sand of a few minutes
before was gone. In its place were jagged hills and deep chasms.
Raw earth was churned up as far as the eye could see.
    The smaller ships were only just visible.
They had been sucked into the ground, hauled into chasms or tossed
about on rising ground. The entire landscape had been changed,
carved into a rough and harsh surface.
    There was a smoky smell in the air. It
reeked of burning plastic, wood, and flesh. Her eyes stung and
tears dripped onto her cheeks.
    Most disconcerting of all was the noise, or
rather, the lack of it. Before there had been the constant buzz of
the excavation, the murmur of voices and footsteps, now there was
nothing. A deathly silence had fallen over Archalon.
    There was no sign of movement. Small shadows
lay about the base of Codon's ship. It was hard to tell from this
height, but she knew in her gut that they were bodies. The soldiers
who had escorted her here were now dead at her feet.
    There was nothing left.
    She dropped back inside the ship. Her heart
and mind raced. She'd known something like this was going to
happen. She had only two kinds of luck; the best and the worst. The
words at the entrance said it all. It was both a warning and a
promise. But now what? What had the Confederacy released?
    "Yin? Trev? Get over here right now," Codon
said.
    There was no reply.
    Codon's face was red and sweat poured down
from his forehead. He breathed hard and leant against the wall.
    "Yin. Trev. Do you copy?"
    "I think they're all dead," Nova whispered.
She gazed off into the distance, not really seeing the broken
pieces of Codon's ship, but rather seeing the faces of all the
workers and soldiers outside.
    "How is that possible?"
    "Like I said, I'm sure we'll find out soon.
Whoever left that writing knew what was coming."
    "But that's impossible. There have been no
signs of life on this planet for centuries. This was supposed to be
my big find, my break."
    Codon let himself slide down the wall until
he sat in an unruly heap on the floor, or at least what was the
floor now but had once been wall. He blended in with the rest of
the rubble piled up all around him, just one more relic of a failed
mission.
    "Listen!" Nova said.
    Codon looked up at her and tilted his head
to the side.
    Nova strained her ears. She didn't have to
wait long, a few moments later it came again, a dull thud which
shook the ship and sent vibrations through her body. She had the
sensation that the noise came from far away and dreaded the thought
of how powerful it would be, closer to the source.
    "What is it?" Codon whispered.
    "I think it's them."
    They turned towards the door of the
ship.
    It hung open, letting in the night air and
whatever else might chance upon them.
    "The ship's cameras should still be
working," Codon said.
    Nova nodded and let him lead the way. It was
a massive vessel. Rooms and corridors led off in all directions.
Passages disappeared beneath their feet, dropping into deep
chasms.
    They had to step over multiple bodies on
their way. Each of the Confederacy workers was the same, blood
leaking from every orifice and their eyes