I was hoping @awesomedog would retrieve us first. On the one hand, he had the last known location of a Vanquisher (yours truly) and his companion (@astrowave) that the Alliance Starmada had lost contact with for almost 72 hours. On the other hand, he had the location of his prior animated self, wherever he was and whatever he was doing, before the Alliance Starmada had decided to give up and reanimate him.
He was sent here to help us uncover knowledge of the virus and save a crew member. Was heading out to find his prior clone more important than rescuing us?
What would I have done in @awesomedog's situation? I asked myself.
I probably would have saved the people whose location I knew. I would have come after @astrowave and I. It was more certain, more predictable, and the outcome would ideally be more people to provide support for finding the lost clone of @awesomedog and for finding @foxcutter.
But @awesomedog didn't do that. He set out to locate his lost clone.
Was he being selfish? Did he know something he wasn't telling us? Did he have a mission that was not disclosed to us? Did @horus trust him to do the job more than he trusted us? Was @awesomedog sent here to complete the mission we had started, with or without us? Would he rescue us, abandon us, or make sure we didn't leave Dactyl with our memories intact?
Or was I just being paranoid? Was I just inserting myself, a Vanquisher with a specialization in destruction, into the thinking of @awesomedog, an Infiltrator with a specialization in evasion, subterfuge, quiet assassination?
Either way, I decided not to trust @awesomedog.
That really sucked because I was excited when he arrived. I also knew that, as important as I wanted to believe the crew of The Pharaoh and I were, we might be considered a liability to the Alliance Starmada and the peace talks that were underway. My crew and I didn't necessarily follow orders. Going maverick might have put us in a bad situation.
As we set out to find @awesomedog, the back of my mind wondered if he had gone onto The Pharaoh under the guise of assisting us and instead had killed every single one of my crew - @auroraloon and @dustcaller included.
I buried that thought to concentrate on what I could control, tracking down @awesomedog. But I was worried about more than just him and the zombies outside.
"The relays being out can't be a coincidence," I said to @astrowave as we prepared to make our run for it. "We can't assume that everyone on Dactyl is overtaken. We have to assume someone is in the colony, working against us. Maybe they're still here, or maybe they left after the outbreak. Let's assume they're still here."
We found another big red button for locking down Racers General Store behind the counter. Just so there wasn't any confusion, next to it was a lovely smiley face button to take the store out of lockdown. Someone had drawn explosions around the smiley face and two Xs in thick black marker over the smiley face's eyes.
What can I say? I was bored. It was three days of being stuck in that store. You should see how I decorated all the eggs in the egg cartons.
For weapons, @astrowave had the shotgun and a decent amount of ammunition. I just didn't want us to have to use it because of all the noise it would produce. I had my grappling hook, a bag of canned goods, a bag of apples, and two large kitchen knives. @astrowave insisted he was better with his fists than a knife.
I pushed the smiley face button and hopped back over the counter to join @astrowave.
"We shouldn't trust @awesomedog," I said, sharing my paranoia. I needed @astrowave to use the same discretion I would in dealing with the Infiltrator. He looked like he was going to object. "Hopefully, we can. But not yet anyway. You ready?"
He nodded, crouching to ready himself to run. We were far enough from the door not to trigger it to open automatically.
"When I say go, we rush the door," I commanded. I took a few deep breaths and grabbed a can of cream of mushroom soup firmly in my right hand.
"Go!"
We were in the northeast corner of the colony. We had previously walked from the western side up north, and then over to the east. The landing area was right in the middle of the colony, surrounded by the commercial district. The farther from the center, the more the colony turned into residential areas, warehouses, and little plazas like the one we were in.
I put my futurecasting to work, and I trusted that we had adequately searched the parts of Dactyl we had already visited. That meant heading south, completing our rotation around the wheel that surrounded the landing area. The southern part of Dactyl was primarily residential, with the southeastern quarter being a wealthier district. Straight south of the center was also residential, and the southwest portion was more industrial, processing a lot of the meteorites from the storms into bricks, sand, and tiles.
It was an impressive operation, really. The meteorites that struck the roof gathered at the pyramid intersections, then were dumped down into containers anchored just below the roof. These containers flowed high above us, running straight out to the edges of the colony. Once there, the meteorite fragments were dropped into a main transport, a train line that ran in a circle around the circumference of the colony to various processing centers.
I had thought to follow the train line. Since we were at the edge of the colony, it wouldn't be far, and hopefully there would be fewer infected to worry about.
We could run the circumference, listening for signs of activity, then move inward to the next portion where our sensors hadn't reached, and rotate back. This way, we could swing back and forth, working out from the outside in. Dactyl was small. We could swing down to the southwest, back toward Racers, and then back one last time. That would allow my personal sensors to cover essentially the entire region we hadn't explored.
I just needed @awesomedog to cause enough of a commotion for it to show up in my readings.
We sprinted through the doors of Racers General Store to the familiar sight of zombie plaza. We needed to get to the end of the row of buildings, then find a street or alley toward the very outskirts.
"Eat this!" I shouted, hurling a can of cream of mushroom soup at an incoming overtaken.
This book's true home is on another platform. Check it out there for the real experience.
I didn't really expect to damage the zombie. It was a man in a green t-shirt with some kind of squid monster on it and blue jeans. He was balding, with a thick nose. The can hit him in the face, and I must have had just the right angle because it smashed his nose and he fell to the ground in a fit of spasms.
"That's how I want to die," I yelled over my shoulder to @astrowave, chugging down the row of buildings.
He had his shotgun ready, but he hadn't had to use it. The zombies would catch up to us eventually, but we had the jump on them for now. One or two at a time were close enough to get to us along our pathway, but one or two at a time we could handle, especially since we didn't want to kill them, just get past them.
After the first 24 paces, I let @astrowave take the lead. He was big enough to just ram through them, holding the shotgun in front of him with both hands, knocking them over to clear a path.
"There! The train!" @astrowave shouted, and he changed directions, heading down a narrow route between a row of buildings toward a large tower. I was surprised he could shift directions so quickly, his massive body going at full speed like a rolling boulder. I needed to find out what kind of footwear he wore.
I dropped my bag of apples at the entrance to the passage.
That wasn't the plan. I had thought to throw them, like the cans of soup, but inspiration struck. I glanced behind me at the chasing zombies and chuckled as one stepped on an apple, lost its footing, and fell to the ground. The others surged forward, tripping and tripping, spilling to the ground.
It wasn't much, but it bought us six more seconds of distance from our pursuers.
@astrowave took care of the rest ahead of us. Only a few were in this passage, and he plowed through them as if they weren't there at all.
I was up next. The tower was tall, extending all the way to the inverted pyramid roof. But we didn't need to climb the tower. We needed to get to the top of the train. Dactyl's engineers and architects were clever in their design. The bulky rocks were transported in one train at the very edge, where walls climbed up to the roof. Since they had one train line, they added another just in front of it for passengers.
The cool thing about this train was that it didn't have a beginning or an end. The train ran the entire track around the colony, one big train that revolved around the edge of civilization.
As we approached, I could see the mess of what had happened on the train.
Windows were broken here and there, tracks and fragments. Blood spilled down the sides of the train in several places. Whoever had been on that train had practically nowhere to go. This was a risk we had to take, hopeful that zombies wouldn't come flooding out of the train before we could find safety.
Three train cars down, I spied an open door onto the train. Several bodies were lying in the street, people who had died before they turned perhaps. I wasn't sure yet how that worked, if a dead body would reanimate as a zombie, but they weren't moving. I guessed that the organic part of them was dead. Nothing came running out of the train, not that I looked for more than a moment, but I counted us fortunate.
"Get to the top!" @astrowave yelled, and then he turned and kept running, following the slow curve of the train line. I cursed as he ran off. That wasn't the plan. We had thought to climb the tower.
I didn't have time to waste, so I accepted plan B. I fired my grappling hook toward an extension of the tower and swung myself upward, letting go in time to smack into the side of the tower and drop in a heap on top of the passenger train. Cans of soup rolled out in all directions.
It was perfectly executed, I swear. Did I want a sore shoulder and a bloody nose? Maybe I did? Proof that we weren't just having fun in Racers this whole time.
I cursed and picked myself up as quickly as I could, rising to my feet on top of the passenger train. Then I ran after @astrowave. I'd have to grapple him and pull him up, but his weight would pull me off the train. I needed to find a way to brace myself.
The trains rolled through the base of the tower. If @astrowave hadn't run off, I could have secured myself to a beam of the tower and yanked him up. I shook my head in disbelief. This was dumb. I decided Dactyl was dumb. I didn't like it anymore.
The good thing is I'm faster than @astrowave, so even though he had a head start, I gained on him quickly. I reached the edge of the first train car and leapt over the gap to the second car. I was happy to spot a ladder at the gap between the cars. Assuming this was a repeatable pattern, I could hold onto that and pull @astrowave up, or he could try climbing it.
As I ran, I noticed vibrations in the train. For a moment, I wondered if the train was going to start moving along the tracks. That would have made our journey easier.
But no. It wasn't that. It was the overtaken inside the train. I heard shrieks below my feet. I heard the breaking of glass. I watched as @astrowave, pursued by the zombies from the plaza, began to panic.
The subtle shaking of the train made it eerie, but I was able to keep my footing, and I flew forward now as fast as I could. I could see the next gap between the cars in the distance.
"Get on the train!" I yelled, but of course, he couldn't hear me with the groaning, screaming horde of zombies that we were summoning.
kittyboy: "Meet me where the train cars meet! There's a ladder. I'll pull you up."
Messages over the comm units sound so calm and thoughtful.
kittyboy: "Ahhhhh!"
I added for special effect.
@astrowave didn't bother responding. He just looked up at me as he ran. I hadn't seen him that scared before. Then zombies started coming from the other direction, from in front of us. I really hadn't seen him that scared before. If I couldn't get him up on that train soon, I had no doubt he would blow himself up.
I ran the numbers. I would get to the lip of the train first. So would the zombies. This was going to be ugly.
I focused and ran.
Then I remembered something important. Focus is my enemy when it comes to battle. I unfocused and let my instincts take over.
I launched myself into a slide as I reached the edge of the train car, sliding to the lip where I planted my foot against the top of the ladder. I grabbed hold firmly with my right hand, perched atop the corner closest to @astrowave. Without so much as a thought, I turned and fired in his direction. I hadn't even looked to see where he was. I knew better. I trusted myself.
It was only after I fired the grappling hook that I truly looked, taking in the scene below.
@astrowave had stopped running. He was walking forward, shooting his shotgun at the zombies in front of him, dropping them steadily, buying himself whatever time he could, while the zombies behind him gained ground.
And they had gained ground. He had seven or ten steps on them at best.
My hook flew past @astrowave, just in front of him. His next step put the grappling hook right at his waistline, touching his stomach. That's when I tugged. The grappling hook snapped back, but I didn't reel it in. @astrowave's forward momentum made the grappling hook wrap around him. I clamped the hook down as soon as it reached the other side, catching @astrowave like a lasso around his torso.
Then I reeled him in.
It wasn't pretty. He fell to the smooth regolith ground, and my grappling hook dragged him toward me. All he could do was brace himself. I wasn't high enough to launch him up and away from the zombies. They fell on top of him as he skidded along the ground toward me.
"Please don't blow up. Please don't blow up." I chanted as I pulled the pile of zombies to the train.
@astrowave was heavy.
My grip was good, and my feet were steady, but he must weigh twice what I weigh. I leaned back, using my core, using every muscle in my body to keep myself from falling forward off the train.
@astrowave struck the bottom of the train roughly, but I still had a firm grip. Upward he came. I closed my eyes and leaned back. Like an arm wrestling match, I had to keep the balance in my favor. A slight mistake, and I would go over the side into the horde below.
I heard him grunting amidst the screams.
Suddenly, the pressure was gone, and I fell backwards.
I had to catch myself, my hands grabbing for whatever they could. I had been pulling so hard, holding myself so strongly with my legs, that I nearly threw myself off the other side. I landed on my back, several paces from the ladder.
But I had done it. I had pulled @astrowave to the top of the train. I planted my hands behind me and sat up.
@astrowave's head and shoulders were visible atop the ladder, along with his grimacing face. He was in pain.
That was when I realized I had failed. I had failed to save him. I didn't want to know what I couldn't see, what was happening beneath those strong shoulders.
"My memories!" he yelled, more of a gasp than a yell. His voice was hollow and desperate.
He tossed a memoryshard at me.
I caught it just as he exploded.
"It's the memories that matter," I told myself, but tears struck me anyway as I clutched his memoryshard to my chest.