Steward's Stand.

Chapter 2

Something was wrong. Icarus quickly realised it, as the ship plummeted further into the atmosphere. He analysed the ship’s trajectory and speed and calculated the ship’s landfall. At its present speed and course it would either burn up on re-entry or crash in the Nairobi desert, most likely killing anybody onboard.

Icarus didn’t have much time to react; he estimated that the ship could be destroyed in less than 90 seconds. He assessed what assets he had and how he could use one to alter the ship’s trajectory and speed. He then found what he wanted, an old mothballed rocket testing facility. He quickly scanned the launch tubes for active missiles. He found one and overrode the safety protocols and prepped the missile for launch. If he had calculated his aim perfectly, the missile would only graze the side of the ship and set it on a safer course and speed with minimal damage to the ship. As the missile soared into the air, Icarus hoped he had got his sums right.

The plume of orange flame surrounded the Nautilus as it trailed across the morning sky. Then roar of the ignition shook the ground as Icarus’ missile surged into the air, and headed directly for the growing fireball. The ship continued to spiral downwards like a gyroscope from hell. The missile increased in speed and drew closer and closer to the ship. For a brief second it looked like it was going to hit the ship dead on, killing everybody onboard. But then, just as Icarus has predicted, the missile struck the underbelly of the Nautilus, bouncing of the hull with loud thunk. The missile flew by, detonating harmlessly in midair. The blast shook the craft, twisting its nose to a progressive descent, saving itself from the steep suicidal angle it had been in. Even then, Icarus could hardly celebrate; even with the decreased rate of descent, there was still a 34.68% chance of a fatal crash.

Unfortunately, there was little Icarus could do, but attempt to contact the ship. He had been trying every single conceivable radio frequency to hail the ship, and advice them to cut their engines, but so far he had no success. Once again he barraged the ship with radio signals, trying to get in contact with someone, anyone, but still no reply. It seemed like there was little hope for an answer, when the ship suddenly started to slow down. The engines were placed in reverse and they slowed down considerably. The Nautilus wasn’t the most aerodynamic ship ever created, but with engines now firing it slowly started to even out its descent. Unfortunately, it was still moving at approximately 88 miles per hour as it came in for a landing. The Nairobi desert stretched out beneath them, the dunes growing bigger and bigger and their altitude dropped. The ship ploughed into the first dune with an almighty crash and kept going. Sand was sprayed into the air, as the Nautilus went clean through the next dune. The engines of the ship we still desperately trying to slow them down, forming a trail of glass where they had been. After crashing through a third and fourth set of dunes it eventually stopped. Its hull was blackened and dented, smoke rose from the burnt out engines and it was half buried in sand. It also sported several nasty looking tears in its hull, but as Icarus assessed the damage, he had predicted the damage to be far more severe.

Icarus hastily mobilised medical and emergency drones to the crash site. While the medical drones were no replacement for a real human doctor, they still were good enough to deal with most injuries. While they were en route, Icarus scanned the ship with his sensors for survivors. Curiously he couldn’t get a clear reading, he assumed the ship’s fusion generator, similar to the one that powered him, just on a much larger scale, was interfering with his sensors, which had never been designed with radiation in mind. He assumed he would get a clearer picture once he accessed the systems on the Nautilus itself.

The drones made it there in record time; 33.6 seconds, and Icarus got to work, getting the medical drones into the gaping tear in the ship and carefully steering them through the tight corridors of the ship. Although the Nautilus was an Argo-class transport, most of the corridors and non vital segments of the ship were made as small as possible to leave the most room possible for the massive and vital cargo bay. From the blueprints of the ship he had on file, he guessed the best place to look was the bridge located at the front of the ship. He navigated the drones though the tight corridors. They were covered in tubing and wires as they fed power and water throughout the entire ship. The lights seemed to be smashed on this floor, so Icarus activated the drone’s searchlights.

The beam of light swept the area, showing no signs of life. The average crew compliment of one of these ships was in the range of 30 to 40 at any given time. He should have seen somebody by now. Icarus worried that they had all died in the crash, despite his best efforts to save them. His search wasn’t over yet, and he needed a better scan of the ship.

Without a sound the drone glided onward through one deserted corridor to the next, slowing making its way to the bridge. Icarus judged that the drone was about 500 metres away from it when the drone suddenly came to an abrupt stop. Icarus knew why. In front of it, a large wall of debris blocked it way. Metal girders and pipes formed the core of the barrier, and it was reinforced with a mass of furniture. Whatever happened here it looked as though this barrier had been made deliberately, and someone had gone to real trouble to keep someone, or something out of the bridge. This new discovery did nothing do quell the growing anxiety Icarus felt. Something was very wrong here… and it wasn’t just the crash.

Icarus knew he had to get to the bridge if he was able to piece together what happened here, so he had no choice but to remove this barrier. He accessed one of the fire fighting units, and navigated it through the ship. It too was a drone, albeit bigger than the thin and slender medical drones. It carried heavy machinery to clear debris, perfect to cut through this barrier. The unit got to work, slicing the pipes and girders into manageable chunks with its circular saw blade on its right arm. It then flung the remains away, clearing a path for it and the other drones that slowly crept forward as the barrier was slowly cut through. When the last girder fell away, Icarus quickly realised why it had been blocked.

Blood coated the walls and formed gooey puddles, making the majority of the hallway a gory painting of some previous slaughter. Icarus found it difficult to watch the drones’ recordings, as he had never encountered death like this. He had seen the millions killed by the virus, but this was different. It was savage, animalistic and brutal and it only increased the tension he felt. Things were only getting worse and worse as he got further into the vessel. But if there was a chance, however remote, that some of the crew were still alive and not too badly injured and/or dead, there might still be a chance for repopulation after all. He couldn’t let an opportunity like this slip by. He had to continue, no matter the cost.

He pressed forward and to the door of the bridge. It was covered in what appeared to be claw marks. He opened the door and scanned the inside. The room was a complete mess. It looked like a wild animal had torn through the bridge, ripping the chairs to shreds and smashing virtually all the terminals on the bridge with deep dents and claw marks. Icarus did the best he could to ignore this and accessed the only serviceable terminal and started downloading the files. Most of them were badly corrupted and would take time to restore. In the meantime he used what was left of the ships scanners to analyse the damage and any potential survivors.

From what he could tell the cargo area was badly damaged and in lockdown. The rest of the ship had suffered extensive internal damage, the fact it was about to make a landing was nothing short of a miracle. It appeared that the living quarters was in the best condition, and it looked like there were life signs there, though Icarus couldn’t be certain, as the system was in worse condition to the ones he used.

Icarus sent the drones back the way they came and took a right and down to the living quarters. The living quarters on the ship took up only one deck at the front of the ship. One reassuring sign was that the blood stains had dissipated in this area, and some of the lights were still functional. Icarus prayed that there was somebody left, or else all his efforts today would have been for nothing. The drones finally made it to the front of the living quarters. Unfortunately it had been barricaded as well, but this on looked even more reinforced than the previous one, with any item of debris, furniture, even the cables around them had been tied to make the structure more secure. Even with the feeling of dread that filled him at what was on the other side, he needed to know. The fire fighting unit started to clear the barrier and the medical drones. As the final piece of the barrier crumbled away and the door crept open. Suddenly, a shadow lunged out from the ruins of the door at lighting speed and the camera went black.

End of Chapter 2.

Ziggy wrote:It's good. One thing though that I did notice was that a lot of the 'action' scenes, such as the rocket being fired, or the ships descent after bumping off the rocket, were too short and didn't have enough emphasis compared to the other bits in between which seemed to be equal in length and emphasis. If you intended it that way, that's fine, but you may want to try and lengthen those scenes, because they're the exciting bits that captivate the reader. When they're too short, they can sort of be overlooked.

You might also want to revise the sequence of events in some of the scenes, because it did get a little confusing when it's going (crudely summarising) "the ship is going to crash, but there is some hope, but no it's going too fast, there is some hope in this rocket, the rocket worked, but there is no hope, oh wait there is some hope, oh wait there is none and the ship crashes.

Otherwise, I like it, and you've done a pretty good job.

Yeah I'm glad somebody noticed that. I kinda rushed this one out the door so I didn't really explain things as thorughly as I normally would have, and of course I want to empahses the lack of time in the situation. Sure, I'll tweek them a bit more.

Okay, I can why that was confusing I'll have a look at it.

Edited Chapter 2 with Ziggy's and Bacon's suggestions.

Ploughed seems to be spelt thusly in the U.K.

New Chapter. It's a pretty rough version, so it will probably edited pretty soon.

Chapter 3

The fire fighting unit’s head was ripped from its body in a fast and vicious motion by the shadowy figure inside. Sparks flew as wires were ripped from their housing, snapping them. Taken aback by the sudden threat, Icarus ordered the surviving drones back, and waited for more movement. The lights on the drones were trained on the open door, showing the room inside. Looking past the decapitated machine, the room looked like it was filled with bunk beds which had keeled over during the crash. There were magazines on the floor, a pack of cards, and even a few signs of a meal. Somebody had been living here, hidden away for quite some time.

Icarus pondered the situation. Whatever was in there was hostile, as it had destroyed one of his drones without provocation, but it hadn’t attacked the other drones, which were floating outside the barrier, keeping their flashlights trained on the opening. Icarus decided to probe how vicious this unknown attacker was. He slowly moved one of the medical drones forward and into the opening. No signs of life so far, he ventured further in, the place was a mess. But it looked like weren’t malfunctioning, they were simply inactive. Icarus searched for the light switch, scanning the dark room with the drone’s flashlight. If the mysterious figure was indeed in this room, he was probably hiding near the edges of the room, where the debris was most concentrated. The drone outstretched it cold metal hand and flicked the light switch. The lights hummed with power and then a loud roar came to the drone’s left, but this time Icarus was ready. The drone raised it arms and deflected the blow, and pushed the attacker back, giving Icarus enough time to see what was attacking him. It shocked him to his central core. It was a human male, in his mid 30’s with long shaggy brown hair. He wore what appeared to be a U.N. uniform, its dark blue contrasting with the gunmetal grey walls. His cool green eyes sparked with anger, as he raised a metal pole which appeared to have been wrenched from one of the bunk bed’s supports.

‘STOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOP!’ a female voice yelled, halting the man mid swing.

A second human came into view. She was approximately five foot ten, with long blonde hair that was tied in a neat ponytail. She had blue eyes and a fair complexion. She too was wearing a U.N. uniform, but hers had an insignia on it: Captain.

The man turned and gave a puzzled look to what Icarus could only assume was his superior.

‘Rachael are you crazy? These things broke down the barrier, they have to be on the same side as ‘them’ we have to get rid of them before it’s too late,’ the man argued.

‘Bryan, if it was ‘them’, we’d already be dead, no this thing doesn’t look like it from the ship, somebody here on the surface must have sent it. It looks like one of those medical drones the database taught us about,’ Rachael replied.

‘Damn that was quick, maybe things aren’t as bad here as we were lead to believe,’ Bryan said.

‘I wouldn’t celebrate yet, this was probably an automated response, but those drones should be useful in treating the wounded,’ Rachael said.

Automated response? Icarus thought feeling slightly insulted. If it weren’t for him, they’d probably be a pile of corpses by now. But orders were orders, humans had finally returned home, and it was his purpose to escort and protect them so they could restart a viable population. He would tolerate their ignorance….for now.

‘How many survived the crash?’ Rachael asked.

‘Eight, including us. We lost John and Bill as they were accessing engine control to slow our descent. Harry and Sandra went during the crash, the beds fell on them. Killed them instantly, I’m sorry sis,’ Bryan said grimly.

Rachael gave a loud sigh and looked at the floor for a second. Icarus always found human emotion intriguing, the subtle signs, the slight physical gestures and movements. Though he had been based on a human brain and he did have emotions, he still have a tough time understanding them. Watching humans emote again for the first time in nearly two hundred years was a good chance to do some study.

‘What about the others?’ Rachael finally asked.

‘Moira has a bad fracture in her femur. Jeff took a nasty blow to the head, and Max’s unconscious, and can’t tell how badly he’s been hurt. Bruce, Vincent and Kat seem to be okay,’ Bryan explained.

‘Hmm… Get all those can still walk to take the wounded to these medical drones and grab everything we can carry. Leave the dead, we need to get off this ship before ‘They’ recover,’ Rachael ordered.

Without another word, the humans walked off, deeper in the living quarters. Icarus pondered what to do, if he should pursue the humans known as Rachael and Bryan, to see if he could be more help to them and the wounded, but he decided the best course of action would be to wait, as their plans seemed to entail bringing the wounded to him, and he would be more help if he worked with their plan. This didn’t mean he couldn’t use his own ingenuity to help however as moved more medical drones to better move and transport the wounded.

As the drones arrived, Rachael and Bryan returned with the rest of the survivors. Bryan and Rachael carried one of the wounded, Bryan holding the man by his shoulders and Rachael by his boots. He was in his twenties with and was very thin. His short blond hair was drenched in blood and his eyes had rolled back into his head. Icarus assumed this was Jeff, judging from the injury to his head.

Another two people entered carrying a second body in the same fashion. One was a woman, who was about the same height as Rachael with raven black hair which ran down to her slender shoulders. Like the other she too was wearing a U.N. uniform, as were the injured. She turned to Rachael and gave an anxious smile, her brown eyes looking for reassurance, which Rachael replied with a quiet nod of approval. The man holding the second body was a giant; Icarus assumed he was nearly seven foot tall, and he had a well muscled physique. His shaven head and small dark eyes that squinted out of his skull made him look very imposing.

The man they carried was of average height and build, with well groomed hair and chiselled jaw. Icarus couldn’t see any external injuries on the man, but he may have internal ones that would need closer inspection. They gently placed the man in front of the floating medical drones and turned to their comrades.

‘How is he Vincent?’ Rachael asked, crouching to look at the second injured man.

‘Not good Captain, I think he’s suffering from internal bleeding and his pulse is pretty weak. He needs urgent medical attention,’ Vincent said sighing deeply. He spoke with a thick Russian accent, and he too crouched down to join his captain and looked grimly and their critically injured friend.

‘Poor Max….’, the second woman said sadly.

‘Don’t worry Kat, he’ll be okay, these medical drones arrived almost directly after the crash, I’m sure they’ll look after him,’ Bryan reassured her.

‘Yeah….I hopes so. Say where’s Moira and Bruce?’ Kat asked.

‘Bruce stayed behind to make a splint for Moira’s leg, and he’s going to help her walk here,’ Vincent explained.

‘Do you think that’s safe? With those things on the ship?’ Kat said, almost quivering with fear.

Again the crew kept referring to ‘things’ and ‘them’. Icarus assumed they were referring to whatever had attacked the other parts of the ship, and had killed the rest of the crew. They were obviously terrified of whatever these things were, and it would best to leave the ship as soon as the last injured crew member arrived. Perhaps later when the situation wasn’t as urgent he could pursue the matter further, but right now he had to focus on the task at hand.

‘So far, they’ve never made it into the crew quarters, and if they were coming we’d would have heard them by now,’ Rachael replied.

‘I guess you’re right, I just don’t want to stay in this ship too long, just in case,’ Kat said.

‘Agreed. I don’t want to spend another minute on this ship,’ Vincent said, raising to his feet.

Behind them two more figures appeared. A woman in her early thirties with short curl brown hair and cool grey eyes. She was smaller than the other two women, and she was supported by the last survivor. Bruce was the oldest in the group, in his mid forties with grey streaks in his dark hair. His grizzled face was filled with wrinkles, while his eyes still held a spark, showing a hidden fire behind those blue orbs.

He supported Moira as she limped towards them. Two planks of wood from a bedpost were strapped to her left leg, the bone was bent at an unnatural angle and was poking out of the skin, dripping blood as she walked.

‘Moira how are you holding up?’ Bryan asked.

‘It’s…………bearable let’s just get out of here,’ Moira replied, her teeth gritted with pain, as she walked further into the room. She stopped and sat down to rest, after Bruce gently helped her down. She was panting heavily, trying her best to hide the obvious pain she was in.

Icarus moved the drones closer to the wounded and slowly picked them up. Icarus made sure they were secure, he then quickly analysed the nearest hospitals and which had the best facilities and were in the best condition. He found what he wanted : Nairobi general hospital, only a few minutes travel away, and it seemed to still be in good condition.

Not wasting any more time, the drones sped away, with the other humans not that far behind, jogging to keep up. Strange guttural cries came from the heart of the ship, only increasing Icarus’ anxiety.

‘We don’t have a lot of time Captain, it sounds like they’re moving,’ Vincent warned.

‘Keep following the drones, we’re nearly out of here,’ Rachael yelled as they ducked round a corner and ran down another corridor.

As Icarus came round the final corner, he prayed whatever monstrosity plagued this ship, would ignore his drones and their crucial cargo. He could see the blinding light of the midday sun and moved the drones as fast as he dared. The other survivors seemed to share his concern as they ran like the dogs of hell were behind them. As the first drone shot outside, followed by its brethren Icarus felt a massive sense of relief. As the drones glided to the hospital, Icarus couldn’t help but to look back at the wreckage of the ship, and wondered what dark nightmare he had left behind in there. He feared in time he would know.

End of Chapter 3