The Phoenix Colony

"Trees need water to grow, don't they?" Derek retorted. "It may come from rain, but all's we gotta' do is gather it up. Buckets n' such. Water you can find anywhere. Food is another story." Derek took the last drag of his cigarette then flicked it away for emphasis.

 

Cull nodded and looked towards Harold,

“Do we have room for Derek, I don‘t want him braving the cold in his condition.”

He turned his eyes back to Derek, he barely knew the man was it wise asking Harold things like this? In one way this would add to there numbers making them appear stronger.


“There is no need to think about moving yet, it‘s going to come of course, but right now lets think about shelter for now. We can talk about this some other time.”

 

Fox and the other three girls started walking across the field when they heard "Yuhooo! Ladies, where're you going all alone and without your friends! Wait up!"

Fox turns around to see Viva and Pasha. "Fine, you two can come if you want, but don't slow us down." says Fox as Reva, Britney, Raylene and herself continue there walk across the field. "Hopefully there won't be too many predators over there." thinks Fox.

 

About Noon, light cloud cover, about 50 degrees F.

Reva walked across the field with Fox, Raylene and Britney. The torn sweatshirt she had fashioned into a bag that she wore bolero-style. In it were some toiletries and socks that she had scrounged. Under her arm she carried another sweatshirt and a pair of guards' slacks rolled in a couple of sheets and a blanket. In her other hand she carried two of the guards' small bags that they had found.

They had left the food. Nobody wanted to be sick as Fox had been the night before.

The combination of nice dry leather jacket some guard had left over her grubby prison uniform and carrying everything across the rough terrain kept her warm in the cold air. It was warmer than the night before with the sun struggling to break through a light cloud cover. Reva guessed that it was about noon, the sun directly overhead.

She assumed that this planet must have a similar twelve-hour day like earth. It had to be a lot like earth in many ways in order to support life.

The memory of the thing that chased her made her shiver. The planet obviously did support life. Fox had shown her the tracks. Three clawed toes alternating with the sliding path of a huge snake. What WAS the thing? Had she actually outrun it the night before?

Somehow she doubted that. The whatever-it-was had been on home ground. Unless it was very slow it had the advantage. Was it actually a predator or not?

Predator. Reva's thoughts turned to Allen. So...he wanted to kill her. Even after she had helped him. Because she was a witness of some kind? She snorted in disbelief. What had she seen and who on this godforsaken planet would she tell?

At least he was reluctant to kill her. How nice.

Her thoughts were interrupted by the shrill sound of a woman's voice.

"Yuhooo! Ladies, where're you going all alone and without your friends! Wait up!"

"Oh good." Reva said to Fox in a dry undertone, "here come Boppy and the Beast."

Being murdered by Allen or eaten by something she couldn't see suddenly didn't sound so bad.

 

“Do we have room for Derek, I don‘t want him braving the cold in his condition.”

Harold gave the man a once over. “Yea there’s always room for another canola in the box. Besides we could always use the help building our shelter.”

Keep it up, thought Harold, keep building your numbers.

 

Pasha muttered under his breath as he walked towards Viva’s voice.

“You did good.” Yuri muttered, the irritability in his voice was heightening.

“Whatever.” He growled. His irritabilty was getting greater, as every movement seemed to cause him more pain in his arm.

“You should pull it out, get Furstin’s help.”

Pasha growled, walking next to Viva, “I’ll go, but we need to go get our things from the Shelter. We’ve got the food, some cooked and some not. The furs…. and Bardon.” Pasha muttered under his breath, trying not to snap in irritation at Viva.

 

Viva clapped as she heard Pasha's voice, and turned around to see him.
"Well, that's really - "
She stopped when she saw a stain of blood over his shoulder.
"Oh my gosh! You're hurt, Mr. Huggles!"
She touched his arm, at which she growled and backed away a little.
"And it really really is painful, isn't it. Oh, looks like we'll have to do something about it first!"
Viva pulled him from the other arm, running towards the camp. He winced a little, but before the pain could actually become an issue, she made him sit down, and then tore off her shirt's arm, and then wrapped it around his wound. He then grunted angrily, trying to free himself. She pulled out the knfie from his wound and he growled louder.
"There, there, Mr. Huggles, no pain no gain!"
She smiled, and slowly he stopped fuming and put his arm down again. She then looked over to his back and sighed.
"You are a naughty boy, Mr. Huggles. Oh well, I don't have any idea how to fix your back. Maybe I shouldn't jump on you again."
She giggled and then picked up the food, not asking for help. Bardon had been watching from behind, amused.
"Come on Mr. Bardon, we'll be late otherwise!"
She started walking, the food and skins on one side and grabbed Pasha's hand from the other. He felt stupid, and possibly wanted to let go but Viva was persistent.
"No Mr. Huggles, enough naughtiness for a day."

 

Allen reached the front end of the ship. The others had obviously been back to the ship and left. Circling out of sight, he searched the area, making sure that no one was hiding out of sight. when he knew it was all clear he entered the ship. Inside was a shambles. What hadn't been wrecked by the crash had been scattered by the women as they gathered what they needed. In the corner there was a pile of discarded food. They probably found out about the poison. Behind the pile there was a broken section of bulkhead. Allen moved toward it and knocked the food aside. Where the wall should have been there was bundles of wire, plastic tubing, and optic cable. Allen reached inside with his good hand, felt around, and pulled out the end of some tubing about as thick as a shoelace. When he had a leangth about two feet long he started rubbing it across the broken edge of the hole. When he had cut off his piece he repeated the process untill he had two two-foot leangths and two twelve-foot leangths. The next thing he did was find a scrap of cloth from one of the dead guards clothing. Cutting the tough materiel on the edge of the hole he was able to fashion an oval about the size of his hand. He spread out a left-over blanket and put as many things as he thought he could use on top of it. Inside went the twelve-foot cords, some packets of emergency rations he found by the entrance, a change of clothes, and some long shards of metal wrapped in cloth. Into his pocket went the short tubing, the cloth oval, and a small flashlight from the pocket of a guard. They were thorough when they cleaned this place out, but not thorough enough.

Allen then left the pile and headed for the bridge, where the computer was.

 

Pasha’s shoulder throbbed, but was remotely less painful. He could feel her voice calming him down. He walked with her hand in his back to the group of women. He eyed the guard angrily, ignoring the rest. He would get her eventually, he knew it.

“She’d hate you.” Yuri’s voice haunted him. He clenched his fist around his bludgeon stick. He tried to push his anger in the back of his mind.

“I still have Ben’s knife…” he muttered to Furstin. He gave a smile, as he looked at the knife that had been in his shoulder. He had a knife, whether he gave Ben his knife back or not. He looked back at the girls, giving them a toothy grin. Play things.

“She—“ Yuri started.

“SHUT UP YURI!” he bellowed.

 

Viva was humming a nursery rhyme until Pasha yelled out Yuri's name. An uncomfortable nervous impulse clenched her as she thought of it.
"He knows his name, for one."
She thought to herself, and forced a smile to her face.
"Oh, Mr. Huggles, who's Yuri? Is he here right now?"
She asked innocently, and then smiled towards the girls.

 

As the girls walk through the field Fox hears Pasha yell at someone named Yuri. She puts her hand over her crude version of a knife. She whispers to the other girls "If that psycho tries anything, kill him." She looks back and sees Viva smiling at her. Fox smiles and waves while thinking "There is something odd about her."

 

Pasha looked down, his face red with embarrassment. He didn’t know if he should tell her the truth or not.

“Yes, tell her your dead best friend lives in your head. Please do. I’d like to see her reaction.” Yuri said, his voice was full of annoyance.

“That’s enough Yuri.” He growled under his breath. He looked down at Furstin, his hand touching her shoulder.

“You want the short version, or the long one?” he muttered to Viva.

“Oh, so you’re story teller now? Don’t let yourself lose control. You know how your stories end.” Yuri warned.

“I don’t think I can hurt her…” he thought, his face turning red.

 

Viva grinned, though it was hard showing it properly.
"Ooooh! I love long stories! How about long version, please?"
She looked at him happily, almost pleading for him to tell her. Though a part of her didn't want to listen to him. What if he knew something about Yuri he wasn't supposed to know? What if...what if Viva had to kill him? Viva put the though aside and smiled harder.

 

Chrys looked back and forth between Mobby and Derek, "How 'bout a deal?"
She said, now pacing, "If we move towards the mountains for a steady two or so hours, we might find that nature has provided us shelter, or we could build our own. I do no, absolutely DO NOT think that we should stay here. Ya'll's reasons for staying are outweighed by reasons to go. Can we move?"

 

Smith grabbed one of his muddy blankets and put the ammo in in carefully. a case of shotgun shells, 60 rifle rounds, 9mm bullets, and 4tranks, he'd have to give them to the doc next time he saw him. Then he folded the four sides up and tied them togeather makeing an improvised sack. He smiled at his work and used his other blanket to roll up with the two pillows he'd stollen from the ship before it went down. The wind blew and he shivered. Man he missed his jacket.

He quickly forgot about the jacket and grabbed the two bags and tied them togeather. Now that they where togeather he grabbed the light side and threw the heavy side over his shoulder. The slight weight on the frount would help him carry the heavy loud. He grunted from exertion as he swung it up, now carrying two rifles and the sack. But he had to get something to eat soon, it was midday and he was starving.

 

((Chad, I PM'd you regarding a reduced amount of ammo. Please edit. Thanks.))

 

Allen tried to make his way forward, but the ship was so damaged that it was almost impossible. After doing a belly crawl through the crumpled and twisted passageway he was able to make it though. The computer was a mess. He doubted it would work at all. After several minutes he was able to get it to power on and bring up the ship's system.

"Warning! Severe structural damage."

You think? It took a few minutes, but Allen was able to get some of the ship's systems up and running. The sensors on the front were working, and he was able to get a slight signal from the tail section. The only other thing working was the nav log. They had been turned very far off course, being swept several lightyears past the farthest point any ship had explored yet. They were on an earth-like planet. Much of the environmental systems were similar to home. The ship had crash landed on a medium sized continent in the northern hemisphere. According to the solar projections it was sometime in early spring.

It looked like the communications array might be working. It had power, but the brodcasting unit had been smashed. Without it, range would be very limited. He decided to send out a broadcast, being very concious to make it look like a civilian freighter that was broadcasting.

"Maday. Maday. We have been forced off course and crashed. Our spatial coordinates are 10048.9654, 97902.9845, 46389.1238. Our planetary coordinates are 40.74690, -111.91800, using the center point of the largest ocean as meridian. We have suffered severe damage, ship systems are inoperable."

With any luck he would soon be furnished with a transport home.

Next, Allen used the ships sensors to find the group of women. It looked like the group had grown bigger and they were heading for the mountains. He studied the map supplied and tried to figure out where they would go. There! There was a canyon not too far ahead of their position. It was the only way through, they would reach it long before he did, but if he headed for it, he could cut off a large chunk of their lead.

Allen hurried back out to the first room, gathered the blanket with his supplies and hurried out. He found a large stick, tied the bundle to it, and started on his way.

Have you ever come across a left-handed Benjamite before Fox?

 

Derek turned first to Harold and said "Thanks man. Glad to be aboard." He then turned with a sour look on his face and responded to Chrys's idea of heading to the mountains with disdain. "I already told you the mountains are a bad idea. Besides, we go there, we could get in trouble with the other tribes aside from my earlier statements about lack of food. Besides, all that snow up there has to melt right? That forms rivers. We're sure to run into one if we head parallel or away from the mountains."

 

Harold scratched his head. This is your chance, he thought, to prove you are the leader. But what the hell to do? "YA know, I have to agree with the girl. Move towards the mountain. MAybe we can find a cave or something. A single opening is easier to defend than an opne space. But Derek's got a point. So I say we move up and over following the river but moving higher than we are. Besides, look around. We've been lucky so far. How long do you think before some of the animals start thinking of us as food. So are you with us Derek?"

 

"You kiddin' me? 'Course I'm with you. No way in hell I'm walkin' around this place myself. Besides, you brought the Doc and he gave me some pain meds. I owe yah both one. If it comes to a fight, I guess I can hold my own. Y'know, not too long ago I was the pride of my manhunt teams. No one could ever find me. Might come in handy if some other tribes get somethin' we want if ya' catch my drift." Derek gave a little wink, then grabbed another cigarette from his pack and lit it. "I gotta slow down," he said. "We ain't gonna find any more o' these out here and I'd like to enjoy them as long as I can."

 

Harold looked around. Some of the tribes were going to hold out at the crash site, some had already disappeared into the moutains. Many were dead or dying. The weak were already dropping, so how did the blind guy make it? He thought about ditching him .. but Juan knew things. He was smart about surviving. The mobster shrugged and put an arm around Mercerdo. "Come on, I'll lead ya."

"I'm not a dog," said Mercerdo.

"Fine walk on your own but don't expect me to keep chattering like a coffee chugging parrot just to keep you on track." HArold turned to Derek. "You want to lead? MAybe we'll find something for you to smoke on the way."

 

"Haha maybe. I doubt it will be quite as delicious as these though," he said, gesturing with the hand holding his cigarette. "Alright then, let's go. How about we go at a bit of a slant? We might happen upon a river with some clean water on the way."

 

The small group moved out. Derek was in front, Chrys and Harold took the rear while Juan was snadwiched between.

Chrys nudged at Juan. HArold's eyes narrowed. He waited till the stopped before pulling Derek to the side. "Ya noitce how sometimes Juan moves like he can see? I'm just saying, it's kinda weird. Say, ya think that plant would be good for a smoke?"

 

"Not sure. Don't plan on trying 'til I got none left though. Anyways, maybe he's just got good hearing, or he's used to it or something. Forget about it let's just keep walkin'." With that, Derek continued on towards the mountains, although inwardly he felt it was the wrong thing to do.

 

Pasha looked at Viva with unsure eyes. He knew he should tell her, if they were going to be friends… friends needed to be honest. He had truly only had one friend in life… and he had made sure to keep honest with him. These feelings for her told him she should have the same honor.

“You can do it.” Yuri whispered.

“First you’ve got to know now…” Muttered Pasha, “I’m…”

“You can say it, go on! Say it. You’re a murderer.”

“I can’t.” thought Pasha.

“You've killed over 300 innocent people, yet you can’t simply tell this little girl that you're cold-blooded murderer?”

“She’ll hate me…” he mumbled sadly. He tried to push the feeling away, regaining his composure.

“I met Yuri while I was on the run. I was maybe 16 at the time, I hadn’t killed more then 40 by that time. It wasn’t much of a big deal, but we soon became great friends… I’m not sure how it happened. He someone managed to stay alive when I was meant to kill him. I can’t remember why…”

“I offered you knowledge.” Yuri interrupted.

“He offered to teach me, and I accepted. With his help I learned to make bombs, and he taught me simple weapon techniques. He was a smart man.” He looked at her, she seemed to actually be interested, her eyes wide with fascination.

“I soon excelled when it came to making bombs, I went past his teaching and I even experimented… I lost a few fingers and toes that way.” He raised his hands, showing the missing fingers, and the thumb. He kind of blushed, placing his hands back where they were, gripping tighter onto his stick.

“Then one day Yuri said we were going to hit a government building. We planned it for weeks, and Yuri was even able to get us in without anyone looking at us. Badges and all.” He muttered, his eyes seeing it all ready. He could feel the steel-toed boots they had worn. He liked those boots, he had kept them until his feet had grown too big for them. He had grown a lot back then, he had still been a boy.

He could see the face of the plain secretary as they showed their badges. She hadn’t even looked at their faces. He smiled to himself. If she had, they wouldn’t have made it to the basement. They wouldn’t have been able to place the bombs… and Yuri might have still been alive.

“We placed the bombs, got in so easily.” He muttered, “But it didn’t last. Yuri started saying some crazy things, I got freaked out. I think I broke his neck, but he was still alive when I left him. I took the charger, and I left him there. He didn’t stand a chance, because the bombs went off not long after. Just before lunch time. Over 150 people died. It was one of my greater death tolls.” He grinned widely, the sounds of their screams still in his mind. He could feel the blood on his hands, the blood that had come from the punch to Yuri’s nose. His body shivered in excitement. His face let out a wide, toothy grin. His eyes met hers, and his heart seemed to skip. He quickly looked down, his emotions quickly changing. He didn’t like that feeling.

“It didn’t really end there, because Yuri followed me. For a while, his ghost haunted my dreams. Not really haunted, more like pestered… kind of like yo—“ He stopped himself mid-sentence, looking away, “Anyway, he eventually stopped living in my dreams and now he resides in my head. My best friend until death, literally.” He mumbled the end, not sure what else to say.