Final Onslaught

Chapter Three

Chapter Three

Wilder opened the pouch she’d made from a knotted sweater and peeked inside. Piddle and Puddle were sound asleep, curled up together, their arms wrapped around each other’s body. They floated gently inside the pouch, which, for once, was clean. The little creatures seemed to have finally become accustomed to micro-g. They hadn’t thrown up for three or four days. Even better, they also appeared to understand the basics of toilet training at last. They had a favorite corner where they did their business. Though, without the benefit of planetary gravity, Wilder was forced to keep a close eye on her pets and clean up their messes quickly if she didn’t want to encounter unsavory surprises later on.

Was what she was about to propose to Quinn fair on her little friends? Maybe not. The two of them could live for months on the Opportunity on her supply of food. Perhaps even years. Wilder was sure that Quinn could devise a way to feed them, or she could simply leave the food cupboard open and Piddle and Puddle could help themselves.

But then what? Would any Galactic Assembly member arriving to rescue refugees bother with two small, unintelligent life forms? It was unlikely, and the Fila could not offer them a home in an aquatic environment.

Wilder could not avoid the fact that the only possible hope for her small friends was if they stuck with her.

Her mind made up, she pushed off with her feet from the cabin wall and floated out into the operations room where Quinn and his fellow crew members worked behind a transparent wall.

Wilder held up her palms and braced against the gentle impact as she reached the wall. She reached for a handhold and held on.

“Quinn,” she said firmly. She would have to be firm and assertive in order to get him to agree to her request.

“Yes, Wilder?” the Fila replied.

“I’ve decided I’m going to go down to the surface.”

“You want to return to Concordia?”

Wilder frowned. Quinn was not usually this stupid. But then again, the flat, emotionless monotone the translation equipment supplied made it hard to tell the intent behind his reply. Perhaps he was only surprised. That would be understandable in the circumstances.

“Yes,” Wilder said. “I’ve made up my mind. I’m no use to anyone while I’m up here. I’m not very good with biology or chemistry—physics and engineering are more my things—but what little help I can offer is useless while I’m in orbit kilometers above the planet. I need to be down there, and the sooner the better. I’ll go to a shuttle now and take Piddle and Puddle with me. So if you wouldn’t mind, please transport me to the surface. I think if I go wherever Kes is, that would be best.”

“No.”

Wilder was so taken aback at the Fila’s blunt, unequivocal refusal, she was lost for words for a moment. Then she got angry. Her hands curling into fists, she said, “I wasn’t asking your permission. I’m telling you I’m going down there. I insist you transport me in a shuttle to the planet surface.”

“No. That will not happen.”

“You have zero jurisdiction over me, Quinn,” said Wilder. “And this isn’t a debate. You have to do what I say.”

Quinn gave no immediate reply. The pause dragged out. Wilder grew angrier. There was nothing she hated more than being told what she could and couldn’t do.

“Wilder,” Quinn said suddenly. “My people are dying.”

Wilder’s ire flooded out of her. Her grip on the handhold relaxed and she floated free, slumping in midair. “I know. I’m sorry.”

“Humans will begin to die in great numbers soon, too,” continued Quinn. “If you go down there you will be one of them.”

All the shock, pain, and fear Wilder had endured over the previous few days welled up inside her and spilled out. For several moments she couldn’t speak. It became clear to her that her determination to return to Concordia had been a way for her to distract herself from the terrible situation the Scythians had created. She wiped her eyes and nose with her sleeve and said, “I’ll die up here. It’ll just take longer.”

The prospect of starving to death aboard the Opportunity while listening to reports of the mounting death toll on her home planet had haunted Wilder ever since she’d heard the news of the biocide. It hadn’t taken her long to figure out what it meant for her personally.

“Perhaps you will not,” said Quinn. “I have thought of another possibility.”

“What other possibility?”

“The Opportunity’s fuel cells are full. We could leave this system and go somewhere else. I have pondered over this other prospect for some time. I had hoped that the situation on Concordia might improve, but it seems that all is lost. My people cannot escape the poison that is spreading throughout the planet’s water reserves. I believe their total destruction is inevitable.”

Wilder put a hand on the see-through wall. As always, Quinn’s emotion was impossible to tell from the non-inflected translation, but she didn’t believe it possible that her Fila friend was not experiencing deep sorrow and grief.

On the other side of the wall, Quinn raised a tentacle and placed it in the same place as Wilder’s hand. The two friends hung there, one suspended in air, the other suspended in water, in silence.

“Where would we go?” Wilder asked at last, not at all sure she wanted to go anywhere.

“That question is difficult to answer,” replied Quinn. “We would need to find a planet that is similar to Concordia’s gravity and that contains landmasses and water. It would also need to offer plant life that is edible for humans.”

“And for Fila,” said Wilder. “You all need to eat too.” Now that she thought about it, Wilder realized she didn’t know what the Fila ate, or even how they ate. She’d never seen Quinn or any other Fila take any substance into their bodies.

“We rarely encounter any problems with finding edible organisms on new planets.”

“Huh, I wish the same were true for humans,” Wilder said. A modest range of Concordian plants and small creatures were eaten on the colony but it had taken scientists decades to discover them and prove their safety. Then Wilder realized what Quinn was saying. “Wait. You mean it would be easier for you to find somewhere to go than me, right? I don’t want you guys sacrificing yourselves so I can live. Honestly, though it feels weird to be saying it, I’m not sure I even want to live. What would be the point? I mean, I like you, Quinn, and all the Fila I meet, but I don’t know if I want to live a life where I would never see my own kind ever again.”

“Humans colonized Concordia from another planet,” said Quinn. “We could take you there if you know the coordinates.”

“I don’t, though they must be somewhere in the data files. But Earth has to be many light years from here. I think the Guardians took twenty years or longer to come to Concordia, and their ship was way faster than the Nova. I’ll run out of food long before we arrive.”

“Perhaps the survivors of the Scythian attack could supply you with provisions for the journey.”

“I don’t want to take food from them, Quinn. They have it bad enough down there as it is. And there’s also the risk of the biocide traveling up here on the shuttle. When I said I wanted to go down to the surface I was planning on a one-way trip.”

Wilder and Quinn pondered the problem some more.

“I thought of another reason I can’t go to Earth,” said Wilder after a while. “The Guardians told us the human population had been decimated by a plague. Assuming they were telling us the truth, I would be infected by the disease if I went there. It would be the same result as if I stayed here.” She sighed. “To be honest, it makes me feel sick to even be thinking about how I’m going to survive when every single other human being on Concordia will probably die. What a weird fluke it was that I happened to be up here when it all kicked off, right?

“You know, when I was a kid, I read some stories about ancient ships that sailed on oceans before air or space travel were even invented. Sometimes there would be a storm and the ship would sink or break up on rocks, and only a few people would survive. The lucky ones. Only they weren’t so lucky because they would end up clinging to wreckage from the ship or isolated on tiny islands in the middle of nowhere. They had no food and no water, no shelter or way of staying warm, and they would die too, like the people who drowned when the ship went down. The only difference was they died slower and more painfully.”

Wilder blinked to clear her vision. “I got the a-grav working. Did you know? Yesterday. I finally got the damned machine to work. But no one will know now. It won’t make any difference to anyone.” She studied the complex patterning of Quinn’s skin and then turned her gaze to the three other Fila in the operations room. They did not have English names but Wilder had grown to recognize their patterning too.

“I know what you should do,” she said. “You should find a planet where there’s water so you can all survive. Your seeding ship will come for you eventually, or perhaps an Assembly member will pick you up. I’d appreciate it if you could find somewhere Piddle and Puddle can live too. I know that’s a big ask but I’m asking it. Don’t try to save me, though. All things considered, I’d rather not be saved. When the time’s right, I’ll go out the airlock.”

Not wanting to hear Quinn’s response to her decision, Wilder quickly pushed herself away from the operations room wall and returned to the living quarters. Quinn could still talk to her in there if he wanted, via the ship’s comm, but Wilder hoped he would understand from her behavior that she didn’t want to discuss her choice and that he would respect that.

He did.