An Unforgiving Desert – Chapter 8

I thought we would enter orbit around Sonoma, and the local authorities would then pick us up. But no. No, that would be too easy, you see. My life is never that cut and dry.

Flight school was supposed to be challenging, yes, but life-threatening? No. The months I spent with Vivian while she built her relationship network and gathered enough money to buy back the family farm were supposed to be fun, but deadly? No.

Across the life pod, Kalvin regulates his breathing and watches the instruments. After the exchange with Cressida, I no longer think he’s to blame for the hijacking. Cressida and her team saw an opportunity to get back at Kalvin and took it.

The life pod grows hot, and the small windows glow as we’re caught by Sonoma’s gravity and pulled down to the surface.

“We’ve got too much velocity,” Kalvin reports, accessing the panels on his side. “I’ve adjusted the thrusters to compensate.”

I nod and close my eyes, pushing my body back into the seat as far as it will go. I’m not afraid of much, but my deep dark nightmares feature fire and explosions. I have this one recurring dream where I’m watching shuttles and atmosphere planes fall out of the sky and crash right in front of me. I always thought that if I mastered flying, I would conquer those nightmares.

Here I am, dropping out of the sky, and the nightmare still lives in my heart.

“Are all systems nominal?” I shout over the rumble of the life pod. My eyes refuse to open.

“Yeah,” Kalvin shouts back. “Everything’s in the green. For now.”

“The chute?” Planetary life pod landings employ a parachute to slow down descent.

“It’s good.”

Okay, okay. We should be fine then. It’ll be a bumpy ride down, the beacon will engage, and someone will come to get us. Then, maybe, I can have a case of wine and a bath.

“Uh, Skylar?” Kalvin’s voice wobbles, and this gets me to open my eyes.

“Yeah?”

“GPS says we’re going to land in the Novato Desert.”

“What?” The Novato is one of the cruelest places in the Californikus System. It stretches thousands of kilometers across the Continente Sur, the most remote place on the planet. There are no colonies there. Several towns tried to establish themselves on the outskirts of the desert, closer to the ocean, but they were all swallowed up by the sand. Literally, swallowed. There one day, gone the next. There have been rumors about what lives there, and I’m trying to forget them all right now.

“Yeah, the Novato.” He turns the display so I can see it. “The system estimates we’re going to touchdown about three hundred kilometers from the southern coast.”

“Ugh, fuck me.” No cases of wine and baths in my future.

“That’s not the worst of it,” he shouts as the sounds of our descent increase. “There’s a sandstorm in progress at our landing site. Winds are… God, fifty kph, fifty-five in some places. The Sonoma Weather Service says it’s been going on for three days now.”

“That’s gonna screw with the parachute!” The sounds outside have changed from roaring and crackling to winds whipping.

“We’re about to find out in one minute.”

I count backwards and think of everything I know about the Novato Desert — frequent sand storms, high temperatures, arid, and dry. Nothing much lives there, except for some of the deadliest desert cats, venomous scorpions, and hawks that’ll claw your eyes out. It’s not a vacation spot, by any definition. There are a few data stations in the rocky mountains, but the Sonoma Weather Service has to replace them often because they go missing during sandstorms. I think we’re in trouble. Big trouble.

“How are your survival skills?” Kalvin calls out. “Thirty seconds to parachute.”

“Oh, you know, the basics.” Minimal, Kalvin. I have minimal skills in surviving a desert that wants nothing to do with humans. I grew up on a spaceship. Ask me if I can survive a rapid decompression or space debris, and I’m good to go. But this? No.

Still, I’ve read enough books on desert survival in the past. Why? I have no idea. Because I was bored and there was nothing else to do growing up except read? Yes, most likely. I sift through my brain, hunting for anything we can use. Thank goodness for small favors. Book learning is what I’m best at.

“Did you do the survival training course for the Class Three license? It’s not mandatory.”

I shake my head.

“Ten seconds. I did. We’ll try to make it work, princess.”

I lock eyes with him in time to see a rogue smile right before the whole world jerks up.

The velocity of the winds captures the parachute, pinning Kalvin and me to our seats. The life pod spins, and my stomach goes right with it. I break into a fast sweat, and my pressure suit pings as it tries to cool me down. Swallowing hard to keep my stomach down where it belongs, I press my eyes shut.

“Five hundred meters!” Kalvin’s voice breaks through the noise.

My breaths are shallow. I’m hyperventilating.

“Three hundred meters!”

Will this drop ever end?

I gasp as the life pod stops spinning. My head is still whirling, though.

“One hundred meters.” His breathing is as fast as mine.

I brace for impact, pushing my body into the seat as far as it will go. Thrusters fire and soften the blow, but we still hit the sand hard. The life pod bounces three times and skids to a halt.

The moment of silence is deafening. I hold my breath before letting it go.

“You okay?” Kalvin asks.

“Yes. Holy shit, that was one hell of a descent.”

“No kidding. I almost lost my lunch at least twice.” He laughs, and the sound is like a comforting hand on my shoulder. Yeah, I almost puked, too.

I shake my left hand, hoping my wristlet is still working under the layers of pressure suit. An image shows in my eye of my usual home screen, but the system grayed out all the icons with ‘No Connection’ written over the top. Fuck me.

The wind picks up outside, and the life pod shifts. An increasing sense of doom wells up from my feet as the scraping and scratching sounds from below get louder, and another jerk of the pod hurls everything loose to the side.

“The parachute.”

I snap out of my chair and jump to my feet. The nausea I experienced on the descent vaporizes, and my head clears. I’m back in the game. Glancing down at my hands, I debate taking off the pressure suit. Sonoma is habitable, of course, but the sandstorm would make getting around outside tough without it since digging for goggles and face masks would take time.

The pod drags more and tips on its side.

Time I don’t have.

“We need to disconnect the parachutes. Where’s the release?”

Kalvin’s head is on a swivel. “Here.” He flips open a panel and pulls a lever, but it only moves a few centimeters. He tries again, putting more of his weight into it. “It’s jammed. It may be clogged with sand.”

I turn to the door. “We need to go out and cut them free.”

“I’ll go,” Kalvin says, popping open a storage container and finding the survival supplies. He pulls out a deadly looking knife about as long as my arm.

The life pod creaks and moves again.

“We’ll both go. And we’ll strap in using the zero gravity anchors, or we’ll be in danger of blowing away.”

“Good idea, princess.”

I lower my voice and stalk away to the airlock door. “Keep it up, and I’ll kill you in your sleep.”

“What was that?” he asks, joining me. He flashes a smile that makes me sigh with annoyance.

“Nothing.”

There’s no airlock on this life pod, so we’ll be letting in the sand and atmosphere when we open the door. It’s about to get very messy in this little space. I release the cover on the cubby next to the door and pull out two ten-meter zero gravity leads. They’re made of strong carbon fibers with heavy-duty carabiners on each end. I hand one to Kalvin, and he nods his thanks.

“Wait,” I caution Kalvin as he reaches for the door release. “Plan of action?”

He pauses for a moment. “What do you suggest?”

I’m surprised by his willingness to give me the lead.

“Open the door and strap in right away. Then, we free the parachutes and head right back inside.”

“I suggest we save one parachute if we can. It will make a good tent if we have to evacuate the pod.”

“We’re not evacuating the pod,” I insist. “Otherwise, the search party will never find us.”

He shrugs. “You never know.”

“How are we going to drag in a giant parachute in typhoon strength winds?”

The life pod groans and tips. Both of our eyes widen as the ship lists to the side. If we wait any longer, we could land on our door side, and then we’d really be screwed.

“Fuck it. Let’s go.”

Kalvin pulls the release on the door, and the outside world floods in. Guess what? The outside world is hella angry. The air is full of orange sand, racing by us, and a pile of sand has already built up around the outside of the pod. Kalvin reaches out the door and clips his carabiner to the outer hull. When he steps out into the melee, he stumbles backwards before grabbing the line.

“Wind’s strong. Stay close to the pod.” He lifts his knife and leans into the wind as he makes his way aft.

Strong is an understatement. I struggle to lock the carabiner in because the wind pushes my hand back over and over. But after three tries, I clip in, and the line is secure. I close the door behind me otherwise we’ll be sleeping in sand. Heading aft along the opposite side of the pod, I shuffle through the sand until I get to one of the three parachutes.

“Kalvin, which one of the three are we going to keep?”

I can’t see him on the other side of the pod. “I’m cutting one free right now that – got wrapped – around… comms antenna.”

“You’re breaking up.” I climb up the side ladder until I find the latches to release the parachutes.

“Wha-?”

I look right and discover him sawing away at the parachute lines.

“That won’t work. Carbon fibers. Slice the chute!”

Shit. He can’t hear me. The life pod pipes our comms through its internal systems, and it appears the antenna is going to last all of three more seconds. But we can switch to our short-range independent comms if I can catch his attention.

I let go of the pod and wave my arms. “Hey! Kalvin!”

A gust of wind barrels through and knocks me backwards. I fall onto the life pod with a thunk, roll, and topple off the side.

Did that really just happen? My lungs jump, trying to suck in air. I hate having the wind knocked out of me.

I cough and sit up in time to see Kalvin struggling around the pod. He falls to his knees in front of me, and I gesture for him to come closer. I touch my helmet to his, so the sound conducts through the glass.

“Switch to Suit Channel 2!”

“Are you okay?”

I nod as I gesture to the controls on our arms. We switch to the suit channels, and Kalvin blows out a huge breath.

“Holy shit, Skylar. I saw you tumble over the side, and I was afraid you had broken your neck.”

“No such luck.” I wince as I rock to my side. “I think I bruised my hip, but I’m okay.”

“I can’t free the main chute, and the wind has ripped the radio antenna off,” Kalvin calls.

Fuck, that’s not good.

“Let’s poke holes in the parachutes with your knife. If we can release one of them, we’ll keep it for your tent idea.”

I move to stand up with Kalvin’s help when my booted foot sinks into the sand. After only a moment, my leg is buried up to my knee.

“Help.” I grab Kalvin’s arm and wiggle my leg out. Shit, that was fast. It’s almost like it was trying to suck me down.

We work together to hold the parachutes that can’t be released and cut holes in them so they can’t move the life pod. We get lucky with the third parachute. Its cables release from the pod with only a little jostling, and Kalvin drags it back to the life pod’s door.

“See this?” I point to the bottom of the door, where another ten centimeters of sand has built up. I wince as a jolt of pain rips through my hip. Gritting my teeth, I kick at the sand. “If this storm rages for more than another day, we’ll be buried.”

A gust of wind blows me into Kalvin. He wraps his arm around my chest, and we lean into the onslaught until it dies down again. He squeezes me once and lets go.

“Thanks,” I mutter.

“Let’s worry about the sand later.” Kalvin hits the door release, and the life pod opens up. Sand pours over the lip of the threshold and seems to snake its way inside.

“Argh. It’s everywhere.”

We step in, unhook our leads from the ship, and pull the parachute in behind us. I grab a flat panel that had fallen off the wall during descent and use it to shovel the sand to the outside. The wind pushes it everywhere, but I get a good few scoops out before Kalvin shuts the door.

“Suits off?” he asks, his hands at the releases around his neck. “I’m dying to get out of this thing.”

I nod and release my helmet. The cool life pod interior air is tinged with the smell of ozone from the sand storm outside. But the power is still on, and the atmosphere is circulating, so that’s good news.

Beads of sweat cover Kalvin’s face, and his usually well-groomed hair falls over his eyes.

“Well, now that we’re back inside, I have good news and bad news,” he says.

“I have a feeling I know what’s coming, so just give it to me straight.” I flop down into my seat, close my eyes, and rest my head back. I hear Kalvin drop into his seat on the other side of the pod.

“The good news is that we have power for another eighteen hours, give or take. Maybe more if we turn off non-essential lights and a few other things. The bad news is that our antenna is gone. The emergency beacon will only be detected within about twenty kilometers.”

I could cry. But I don’t cry; I get mad.

I growl and pound the seat next to me with my fist. Shit, shit, shit.

“Another piece of good news?” he says, breaking into my hissy fit. “We were broadcasting the entire way down. So someone just has to get here, and they’ll find us.”

“Right. In the middle of a sand storm.”

“Yeah. So, let’s get some rest, or we’ll regret wasting this time.”

Rest. Sure. I look across the ship at him, taking off his gloves. Time to accept that we’re in this together for the long haul.