Gyaros Book One: The Mice Eat Iron (YA 17+ Sci Fi Adventure) (13 page)

“So uh, what’s the plan when we arrive?” Miles asked timidly.

“Well our first stop has to be The Dustbowl,” Maxen replied.

“What’
s The Dustbowl?”

“I’ve heard it’s the closest town to the drop zone. See these shuttles are pre-programmed to land at the designated drop zone. There used to be a processing station where new arrivals would be welcomed and assimilated, designated a community and all that jazz.
These days ain’t nothing but sand and ruins gonna greet our sorry asses, so we gotta make our way to The Dustbowl. It’s a town the first convicts built out of the wrecked remains of the Talos shuttles. From what I heard it’s a tough ol’ place, baptism of fire if you get my meaning.”

Miles
nodded and turned a little pale.

“You’d better stick close to uncle Maxen if you wanna get through
The Dustbowl alive. After that we catch a ride and make our way to New Fortune, try and pick up some work and find us someplace to live. Shit, that’s the plan anyway.”

“I though you said no one makes it to New Fortune!”

“Haha, yeah well I ain’t no one, they don’t come tougher than me, so you stick close and we’ll see if we can’t make it all the way.” Maxen smiled and slapped Miles on the thigh with his weighty metal hand.

Miles sat back into his chair and looked straight ahead at the sparkling blanket of stars, an unfathomable number of shimmering lights
each of them representing a massive and powerful sphere of luminous plasma. His eyes felt heavy, the physical exertion and mental stress of the preceding few hours, and indeed the preceding few days was taking its toll. Every muscle and joint in his body ached, he was hungry and still damp from running through the Yellow Districts, his wet feet squelching in his soaked socks. Miles felt his eye lids dropping as though they were being pulled down by the force of a couple of invisible anvils and within a minute he was fast asleep.

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Chapter 9

Miles woke suddenly to the feeling of being jolted back and forth, his head hitting the soft rubber head rest with enough force to cause him quite a bit of pain.

“*ding*, Now entering Gyaros’ atmosphere. Blast shields closing. Stasis field disengaging.”

“This is it buddy!” Maxen shouted over the incredibly loud sound of atmospheric re-entry
. Miles caught a last glimpse of Gyaros out of the windows as the blast shields began to close over them. It looked terrifying, like a mountainous orange rock not fit for man nor beast.

“Wooooohoooooo!”
Maxen screamed, apparently enjoying the experience. The same could not be said for Miles who sat as still as he possibly could, white as a sheet, his stomach twisting and turning, audible at times even over the noise of the old shuttle which creaked and groaned under the extreme challenge of high speeds and higher temperatures. Suddenly there was a massive jolt, much heavier than any that preceded it and the yellow lights turned bright red as a loud warning siren could be heard.

“
*ding*, Shield integrity 75%. Engine output 40%. Retro rockets 82%. Probability of passenger survival 56%.”

“Oh God…oh G
od Maxen we’re going to die, we are going to fucking die Maxen!” Miles screamed hysterically.

“What you talking about man, 56% don’t sound too bad to me, better odds that what I had on most of my elimination contracts. B
esides you got your lucky charm. Me! Haha!” Maxen said, throwing his head back and letting out a boisterous laugh.

The other two passengers ye
lled and screamed, the dreamer - as was the colloquial terms for a dreamscape addict - was now wide awake and flailing about in fear. Miles couldn’t make out what the other two were screaming as they were much farther down the shuttle, but he had a pretty good idea based on their terrified expressions. And then the juddering stopped and there was silence. They had made it through the outer layer of the atmosphere and now found themselves gliding inside Gyaros’ calm, artificial skies.

“
*ding*, Current altitude: 15,000 meters. Retro rockets engaged.”

The vessel began to vibrate as the retro rockets powered up and attempted to slow the craft as it plummeted to the moon’s surface. Miles closed his eyes and thought about Hellen and Chet. Happy memories flooded into his mind. His first night with Hellen, their wedding, the birth of his son, their family trip
s to Hesperides’ Zoo, the laughs shared with Clark, dinner with Candice and her husband Robert. And then surprisingly Ryker popped into his mind, Miles wasn’t angry anymore. Ryker had been his only friend during his short time in the Yellow Districts. He showed Miles around, looked out for him and genuinely cared about him. It was a pity how things ended, but that’s just the way it goes sometimes. The vibrations intensified as Miles closed his eyes tight to maintain the image of his wife and young son.

“*ding*
, Shuttle will touch down in 10…” the countdown had begun.

“9…8…” each second felt like an hour to Miles and the other passengers as they awaited their fate.

“7…6…5…” Miles tightened and clenched every muscle in his body bracing for impact.

“4…3…2…” ‘Forgive me Hellen, forgive me Chet.’

“1…”

The shuttle smacked into the rocky surface of the barren moon and began to roll along the surface at an incredible pace
. The remaining retro rockets had done just enough to ensure that the passengers survived the initial impact, however they were far from safe. Inside the shuttle the passengers were being shaken violently as the craft bounced and slid across the sandy hills of the designated landing zone. The panelling and equipment were beginning to come loose as the men, Maxen excluded, screamed at the top of their lungs. Miles held tight to the rubber restraints and attempted in vain to stiffen his neck which was wobbling uncontrollably, his head bouncing painfully off the headrest. Suddenly the screens; which a few hours ago displayed the educational in-flight documentary, popped out of the roof and dangled dangerously just before the faces of the four convicts. The screens banged and swung wildly only inches from Miles’ face. He turned his head to the right to avoid being struck when he heard a loud snap. The screen belonging to Maxen had detached from the roof and was now bouncing and flying through the shuttle at speed, making a dent in anything it struck. It span wildly like an ancient weapon, with glass and razor sharp metal poking out on every side. Miles and Maxen raised their arms to protect their faces as the rogue screen wreaked havoc throughout the cabin, the shuttle rolling on and on. Miles flinched as he heard the screen bounce off Maxen’s robotic arm only inches from his left ear. But then the metal noise was followed by another, duller sound, like a low thud. And the ship was quieter all of a sudden, both the screaming of the other passengers and the bouncing of the screen had stopped. Miles carefully lowered his arms, as the shuttle continued to slide along the sandy moon, from in front of his face and saw the horrible sight, the sickening reason for the sudden silence. The screen had lodged itself into the neck of the dreamscape user. Presumably being in such a drugged out state he had failed to properly protect his face and neck with his arms. The deformed face of the Red Districts dweller now contorted in horror at the bloody mess of a man that sat slumped beside him, his mouth agape unable to utter a word.

Miles felt sick at the sight but
shook his head and swallowed hard, his attention now taken up by the unmistakeable feeling of slowing down. The shuttle righted itself by chance and had finally begun to stabilise and slide slowly across the slippery, sandy surface of Gyaros, until finally grinding to a sudden halt as it hit a large structure, a ruin of what was once the landing and docking station. The three remaining passengers sat there in silence, unable to move or to speak for a full minute. The silence was finally broken by the now distorted voice of the on board AI.

“*ding*
, Landing failed. Engines…critical failure. Life support…critical failure. Locking systems…critical failure. Navigation systems…critical failure. Scanning for life forms. Three life forms detected. Welcome to Gyaros.”

With that the heavy restraints lifted and the men slid to the ground exhausted before
shakily picking themselves up.

“We’ve got to get out of here,” said Miles trying not to throw up as
he glanced momentarily over at the dead man’s horrific wound. Miles, Maxen and the small man made their way to the back of the shuttle and attempted to open the heavy door. After an unsuccessful attempt to interface with the door’s control panel, Miles ripped the panel from wall exposing a mess of wires and nodes. He looked at it carefully, poking at various coloured wires with a piece of loose plastic he’d picked up off the floor of the wrecked ship.

“Hmm,” he started
, “it’s screwed, fried, there’s nothing I can do to get this door open without the proper tools. For fuck’s sake, we travelled 550,000 kilometres just to suffocate in this stinking piece of junk.” Miles pounded the door with his fist. Defeated and exhausted he placed his face in his hands and screamed in frustration.

“Stand aside ladies, let Maxen handle this
,” said Maxen confidently speaking in the third person.

Miles
wiped an anguished tear from his cheek as he and the short man gave Maxen some space, making their way as close to the front of the craft as they could without stepping in the puddle of blood that had now formed at the feet of the dead man.

“Maxen that’s no ordinary door, it’s designed to withstand extreme heat and impact. I mean if it didn’t come off in that landing I don’t see what you can do to get it off.”

“Yeah well you ain’t seen what I can do,” Maxen looked back and smirked before returning his attention to the door. A mechanical whirring sound suddenly filled the cabin and Miles’ eyes opened wide as he witnessed Maxen’s robotic arm transform impressively into what looked like a shiny metallic cannon.

“You boys might wanna cover your eyes
,” shouted Maxen over the increasingly loud sound of his arm as it charged to shoot. Miles and the other man crouched down and covered their faces as white light filled the shuttle and a massive explosion rocked the entire ship. The explosion was followed a moment later by the smell of fresh oxygen and the sensation of circulating air as wind swept into the cabin filling it with sand and dust. Miles squinted and could just about make out the silhouette of Maxen as he stood at the circular opening that was once the door of the shuttle. He stood up and made his way to the exit where he put his arm around Maxen’s huge shoulder.

“You did it
Maxen, thank you, you saved my life!” Miles shouted, smiling and jumping for the first time in twenty four hours.

“Pssh, yeah well I was only saving my own ass, you were just on the right shuttle is all
.”

“We made it, we actually made it!” Miles shouted and laughed
, “Can you believe it?!”

He took his first steps outside of the shuttle and allowed his eyes to adjust to the intense brightness. He scanned the new world and gazed in awe at the huge red mountainous dunes of Gyaros, dotted between which were the dilapidated ruins of what was once the welco
ming station and shuttle dock. Among the hundreds of crashed and abandoned Talos shuttles he spotted a structure that still looked somewhat intact.

“Hey, c’mon,” he shouted back to the others
, “I see a place where we can rest a while”.

Maxen and the small man followed Miles across the rocky red sand toward the building, the intense heat beating down on them from above.
The weather conditions were extremely dry and oppressively warm to the point where Miles removed the blue and red shirt that made up the top half of his Le Cinema Magnifique uniform and used it to cover his head and the back of his neck, his white long sleeved shirt covering his chest and back. The three outlaws eventually made in to the shade of the building and slumped onto the dusty ground. The structure was large and made of steel, it looked like a shuttle bay, thought Miles, as there were tools and machines that looked as though they would be used in the maintenance and transportation of the vessels once they had arrived. A giant red Talos logo covered one of the walls and old computer terminals lined the others, their screens smashed and their casing deteriorated. Miles sat on the dusty ground of Gyaros, he was now living the worst fear of every inhabitant of Carthage; a lifelong sentence of banishment to the lawless, forgotten colony of Gyaros. A place so inhospitable and void of basic necessities it is said that the mice eat iron.

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Chapter 10

“My name is Miles, and this is Maxen, what’s your name?” Miles asked the small, deformed man, offering his hand. The shy little guy put out his withered hand nervously, looked up to Miles and in a croaky voice began to speak.

“My name is Landi, Landi Grodes,” the two men shook hands, after which Maxen took a turn shaking Landi’s hand and formally introducing himself. Then Miles spoke.

“So we need to work together if we want to survive. I can work with electronics and Maxen here has a gun for an arm. Is there anything you can do Landi?” Landi thought for a moment, scratching his arm
.