The Colony

The Avaris had been adrift in space for about three weeks now. Tristan Nixon, the spaceship’s Captain, thought that it was something more like three months, but the digital Casio watch on his wrist told him otherwise; It was Tuesday, August 23, just nineteen days since he was forced to shut the thrusters off due to lack of fuel. What direction he was headed in now, he couldn’t be certain, but he knew that it wasn’t towards home, and that was disconcerting. Once or twice, Tristan tried to turn the engines back on, but they would only sputter like a car with a bad battery. It was inevitable, then: Tristan would not make it back home.

The blonde had taken to reading books on a tiny e-reader he brought with him, and he began to appreciate now the longevity of the simple device’s battery. When he wasn’t reading or trying to eat the last of the tortillas (he never wanted another wrap in his life, never again), Tristan often floated around the cockpit, looking out the windows at the vast blackness that surrounded him. Always, it was so cold.

Tristan never knew when it was night and when it was day, by Earth’s standards, anymore, except by looking at his watch. While he’d been cruising around in deep space, his internal clock had apparently shifted such that he’d become nocturnal. And so, that Tuesday morning, he was deep in a dream about his dog--a black german shepherd named Loki that was still waiting for him to return at his sister’s house. In the imagery of his dreams, Loki and Tristan would run down the Miami beach, play in the surf, throw a frisbee… Tristan remembered tumbling through a large wave and Loki, worried for his master, barked worriedly until the blonde man stood and scratched behind his ears reassuringly. But...was that barking? In the distorted reality that was his dream, it took the sleeping Tristan a while to discern that he noise coming from the mouth of his dog was not a bark at all, but was more...siren like?

Sirens. Shit!
Tristan tore himself from his blankets and pushed himself up and out of the tiny little ‘room’ into the main passageway towards the cockpit even as he felt his body lowering slowly to the floor of the spaceship. Gravity! How could there be gravity? Even with his bottom just barely making contact with the seat, Tristan felt like he was falling, sinking. And then, with a twist in his stomach, he discovered that indeed, he was falling. While he’d been sleeping, he’d apparently become ensnared in the gravitational pull of some celestial body and was now entering violently into the atmosphere.

“No! No no!” he muttered to himself, flipping switches, checking gauges and meters. He had to get the thrusters turned back on, even if only for a minute, or he’d turn into a metal pancake. “C’mon baby...please work…” The engines sputtered, whirred, but nothing happened. Increasingly Tristan felt the g-forces accumulating, pushing against his body until he felt so heavy that he could hardly breathe. He could see the ground now, and clouds--he only had a minute or two left. Even if he got the thrusters going, he was still going to crash. Terrified, he braced himself as best he could for impact and kept fighting with the thrusters. There was a whirring, sputter, and then a consistent, powerful thrumming; he’d done it. In desperation, he tried to pull the nose of his ship upward to slow his descent. Thirty seconds. He felt the forces on his body decreasing, but it’d been so long since he’d been under any kind of gravity and his body felt weak, heavy. Fifteen seconds. The land below him started to get larger and larger as if he were looking through a telescoping lens. Ten seconds. He’d done all he could do; Tristan abandoned his post at the helm and tried to brace his body in the most secure place he could reach and held on tight. Five seconds. The shaking had lessened and his descent had slowed significantly...maybe he might survive. Four. I should never have agreed to this expedition. Three. They probably think I’m dead anyway. Two. I would give anything to see Avery again. There was a horrifying sound of crunching, scraping metal below him, a sharp bump upward, and then the final, explosive sound of the nose of the spaceship folding up and being rent open on one side, immense shaking, and suddenly Tristan knew no more.

It was in 1986 that President Reagan famously called Nasa’s newest discovery ‘Utopia’. The space program had been venturing out farther than any had ever dared to dream, and one tiny planet at the edge of the solar system began to spark the imaginations of not only the nation, but the world. The tiny, blue-green planet was remarkably similar to Earth, and in 1987 the first initial testing of the planet began. The atmosphere of the planet- which was only a quarter the size of Earth- was nearly identical to what became referred to as her ‘sister’ planet- officially called Obrios. Obrios had not only an abundance of water, but also flora and fauna that, while unique, were not dissimilar to her sister’s.

The planet was habitable, they decided later in ’87, and it was time to send a large team of highly trained specialists to ready the planet for future inhabitants. Two hundred men and women were selected for the task. They ranged from astronauts and physicists to doctors, engineers, foremen, and a wide range of skilled laborers. The goal of this group was to first establish a home base on the alien planet, then to see if it would eventually be self-sustaining.

The two hundred people were sent to Obrios over the course of several months, and it took many shuttles to achieve the large undertaking of transporting not only a huge group of people, but everything they would need to establish a colony on the distant planet. However, as those two hundred pioneers successfully created a home base that others could soon venture to, the project was marked a huge success. The day when Earthlings would commonly inhabit planets other than Earth seemed to be drawing nearer and nearer.

In 1989, the tragic news that Obrios’ atmosphere was toxic came from President Bush. Over the course of almost two years, all two hundred pioneers had become exposed to an airborne toxin they hadn’t detected during testing, and the onset of symptoms was sudden and dramatic. Most had already died, and it was determined that those surviving would not live long enough to be taken back to Earth. The report of their brave conviction to spend their final days on Obrios made headlines and ultimately the entire project was abandoned. Obrios was not the Utopia that Reagan had once proclaimed, and the blow to the space program would take years to recover from.

---

Obrios, 2025

The fence was in disrepair again and the border skunks were getting into the grounds of the facility. The border skunks were similar to hyenas in temperament, but liked to sneak in and scrounge for anything they could get into. They’d been likened to racoons by the Originals- the first two hundred that had arrived. Only one Original remained anymore, and it seemed he too was reaching the end.

Dorian scrubbed a hand over his eyes and sighed, agitatedly kicking the hole in the chain link fence. A group needed to be assembled to repair the fence again and it was one of the tasks most preferred to put off. Almost all parts of the facility were in some level of disrepair, but partially it was par for the course. Supplies hadn’t been received from the Original’s home planet in thirty six years, so everything they had had to be either recycled or made from the natural resources on Obrios.

A strange noise drew Dorian’s attention upward. It was almost like an intense, far-off humming, he thought, searching the sky. To the East was a faint line of smoke angling down toward the thick forests of Obrios. What had left that smoke line? It wasn’t from a fire, Dorian thought with a frown. It was coming from the wrong direction. Seconds later, as he was still fixated on the white trail of smoke, a thundering crash was followed by a faint rumble that vibrated through the ground. It had sounded far off, but if he’d felt the reverberations he knew it couldn’t be that far.

There were running footsteps behind him and he turned to see Jenna running toward him. She was wide eyed and looking to him for an explanation.

"What the heck was that?"

Dorian shrugged. “I don’t know. Let’s get some people together and go check it out.”

Jenna nodded, already turning back toward the compound. “I’ll get Joe and Rasul,” she told him.

“Might as well get Cinda, too.”

Jenna called back a muffled reply and disappeared. Dorian doubled back toward the medical ward. Once there had been several doctors, but now there was only Dorian. He was no doctor and he knew it. He’d never gone to medical school or studied autopsied bodies or even been in a hospital. He’d received some training, but with few medicines available to them, his care was more on the order of basic first aid and a good bedside manner.

They would be venturing into the jungle, unsure what they might find. It would be a daytrip, but Dorian liked to be prepared. He packed basic first aid supplies, then found one of their precious machetes to cut through the wild flora that surrounded them on all sides. When he returned to the compound gate, Jenna and the others were already waiting for him.

“Any idea what that was?” Rasul asked him as they set off. Dorian shook his head.

“No idea.”

They followed the slash of white smoke that marred the clear, blue sky, cutting through underbrush as they went. It was hot, tiring work, but they took turns clearing the path so no one got too tired. After a few hours of walking the small group began to see refuse scattered around and it made them nervous. Chunks of metal and broken parts they couldn’t identify were all around them, and some had apparently crashed with such force that they made gaping holes in the canopy and left craters in the ground.

“You don’t think....” Cinda began, but didn’t finish. All were thinking the same thing, but didn’t voice it. Dorian wasn’t even sure how to feel about what he was seeing.

The debris became more dense the further they traveled, and it wasn’t long before they reached a large shuttle, smoke still rising from several parts of it. The group stopped, stunned, surveying the wreckage.

“A ship?” Jenna breathed. “Do you think... I mean, maybe they were coming for us. Why else would a ship be here?”

Joseph turned his head and spat. “That ship wasn’t for us. They forgot about us a long time ago. Don’t get your hopes up.”

Dorian stepped cautiously closer toward the shuttle and Cinda’s hand shot out to grasp his arm. “Wait! What are you doing?” she hissed.

Dorian jerked his chin toward the ship. “That thing probably has a pilot, right? And maybe other passengers? I’m going to see if there were any survivors.”

Joseph was a step behind him, machete in hand, a grim expression on his face. “Goin’ with you, then,” he muttered. The others were only a few paces behind, but they seemed tentative.

Dorian reached the shuttle. The crash had left a gaping slash through the thick layers of metal, and it was the only way he could see to get in. The edges were sharp and still warm, and he had to wind his way in carefully. The air inside the shuttle was slightly smoky, but things were surprisingly intact. The lights still worked, but the light sources seemed bright and unnatural. Dorian padded slowly through the vessel, his eyes scanning the ship. He glanced back and saw Joe right behind him, machete raised. Perhaps that was a good idea, Dorian thought. They had no idea who- or what- might be on-board.

A search of the first compartment found no one, and the group passed through into the next compartment. They were at the head of the ship, but the pilot’s station was abandoned. Dorian looked around, then jumped back in surprise at the sight of a man- a human man, he was glad to see- who was apparently unconscious. The group paused for a moment, staring at each other silently, then Dorian crept forward, making a visual inspection. He was intact and didn’t appear to be bleeding, though possibly there would be internal injuries from the force of impact. A hand found the man’s pulse as Joseph poised himself a half step behind, his huge blade raised threateningly.

“He’s alive,” he told the group.

”Tristan, what is this? Candles?” The woman laughed, flipping her silky auburn hair the color of stained mahogany over one shoulder. Knowingly, she asked, “And why would you be setting candles out on the table? This is the 21st century, Tristan, we have lightbulbs.” Tristan loved that smile, the jesting sparkle in her brown eyes.
“Well, nothing says ‘mood lighting’ like open flames. Sit down, and you just wait--I’m gonna bring dinner out. And wine.”
“Dinner and wine! Hah, you coy bastard. Okay Cassanova, while you do that, I’ll be getting my present ready for you, then…”
Tristan moved into the kitchen of brushed stainless steel and caramel colored wood where he had a roast in the oven. “My present? Ohh, I can’t wait.” The blonde pulled the dish out of the oven where it had been kept warm and brought it into the living room. He smiled at her...but where was she? He smiled deviously, the same kind of knowing twinkle in his own blue eyes as the one in hers just moments earlier. “Avery? Avery….”

-------

“Avery…..Avery….”
Tristan’s voice was soft and started as practically only a breath and a jumbled murmur, but as he began to very slowly regain lucidity, so did his quiet cry. He was not yet aware of the world around him; unreal images swirled around in his head with splashes of color bleeding over an endless black backdrop. He did not know where he was, nor did he try to figure it out, for it was still beyond his own awareness that he could be in any particular place at all. Nothing felt real, except for the ever-growing sensation of pain and a sudden and intense longing to see Avery again. Avery, Loki, his coworker Trish, his sister Caitlynn, and maybe even the over-eager intern that often brought by doughnuts when he worked on Saturdays. He just wanted to see them again. He wanted familiar human contact, he wanted to not be so alone anymore.

Tristan’s head throbbed like subwoofers at a dubstep concert, every heartbeat bringing a fresh wave of dull, pressing pain. Now, things around him started to come into his scope of consciousness. There was a great deal of heat and his throat felt scratchy….was that smoke? All of his muscles ached. Voices began to enter into his world; cautious, tense voices. Where was he, anyway? Tristan tried to think back to the last 24 hours...he read a book, saw a stray asteroid pass by, dreamt about home and...ohhh. All at once, the terror and panic of the crash came back to him, and as far as he knew, he was on some unknown planet. Unless...unless he’d been out for so long that someone finally found him? Brought him home? No, that was ridiculous. There was smoke, and he hurt still. This was right after the crash, then. He survived.
So then….if that was true…who did the voices belong to?

“Ah!” Tristan cried as he opened his eyes, unable to focus just yet but still aware of several humanoid shapes looking at him, surrounding him. One held the unmistakable glint of metal, a blade of some kind. He tried to sit up, but everything felt very heavy; in reality, he ended up flailing a little awkwardly as he tried to right himself. Ohh, what a headache. The addition of gravity wasn’t helping anything, either. “Where...where am I? What happened? I…” One blue eye was slightly more dilated than the other; he was concussed, for sure. Tristan scrambled backwards but he only made it a few inches before he hit a wall, which was hot still. Not wanting to get any closer to the mystery people (he thought they were humans, he had no evidence to the contrary), he only shifted forward again just enough so he wasn’t touching the slightly warped wall. “Who are you? I don’t understand. Shit.” His shoulder length wavy hair had come clean out of the ponytail it was once in and had taken to spraying all over his face in tangles; clumsily, he brushed it out of his face and was very confused when locks of it slid back down. Gravity was a weird thing to reacclimate to.

The man awoke with a start and Dorian wasn't the only one who jumped back in surprise- and, if he was completely honest with himself- alarm. None of them knew what to expect from this strange intruder to their planet. He was the first they'd ever seen, and though it used to be discussed very often when they were children, no one ever really expected anyone to come for them.

Was that why this man was here? Had his ship crashed during a mission to start bringing them back? Or was he an enemy? Friend or foe, none of them knew, and all were wary. Dorian's medical concern rose above concern for his own safety however, and he reached out a hand to steady the man. It was fortunate they spoke the same language, one part of his mind thought. His hand retrieved a small flashlight from his pocket and he shined it into the man's eyes. One pupil contracted, revealing more of the blue iris around it while the other remained dilated.

"He has a concussion," he muttered over his shoulder to the others.

"Get away from him, Dorian," said Joe, forcing the other man away with one arm. He moved in closer to the stranger, machete raised threateningly. "You don't know if he's armed. He might try something." He looked directly at the blonde haired man before him, glaring down. "Don't you try anything."

"He's confused!" Cinda interjected, rushing forward in a vain attempt to pull Joe back.

"Will you put down the damn machete? Jesus, do you think he's armed? His ship just crashed!" Jenna was red with anger, though she warily stayed away from the blonde man, still unsure.

Rasul, his deep, calm voice the voice of reason, "Let's give him some air guys."

They all took a few steps back, no longer crowding the confused, concussed pilot. A moment passed and they looked back and forth between each other, silently communicating. All were worried. Cinda and Dorian were concerned about the man's injuries while Joseph was concerned the man might be a threat. Jenna was reserving her judgement of the situation, as was Rasul.

"Don't you know where you are?" Dorian finally asked. "You're on Obrios. What are you doing here?"

A machete. There was some guy standing over him with a machete.
Tristan thought he'd never see the day. He always pictured the long, thick blades in the hands of jungle explorers--they wielded them as they swung wildly from overgrown vines--or modern-day pirates that had one at one hip and a gun at the other. Of course, he'd seen them here and there at home, too, but they were either used to hack open coconuts or do yard-work. Tristan very much doubted that his arrival at...wherever he was had interrupted a gardening session. No, it was held too erect for it to be anything but threatening, and indeed, Tristan felt very threatened. As his dusty blue eyes finally focused in clearly on the group standing--looming over him, he gave a look to the one with the blade that read, 'really?' He could barely comprehend his situation, much less stand up and start a fight. Besides, he didn't think to bring a gun to space...

Tristan didn't speak again for a while. It was all just so much to take in and frankly, his head was not in prime condition; he kept wondering to himself how he'd gotten there, and kept telling himself silently that he wanted nothing more than to see Avery again. There was a planet with sentient human life on it, somewhere out there in the cosmos, apparently, and he was on it. How far away was he? Was this even real? Or was he actually dead, and was just imagining this in the afterlife? He decided that wasn't the case--he remembered the planet being blue-green as he plummeted down to it. It was all real...but how? How did nobody know about this? And who were these people?

"His ship just crashed!"
The words felt too concrete and too uncomfortable. As if the hot tin-can he was crouched in wasn't bad enough, now he had to hear someone say it to him, to affirm that this was actually real. He'd crashed, his shuttle was wrecked, and now he really couldn't home. There was probably no hope of sending a transmission of any kind, either...

"Oof..." he moaned to himself as he tried take it all in, rubbing his forehead with the heels of his palms; it hurt horribly, and he could feel something tickling his scalp just above his right ear. Sure enough, there was blood in his hair from where he'd apparently hit something, but it wasn't a serious wound and would clot up in no time. The concussion though...if that Dorian guy was right, then that was a problem all on its own. "Uh...just...please put the machete away, I'm not gonna--I wouldn't--I can't...uh...nuts," he muttered to himself. "Sorry, I...this is just a lot to process. Obrios. Obrios...I've never heard of it." He shook his head, hair fell down to his face again and he flicked it away, very annoyed by its sudden revolt. "I never knew there was life outside of Earth...I've been adrift in space for something like twenty days, but I've been up her--um, there for another two weeks or so. I lost all my fuel...and I'm pretty sure ground control forgot about me. I woke up this morning--Is it morning? I don't even know--to being pulled into the gravitational pull of....this place, and I managed to turn the thrusters on just long enough not to kill myself. I'm surprised I'm alive. But I am alive. I am. I'm alive," he said, reassuring himself rather than the strangers looking at him like some kind of exotic caged animal in a zoo.

The man took a few moments for himself again, burying his face into his hands and just breathing deeply. When he did finally speak again, he was far less terrified looking, though not any more relaxed, per se. He was exhausted and he hurt everywhere, and again, gravity didn't seem to do him any favors at the moment. But despite sort of sagging against the wall again, he said with as much clarity as he could muster, "My name is Tristan Nixon, captain of the Avaris...or...what's left of her. Who...are you? How are you here? Y-you speak English...but I didn't even think there was life outside of Earth." Didn't I just say that two minutes ago? Concussions...ach... "My head feels awful," he said finally. "I take that back. All of me feels awful."

“We are Earthlings,” Jenna interjected, vaguely offended. Dorian cast her a speculative look and she shrugged. “Well, sort of.”

“We can explain things later, but let’s get you out of this ship first. It’s too far to get back to base,” he muttered, the last part more to himself than to the towheaded man below him. “Hey, Joe?” he asked, turning around the face the angry man who still held the machete in a threatening manner. Joe flicked his eyes to Dorian.

“What?”

The question was gruff, but that was nothing out of the usual. “We can’t get him back to the compound tonight; he’s not in good enough shape. Can you and Cinda go back and get supplies? We need to set up a camp here.”

Joe was giving the injured stranger a wary look, but he lowered the machete with a grunt. “Yeah, alright. Here-” He thrust the handle of the blade toward Dorian. “You might need this.”

Dorian reluctantly took the tool. “Uh, sure. Thanks.”

He was doubtful a man who was severely concussed and probably suffering from other unknown injuries was going to do them any harm, even if he wanted to.

“I’ll go too,” Rasul volunteered. He led the other two out and Dorian breathed a quiet sigh of relief.

When they were gone and only he and Jenna remained, Dorian squatted down next to the man. “It’s too dim in here for me to give you a thorough exam. Think me and Jenna could pull you out of here?”

"We are Earthlings..."
No, no, that couldn't be. Tristan left earth over a month ago. He'd been traveling in deep space for so long that he couldn't really see Earth anymore, or at least not like he used to, when he could look down at its swirled mass like a perfectly round marble. A very large marble. At home, he imagined himself very small, like a little bug as he looked up into the stars and saw the pallid face of the moon. But up in space, up above the little sphere he called home, Tristan felt like a giant. And yes, he certainly did hold his hand out strategically below the blue-green planet and pretended to be Atlas. Of course he did. But that felt like so long ago. He was so far from Earth now. How could those people be from Earth? And then, how could they not be, if they spoke English? Were they American, even? His mind swirled with questions; he really wanted them answered now, but even if these strange people were up to explaining it now, he wouldn't even know where to begin with his questioning. Maybe later.

Tristan got the idea pretty quickly that at least the one called Dorian didn't mean him any harm; the others seemed wary of him but not malicious, except for the one they called Joe, who was still of the mind, apparently, that Tristan was some fearsome beast that needed to be watched, lest he strike at them. Right. Handing off the weapon, Joe exited with two others, leaving him alone with Dorian and a young woman--Jenna, apparently. He looked at them both--he could see much better now that a lot of the smoke had cleared and his eyes had regained some focus--and noted quietly to himself, "Dorian, Jenna. Dorian and Jenna. Right. I think so, I don't know if I trust myself to stand, but I could crawl out of here. I'm a little dizzy...and gravity is...well it's been a while. Everything feels so heavy..."

Tristan's head swirled as he tried to shift into a better position to start moving and suddenly he was thankful for the help of Dorian and Jenna. Without them, he decided, it would have been much more of an ordeal to get outside. As soon as he was out and a little distance away from his maimed ship, the man just sort of collapsed onto the forest ground, as he didn't want to spend any more time on his feet than he had to. "I'm just gonna...lie down here for a while. I'm not gonna hurt you...you've probably figured that out already, but your friend hasn't. Oh, my head..." Tristan lay back and closed his eyes, listening to the sounds of the wilderness around him. It'd been so long since he'd heard anything like it--really, anything but the thrum of the life support system. He was so tired, despite having just slept right before his whole ordeal. Was it the head injury? He remembered hearing somewhere that they could affect things like that.

Dorian said he was going to give him an examination once they got outside, so he figured he'd speed up the process a little and point him in the right direction. "There's a little blood on the side of my head, but it's probably stopped bleeding by now. My neck hurts, but my wrist is probably the worst. The left one. Mm....it's warm. It's so cold in space. But where's the sun? Is it ours--yours--er...Earth's? I still don't understand, I've never heard of Obrios. I'm an astronaut, I should have known about this. I really hurt my wri--Oh!" Tristan's eyes snapped open and he tried to sit up and immediately regretted it; he lay back down almost immediately. "In the ship, all my stuff is in there. Photos. Clothes. If we're gonna leave the ship tomorrow, I don't want those left behind. It's all I have left of home...." Tristan settled back down, his head throbbed too much for him to want to move anymore.