Chapter 2: launch day (Total eclipse)

It's 7am, and I'm awake, but don't be mislead by my words, I'm not bitter about it. Today is a big day for me, as I am the co-pilot to the "Humanities Chariot" spaceship. It wasn't always called that, it only got that title recently after me and my partner were chosen to pilot it in our current mission. I'm up so early because I'm the one in charge of all preflight checks, it helps to do it early so the maintenance teams know where to focus. So, after quickly getting ready, I head to the hangar to get started, and I'm instantly met with something out of the ordinary...my partner, Kathy Luneski was in the cockpit before me. She's usually not as serious about our job when it comes to that kinda thing on account of being handed the job as the daughter of the man who designed this ship, so why today?

"Hey Ka..." She turns at the sound of my voice and I see a pair of uneasy eyes looking back at me. "I didn't sleep David, I'm...nervous about this." I chuckle "And what? You thought not sleeping would help that?" Her expression doesn't change as I sit in my chair next to her. "Jokes aside, we've trained for this pretty much since our last flight, what is there to worry about?" She shrugs "Well, we haven't landed on another planet before, what if we mess up?" I laugh again, sarcastically this time. "If we couldn't do it, we wouldn't have been chosen for this. I'll be honest, it's a big responsibility, I was worried too, but we can do this, I know we can." She smiles "Right! So what do we have to do?" I hesitate to tell her, because I already know her reaction. "Checks, I'm starting the systems scanner now." She is silent as she watches her screen for any discrepancies in the scan. "You don't have to stay you know, I think I can handle this." She begins talking without her eyes leaving the screen. "That's fine, I heard the crew thinks I'm an "entitled slacker" so I want to prove 'em wrong, it'll get done quicker with both of us any way won't it?" She would have been right if she knew what she was doing, but I do appreciate her trying.

There was a surprisingly low number of things that had to be tweaked to get the ship ready to fly, which is always good, even when launch is over nine hours away...now the only things we have to do before launch is wait for the news crew to interview us, though I don't think I can be myself in front of a camera, its all Kathy has been talking about. A few hours of conversation pass before the doors behind us open revealing a what looked like a full TV studio crammed into a tiny hallway. One of the men who I assumed to be the one who was about to interview us entered the room. "Good morning you two!" He greeted us with a smile. "Its a pleasure to be flying with you, are you ready for us?" He seems nice enough, this might be easier than I first thought. We both nod as he looks to the camera man. "Ten seconds." The room dropped into a painful stillness at these words, it almost felt time had fully frozen. The camera man nodded breaking the tension and jump starting the interviewer. "Hello again everyone! I'm sitting here right now with the two pilots of this magnificent ship, and they are going to answer some of our questions... So let's begin"

He turns to us. "Everyone wants to know, what are you feeling about all this?" I wait for Kathy to answer, but oddly enough, she remains silent. "Well, its a lot to take in, having a ship full of people relying on you as well as the future of humanity, but we are just glad to have gotten the chance." He nodded understandingly while he looked toward Kathy expectantly. "Oh don't worry about her, she's camera shy, she'll probably wait until she knows for certain that you aren't here until she even thinks of moving." She slams her hand on the console in front of her causing the interviewer to jump back a little. "I will not!" She yells, just before returning to her previous state. I laugh as the interviewer re-composes himself. "Seems like you two have a pretty good relationship." He says in an attempt to keep things moving. "Of course...its almost essential in this line of work, otherwise we'd just disagree all the time, and nothing would ever get done." "I see..." He says in a slightly perplexed tone "Then has it always been this way?" I look to Kathy, to give her a chance to speak.

"Not quite." She6 begins "I was trained privately, so I wasn't really used to being around so many people, so I generally didn't speak to anybody..." "And did the quality of your work suffer?" She shook her head "No, that usually only happens when the pilots fight constantly, but our flying definitely wasn't it's best at that time, and we both knew why that was, so I decided to change, and here we are." She definitely looked happy to have said something. "Well we are glad to have you here. And what about your training David?" I laugh "Nothing special, I trained in a regular flight school, and graduated within the top ten of my class." He looked slightly disappointed. "Ah...okay...well we should leave you to your work, thank you so much for your time..." And he turned to the camera. "In a few short minutes we will be back in the engine rooms finding out the processes it takes to refuel a massive ship like this". And just like that,they were gone.

"Should we watch?" I ask Kathy in an attempt to break the tension that the news crew left behind. She shakes her head slowly. "Nah, I can't imagine how watching the engineers refuel the shop would be interesting at all..." She remained silent for a second. "Thank you...I would have been so sad if they left without me getting to speak at all." "Well you're welcome...what happened there anyways?" She shrugs with a sigh "Not sure, I just froze up I guess, my nerves are pretty fried after all." I nod understandingly "Makes sense, your still good to fly though right?" She scoffs obnoxiously. "Ch...of course...maybe...I'm...well, we have quite some time left, I'm sure I'll be calmed down by then." I remain silent... don't have any choice to believe her. "Well, I'll help all I can, we'll have to do a secondary check soon, then you should relax a little, maybe head to the cafeteria." She shook her head again "But, what if something happens while I'm gone?" I chuckle "I'll handle it, I'm not going to keep you from leaving here until launch." She stands from her chair in complete silence and leaves the room.

Come to think of it, I don't really need to stay either. I finish secondary checks and head down to find Kathy in the cafeteria. I see her sitting alone staring off into space and I sit with her. "Not going to eat then?" She snapped back to reality. "No I'm not really that hungry, just figured I'd sit here a while." She seemed to drift off again before putting on a serious expression. "Hey David...do you think you could take my position?" I was stunned. "What? What do you mean?" She lowers her head. "I'm starting to feel like I'm not fit for this." "No...I couldn't, I'm not a leader." She looked back up at me again. "Then who are you following?" I remain silent. "I thought so, I'll be stepping down once we return..." She stood up, but I grabbed her arm to stop her. "What will you do after that?" She turns back. "Whatever I want..." And she leaves. I wonder what her father would think of this...I get some food before heading back to the cockpit.

I once again find Kathy staring into nothingness, but choose to say nothing...its probably better this way. Hours of silence pass before its finally time to start final checks before launch. I read off all of the systems and their statuses through the radio before we pull out of the hangar, and before I know it, we are out of Earth's atmosphere and heading to Mars. Unfortunately Kathy still didn't say a word, it feels so weird to see her acting like this again, maybe something happened...I don't know...I'm tempted to say something, but I end up stopping myself, I can't have her aggravated during flight. It doesn't take too long to reach our destination, we didn't even run into any obstacles on the way, when we are trying to land though...

"The terrain is too uneven for a landing and we don't have that much fuel left, we need to land." Says Kathy in her most serious tone while she scans the ground ahead of us. "Looks like that crevice might be big enough." She points to the distance and I can only just see it. "Maybe, let's get closer, we need to know the condition of the ground." She nods as we begin to pull the ship forward. "You know, I would never have been able see that, let alone tell how big it is..." She turned to me quickly. "So what? That makes me a good captain?" I shake my head. "No, it makes you a good team asset." Her stance becomes less hostile. "For the rest of the mission, why don't you stop thinking about what I can do, and focus on what you're good at hm?" She turns back to her controls with a silent nod just as we pull into position.

"Perfect, there's just enough room and the ground seems even enough, we'll land here and refuel...you think we should send out the ground team and IS unit?" I ask in attempt to allow her to take charge. "Yeah, it is our mission after all. The IS team can fly ahead while the ground team explores this crevice." Silence takes over the cockpit yet again as we begin to land. Once we touchdown I turn to the radio. "Ground and IS teams, are you ready to begin surveying?" A few seconds pass before a female voice replies. "Yes sir, we are all in the landing bay." I open the bay door. "Understood, we'll radio when refueling is complete." I watch out of the front window as a swarm of IS' fly off into the distance, before turning to see Kathy sleeping in her chair next to me, and before I know it, I'm asleep too.

"Captain! Are you there?!" A lots loud voice comes from the radio. I open my eyes to see Kathy leaning over me to the it. "What's the problem IS team?" "Our sensors, they're picking up...life forms." I jolt from my seat. "You can't be serious?" "Yes sir, I'm serious, what are we...What is the procedure we are supposed to follow here?" I look to Kathy, and she looks to me, but it seemed neither of us know. She grabs the radio. "Just exercise caution until you know if they are friendly or not." "And if not?" "Don't use lethal force unless your overwhelmed." And that was the end of it. "Do you still feel like you're not cut out for this?" She doesn't speak, she just glares at me. "What?" She lowers her head. "Well...maybe I just don't want to do this anymore..."

Her words floated around in my head for a while before I decided to speak. "Well...why not? You've got it good here you know?" "I know, but don't forget I was forced to be here, I just figured its time I left my family behind and did something for myself for once." I decide not to ask any more questions. "Okay, well alright, great. We'll have to do something for you when we get back." She smiles at me. "Thanks David, you made this much easier than I thought it would be. I smile back without a word and turn back to my controls. Some body speaks through the radio immediately after I am facing forward. "Captain, their coming at us pretty quick, and there's more of them than we thought, orders?" I grab the radio this time. "Can you see them?" "Yes sir, they are pretty big and almost insect like, no ranged capabilities by the looks of it." I turn from the radio. "They aren't humanoid? Interesting..." And I turn back. "Climb as high as you can, don't engage, this could just be a migration that you happened to be in the path of." "Yes sir, doing it no...wait a second, that one looks different...what's it...its glowi..." The radio went silent.

"IS unit? What's your situation?" Still no response. "Recall the ground team and halt refueling...we need to take off..." Said Kathy with a shaken look on her face. "They're dead David..and whatever killed them is heading for us..." I didn't argue as I once again turned on the radio. "Ground team, hostile life forms are heading your way. Double time back to the ship, we are getting out of here. Engineering we have adequate fuel to take off and find a new landing zone, cease refueling procedures." "On the way. Did IS squadron make it back okay?" I pause for a moment to think of the right way to answer his question. "No. We haven't re-established contact with them yet." No response. "Refueling halted safely sir. Ready for launch." I turn away from the radio. "We'll be fine Kathy. Once ground team gets back we can get away from here." She nods slowly "I...I know its just, I've never had someone die on a mission before." "So you blame yourself? How could we have known there would be hostile life here?" She turns quickly towards me quickly in anger. "You mean you don't even feel bad?! People just died! People with families David." She has tears in her eyes. "Families who will hold us responsible...I should have told them to fall back." "I thought you knew better than to have regrets in this line of work. You did what you thought was right, there isn't anything wrong with that." She seems to calm down a little though she still has tears in her eyes. "Okay...your right, I'm sorry David. Let's just get out of here."

"Captain, We have an earthquake down here. We might take a little longer to get back." It took a little longer for me and Kathy to realize what was really happening. "Ground team! find cover or get to higher ground!" Kathy screamed into the radio. "Oh God! What are those?! They're huge! Climb quick!" "Sir they are too fast." "Then take them down! Don't let 'em reach the ship" I hear gunfire coming through the radio "Are you sure our weapons are strong enough? The shot isn't piercing the armor at all!" "Your right...Captain, can you still hear us? You need to take off now! Find a place to fully refuel and head home, this is to risky." Kathy was frozen in fear, so I turned back to the radio. "Yes sir, I'll make sure your families are taken care of, thank you all for your bravery." "Thank you sir, hurry and get out of here." I could hear a barrage of gunfire and panicked voices before the radio went silent once again. "Okay everybody, were getting out of here, prepare for launch." I turn back to Kathy. "They sacrificed themselves so we could get away, let's not let that be for nothing." She nods and takes a tight grip on her controls.

I countdown to launch in a cold sweat with thoughts of not making it off of this planet slowly drifting into my head, I try my hardest to keep my composure, but my hands just won't stop shaking. I don't know if Kathy notices or not, she doesn't say a word until we are in the air. "We'll need to send out some of the ship's security once we land. I'll be going with them too." All my fears vanished from my mind, and were replaced by confusion. "What would that do?" She shrugs her shoulders. "If those things show up again I'll do my best to keep them alive..." "And what? Get yourself killed in the process? This isn't the time to be irrational. Besides I need you here if we need to take off again." "I'm sorry, but I'm not okay with abandoning people up here, I'll be going." There really was no arguing with her when she got like this. "Fine, you take your IS then, along with the IS capable security officers, any life signs you all come straight back, understand?" She nods without a word and we continue to scan the surface. I hear a large crash and the ship appears to falter. "Captain, we've been hit! Something is firing at us from below! They got a couple of the engines!" Another explosion cuts the transmission short. "Somebody, speak to me! What happened?!" No response, only more explosions. The ship begins to fall. "Anybody listening, brace yourselves." I release my now useless controls and strap my self tightly in my seat.

The bottom of the ship hit the ground hard, but me and Kathy were okay, miraculously. "We'll be okay." Said Kathy, not sounding convinced of it herself. "We'll just wait here, they'll send somebody." I try the radio, and luckily its still working. "Is everybody okay? Can anybody hear me?" A voice I recognize comes back. "Yes sir...I'm okay. The camera crew weren't as lucky though and I can't get a signal back to earth. May I ask what is going on?" "We've been attacked by hostile life. It seems they may have used some sort of laser weapon to hit our engines. Where are you?" There's a pause. "I was in the crews quarters, but this place is devastated. It doesn't look a thing like it did before. All of the doors here are sealed or so damaged that they won't open. I need a environment suit to go through the sealed ones but there isn't any here..." "Okay stay put, I'll..." He interrupts me. Some thing just tore one of the doors open...its...one of them. It barely fit through the door, it just squeezed itself through." There is a short silence. "Oh god there's more, atleast five...they are looking at the bodies and...oh God." He gags. "They just started eating them, and...uh oh. No get away! Please no!" The transmission ends.

"I'm going to help. I need an environment suit and a weapon." Says Kathy while she stands from her chair. "You can't go! It's not safe!" She turns back to me violently. "And being up here waiting to die is? They'll find their way up here eventually and kill us just the same, I want to atleast try to fight back." She turns to the door again. "It would help me a lot if you came with me." I stay in my chair for a little, hearing her words repeat in my head infinite times, but she it's right, I can't just accept death. I stand up and walk up to her. "Okay. Let's get our environment suits on, then we can head to the security team's armory." I did as she said, but not long before the ground began to shake once again. "They must be heading this way, We need to get out. Do you have your IS right now?" She showed me her ring finger before sliding the environment suit over it. "There's not enough space in the ship though, so when we get out I'll activate it and carry you out of their path." I pause to think "And...then what?" She shrugs hopelessly "Since our communication's went down I imagine they would be sending people up here to find us, should take atleast a week for a small rescue ship to launch and get here." I really have no choice but to hope she is right, though surviving a week here won't be easy

"First things first, let's find our way out." I say while masking my fear. "The reporter said a lot of the rooms were exposed to the atmosphere, so I'm sure we can use whatever holes in the ship we find, but let's hurry." Without a word we both rush out of the door and start checking all the rooms, and we do eventually find one without trouble, In the engineering deck..but...there's blood everywhere. Kathy bends over and begins to gag. I look around and notice multiple body parts on the ground, as well as some organs. I pick Kathy up and force myself to look away. "Whatever did this is still in the ship, we need to hurry." The rumbling was a lot more intense now. She stood with an absent look in her face and activated her IS grabbed me and flew towarda the hole, but we were stopped, something had taken hold of Kathy's leg while she was floating. I fell to the ground as she was yanked backwards, and then I finally saw it, the white monster that the reporter described. Three of them standing over Kathy who was only staring back unsure of what to do.

One of them grabbed her leg yet again and lifted her by it, only to have the other two grab her arms and pull, causing her environment suit to tear, and I can't do a thing. I'm just hoping that she'll suffocate before they can do anything. As for me, I've given up, I know I can't escape, so I just sit in silence listening to Kathy slowly inch toward death, waiting for the creatures to get bored with her and come to me. I look up to see Kathy lying on the ground in pieces, still barely alive with only one leg left on her body and gasping for air, her will to scream for help long dead. One of the creatures grabs her foot and lifts her up and slowly lowers her head into its mouth, biting down with extreme force causing Kathy's body to jolt before going entirely limp. She's dead...I don't know if I should be happy for her or not, but that's the last thing on my mind.

After reducing Kathy to nothingness, the creatures turn to me quickly surrounding the spot where I sat frozen by what I had just seen. I take a second to regret not jumping to my death in through the hole behind me, I try to run for it, but before I can reach it I'm shoved to the ground by one of the creatures. They waste no time trying to pull me to pieces like they had with Kathy. I feel my arms pop out of their sockets and try to hide my pain, but they only seem to pull harder. My legs give way and the skin begins to tear. I feel a searing pain in my arms and legs as my body falls to the floor. I look up to see the creatures putting my body parts into their gaping mouths. I haven't even realized up until now that I can't breath, I'm hoping with every ounce of my being that my life will end before I meet the same end as Kathy. I am swept up from the ground to meet one of the creatures face to face, I look it in its beady black eyes, and all I see is pure evil. I would have begged for mercy yet again, but I didn't have enough breath to speak. It put the lower half of my body into it's mouth, and I looked out to the others, who didn't seem to move. I knew there was no way out, so I closed my eyes to prepare for it, I felt its teeth squeezing the life from my body, the taste of blood in my mouth intensifies as the world begins to darken around me. I feel my body fall one more time before I can see nothing but darkness, and I can no longer feel anything.