It took less than twenty minutes for Rush and the rest of the team to gather everything they needed and meet in the gate room, the pools rich blue-silver light bouncing around the space looking more magical than scientific. The planet – or Warville as Greer had dubbed it – awaited, a mystery to be discovered. Greer and Volker stepped through first followed by Varro who wore a pleasant smile, he really was looking forward to fresh air, even if it was in an apocalyptic city. Rush clipped his sand colored rucksack closed and threw it over his shoulder just in time to catch Cressida who came charging into the room somewhat faster than she had twenty minutes ago, it turned out that the other outfit Chloe had made for her consisted of a pair of pants that looked a little like leggings and a matching top with three-quarter sleeves; Chloe really had put in a lot of effort and he could tell Cress appreciated it.
"Daddy, let me come with you!" Rush couldn't quite tell whether it was a question, a plea or a demand she said it so fast. "Mommy said I couldn't but please, please please-" Rush cut her off when he caught sight of Chloe trailing after their daughter.
"You're Mother is right." He told the girl in his arms softly, unaware of Lieutenant Scott's eyes on him.
"I'll be good." She told him quickly, it was easy to see she was desperate. "I just want to see the sun."
Oh that broke his heart. The sun, such a simple thing that she'd been denied because of how she'd been created.
"She'll be alright for a little while." James smiled, she'd taken a liking to the little girl. "There's four military personnel and Varro too."
"It's an unexplored planet." Scott objected.
"I've had the Kino running since we first discovered the planet; no radiation, no animals, no people." For a second Brody wondered why he was helping the kid, he didn't like her that much. "She'll be fine."
"Alright."
Rush consented, he knew he should have said no but the look in her eyes ripped down his resolve and made him putty in her hands. Cressida beamed with joy.
"Rush-" Chloe began but Rush quickly cut her off.
"We have to check in an hour from now, so how about she can come until then?"
Chloe thought it over for a few moments, she worried for her child but at the same time knew that Cress couldn't be forced to remain on Destiny every time the came to a new planet. This one seemed reasonably safe though, not that Destiny was safe, maybe it would be alright? It's just an hour Chloe, she'll be fine. Cressida is mature for her age, maybe that's a good thing the Nakai did to her, the dark-haired mother muttered to herself.
"Okay." She relented before looking down at Cress. "But you do what he says when he says it."
Cressida nodded happily in her father's arms.
"And you don't leave my sight." He added sternly.
"No, I won't wander off. I promise, Daddy." Cressida was practically giddy.
She waved to her Mother over Rush's shoulder as they stepped through the gate and tried not to pay attention to the concern on the elder woman's face. Everything tingled when they entered the pool, it wasn't cold but not warm either and there was a strange high pitched buzzing that seemed far away. For the briefest of seconds Cressida lost the touch of her Father and felt like she was floating through a void, then suddenly he was back holding her in his arms like it had never happened.
Cressida opened her eyes to see long pale grass and broken tarmac with weeds growing up through the irregular cracks, honey eyes shot up to the sky and squinted at the bright orange sun hanging in a blue-purple sky; it was beautiful. Rush just watched her with a smile, she'd never seen anything like this before, just metal hallways and goo lined tanks. Cressida was a little girl – his little girl – not a science experiment. She clung to him tighter and tighter as her awe rose.
There were so many buildings, some tall some large, all made of a dark blue substance that looked to be a cross between marble and hard metal, there were next to no windows and those that did exist had nothing but dusty shattered shards of glass remaining. Stood in the not too far distance were what could only be described as two sky-scrappers, one had around fifty floors while the other had half collapsed and now rested against the other,it's roof half inside the middle of the other sky-scrapper. All the buildings had been half-reclaimed by nature, grass and trees intertwining with broken metal and destroyed glass, whatever had happened to this world had been a very long time ago.
Rush found the derelict city before him strangly beautiful, the way nature had slowly reclaimed had a certain charm, leaves of green re-moulding everything into a new paradise. Though destroyed everything seemed peaceful. Tranquil.
"Do you like it?" That was a silly question, of course she liked it.
"It's... beautiful." Her voice full of wonder.
Lieutenant Scott stepped through next to them unintentionally ruining the moment and quickly grabbed everyone's attention while straightening his jet black baseball cap. Rush silently set his daughter down beside him and held her soft little hand in his.
"Right, Cressida is with us until the first check in so keep an eye on her." Volker opened his mouth to grumble just as the gate shut off but Scott just continued to talk. "Let's do a check of the general area, Varro and Barnes stay with the others, James and Greer you're with me."
Matt, Greer and James fanned out while Nicholas and Volker set to work with the help of Cress, Rush adored that she was like him because it made him feel like she really was his daughter; of course she is! Cress has my DNA no matter what those blue bastards did! Sometimes Rush needed to remind himself of that. He'd have carried her about since she didn't have any shoes but he needed his hands to work, maybe Chloe had an idea on how to make her some.
Everything around them was strangely silent which was just a bit ominous, he'd expected some kind of wildlife but there was nothing. Varro and Corporal Barnes kept an eye out while Volker took samples of a fruit he'd found growing on a tree that jutted up from some kind of caved in tunnel system, it looked like a lemon but smelt of almonds, a quick pH test revealed his suspicions to be correct. Cyanide. Best not to eat this then, he grumbled to himself. Rush dug up a small amount of soil to test but when he turned to his bag to get a tube for it he found Cressida had pulled it into her cross-legged lap, a second later it was handed to him.
"Thank you." He smiled, Cress liked to help.
A good forty-five minutes passed like that, quiet work, but then the sun started to set; from what they could tell due to the size of the planet and the angle of the sun, sunset took hours. Cressida had never seen it before and found it beautiful, she also found herself wandering off towards one of the half demolished buildings hoping for a staircase she could climb to get a better look, she knew she shouldn't – she'd promised her Daddy she'd stay in sight – but her bare feet carried her off anyway.
"Cress, can I have another tube?" Rush asked but got no response, his head shot up to fine his bag but not daughter. "Cressida?" She was gone. "Cressida!" Volker would be no help, he'd had his back to them for a while but how had Varro and Barnes not seen her wander off; what sort of a look out were they? "Cressida!"
Meanwhile Cress had indeed found the staircase she'd wanted but couldn't hear her father through the thick blue walls despite them being half gone. The space around her looked like it had once been a home of some kind, there were three cut outs in the walls and a ladder that looked like built in bunk beds, large triangles arranged in a circle had been placed in the roof like skylights and actually still had a faint pinkish glass in them, though it was beyond dusty. A strange silver-red engraving hung by the door she'd walked in through that Cress thought was some kind of flower but other than that there was no decoration.
"Cressida!"
The little girl jolted upon hearing her Father yelling and charged back down the stairs almost slamming into Varro and knocking the blonde to the ground, he righted himself quickly and picked her up with a come on, you'd Daddy is worried. She'd not meant to disobey or worry him, Cress had just been curious.
"Doctor Rush I've got her." Varro called out as soon as the others came into view, in less than a single heartbeat Rush filled his arms with her.
"What did I say!?" He didn't mean to yell at her but he'd just been so scared, it was getting dark, she could of fallen and hurt herself. "Don't wander off again." He added a little more softly.
"I'm sorry, Daddy." Cress cuddled into the crook of his neck, she was smart enough to know his anger was born of concern. "I didn't mean to upset you."
"I know." He breathed against her forehead. "You're just brave and curious like your Mother."
"Run!" Screamed Volker at the top of his lungs.
XXXX
Lieutenants Scott and James along with Sargent Greer had ended up taking a leisurely stroll through the destroyed city with nothing to show for it, the place was void of anyone or anything, the buildings were mainly homes as far as they could gather while a few of the piles of rubble looked as though the could have once been stores, James quickly came to the conclusion whoever had inhabited Warville, as Greer was still calling it, hadn't been too different from humans. They'd started back almost ten minutes before but Greer had come across a jet black door they'd not notice before, it was thick and yet bent completely off its hinges as though a truck had driven into it at full force. Curiously they approached with weapons raised.
Inside there was nothing but dust and darkness, the space was a black hole illuminated only by their flashlights, the place was, for lack of a better term, an underground parking lot or store room. Everything was cold and dank with a thick layer of rubble and twisted metal where one of the upper floors had caved in, their lights glanced over the whole room slowly.
"It looks like someone was living down here." Said Scott when his flashlight ghosted over a pile of tattered fabric that had once been clothing.
"Oh God, what's that smell?" James quickly covered her mouth and nose with one hand but it didn't do much to help fend off the stench, it smelt of sweat and rancid blood.
"Maybe whoever lived here died, could be decay." Greer muttered.
Lieutenant Scott panned his beam of light a little further to the left and stopped dead, bodies, more than he could even start to count. They were bone white and coated in faded scraps of fabric and blackened blood, they looked humanoid save for the extra set of arms though some of the bodies were missing limbs.
"Em, guys."
James and Greer turned, all three lights gathering on the pile, James gasped while Greer just raised an eyebrow. Suddenly the pile started to move and creek, the bodies crawled over one another so slowly at first that the three humans weren't sure they were moving at all, and then all of a sudden twenty or thirty sets of dead black eyes locked on them. No one said a word they simply started firing, muzzle flash lighting up the room like a disco, some of the creatures fell to the ground only to get back up while others didn't even react to being shot. Scott screamed for them to fall back and everyone ran, Greer pulled the bent door as far closed as it would go before following.
They raced the short distance back to the gate but never got there, the sound of Barnes firing her weapon reached them just before Rush, Cress and the others came into view hauling ass away from more of the bone white monsters. The sun had almost set when the two groups met and darted down a small side street half blocked by rubble, they managed to clamber through two by two and Rush never let go of Cress; if anyone had been thinking anything beyond run they'd have been amazed at how quickly he could scrabble over the stone blockage with her in his arms.
How everyone managed to keep up as they darted around corners and over destruction they weren't quite sure, those things just kept coming clambering over one another in an attempt to grab of the newcomers; that was probably the only thing slowing them down enough for Rush and the others to stay ahead of them. Darting around yet another corner Rush ground to a dead stop with Cressida still securely in his arms leaving everyone else to race past him, he looked up at a ladder next to him that went all the way to the roof of a two story building, it appeared sturdy, glancing back those monsters hadn't turned the corner yet.
"Stop running and yet the hell up here!"
Heads turned at Rush's words, feet as well once they say him give Cress a piggyback and start clambering up the ladder as fast as possible. It was a race against time to reach the roof before the monsters figured out which way they'd turned, Volker, Barnes, Varro, James, Scott they all bolted up the ladder as fast as they could go leaving only Greer who'd been leading the charge down the street. As soon as his foot touched the ladder the herd appeared at the far end of the street, Greer knew if he went up that ladder they'd only follow and trap the others.
"Over here ya freaks!"
With a deep breath he fired at the mass of white multi limbed bodies coming towards him attracting their attention before turning and racing down the apocalyptic street and out of sight.
"I'll loop back!" Were his parting words.