Seclurm: Devolution by Noah Gallagher

Author:Noah Gallagher [Gallagher, Noah]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2021-04-29T22:00:00+00:00

12

Sam Tokoharu felt like he had time now to think. More time than he’d had in days. There was time to process the events that had just concluded in the death of the alien, and he allowed thoughts to flow through his head freely, free from fear that sparing time for such unfocused thoughts would result in something horrible happening to him or his friends.

He had left the preserved Rosalyn in the cryo-pod and was now sitting on his mattress on the Bridge drinking lots of water and resting. He thought on how each of them had, whether they admitted it or not, signed up for the possibility of a life-threatening scenario such as this when they had agreed to search unexplored corners of space. He didn’t like it any more than the others, but he didn’t feel any animosity towards FAER like a few of the others seemed to. As horrible as this was, it was an occupational hazard, albeit one that had never been actually encountered before.

Things would change greatly in the space travel field following this unprecedented event. Imagination conjured up in his head a rapidly-approaching metamorphosis for the ongoing space race. Many small-time mining companies reducing the scope of their projects or perhaps dropping out of the field altogether. Larger companies and organizations like FAER, SpaceX, and NASA stepping back to reassess everything they thought they knew about space travel and the universe itself. The eventual return into space being done with extreme caution, new weapons being developed and employed, armed guards joining astronauts every time they went to places uncharted.

All those thoughts, however, were being gradually gnawed away at by a rising hunger within him. He hadn’t eaten since that morning, and it was now well past lunchtime. All the food they possessed had been loaded up with Randy and Terri’s carrier, since they didn’t want to waste any in the event that Randy and Terri could not be advised to return to the ship.

So, although all he really wanted was to rest easily, the unanswered question of where his crewmates had gone as well as his own hunger would drive him to suit up once more and go search for them.

He couldn’t help but feel angry at them. He knew he was likely overreacting, but they were making things more difficult than they had to be by heading further into the ruins. What could possibly have driven them to do that? The agreed-upon plan was for them to wait and periodically check in to see how things were going, and if they heard no response, they were to move the carrier elsewhere on the planetoid’s surface and hide from the alien until FAER’s rescue vessel arrived. It was past time for them to check in. Why weren’t they keeping up their part?

The thought that they may be in danger popped into his mind then, stoking a feeling of guilt for being angry at them. But what danger would they be in? The alien had been killed, and it lay a bloody pulp in the bowels of the ship.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.