Angels among us

Photo Source: www.hereisfree.com

Anton wiped a marginally cleaner, gloved hand across his dusty visor. The darkness was creeping across the sky as the red dwarf sun sank below the ravaged horizon. His team had managed to locate and recover at least fifty indigenous remains during the thirty-six terran-hour daylight period. They needed to return to base. Night was wont to fall quickly and savagely on Tengri.


Three terran-hours later, the five of them sat at the cramped table in the mess hall of their cruiser. They had all been processed through the decontamination chamber. Tom had cloaked the ship, activated the shield, and was serving up a brown stew of unidentifiable lumps. “The last of the protein mix”, was his apologetic comment.


“Thanks, Tom.” Sarah sounded as tired and dispirited as the rest of them.


“A whole five-day, and we still have not found sign of him.” Gimbol’s forehead creased in frustration.


“Are we sure he was even here, Anton?” ever cynical, Dobra voiced what they had all thought as they had moved tonnes of rubble in their search.


“The last signal came from the site, not more than six Tengri days ago. He was here.”


“Goddam Thorian. What was he doing here, of all places?” Sharven groused.


“He was under cover. Need to know, and we don’t. We are just the stiffs to recover his body.”


“What if we don’t find him?”


“Then we need to nuke the site. Destroy all biological evidence.”


The cruiser trembled.


“Bloody avians! How can they even see us?” Dobra wiped dribbled stew from the table.


“Tom, try the electro-magnetic dampening field.”


The assault ceased.


“We will lay the nukes tomorrow, and head back to HQ before dark.”


They waited for the pale red daybreak to head out to the site. The land buggy bounced across the endless plains of rubble. As with every morning so far, the neat rows of recovered bodies had been removed, with no sign as to who had taken them and where they had gone.


Anton had set the last charge when a high pitched whine penetrated the thick skin of his helmeted exo-suit.


“Anybody else hear that?” Sarah sounded shaken.


“Regroup at the buggy. Now.” Anton’s tone brooked no argument.


Dobra was the last to scramble into the protective shell of the land buggy when the ground at the centre of the search site erupted.


Above the vast cloud of dust a huge, leather-winged avian dipped into view. It appeared to be dragging something from the rubble in its extended hind legs. Moving at an impossible speed towards the buggy, it looked, for all the world, like a fantastic dragon. It swooped down in front of the small battered vehicle, dropping its load, and veering sharply, it flew off into the distant. It took the stunned crew a few moments to register what had happened. Anton leaped out of the buggy, running awkwardly in his suit to the crumpled heap.


“It’s Thorian. Quick. Help me get him loaded. He is alive.”


500 word stories


©Kim Magennis 2016