Writing Colonies XXXIII: A Sample of "Aquaria"

I'm about a third of the way through Book Eleven right now, and I've just started the portion that may intrigue you the most.  

If you want to read part of it, click the JUMP.

VIII
BELLO
The Day of the Fall of the Colonies

"That's as far as we go!"  Akina stood from her seat and looked down the aisle of the bus.  "We have to walk from here."

The vulcanologist exited first and zipped her heavy red coat as she did.  The other two buses braked behind hers and soon disgorged their passengers.  Heavily bundled in winter clothes, the group of scientists and visitors gathered near the end of the road.

She raised her voice to be heard, "This is the portion of the trip where we walk!"  She pointed behind herself, "Once we're off the snow-covered tephra, the rock becomes firmer!  Mind any sharp edges you see because it may be volcanic glass and very dangerous!  We have a good hike ahead of us, so let's gather our gear and start moving!"

The drivers of the buses had emptied the cargo bays underneath and the one hundred seventy-six people perused the bags for their own.  They hoisted them onto their shoulders and some of the chaperones lugged the trolleys of extra supplies and equipment.  Slowly, the group walked away from the buses and into the low, dark gray hills.  There was a path, and Akina led the way.  At the top of the first section, she looked down to the road and watched the buses turn around and drive back south. 

"Watch your step," she said.  "There are loose rocks along here."  She stopped at the level portion and let a dozen or so people walk by.  When she rejoined the group, she watched one man as his head scanned from left to right, surveying the ground all around himself.  "What are you looking for?"

He turned around and realized she was talking to him.  "Oh.  Scoria.  My daughter wanted me to bring her back a pretty rock, and I know it can have crystals …"

"Sure.  I usually see scoria in the south.  Better mineral content there for it to form.  Just look for a blue sheen.  That's the first sign."

"OK, thanks."

She quickened her pace to return to the front of the group.  "And if you don't find one, I can give you a piece.  I have plenty of scoria back at the station."

He smiled.  "Thank you."

Bello walked ahead of the others and stopped again, yelling down to the bulk of the hikers, "Once we get to the top, the climb is much easier!"  Within the hour, they arrived on the ridge below Helca. 

"We can take a break here," she took off her backpack and watched as the last of the people came up the path.  "See?"  She pointed toward the volcano.  "Much closer than before."

"Another day or two?" and older man asked. 

"A day and change.  We'll make camp as high up as we can.  Then we can make short trips to the nearest fissures.  The primary fissure is too large and active to go near on foot, but there's a spot we can go to see it."

"Is it still active?"

"Very.  There are four active volcanoes here in the north.  Seven in the south.  Not to worry, though.  The last major eruption was sixty years ago and we know the conditions Helca experienced before that.  The status is monitored from the station and conditions aren't the same as they were.  Otherwise, we would've cancelled the trip."

No one else seemed to have any questions and she looked for another red-coated scientist.  She spied geologist Jeremy Yazid and nodded toward him.  He said, "Alright, everyone!  You see the white flags on the slope up there?  That's where we're going to make camp for the night!  We can make it by nightfall, but we've got to move on!"  Akina lingered and let Jeremy lead them for a time. 

"So cold," an older woman said.  "I wish we could've done this during the summer."

"It'll get warmer the closer we get," Bello said.  "When we make camp, you'll feel it for sure."

A man behind her asked, "Why didn't we go during the summer?"

A bit of pumice crunched beneath her boot and Akina looked down at the debris.  "Helca was a bit too active then.  And If we waited any later, it would be too cold up here for a trip.  It was now or never."

Complainers.  Always a few every trip.

She and the other scientists weren't often enthused for these expeditions.  More tourists than fellow scientists.  Babysitting.  However, doing at least three each year was enough to fill in the gaps of the budget to maintain the research station and provide welcome amenities for those experts who found themselves in the farthest reaches of the Four Systems.  Saving some of the money, too, was a way to fund trips back home.  She was still at least one more tour away from being able to visit Picon for the first time in three years.

The sun was setting and the wind whipped at their backs.  The line of huddled, fur-lined jackets marched up the hill toward the wide flat space, nestled among several boulders.  The guides ahead had already begun to erect the large tents and the tourists mostly sat on the ground, catching their breath. 

"Any problems?" Bello asked as she rejoined the other guides.

"Just a scraped knee," Jeremy said.

"No," the oceanographer, Aubrey Conner, said.

"Good."  Akina took off her pack and helped hammer a post into the rock.  The tent remained standing and she looked into the sky.  "It's a shame Kelly didn't come with us.  They usually like the star talks she gives."  She stood and faced the crowd.  "Time to eat!"

While most of the people talked as they ate their prepackaged meals around the small campfires and lanterns, Bello sat apart, leaning against one of the boulders and looking toward the sky.  Her hood was down and she felt the grit of the rock against the crown of her head. 

"Which one is that?"

"Hmm?"

The man who had earlier been looking for scoria was pointing at a bright star in the sky.  "Is that Gamma?"

"Beta.  Gamma would be brighter."

"Oh."

He was sitting, cross-legged, in his heavy blue jacket.  He took a bite of some kind of fruit or nut bar, still partially wrapped in its foil, and brought his hands back to his lap.  "What's your name?" she asked.

"Stuart.  Stuart Cole."

"I'm Akina."

"I know, Dr. Bello." 

She smiled and closed her eyes. 

A few moments later, he said, "Huh."  She heard him stand, so she opened her eyes.  He raised binoculars to his face and asked, "What's that?"

She looked into the southern sky.  "I don't see anything."

He looked toward her and offered the binoculars.  "I thought I saw a couple of flashes."

"Might be meteors."  She looked where he pointed and saw a flash.  "Another one."

"You saw it, too?"

"Yeah."  She turned the dial on the binoculars to focus better, but she could only see a few distant spots.  She didn't know what they were; only that they weren't stars.  She got to her feet and called out, "Does anyone have a telescope?"

"I do."  A man stood up and opened his backpack.  Bello, Stuart, and a few others crowded around.  He removed the tube and a tripod and quickly erected it.

"What was that?"  Now most of the hikers were looking into the southern sky.  "I saw a flash in space."

"Aquaria has an orbital platform, right?"  A few people nodded.  "An old refueling station?" a woman said.  "Maybe it flew overhead or something."

The telescope man removed the caps and said, "Here you go."

"Thanks."  Akina got on her knees and looked through the eyepiece.  After a dizzying moment of reorienting it, she focused it and found the three dots, though they no longer appeared as dots.  They were all long, six-pointed stars.  They appeared white or perhaps yellow in the light reflected off the surface of the planet or from the light of Delta.  "They're ships, I think."  They were unlike anything she had ever seen, but she grew uneasy.

"Can I see?" Cole asked.  She backed away.  He looked into the telescope and described everything while Bello stared into space.  "Whoa.  Yeah, ships.  They look like stars or flowers.  Long arms, six of them."  He then left the eyepiece so the telescope's owner could look.

While Stuart resumed looking through his binoculars, the telescope man said, "One of them's moving.  Fast."  He made small adjustments to the telescope's position.  "It's changing shape.  Now it looks like just … three arms?"

All the hikers were standing and looking south.  They chattered among themselves.

"What are they?"

"It's just some ships in orbit.  So what?"

Akina said aloud, "What is happening?"

From the horizon in the far south, a light swelled.  It grew and grew until it became a flash that spread into the sky over their heads and it was followed quickly by two more flashes.  The crowd gasped and backed away as the glow faded and the night sky resumed its normal appearance.

Stuart lowered the binoculars, blinking his eyes rapidly.  He refocused on her and asked, "What was that?"

Her mouth went dry and she continued to stare at the horizon.  The people around her began to stand and walk around, speaking louder and louder.  Some began to gather their gear.  A few tried to take down their tents.

Ships in orbit.  Three large, distant explosions.  Likely at Heim.

At that realization, the ground began to quake around them.  It wasn't violent, but instead a light shaking, enough to dislodge equipment from their stands or rocks where they had been placed.  Everyone stopped what they were doing and waited for the tremor to stop, and it did after several seconds, slowly fading away.  Then the group panicked.

Heim is about four hundred kilometers away.  The quake came about a minute after the explosion.  The sound will be here ... a minute after that.

Bello climbed atop the nearest boulder and waved her arms.  "Everyone!  Quiet!  Quiet!  Stop!"  A few of the people complied, but those farthest from her didn't.  Other guides did the same as she and got onto the rocks or hillside to call for calm.  "Listen!"

On the dark slopes beneath the northern volcanoes, they heard only the wind.  Then, in the silence, there came a low sound from the south.  It never grew in volume beyond a distant angry hum, but it lasted for nearly a minute before it vanished.  Astounded and quiet, the people looked toward her.

Akina nodded.  "This was an attack."  The people gasped again and they began to crowd around.  "I believe those were nuclear weapons, at least three warheads, which struck Heim."  Dear gods.  The station will be gone, too.  Her throat clenched and she nearly couldn't continue.  After she grunted and cleared it, she said, "We …  I will consult with my fellow guides and we'll develop a plan."

She jumped off the rock and walked through the people.  One of them broke the haunted quiet and asked, "What about the other Colonies?"  The dam broke thereafter.

"Who has a wireless?!"

"Who did this?"

"What about Caprica?!  Was Caprica attacked?!"

The group surged toward her, pushing her, and Jeremy reached into the fray and pulled her arm.  "Back off!" he yelled.  "Back off!  We don't know anything!"  The group of red-coated scientists entered one of the tents and stood in a huddle at the center.  A few of them were wiping tears from their eyes and Aubrey simply shook her head over and over.  "Alright.  What do we do?"

"Can we get to the station?"

Bello looked toward the younger woman and said, "Heim was just hit by three warheads.  The station was only a few kilometers outside the city.  It's gone."

"But," she looked at the others in horror, "Terry!  Kelly!"

"I know."

"Isar!"

Quinn Mitra put his arm around her shoulders.  "Sun.  Lale.  Chris."  Now she buried her face into his chest and cried.

"OK," Akina said, focusing on Jeremy.  "We have one hundred seventy people here.  We have to find safety and, hopefully, a source of food."

Quinn said, "In the morning, I say we …"

"There's no 'in the morning'," Bello interrupted.  "If this was an attack, then there are enemies up there.  Enemies who may come down here and start hunting for us."  Mitra nodded.  "We have to find a place and leave now."

"Torfi," Jeremy said.  "Dormant caldera.  Lots of tunnels and underground chambers."

"How far?"

"Forty kilometers to the east.  Near the sea."

Akina shook her head.  "That would take days."

Another vulcanologist, Felisa Rie, suggested, "Grimes.  It's not very active and there's a trench near the base with tunnels and access to springs." 

"I know that one," Bello said.  "Fifteen, twenty kilometers northwest?"

"Yes."

"OK.  I'm sure Torfi would be fine, but it's too far."

"No, you're right.  Grimes sounds good."

"Are we in agreement?"  Only Quinn, Jeremy, and Felisa appeared to be fully engaged in the conversation.  They nodded while the other guides cried or simply appeared dazed.  "Then let's go."

Outside the tent, they found someone calming and organizing the people.  "It'll be OK.  Yes?  Good.  Now get your pack.  We're going to find some shelter."

"Thank you," Akina said.

He turned and smiled.  A dark man, tall, and with a bald head.  "Happy to help," he said in a very deep voice.  "In case it's needed at any point, I am a medical doctor."

"Oh, thank the gods," Bello said.  She extended her hand.  "Akina."

"Simon."

"Pleased to meet you."

Thanks for reading.