Subterranean
Authors: Jacob Gralnick
Subterranean
By Jacob Gralnick
Copyright
Subterranean
is a work of fiction. Names, places, and incidents either are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.
Copyright © 2014 by Jacob Gralnick. All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced, or stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, or otherwise, without express written permission of the publisher.
Published in the United States of America by Jacob Gralnick.
Cover designed by Jason Gralnick.
Dedication
To my brother for his perpetual aid.
To my mother for her unconditional love.
To my father for his abundant support.
To my sister for her unmatched understanding.
To myself for triumphing over all obstacles.
Author’s Note
Hope and trust are beautiful things.
One gives a person the will to live.
The other makes it worth living.
Table of Contents
An Unforeseen Enemy
The alien race that was demolishing his planet was a ruthless one, certainly desiring to continue its bloody campaign until nothing but charred corpses and melted rubble remained. They were unlike the other aliens that humans had come in contact with; most of those were benevolent and peaceful, seeing humanity as a species with the potential to achieve what they already had. But these aliens, these “Ravagers”, or so the news labeled them, didn’t even give diplomacy a chance before they started blasting the surface of Earth with their otherworldly weapons.
He cursed the others he sat with on the evacuation ship almost as much as he cursed himself for their cowardly uselessness; a little speck of humanity refusing to struggle against impossible odds. As much as he hated leaving, he knew he had to. His species alone couldn’t stop the bloody crusade that threatened their very existence… he needed assistance, or at least that’s what he told himself. In truth, he was onboard an evacuation spaceship with no real destination, no real goal, other than to escape and survive. They could’ve gone to the other species humans had established relations with, but the navicomputer was a blank slate, leaving no choice beyond aimless wandering.
It troubled him greatly when thoughts of his sister entered his mind, and how he’d been separated from her during the mass evacuation that saw most of the population desert the planet they once called home. The ones that weren’t stubborn enough to stay behind and buy the others time found themselves on the same type of ship Flynn was on: a lonely ship packed with people that wept in sorrowful despair as the thrusters pushed them further away from their beloved home.
Combat Amongst the Stars
Flynn slapped the controls of the cockpit in frustration. The pilot was dead, killed by the first volley of fire that had nearly destroyed the ship. He could see through the viewfinder that the enemy ship was indeed of the same make as the alien race that attacked his planet, and it was closing on their position fast. From what he could make out, almost all major systems were down, evident by the deafening blare of the alarms and blinding red lights that flashed to accompany the dreadfully obvious fact that their ship was badly damaged.
For some reason, although he knew there was little he could do, Flynn still felt like his frantic attempts to save himself and the passengers onboard were viable; there was always hope unless he’d given it up himself. He tried to shake off the death cries of children and mothers who fought bitterly to deny their fate while all of the men stood inside the cockpit, worriedly staring at him, channeling their energy of dependence into his already nervous body. He knew everyone was pinning their hopes on him pulling off some sort of miraculous escape.
He steeled himself and turned around to break the bad news, when suddenly an idea sprouted in his mind, lighting up his face with a searing ray of hope that glanced off of the group’s easing faces.
Lost in Space
He did everything he could, but it still wasn’t enough.
The ship was a wreck floating in space, chunks of its hull were missing, and a spewing cloud of engine coolant dissipated into the dark abyss. He was surprised the floating heap of scrap metal had still maintained hull integrity through the repeated blasts of the Ravagers’ deadly energy beam, mostly around life support and engineering where the bulk of the damage had been inflicted.
The crushing darkness was lifted only by a defiant glimmer coming from a single emergency light that was still powered on. It didn’t do much to calm him; in fact, it only revealed the corpses that lay around him, scarred by the explosions from his little plan to save everyone that’d gone wrong. He wasn’t sure if there was anyone still alive besides him; only his own echo wailed back as he sat, his arm badly injured by a plasma conduit that had blown right next to him.
The window he remembered gazing out of for days during the first part of the journey was black, dotted with tiny lights twinkling softly in the darkness, taunting him far off in the distance, their glinting eyes teasing his loneliness and misplacement. After a long battle, his despair got the better of him and the faint lights faded away behind his heavy eyelids.
A New Hope
The sharp light stabbed his eyes relentlessly until he yielded and parted them slowly. A refulgent orange color flooded the room he lay wounded in, bouncing off every corner and crevice that made up the thin walls keeping him from the deadly expanse of space. The glowing crescent shape that began to fill the window gave him the strength to stand, just barely.
He couldn’t believe what he was seeing, utterly shocked by the grand spectacle before him, he felt like a captain stranded at sea who awoke one morning to spot a strip of land in the distance. The glimmer of hope that was slipping away with his life suddenly burst alive, brilliantly revitalizing his body and spirit. He proceeded to head for the cockpit to enter orbit and establish communications, until he remembered there was no longer a cockpit aboard the ship.
Into the Unknown
It must have been pure luck, Flynn concluded.
He supposed he was close enough to let gravity pull him in towards the planet and the ship would naturally enter orbit, but he didn’t expect it to land on its own, too. He bit his fingernails anxiously, hoping the ship would withstand entry; a sensitive procedure like this had a high potential for catastrophic failure.
Still, it was the only thing he had to hope for. With the knowledge that fate was in complete control of his future, he rested his back on the wall and slid down to a seated position, holding in his injured arm and taking a deep sigh as the hull started to shake violently in an ominous signal that the rest of his life would either begin or end in the next few minutes.
A Hard Landing
The ship had been taken far beyond its threshold, and yet it was still going further. It must’ve been some sort of engineering miracle or scientific phenomenon that had kept the ship from tearing apart during entry into the planet’s atmosphere. Through the small window, Flynn could steadily make out the nearing surface of the orange planet as the dancing flames on the reinforced glass gradually dissipated.
It wasn’t pretty.
The vast expanse of desert laid out before him was a barren wasteland that looked hot and dry, broken only by some craggy rocks and belligerent creatures. On the way down, he thought he spotted a few of the creatures moving around in the sand, but they seemed far too big to be anything he’d ever seen. In a moment of realization, the approaching land ran at him fast, and he had only a split second to dive into the escape pod and slam the eject button before it would’ve been too late.
Survival Against All Odds
The escape pod crashed with considerable force, nearly tearing off the hatch that sealed Flynn inside. He’d been thrown around like a rag doll in the pod as it slid through sharp rocks, where little holes were sliced into the hull, allowing some light and sand to pour through. When everything was finally still, he lay quietly and tried to focus his blurred vision, but it didn’t do any good because it soon failed him along with his hearing that was eventually pounded into oblivion from the constant ringing.
When he next awoke, he felt far better and had full control over his sharpened senses, perhaps much to his dismay. He shot up when he remembered he was in a crashed escape pod on an alien planet, but summarily stopped himself midway and fell back clutching his wounded leg in pain. Twisted over to one side, it dripped blood into an expanding pool of red beneath him while it cried for attention. In a vain search for some sort of medical supplies to dress his wound, he groped around in the clouded darkness of the pod, deducing that it was now night time on the planet.
He couldn’t believe he’d slept for so long, especially after such a traumatic event; a good night’s sleep seemed impossible under such conditions. After giving up the search for medical supplies, he began his pitiful attempt to exit the overturned hunk of scrap metal.
All That Remains
Grunting as he made his way out of the pod, he wondered what he would find when his head emerged into the alien air. He made it to the hatch on his belly, but couldn’t get himself into a position to kick the weakened door open. He didn’t really want to try using his only good leg to kick something open anyway, possibly risking another injury and rendering himself immobile, so it was up to his hands.
It took a few hard punches, bloodying his knuckles and palms in the process, but the door soon flung open and fell to the ground. Climbing from the wreckage, he was granted a view of his salvation and, based on his predictions, his inevitable doom.
The fires that were once no doubt raging on the melting matter of his broken ship were reduced to glowing embers, hindering his vision of the stretching desert land even further as he gazed out to the far horizon. He could just barely make out the line separating sand from sky in the weak light of the two cold, tiny moons. Around him, the area looked like a really bad car accident that would’ve been the resting place of its misfortunate passengers. Fortunately for Flynn, however, he had survived… although by the pain that had just spiked through his body, maybe not for long.
Farewell, Old Friend
The planet looked like it was one big, hot desert during the day, but now it was almost unbearably cold; if water had fallen during the day, it would’ve been crystallized into ice before the two moons had the chance to reach their peak.
Limping around the crashed escape pod, Flynn examined the husk for anything useful that could be scavenged, anything that could help him fashion a crutch to help him walk. Feeling around in the numbingly cold darkness, he found a stick on the ground that was the perfect size and supported his weight just fine.
The burning smell of smoke from the modest embers surrounding him filled his lungs as he took one last, long look at the rubble and the symbol of Earth’s single nation emblazoned on its hull before taking his first step towards the unknown.
A Strange New World
After traveling for a good long time, he suddenly stopped and breathed a deep sigh of hopelessness. He had no idea where he was going and wasn’t even sure of his next move… that’s not to mention the fact that he could scarcely discern anything in a place so lacking in light. He looked over his shoulder to see if he could make out the crashed escape pod in the distance from where he came, but nothing was visible, not even the embers.
The moons were high in the sky by this time and he was struggling to keep himself steady atop his makeshift cane, desperately trying to suppress his ceaseless shivering in the cold night wind. He needed to find the wreckage of the main ship if he hoped to survive; there would be supplies and, possibly, depending on how well it managed the landing, a good shelter.
Although he’d seen the ship crash, he didn’t know what direction it was relative to his escape pod, so he clawed his way up a nearby hill with great trouble and collapsed at the top, smiling lightly when he was treated to a panoramic view of the landscape. Billows of white smoke off in the deep black distance acted like a signal pointing the way to the ship; the craggy rocks and crevices between him and his destination weren’t exactly ideal traveling conditions for his leg, but at least he knew where he was.
Shelter for the Stranded
Flynn desperately wanted to make the trek to the crashed ship as soon as possible, but the cold was getting unbearable and it was only midnight. He wasn’t sure how long the night would last on this alien planet, but he guessed it would be at least another few hours.
Scanning the environment for some sort of natural shelter, he was delighted to discover an entrance to a nearby cave. He carefully slid down the slope of the hill and hobbled his way over to the fairly large entrance of what was either a possible network of subterranean tunnels or just a simple hole in the side of a rock formation. Peering in the mouth of the cave, he strained to survey it for signs of wildlife or debris; the faint moonlight offered only a peek inside the cave, so he had no idea if something was sleeping deeper inside, something that might find him delicious.