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An ocean of sand filled the windshield of the star ship, divided by the unblemished blue of the sky above. Two colours. Blue and yellow. It would have been beautiful if it wasn’t so damn boring.
The gentle hum of the ship’s engines did little to ease Torvus’ restlessness. He reached for his hot-knife strapped to his thigh, but decided against it. While twirling a buzzing blade of orange energy helped settle the boredom, it could – and had in the past, in Torvus’ case – mean danger while piloting a ship. He checked the radar again, fingers drumming on the steering wheel.
“We must be close,” he said, pushing the wheel forward and lowering the ship. The engines rumbled quietly as they descended. “The co-ordinates are coming up.”
Cien sighed in the passenger seat, her head slack in her hand as she stared out at the undulating dunes. “OK, great.”
“You still don’t believe them, do you?” Torvus said, his eyes still on the blip on the radar.
Cien turned sharply, whipping her braided ponytail about. “Of course not! I’d say anything to get out the debt those gamblers owed you as well!”
“Oh quit your complaining,” Torvus said. “I’m wiping your debt with me to borrow your ship. If this is such a fruitless mission, you should be happy. A pleasant, uneventful flight over Cevanti’s deserts and then back home, and you don’t owe me a single credit.”
“Maybe you could start saving your credits so you can buy your own ship one of these days.”
Torvus smiled. “And leave you alone in this big empty boat? I’d never do that to you.”
Cien rolled her head and her eyes. “Yeah alright, fine.”
“You didn’t have to come.”
“I don’t care how uneventful you think this is going to be, I’m not leaving my baby in your hands. Especially on this planet.”
Torvus smirked.
CIen pulled out a single cigarette from her jacket pocket and cradled it in her lips. She retrieved a lighter and lit it, the dancing, deep orange fire the same colour as her hair.
“Can you not?” Torvus said.
Cien glared at Torvus as she took a drag, the cigarette’s end turning bright orange. Keeping his gaze, she breathed out a jet of smoke. Torvus coughed and swiped the cloud out of his face.
“My ship,” Cien said, breathing in another lungful of smoke, “my rules.”
Torvus grunted and checked the ship’s instruments. The blip on the radar was still too far away.
Cien sighed pointedly, spilling the smoke out of her lungs. “Come on, we must be there by now. And as you can see, there’s nothing out here.”
“We aren’t there yet,” Torvus said, frowning. “If we were, you would see me landing this hunk of junk.”
“Hey, don’t get angry at me for your own stupidity. I’m not the one who forced you to believe those drunken gamblers. And I sure as shit didn’t convince you to wipe those debts based on some speculative hear-say.”
“It would be a lot easier to stay calm if you would stop whining every time your damn tiny attention span broke!”
Cien sat on her knees and swivelled to face Torvus, cigarette clutched between her index and middle fingers. “Listen here dickhead, you’ve taken some poor advice at the cost of your own owed credits – credits you could’ve put towards your own damn ship – and now you’re getting mad at me for you deciding to go on this wild goose chase?“
“Oh, so now I’m a dickhead, am I?” Torvus said, turning his full attention to Cien. “I have a sense of adventure so surely there must be something wrong with me!”
Cien shook her head. “It’s about what started the adventure, you idiot! You can’t even tell how stupid you sound, can you?”
“And the insults keep coming! Tell you what. Why don’t you-“
The ship shook. The steady droning of the engines vanished. Torvus frowned, looking back to his console. Every light and meter had disappeared, leaving an empty array of screens. The nose of the ship pitched forward and Torvus felt like he had just reached the top of a rollercoaster, suspended at the top, waiting for that moment when he tipped over the other side. He held his breath.
Cien’s cigarette flew from her fingers as she slammed her hands against the armrests of her chair. “What the hell just happened?!”
Torvus grabbed the steering wheel and pulled back, a command that would normally raise the ship’s nose upwards and away from solid ground, but as he predicted, it didn’t respond. His heart hammered in his chest. “We’ve lost power.”
“What?! How?”
“I’m not sure that’s the main concern right now!” Torvus yelled as the sand dunes rushed towards the star ship’s visor.
A second later, the nose of the ship ploughed into the dunes, spraying sand over the windshield. Torvus reached for the seatbelt but just as each end of the buckle met, the moment before he heard that satisfying click, the ship hit the sand. Torvus gripped at the chair’s armrests but his fingers slipped free and he flew through the visor like a pellet from a slingshot. Shards of glass spun around him as he catapulted forward, taking in the rolling dunes for a split second before he plummeted towards them.
He thudded hard into the sand and everything went black for a moment. Torvus came back to consciousness with his face planted in the sand. He spun and sat up, spitting and coughing, and immediately grimaced. Pain flared through his chest and left arm at any fraction of movement. Even breathing hurt. Sand stuck to his face and stung where it felt wet – probably blood from cuts he received via the broken glass. His right foot twisted at an unnatural angle as well, completing his cornucopia of injuries.
The engines of Cien’s downed ship jutted out of the dunes. The cockpit and a fair portion of the front half dug deep into the sands. There was no sign of Cien.
Torvus went to stand but arched his back as the pain washed through him anew. He growled. As he fumbled for the small of his back with his remaining good arm, he chuckled mirthlessly. He hated what was coming up, what he was about to force into himself, but how much shit would he be in without it?
Actually, a lot less, he thought to himself. I doubt I would have ever made it to this rock.
His fingers found the cylindrical container and, after pressing against its surface and finding no cracks, he slipped it free of its holder. The container had a black finish and a silver piece covering either end. Torvus looked back to the downed ship, both hoping to see Cien and hoping not to, and twisted one end of the container when the coast was clear.
A flood of black nanobots poured out like an army of agitated fleas. They crawled together as one unit, travelling in a single thin line. They wound their way around Torvus’ arm, crested his shoulder and stopped at the base of his neck. Torvus winced as the nanobots pushed through the pores of his skin and entered his body.
The outcome would be truly miraculous – any wound that Torvus sustained, the nanobots would repair in minutes. Broken bones, stab wounds, even blood loss was treatable by those things. He heard rumours they could even knit new limbs, but Torvus wasn’t interested in finding that out for certain unless absolutely necessary.
All the while, they released a small dose of painkiller to numb what was often painful work – enough to dull it but not to lose the sensation of touch altogether. That was the worst bit. Torvus could feel the nanobots marching through his body, their tiny insect-like limbs drumming away at his insides. There was no pain at all, but it was an unnerving experience. He hoped he would one day grow accustomed to the feeling, but how could he acclimate to things writhing inside him?
Feeling returned to his broken arm and the pain radiating in his chest vanished. Propping himself up on an elbow, Torvus wiped the blood and sand clinging to his face and watched in unsettling amazement as his foot, jutting out in a sickening direction, slowly rotated back into its natural position, complete with bones cracking and tendons twanging like plucked guitar strings. In short order, the stream of nanobots exited his body through the pores on the back of his hand and obediently filed back into the canister.
The sound of sand crunching beneath boots reached Torvus’ ears. He quickly stashed the canister behind his back again as a silhouette, the sun blazing behind it, crested the dune. Cien’s features came into view, her face scrunched, her hand grasping a mostly empty bottle of Acceler-Heal – an often used medicine that boosted the body’s healing factor. It was simply a stimulant for the natural healing ability of the body, increasing the rate that cuts closed and bones mended, but it couldn’t do anything like regrow limbs or replace organs. Nothing like the nanobots in either ability or speed.
Judging by Cien’s limp, she had sustained injuries in the crash as well, but the fact she was walking spoke to her resilience. She grimaced as she pressed one hand against her shoulder. Her back slumped as she approached Torvus. Thankfully she hadn’t seen the nanobots. The last thing he needed was to explain what they were – and what they were worth.
However, Torvus realised as his stomach clenched, he would have to think of a reason why he wasn’t injured in the slightest after a space ship crash and being punted a hundred metres through a windshield and into a sand dune.
Instead, Torvus took the initiative. He grimaced and held a hand to his ribcage to feign an injury before speaking, trying to inject a pained tone into his words. He hoped the sweat on his face would be recognised as a result of the scorching sun and not of the fear balling in his stomach. “You brought my plasma rifle out here?”
Cien looked at the weapon slung over her shoulder. Torvus thought he heard the tinkling of sand, as if cascading down from somewhere. “Yeah, so? I don’t know what lives out in this hell hole. I thought – if you were still alive – you might like your weapon for protection.”
Torvus could see the energy pistol secure in the holster on Cien’s thigh, but he decided to mention it anyway - anything to distract her from what must have been an impending question about his health. “And you think that little pea-shooter will keep you safe out here?”
Cien’s smirk was wilted, meshed with her pain. “Well I could always give you the pea-shooter. Or I could keep both and let you bake on these sands by yourself.”
Torvus threw in a fake groan. That sound of falling sand again. Was he imagining it? “Even you wouldn’t be so cruel.”
“I don’t know,” she said, looking to the horizon. “If it was between carrying you and my cigarettes, the choice would be clear every time.”
“I know,” Torvus said. “And I’m grateful that your awful cancer sticks are less important to you than me.” He tried to suppress a grin. Cien hated Torvus calling out the potential impacts of one of her favourite hobbies. Hopefully that would be enough to divert her attention – anger often did that to her.
Cien opened her mouth to speak but a surprised squeak left her lips instead as the sand around her and Torvus sunk abruptly in a large rectangular shape, as if they had both taken a step down a very wide staircase. Their eyes met, both wide and unsure.
“The hell was-“
The sand beneath both of them collapsed and they fell screaming into a black abyss.
The gentle hum of the ship’s engines did little to ease Torvus’ restlessness. He reached for his hot-knife strapped to his thigh, but decided against it. While twirling a buzzing blade of orange energy helped settle the boredom, it could – and had in the past, in Torvus’ case – mean danger while piloting a ship. He checked the radar again, fingers drumming on the steering wheel.
“We must be close,” he said, pushing the wheel forward and lowering the ship. The engines rumbled quietly as they descended. “The co-ordinates are coming up.”
Cien sighed in the passenger seat, her head slack in her hand as she stared out at the undulating dunes. “OK, great.”
“You still don’t believe them, do you?” Torvus said, his eyes still on the blip on the radar.
Cien turned sharply, whipping her braided ponytail about. “Of course not! I’d say anything to get out the debt those gamblers owed you as well!”
“Oh quit your complaining,” Torvus said. “I’m wiping your debt with me to borrow your ship. If this is such a fruitless mission, you should be happy. A pleasant, uneventful flight over Cevanti’s deserts and then back home, and you don’t owe me a single credit.”
“Maybe you could start saving your credits so you can buy your own ship one of these days.”
Torvus smiled. “And leave you alone in this big empty boat? I’d never do that to you.”
Cien rolled her head and her eyes. “Yeah alright, fine.”
“You didn’t have to come.”
“I don’t care how uneventful you think this is going to be, I’m not leaving my baby in your hands. Especially on this planet.”
Torvus smirked.
CIen pulled out a single cigarette from her jacket pocket and cradled it in her lips. She retrieved a lighter and lit it, the dancing, deep orange fire the same colour as her hair.
“Can you not?” Torvus said.
Cien glared at Torvus as she took a drag, the cigarette’s end turning bright orange. Keeping his gaze, she breathed out a jet of smoke. Torvus coughed and swiped the cloud out of his face.
“My ship,” Cien said, breathing in another lungful of smoke, “my rules.”
Torvus grunted and checked the ship’s instruments. The blip on the radar was still too far away.
Cien sighed pointedly, spilling the smoke out of her lungs. “Come on, we must be there by now. And as you can see, there’s nothing out here.”
“We aren’t there yet,” Torvus said, frowning. “If we were, you would see me landing this hunk of junk.”
“Hey, don’t get angry at me for your own stupidity. I’m not the one who forced you to believe those drunken gamblers. And I sure as shit didn’t convince you to wipe those debts based on some speculative hear-say.”
“It would be a lot easier to stay calm if you would stop whining every time your damn tiny attention span broke!”
Cien sat on her knees and swivelled to face Torvus, cigarette clutched between her index and middle fingers. “Listen here dickhead, you’ve taken some poor advice at the cost of your own owed credits – credits you could’ve put towards your own damn ship – and now you’re getting mad at me for you deciding to go on this wild goose chase?“
“Oh, so now I’m a dickhead, am I?” Torvus said, turning his full attention to Cien. “I have a sense of adventure so surely there must be something wrong with me!”
Cien shook her head. “It’s about what started the adventure, you idiot! You can’t even tell how stupid you sound, can you?”
“And the insults keep coming! Tell you what. Why don’t you-“
The ship shook. The steady droning of the engines vanished. Torvus frowned, looking back to his console. Every light and meter had disappeared, leaving an empty array of screens. The nose of the ship pitched forward and Torvus felt like he had just reached the top of a rollercoaster, suspended at the top, waiting for that moment when he tipped over the other side. He held his breath.
Cien’s cigarette flew from her fingers as she slammed her hands against the armrests of her chair. “What the hell just happened?!”
Torvus grabbed the steering wheel and pulled back, a command that would normally raise the ship’s nose upwards and away from solid ground, but as he predicted, it didn’t respond. His heart hammered in his chest. “We’ve lost power.”
“What?! How?”
“I’m not sure that’s the main concern right now!” Torvus yelled as the sand dunes rushed towards the star ship’s visor.
A second later, the nose of the ship ploughed into the dunes, spraying sand over the windshield. Torvus reached for the seatbelt but just as each end of the buckle met, the moment before he heard that satisfying click, the ship hit the sand. Torvus gripped at the chair’s armrests but his fingers slipped free and he flew through the visor like a pellet from a slingshot. Shards of glass spun around him as he catapulted forward, taking in the rolling dunes for a split second before he plummeted towards them.
He thudded hard into the sand and everything went black for a moment. Torvus came back to consciousness with his face planted in the sand. He spun and sat up, spitting and coughing, and immediately grimaced. Pain flared through his chest and left arm at any fraction of movement. Even breathing hurt. Sand stuck to his face and stung where it felt wet – probably blood from cuts he received via the broken glass. His right foot twisted at an unnatural angle as well, completing his cornucopia of injuries.
The engines of Cien’s downed ship jutted out of the dunes. The cockpit and a fair portion of the front half dug deep into the sands. There was no sign of Cien.
Torvus went to stand but arched his back as the pain washed through him anew. He growled. As he fumbled for the small of his back with his remaining good arm, he chuckled mirthlessly. He hated what was coming up, what he was about to force into himself, but how much shit would he be in without it?
Actually, a lot less, he thought to himself. I doubt I would have ever made it to this rock.
His fingers found the cylindrical container and, after pressing against its surface and finding no cracks, he slipped it free of its holder. The container had a black finish and a silver piece covering either end. Torvus looked back to the downed ship, both hoping to see Cien and hoping not to, and twisted one end of the container when the coast was clear.
A flood of black nanobots poured out like an army of agitated fleas. They crawled together as one unit, travelling in a single thin line. They wound their way around Torvus’ arm, crested his shoulder and stopped at the base of his neck. Torvus winced as the nanobots pushed through the pores of his skin and entered his body.
The outcome would be truly miraculous – any wound that Torvus sustained, the nanobots would repair in minutes. Broken bones, stab wounds, even blood loss was treatable by those things. He heard rumours they could even knit new limbs, but Torvus wasn’t interested in finding that out for certain unless absolutely necessary.
All the while, they released a small dose of painkiller to numb what was often painful work – enough to dull it but not to lose the sensation of touch altogether. That was the worst bit. Torvus could feel the nanobots marching through his body, their tiny insect-like limbs drumming away at his insides. There was no pain at all, but it was an unnerving experience. He hoped he would one day grow accustomed to the feeling, but how could he acclimate to things writhing inside him?
Feeling returned to his broken arm and the pain radiating in his chest vanished. Propping himself up on an elbow, Torvus wiped the blood and sand clinging to his face and watched in unsettling amazement as his foot, jutting out in a sickening direction, slowly rotated back into its natural position, complete with bones cracking and tendons twanging like plucked guitar strings. In short order, the stream of nanobots exited his body through the pores on the back of his hand and obediently filed back into the canister.
The sound of sand crunching beneath boots reached Torvus’ ears. He quickly stashed the canister behind his back again as a silhouette, the sun blazing behind it, crested the dune. Cien’s features came into view, her face scrunched, her hand grasping a mostly empty bottle of Acceler-Heal – an often used medicine that boosted the body’s healing factor. It was simply a stimulant for the natural healing ability of the body, increasing the rate that cuts closed and bones mended, but it couldn’t do anything like regrow limbs or replace organs. Nothing like the nanobots in either ability or speed.
Judging by Cien’s limp, she had sustained injuries in the crash as well, but the fact she was walking spoke to her resilience. She grimaced as she pressed one hand against her shoulder. Her back slumped as she approached Torvus. Thankfully she hadn’t seen the nanobots. The last thing he needed was to explain what they were – and what they were worth.
However, Torvus realised as his stomach clenched, he would have to think of a reason why he wasn’t injured in the slightest after a space ship crash and being punted a hundred metres through a windshield and into a sand dune.
Instead, Torvus took the initiative. He grimaced and held a hand to his ribcage to feign an injury before speaking, trying to inject a pained tone into his words. He hoped the sweat on his face would be recognised as a result of the scorching sun and not of the fear balling in his stomach. “You brought my plasma rifle out here?”
Cien looked at the weapon slung over her shoulder. Torvus thought he heard the tinkling of sand, as if cascading down from somewhere. “Yeah, so? I don’t know what lives out in this hell hole. I thought – if you were still alive – you might like your weapon for protection.”
Torvus could see the energy pistol secure in the holster on Cien’s thigh, but he decided to mention it anyway - anything to distract her from what must have been an impending question about his health. “And you think that little pea-shooter will keep you safe out here?”
Cien’s smirk was wilted, meshed with her pain. “Well I could always give you the pea-shooter. Or I could keep both and let you bake on these sands by yourself.”
Torvus threw in a fake groan. That sound of falling sand again. Was he imagining it? “Even you wouldn’t be so cruel.”
“I don’t know,” she said, looking to the horizon. “If it was between carrying you and my cigarettes, the choice would be clear every time.”
“I know,” Torvus said. “And I’m grateful that your awful cancer sticks are less important to you than me.” He tried to suppress a grin. Cien hated Torvus calling out the potential impacts of one of her favourite hobbies. Hopefully that would be enough to divert her attention – anger often did that to her.
Cien opened her mouth to speak but a surprised squeak left her lips instead as the sand around her and Torvus sunk abruptly in a large rectangular shape, as if they had both taken a step down a very wide staircase. Their eyes met, both wide and unsure.
“The hell was-“
The sand beneath both of them collapsed and they fell screaming into a black abyss.