Episode 416: Miranda Calling, Part Two
Kiera stares out the bridge windows, fascinated and creeped out at once. She’s from the Core and has been in many a Core-side city and though the view out the windows affords the familiar lines of soaring skyscrapers she’s accustomed to, the fact that it’s a dead and deserted city strikes her as horribly horribly wrong. Structures are decrepit and sagging. Rust and decay reign here. Vegetation has taken hold, trees are growing through the buildings in some places. There are no signs of dead people reputed to be thick on the ground—a blessing. Our landing has flushed out the resident wildlife, however, sending birds aloft and small animals scurrying out of our way.
Arden quits the bridge to check on his patients. The crew are snug in their beds, sleeping away. Not wanting to risk the adrenaline treatment on them, Arden decides to try the fresh air approach. He’ll go out and take air and soil samples to test for the Pax. If it’s safe to do so, he’ll open our girl up to the atmo and let the air flush the Pax from our systems. He retrieves an assault rifle from the gun locker and hands it to Kiera and they hustle for the airlock.
Kiera: I want a breather mask.
Arden: Like it would help.
Kiera: It couldn’t hurt.
Arden: Weaponized Pax is absorbed through the skin.
Kiera: Damn.
She cusses some more in Chinese against the inventors of Pax. She's quite creative about it.
Arden: The answer to that would be Blue Sun. If you want to, you can climb into a vac suit. It would be rather clumsy.
Kiera: That’s okay. I can still shoot. I just have to aim in the general direction.
Arden: I’m not worried about that.
Kiera: Yeah, but you’re immune to it.
They’ve come abreast of the suit lockers and Kiera pulls a suit on. When she’s ready they both leave the ship and step out into the city.
After about fifteen minutes of searching, they come across an old fountain that has some water in it. After about twenty minutes later, Arden notices a weird smell in the air. Looking around for the cause he realizes that the mummified remains of the people inside the buildings are now exposed to the air for the first time since death thanks to our landing shattering the windows and the aroma of fifteen years’ worth of decay flows out.
Lovely.
The test results on the water comes back showing the Pax has broken down into its constituent chemicals, rendering it if not inert, certainly less effective. Given the amount of breakdown, Arden judges it to be about the levels we’d encountered the last time we were here and therefore it’s safe to open our ship up to the atmo. So we roll down the windows of the family car and let the air in.
The crew is still unconscious and since they aren’t able to eat on their own, Arden and Kiera hook them up to the intravenous packs Marcus Dean gave us. Having done all they can toward our recovery, Arden and Kiera wait for us to come to.
They wait for a week.
After about a day, day and a half of receiving the adrenaline injections, the chemical wears off and Kiera feels much better. She does not feel the need to go to sleep like the rest of the crew, but tires and sleeps normally. She and Arden take turns watching their patients and the surrounding environment for any signs of change. After five days, Kiera and Arden are walking outside after dark enjoying the stars, when they see a light moving in the sky.
Arden: That’s not good.
They watch it and hope it doesn’t come near us. We’ve powered down almost all the way but we run back aboard and turn off all the lights. It’s a tense night filled with anxiety over being found by Reavers. The next day, they watch Blue Sun and Burnham rise and the daylight gives them hope they’ve dodged the bullet.
Monday, 22 Sep 2521
Somewhere on the Northern continent
Miranda, Blue Sun (Qing Long)
0823hrs, ship’s time
And on that morning, the rest of the crew stirs and wakes in the wardroom.
Kiera: The sleepin’ beauties are awake now. Awww… fun time’s over.
Arden: I’m relieved.
Kiera: I know but we’ll have no more fun.
Like plotting those naked posed photos, the gag tattoos, the penciled-in mustaches or the shaved off eyebrows. Like the woman said, fun time’s over.
Arden: We could sedate them again. (laughs)
Kiera: I feel closer to you now. I don’t know why.
Waking up in a hospital gown without her usual suspects isn’t any fun for Rina. With little memory of how she got to the wardroom and with evidence of having been undressed at some point without her consent, it gives the twitchy engineer a hard and nasty knock. Having Arden and Kiera walk in armed to the teeth doesn’t reassure her that everything is all right, either.
Around her, the others stretch and blink and gape. Nika squints at Arden and Kiera.
Nika: What are you doing?
Arden: Guarding.
Nika: (peeking down her gown) M’pretty sure the girls ain’t dangerous, man. (looks up) What’re we guardin’?
Arden: You.
Nika: From?
Arden: Reavers.
Nika: Whoa!
Nika bolts upright in bed.
Nika: Excuse me?!
Arden: (continuing) Dead bodies.
Kiera: Random, nasty bodies.
Arden: Anything else we don’t want around us.
Kiera: Large floating light that wouldn’t identify itself.
It’s coming back to Nika now. They’re on Miranda …
Crap. They’re on Miranda.
Nika: Okay. What is going on?
Arden: You got Paxed.
Nika: How long have we been …?
Arden: Six days.
Joshua: That’s about how much sleep I needed, I think.
Arden turns to Joshua.
Arden: I’m hungry.
Kiera: Hell, yeah. Nobody’s cooked for me yet. I want a discount. I’ve been fending for myself for a whole damn week. That ain’t First Class.
Joshua: I’ll go get dressed.
Joshua valiantly gets to his feet, clad in his backless hospital gown and pulling his IV pole along with him.
Joshua: (to self) It was such a nice dream …
Those of us who’ve been asleep find our wounds and assorted hurts have pretty much healed up in the interim but none of us feel at our best. We’re all groggy, gritty-eyed, grouchy, twitchy, and our mouths feel and taste like we’ve been sucking on the same dirty wool sock for a week.
Nika: I’m gonna catch a shower.
Arden: They don’t run very fast.
Nika: We’ve been on-planet for six days. Where did the passengers go?
Arden: I don’t know. I don’t care.
Nika: Did we get paid?
Arden: Yeah.
Nika: That works.
Arden: It’s sitting on Joshua’s bed.
Nika: (quitting bed) Okay. Lemme get a shower and get some food and we’ll quit this planet.
On the next bed over, Rina curses and Arden turns around. She’s got her left thumb pressing hard on the back of her right hand and she’s pulling the IV line out with her teeth.
Rina: Damn catheter. Where are my damn clothes? (Pulls.) Ughh…God.
Kiera: You know, it helps if you deflate it before you yank the damn thing out.
Rina: I’m tough. I can take it. Get out of my way.
Kiera: Now we’re gonna have to—goddamn, you gone done and tore up your arm.
Arden: I’ll leave that to you.
Nika: What?
Kiera: She just pulled out—
Nika: (waving hands) Nope, no, stop, stop, stop. Way too much detail! I don’t wanna hear it. Don’t go there. We’re just leaving that alone.
We get ourselves sorted out. We dress. We eat. We take stock. We used six hours of fuel changing locations on Miranda, but otherwise our girl appears to be in working condition. Nothing’s broken. She’s spaceworthy. We should be able to leave whenever we want to.
Nika: First things first. We know where Blue Sun is, correct?
Kiera: (pointing aloft) Thataway.
Nika: Essentially I don’t want to take off until I know we’re taking off in the direction of Blue Sun, because if we have to move quickly we want to be able to hit pulse fast. I want to be able to take off as fast as possible.
Joshua: Captain?
Nika: Yes?
Joshua: Can I step outside before we take off?
Nika: Uh, okay?
Arden: He wants to kiss the ground.
Joshua: No, I don’t want to kiss the ground but if I’m going to be on Miranda, in a city … (gestures outside)
There’s no telling when he’ll get the chance to walk a dead world and see the sights like what’s waiting for him outside. It’s too shiny a lure for Joshua to pass up.
Arden: When we landed in the city, we wound up breaking a whole lot of windows, letting out a whole lot of partially decomposed bodies. So be prepared.
Joshua: Yeah. I’ll be prepared.
Nika: Go ahead.
Joshua: I won’t be long. I’m not planning to investigate. I just want to step outside.
Nika: Go.
Rina: I’ll go with him.
Rina steps off the ship with Joshua. Of course, she’s wearing her usual suspects. It would be foolish not to. The dead might not bother them, but there are plenty of other things that would. And speaking of things that would …
Arden: And now I’m going to get some sleep. (oh, wait …) There was a light last night in the sky that went over and we’ve been keeping an eye on it. No sign of them but—
Nika: Uhhhh, that could be pertinent.
Arden: Exactly. That’s why I’m telling you.
Nika: How long, what time, what direction?
Arden: Uhhh … Yes, yes, yes, and it wasn’t there in the sky long enough for me to get the binoculars and check it out.
High up, though. Like something in orbit. Space debris? It could be anything at that point.
Nika: We’re not going to lift off until probably after dark anyway.
Arden: Does it matter?
Nika: It lets us get a good read on what’s in the sky above us without having to, you know, be out there. You said you saw something up there. It would be good to take a look. Let’s wait til after dark and take a good look.
Arden: I’m going to take a nap.
Nika: Yeah. Go.
Meanwhile, Joshua and Rina are walking in the city outside. The city is kinda depressing. It just ran down like a clock that has ground slowly to a stop. Wandering a bit more widely from the ship, they come across what appears to be an entrance to an underground structure. A basement? A tunnel? A subway, perhaps? Joshua and Rina walk by it and Joshua stops, drawn to it. It’s broad daylight and Rina’s already hinked—she knows Joshua can be sensitive to emotional and psychic residues and Miranda must be crammed to bursting with both. Which is why she insisted on going out with him. If the planet was going to make him wig out, she wants to be the one to cosh him unconscious and carry him back to the ship. She eyes Joshua’s pause and abrupt change of course warily.
Rina: Joshua?
Joshua: (looking at entrance) Huh.
Rina: What are you thinking? (whispers to self) Oh God, it’s obvious you want to go down there. (louder) No.
Joshua sends a pleading look her way.
Rina: No. (a beat) NO. Over here.
She grabs his hand and pulls him back.
Joshua: Excuse me. Excuse me!
Rina: (mmph!) Are we going to fight?
Joshua: We’re just going to go down just a little bit.
Rina: No. We’re not.
Joshua pulls free and starts down the steps.
Rina: No! (growls) What is it with you and deathly bad situations? God!
Rina has no choice but to grapple him. Joshua resists.
Joshua: I won’t go far.
Rina: I don’t want you going down there. We have no way of knowing if this is the only way in or out. If we get cut off from behind—
Joshua: (it’s gonna be okay) We’re not going that far. We’ll be right back. What’s your worry?
Rina: We’re on a planet that’s orbited by Reavers full of dead people. WHAT IS WRONG WITH THIS PICTURE?!
Joshua: (calmly) Look. They said we were here six days. We weren’t attacked by Reavers yet and I’m pretty sure that we’re—
Rina: That’s because we didn’t go around kicking over anthills!
Joshua: But my mental doors are wide open. I’m sure that if there was something alive—
Rina: Oh, so that explains where your brains are. They took a hike! Come on. Don’t you—Grrahhhhh!
Joshua slips her grasp and runs down the steps. Rina pulls out her flashlight, turns it on, and holds it under her drawn gun as she follows Joshua below ground. Joshua turns and says to her over his shoulder:
Joshua: See? That’s why you love me. When are we going to be on Miranda again, I figure?
Shining her flashlight around, Rina can see that Joshua’s found a subway station. There are skeletons on the platform. No surprise. Based on how they’re on the ground, she gets the strong impression that the victims were standing in a line when they were overcome by the Pax and not all at the same time. A train waits on the rails. The doors are shut and she can see people standing upright inside, clutching the hand rails and wrist straps in a macabre imitation of life. It’s dark and musty and the place is drowning in the silence of the dead.
Joshua’s attitude changes in an instant from gleefully adventurous to sober appreciation of his surroundings.
Joshua: (quietly) That’s so sad. Can you imagine?
Rina: (steely) I have no trouble imagining it. Now that we’ve seen it, let’s go.
Joshua’s curiosity returns and he steps closer to the car, going for a window to get a better look. Rina grabs his arm.
Joshua: What? We’ve only been down here two, three minutes—
Rina: Joshua. We’ve seen enough. Let’s go.
Joshua: I don’t feel psychically destroyed by the dead people. I’m feeling pretty good.
Actually, there’s something in the train that pulls at him.
Joshua: There’s something in there.
Rina: Yes! It’s full of dead people. Let’s go.
Joshua: No, no. Beyond that. (off her look) Aren’t you … aren’t you just a little bit curious?
Rina: Yes, I’m curious but I’m also far more worried about what it’s going to do to you.
Joshua: I haven’t—nothing has happened, Rina. Look, all these dead people are dead. I’m perfectly … free. Like, I mean, you know, no drugs. So I’m feeling good. It’s like …
Joshua steps up to the train doors and runs his fingers along the center seam.
Joshua: I think we should open this up. We got something we can open this up with?
Rina: (despairs) You know I do.
Joshua: I know. That’s why I asked. I’ll owe you.
Rina: (whispers) Damn you. (louder) All right. Let’s see ...
She stows her gun, steps up to the doors, and starts pulling her tools from her pockets. She gets the doors open and a gust of stale malodorous air hits their faces. The doors are stiff and as they muscle them aside, the rocking of the car sends some of the bodies falling to the floor. Joshua feels drawn to the rear of the car where it’s still covered by the subway tunnel and Rina moves with him, praying that nothing inside the car is playing possum.
Joshua: You can stay up here if you’d—
Rina: No. I’ll take point.
Rina draws her gun and holding her flashlight under the barrel, cop-style, she shoves past to walk in front of him. Joshua keeps talking in her wake.
Joshua: I mean, think about this. Think about this. Who has experienced anything like this before?
Rina: (growls) Us.
Joshua: Yeah but you’re on a … This way.
He points over her shoulder to the way ahead. They go through the rear door of the car into to the next car on the train. More of the dead meet their eyes. Miraculously enough, there is still a bit of energy remaining in the cars and some of the emergency lights flicker overhead. It’s just bright enough to avoid stepping on the bodies and Rina’s flashlight mercilessly reveals the details. The windowed door to the next car is smeared with something dark and chunky …
Gore.
Rina: … No …
Joshua starts getting a feeling, a weird feeling of shame and self-hatred and anger … It’s not rage. It’s not the rage of Reavers, which Joshua’s felt before. This time it’s different.
Joshua: I don’t think this is a Reaver. (off her look) I just don’t.
Rina: (sighing) It’s going to smell worse when we open the door.
Knowing it futile to argue with him about turning back, Rina opens the door to the next car. The aroma of death spills out. Joshua falls silent. They walk through.
There are clear signs of carnage in here. But it’s weird. It’s almost as if it was half-hearted carnage. One could even call it tentative. Some of the bodies show only cuts and scrapes. Others have been bashed against the wall but are otherwise intact. Reavers are not kind to their victims and rarely are the bodies in this good a condition. So how to explain the victims in the car?
Rina: (whispers) … oh, no … I know what happened here.
They step deeper in to the car and Rina’s flashlight shines upon the answer to the puzzle, confirming her suspicions. In the amber glow of her flashlight, they see the body of a man, horribly mutilated about the face, and based on her experience with Reavers, Rina can see that the wounds are self-inflicted. They were initially wounds of self-mutilation but looking closer, she can trace their evolution from mutilation to a suicide attempt. The victim had managed to slash his throat, leaving his carotids and jugulars gaping open to the air. The car is liberally coated with his blood, the walls caked and black with it. Joshua moves forward.
Rina: You’re not going to touch him, now, are you? (resigned) Why do I even ask this? Of course you are.
Joshua: I don’t need to touch him. I just … I don’t know. I just feel sorry for him, that’s all. (a beat) Things linger. You know? I mean that… things linger.
Rina: (quiet, her accent thickening) Joshua. I’ve read science fiction. I know what you’re talking about. In theory.
Joshua: Science fiction? I’m science fiction, huh?
Well, strictly speaking, this situation isn’t exactly science fiction. It’s closer to horror, really. Looking over the bodies, they can see that despite being locked in with a Reaverized Mirandan, trapped underground with no way to escape, fully half of the bodies were untouched. In such close quarters, one would think that nothing would have avoided ravaging. And yet …
Rina and Joshua look back at the dead man again.
They examine his body gingerly. They find an ident card with a picture. Going by the information still legible on it, the man was history teacher. Joshua says not quite a prayer but a few words of empathy over the man’s remains. His voice is quiet, respectful, and puzzled.
Joshua: You’ve been … Nobody’s had a chance to … You all died alone. I know, I know, everybody dies alone but …
Rina: He saw them.
Her voice is as quiet as his, her certainty tinged with regret. Joshua turns and regards the scene in the car … and opens his mind to it. He’s drawn to the dead man’s body again and touches one of his hands. The hand is messed up. Really messed up. Carpals and metacarpals are broken and awry, phalanges likewise mangled. There is enough of the flesh remaining to let the bruising tell the tale: clearly the man had battered his hand repeatedly against the wall of the car with a force that no normal person could withstand, crippling himself. Joshua moves further into the car and stops at the corpse of a young girl lying nearby. She’s maybe nine or ten years old. On her face is the visible evidence of a crushing blow. He looks back at man’s mangled hand, then back at the dead girl’s staved-in face. Images flood Joshua’s mind then and the cause of the impact comes clear.
So horribly, tragically clear.
She was the reason the man ruined his hand. It was expiation, atonement for his sin. It did not save her. Or him. Or ultimately anyone else in the car with them. They died, either peacefully in their sleep or in sheer terror as the madness of the Pax took control of its victim. And so they waited a dozen years and more, until someone found them, and pieced together their story.
Joshua: (quietly) I didn’t think you could resist this sort of thing. I didn’t think you were aware of it or you were, that you couldn’t resist it. It seems that he tried to.
Rina: (softly) Look at the marks. He wasn’t really a Reaver.
Joshua: It looks like he … (breathes) … I mean, a Reaver-not-wannabe. A Reaver-could-have-been.
Rina: Protective coloring, perhaps? He was surrounded by them?
She sketches a gesture to the tunnel outside.
Rina: He needed to pretend to be them so they wouldn’t eat him?
Joshua: No… I’m not sure. I mean, he was a history professor. I’m not sure. Maybe I’m wrong but if you’re … So you’re on Miranda and you’re surrounded by Reavers—although I think if you were surrounded by Reavers, there would have been a lot more going on here—but you don’t know what they are, for sure. And how do you know protective coloring, even if you think you could do that … If you’re a history professor, do you really, can you really take the back of your fist or even the front of your fist, and punch a nine-year-old in the face in order to try to look like a Reaver? I’m not sure very many people have that in them. (a beat) I don’t know. There’s something …
Rina’s voice is gentle, even though her words are not.
Rina: History is full of monsters made out of ordinary men.
Joshua: I know, but ...
Rina: I understand what you’re saying. I’m only positing a possible scenario. If he were a full-on Reaver, these bodies would be in much worse condition.
Joshua: Right. Right. That’s what I’m saying. What if … you know, what if he had some way of … resisting it?
Rina: Well, he took it to his grave, whatever that secret was. (softly pleading) Can we leave now?
Joshua takes another look around the car.
Joshua: We should take this with us … we should take a blood sample or something.
Following his line of reasoning, Rina steels herself and cuts off the dead man’s finger with her pocket knife. She quickly wraps it up in her handkerchief and shoves it into her back pocket. Desperation makes her tone sharp.
Rina: There. You have your blood sample. Now let’s go.
Joshua: (softly) Yes, ma’am. I think … I think that whatever it was—
Rina: You know if I’ve ruined my handkerchief, it’s your fault.
Joshua: I’ll make you a new one.
Rina: (nearly sobbing now) Let’s just go?
Joshua: Yes, ma’am. I’m sorry.
Rina takes point again and together they pick their way through the cars to the platform.
Above ground on the bridge of the Gift, Nika’s sharp eyes spot a streak of light in the sky. She grabs the binoculars and trains the lenses on it. It’s a contrail, not a shooting star, and the spaceship that makes it is clearly visible. Nika can discern its trajectory is incoming, not outgoing, and thinking back on our previous stay, not once in the entire four months had we encountered another ship coming or going. She can’t tell from the apparent size of the ship if it is close and small or far away and big. She can only be certain that it is making for the surface of Miranda.
Nika keeps the binoculars on the ship, carefully confirming that it is indeed a ship and not some random bit of debris burning up upon reentry as it gives up to the planet’s pull. She watches it fly down, down, down and scanning ahead along its projected path, she realizes that soon the buildings of the city will hide it from view. She can also see its projected path will have it touching down in the middle of the downtown area. Nika lowers the binoculars with a curse.
That’s too damned close for comfort. Too close to be a coincidence. It’s time to go.
Go back to: Entanglements | Go Foward to Siege
Back to Season Four: Trials and Errors
Back to EPISODES or TIMELINE
