Chapter 6 The day we exited the Gorge was the biggest relief for me, and the biggest disgrace. It was the first time I killed a man, and I pray it will be the last. We reached the waterfall in the afternoon; it was a tumble of rocks cascading down a steep slope smoothed by the rushing water. It was longer than it was high, but it was just the path we needed to escape the Gorgeaters. The issue was that the River flowed in, around, and through the rocks, and, to a human without much climbing gear, the rocks were very slippery. Zac chose two men, the burliest, most athletic looking of us all and sent them up with the tow rope that came with the speeder. While the first two climbed up, the rest of attached our anti-grav units to the bottom of it. As it happens, the rest of us milled about and watched the men climb until one of them fell. He tried to jump up on to a vertical rock, lost his handhold, then slipped his foot slipped off the platform he was just standing on. He fell headfirst, backwards, into the jagged teeth protruding out of the canyon. His partner merely gave a passing glance and the rest of us down below sighed in collective annoyance, anxious to get out and get some sleep for once. The climbing was tough, and Zac eventually sent six more men up until one made it. But, when that final man made it up to the cliff, dusk was fast approaching. He drove a stake into the ground and made a quick knot around it, then waved to the rest of us to come on up. Me, Zac, Sarah, and a few sharpshooters, handpicked by Zac, boarded the speeder and began the slow ascent upwards. There were 14 of us, 8 in the seats and 6 perched on the hood and outer edges of the vehicle. As soon as we got on, the Gorgeaters began to arrive. The folks on the ground started panicking, forming a small huddle backed up against the waterfall edge. The speeder buckled under the weight of our pressure, but Zac gave a calming hand, warning us not to move. As we got higher and higher, the anti-grav units began to lose more and more strength until it stopped, with us surrounded by Gorgeaters and blaster fire from below. We looked around at each other, even Zac looked confused for a moment, before something snapped inside of me. I did not hesitate, even when the poor lad stuck a pleading hand out to me and began pleading for his life. I scooted over to the hood where he sat, and, with stony faced determination, planted a boot in his chest and sent him flying into the cliffs below. The sudden motion jarred me forward, and I almost fell off, but, and the last second, I was able to twist around and grab ahold of the glass that shielded the hood. That night, even though we heard the screams of every single man and woman we left behind, the loudest one came from inside my own head. Even now, every time I close my eyes, I hear that boy’s high-pitched intonation ringing in my ears. Chapter 7 I remember when Captain Zac called my name out for a “scout mission” like yesterday. I walked into the Captain’s tent, the only tent we had. It was a yellow pyramid with a small door that folded back. The backside of the tent faced the nightmarish Gorge where we had desperately climbed up. Captain Zac wasn’t a young man, but his cold, blue eyes, framed by aging wrinkles, stared back at me with the desperation that hung behind all of our eyes. He told me his rehearsed speech that the military taught him, even though he’d been out of the military for years: “This mission is critical to the survival of the group. Everybody plays a part in this group, and now it’s your turn. Even though you might not want to go, you’re the best candidate to succeed, so you’ll go whether you like it or not. Simply put, we’re running out of food (he paused here, as if I didn’t realize that already). So, I’m sending you back to the ship. Sarah’s been riding that speeder on account of her… condition, but now it’s time to put those power cells to use. You will take the speeder, find some food, and come back to us. Don’t worry, I’ll give you a tracker so that you can locate our position.” He leaned in closer now and gave me a stare that all but shouted a threat at me, “And you will come back with food. Or you won’t come back at all.” I asked him, “But Captain, we ransacked the ship, what will be there to find?” His gray brows slightly furrowed on his bronzed forehead and his mouth tightened in determination, as if he was suppressing something inside him. He whispered, “Dead meat.” “Yes sir,” I muttered, casting my eyes downward, accepting my fate. I did everything the Captain said, but, still, I’m a dead man, to weary to put up a fight. I turned to leave, but the Captain spoke once more, “Look, I’m not stupid. I’ve had to make some tough decisions and I know those decisions make you uncomfortable. But this mission is important. I chose you because you have the head, the heart, and the body to carry it out. The others were chosen because they didn’t have the head, heart, or body to survive, but you’re the only one I can trust to succeed.” Chapter 8 The wreckage of the ship was the most devastating thing I’ve ever seen. I witnessed the ship right out of the space factory, all gleaming and shining, full of hope, knowledge, and life, and now it is nothing more than an incomprehensible mess of melted metal and crushed spirit. I wondered how such a full and beautiful ship could have been reduced to struts and walls sticking out of the dusty canyon. Even after a week, you could still smell the acrid burns of a reactor core explosion and see its havoc wreaked on the charred industrial metal. Not even the hull was recognizable, just a bunch of metal sheets in various forms of devastation. Bodies littered the ground everywhere; most of them had burned, deformed faces and bodies, some had been impaled by sharp metal shrapnel and their dried-up blood stained the ground beneath them. One poor guy’s face had been ripped to shreds by metal shards; they even had bolts sticking out of their cracked skull. I could only hope these poor sods died before their bodies were gruesomely shorn to pieces. Once my eyes had been satiated with horror, I set off to work. I picked the most intact-looking body, a girl with burns running all down the left half of her body and covering her mouth and cheeks. I reached into my survival pack, took out the sharp kukri contained within, and stretched out her arm in front of. I raised my arm, fully aware of what I was about to do, then I faltered. I shook my head, willing the emotion out of my body, and the stoic iron mask forged in the Gorge once more met my face. I didn’t look at her face, only the shoulder joint I was about to sever, raised my kukri high into the air, and then, a shovel smashed into the back of my head, knocking me out instantly.