Pull (originally published as Deep Darkness v1)

Depths

Depths

10 YEARS LATER.

    "Hayden you stupid bastard, what do you think you are doing!"

"GET YOUR FUCKING HELMET ON NOW!" We were inside a small two-man dropship. A piece of space debris had ripped a hole in our hull. Our space suits were meant to take a punch but this was unlike anything either of the two of us had ever experienced outside a simulation. The under armor was cushioning but the outside armor of our suit was meant for battle so we could take a couple of hits as our backs flew against the wall. Why had I volunteered for a stupid mission? The Aelita had detected a strange alloy floating just ahead of the Erebus outside the immer. We were going to investigate. The Erebus would come to a near stop inside the immer while we went ahead. We would catch up in less than a day. The elders had insisted and since Balkava had become an elder now it meant that I had gone from being a pawn to a knight. I was Sev, the orphan from Errikus, Balkava's best.

"You stupid Drok, you're going to get me killed," I yelled. "You're fine Sev, I knew you would be quick about it," Hayden always had an answer for everything. "Maybe it should have been me piloting,"I said. "Not on your life, I'm the best pilot the Erebus has and you know it," Hayden responded. He wasn't but that didn't stop him from running his mouth and I had to agree, he was a better pilot then me.  Anytime I wasn't using the nexus I was with him training or in the simulation room playing in some virtual reality world. Other times I would just sit alone in my room writing music. One of the few escapes I had since becoming a part of the crew.  Aira was always on my mind. I didn't even know if she was still alive. I had grown up since Errikus. I was no longer a scrawny scared little child. I was a hundred and eighty pounds of muscle. I started growing my hair and shaved it on the sides. It was a look I had seen in the nexus and enjoyed. I wonder if she would even recognize me now. I was no longer afraid of fighting or killing. I was a human soldier fighting a war. I still resented Balkava for the mental conditioning but I understood. Throwing me inside the nexus like they did was a necessary evil. Day in and day out there was little to do so when we volunteered for this mission we looked at it as an escape from our daily routine. Hayden was a genius now. The time I spent in the nexus he spent studying astronomy, physics, fringe science, even genetics. He was a part of the research team working on trying to figure out the location of Eden and what we were actually getting ourselves into. We were close now. The Erebus autopilot was beginning it's decent. We were closer then we had ever been and yet we still had no idea where we were going. The descent would take years as our computer scanned for habitable worlds but it still meant we were closer and closer to our endgame. I knew a lot more now then I had when I was younger. I had seen through the eyes of over a thousand different people. I had seen people make mistakes, make love, make war. I had a much better understanding of where I, we had come from. I could make sense of why certain things were the way they were.

Hayden had made me a guitar from some spare parts we had. It was a perfect Earth replica. I would play every night, sometimes it would bring me peace, other times it would make me hurt. It would remind me of everything I lost getting here; my mother, Aira, Dom, all the people on Errikus. That entire world was dead now. We picked up a signal not long after our departure. It was a cry for help from the ones we left behind. The colony was being ravaged by hellbeasts both mature and adolescent. In a few years the environment there would be completely inhospitable.

"I don't now why you worry so much Sev," Hayden said, "We have this. you and me, we're a team." And just like that we were patching up the hole. "It looks like that alloy is sharper then whatever this ship is made out of. What do you think it could be?" I asked. "Doesn't really matter, we have to turn back now if we are going to hook back up with the Erebus, we're going to have to drop a drone and turn around."