This post started off as a one-off response to a writing prompt in the Freewriters Community. Then I wrote a part 2 (with the outcome literally determined by a coin toss).
But that naturally leads to a part 3, which is where this short series comes in. I felt that doing it in just one post really wouldn't give enough time to build up a bit of suspense 😀 Enjoy !
Image created by AI in NightCafe Studio
Governor Dafang walked out of his office to the waiting transport. Like so many of the earliest buildings in Meranda Base it was really just a re-purposed cargo pod. Admittedly one of the larger ones, able to provide offices for him and a small staff.
But it was a step up from the single-storey housing units extruded from crushed rock and resin that made up the majority of buildings. They were basic and blended in with the grey landscape in an unattractive way.
The Governor's personal transport was little better. An ancient de-militarised Passault I dropship. It must have had a score of camouflage schemes painted on it over it's life, and the edges of all of them showed where paint had worn off, like stratified layers in a rockbed. Now, it was painted a cream colour with a broad red stripe, supposedly to help rescue teams find it in the event of a crash. Comforting.
The good news was that Frizztel, the senior mechanic, made it his mission to look after the old bird personally. She might have been worn out and second hand, but Dafang could hear the engines were perfectly tuned and synchronised with each other, even when just ticking over.
"Morning, Wardek," he greeted the pilot by name. "Found any more of your old mates to come join our merry little band of Colonial Gendarmes ?"
The man looked as old as the ship he flew, but there was an underlying toughness about him. "One, Sir. Another lad from the 577th Advanced Strike Brigade, Barad Zymes. Good man in a pinch, and good at calming things down. He was our peacemaker after barroom brawls."
"Well, there's nothing exciting today. A quick jaunt around three settlements just to show my face and sympathise with the colonists about all the stuff they need but won't get. We're starting with Greenfields."
"Aye, aye, Sir." Wardek pulled back on the throttle and the ship lifted smoothly into the cold dry air.
An hour later they were approaching Greenfields. It should be just over the next ridge, in a flat saddle between two mountains.
"Strange thing, Sir," Wardek piped up. "I can't raise Greenfields. Their comms must be gremlined out."
Dafang frowned. "Unlikely, it's the one thing we insist works and gets double and triple backups. Try frequencies one up and down, in case they're on a backup."
Swiping his hand over controls, Wardek shook his head each time he tried a frequency and got no response.
"I don't like it, Sir." He swiped his hand over a control to the far left of the console. Dafang felt rather than heard a slight thump beneath the ship's nose.
"Is that.... "
"Demilitarised Sir, remember ? But Frizztel just happened to have a second-hand turret drop into his lap. Don't ask where from. So you could say he de-de-militarised it for us. Just in case."
Wardek's grin said it all, and Dafang found himself smiling for the first time that day. A little bit of constructive disobedience was good for the soul occasionally, and so was having a transport that was still an assault ship.
They crested the ridge, with Wardek checking the sensors to be sure there were no Einheriar or Slaver dropships in the area. They were far, far behind the front lines, but raids this deep did occasionally happen.
But the sensors didn't pick up anything. Dafang sat back, waiting for Wardek to put the ship down on the settlement's landing pad. He was putting a speech together in his mind, thinking how he'd upbraid them for being so lax with their comms.
"Ummm, Sir...."
For the first time ever he heard doubt in Wardek's voice. "What's up ?"
"Greenfields, Sir.... it's.... not there."
Dafang moved from the internal bay to the cockpit, sliding into the co-pilot's seat so he could look out of the forward screen.
What he saw shocked him. Greenfields hadn't been destroyed. There were no ruined or burnt buildings. It was just... gone.
Where it had stood was just a flat plain, almost reverted back to it's original state. Except for one thing. It had been raked over. Not just flattened, but raked.
The ground was covered with spiral and circular patterns, as if someone with a huge rake had just swept away all signs of life and then raked geometric designs into the flat gravel surface where the colonists had lived, kept their livestock and tried to grow crops. Dafang was reminded of those old Terran stories of crop circles, or the ornamental gardens of gravel.
But of the five hundred people who had lived here, their cattle, their buildings, even their stony grey fields; there was no destruction or evidence of a battle, just no sign they had ever existed.
Previous posts in this series;
- https://peakd.com/hive-161155/@alonicus/24-january-2025-mariannewests-freewrite-writing-prompt-day-2626-mother-love - the post that started it all, and introduced the spine-spiders
- https://peakd.com/hive-199275/@alonicus/escape-from-the-caves-of-meranda-iv - the sequel, where the science team escapes back to base and recommends the planet not be colonised. They were too late.
- https://peakd.com/hive-199275/@alonicus/the-colony-on-meranda-iv-part-1 - we meet the Governor Dafang and get the first hints that the colony isn't going to plan
This story captivated me and left me wondering what happened in that place. A mystery and only geometric traces of something very, very strange.
The next chapter will be very interesting. Thank you for sharing your story with us.
Excellent day.
Thank you - I'm glad you liked it ! Hopefully I can keep building the suspense up for a bit longer, the hard bit is avoiding too many tropes 😀
!BBH
Ooooh! Very well done!
This is getting interesting!
Keep it up! I hope this series is not too short. lol
Cheers 😀 I'm not sure how long it'll be yet - I was originally thinking of the two initial posts, and then two or three for the colony side of things. But each time I sit down to write, more ideas pop into my head, so I just have to balance up keeping on writing it because it's fun, while not letting it meander so far off course it loses it's way....
!BBH
Still... this could be a pretty good stand alone book of sci-fi thriller horror. I'm thinking Carnivore by Leigh Clark style. You've got plenty people that can be killed off.
Hmmm.... sci-fi slasher genre 😁 So far, I've only killed off a few goats and a town-sized settlement. That means there are a few hundred thousand still to go.....
!BBH
In Carnivore they dug up a frozen T-Rex from Antartica. And woke it up. People were eaten. lol
Yes... you have... Alien Mom and Tots and a whole world to sort out.
There was a part you wrote about a conflict zone, like there is a war between two factions... I'm keen to see how all this plays out.
Ooh, I'll have to watch Carnivore, it's one I haven't seen 😀
The conflict zone bit is because this is set in a distant corner of my main sci-fi setting. Off on the frontiers, the war between the Allied Imperiae and the Confederation (Einheriar, Slavers etc) is still dragging on. It's kind of there in the background, having all kinds of indirect influences on what goes on (for example, why the Empire is so determined to colonise an otherwise awful planet; it's probably got resources needed for the war effort or the potential to eventually start manufacturing). The war also provides a useful source of grizzled veterans and beaten-up ex military vessels......
So is this set in a universe you already created?