Once Upon a Time in Armageddon

Remnants of the shattered planet rained down through the atmosphere and pummeled what remained of the surface. The war had been brief, but was the most vicious one ever fought in the galaxy. A third of the world had been shot away into orbit and was now trapped in the gravitational pull, circling around and falling into the ozone. From the ground, it was a never ending string of shooting stars, a beautiful sight to behold, at least until the larger pieces made it through and rained death on the survivors below.

What was left of the planet was a wasteland of nuclear fallout, devastated landscapes, and garbage. So much attention had gone to the war efforts that nobody made plans for what to do with the refuse left over from the fighting. Torn uniforms, damaged weapons, endless piles of plastic that had formerly wrapped foodstuffs for the soldiers, all was left behind and abandoned to the wind.

Heat from the nuclear devastation had melted the ice caps and flooded much of the land, spreading the garbage and rubble even further. As parts of the planet were blown away, the world’s orbit was thrown off, leading to wildly fluctuating weather patterns. Frigid icy conditions could become fatal heat waves in a matter of hours.

When the war started, the population of Ecbatana was estimated around five billion. By time it was over, the population was at about one hundred thousand.

The war didn’t end in a victory for either side. It ended with a whimper, a resignation from the forces of both sides that neither could continue. Their armies were depleted, and the land they were fighting over was so thoroughly annihilated that it was no longer worth fighting for, nor had it been for months. During that time the sheer hatred each side had for the other was sufficient to keep the war going, but now exhaustion had won out.

*Why did the larger nations not help us?* cried supporters of each side. Nations that had superior firepower, better economies, faster ships. They could have prevented the destruction. But they didn’t. The answer was simple. They didn’t care. Ecbatana was small and pathetic enough of a power that they barely registered to anyone. If one of these larger nations got involved, they were in danger of attracting the attention of other superpowers and blowing the whole war out of proportion and into an even bigger conflict. But if they simply stayed out of it, then Ecbatana would fight their own fight and no one else would be bothered. To the superpowers, the war was a trifle. To the residents of Ecbatana, it was the end of the world.

Across the vast expanse of ocean drifted a rowboat. A few weeks ago this was a desert, and now had been consumed by the one mass of water that covered a majority of the planet. Much water was being lost by the gaping chunk that had been blown out of the planet, and in a few more weeks there would likely be none left. But for now, it was a daunting task to try to and get through it to dry land.

As the puny rowboat drifted, its sole occupant paddled with apathy. Starving, baked by the sun, and pummeled all around by burning debris falling through the atmosphere, the only thing keeping this occupant going was stubbornness. She wasn’t from this world, it was through sheer misfortune that she landed here days before the war started, and she was certainly not going to permit herself to die here.

The sound of a bird caught her attention. Craning her head around, she saw a distant vision of land. At last. She spat out the mouthful of blood she had been trying to hold back and rowed towards the land with renewed vigor.

“What a miserable week,” thought Vanessa Cuarón.

# # #

As her rowboat got closer, she realized it was not in fact land she was seeing, rather a partially submerged city. The tops of skyscrapers were poking out from the water, enmeshed with the flotsam that had been brought from all over the planet, caught up in the flow of the ocean as it drifted lazily towards the edge of the planet. That was still 5,000 miles away, hardly worth being concerned about yet for Vanessa.

As she brought her rowboat into the wide alleys that used to be roads between the buildings, she looked through windows trying to determine what floors were at sea level now. She kept seeing large sevens on the walls near elevators.

“At least 7 stories above the ground,” she muttered. “Probably too deep to dive and find anything useful on the ocean floor.”

Her new objective was how and where to dock. She’d been sitting on this rowboat for days. A chance to walk around, wash her clothes, and find new food was all she wanted at this moment. Finally she found a large broken bay of windows. It was a simple matter to pull the little boat through and inside the building. Once finding stairs, she lashed the boat to the handrail and ascended the steps, hoping to see what kind of building she was in. Ideally a hotel. For once.

Eighth floor. Generic office space. Desks if nothing else would make a good sturdy place to sleep. Sturdy. She suddenly realized structural integrity would be a concern. Tearing away drywall wherever she suspected load bearing beams and checking to ensure they weren’t buckling, she was satisfied that at least this floor wouldn’t be in danger of collapse.

As she climbed to each successive floor, she would seek out food and check the stability of the floor. Ninth floor, office space, sturdy. Tenth floor, under renovation, sturdy. Eleventh floor, residential, sturdy.

Residential? Maybe beds. Maybe food. Maybe a shower or a bathtub. Despite her eagerness, she decided to finish checking the building. “Can’t have upper floors collapsing on me in the midst of a bath,” she thought.

Up to the sixteenth and final floor, she was content in the stability, though the roof showed signs of having been severely pummeled by the chaos around. Floors twelve through sixteen offered nothing more enticing that the eleventh, so she made a rapid return. She sighed with delight. A long hallway, stretching before her eyes with red carpeting, about six suites on each side. Only six? In a building this size? They must be spacious, luxurious rooms. She shivered with anticipation. As expected, each door was locked. Rummaging through her bag, she pulled out her lock picking kit and made quick work of Presidential Suite #2, swung the door open, and gasped. It was beautiful. If she had been offered this room while working in Niiz K space, she would have found it adequate. But after days adrift on the ocean, getting subjected to extreme changes between cold and hot, sudden changes of night into day, and constant flaming debris from the heavens, this was a slice of paradise. She closed the door behind her, instinctively locking it, and ransacked the closet. There may have been guests here who panicked and fled in the war, leaving behind their clothes and other possessions. Much to her dismay, the room was pristine. Only the complimentary items left for any guest. Still, this gave her much to work with. A nice set of bathrobes, silk pajamas, all the soaps and shampoos she could hope for. There was a kitchenette with a good supply of preserved food and, even better, rum.

Within minutes she had the tiled floor around the jacuzzi littered with torn open packages of food, crumbs from them all thrown about with wanton abandon, and an already half empty bottle of rum planted right in arm’s reach. The clothes she’d been wearing for the last week were soaking in a random assortment of every soap, detergent, and deodorant she could find. Leaning her head back, she reveled in the silence. Well, comparative silence. The jacuzzi jets were running at full force.

Outside, it began to get dark.

“Yeesh,” she said aloud to no one, “the sun was only up for a few hours today. Our orbit is getting worse. I gotta get off this planet.”

But how to? That was the question. That had been the question ever since the outbreak of war. Spaceports were the first installations to be targeted in bombing raids. Independent pilots were hastily drafted into the war and statistically, wouldn’t have survived, so no chance of getting a private jet off this lump. Her only hope was to stumble across an offworld team here on a rescue mission, or to find an interstellar vessel in perfect condition, learn to fly it, and not get smashed to pieces by the planetary debris *or* the normal space junk outside Ecbatana’s gravitational pull. Either way, things didn’t look great.

Outside the sky started to shift from darkness to a flaming red.

“Meteor shower,” she said with a resigned anger. “Let’s hope this building holds up.”

As the scene outside turned into streaks of red crushing down, the noise remained muted. Either this building was constructed like a bomb shelter, or these meteors were smaller than the burning tails made them look. She ripped open another small food package and let the crumbs fall into the bubbling water of the tub.

“Meh,” she thought. “If it clogs the machine I’ll switch to Presidential Suite #1.”

# # #

A morning raid of the other rooms on the eleventh floor finally yielded leftover clothes that had been abandoned by occupants deserting in a rush. They were a little baggy on her, but the shoes fit perfectly, so that was a small comfort at least.

Paddling around the city on her rowboat for a few days had led to the discoveries of a few things she could use and a few bits of food that were better than the snacks her kitchenette had been providing her. On her fourth day, something new happened.

“Halt!” came a cry echoing through the buildings. Vanessa froze in place and looked around, trying to identify the source as it continued. “Hanedan or Farsi?”

Hanedan or Farsi, she grumbled. The two factions that started this war. Like they owned the entire planet. But no, nine other independent nations, peacefully coexisting on this world, brought to the edge of destruction because of the insatiable hatred between the Hanedan and Farsi.

“Tsukonian!” she shouted back.

“Tsukonian?” replied the voice. “Are you here on a rescue mission?”

“I wish. I was here for work before your stupid conflict. I wanna get out of here as much as you do.”

There was a long, uncomfortable silence. “Are you armed?”

“No.”

“We’re going to send someone out to check. Hold still or we will fire.”

“Yeah, yeah,” she said as a previously camouflaged man approached her. “I know the drill.”

After a brief search, the man called back “She’s clean!”

“Thank you,” she replied in a sarcastic tone. “I’ve been doing laundry again.”

# # #

“We’ve been hiding down here for weeks,” explained their leader. They had led Vanessa into a skyscraper but then down many, many flights of stairs, until they were surely underwater. This building had a bomb shelter large enough for a small town, crammed full of food and water. A generator ran a string of space heaters through the entire complex. “Safest place to keep away from the fighting and the debris showers.”

Vanessa looked around the squalid area. She didn’t have the heart to tell them the luxury suites apparently had a reinforced roof. It wouldn’t be large enough to hold the people they had here anyway. There were hundreds at the minimum.

“How have you survived all this time adrift?” he asked her.

“In a rowboat it’s at least a little easier. Anything but a direct hit from the meteors won’t faze you on the water. No blast, the shockwaves are pretty mild and can be dealt with. Keeping fed is the difficult part. The fish have been dying out in droves.”

“Where were you heading when you entered our city?”

“Honestly, anywhere. Where I left was one of the last battle zones. I was being held prisoner but managed to escape, find that rowboat, and sail off. Before anyone noticed me, the shelling started. Last thing I saw as I drifted beyond the horizon was the entire place going up in flames and the final round of bombs going off. *That* shockwave I felt. For a day or two some of the combatants would drift past me. I doubt there were any survivors. Or rather,” she said, her hand instinctively rubbing her wounded jaw, “there was one, but I dealt with him.”

She shuddered in the cold of the shelter and continued. “Before I left I had heard of this city being across the ocean. My captors were hoping for reinforcements from here. I’m assuming there were no soldiers from over here left.”

“None. That’s where we got our clothes and weapons from.”

“You have a long term plan?”

“Not yet. The fighting only stopped here recently. We were hiding in here for so long that we’re just slowly branching out. The food supplies will last another month. We send out search parties to find other things, but almost as soon as we begin the storms return and we come back for shelter. You’re very lucky to have survived so many for so long.”

No, you’re just cowards, she thought.

“What are your plans from here?” the man asked her.

“I gotta find a way off this planet.”

“How?”

“No idea. But I will.”

“It would be safest to wait down here for a rescue mission.”

“You really think anyone will come for us? Look how the galaxy reacted to the war. Absolute nothing. Ninety percent of this planet were innocent bystanders screaming out for help, and what did the other nations do? They pretended like we didn’t exist! I was sent here on a mission by some pretty powerful people and once war broke out, they cut off contact with me! It was easier to ignore us then, and it will be easier to ignore us now! If they suddenly start trying to intervene, it might look like an admission of guilt for their earlier behavior. But let a few more weeks pass and this planet will be gone and all eyewitnesses dead. That’s the easiest solution, and the one I guarantee they’ll use.”

She stood up amongst the crowd. “If all you’re going to do is sit here and wait, then I thank you for your hospitality but I’ll be going. I’m gonna get off this husk of a planet before I starve, burn, or freeze to death.”

As she exited, two others stood and followed her without a word. Looking back, she saw them, shrugged, and continued climbing up the ladder out of the shelter. Upon reaching the surface, she was disappointed to see the temperature had plummeted. Sheets of ice were beginning to form on every surface, and a strong northerly wind was kicking up the waters below. She untied her rowboat and climbed aboard as the other two approached.

“Mind if we tag along?” the younger of the two asked.

“Be my guest. But you’re finding your own room and jacuzzi.”

With a little confusion, the two newcomers joined her in the boat.

# # #

They gathered what remained of the food and cooking utensils throughout the six suites, came together for a dinner, and made their plans for how to proceed.

“As much as I would love to stay here and enjoy the luxuries of our rooms,” Vanessa began, “this planet doesn’t have much longer. The ocean is slowly washing out to space, the planet keeps crumbling piece by piece, and the more that happens the more the orbit is thrown off. The weather is just going to keep getting more erratic. So if we stay here we either die from lack of water, severe weather, or just suffocating when we completely lose the atmosphere. My proposal then is that we gather up what we have and continue sailing. You’re both from this world so I’m hoping you can point me in a decent direction.”

They were each citizens of Kurban, the nation that had the incredible misfortune of bordering both the Hanedan and Farsi. The Kurban citizens were the first to suffer huge civilian casualties in the conflict.

“Towards the northeast there’s eventually mountains,” offered the younger of the two. Theo, the man who had earlier checked her for weapons, seemed to be a focused, well-trained type. How he wasn’t dragged off into the army and killed, Vanessa had no idea.

“There’s not really any other cities you could count on,” added Shirin, the older of the two. Her entire family had been wiped out in a bombing raid. She was the only one who had made it to the shelter in time, and she hadn’t left since. “There were, but they were at a lower elevation than this one, so they’re probably submerged.”

“If there’s anything left of them,” said Theo.

“Mountains it is,” replied Vanessa. “Sleep well. We leave…” She was about to conclude with *first thing in the morning*, but had been unable to tell when that was for weeks now. She couldn’t go by the sun anymore, and she’d long ago lost any time keeping tools. Her sleep pattern didn’t help either, since that had been wrecked for a while now. “We leave whenever I get up and say we go. Deal?”

The other two nodded in agreement.

# # #

Three days adrift in a rowboat had been exactly as uninteresting as Vanessa expected. She missed the jacuzzi. If only there had been a way to bring it along. And the silk sheets on the bed. And the bed too. They had brought all the blankets they could find, needing a way to wrap up quickly when the weather shifted into blizzard conditions without warning. But that was a far sight from the comforts they had left behind.

“What will we be looking for when we reach the mountains?” Theo asked.

“Outside of survival equipment? A clue towards how to escape.”

“What does that mean?”

“Anything that could help us get off Ecbatana. Best case scenario, a forgotten hangar filled with space-worthy ships, with strong enough armor to get us through the meteors and the rubble in orbit, and a brief but exhaustive manual on how to fly it. Worst case scenario, something simple like a functioning comm tower so we can send out a distress call. We’re near to Zashana’s territory, maybe we can guilt someone into flying out and giving us a lift before everything goes kablooey.”

“Do you think either of those are likely?” asked Shirin.

“Not even remotely. But it’s better than sitting around doing nothing. Even if that sitting around is done in a presidential suite.”

“The absolute lunacy of bombing space ports,” Theo muttered with hatred in his voice.

“Ensures you keep a steady supply of draftees waiting. Can’t have them escaping from the war on you.”

After another day adrift, they spotted the mountains, and in another day arrived. Vanessa jumped ashore, moored the boat to a rock, and helped the other two disembark.

“From here, we abandon the boat,” she said, with a mix of joy and nostalgia. It would be a pity to lose it. The boat had been her companion for nearly two weeks. Then again, she was miserable for those two weeks. “Grab whatever there is left that we can use. Now we seek new shelter.”

As they ascended the cliffs away from the crashing waves, their view changed from one mountainside to an entire range stretching off into the distance. Craters from meteorite strikes peppered the landscape, but comparatively few shell holes. The entire area had been ignored during the battles. Throughout the landscape, no vegetation grew. Vanessa crouched down and inspected the ground.

“No fallout. There’s an upside of the erratic weather. Looks like storms have blown away all the residue from the nuclear devices. Killed the plants first, of course.”

“How many more days of food and water do we have?” asked Shirin.

“Not much. Anybody know what’s on the other side of these mountains?”

“Hanedan land,” answered Theo.

“So if we make it through these mountains alive, then there’s a good chance of coming face to face with remnants of the psychos that started this war?”

“Entirely possible.”

“Any alternate ideas?”

Vanessa was greeted with silence from Shirin and Theo.

“Alright. Forward then.”

Their long march began, up and down hostile landscapes, battered by random weather patterns, now made more arduous thanks to the ever changing elevation of the mountain range. Vanessa kept seeking information from Theo and Shirin, but most of what they knew as locals was irrelevant given the devastation the planet had suffered. Nonetheless, Vanessa began to notice a disturbing trend. Her suspicions raised, she sought an appropriate opportunity to confirm them.

“Let’s stop here for the night,” she said as they passed the mouth of a cave. “Normally I’d suggest one of us stays up as a watch, but I doubt we’re in danger from people or wildlife in a place like this.”

As Shirin entered the cave and began laying out her share of the blankets to use as a resting space, Vanessa grabbed Theo’s arm. “You wait here a minute,” she whispered. Pulling him back out of the cave, she pointed to a rock. “Sit down.”

Theo looked confused, but went to the spot she was indicating.

“Shirin has been very forthcoming with information,” Vanessa said. “Her account of life outside the Hanedan and Farsi border is vivid, realistic, and consistent. *Your* story, however, is all over the place. What are you hiding from me?”

Theo stammered as he tried to deny the accusation.

“Come on, don’t lie to me,” she continued. “You were way more comfortable with a gun than anyone else in the shelter. Despite saying you’re Kurban, you speak in generalities when I ask about Kurban. You do, however, know a path through the mountains that leads directly to Hanedan land. Are you a spy for them?”

Theo started to stand up to protest, but she shoved him back down.

“Don’t try anything. I’ve been doing junk like this a decade longer than you. And don’t try to fight me either. Some people on this planet have already made that mistake, and I assume you can tell who won from who’s standing here in front of you. Let me make this absolutely clear,” she added, leaning down in front of him, “I don’t care one iota what side you were on with this conflict. But what I do need is accurate information. Accurate information might get us off this hellhole. And it sure seems to me like you have information that you’re hiding.”

Theo looked away. “I’m a deserter.”

“Hanedan?”

“Yes.”

“Why?”

“It got to be too much. I was in the reserves. I only had four months to go before my enlistment was up. Honorary discharge, pension. I was getting comfortable. Then war broke out. I had never been in a real battle before. Our first deployment, 12,000 of us went out to fight the Farsi. Less than a hundred of us survived. Engagement after engagement I thought this was for sure my last battle, but I survived each time. The pressure kept building and finally I snapped. I ditched my weapons and uniform and ran, eventually wound up in that shelter. I was relieved, but I saw faces down there. Civilians we had attacked before. I was afraid they would recognize me, and the terror came back to me. But I couldn’t leave. Where could I go? When you came I saw a way out.”

“Fine. Tell me what you know then.”

“About what?”

“About the Hanedan. Did they have a failsafe or a backup plan? We know they had enough weaponry to demolish the planet, that’s been proven. But did they really start firing that off without having something in place to save themselves?”

“I was just an enlisted man in the reserves. I wouldn’t have been told.”

“Where’s the Hanedan military headquarters?”

“At the bottom of a nuclear bomb’s crater.”

“Chief government building?”

“Same.”

Vanessa was stumped. There had to be something. “How about,” she continued, “a safe haven? Lots of governments have them for chief officials and military leaders. A bugout. Did the Hanedan have one of those?”

“Yeah.”

“Has it survived so far?”

“No idea. I don’t know where it is. That’s kind of the point. Safe havens are secret, that’s what makes them safe.”

“Based off what you know, is there any place where we might be able to find information that could lead us there?”

Theo thought long and hard. A cold breeze started drifting through. Temperatures would be plummeting tonight. Vanessa shivered as she waited, staring Theo straight in the eye.

“I don’t know exactly,” he said finally, “but if anything survives of the city across the mountains, I know they had several important military installations over there. Many of them underground. Something of those may have survived, and since those were nearest the front lines, I assume some very valuable information would have been passing through there.”

“Perfect,” she said, standing up and making her way into the cave to get out of the freezing chill. “We have our new destination.” She took a final look up at the night sky. The moon was showing in a much different place than it had before. The orbit was getting more erratic. She noted with horror as well that the moon was closer than it had ever been before. “Either we’re drifting towards it,” she muttered, “or it’s drifting towards us.”

“Both are bad,” Theo replied.

“Wow, great insight,” she said, and entered the cave for some long awaited sleep.

# # #

“There it is,” said Theo as he passed his binoculars over to Vanessa. “Just down this slope the city awaits.”

“About time,” she replied, her stomach grumbling. Their food had run out two days ago. “Did you notice any existing security?”

“No, but that doesn’t mean anything. The more advanced soldiers are taught stealth tactics to heighten their security skills.”

“What I wouldn’t give for some of Bernard’s smoke bombs right now. Anybody have a good crowd dispersal technique? Anything to flush these guys out?”

“You could go play a damsel in distress,” offered Shirin. “See if they’re swayed to approach.”

“Pass.”

They pondered in silence until Theo spoke up. “We could always try the direct approach.”

# # #

A Hanedan sniper held still despite the blistering cold. His training had never failed him before, and it was not going to fail him this time. It had kept him alive throughout the entire conflict. He didn’t even know if there was still a war. All he knew was that his small division of patrols, eight men in all, were under strict orders to keep watch over the city. The Prime Minister of Hanedan and an attachment of generals had arrived days before and ordered the guards to stay in their posts until the Prime Minister had left. Since then there had been no sign of them, so they must have still been in the city. The guards would wait here until their task had been fulfilled.

“Zümrüt!” came a cry from the mountain. “Kod kelime Zümrüt!”

The sniper stiffened. “You all hearing this?” he asked into his comm.

“It’s an old code word,” said one of the other guards. “Months old.”

“It’s a Hanedan accent for sure,” offered another. “Definitely a native speaker.”

“Alright,” the chief sniper replied. “Everyone stay on alert. No opening fire.”

Theo knew the code word he was calling from the mountaintops was old, but it was the last one he had known before deserting. He hoped the guards would surmise that he was a prisoner of war who had escaped, or someone who had been missing in action who was finally making his way home. The “hostages” would certainly help. He descended the mountainside and into the city with Shirin and Vanessa in front of him. He had no weapon to brandish at them as he’d left it behind in the bomb shelter, so he contented himself by barking angrily at them as they acted frightened of him.

“Ateş etme!” he shouted repeatedly. “Ben hanedanım! Rehinelerim var!”

“Anyone behind him?” the chief sniper asked.

“Not that we’re seeing,” replied one.

“Nor us,” came another.

“Could it be a diversion?” one guard asked.

“No worries even if it were,” the chief answered. “One of the other teams will handle whatever the situation may be elsewhere.” He regretted that his communications with the other teams had been cut off weeks earlier. Now he had no way of knowing if they were even still stationed around the city. Still, he could hope, and he was certainly not going to let the others of his team know about his concern. “Whoever is closest to them when they reach city limits, intercept, but with caution. This still may be a trap. I don’t see how, but it may be.”

As Theo and his two hostages entered the city, a guard stepped out from seemingly nowhere and confronted them. “Name and rank,” he demanded.

“Theo Hain. Corporal.”

“Why are you using an expired code word?”

“After the Battle of Tungang Fields I was wounded and carried off by Kurban civilians who came to the battlefield to loot the corpses. They held me prisoner in a bomb shelter until I escaped five days ago. I brought two with me to ensure my safety and make sure the Kurbans wouldn’t follow me over the mountains.”

“My congratulations on surviving the battle and the mountains. We’ll see to your medical needs soon. My companions will execute your hostages for you since you won’t be needing them anym-”

Vanessa, not about to let him finish his sentence, gave him a roundhouse kick across his jaw, grabbed his gun, and shot him twice. An instant later she dove into an alley, quickly followed by Theo and Shirin, just as shots rang out around them from nearby snipers.

“Piç!” shouted another sniper.

“Stay calm,” commanded the chief over the comm. He could hear everything happening, but was out of visual range. “They have one rifle versus our seven. Keep your heads and we can handle them easily.”

# # #

“Where from here?” Vanessa asked. They had crawled into the city’s sewers and were always on the move, hoping the guards couldn’t catch up.

“I don’t know,” Theo hissed, “I’ve never had to navigate the city from down here before!”

“We entered from the Southwest. Approximately what direction would we start finding military installations?”

“Gimme a minute,” he whispered as he began searching his memory.

“Do you think the guard survived?” asked Shirin.

“No idea. I’m certainly not going back to check.”

“Due East,” Theo finally said. “That was where we had the swearing in ceremony.”

“Your military is so formal.”

“What can I say,” he replied with a shrug, “when a group needs to have an air of legitimacy, you layer on traditions and formalities to give yourself a nice gloss.”

“Entrance to the surface,” Vanessa said pointing to a ladder. “Want to stop and get your bearings?”

“Not yet. There haven’t been many exits yet. I don’t know how many guys they have up there, but it would be really easy for them to have each exit covered, with someone waiting to shoot the moment our heads appear.”

“Alrighty. I’ll trust your guidance to get us where we’re going.”

On the surface, the chief watched his GPS. One of his men had managed to sneak into the sewer behind them and, broadcasting his location to the rest of the squad, was tailing Vanessa at a safe distance. They were between 7th and 21st. The man below didn’t dare open fire on them. He was trained for slow, long distance precision shots. Before him was a woman who had already demonstrated sufficient speed to kick a guard and steal his weapon before he could react. Even if the sniper shot her first and she dropped the gun, there was also that Hanedan soldier to deal with. Not a sniper. A soldier hardened on the front lines and who had survived numerous battles that had seen high casualties. By time the sniper took one shot and got himself positioned for a second, the soldier would surely have gotten the gun and returned fire. It was best to continue following far behind and let the team above coordinate an attack when the time was right.

The water level was slowly rising. The sewer had been dry from disuse when they entered. The water level planet wide continued rising. If this city were anything like the others, it would be flooded in mere days. Theo pointed it out. Vanessa stopped walking, and grabbed the arms of her two companions to make them stop as well.

“How much further do you think it is?” she asked, cutting them off as they each were about to protest.

“Um,” replied Theo, “I’m not totally sure. We were driven there, I didn’t have to walk it.” He noticed Vanessa was staring at her feet. Her lips were moving as though she were talking to herself.

“Uh huh, very interesting,” she said, still not looking up. “And you haven’t been back since?”

“No. Just for the one ceremony.”

Vanessa turned very, very slowly until she was facing the way they had come. She gestured for him and Shirin to continue talking to each other. Her lips kept moving. Finally Theo was able to make out what she was saying.

“3 ... 2 ... 1.”

She fired a volley of shots from the gun and then held still. Her head craned just a touch as she listened for the echo to die down. Silence. Looking down again, she saw a slight ripple expanding towards them.

“Success I think. Let’s move. Quickly. But change direction.”

“What just happened?” Shirin asked as Vanessa pushed them forward. The first turn they came across, she pushed them in that direction, out of the path they were on.

“We were being followed,” Vanessa answered. “These guys are good. They move silently. I never would have noticed him. But you can’t move through water without making a few ripples.”

“Is that why y-”

“Yes. I needed you to stop moving so I could see if there were ripples approaching from behind us. Turns out I was right.”

“Did you get him when you fired?” Theo asked.

“No idea, but there was one big ripple that came afterward. I hope it was from someone falling after getting shot. But we can’t know for sure. Let’s move as erratically as possible in case he’s still after us. Maybe we can lose him with this head start.”

# # #

The chief sniper was worried. Lieutenant Ölü’s GPS position hadn’t changed for five minutes. Were the three people in the sewer taking a rest, so was Ölü just holding back so as not to be seen? Or had they spotted him? Couldn’t be. He was the quietest guard they had.

“Stay on alert everybody,” he commanded over the comm. “Our targets may be on the move, or they may be pinned down. No way to be sure.”

If only Ölü could say something. But either he was still trailing the targets and therefore had to stay silent, or he’d been immobilized and couldn’t talk. The chief didn’t like it. This situation should’ve been easily controlled. How was he losing his grip on it?

# # #

“Please let us stop,” Shirin begged, panting. They had been running for three hours straight. “We haven’t eaten in days, and the water is rising. Surely we’ve lost them by now.”

“Fair enough,” Vanessa replied. “We’re near an exit. Let’s risk it.”

She climbed through first, finger itching on the trigger, ready to open fire at the slightest sound. But all was quiet. Trickles of water were running down the streets and into the open sewer grate, but no human activity. She stepped onto the road and kept her guard as Theo and Shirin joined her. This part of the city had been devastated. As far as they could see only a few buildings still seemed safe enough to enter.

“We stick together,” she ordered, “and check for food wherever we can.”

# # #

They had lost them. The guards had never lost anyone before. It had been three hours since Lieutenant Ölü had moved. The chief held onto a dim hope that maybe their targets had simply stopped to sleep, but someone as competent as Ölü surely would’ve snuck up, stolen the gun, and executed them all. He was forced to acknowledge they had bested him somehow. Now he and his men were in open pursuit, checking every corner of the city they could. Still, wanting to maintain some semblance of order, he had strictly ordered his men to keep away from the outer rim of the city. He would search it. He knew that the other squads of guards were meant to be dispersed all around the city, and the confidence that he and his men had backup was one of the things keeping them going. If the other squads weren’t there anymore, that was for him to find out. It was for him to keep silent as well.

# # #

“Better?” Vanessa asked, with a little more bitterness than she had intended. “We somehow found food in this dump. We’ve rested a little. Are we ready to move again?”

“Regrettably, yes,” Shirin replied. “Especially if you think you can get us off this planet.”

“No promises, but I have some ideas. Theo? Get your bearings. Where do you think we are?”

“Based off the remnants, I *think* we’re about in the middle of the city. South would get us to the military base.”

The weather was changing again. The sun set in mere minutes and snow began to pelt down. They would keep weaving about a little in case of being tailed, but there was no sign of the guards. With only six men to scout a city, Vanessa hoped they had shaken the guards for good.

Two hours on, and many missteps on Theo’s part as he got lost, misunderstood where they were, and so forth, they finally found the parade grounds he had been describing, and the military base attached to it. Entrance was easy. Gaping holes in the wall allowed access to most of the building.

“Here’s where we split up,” Vanessa instructed. “But not too far apart. We’re looking for anything about a safe haven, emergency plan, bugout, evacuation, anything.”

The search was fruitless. The computers had been pulverized through bombing raids and extreme weather. The paper versions were scattered to the wind, and whatever was left had been waterlogged, shredded, or trampled on. One room, however, had a safe. It had been thrown about and smashed through a bathroom door, but it was in one piece. Vanessa inspected the lock. Old-fashioned combination lock.

“Everyone be silent!” she barked, and knelt in front of the safe. Pressing her ear against it, she began turning it very, very carefully. At last, she heard a click. She turned the dial back and began going the other way. “What a break,” she thought. “Any more expensive of a safe than this and I’d never be able to do this by ear. This is why I love the poorer nations.”

The lock clicked again. She spun it around the other way until it clicked a third time and swung open. They reached inside and pulled out every last trace of paper, bound books, anything, and divvied it up into threes. After a few minutes of perusing the papers, Shirin yelped.

“Emergency planetary escape plan!”

“No,” Vanessa whispered.

“Yes! Look! It shows the ship, the launch codes, the destination, the ...” she gasped in delight. “The automatic pilot! It has an automatic pilot! We can leave!”

“Don’t be hasty. Where is it? We need to confirm this ship is still in one piece.”

“Underground. The entrance is...” Shirin paused as she flipped through page after page. “The entrance is in this building! Ground floor, East wing!”

Without another word they bolted for the East wing. Rubble blocked them at many points, sometimes the entire structure having collapsed in that spot, but they pressed on. Outside the gentle white of falling snow started to turn red as another meteor shower came.

“This is it!” shouted Shirin as they approached a door. She tried the handle. Locked. Vanessa scouted the immediate vicinity, and finding nothing to substitute as lockpicking equipment, shot the door repeatedly all across the frame. With a swift kick, it fell in.

“Some signs of roof collapse in the stairwell,” Theo noted. “We’ll have to be careful going down.”

They wound down through three flights of stairs, finally entering an expansive control room. This room too had clearly suffered a collapse. Not only was there rubble all over the floor, but people pinned underneath them.

“Prime Minister,” said Theo, pointing to a dead man underneath a mound of debris from the ceiling.

“Like they were trying to make an escape,” Vanessa mused, “and got caught just before getting away.”

“Good,” Shirin added with emphasis. “They’re the last people who deserve to survive this.”

The large bay windows in the room showed inside the hangar where the rocket was waiting. It looked like something out of an Old Earth history book. It wasn’t built for speed, maneuverability, or subtlety. It was built to get a small band of desperate people off a planet. And that, it would.

“Entrance is right over here!” Shirin called, pointing it out. “There’s a ten minute countdown to be activated out here. Should be plenty of time to get on board.”

“Unless there’s a locked door or unseen debris blocking the way,” Vanessa added. “Y’all head over, and if you get on board without difficulty, I’ll start the countdown and join you.”

She watched intently as they rushed across, opened the door, and climbed inside the cramped spaceship. Good, she thought, and hit the countdown button. As intently focused as she was, she did not notice the sound of the chief sniper walking down the steps behind her and pulling out his rifle. She did, however, hear the unmistakable sound of a Safety being switched off. She dove to the side just as the shot rang out and tore through her left waist. Landing painfully on the floor, she rolled over onto her wounded side and brought her rifle to bear, firing right back at the chief, hitting him in the abdomen. Lower than she was aiming, but enough to incapacitate him for a moment. The pain of laying on her side and holding up a rifle was too much. She climbed to her feet just as the sniper did as well, each raising their weapons and firing in the same moment. Her shot shattered his left hand while he got her in her right shoulder. Dropping the rifle, which was now too heavy for her right arm, she charged at him, leaping into his stomach and pinning him against the wall. Grabbing a chunk of concrete that had fallen from the ceiling and screaming in fury, she brought it down against his forehead and then his chest as he fell to the floor.

“You listen to me,” she said, crouching over him and bubbling over with rage, “I am getting off this miserable plot of land and going home. If you try stopping me, you will fail. I am getting on that rocket and leaving. I don’t even care if you follow me onto the rocket. But I am leaving. Join us if you like.”

“I can’t,” he muttered through the pain. “I can’t abandon my men.”

“Then go help them,” she said, dropping the piece of concrete. “I won’t stop you.” She stood, taking his gun with her, and she marched out to the rocket. Taking a minute to quell the pain, the chief sniper stood and began the painful walk up the stairs.

“Where were you?” Shirin asked in horror as Vanessa joined them inside the rocket. From where they had sat, there were no windows showing the control room that would have allowed them to observe what had been happening.

“Taking care of some company,” Vanessa said with vitriol. She was covered in blood and dust. “It took me a little while to haul myself up this accursed ladder. How much time is left on the countdown?”

“About three minutes,” Theo answered. “You’d better get yourself strapped in. That’s about how long it took us to figure out how to do it.”

The hatch doors above them opened to a deep red sky as the meteors rained down. The moon loomed large in the sky, and had also begun breaking apart in the gravitational pull.

“Great,” said Vanessa, and two seconds later the rocket launched.

Hurtling through the sky, the ship shook with every minor impact of debris. The sound of the chaos outside roared as loud as the engines. Vanessa could see Shirin was screaming, but the noise from her was drowned out. Exiting the atmosphere, the collisions sent their ship hurtling in a variety of directions, but the autopilot continually corrected their course. And then ... silence. The rocket separated, the takeoff engines dropping back down to Ecbatana.

“Did we make it?” Shirin asked, eyes clamped shut.

“Unbelievably,” Vanessa replied, “yes. I have no idea where we’re headed though.”

“According to the onboard computer,” offered Theo, “looks like a planet in the Zashana system.”

“And we’re *sure* we’re passed the danger?” Shirin said. “There’s no chance of anything killing us now? No debris?”

“We’re safe,” Vanessa answered, taking a hold of her hand. “We’re completely safe.”

“What about the people left behind? In the bomb shelter?”

“I don’t know.”

And with that, the ship went quiet again.

# # #

The news on Zashana could not stop talking about the exciting rescue mission to Ecbatana. It was the perfect story to draw in viewers. First, two locals escape the certain death of the decaying planet. Having been discovered and sharing their story of survival, and of survivors left behind, soon governments and businesses alike were rushing to be first to extend humanitarian aid. *If only we had known about these problems sooner!* they would all cry, happily pulling out their checkbooks and paying for rescues.

From the warmth of her jacuzzi in the Zashana capital, Vanessa watched the scene play out with great amusement. She loved it when hypocrites were exposed in their hypocrisy. She likewise found great joy in seeing footage of the people from the bomb shelter being escorted off the rescue ship, safely landed on Zashana. She sat up with a jolt when she saw the sniper chief was among them, walking off the ship accompanied by five more men in army fatigues.

“Good for him,” she said aloud, “he actually did go back for his team.”

As the reporters talked amongst themselves, they mentioned how rescue efforts were being intensified, since most experts agreed the planet had only days left before it would be completely pulverized and sucked into the sun’s orbit. At the current tally, about fifty thousand had been recovered from the planet, but they estimated another fifty thousand remained to be found and saved.

“What a miserable trip,” she said. At least she avoided the media circus. As soon as the rocket had landed she had bailed, telling Shirin and Theo to take credit and leave her out of it. Now she could relax.

Just then her comm device began to ring. Her employers. The scumbugs who sent her there. She ignored it. It rang again. Ignored.

She let herself slide down into the tub as far as she could go. The water was piping hot. The jets were on full blast. Three plates of food straight from the gourmet restaurant next door had been delivered to her room. She had eaten two and one was still waiting for her. Silk pajamas lay just out of reach, next to the fuzziest towel she had ever encountered. After a long, miserable time spent in a war zone, things were finally looking up.