The heat was stifling in the old rusty cargo container. The metallic silver sand that covered the alien world outside was spread across the floor, having seeped in through small holes in the walls and ceiling, and had formed small mounds in the corners. The fierce winds of the desert buffeted constantly against the container.
A young scientist sits in the dim light carving calculations and diagrams into the wall, the collective scientific works of all the ‘misaligned’ scientists and engineers working on the project over the years were scattered around the walls of the container. Her clothes had become riddled with sand, despite her best efforts and had scraped her skin raw as she tried to come up with a work around for the project's latest roadblock, I can’t let this go on any longer she thought.
Her arms slowly dropped from exhaustion into her lap, she wasn’t making any headway. She stared down at her hands watching the grains of sand on her skin reflect the dim light coming through the ceiling of the container.
She started to wonder if they had forgotten about her, the usual punishment for disrupting work was twelve hours in The Box, but that time had lapsed around two days ago.
Suddenly several grating sounds rang out from the cargo container’s doors, it sounded like the chains that held them closed had fallen to the ground and the bolts were being slid back. So they haven’t forgotten about me. The doors to the container squealed in protest as they were gradually rolled open and the bright sunlight streamed in.
A bottle of water flew out of the light and hit her square in the chest. “Drink, quickly.” came an unfamiliar voice, why didn’t he send any of my team to get me. She picked up the bottle and brought it up to her mouth weakly and took a sip to check if it was actually water; some of the other personnel had a crude sense of humour. The sudden taste of the water was enough for her natural instincts to take over, she greedily drank as much as she could, scared that they may take it away and further extend the punishment.
“Get her into the suit, and be quick about it, the commander needs her alive” came the voice again, it sounded scared. A figure came out of the light and pulled her on to her feet. As her eyes began to adjust to the sunlight she could see that the person in front of her was wearing a survival suit and a second figure at the entrance also seemed to be wearing one.
The person in front of her was unpacking a survival suit. The young scientist leaned against the side of the container as she was helped into the suit. The glare of the sun reflecting off the sand made it impossible to see anything outside of the container.
As soon as her suit had finished sealing, The scientist was dragged towards the entrance. “Wh-what’s the rush…and why do I need a survival suit…is there another solar flare coming?” She stuttered as she tried to match the security officer’s pace, he remained silent and pushed her ahead of him through the entrance, her eyes blinded as the sunlight engulfed her.
The officers were picking up their pace, practically dragging the scientist along, as her eyes slowly became fully adjusted to the harsh light of the five suns scattered across the sky of the dust covered planet beneath their feet. After looking around quickly she could see why the officers had sounded scared. A huge churning wall of silver sand was racing across the desert towards them. “We need to pick up the pace Mike!” cried the officer pulling her. He quickly pulled the scientist over his shoulder and started to run full pelt towards the base, an underground complex built into the side of one of the few mountains on the featureless planet. She peaked over his shoulder, her suit’s heads-up display highlighted personnel heading inside and locking down equipment so it would survive the sandstorm. Turning back to see how the sandstorm was progressing the scientist watched as the silver storm front raced towards the edge crater that the mountain was situated in. The artificial intelligence systems in her HUD analysed the rate of the storm's progression towards the trio and added a timer showing when the storm would be upon them. As the scientist looked around the true scope of the storm dawned on her, it stretched across the entire horizon as if it was going to cover the entire planet. This was clearly the largest sandstorm that had ever been seen on the surface of Tal’nor.
Looking back at the base the scientist could see a dune buggy coming out to the main entrance of the base, which was thankfully still open, as it sped out towards them. She turned back to check on the sandstorm again just in time to see the storm flow over the edge of the canyon without pause.
The sound of the approaching dune buggy was nearly drowned out by the sandstorm. The vehicle came up twenty meters short from the trio and stopped. The door on the side of the buggy opened up and two people got out and moved towards them. As they came closer it was clear that they were armed with gauss rifles and wearing full armoured exo-suits. Where the hell did they come from? The military weren’t supposed to know about this project yet.
“Why the hell did they send them with a buggy while we had to walk?” cursed the officer, loosening his grip on her. The scientist slipped herself off the officers back and leaned against him as the two soldiers in armour came to a stop five meters from them.
“Hand over Doctor Farthing, we will be escorting her from here” One of the soldiers grunted. Surprisingly the armour the soldiers were wearing had the logo of a private military company stamped on the left breast. Military contractors. Did they increase the base’s security? Dr Farthing studied the contractors for a moment, but the tinted visors revealed nothing of what they were thinking. Well it’s not like I have any other choice. She began limping over to the two soldiers.
“What about us?!” asked Mike who had been silent up until now as he stepped in front of Dr Farthing. “These are orders from the commander. You need to hand her over now!” Shouted the first soldier as he and his partner raised their weapons. For a tense moment no one moved then Mike moved aside and Dr Farthing proceeded slowly over to the soldiers, when she reached them the soldiers. Mike cried out “We need to get back as well,” his voice being whipped away by the growing wind. “you can’t leave us here!”
The second soldier spoke “Mike Peterson, you have been charged with illegal gambling and multiple counts of damage to Xero human assets, Cal Anderson you are charged with aiding Mike in his crimes, Xero Heavy Industries has terminated your employment effective immediately.” he said in a cold voice. Before either Mike or Cal could say anything the popping sound of two gauss gun shots came followed by two distinct thuds. Dr. Farthing kept herself facing the buggy as the two soldiers turned around and helped her over to it.
The ride back to the base was relatively comfortable. As the buggy drove through the main entrance of the base Dr Farthing could see that several centimeters of sand had already covered the ground inside the vehicle bay. As the buggy pulled up into the facility the soldiers quickly jumped out, a medical team quickly approached with a stretcher and helped Dr. Farthing out of the buggy. The team rushed her straight to the base’s medical complex.
As she arrived in the main triage center Dr. Farthing was finally greeted with a friendly face. “Harmony! Are you okay? It's me Alex, how do you feel? Did they give you something to drink?” asked Alex in her usual quick fire way. Dr. Harmony Farthing recognised her long time friend and colleague but her voice sounded distorted as if she was under water. Harmony tried to ask her to slow down but suddenly felt incredibly weak, her body felt heavy and all the sounds around her became distant as the world turned black.
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