The Bridge: A Science Fiction Survival Story

Chapter 54

It was the planet that drove me back into action.

Until this point, talk of departure from the ship had simply been talk. In a way, it was like the stories – I knew them to be true, but they still existed just beyond my own experience. I walked the same halls as they had occurred, yet they were removed. Facts lacking physical sustenance, like a smell without a taste.

But seeing the planet made me realize that we were actually leaving, that it was an event and not only a story, as the realization shifting from the informational part of my brain to the tangible part with a clunk.

"It's incredible," Hannah had breathed when she had seen it through the window, the light reflected off of it playing across her face.

"It's a countdown," I'd responded, my knees wobbling as I stood, the slim portions of food and water sapping away at my strength.

Each day, the light under our door grew dark, and Nean's voice had floated through the clamoring of those outside.

"Rations!" he shouted to those outside. "Rations they fed us while we were hungry, instead of actual meals! Instead of the feasts that you have now! And now, we shall feed them rations, so that they can experience what they put us through!"

Then scraps of food would be forced through the crack under the door, mixed with water to form a sludge of the unwanted bits of vegetables, the hard stems and rotting parts that others had cast away.

At first, I'd recoiled in disgust against the far wall, my nose pinched as the smell wafted from the pile into the room. But then the thirst had begun, and I'd soaked a shirt I had found in the closet in the mound, then squeezed the sour liquid into my mouth. And eventually, I started picking through the bits of sustenance, my standards decreasing with each passing hour and the intensifying growls of my stomach, minimizing my energy to preserve my strength.

But now, with the planet still shining in Hannah's eyes, energy started flushing back to my body and mind. And casting my eyes around the room, I stopped searching for a way to escape.

Instead, I remembered the way Airomem had fended off the horde of gardeners as I had fallen down, helpless from Nean's strike from behind. How Tom had blocked me from the blow of the Esuri's knife, and how I had felt when I had brought the gravity crashing down upon the Agrarians and Aquarians.

So I searched for a way to fight.

In general, the ship was engineered in ways to make it difficult to detach furniture and objects – but remembering Airomem's story of Sitient sitting upon his couch throne, as well as bits and pieces of junk that had accrued over the centuries, I knew it was possible. I rummaged through the closet, finding only smooth wall, bundles of clothes, and a few shoes. Then I tried the bed, but it extended as a single shelf, its interface seamless with the wall with no parts that could be removed. The paneling around the window also refused to budge, though I applied far less effort in trying to remove it, fearful of opening a hole into the outside.

But finally, I found something – something that, while not perfect, would suffice.

The vent set into the wall above us.

Standing on the bed, I stared at it, examining the vertical bars which split the flow of air as it traveled outwards. Placing my hand against them, I pushed, feeling them barely flex inwards under my strength. Beneath me, Hannah stared upwards, watching as I rocked the vent back and forth in place, gaining little ground in actually removing it.

"Try this," she said after a few minutes, handing me up a sock. "Wrap it around one of the bars, and try to pull it free."

So I wove the fabric between the metal and yanked, pulling one of the bars outwards such that it bent in the middle. Pushing it back in, I repeated the action, the center of the grate heating up with each flex until it snapped, the sock flying loose so suddenly, I nearly toppled off the bed. The two halves of the thin bar now stretched away from the vent, their ends jagged, and with several more cycles, they broke at the base to come free.

Two sharp points of metal, each about as long as my middle finger, and about a tenth as thick. After a few more minutes, I had broken away another bar to make four, and jumped off the bed, handing two of them to Hannah.

"Our only chance," I said, holding one of the miniature spears up, "is to catch them by surprise if they open the door, and to make a rush for the exit before they recover."

"You do realize," she responded, her face skeptical though she clutched the rods, "that fighting kitchen knives with these is suicide."

"No, Hannah," I answered, pointing to the floor, "this, staying on this ship, is suicide."