Worlds Apart

Catechism

Maaike and I are in for a rude awakening early morning as I rise to a signal having crept into range of the rover's radio. I perk up from my place splayed out over the driver's seat, leaning up to adjust the volume to make out their distorted tones better along the other end.

"They got away once, Cain. You better not let that happen again."

"We've been trekking through these woods for hours, Wyetta. I already got two men separated from the group to head along the east ridgeline near the stream, desperate to find anything regardless of your orders-"

"Though I suppose you didn't do much to stop them?" The Colonel snaps knowingly.

The domineering figure along the other end surprisingly answers her accusations with a lower tone as he insists, "It's not like I could blame them. We can cover more ground that way."

"And provide these barbarians the means to wean out two more of our men with no backup ready to assist them. I ordered you to maintain your party of ten, Cain. No more, no less."

"Wyetta, the village is ours, and it's large enough to sustain all 400 plus of us. I don't see why we can't just leave it at that-"

"We've been over this." The Colonel argues along the other end, silencing her partner. "Until we figure out who these people are, how many of them are here, and what exactly they want from us, we leave the remaining 326 men remain in cryo sleep to nap just as comfortably as they had the past hundred years before, alright?"

Cryo sleep? As in cryogenic? If they found a way to preserve themselves to travel the length of space and return not even aged a year older hundreds of years later, then they must have been here before the first apocalypse. No wonder they are so hell bent on figuring out what happened to their planet in the time they were banished from it.

Colonel Wyetta seems bent on confirming my conclusion as I tune back into the radio signal in time for her to grunt, "I want answers. Now get me someone to interrogate. That means alive, Cain. You copy?"

"Fine, I copy." He relents, bitter. "I'll bring in the first barbaric freak I find in pristine condition just for you, Wyetta. But the second they try anything, they're mine."

Much to my surprise, the normally stern Colonel merely scoffs before voicing, "I won't put up with anymore happy accidents, dipshit, especially of your doing. Get me someone alive, and get them before nightfall. Over and out."

I do not think twice before turning to the back of the rover to wake Maaike.

"What is it?" She grunts, panic lacing her small features as she automatically raises a hand to the quiver still strapped over her shoulder. "What's wrong?"

"Calm yourself, parvulus. We're okay." I insist, repositioning my hand now set over her wrist to steady her as she rises, adjusting both bows also still tucked over her shoulder. "We just need to move, now."

Her fuzzy brows furrow confusedly. "Why's that?"

"Because I just got us two more targets, and from what I've heard, they've broken off from the search team and are heading this way."

"Still," Maaike insists, unhappily taking note of the darkness still peering through cracks in our barrier along the mouth of the cave, "they can't be more than a couple miles out from the village by now. Why the rush?"

"Because I don't want to give them the chance to get close to us." I press, insistent. But even my authoritative tone cannot hide the exhaustive edge that accompanies it. We barely got to sleep more than a couple hours this night, and even then, we are still not faring all that well from the injuries we sustained yesterday. "I know this is hard," I sympathize a moment later, drawing her tired eyes back to my own, "but this it what it means to be at war, especially if we're the only two people on the planet readily available to keep these people from invading any more of the Coalitions lands to maintain this war. For now, fear is the only card we have to play, Maaike. If we keep them scared, we keep them contained until the others come back to help us."