WORLD 4: AWAKENING

Undoubtedly there were many on Colony Four who’d barely slept, and I was no exception. Going over details, different scenarios, imagining the planet in detail — I must have checked the time every hour all night long.

Teams involved in the first wave woke up early to report to the enormous holding room. The place was alive with noisy people in all different shirt colors, chatting nervously amongst themselves. I wound my way through the talkative crowd, nodding to those I knew, an anxious grin offered up. The longer everyone waited, the louder the buzzing and conversation became. Soon it grew to such a high volume that Protection Officers had to shout for everyone to quiet down.

Med Lev had been assigned a specific area in the holding room. Ty stood tall and professional with a personal screen, pointing and shouting out orders.

“You! You’ll be taking crates one through five, while you will take six through ten. Next, I —”

Hey there, Commander Ty!” I said, greeting him with an arm around his waist.

“Oh, hey Mayla!” he said. He re-tucked his blue shirt that my arm had disturbed. “May, you’ll be taking crates eleven and twelve.”

“She only has to take two and I have to do five?!” Ceres whined loudly. He was never one who enjoyed heavy lifting.

“That’s right,” said Ty. He didn’t even look at Ceres. “Anyway, I’ll continue where I left off.”

“I’ll take five!” I interrupted and stepped in line with the others. “I don’t care. Or we can forget about numbers and just all help each other.” Ty threw me an annoyed expression. I sighed and tried to backtrack. “Or, we could all just listen to Ty since he’s in charge.”

He kissed me on the cheek. “Alright, like I was saying —”

“Prepare for gravity shift.” The loud voice over the speakers interrupted him. Ty grumbled and gave up trying to boss us around.

I gulped nervously and put a hand on the wall to steady myself like others were doing. The Colony was about to enter the atmosphere for the first time in eight years. A few seconds later, I felt my body lift, weightless, then fall back into gravity all at once. It was extremely unsettling. Shrieks in all different volumes sounded from people around the room feeling it as well.

“Oh…wow.” Ceres looked sick and leaned his forehead against the wall.

But the shift in gravity was quickly forgotten as our ride became bumpy. Instead of the smoothness of space, we were dealing with an atmosphere that contained actual air. Air with wind, currents, and moisture; it was making Colony Four bump, roll and jolt like crazy. People everywhere were gripping each other, sitting on the floor to wait it out, or just teetering back and forth like a toddler. It had at least managed to quiet everyone down — the room had turned pretty much silent, apart from the screams that would erupt with each hard bump.

Five minutes later, the ride finally smoothed out. I breathed a sigh of relief and put my arm around Ty again. Another announcement sounded:

“Prepare for landing in five minutes.”

Suddenly, I realized a very important detail of the large room: there were windows.

Scanning the walls, I finally spotted one and ran to it without a goodbye to Ty or Ceres. A crowd had already gathered. I had to crawl on the ground to get my face to one of the bottom corners of the glass.

The planet soared gracefully underneath me. Dry land, blue water — I could see it all with my own eyes. Landscapes began to come into more detail as we descended further. Soon I could see rivers, actual trees, even grass. It all glided smoothly beneath Colony Four as we made our way to the landing site. My throat tightened as I fought the reflexive urge to cry. It was so incredibly beautiful. I had to share what I’d seen with the rest of Med Lev.

I ran as fast as I could through the crowds of people back to my group.

“Guys! I saw it!” I shrieked.

Ceres jumped up from the floor where he’d been sitting, looking slightly nauseous. “What? Where?!”

I pointed to the window and he took off running. “You’ll have to fight for a spot!” I shouted after him.

Grabbing Ty’s face, I pulled him in for a huge kiss. He jumped a little in surprise.

He stroked my face as we pulled apart. “Whoa, I can see you’re in a good mood.”

I leaned my head against his shoulder and closed my eyes. “Absolutely.”

His fingers ran through my long hair as we waited out the ride, swaying back and forth with me in his arms. Soon, there was a forceful thud right underneath our feet and I knew — we were on land.

I sucked in a breath and my face whipped around to Ty. “I swear I can feel that we’re on the ground, can’t you?” I asked incredulously.

He nodded and gave a very loud, single laugh as we broke apart from each other. “I know, it seems so unnatural, I never realized how different it would feel for the Colony to be still.”

The announcement system came on again. “Protection Officers in wave one disembark now.”

Worry began to leak back in. I looked over at Ty with dread; if those red shirts came back inside and reported the area as unsafe, we’d be sent right back into the Colony. No trees, no fresh air — without permission from our Protection Officers, everything I’d looked forward to would be stripped away from me.

“Guys!” yelled Ceres, sprinting back to us from the window. He clenched onto my arm tightly. “I can’t believe how amazing that was to watch. I cried, I actually cried!”

“I know!” I exclaimed back. Looking out that window had been one of the best moments I’d had in a very long time. “Let’s hope we can see it in person now.”

Ceres’ voice became low and quiet. “If those stupid red shirts don’t let us go outside, I swear to you on my mother’s life I will take a laser scalpel and cut their heads off.”

I threw my head back laughing as I pictured it. “Oddly, I believe you.”

We waited out the time and it was terrible. For thirty long minutes, everyone in the holding room paced around quietly, counting down the seconds, fidgeting and shifting feet. The ultimate prize of freedom was so close that each fraction of a second we waited was almost physically painful. Just as I started to complain about how hot it was getting, I heard it:

“Wave one on-planet teams enter disembarkation room.”

The volume of the crowd rose instantly, morphing again from quiet and nervous to loud and excitable. We made our way into the larger disembarkation room next to us, everyone pushing toward the main Colony double doors, herded by the few red shirts who had stayed behind.

I’d only been in that area once before: on A-Day. I remembered quite well running through those doors to get on board — the angry mob in the background, the red shirt who’d been shot trying to hold them back. We left him behind. At least he died before the fire wave came, which is more than I could say for the others we left.

The doors had a large, chipped stamp of “Colony Four” painted on the inside. I stared at the letters like I was looking at a ghost, remembering my last encounter with them so long ago.

“May!” Ceres pushed me from behind.

“Hey!” I exclaimed, stumbling forward. “Why are you pushing me?”

“To wake you up, freak. Why are you so zoned out? You scared again?”

“No!” I pushed him back. He giggled like a toddler. “I’m just remembering something.”

“Coming on board through here? I remember that, too. Just barely. It’s really just the doors I remember.”

My eyes went forward again. “Me and my dad were the last ones on board.”

Ceres chuckled. “Yeah, everyone remembers that, Mayla. You guys were totally late. People were about to explode, trying to get them to leave without you. Be lucky Commander Archauus is your dad — they wouldn’t have waited so long for someone like me.”

I cringed a little at his insensitivity. “We were only late because he tried to save my grandma. He’d spent hours trying to get to her but there were so many mobs and chaos that he just had to take me and leave.”

Ceres blushed and couldn’t help but stutter. “Oh, geez, s—sorry…I didn’t mean anything by it.”

I gave him a friendly nudge of my elbow. “Don’t worry. All that matters is we’re getting out now.”

He leaned in and whispered, “Do you think we’ll be able to see scratch marks from when people tried to claw their way in? I heard that a bunch of the angry rioters were trying to pry open the doors and stuff as we took off.”

“I know, Ceres, I saw it first-hand,” I said, glancing at him sideways. “Well, I didn’t see it, but I heard it. From the inside right after we got on board and they sealed the doors shut.”

“Hey!” scolded Ty. He walked to us quickly and put an arm around my shoulders. “Stop talking about the past and just focus on the amazing day we’re going to have.” He gave Ceres a stern look. “Alright?”

Ceres just rolled his eyes and walked off through the crowd.

Ty squeezed me closer to him. “I can’t wait to get out there and do some real field medicine for a change,” he said, a look of wonder on his face. “I mean, how great will that be to treat injuries and illnesses in the wild? So barbaric!”

“Well, yeah, but the best part will probably be the fact that we’ll be outside,” I teased. “In the sun. Not in space.”

“That, too. And getting to be in the sun with you will be even better than field medicine.” He kissed me on the forehead. “Or possibly a tie. No offense.”

I was shaking my head at him when a passing red shirt bumped into me. “Sorry!” I apologized.

“Whoops, my fault,” he said. “Just getting excited.”

“Oh, hey!” I exclaimed and pointed at his hip. “Are those the new Air Burst Weapons?”

A device was attached to his belt. He took it off and held it up for me to see. The body of the weapon was white, about three hand-lengths, with a dark gray barrel sticking out from it. A black trigger button sat on the handle, and there were two sliders on the side to adjust the settings.

“Yeah, we just got them,” he said. “Tech Lev has been working on them especially for today.”

“What’s different about them than the other ones?”

“They’re really similar to the first version, but now there’s a stronger setting for both air burst and audio. There’s practically no kickback anymore which makes them easier to handle. Plus, the design is more sleek.” He smiled and looked at the weapon fondly. “I know I’m going to sound dumb, but they look a lot cooler now.”

“Not dumb at all!” said Ty. “I’m sure they look even better now than before.”

“Ha! Yeah, those first ones they invented look like cheap knockoffs compared to these babies!”

Air Burst Weapons — or ABWs, for short — were created during The Five Years of Secrecy as part of their high-tech weaponry program. It started out simply as a way to subdue an enemy rather than killing them, sending out a forceful blast of air that could knock a person unconscious. But of course, it didn’t stay that way. They quickly turned it from a weapon to subdue, into a weapon to kill.

“So what happens at the highest setting now?” I asked.

“Oh, wow. Well, you definitely don’t want to be near it,” he said and winced. “At the highest setting, it will kill someone using blunt force trauma from all the way across a room. At close range…well, it will pretty much made your head or abdomen explode into pieces.”

My jaw dropped. “Whoa. Yeah, I’ll definitely be staying away from you guys.”

“You never know what we might find out there!” the red shirt exclaimed. He pointed to his ABW. “The silent audio setting was increased also. At the highest setting it can actually rupture an ear drum at close range. Long range would just be extremely uncomfortable.”

“Well, then,” Ty said professionally, “I guess we in Med Lev better be ready for those kinds of injuries! Luckily, we’re more than qualified.”

The red shirt sent Ty a weird look for being so formal. He hesitated. “Right. Well, I better get back to my area, but it was good talking to you.”

I jumped as the last announcement came on: “Prepare for Colony Four main door opening.”

Everyone gasped in unison and turned to each other. But not me. My eyes stayed fixed on the doors. I didn’t want to miss one single second of what was about to happen. An enormously loud creak sounded as the doors tried to open, and finally after eight years, I saw a single, bright line of sunlight burst into the room.