Distant sounds of people screaming and scraping metal are heard in the blackness.
Stan slowly open his eyes to witness the Icarus half broken and dig in the dirt, stan stand up with minor wounds in his body and his suit torn, watchig people around him decapitated or wounded or some of them still unconscious,his heart skips a beat and feel ready to throw up, he slowly gets himself together and goes to the unconscious people one by one trying to wake them up while in the same time looking for Alina,in the end he cannot wake anyone nor find Alina.
He walks outside the hall and sees the distance beetwen the ground from the broken bridge ,he climbs down with caution and slowly leaving his hands free,falling down with less impact than he expected,he looks around him he sees Alina and many people sixty meters away from him, sitting inside a dome made from the broken parts of the ship,protected by the sunligt of two suns,a smile come to his face and he make his steps towards them but Alina notices him in the last minute before moving outside the metals that protect him from above and makes a sign for him to stop, Stan stops and Alina takes the man they previously talked in the hall and many more holding metal parts of the ship that can cut someone.
All of them start looking up and Stan looks at then with his one eyebrow upward, Alina and the others then meet him and he asks "Alina what happened?"
"Nobody knows,everyone says that they only remember waking up inside the hall or somewhere else and captain jogorumo is nowhere to be found"
Stan says with a bit worry "what do we do?"
"Follow my lead,they are beast in the sky that are going to eat us if we don't stay together"
Stan look with wonder and before he talks Alina grabs him and pulls him back to go to the hall.
Everyone there checks the bodies and the pulses of the unconscious people and takes them in their shoulders, Alina and Stan go first and check the sky, they make a sign for everyone to move, as they move to the camp Stan hears a sound from Alina ,he looks at her seeing her holding a gun in her left arm, as swiftly as they can they almost reach the dome with the others ready to leave the bodies down, a voice then takes their look, seeing a young man like Stan running to them with his lungs feeling like they will burst, Alina grit her teeth and says "wait for me with the others" she then runs to the tall thin man and everyone else runs to leave the people, Stan helps them and watch Alina as she is running with the man halfway to them,Stan goes to the edge of the dome waiting for them, from the sky the sounds of birds with deep cries come to his ears, Stan looks up seeing birds that reach half a meter horizontally and vertically but still having a slim body
with their wings half their body and on the side of their head their black eyes, they come like swarm with synchronised movements towards Alina and the man, Alina draws her gun and shoot two or three of them but they fly high again surrounding them .
Alina starts to shoot again and turning in every direction while trying to walk toeards the dome with the man looking with fear the large predator birds in the dome, everyone look with fear and Stans body starts to move after a small shock going towards them, but he stops again when
One of the birds comes from behind Alina opening it's mouth and showing his multiple thick teeth , ripping her arm ,Stan stops again from fear and watching Alina signing to him to not move forwatd,amd he stare as Alina push the man to leave as she shoots and screams for the predators to come to her, as most of the predators surround her creating a black tornado and the sound of their wings taking over her screams,the man run with some of them hunting him and the people in the dome start firing at them.
The birds quickly retreat and go to their companions, sharing with them some of Alinas limbs and then they leave to hunt elsewhere ,the man now crawling comes to the aid of the people, some took him by his hand and offer him food while their eyes scream in terror and others like Stan looking with the same way at the place Alina was, now being nothing more there not even a bone of her,Slowly everyone takes their sight elsewhere and discussing about their situation, except Stan looking there with horror, anxiety,anger ,his fists start crunching and opening , feeling his chest ready to burst .
Time passes with the darkness taking the place of the two suns and the people eating and waking from their slumber, the Martian look at him from over his shoulder, still looking at the place Alina was and comes to him with food "stan i understand your pain,its hurting me too but you have to take care of yourself, especially now, come with me and eat" Stan smile and look for one more time in the place and goes with the others around sitting and eating.
As the dark night surrounds the land the people with their suits stay comfortable while the others with torn suits start fires and whatever they could to protect from the cold.
Stan sit beside the Martian and some hairy men all over a fire, Stan stand there with some food and a smile hearing them talking ,
One of the hairy men says "this cold reminds me a bit of the cold nights on Venus"
The Martian respond with a question didn't Venus temperature fall to thesame with the temperature of earth?"
The men from mercury laugh out loud "that's just one of the things people from mars and earth made up for us"
"Oh I see"
"It is all right on the day but the night is a bit hard and even harder for our ancestors"
"I hoped I could see even for a day how Vensus is"
The man says with a laugh again "maybe after the expedition the USS will put us on a prosperous job, then you can visit every planet in the system and maybe even beyond when we colonise more planets "
The conversation continues with Stan taking his look on the young man sitting alone in the edge of the dome,thoughts of Alina start coming to his mind and his heart start to pump fast but he quickly erase the memories and goes to the tall man sitting beside him and saying with a smile says
"How can you endure sitting here in the cold without a fire?"
The man says with a low and grim voice "i have got used to such conditions"
Stan raise his eyebrows and says "Let me guess, with your so white skin,your blue eyes and that you have the same height as me that means you are a neptonian"
The man look at him with no emotion in his eyes '"Yes you guessed right"
Stan drops a little laugh and continues "i heard the neptonians don't like the cold so much "
"Some of us love it" says the man with a low voice
Stan start gritting his fist and then giving it to the plutonian "my name is Stan nice to meet you"
The man look at Stans palm and without giving his hand says "my name is Kalevi"
Stan again grit and open his fist and the cold starts piercing his skin
"It's getting a bit cold,do you wanna come with me in the fire there?"
Kalevi speaks with the same way but a bit faster "no I'm alright"
Stan smile to him one last time and turn back inhaling and exhaling many times and goes to sit back ,before leaving him kalevi asks "do you know ehat was the womans name?"
Stan look with his eyes wide open "Alina, she was my friends"
Kalevi scratch his arm saying "im really sorry, it's was my fault"
Stan turn to look at him and smiled,but inside him he feels his chest bursting out of anger,
He then says "she was a good woman,caring and selfless"
Kalevi scratch his hand Moore intensely and Stan turns back again going back to the others.
The conversations slowly stops with everyone being on its own world thinking about the situation and many of them showing signs of despair in their eyes,with the darkness continuing to surround them with no moon to indicate when will end ,from the grass fields outside the dome men and women with guns,green plates of armor and cargos approach them, everyone gets up looking at them and the soldiers come closer now with their faces more clear and jorogumo first in line leading them.
One of the men from Venus say loud "where have you been all these time when we lost so many people?"
Jorogumo look at him like everyone else and says " i am really sorry for that,but i had to regroup my men and take anything precious that can help us survive our days in this planet until help can come,how many are we?"
A man says " almost one thousand eighty"
Jorogumo then gets up looking at the people with sadness in her eyes " so we lost two hundred people" a silence occurs and jorogumo continues "how many of you know how to use guns and how many to repair machines and take care of wounded people?" Most of them raise their hands including Stan and Kalevi, then jorogumo continues "the people who know how to use guns come to my right side and the others to the left, as for the others the soldiers will give you instructions,in fourty minutes we will start moving to a safer place" Stan goes to the left with Kalevi walking right, the soldiers gave everyone instructions and they start moving east from the crash site.
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