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As Brooks stumbled out of the jungle to the clearing around their escape rocket, he paused.

The ship was still upright, but the once-flat clearing around it was now rippled.

The platform it sat on had multiple layers of seismic isolators, letting it simply move with even the strongest of shaking.  A good precaution when such a ship was, by its very nature, meant for an emergency evacuation from a planet.

Despite the precautions, the shaking must have strained it, he thought.  Parts of the edges were damaged, and though the rocket appeared intact, that did not mean it was all okay inside.

The ladder up the side of the platform was a twisted mess, and he climbed up without it, hoping for no further quakes.

The hatch was open, and he threw himself into the ship, tumbling to the ground.  Pain in his shoulder blinded him, but he forced himself up, grabbing a handlebar set in the bulkhead and pulling himself up.

“Close it up!” he yelled up to Kai.

The door began to close behind him, sealing with a perfection that made it impossible to tell it had ever even been a hatch.

Nothing around the ship looked damaged or amiss, but that was only a good sign, not a promise.

He started to haul himself up the ladder towards the bridge, but Kai’s words came down.

“Check the !A!amo, they need their lullabies,” she called back.  “I’ve got the engine starting!  Three minutes!”

Lullabies – the drugs that would render them unconscious for transit.  Every bit of data they had on !Xomyi psychology and physiology suggested it would be better for them this way.  But that didn’t mean they would like it.

Brooks went into the passenger section.  Things looked fine in here, and he saw that most of the !A!amo were already seated.  The seats were designed for their biology, and where each one sat it inflated around them, holding them tightly and securing them for what was going to be a difficult climb.

“You’re going to sleep now,” he told them.  “It is a special power.  When you awaken, you will be safe,” he said aloud for them.

Their eyes opened wide; their hearts were still racing from the earthquake and all else.

“Please,” he said.  “You must trust me.  I know it is frightening.  But . . .”

He stopped, realizing his own fear and pain were showing through.

He took a deep breath, closing his eyes, finding the calm within himself.  It took a moment to look past the pounding of his own heart, but he found it.  The calm he was known for settled upon him, and he opened his eyes.

“I will give my life for you,” he told them.  “And so you must trust me one last time before I deliver to you what I have promised.  I will make you sleep, and go to sleep knowing that you will awaken again, with a new future before you.”

The !A!amo listened to him, and he saw his words sink home.

“I will sleep,” Knows the World said.  His eyes went over the rest of them.  “I have come this far, and I put my trust in True Striker.”

The others nodded, and Brooks stepped closer to the wise man, putting a hand on his shoulder.

“I will see you again soon, my friend,” he said.

Knows the World said nothing, but smiled.  Brooks thought it seemed sad.  For Tracker, his son, who he could plainly see had not come.

“It will not be soon, No Wings,” Knows the World said quietly.  He leaned his head back, and the injector in his seat gave him the sedative.  He relaxed into sleep.

Seeing that all of the !A!amo were asleep, he rushed towards the cockpit, hauling himself into his seat with less than a minute to spare.

“Cutting it close, don’t you think?” Kai said.

“Wouldn’t be me if I didn’t,” he muttered as the automated webbing strapped him in.

“Cutting startup short,” Kai said.  “Ship’s eager to go, and so am I . . .”

“Hit it!” Brooks said.

Kai slammed the lever forward, and then they were thrown back in their seats as the engines roared to life.

The liftoff felt slow for a few moments, but then they began to feel the pressure of movement upon themselves; at first light, then firm, and then crushing.

The whole cabin was shaking, and Brooks knew that if the ship had damage, at any moment their trip might end in fire.

“Look,” he heard Kai say with difficulty, her eyes turned hard to look out their front viewscreen.

Brooks turned his eyes as far as he could.

And saw a streaking light moving through the atmosphere.

It was not near them; it must have been hundreds of kilometers away, at least.  Yet it was huge, lighting up the entire sky.

A piece of Omen, coming down.  A piece that would wipe out all life on the world.  And if they did not get out of the atmosphere fast enough, them as well.

It hit.   The windows tinted against the immense burst of light that ensued, and he could see vaguely Ko’s surface peeling back, moving more like a liquid than a solid, under the impact.

That piece had to be twenty kilometers, he thought.  The ocean beneath it would part like it was nothing, and the rock would still punch dozen of kilometers into the crust.

The shockwave, if it reached them, would swat them from the air like a gnat.  Any piece of high-speed debris would annihilate them, and he saw dozens of pieces of the planet thrown up by the impact, flinging into space.

The ship began to shake more, and an alarm went off.

“What’s happening?” he yelled.

“We’re okay!” Kai yelled back.

“That does not sound okay!”

“Trust me!” Kai replied.

He did.  But he hated not knowing.

“Booster separation!” she called.  The ship jolted; throwing them forward, then the next stage started, slamming them back into their seats.

“Bump!” she yelled.  He looked over and saw that, despite it all, Kai was grinning like a madwoman.

The shaking subsided, as they cleared the atmosphere, entering into the empty void.

The stars were visible, shining at him with unblinking light.

Despite it all, he found himself wanting to laugh, too.

“Craton, this is Team Brooks,” Kai called over the radio.  “We have cleared atmo.  Can you hear us?  Please respond.”

There were a few moments of silence.  Then, a voice came.  “Team Brooks, this is the Craton.  Nice to hear from you again.”

The voice of Shomari Eboh contained a warmth that was humbling.  Behind him, the sounds of uproarious cheers could be heard from the bridge crew.

They had escaped, he realized.

Brooks could not stop his mind from tallying that; then from thinking of just what he had escaped.

The realization of what they had left behind began to hit him.

Tracker, his friend, Young Mother, and Little One were gone.

The world of Ko was gone.  The land where he had . . . he had become friends with these people.  It was all they had ever known; all their ancestors had ever known.

Their way of life destroyed.  Those moments of their lives, nothing like them ever to be repeated in anything but memory.  All of the knowledge of lifetimes now only reference to something past-tense.

The land where he had hunted with them.  The land where he had bled with them, where he had held a spear, and killed the keko!un.

His hands were shaking.  Kai was looking at him, worriedly, judging if he was injured and simply had not told her.  But he could not tell her what was the matter; she would feel it in her own way, but right now he could only feel what was in his own head.

Tears gathered in his eyes.

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< Ep 12 part 68 | Ep 12 part 70 >