The Forgotten Island

As your circumstances change, your perception of priorities change with them. If you're cut off from the world you once knew, chances are you're going to think less and less of it over time. Wendell and his companions remember the way things were, but they're closer to the way things are now. They'll snap back to their former selves when the conditions demand it, but their minds are as stranded as ever.  
-Bill

Words by Bill Arundell
Illustration by Dylan Burnett

It was around noon on a sunny late January day. A Thursday, or maybe a Friday. Wendell was pretty confident in his records and they showed Thursday, so Zara was going with his word. Braelyn still gave Wendell a hard time about it. She always gave him a hard time about everything. Three years and it was the same shit every day, over and over again. She never liked the way he made the fires. She wouldn’t let him gut the fresh kills because she said he would miss the bones. She would never trust him to decontaminate the water. “You’ll get us all killed,” Braelyn would say, no matter the circumstances. Wendell had resorted to taking out his frustration on a few tree trunks with his knife, carving up the spongy bark with the steel blade. He would gouge out slivers and shards as they flew off in all directions, raining on the sandy grass at his feet. He was sick of it. He wasn’t sure how much longer he could hold it together. It would take a miracle for them to get out of there, alive or otherwise.

            Three years of waiting, alone but with each other. The three survivors might as well have died along with the rest of the platoon. “Those guys had the right idea,” they would joke. But they kept on living, kept on surviving on the shores of wherever they were. None of them had been there before they touched down and the metal and flames started flying. Zara thought the place was called Jeremiah-VI but Braelyn argued that they had been to that planet before and it always rained there. Wherever they were stuck sure didn’t rain that often. Maybe once every three and a half weeks, but that was being generous. Prenura kept coming to Wendell’s mind, but the other two were not so sure about his guess. After a while they stopped arguing over it. A colony world didn’t need a name without a colony, and three people living on the shores of an unnamed ocean didn’t qualify as a settlement. Truth be told, they weren’t even sure if they were on the edge of an ocean. The water was salty, and their survival kit would make it drinkable, but they couldn’t possibly know how big it was. They just chose to forget about it.

            Braelyn made her way back to the campsite with three fresh kills hanging by their thin legs clutched in her balled fist, knuckles white and strained to keep their grip. Some sort of native bird with a meaty breast but an otherwise worthless set of muscles that Wendell would struggle to chew over the course of the afternoon. They plucked the thin feathers and cooked the birds over the fire and split the best parts equally. The fats ran from the corners of their mouths as they ate the meat off the bone. The oils greased Wendell's beard. He had let the hair grow, but it had become more of a nuisance than the convenience of not having to comply with uniform grooming. They had their routines and habits, and since there were only three of them the food was mostly plentiful and general supplies lasted exponentially longer. They got by. They each took turns rifling through their equipment storage looking for weapons they had not used in some time, giving everything equal use to maintain a good supply. With only three in their band of survivors, everyone could have their choice of guns and ammunition. The dead wouldn’t mind. They couldn’t have their say. And those that lived could have their gear.

            Zara was cleaning a pile of multi-purpose rifles and counting the omni-mags that housed all sorts of ammunition options when she heard a low hum in the distance. “I think that pack of pig-dogs is making its way around again,” Zara said in the general direction of Wendell and Braelyn, but to no one in particular.

            “Not their pattern,” Braelyn said. “They were headed south along the shore on Tuesday—”

            “Monday. And I thought we were calling them pogs,” Wendell interrupted.

            “Shut up. They were headed south a few days ago, so that couldn’t be them on their way back up. We won’t see them until after the weekend.”

            “Could be the herd of elephant dinosaur things making their way east,” Wendell said. “It’s around that time of year for them to come breed by the water.”

            “Not sure I want to be around for that again,” Zara said.

            “We should. Lots of good kills to go around when they arrive,” Braelyn said.

            “I’m not sure we…” Wendell trailed off as the humming sound grew louder and closer. It was near enough for them to know it was not coming from the ground. It was in the air, above the tree line and moving fast.

            “What in the hell kinda bird is that?” Braelyn asked, searching the skies for a far off speck or a giant creature. The planet was large enough that the three surivors wouldn't have encountered even the smallest fraction of wildlife, so it could have been anything.

            “Zara, have you got enough of those cleaned up yet?” Wendell said. She tossed them each a rifle and a few clips.

            “That thing sounds big. This could be good. It could feed us for weeks,” Braelyn said.

            “I don’t think we’re going to be taking anything down,” Wendell said as he turned to scan the skies. And there it was, flying low over the treetops to the west, catching the light glare off the front. It grew much larger as it approached the camp, seemingly targeting their location. “Get your suits on,” Wendell said with his eyes still locked on that thing.

            They clambered over the stockpiles of equipment and pulled on their vests and armour. “What is it?” Zara asked.

            “I don’t know but it’s headed this way,” Wendell had to yell over the expanding roar. It flew overhead and out across the water, turning on a dime in the air. The thrusters slowed the craft to a steady crawl back towards the shore. Braelyn searched for the markings on the hull and caught a glimpse of the red insignia and stencilled letters. She couldn’t believe it.

            “It’s the fucking Nats!” Braelyn screamed, picking up her rifle and planting the stock against the shoulder of her flak jacket like she was back in the shit on any given mission. “I knew it! I knew it!”

            “You didn’t know shit! A minute ago you wanted to eat that thing!” Wendell yelled back at her. He couldn’t let her have that moment, even as the ship approached them. The Assufion Nationals had found them. Part of Wendell was relieved that they were no longer stranded on an abandoned colony world some absurd number of light years away from the core. The other part was shitting itself because the first people to find them were likely to riddle their bodies full of bullets. Those three years of struggling to stay alive with the slightest hope that someone would rescue them. Three years hunting and scavenging, even though the first two weeks their diet consisted mostly of their comrades’ remains. Three years of living with the squad leader he couldn’t stand and a quiet rookie who any straight man would have tried to climb on top of the moment he realized they were going to be stuck on some rock for the rest of their lives. Wendell had figured his predisposition for men had inadvertently done Zara a favour. Oh, it was a long three years.

            Braelyn unleashed a hellfire of explosive rounds at the nose of the craft, pinging the off the reinforced cockpit glass before bursting. Between the tiny impact explosions a voice could be heard over a loud speaker. When Braelyn stopped firing the voice could be heard clearer saying, “Hold your fire! Put down the weapons! Hold your fire!”

            “Fuck that!” Braelyn yelled back at the voice that had strangely personified the craft more than usual for Wendell who was becoming anxious to just see different people. The ship touched down on the beach and dropped its loading ramp. A squad of Assufion Nations filed out of the ship and raised their weapons in a warning position but did not fire, at least not until Braelyn shot the lead member in the face, spraying blood and bone over those behind him. She toggled her weapon’s settings and loaded a mini-rocket that she blasted near their feet. The front two soldiers did not have to suffer long as they were mixed in with the eruption of sand, but the two behind them were sent backwards with surface wounds. The sand mixed with their burns and the screams startled Wendell into lowering his rifle for a moment as he looked on. Braelyn charged towards the ship and ran over the squad and finishing off the last two. Wendell and Zara overcame their initial shock and sprang up from crouched positions to chase after her. Braelyn leapt up the ramp followed closely by a scrambling Wendell and even-stepped Zara. They raised their weapons and paced through the central corridor of the ship. It wasn’t much bigger than the standard Orion Union shuttles where they had spent many tours between battlefield deployments and shore leaves. The three of them reached the cockpit door, and Braelyn didn’t wait to check its lock. She blasted it at the bolt mechanism and burst through to find two pilots with sidearms raised. They didn’t stand a chance. The one on her left received a greeting from Braelyn’s under-barrel shotgun and the second a round from the standard rifle in the stomach. “We’re taking this ship,” she said.

            “P—please. Please wait,” the lone survivor of the Assufion National shuttle pleaded to Braelyn as he clutched at his stomach. He looked to Wendell for help but he just stood in the doorway, shocked by Braelyn’s ability to fly right back into the routine of things. She had been a trained killing machine and never lost that grease. For once, he was glad to be on her side.

            “We are taking this shuttle right now,” Braelyn urged.

            “No, y—you must listen,” the pilot said.

            “What is it?” Wendell asked.

            “You don’t under—stand,” he struggled. “We’re here to—”

            “We’ve been waiting over three years to be found, I’m just sorry it had to be you guys. This isn’t personal, it’s survival,” Braelyn said raising her rifle higher to put him out of his misery.

            “No! You need to know!” The pilot raised his bloodied hand to defend himself. “If you take this ship and return to the core you will not be greeted as you hope.”

            “We’ll do just fine, thank you,” Braelyn said.

            “No. You said you have been here for three years? If that’s true, you couldn’t have had communications or you would have been found before now. Am I right? You've really been stranded that long?”

            “No shit, like I said it was bad luck for you guys to have been the first to fly by and spot us,” Braelyn said.

            “What are you trying to say?” Zara asked.

            “You’re Orion Union soldiers, right? Judging by your equipment, we knew you were Orion. If you take this ship, you won’t be received as long lost heroes. The war is over.”

            “What do you mean?” Wendell said.

            “The war ended two years ago. We—the Assufion Nationals won, a sweeping victory of the core battles. The Union was forced out into the fringe and none of them survived I don’t think. At least, none reported back or sought assistance. The Union is dead. The Assufion Dynasty has risen. You have been gone for so long.”

            “What? How is that—how could we—” Braelyn couldn’t believe her ears.

            “You’ve just killed your rescuers. We were sent here to find any survivors that remained from the Union and offer them safe passage to the core. We’ve been planet hopping on all the habitable worlds and any locations with past activity that the Union didn't occupy when they fled. We were here to take you home! Alive!”

            “Can you tell me something?” Wendell asked.

            “What?”

            “What day is it? And where are we?”

            “January 24, 2154,” the pilot said.

            “Yeah?”

            “It's a Thursday. And you’re on Prenura.”

            “I fucking told you,” Wendell said to Braelyn with a smile.