Future Winds Read Free Page A

while she was orange and white.
    “Look who I found,” Aisha called out to Leon as they approached.
    “Nice of you to join us,” Leon said while patting Tyler on the shoulder.
    The two always did get along in their training sessions.
    Leon scratched his beard and continued, “We have been trying to reach the fleet since we landed but our comm systems won’t work. Scorpio said the planet’s natural emissions radiate an interference our tech just can’t penetrate, so there is that.”
    The five of them stood around in silence for a minute while Leon pondered their next move. Without communication to the fleet they were on their own.
    “It’s hot as hell on this planet,” Abram chimed in, cutting into the quietness of the group. Together they all laughed forgetting for a moment that they carried the weight of humanity's salvation on their shoulders.
     
    ***
     
    Valerie Fournier awoke to the smell of burning hair and sulfur. A smell that couldn't be any more unique to the human senses. She began to vomit in both pain and disgust. Her body shrieked out in punishment from her foolish attempt to rise up and get to her feet. She did it anyway.
    Calling out to her drone, Virgo, with no response; she limped towards a mirror and froze in horror. Her face was burnt and her hair gone. All that was left where dark scabs of grotesque mutilation upon her face. Her heart rate elevated as she began to panic. She looked around and called out again to Virgo. No response.
    Small fires burned sporadically throughout the vessel, most of which were coupled with torn holes through the craft’s exterior. Warped, jagged steel lay uselessly scattered about like a car's blown out tire strewn across a highway.
    Valerie sank to the floor crying as she held her once beautiful face. Her whole life she was told she looked like her mother: the most beautiful women Valerie had ever known. Today that comparison would be an insult. Today she looked as beaten and ugly as her father, long since dead, consumed by the sickness of hatred and alcohol addiction.
    “I will not die weak and afraid like him,” she sniffled out.
    Again she forced herself to rise to her feet. She stumbled towards the exit of the craft but it was twisted and torn into pieces. Rock and fire blocked the path. She faltered over to the other side of the ship and punched the release for an emergency hydraulic escape hatch. It blew out with a boom and she fell to her knees in agony to crawl out.  
    She sniffled back tears and rolled over onto her back. Dusty clouds obscured the skies all around her with the exception of what sat directly above. She was granted her own little cut out view of clear space. Trails of purple and blue gasses mingled with nebulas that encased planets and stars light years away.
    What a view, she thought. In that brief moment of awe, she felt no pain.
     
    ***
     
    “What about the French girl?” Abram suggested.
    “Her name is Valerie, you big dumb ogre,” Aisha corrected whilst poking fun.
    “Alright ladies, let’s get to work,” Leon demanded. “Kaito, me and you will go scout out what's going on with Valerie. Most likely she has some sort of a communication error and has lost her bearings. Scorpio confirmed earlier that she landed and her vessel was intact, so hopefully she stayed put. We will go grab her and meet back here. How long is a day on this shit hole?” he added, looking up to his drone.
    “A daily cycle on planet Flare is approximately forty-six hours. At this particular latitude, longitude, and time of year, twenty-five of those hours are daylight and the other twenty-one hours are spent in darkness. The next night cycle begins in approximately nineteen hours,” the bot was quick to respond.
    “We have four intact warp drives at our disposal, luckily we only need to utilize four to construct the warp gate. So that spares us the time needed to go grab Tyler and Valerie’s ships. We can salvage the other two at a later date and