“Kale I’m tired take the stick”
“You know Ariel, we could always just drift”
“What happens if we enter a debris field? You know the rocks out here go way too fast. We need someone to steer and keep this ship hole free.”
Ariel had known Kale since they were small. They had come up together on one of the many space stations rooming the galaxy. They had grown up at the port of the Aries watching the traders, scouts and salvagers come and go. There wasn’t much on the station itself and so the port was busy.
The scouts would bring news, mostly of what was around them They would be the first to know if another station was approaching or some moon or planet had something salvageable. The scouts would then sell that information to salvagers. Salvaging was a dangerous job. The information the scouts would give was almost never complete. Scouts seldom went planet side preferring to just point the way. Salvagers did the real work of exploring planets and telling who ever was in charge of the stations if it was worth sending an expedition, it was the salvagers who would take samples. Ariel and Kale were salvagers.
“Alright, Alright I’ll steer who knows maybe I’ll be known as the guy who was flying the ship that found Eden”
“Shut up and just steer. Eden my ass.”
“What’s that yellow dot, maybe I can get out of my night of duty”
“The sensors say there’s quite a bit of sulfur in atmo but for a quick nights rest with the suits we should be okay. Alright take her down”
As the two lower the rust bucket a silent explosion shakes the ship. Both turn their heads and realize that air is escaping through a giant hole in the hull. Both also realize that the controls are shot.
“Fuck, Fuck I don’t want to steer tonight you say. What’s that yellow dot you say”
“Just grab the emergency packs. We’re close enough to the surface so that we can use the chutes”
They jump, leaving home. The only place they had.
As Kale falls he realizes that he is not slowing down as quickly as he should. The cloth parachute is being eaten by chemicals in the air. He and Ariel hit the ground harder than they have ever from any airdrop.
Rubbing a bruised shoulder Ariel says, “So what do we do now without a ship or a way back to Canaan.”
“I’m thinking. We don’t know where we are. We don’t have much equipment and to top things off we know for a fact that this place is toxic if we stay here too long.”
Just then a red light shone from the horizon. The brief light in the night revealed an oddity about the earth Kale and Ariel were standing on.
As Ariel knelt she said, “Hey I can see myself in the ground.”
“Huh”
“It’s glass. The ground is glass.”
Kale knelt and rubbed his hand on the ground. “Fuck your right. We got to get out of this place.”
Another explosion went of and the two decided to walk towards it. Even if it was dangerous there was the possibility that people would be there. Maybe someone who could answer questions or even better help them get off this rock.
They walk for hours towards the flashing lights and booming noise, until finally from a ridge they see it more clearly. War. Violence but in the chaos they could not make out an army. It was just destruction. Then finally they realized that the warriors were not men but machines. Large slow ones with cannons on their backs fired into the field of glass which was now a field jagged with holes filled with sand. . Faster ones with smaller guns on their backs rocketed through the simultaneously shooing and bludgeoning anything near them.
Despite all of this violence not every machine was blasting what it could. There were smaller ones who while being ignored by the larger ones were picking up debris and cleaning the battlefield. They would determine if broken machines were still functional and if not would dismantle, store and transport what could be salvaged.
Ariel and Kale stood and watched as bombs and guns ripped holes into metal, could they even be called bodies? Most looked nothing like humans or even animals. They were machines.
“So where do we go from here,” Ariel said
“What?” said Kale as an explosion went off a half a mile from his ear.
“What’s the plan? I mean we decided to go towards the battle in hope of finding people but it looks like there are just machines down there”
Kale looked hard at the field. Thinking, he noticed something. “Every so often one of the smaller ones gets full and heads off somewhere. I guess we could follow
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