Endlessly Stretches the Nameless Sand

by Wuckster

The feeling of numerous slimy insectile legs crawling across her face stirred Captain Langolin back into consciousness. She swatted instinctively at whatever the thing was that was invading her personal space. Her hand connected with something large and wet and she heard a splattering sound as she knocked it away. She sat up and struggled to keep her eyes open as she slowly began to regain her senses. Her head felt like it had been smacked silly with a large metal pole. 

She heard a hissing sound off to her left and turned to see a multi-legged creature the size of a large rat charging towards her. It had several arms sporting pincers, three long tails with sharp stingers at the end, and a gaping mouthful of jagged fangs with slime dripping off of them. She wasn't sure if this was the same creature she had forcibly ejected from her face or a different one, but either way it looked angry and seemed determined to inflict some serious harm on her. She reached to the holster on her right leg and found her blaster was still there. She drew it quickly and pulverized the creature into smithereens as it was mere inches away from making contact with her.

Captain Langolin stood slowly to her feet, making sure none of her limbs were broken. She was battered and bruised and had suffered numerous cuts and gashes, but she thankfully appeared to be intact. She dusted herself off and ventured to look around.

A large red sun hovered about halfway up the sky, giving the atmosphere a faint pink hue. A small purple cloud floated near the horizon, but otherwise it was clear as far as the eye could see. She appeared to be in a vast desert filled with green sand dunes rolling off in all directions. There was a sparse amount of vegetation, a spiny prickle-bush sprouting up here and there, but mostly there was just the emerald colored sand everywhere. She thought she could see a dark smoke cloud off in the distance, but it seemed much too far away to account for the acrid stench of burning metal and electrical wires that was wafting in the breeze that blew at her back. Turning around she saw a much larger smoke cloud that appeared to originate from just beyond a large green sand dune.

She hurried to the top and then paused when she saw the flaming wreckage of her ship at the bottom of the dune. Memories came rushing back to her and she suddenly knew how she had found herself in this predicament. There had been a distress signal originating from a rocky planet orbiting an uncharted star. Commander D'xjan had sent her and a small crew to investigate, but it had been an ambush. A Xylerian fighter ship had been laying in wait and got the drop on them as soon as they had come out of light speed. A furious dogfight had ensued, resulting in a violent crash landing on the planet below. Judging from the second smoke cloud in the distance, she was pretty sure they had at least taken the Xylerian bastards down with them. Captain Langolin must have been ejected from the ship at some point during the crash, which explained why she had woken up in the middle of the desert with that alien bug crawling over her. But what had happened to her crew?

She made her way quickly but carefully down the sand dune. The smoke was thicker down here and she had to cover her mouth with her vest as she approached the smoldering wreck. "Travorson?" she called out. "Moretti? Jinghausen? Can anyone hear me?"

She passed a couple of charred lumps of burning flesh that were vaguely human shaped. This didn't seem to bode well for the survival of her crew. The heat from the wreckage was intense and she wasn't going to be able to get much closer to it. Anyone still inside of the ruins of the ship was certainly dead and she doubted if she would be able to salvage any supplies from it even after the fire burned itself out. She could only hope that some of the other crew members had been flung from the ship as she had. She began calling out names again. There had only been ten crew members including herself, and she could confirm two deaths, although she couldn't identify the blackened remains. That still left seven people unaccounted for.

She heard a muffled scream coming from somewhere off to the left. She sprinted around the wreckage and saw three people on the ground, all of whom were absolutely swarmed with alien creatures of the same type that had attacked her. She thought she recognized Jinghausen amid the wriggling mass of legs and tails, but the other two were so buried by aliens that they were unidentifiable. They were being bitten and stung repeatedly and nasty bloody wounds were rapidly forming on any visible body parts.

"Get off of them!" Captain Langolin yelled as she charged toward the writhing pile of slimy aliens, but they didn't respond to her at all. She pulled out her blaster and started to aim it, but then lowered it helplessly. She didn't want to risk shooting any of her crew. She looked around desperately to see if there was a rock or anything she could throw, but there was nothing. Her boots were pretty solid. Maybe she could kick the damn aliens off.

"Captain," a voice called out from behind her. She turned around to see a tall, dark-skinned woman with blue hair and a skinny young man wearing thick goggles. Moretti and Ensign Clarke.

"Help me get those things off of them!" Captain Langolin shouted.

"It's no use, Captain," Moretti said. "Once they sting you, you're done for. They inject you with some sort of flesh melting venom that's lethal within minutes. I saw Travorson take a single sting to the ankle and less than five minutes later he was nothing more than a puddle of liquid goop."

"He was screaming in agony the entire time," Ensign Clarke said. "It was the most horrible thing I've ever seen."

"Then we should put our friends out of their misery and make sure those alien buggers don't come after us. Do you still have your blasters?"

"We do," Moretti said as she pulled hers out. Ensign Clarke followed suit.

"Then fire at will," Captain Langolin said. They pointed their blasters at the alien swarm and fired away until nothing remained but a smoldering pile of ash.

"That's five confirmed dead, three still alive. That leaves two crew members with status unknown," Captain Langolin said.

"I overheard Pilot Jefferson say there was a malfunction with the eject button," Moretti said. "I'm pretty sure he and Navigator Larsen went down with the ship."

"Nobody could have survived that," Captain Langolin said. "Then it's just the three of us. I'm not going to lie to you. We're in a desperate situation. We have no food and more pressingly, no water. We're not going to salvage anything from our ship and the emergency beacon was aboard, so there's little hope of anyone coming to look for us before we die of deprivation. We have no idea if this planet has any resources of nutritional value to us or if it's inhabited by anything other than murderous venom-spewing monsters. Our only hope is to make it to the wreckage of the Xylerian ship and hope it sustained less damage than we did. Maybe we can find some supplies there, although less damage might also mean more survivors, meaning we may have to tangle with who knows how many of our most hated enemies."

"This sounds impossible!" Ensign Clarke said.

"Anything is possible, until the moment that it isn't," Captain Langolin said. "All we can do is try. Now say a prayer to whatever gods you believe in and let's head off."

*

The sun beat down relentlessly on them as it travelled steadily across the sky while they walked across endless miles of green sand dunes. A few more purple clouds dotted the sky and an occasional slight cool breeze offered them a sliver of relief from the heat, but they were all parched with thirst and losing valuable moisture through sweat. Their energy was quickly dwindling, but Captain Langolin continued to spur them on, despite a dryness in her throat that was beyond anything she had ever experienced before.

After a few hours of walking, Ensign Clarke collapsed to the ground. "Go on without me," he rasped. "I can't take another step."

"Ensign Clarke!" Captain Langolin shouted. "Get on your feet! That's an order!"

"I'm sorry, Captain," he said. "I'm utterly exhausted and my mouth burns from thirst. It's painful just to talk."

"I'm not losing anyone else!" Captain Langolin said. "Moretti! Pick him up by his left shoulder. I'll take the right. We'll carry him!"

The two women pulled the skinny young man to his feet and began dragging him along. He tried his best to keep taking steps, but then he quickly lost consciousness and became nothing more than dead weight. They continued to pull him as they inched their way forward slowly.

"Captain," Moretti grunted. "We can't take much more of this. We have to leave him behind or we're all going to die."

Captain Langolin gazed towards the smoke cloud in this distance. It looked a little bigger to her, but was likely still a good distance away. She gritted her teeth and pulled forward with as much strength as she could muster. Ensign Clarke barely moved.

"It's not your fault, Captain," Moretti said. "If anything the blame lies with Commander D'xjan for sending us here without adequately preparing for an ambush. You've done your best, but you have to think of the greater good."

Captain Langolin let out a scream of frustration as she let Ensign Clarke drop to the ground. She buried her face in her hands and took several deep breaths. Finally she raised her head with a resigned expression in her eyes. "I can always count on you for honest advice, Moretti. You're right. It's certain death for us all if we continue to carry him. We're probably going to die anyway, but the only chance we have is to move on without him. Thank you for your service Ensign Clarke. I swear you won't be forgotten." They saluted their fallen comrade and then pressed on without another look back.

*

Night fell and the temperatures began to drop rapidly as a full icy blue moon rose in the sky. Captain Langolin weighed the pros and cons of stopping to rest versus continuing on. She was weary to the bone and thirstier than she ever imagined possible, but she feared that if they allowed themselves to stop they might not ever start moving again. Moretti agreed with this assessment, so they kept walking.

They trudged along in silence. Talking took too much effort, and even Captain Langolin's thoughts were becoming nothing more than a blur. She became some sort of machine that did nothing but put one foot in front of the other. She lost all sense of time, but the sky was beginning to brighten again when she realized she could smell smoke. They must be getting close!

They crested a hill side by side when suddenly there was a flash of light and Moretti exploded into bits and pieces. Wet particles of burned flesh and steaming droplets of blood splatterd all over Captain Langolin. Someone had shot Moretti with a high-powered blaster. Captain Langolin dropped to the ground and pulled her own blaster as she scanned around. Her thoughts quickly snapped back into focus and she could hear her pulse in her ears as a surge of adrenaline washed through her.

She dared to peek over the top of the sand dune. The Xylerian ship was there and it appeared to be mostly intact. Three Xylerian foot soldiers stood in front of it in their gleaming red armor. She fired off three quick shots in succession and the soldiers went down.

Whipping her eyes back and forth, she surveyed the scene. There weren't any more Xylerians in the immediate vicinity, but she had no idea how many of them might be lurking around the area, or even aboard the wreckage of their ship. She didn't have the luxury of taking her time and formulating a solid plan. Nor, she suspected, did she currently have the mental fortitude to do so. Desperate times called for desperate measures. She forced herself to wait another minute and when she didn't see anyone else moving around during that time, she jumped to her feet and ran down the sand dune towards the wreckage, blaster drawn at the ready to blow away anything that came towards her.

Somehow she made it to the ship without drawing any fire. Although she prayed fervently that she had eliminated all of the Xylerians, she certainly wasn't going to count on that. What she really needed was to find a way aboard the ship, but she thought it might be worthwhile to search the soldiers she had shot first. To her immense relief, she discovered one of them had been carrying a full canteen of water. She raised it greedily to her lips, which were blistered and peeling. The water was warm, but it was gloriously wet and tasted better than the finest Venturian ale she had ever imbibed. She had only managed to swallow a couple mouthfuls when something cold and metallic pressed into the small of her back.

"Drop the canteen, Intergalactic Alliance Scum," a harsh guttural voice said from behind her. "And drop your blaster while you're at it."

Captain Langolin did as instructed and slowly raised her hands in the air. "And to whom do I have the pleasure of speaking?"

"I am V'luuurh," the Xylerian growled. "I was the chief gunner on this ship. I'm also the only remaining survivor of this vessel, now that you've disposed of my comrades. Don't worry, I was going to kill them myself, since they were in possession of the last of our water." He kept the blaster jammed into her back as he bent down and retrieved the canteen. He reached for her blaster as well, but she kicked it out of his reach.

"That wasn't very smart of you," V'luuurh said. "You do realize I have a blaster pressed against you, yes?"

"If you're going to kill me, just go ahead and do it," Captain Langolin said. "I'm not afraid to die."

"Oh, you'll die alright," V'luuurh said. "As will I, most likely. This ship is damaged beyond my ability to repair and this canteen of water will only last for a little while. But I am most certainly going to enjoy drinking it in front of you as you slowly perish from dehydration. And make no mistake, you will die long before I do. Xylerians need less water than you disgusting humans. I can make it last awhile. Who knows? Perhaps my people will find me before I run out. If not, I can always take the easy way out with a self-inflicted blaster shot to the head. But you? You will suffer. And I will savor every moment of it. Now turn around slowly. I want you to be able to see me as I drain this canteen in front of you."

Captain Langolin took a step forward so the blaster was no longer pressed against her. She turned around to face her captor. He was dressed in the standard red armor, although he had his helmet off, revealing him to be a particularly ugly specimen of Xylerian. His patchy green skin was the color of snot and he was covered in warts and pustules that dripped a thick yellow substance from time to time. He had beady red eyes and a mouth full of crooked teeth. There was almost no nose to speak of, although there were a couple of pronounced nostril holes in his face. He smiled widely as he lifted the canteen to his mouth and began to gulp.

Impulsively, Captain Langolin slapped the canteen out of his hands. It tumbled across the ground, dumping its contents into the sand.

V'luuurh let out a loud snarl and pressed his blaster against her temple. "You really shouldn't have done that. Get down on your knees, human."

"Just pull the trigger and be done with it," Captain Langolin sneered at him.

"Sorry. I said I was going to watch you suffer, and make no mistake. I will watch you suffer. Perhaps I will start with blowing off your fingers. Hold your hand out."

"No," Captain Langolin said as she stared in his eyes. "I won't do what you say. You're going to have to shoot me where I stand."

V'luuurh snarled again and hit her on the side of the head with the butt of the blaster. She fell to the ground on her back and stared straight up at the sky, which she noticed was now full of dark purple clouds that were moving in rapidly and blocking the sun, which had risen fully above the horizon. There was a rumble of thunder and then a drop of water landed in her mouth.

V'luuurh paused and looked up in wonder as a torrent of raindrops began to fall on them. Noting his distracted state, Captain Langolin rolled to the side, grabbed her blaster from where it lay on the ground and began firing. V'luuurh had just enough time to register a look of surprise before he was completely vaporized.

Captain Langolin laughed uncontrollably as she laid on her back and let the glorious rainwater drench her. She drank as much as she could from what fell in her mouth and then she grabbed the canteen and held it towards the sky. She didn't know how long the rainfall would last, but if she could gather enough water, she might stand a fighting chance. She had a degree from the Academy in Xylerian technology and she was pretty sure she could get the wrecked ship in decent working condition. Maybe not enough to fly, but certainly enough to send a distress signal back to Intergalactic Alliance headquarters. She just needed the rain to hold out a little bit longer.