Phyrric - Invasion Earth - a sci fi adventure

"Are we there yet?"

Dawson lifted one tired foot off the sand and set it forward again.

"The more you talk," he wheezed.  "The more air you waste."

"I signed up.  To fly.  Not to march."

Columbus reached down the air canister he had strapped to his leg and adjusted the flow, filling his suit with oxygen. He sucked in three giant breaths.

Anne stepped up beside him and cranked it back down.

"Less talking. More walking," she said and passed him.

Columbus grunted and fell in step behind her.  The blast of air helped. Already the stars in his vision were clearing away and he could feel his ability to think returning.

They were still twenty kilometres away and the sun was turning the sky behind them into a line of harsh light.  Soon the sun would top the horizon and spin across the face of the heavens.  The pale glow of starlight was being washed out with growing light but it made walking even harder as the shadows seemed to take on a life of their own.

"When we get there," he said over their radio link. "What if we can't find supplies."

"I know. Where. To look." Dawson tripped over a rock and pitched forward onto his knees.

They could hear him curse and wheeze as he struggled to rise up.

Anne reached him and leaned down to grip him by an arm.  She lifted, lost her balance as the effort sucked all of her energy from her oxygen starved muscles and she too collapsed next to the Captain.

Columbus reached them and spun the dials on all three air canisters up a couple of notches.  They had been marching all night on restricted air, moving at a pace that should still put them at the Global before the setting of the sun, but once there, they still needed to find air and shelter.

They were hungry. Thirsty.  And scared.  Columbus knew there were in enemy territory and only luck had kept them from being discovered.  If they were he had little hope that their small pistols could do much against full blasters.

So far they had made it undetected, just three tiny figures moving across the planet toward a wrecked space ship.

The air revived Dawson and he helped Anne up.

"Thanks," he said to Columbus.

Anne nodded and reached back to turn their canisters back down.

"Miles to go," she said.

"Kilometers," Columbus joked.  "We should call them klicks."

"Klicks to go," she repeated.

Dawson took a bearing on his tablet and set off in the lead again.  The other two fell in behind him.

FIND MORE HERE