Chapter Text
It started with Ross.
They’d all been so excited to find the new planet, to finally see green after the endless black of space and the unnatural colors of the gas giants. They’d barely waited for the atmospheric test to come out positive before they were tumbling out of the ship, Ross in the lead.
The plants were massive and the scenery picturesque, but for Wikus, the real enjoyment had been in watching Tania light up at the beauty around them, reaching for her journal and hunkering down in front of something which resembled a bromeliad on steroids, her pen already flying over the page.
He smiled, running his thumb over the lump of the wedding ring to which he was still becoming accustomed.
The only sign of animal life they’d found was a single species of small primate, a bit like ugly spider monkeys and Ross, stupid, newbie Ross, had tried to feed one. The creature took the food and even submitted to being picked up and manhandled. They’d taken photos and samples and left and not thought much of it.
The atmosphere was dense enough to interfere with transmission, so they’d spent two days taking samples and launched, planning to return the next day.
That night Ross had gone to Phyllis, the medic, with a headache. She gave him some pain pills and he’d gone to bed.
The next morning, Clive went to the sick bay with a slight cough. Phyllis gave him an antiviral; colds were an easy thing to catch in the ship’s close quarters, but it was better to nip it in the bud then be laid up for a few days. Time was money after all.
They were preparing to land again when Thomas pointed out that Ross, cheerful, always hungry Ross, never made it to breakfast that morning.
When Phyllis finally found him in his berth, he had a fever of one hundred and four. His sheets were soaked with sweat and stained with blood from where he’d been trying cough up his lungs.
She’d initiated immediate lockdown. Anyone with flu symptoms was to self isolate. She took samples of Ross’s blood and mucus and locked herself in the sick bay; told them she’d be out when she had a cure and not before.
They’d encouraged her, but they all knew that viruses were tricky bastards, and that the chances of her succeeding were slim.
Wikus was one of the next to get sick. It hit like a hurricane and left him weak and mostly delirious. His memories of the time were vague and confused. He recalled seeing Tania sitting beside him, masked, fluorescent lights a blinding halo around her gold hair. He tried to call her, angel, angel, but his mouth was full of blood and the words wouldn’t form.
He woke suddenly, fever broken and cool for the first time in what felt like forever. Tania was stroking his head and he startled her when he asked for water. His throat felt like someone had taken an electric sander to it. He drank until he felt he could speak again and asked what had happened.
He thought that Phyllis might have found a cure, but Tania told him that the rest of the crew had broken into sick bay after three days to find her in a pool of blood.
Ross was already long dead.
One by one, it took them all: Clive, Thomas, Les and James.
All gone.
He clutched her arm, asked how she was. She pushed him down, soothed him, looking over the line of the surgical mask, and lied to him, said yes, yes, I’m fine, not sick Wikus, sleep now.
He woke alone, still weak and aching, desperately thirsty.
He staggered from the room and tripped over her. She was sitting propped up against the doorway, skin pale and grey, surgical mask soaked through with blood.
He’d sat on the floor staring at her, then reached out and touched.
She was ice cold.
He didn’t remember screaming, but he did recall the silence and the taste of blood when his throat gave out.
The next several days were a blur. Everywhere he went he saw them, dead eyes staring, slack mouths stained with blood.
He was trapped in a metal coffin.
Half-mad with fear and grief, he staggered into the control room with the idea of getting somewhere away. His hands trembled as he punched the familiar sequence of buttons and watched the cursed planet recede until it was swallowed up in the vastness of space.
He slumped down in the control chair, covered his face and sobbed.
It was a shock when the gravity well of a planet snagged his ship. Engines screamed in protest as the ship was dragged off course and Wikus was thrown to the floor. He scrambled for the controls on pure instinct and tried to pull up, but he was nearly out of fuel and the engines couldn’t muster the power to fight the pull.
The ship bucked like a dying thing and plunged into the atmosphere.
Superheated air glowed at the edges of the windows and clouds whipped by.
A terrible, dark feeling welled up inside him and Wikus gripped the controls until he thought they would break, howling in wordless defiance. In the background he heard the screech of metal tearing.
“Left engine gone,” Les murmured in his ear.
The ground loomed before him.
“Reddish. High iron content,” commented Thomas.
Trees snapped against the hull of the ship as it tore along parallel to the earth.
“Bears some resemblance to Mimosoideae,” said Tania “isn’t it incredible, Wikus?”
He hit.
His head rebounded off the control panel. Stars exploded in his vision.
“Orange giant system,” Clive remarked, “A bit cooler than our sun. Must be why the planet’s closer.”
Wikus sagged into the chair and passed out.