Screw Pile Developments

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Hundeerde — Part 4: Greenwatch
Becoming

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Seven years earlier…

HSS Chasetail: Hyperspace Solar Current
Somewhere between Earth and Hundeerde

Solar Current Transit Corridor Delta-6-Gamma-9
Five days out from Hundeerde

Space, as it turned out, was very large.

And also, very big.

The hyperspace, solar current, transit corridor they had been in for the last two days, was not so big in itself, big enough to fit the Chasetail, but it was long.

And as it turned out, very long.

The hyperspace corridor was like being in a very long and very pretty subway tube. Only there were no station stops. This trip was a non-stop express ride all the way to Hundeerde.

For the first day or two aboard the Chasetail, the sheer scale of everything had been enough to keep the boys occupied.

Endless corridors that always seemed to lead somewhere new. One of the favourite places for the boys, especially Seb, was watching the constant movement of the flight deck, visible through observation windows high above.

Food that appeared almost continuously, without anyone having to scavenge for it. Amazing food, that the boys had only been able to dream of for the last three years. Cheese. Charlie declared to anyone who would listen and to a few who didn’t, that he was officially in cheese heaven.

Hilariously, Angus, Fergus, and Hamish had appointed themselves unofficial tour guides; despite knowing the ship no better than anyone else. This had led to several wrong turns, a few minor transgressions into out of bounds areas, and one incident involving a restricted engineering access panel and a fire foam suppression nozzle that nobody was discussing anymore.

By day five, the novelty of space travel had settled.

The stars continued to streak outside the long observation windows, with an occasional sense of a turn or twist through the hyperspace corridor. The low, constant thrum of the ship’s engines didn’t change. The solar current carried them forward at a speed the boys had no frame of reference for, toward a planet none of them had ever seen.

There was nothing more to do but wait.

And for some, to think.

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Shared crew bunk room

It was 03:12 when Lewis woke to find Seb’s bunk opposite empty. He lay still for a moment, listening. Sleeping boys breathing and one or two snoring softly in the dark.

Hamish, who as he did every night, had started off in his own bunk, was now curled up in Seb’s bunk. He gave a small sleep-whimper as he turned over, found the empty space where Seb should have been and was quiet again.

Lewis reached for Dogger and tucked him under his arm.

Then as quietly as possible, he left the bunk-room and went to find Seb. He had a fairly good idea as to where he would be.

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Observation corridor

The observation corridor on deck seven was empty at this hour. The long curving passageway at the very front of the ship was lined on one side with floor to ceiling windows that looked out into the permanent night of deep space. The solar current turned the stars into short bluish streaks, rather like the universe was moving past rather than them moving through.

Seb was sitting on the floor with his back against the wall opposite the windows, knees up, looking at the scene outside.

Lewis sat down beside him without a word.

For a while neither of them spoke. The ship continued its thrum and the stars streaked past.

Lewis squished Dogger under his arm.

The corner of Seb’s mouth moved, just a little.

Seb carried on looking out the windows, his gaze unfocused.

He ran his fingers through his hair.

He didn’t say what he kept seeing, there was no need.

Seb stopped speaking.

Lewis waited.

Lewis considered his friend for a moment as he pushed his glasses up his nose, as Seb continued to stare out the window looking at nothing in particular.

Seb looked at him.

A longer silence this time. But the mood was now just a little lighter.

Quiet unhurried footsteps approached from the far end of the corridor. Neither of them needed to look up.

Raven sat down next to Lewis, his back against the wall, legs stretched out. He had a teal green ship-issue blanket around his shoulders like a cape.

The three boys sat together quietly for a while.

Seb turned his head slightly.

And somehow, inexplicably, improbably, two and a half weeks after the worst night of their lives, all three of them were trying, and failing, not to laugh.

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HSS Chasetail: Observation Deck — Two days out from Hundeerde

The announcement came over the ship intercom at 09:00, delivered in the calm, unhurried tones of the Chasetail’s communications officer.

Expect jump from hyperspace in twelve hours with planetary acquisition expected shortly after.

The observation deck will remain open.

Around eleven hours later, every boy and puppy was on the observation deck eager with anticipation.

Angus lasted approximately fourteen minutes before declaring loudly that space was boring and he was going to find something to eat. Fergus stayed, mostly because Charlie was there and Charlie still had half a bag of Cheezos in his backpack that had somehow survived the entire journey from the broken East Houndsford vending machine. Hamish sat quietly beside Seb and didn’t say much, which for Hamish, was entirely normal.

Samson checked his watch periodically, which he had carefully synced to ship-time. However, time was not something that could be hurried along by monitoring it closely. One group of boys played a card game in the corner that seemed to involve increasingly elaborate rules that only they understood.

Raven stood at the window for a long time, looking out at the place where Hundeerde was going to be.

There was nothing there yet. Just stars streaking by.

But he kept looking anyway.

Then came just the faintest change in the thrum of the engines, and the Chasetail dropped out of hyperspace. The stars that had been blue streaks for the last week, returned to single pricks of light in the inky black of space. To most of the boys all the pricks of light looked the same.

But not to Lewis.

It was Lewis who saw the planet first.

He had with careful mathematical reasoning, calculated the precise vector of their approach. He had now positioned himself at the exact window most likely to offer the first glimpse of Hundeerde.

He went very still.

Then —

He pointed somewhere into the darkness ahead.

Just one word quietly spoken. But something in the quality of it brought everyone to the window. They all crowded around Lewis.

At first it looked like a star that was perhaps slightly brighter than the others, with just a touch more colour. Then, over the course of a few minutes that felt much longer, it grew. The brighter star became a spot, then a sphere, then—

Everyone laughed.

Hundeerde hung like an orb, in vast blackness beyond. The closer the ship got it began to feel quite small in comparison. The rings caught the sunlight and scattered it in long warm arcs.

The planet itself was blue-green beneath the clouds. Mountains were visible from space, white-capped, and enormous. Oceans glittering where the sunlight touched them.

As Hundeerde grew no-one spoke, as there were no words to describe the scene outside the window.

Seb stood slightly apart from the others, his hands loosely interlocked in front of him, rolling his thumbs, one over the other. He looked out at the planet that was going to be his new home. He thought about his father. That last video call. A father who had looked through a different kind of window, at a different kind of sky, and emailed home to his family, and had never returned.

The last call. The last email.

He thought about his mother, Katrín and his little brother Davíð. Also gone, taken by the same virus as his father.

Why was he spared?

He looked at the rings and thought about Red.

Something in Seb’s mood shifted. It lived in a space between being asleep and awake — was it grief or hope? He couldn’t quite grasp which. Raven appeared at his shoulder, looking out at the same view.

They stood there together for a while.

Then, Raven reached into his pocket. Quietly he pulled out a small dark stone that he had picked up in the stream that ran through Barking Green.

He turned it over once in his fingers, before returning it to his pocket.

Barking Green, the place where they had found hope.

And now before them Raven saw not a beautiful planet, but something that represented something much greater. Something he had not felt for a long time.

Hope.

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Hundeerde Orbit: HSS Chasetail — Flight Deck

The Howler sat on docking pad Kennel-4, loading ramp down, ready.

General Huxley stood at the edge of the ramp as Grandpa Jake, Grandma Bella, the pups and the boys filed past to board. He acknowledged his old friend as he passed with a nod. As each boy passed he made eye contact with each one briefly and gave a small nod.

There was no hurry. The last to make his way up the ramp was Seb. When Seb passed, Huxley held his gaze for just a fraction longer than the others and he gave Seb the same nod as he had given Jake.

Seb acknowledged with his own and walked up the ramp. Half way up the ramp Seb stopped and turned, he looked once again at the rows of fighters docked on their pads, with their pilots walking around them doing their checks. He turned again and boarded.

Huxley watched until everyone had boarded. Then he turned smartly and walked away.

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Orbital Re-entry: HSS Howler

The Howler’s descent through the rings was unlike anything the boys had ever experienced before.

From outside it would have looked unremarkable, just a small shuttle threading through the inner ring boundary, perfectly routine, approaching on standard vectors.

From inside, the view was cathedral.

Particles of glittering ice caught the light and scattered it through the Howler’s small windows in slow, shifting patterns of gold, white, magenta and pale amber, all moving across the ceiling of the cabin. The boys sat in silence and soaked it all in.

Hamish, tucked between Lewis and Seb, reached one small paw toward the dancing light as it moved across his fur.

Then, the rings were above, below was cloud, and below that was the planet itself, rushing up to greet them.

---

After a smooth landing the ramp came down.

And then came the air. Fresh, cool and clean, the smell was of something living, a mixture of forests and rain. The smell was nothing like the city they had left, especially the basement or the bucket.

Twelve boys stood at the top of the ramp and looked out at Hundeerde.

Blue mountains in the distance, white at the peaks, dark with forest below the treeline. A sky that was slightly deeper in colour than Earth’s, a richer blue, almost indigo at the edges where the atmosphere thinned. And above it all, just visible in the afternoon light, the faint silver arc of the rings always there if you knew where to look.

Nobody moved for a moment.

Then, Lewis stepped forward, Dogger firmly under his arm, and walked down the ramp onto the ground.

He stood there and looked around. He pushed his glasses up his nose.

Lewis turned and looked at the boys still standing at the top of the ramp.

One by one, the others followed.

Last down the ramp was Seb. He stopped at the bottom, lifted his face briefly, and breathed in.

He walked forward, joined the others, and out into the light of the new sky.