This post started off as a one-off response to a writing prompt in the Freewriters Community. Then I wrote a part 2 (with the outcome literally determined by a coin toss).
But that naturally leads to a part 3, which is where this short series comes in. I felt that doing it in just one post really wouldn't give enough time to build up a bit of suspense 😀 Enjoy !
Image created by AI in NightCafe Studio
Twenty four hours had passed. Governor Dafang had put Doctor Thwaites under the protection of Wardek, one of the few people he truly trusted.
But the day and night had bought only more bad news. Freshwater.... Sweetwood..... Blossom Plains..... White Mountain..... Streamside. Five settlements, all gone. The pattern was the same, they'd been levelled to the ground, replaced by patterns swirling in the rocky ground. Nearly three thousand people just disappeared without a trace.
His communicator chimed. It was Pirib Horthen, his secretary. The poor man looked like he hadn't slept. To be fair, he usually looked like that. A little grey man, middle-aged and mouseish, even down to the thinning hair and slight pudginess. The poor fellow looked like a stereotypical minor functionary from a 3V sitcom, a complete trope of a man.
But Dafang knew that whatever he looked like, he was essential to the running of the colony. Behind the tired-looking exterior was a superbly efficient organiser, someone whose brain held knowledge of every settlement, every farmstead, and all the people of Meranda. He was a kind of living computer.
Dafang wondered if Horthen actually had some kind of genetic engineering or medical condition going on. The man was socially awkward and tended to take everything literally, but the Governor knew that underneath it all, Horthen cared deeply for the colonists he saw as his duty to care for.
"Sir, I am sorry to bother you again, but Pilot Wardek has asked if you would accompany Doctor Thwaites and himself of a survey flight."
"Of course, Mr Horthen. Tell him I'll be right there. Then go and get some sleep. You've been up all night, and don't deny it, I've seen the timestamps on the reports you've sent over."
"Someone has to stay in the office while you're out sir !" the man protested, but Dafang shut him down.
"No!" then more gently, "You've gone above and beyond what I could expect. Even you need to sleep occasionally, I'm sure you've got a minion or two who can hold the fort while we're not here."
With that, Dafang headed for the flight pad, walking at a steady pace so that anyone who saw him would never guess things were spinning so rapidly out of control, or that he felt the urge to run to find out what else could possibly go wrong.
At the pad, Helen and Wardek were standing beside the trusty Passault I dropship waiting for him.
"Well ? What's happened now ?"
Wardek grinned, the kind of expression that contained exactly zero humour and the promise of really bad news.
"You need to come up and see this, Sir. I imagine news will be around town soon enough."
They climbed in and lifted off smoothly, climbing for just a short way. It only took about three minutes of flight before Wardek called to Helen and Dafang. "Take a look outside."
Looking through the slightly scuffed plasteel windows, the two felt a deep sense of shock and horror at what they saw.
At a distance of about a kilometer from the outer perimeter of Meranda Base, the ground was .... disturbed. A broad swath of terrain maybe half a kilometer wide stretched out from this boundary in a great arc as far as the eye could see.
Dafang realised that he was looking at the same patterns he'd seen at Greenfields, and on the reports of other settlements. But this was a broad belt surrounding the capital. A complete ring of spirals, concentric circles and swirls half a kilometer wide, all the way around Meranda Base. Roads, bridges and outlying farms had been obliterated, replaced with parallel patterned grooves in the soil.
In a way, it was quite beautiful. Alien art.
"Whoever is doing this, I think they just sent us a message," he told Helen grimly.
Previous posts in this series;
- @alonicus/24-january-2025-mariannewests-freewrite-writing-prompt-day-2626-mother-love - the post that started it all, and introduced the spine-spiders
- @alonicus/escape-from-the-caves-of-meranda-iv - the sequel, where the science team escapes back to base and recommends the planet not be colonised. They were too late.
- @alonicus/the-colony-on-meranda-iv-part-1 - we meet the Governor Dafang and get the first hints that the colony isn't going to plan
- @alonicus/the-colony-on-meranda-iv-part-2 - Governor Dafang takes a trip to the Greenfields settlement, only to find it is not there any more
- @alonicus/the-colony-on-meranda-iv-part-3 - a fractious meeting of the co0lony's government, and a worrying foreshadow
- @alonicus/the-colony-on-meranda-iv-part-4 - this is where things start to really go sideways for the colony
@alonicus/the-colony-on-meranda-iv-part-5 - Doctor Helen Thwaites returns to Meranda to reveal the cover-up - @alonicus/the-colony-on-meranda-iv-part-6 - Garnes tries to arrest Helen, and gets told to go away