Beyond The Fall

By C. Osborne Rapley

Deep space exploration vessel, Orion, is on a routine mission when a devastating fault occurs. Second Engineer Peter Thornton scrambles into an escape pod with only moments to spare. Later, he wakes up on an unfamiliar planet populated by dangerous life forms. Facing dwindling resources and unable to locate any surviving crew members, he must use every skill he has if he’s going to live to see another day.
After enduring merciless terrain in solitude for almost a year, he is taken by an unknown species. He comes to in a zoo an exhibit with zap happy alien keepers and no obvious means of escape. Just as he finds a weak spot and plots his getaway, a beautiful enigmatic female, Sabetha, is placed in his cage.
Though she is a strange being, and he’s unsure whether or not she can be trusted, he’s inexplicably drawn to her. When the opportunity comes, Peter and Sabetha flee with nothing more than a short-term plan. Narrowly escaping capture, rescue comes from a surprising source, but their safety is short-lived. An invasion is on the horizon and Peter quickly discovers his survival is paramount or an entire civilization will be wiped from existence.
Together, he and Sabetha must overcome betrayal and teach her peaceable people what it means to be warriors. They might have a fighting chance, but time is running out and this time there’ll be no prisoners.

• Language: English
• Publisher: C. Osborne Rapley
• Release date: Jul 28, 2015
• ISBN: 9781311710901

C. Osborne Rapley

C. Osborne Rapley lives in Hampshire England and enjoys writing when he gets the chance. Most of the time he is a general dogsbody, car mechanic, plumber and carpenter for three grown children. In his spare time he keeps bees, marine fish and has a weakness for fast boats.

Book preview

Beyond The Fall

A New Beginning

C Osborne Rapley

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Smashwords Edition

Copyright © C. Osborne Rapley 2015

All rights reserved

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Table of Contents

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Seventeen

Chapter Eighteen

Chapter Nineteen

Chapter Twenty

Chapter Twenty-one

Chapter Twenty-two

Chapter Twenty-three

Chapter Twenty-four

Chapter Twenty-five

Chapter Twenty-six

Epilogue

Afterword

Chapter One

The ship shuddered, throwing Second Engineer Peter Thornton hard against the edge of the access panel. His head struck the corner of the control circuit he had been working on. Shit! Eyes watering, and dazed, he crawled backwards into the main service corridor and stood up. With trembling fingers, he brushed the growing bump on his forehead and winced.

The ship shuddered again, but this time he was ready and he grabbed one of the handrails spaced along the corridor. What the hell was going on? When in Stardrive the ship was normally stable, without even the slightest vibration.

The third lurch threw him against the bulkhead just as the general alarm sounded over the intercom. Peter’s gut twisted at the announcement that followed. This is the Captain, something struck us as we engaged the Stardrive, and the ship is breaking up. All crew to the escape pods, abandon ship.

The corridor that Peter was in connected directly to the starboard escape pods. In three strides he had reached the first pod and dived in; with a faint hiss the door automatically shut behind him. Being a deep space survey ship, DSE Orion had single occupancy escape pods each equipped with a stasis chamber since it could be many months before rescue or planet fall.

He placed his right hand on the identification panel, and a female computer voice spoke, Second Engineer Peter Thornton, please sit on the chair. He did so, and clamps pinned his legs and arms while a strap tightened across his chest. The last thing he remembered was the lurch as the pod engines fired. In his mind, the words of the basic training instructor echoed, It is dangerous and unpredictable abandoning a ship with an unstable Stardrive.

Peter’s head ached. He groaned and tried to swallow but his tongue was rough and dry. He turned his head slightly and attempted to open his eyes, the grittiness and pain made him gasp involuntarily. He blinked against the light that streamed in through the hatch porthole.

He tried to sit up, but the muscles in his back refused to work. For a moment he thought the restraining straps had failed to release. He took a deep breath, fighting the panic rising in his chest. Something must have gone wrong with the stasis pod.

During the initial part of the voyage, when the ship traversed known space, most of the crew had been in stasis for three months. There were no adverse effects on wakening at all; it had been just like waking in the morning after a good night’s sleep. This was very different.

Taking another deep breath, he twisted and pushed up with his arms. The straps disengaged and fell away as he swung his legs round to stand. He rocked forward, putting his full weight on his legs. His knees buckled and he fell to the floor of the pod. For fuck’s sake, what is wrong with me? He rolled over onto his stomach and pushed himself up then, barely supporting his weight on his hands and knees he rocked back to a squatting position. He rested for a moment then pulled himself up using the hatch locking bars.

His arms had lost all muscle tone. He looked down at his body and his overalls hung off him lose and ill fitting. Bloody hell, I look like a scarecrow! He shook his head; it was impossible, nothing should have changed. After all, that was the reason for having the stasis chamber in the escape pods; even at sub light speed the habitable planet should have been no more than a year away. The ship had just left when things went wrong so the ship’s systems would have automatically set the destination in the pods once the abandon ship had been ordered. The stasis must have been damaged in some way.

He turned to look out of the view port. The pod had landed on the edge of an open plain. To the left were low hills covered in forest. Ahead and to the right, the plain stretched off into the distance. Peter disabled the interlocks, and holding his breath, opened the hatch. There was no point checking the atmosphere because if it were not breathable then he was dead anyway; the pod was not designed for takeoff.

The computer would have checked the atmosphere before commencing the landing sequence so he might as well get it over with. The hatch banged open and a cool gentle breeze ruffled his hair. He exhaled and took a deep breath. The air was fresh and breathable. He sighed. Thank God for that!

He noticed his face had started to itch, so he automatically raised his hand to his cheek. The stubble on his face caused him to stumble back and sit down hard on the edge of the pod’s seat. That confirmed it; the stasis field had to have been faulty. There was no way he could have suffered from muscle wastage and grown stubble while in stasis.

The first thing he needed was a drink so he leaned forward and checked the supplies locker. The sealed rations were stacked neatly, sufficient for three weeks, six if he were careful. Next to the rations lay a neatly folded thermal foul weather suit, a basic tool kit, and a pulse pistol.

Peter’s stomach rumbled, hunger and thirst was also not normal with a correctly functioning stasis chamber. He reached for the fresh water and a ration pack. He slowly drank the bottle of water then tore the top off the ration pack and devoured the contents.

His meal lay heavily in his stomach and the resulting nausea caused him to regret gulping down the rations, but his hunger had got the better of him. He lent back in the chair and closed his eyes.

Something niggled at the back of his mind. He had noticed something in his subconscious, but it had not registered. He opened his eyes and looked around, trying to identify what his mind had registered as wrong. Suddenly, it came to him; there was no power. Nothing in the pod had power. As a minimum the water recycling system should have been active. He started from his seat, his heart in his mouth. The water supply relied on a sophisticated water recycling system. The reserves were sufficient for a week without recycling. With discipline and the recycler there would normally be sufficient water to last for months.

He grabbed the tool kit and holding on to the hull for support stepped outside. A cold fusion cell, an almost indefinite power source, powered the pod’s systems. He walked slowly round the side of the pod to the power access panel. Twisting the turnbuckles he released the panel and folded it down. He swore. Shit! The cell was almost exhausted. So that's why the stasis chamber didn’t function correctly, the fuel cell had been faulty. With a shake of his head Peter replaced the panel, more from habit rather than necessity.

He shivered as a gust of cold wind cut through his light overalls. The sun had started to set and a chorus of insects started up, heralding in the night. Peter stepped back into the pod, closed the hatch behind him and exhausted, settled back into the chair.

The ship’s computer always programmed the closest habitable planet’s coordinates into the escape pods. When this planet was being catalogued, he had not paid much attention, being one of the ships engineering crew. He had visited the surface briefly for a couple of days and played the gopher for the science team, but had not taken any interest in the discoveries. He regretted his attitude now as the failed cell meant he could not access the pod’s database, where the ship’s main computer would have downloaded all the information regarding the flora and fauna of this planet. The two important questions he needed answers to were: what was edible, and were there any dangerous predators?

For now he would stay with the pod and lock it down every night. He sighed and gazed through the view port at the darkening sky; stars started to appear, twinkling as the atmosphere distorted their light. Atmosphere, idiot! He jumped up and opened the hatch, his body shaking with the sudden effort; he slumped against the side of the hatch and ran a shaking hand through his hair.

With no power, there would be no air supply. He had thoughtlessly sealed the airtight hatch. This is not good enough, Peter Thornton, get your act together! He reached for a screwdriver and jammed it into the door seal, then pulled the door shut against it. Well if there is anything nasty out there I hope they cannot swing doors open. He rattled the door, ensuring the screwdriver would not dislodge and allow the door to seal, then returned to the chair.

He tried to order his mind. If he did not get control of himself, he would not last long on an alien planet. Tomorrow, he would take stock of the situation and catalogue his supplies. He would need a few days to regain some strength in his muscles before exploring further. He would have to conserve his water then, once he was strong enough, make a concerted effort to find a water supply. He wondered how many others had made it to the escape pods. At the thought of the rest of the crew a pang of guilt and sadness made him shudder. If they had escaped they would be somewhere close by, as the main computer would have programmed the same coordinates into all the pods.

Because he had been working close to the escape pods, he had just dived into one without a thought when the order came. As a military officer his duty should have been to ensure the civilian scientists reached the pods safely. If he had been at his normal post in the engine room, he would have had to pass by the labs to get to the escape pods. I should have gone back. He thought of the pretty Sicceian Geologist who had started to talk to him and had not been the same as her aloof colleagues, had she escaped? I don’t deserve to be here. His stomach churned, he swallowed the bile rising in his throat. I neglected my duty! A bright star seemed to mock him as its light winked at him through the view port. I’m a coward who just thought of himself.

He woke the next morning from a troubled sleep and shivered. Light streamed into the pod, and his breath formed a hazy cloud in the morning chill. He stood up and stretched. The black mood of the night before dissipated in the bright sunlight. He reached over to the storage bay and took out a ration pack and a water container. Once he had finished his breakfast, he made his way outside. The three parachutes used to slow the final decent of the pod lay flapping in the breeze. With the knife he had strapped to his leg he cut the cords and carefully folded them. The three drogue ‘chutes would make fairly efficient water collectors when it rained, a regular occurrence on this planet. He remembered having been caught a couple of times in a downpour whilst helping the survey scientists.

He smiled to himself as he remembered being caught in the rain with the pretty Sicceian Geologist he was carrying samples for. She had been friendly after that incident and had not treated him like an ignorant Grease Monkey, as the other scientists had. Not that they had any reason too as he did have a masters degree in both electronic control systems and FTL drives. He cursed his luck that he had not been given any more time to get to know her better as the emergency had occurred only hours after leaving the planet, as soon as the Stardrive was engaged.

The rest of the crew were older than him so other than the Chief Engineer, who had taken him under his wing, he had no close friends on the ship.

With a sigh, he cut the drogues from the main ‘chutes and walked the short distance to where the trees started. They were not like real trees but more like horsetail ferns with tough wood-like trunks. He cut down several that were a couple of inches thick at the base and carried them back to the pod. He sat and rested for a while as the exercise had tired him, his poor condition affecting his stamina.

After half an hour or so he went to the storage locker and removed the small folding spade and proceed to dig three shallow pits. The work was tiring and it made his wasted muscles ache, so he had to stop often and rest. Once the pits had been dug, he ate some rations, then taking the tool kit, removed three bowl shaped panels from the pod’s hull and placed them at the bottom of the pits. He then pushed the thin trunks in the soil around the pits and suspended the drogue chutes from them, pining them to the ground with thinner trunks cut as pegs. After cutting a small hole in the centre of the drogues, he placed some clean weathered rocks into them. He stood back and admired his handiwork. He now had three water catchment funnels with water containers at the bottom to collect any rainfall. The work had exhausted him so he returned to the pod and fell asleep almost immediately.

The next morning Peter found that it had rained overnight, putting his water traps to the test. All three had collected a substantial amount of rainwater so he could replenish the water he had used. At least the lack of a water recycler had been taken care of, for the near future at least. The lack of power caused a further problem, the transponder would be non-functional, so his pod was invisible to any searching ships and he could not communicate with any other members of the ship that had successfully escaped. The only solution would be to wait until he regained his full strength, then to search the plain - as the most likely place the other pods would have landed – all pods having the same coordinates programmed into their systems.

Chapter Two

With exercise, and the high protein diet of the ration packs, it took a little over two weeks for Peter to regain most of his lost strength. During that time he had explored the edge of the forest within easy walking distance of the pod. He had found small lizards and a creature the size of a domestic cat that reminded him of a small dinosaur. He had set traps using wire stripped from the now useless systems in the pod and had caught a few of the little lizards and one of the dinosaurs. The lizards had tasted slightly bitter so he was concerned they might be poisonous, but he had no adverse effects from eating one so he assumed they would be fine in an emergency. The dinosaur though tasted a little like chicken and there seemed to