One Fell Swoop by Allison McDonnell

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It was just minutes before daybreak when Alonzo and Julia reached the outskirts of the large cluster of trees to the west of Eden Advance's campsite. It had been necessary to hike to the location because the thick forest's twisted path posed too many difficulties when it came to navigating even the modest-sized ATV. Moreover, once Alonzo had filled Julia in regarding his dream, not only did she insist on accompanying him, it was jointly decided to continue to do everything possible to maintain the secrecy of their task until it had been completed. As such, borrowing a vehicle would likely have attracted unwanted attention. Only Baines, who was the scheduled early morning sentryman, had been alerted and provided a brief overview of the details of their planned excursion. Upon hearing their intentions, the crewman was more than happy to do whatever was necessary to help, including stalling or explaining away the pair's temporary absence should anyone inquire as to their whereabouts. Even Devon was left out of the loop until Alonzo and Julia had achieved their goal after surmising that no good could come from telling her beforehand.

As Alonzo had been foretold by the Terrians, the woods had indeed opened almost directly to the base of a large hill of which all but the very tip of its peak had been completely obscured by the copse of trees. And just before it was the promised rendezvous point; a small clearing which was completely void of vegetation and was tightly encircled by jagged, softball-sized rocks. Alonzo and Julia weren't sure what the purpose of the circle was or of its meaning to the Terrians, but neither felt comfortable treading beyond the outlining stones to venture into the center of it. Treating it as possible holy ground, the two remained in the area just outside of the circle's barriers to await the creatures' arrival.

"Shouldn't be too long now," the pilot whispered, angling his head upward to acknowledge the orange and lavender streaks that were beginning to stretch across the ever-lightening sky.

Both made good use of their time by gently dropping to their knees to organize the items that they'd brought with them. They'd fully understood that Devon, True and most of the others would likely insist on viewing John's body prior to his burial in order to say goodbye. As such, the two had jointly decided that once the mechanic's remains were in their possession, they would make him as presentable as possible under the circumstances before returning to camp.

Alonzo set aside the makeshift stretcher and opened his small knapsack to remove the fresh articles of clothing which he'd snuck out of the Transrover's compartment that housed John's few belongings. He then handed Julia two canteens filled to the brim with water along with cleaning solution and a few soft rags. Julia's med-bag was also in tow to enable her to seal any and all open wounds which couldn't be obscured by clothing. She also donned her Diaglove with the hope that she'd be able to use it to determine Danziger's exact cause of death, be it from drowning, from his initial fall from the cliff or from injuries inflicted by his captors or by the brutality of the rapids. The doctor realized that, after a week of being exposed to the elements and to who knows what other conditions, the mechanic's corpse might be too decomposed to reach a definitive conclusion. However, she felt as though she'd owed it to her friends, and especially to True, to try to provide them with as many answers as she could. Julia also felt that she owed it to John.

Reverberation beneath and around Alonzo and Julia's feet, which at first was barely noticeable but quickly increased to the level of a minor earthquake, alerted them that the moment had arrived. Both staggered back to the standing position and braced themselves physically and mentally for the Terrians' arrival. They watched intently and tried to maintain their balance as two creatures roughly shot upward from the ground hoisting John's battered body in between them.

As expected, Danziger's body was caked in dirt, though Julia hypothesized that some of the grime could have been a byproduct of its travel through the earth. At first glance, he seemed to be free of animal bites which Julia knew would be a great relief to Devon. John was shoeless and his shirt and pants had been ripped nearly to shreds and were spattered with smudges of what appeared to be dried blood. There was also a larger stain at Danziger's abdomen level which suggested that he had sustained a serious laceration to his stomach. However, as much as Julia and Alonzo had attempted to prepare themselves regarding the various possible states that Danziger's remains might be in, there was one extremely important consideration that they had never anticipated.

"Hey! What's the shankin' idea?!?" came an angry and supremely annoyed bellow from the center of the circle.

Julia and Alonzo were cemented in place, beyond shocked at the turn of events. Though it appeared as though John Danziger was suffering from a host of injuries including everything from deep cuts and bruises to malnourishment, he had not only managed to stay alive, he still possessed enough energy to raise holy hell at his two Terrian travel-mates.

The tattered and still disoriented mechanic had yet to notice Julia and Alonzo's presence as he shook himself from the creatures' grasp with as much indignation as he could muster.

"Jeez, if you're gonna abduct somebody and drag their ass on a dirt-trip to God-knows-where, at least wake 'em up and give 'em a chance to put on their boots first!" he yelled, his hands involuntarily pressed against the continuously ebbing injuries at his abdomen and left shoulder.

Suddenly, rational thought seemed to dawn upon Danziger and his focus drifted from the Terrians and he began to inspect the landscape around him. At first, he was forced to squint in order to pierce the near-dark conditions. However, his eyes went as wide as hubcaps when he was finally able to discern two familiar shadows which seemed to be frozen just a few feet away from him.

"Julia? Alonzo?" he exclaimed in a tone saturated with uncertainty, as if he didn't trust his eyes.

Julia was at last able to locate her ability to move, though it took another second or two to find her voice. She broke the circle's seal and lightly threw her arms around Danziger, careful not to cause any additional distress to his impaired frame.

"I don't believe it," she gasped.

Danziger returned her embrace to the best of his abilities. "You and me both," he muttered.

A small smirk extended across his bedraggled face. "Took you guys long enough," he half-joked as he staggered forward to shake Solace's extended hand.

"Well, you didn't exactly leave a trail of breadcrumbs for us to follow," was Alonzo's equally sarcastic reply. At that moment, he didn't feel the need to explain that their purpose of retrieving Danziger had been a search and recovery mission, not a search and rescue. The pilot was also supremely thankful that he had declined the Terrian's generous offer to bury Danziger on their own.

Julia provided physical support for John as he took the few extremely shaky steps to where their supplies were gathered. As he plopped down to the ground with a pained grunt, Alonzo addressed the two stoic Terrians who had yet to make a noise or move since their arrival.

"We can't thank you enough for bringing back our friend," Solace expressed with gratitude, so thrilled at the outcome that he was forced to fight the urge to lunge forward and actually hug the beings.

Danziger cocked his head back toward the creatures and waggled his fingers halfheartedly. "Yeah, thanks for the ride," he relayed, still sounding mildly irritated as he shook more loose dirt from his hair and from his week-old beard.

With their usual lack of fanfare, both Terrians bowed and quickly vanished beneath the ground, leaving a small patch of displaced dirt in their wake. Meanwhile, Julia was a flutter of activity, first offering Danziger a canteen of water which he enthusiastically accepted and then initiating a preliminary examination with her Diaglove.

She'd barely begun the latter task when Danziger caught her arm and directed her gaze back to his now-grim expression.

"Magus," he expressed solemnly. "Where you able to find her?" He'd deliberately left out the words 'dead body,' figuring that his crewmates would use the same or a similar choice of words when elaborating on the woman's sad fate.

He couldn't have been more surprised when Julia relayed, "Yes we did and she's fine."

John's brows remained knitted, still unconvinced. "But there were two left."

"And she killed 'em both," Alonzo relayed as he joined them just outside of the circle.

John nodded in both approval and in admiration of Magus' survival skills. "Good for her," he praised, chiding himself for ever doubting her ability. In fact, during the past week, he'd worried a great deal about what had become of his friend; not to mention the terrible suffering that she might have endured at the hands of Edmund Griggs and Charlie Simms before they'd killed her. John had also been consumed with guilt for not doing more to protect her. He should have realized that Magus could handle herself.

Meanwhile, the mention of the ordeal that Danziger and Magus had survived reminded Alonzo of a lingering question that had been the cause of speculation among several in the crew since that terrible day.

"Magus said that there had been a total of five penal colonists," he relayed. "But we were only able to find four bodies."

Danziger mildly shrugged. "Well, I can personally vouch that Andrew Norris is dead 'cuz I used him to navigate the rapids," he informed them. "He wasn't much of a flotation device, but he sure came in handy. He made a great shield to absorb the brunt of the rocks that we smacked up against. By the time we hit shore, there wasn't much left of him to bury."

What Danziger had neglected to tell Julia and Alonzo was that Andrew Norris had also survived the freefall from the cliff and had still been alive at the time Danziger had grabbed onto him, and he'd remained so for the first minutes of their shared journey. Danziger had overpowered the convict's attempts at resistance and had ignored his subsequent pleas for help and mercy during their wild ride through the unforgiving waters. And with Danziger and the river's help, it wasn't too long before Norris' cries went silent and his body limp.

Danziger wasn't sorry for what he'd done because it had kept him alive. Plus, there was absolutely no doubt in John's mind that if both he and Norris had miraculously made it through the rapids intact, the man wouldn't have hesitated to kill Danziger the first chance that he'd gotten. Still, even with that understanding, John didn't feel like revisiting some of the grittier details of his harrowing experience.

Julia and Alonzo were relieved to hear that there was no danger of a sole surviving penal colonist one day showing up with revenge in his dark heart.

"When you say that you 'hit shore,' do you have any idea where you ended up?" Julia inquired, her eyes refixed on her Diaglove as she restarted her preliminary exam.

The corner of Danziger's mouth arched upward to form a small smile. "As a matter of fact, I do," he said before pausing to take another swig from the canteen.

He continued, "Believe it or not, the current dumped me out on the banks of New Pacifica. Or at least where New Pacifica will be after Devon builds it."

Alonzo's head shot back. "How do you know?"

"The Comm dish was less than a quarter of a click away from where I ended up," the mechanic revealed.

He let out as deep an exhalation as his impaired condition would allow. "When I first got there, I considered tryin' to track my way back to you all using the sun and the river's path as guides. I decided against it because I might've gotten lost or you might've had to change course for some reason and we woulda ended up missing each other. Plus, that trip through the rapids banged me up a bit, so I thought that I'd best stay put and try to heal up the best that I could. I knew that you guys would be comin' in a couple of weeks anyway. I figured that I'd be sort of a one-man welcoming committee when you finally showed up."

His attention turned toward Alonzo before furthering, "Of course, in the meantime, I hoped that you or Uly would find a way to contact me using the Terrians, so you could let True know that I was okay and that I'd see her soon."

Alonzo shrugged and smiled. "Well, now you can tell her in person."

"But first we need to address some medical issues," Julia was quick to interject. "You're obviously suffering from dehydration."

"Yeah. 'Water, water, everywhere...'" he agreed, absently scratching at his coarse beard. "Well, you know the rest."

Danziger took another large gulp from the canteen. "The Sea of Antius is packed with salt and I knew better than to drink it," he explained. "But I was lucky enough to find a small cactus patch and that provided enough moisture to last me a couple of days."

Julia looked at him quizzically and rechecked a few of her readings. It was abundantly clear to her that Danziger was still a bit out of sorts. After all, what on earth did a cactus patch have to do with water?

John continued, "The food situation wasn't much better. I mean, there were plenty of trees that obviously had fruit at one time, but everything was spoiled. And I was nervous about sampling too much of the local vegetation without knowin' if the stuff was toxic or not. The last thing I wanted to happen was to make it this far, only to drop dead from chewin' on the wrong leaf."

Upon hearing this, Alonzo wasted no time and tossed John a Spirolina bar that had been languishing in the front pocket of his jacket. Danziger thanked him before scarfing it down, relishing it as if it was the greatest meal of his life.

As they spoke, Julia continued to scrutinize John with the Diaglove. She gently touched several buttons on the small console in order to perform a general bone scan.

"I see that you've fractured two ribs," she alerted him, as if he was unaware of the injury.

"Yep, and I dislocated my shoulder, too. Had a helluva time knockin' it back into place," he declared, gesturing to the deep bruises which practically covered the upper left side of his body. "I could definitely use some bone healer vaccine."

The physician briefly veered her eyes, feeling the pangs of guilt. Most of her medical supplies had remained in the med-tent, including such basics as her hypo-gun, and it had never even occurred to her to bring any of them with her. After all, what practical applications could the equipment possibly have had on a corpse?

Meanwhile, the mechanic lifted his torn and stained shirt to reveal a crudely made bandage across his abdomen. "You're also gonna need to patch up my gut. One of those assholes slashed me just before we went over the side."

Julia delicately tugged on the upper corner of the bandage just enough to reveal a horizontal gash about six inches in length. Luckily for Danziger, it didn't appear that the knife had penetrated his skin deeply enough to nick any organs. It was also clear that, despite his crude circumstances, Danziger had been exceedingly diligent when it came to keeping the wound clean and protected. As such, there were no obvious signs of infection.

John's voice and mannerisms were becoming stronger and more pronounced as the food and water reinvigorated his body.

"But whatever you gotta do to me, can you do it fast? Or even better, can we hold off a little longer and maybe do this in the med-tent?" he asked, now sounding anxious. "I wanna get back as quick as we can. I gotta see True."

He quickly scanned the immediate area, searching for clues of a nearby campsite or for any hint that his daughter and friends were in close proximity to their location. When the mechanic located no signs whatsoever, he began to worry about the distance that they might have to travel in order to be reunited with the members of Eden Advance.

"How far away are we from the others?" he asked. "Should I go ahead and call her on gear now and let her know that I'm on my way?"

Alonzo and Julia paused and traded an awkward glance, unsure as to how to best explain their current circumstances. John immediately zeroed in on their apprehension.

"True knows that you came to get me, right? I mean, she's awake and waiting for me back at camp, isn't she?" he questioned, his mind suddenly flooded with terrible possibilities, including the idea that something horrible had happened to True in his absence.

"John," Julia began in a halting tone. "Only Baines knows that we're here because we needed his help to sneak out of camp undetected."

She let out a full breath before continuing. "But based on the information that we had at the time, we had no reason to believe that you were still alive."

A kaleidoscope of emotions flashed across Danziger's face as the reality of the situation hit him head-on. "True. Devon. All of 'em," he muttered, his voice barely audible. "They think that I'm dead."

"Yeah," Alonzo confirmed with a nod.

The mechanic took a few seconds to digest the somber news as well as to assess the likely after-effects that it had had on those he'd loved. It didn't take long for him to figure out that there was only one way to rectify the situation.

"Pack your shit up as fast as you can," he commanded as he struggled to his feet. "We're gettin' outta here right now."
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