In Their Shadow

I hadn't seen the surface in a long time, and I don't wish to ever again until the light of day returns. Our flashlights created a path forward through the darkness. My eyes strained to see past the thick goggles and the maelstrom of snowflakes. 

My team pushed step by step over the icy ground with me in the lead. One of them said something, but through the. respirators covering our faces and the raging storm is a wasted breath. 

Our destination is only thirty yards or so from the airlock, but it might as well be miles. It takes an increasing effort to push my legs through the thick mountain of snow. I can feel the sweat dampen the inside of my clothing. The sensation blurs the line where my skin ends and clothing begins until I am only my eyes. My body is just a numb machine with the sole purpose of forward movement. 

After the dream of a trek we arrive at the maintenance building. It was a large concrete cube with a single metal door for entry. Now it’s just an indiscernible white hill in a white forest. If we didn’t know where it was we would never have found it. 

I started excavating the entrance with the shovel my hands forgot I was holding. Samuel joined me when he arrived, but George was empty handed. Apparently what he was trying to tell me before was that he lost his shovel somewhere in the storm. I tried not to let this annoyance slow our progress. Every extra minute out here was dangerous. 

My arms burned as we heaved paper white boulders out of the way. It took us half an hour of laborious work before we uncovered the steel door. The handle snapped off in my hand like a twig. In my frustration I kicked squarely in the center of the metal sheet, and to my surprise the hinges gave way quite easily. 

We turned on our flashlights and ventured into the dark interior. The relief from the unyielding winds was immediate, but we still had to act quickly. George found the oil tanks deep inside while Samuel hooked up the fuel line. 

There was a battery powered operation terminal. The security key was scribbled down on a scrap of paper in my coat pocket. The gloves made using the keyboard quite the task, but I managed to activate the fuel pump. The place roared to life as the lights flickered on. 

That was it. Mission accomplished. We had enough oil to heat and power our entire complex for over a century. All that was left was our walk back and we would be heroes. The high of our success, however, had led to overconfidence, which in turn led to complacence. 

We rushed back through the storm through the trench we created from our arrival. It was already beginning to fill back up with fresh snow. Somewhere in the white haze I heard a loud crack over the wind. I looked around trying to see the source of it. That was when Samuel tackled me down into the snowdrift just before a frozen tree landed on top of us. 

I lay there stunned for a moment. My heavy breaths clouding my vision. When I push my back off the ground I see Samuel there next to me. The tree had torn the respirator off his face. Scratches left lines of red ice across impossibly pale skin pulled taught. His crystalline eyes stared back at me above bared teeth like a threatened animal. He is still. 

George rushes to my aid but my right foot is caught under the deadfall. Somewhere in my swimming mind I forget the present danger. In a fright I attempt to wrench my leg free with dreadful success. The fabric tears as I come loose. My boot and part of my snow pants stay trapped under the debris. The pain is immediate. It feels like a thousand tiny blades are stabbing my exposed skin. The cold claws with icy talons up my leg. I try to get up but the snow feels like glass shards against my heel. I howl at the sky in agony but only a muffled cry leaves my mask. I feel myself fall backwards into a pillow of snow. That is where I see it. Past the storm and hidden in the pitch black night is an unassuming but even darker circle where the sun should be. George tries his best to lift my limp body as I fall and succumb to the shadows at the edge of my vision.  

…

It wasn’t an invasion. There were no laser barrages or body snatchers. They never even talked to us. We may never see what they looked like. 

Astronomers were the first to see them. It was impossible to miss for anyone paying attention. Something of that size getting closer day by day cannot be hidden. It was covered up as simply an inanimate space object. Something like a large asteroid that would come close to Earth, but it wouldn’t collide with us. While the latter part was true, it left out major details. 

They called it Icarus. It was going to fly past the sun after all. I think we should have seen the irony. It was clever, but the name was not a good omen. 

I remember the day. All of us were gathered outside. We waited with our special glasses as Icarus was about to eclipse us. There was so much excitement. This was going to be a once in a lifetime astronomical event that no one before or after us would ever experience. 

“I see it! I can see Icarus!” someone in the crowd shouted. The rest of us raised our gazes until sure enough one side of that circle of light started to cave inward. That gargantuan shape marched slowly minute by minute across our sun. Icarus was larger than the moon. There was no burning halo around it. Once it hovered over us completely the day had become pitch black night. 

We didn’t notice the first minute when the sun didn’t peak out the other side. All of us were caught up in the moment. The second minute there was some confusion. Perhaps we had timed it wrong, and the sun would come out sooner. Minute three was when the worry started. A breeze had just swept in, and it felt strangely unnatural. By the fourth minute the panic began to bubble up around us. We checked our phones, social media, news websites, and radio stations. Many of them had reassuring voices and fake smiles, but we could see it in their eyes. After five minutes the cat was out of the bag. Some screamed, some got on their knees and prayed, some tried to run, and the rest of us just stared upward. Everyone realized Icarus had stopped, and all hell broke loose. 

Thus began the cold painful death of humanity. Riots and looting broke out in our population centers. Governments dissolved as the crops died. It's hard to get people to work when it’s the apocalypse. Within a few days the heat left our atmosphere. Outside became a barren graveyard housing billions of frozen corpses. Of course we didn’t all die. There are those buried in their little fallout shelters pockmarked across the Earth. Maybe they’ll survive until Icarus finally moves, but it’s not likely. It’s been over a year now and the ship hasn’t moved an inch. Somehow they know we’re still alive, and they’re just waiting for us to all finally die out. 

…

I’m in the medical bay. I don’t want to look down at my right leg, but I can’t feel it. Logically, I understand that nothing below my thigh could have survived the excursion, but taking a peek still proves difficult. I vomit the first time I see it. That was partially because of the shock of seeing a void where a fifth of my body should be, and partially because trying to raise my head makes my vision toss. 

My group of survivors were fortunate enough to have found this underground complex. It used to be owned by some billionaire, but we fed his body to the pigs a long time ago. The hydroponics sector grows our plants and we have livestock in the pen. Thanks to Samuel, George and me this place won’t have to worry about power or heat for a good long while.

It won’t be enough though. Either Icarus will keep waiting for us to all slowly starve, or they’ll come down here to finish us off. Our desperate clawing to survive is simply a minor inconvenience to them. I thought our situation was hopeless until I was called to a meeting about a hidden section of the complex that was opened when I turned the power back on. Sleeping in a silo we have a rocket carrying enough nuclear weapons to crack our planet open like a raw egg. This was something that had granted us the ability to change our fate, and we needed to decide what to do with it. 

The first and most obvious option was to fire it at Icarus, but we have no idea what kind of defenses it has or if we would even do any real damage to them. It would be taking a shot in the dark with our last lifeline. I would say it’s too risky, but we don’t have much to lose anymore. 

Another option is to unload all the explosives, and fill the rocket with people and supplies. Flee to Mars or somewhere else and hope Icarus doesn’t notice us and pray the conditions are just right wherever we land for us to live. It wouldn’t change our situation much. Right now we’re sitting in a metal box under the Earth with the option to sit in a metal box in space instead. 

We could also fly ourselves towards Icarus in an attempt to communicate with them. Surrender ourselves to them. Servitude in exchange for survival. Beg for our lives. It's the most humiliating option but also the only realistic one for the long term survival of the human race. 

That last idea is the least popular, but it at least has us going out on our terms. If we could somehow communicate with Icarus we might be able to threaten them with the self destruction of our world. It’s the only leverage we’ve got. 

I just let the rest of them discuss the issue as I lie back in the wheelchair I would soon learn to live in. It would be some time before we had to make a decision. For now we can only wait and remember the light of the sun. 

Sometimes I dream of myself on a beach in the summer. There are people laughing and playing in the rolling waves. The harsh rays burn my skin, so I get up from my chair and walk into the shade.