Writing in the Sand Read online

  About the Author

  David Munday was born in Chippenham in 1992, spent most of his life growing up in Reading and now lives in Devon. After time as a freelance reporter, he has worked for the Plymouth Herald as a journalist and as the editor of the world’s number one Fantasy Football website Fantasy Football Scout. He also makes regular appearances on Premier League television and YouTube programmes as a pundit.

  Follow David on Twitter: @DavidMunday815

  SIGN UP FOR THE NEWSLETTER

  Receive special offers, giveaways, bonus content, updates from the author and be the first to hear about new releases.

  SIGN UP HERE: www.david.munday.uk

  Copyright © 2020 DAVID MUNDAY

  All rights reserved

  The characters and events portrayed in this book are fictitious. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is coincidental and not intended by the author.

  No part of this book may be reproduced, or stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without express written permission of the publisher.

  ISBN-13: 9798637094721

  Imprint: Independently published

  Cover design by: Emily Munday

  Printed by Amazon

  WRITING IN THE SAND

  Book One in the Atlas Nations series

  DAVID MUNDAY

  Contents

  About the Author

  Copyright

  Title Page

  Dedication

  1

  2

  3

  4

  5

  6

  7

  8

  9

  10

  11

  12

  13

  14

  15

  16

  17

  18

  19

  20

  21

  22

  23

  24

  25

  26

  27

  28

  29

  30

  Acknowledgements

  To Emily, for keeping me motivated

  1

  “I can’t do this,” said Harper.

  Bile crept up her throat. She swallowed sharply. The acrid stench of burning fuel and charred flesh did not mix well with the salty sea air. Smoke crept behind her eyeballs, squeezing out tears. Harper covered her face to defend the pervasive sensory attack.

  Shards of glass pricked at her palms and forearms. Wincing, Harper prised some from the skin and cast them aside, leaving behind scarlet blobs. Each fragment bounced with a clink off the rock’s edge, down to the beach.

  In just a few minutes, the flames already towered above the shoreline’s remaining trees. Beyond the pillars of fire, all Harper could see was water. This once beautiful island had become an unholy sore shrouded in thick, black smoke.

  Had all gone according to plan, the crew and passengers would have been basking in the glory of their new colonial home by now. Instead, it looked as if their first day on Proxima B could well be their last. Survival was not something Harper Mulgrew had been trained for.

  Watching an alien sun begin its descent into the depths of an extra-terrestrial sea for the first time in her life, she ignored bruised muscles and battered bones to focus on her rage.

  “I’m not even supposed to be here,” Harper whispered through gritted teeth and a crisp Scottish accent. Her blood boiled as she considered those who had banished her from Earth. Blonde hairs that had escaped the head-band blew into her face. She swatted them aside.

  A voice came from behind, laced with pain.

  “What happened?” it asked.

  A slender man, a similar age to Harper, had stumbled from the foliage, shaking. The mauve of his overalls indicated a civilian ticket. A name label on the chest read ‘J. Brooks’. He was a man with the scrawny build of someone who had been sent on this trip for brains rather than brawn. His pea-like head was adorned with compact brown curls, littered with sand, foliage and grit. The baby-face was a patchwork quilt of bruises and cuts, the worst of which ran across a round nose. His cheeks were illuminated by the inferno, eyes possessed by the depths of Hell.

  Paralyzed by fear and anger, Harper realised she did not have an answer for Brooks’ question. Floundering for something reassuring, she managed nothing more than a hesitant half-mumble.

  A chilling shriek made Harper jump.

  She looked down and spotted a teenage girl crouching over an unconscious woman in the sand. All around them, survivors were wandering about in a stupor. They were dangerously close to the fuselage. It was surrounded by blackened corpses. Emblazoned on the hull, the word ‘Concord’ was melting away.

  The scene hit Harper like a bullet in the guts, shaking her body free from the shackles of shock.

  “Let’s go.” Harper shouted over the roar of flames and started moving. “Focus on getting people clear and see what resources you can salvage. I’ll get down to what’s left of the ship and try to send a distress signal.”

  The nervous man nodded slightly and followed her down the small sandbank, carefully edging closer to wreckage. Each step increased the sting of heat on their cheeks.

  As she approached the girl, Harper directed Brooks over to a short woman, spluttering as she tried to drag a heavy crate through the sand.

  “What’s your name?” Harper asked the teenager, crouching and placing a hand on her shoulder.

  “Shermeen,” the girl garbled, brown hair flailing as she took in the surroundings like a rabbit in headlights. “My mum,” she cried.

  “Everything’s going to be okay,” Harper shouted, not believing herself. “We need to get your mother away from the wreckage.” She put her arms underneath the woman’s shoulders, starting to lift.

  “What if she’s hurt?”

  “That won’t matter if the ship blows up,” Harper retorted. The girl did not respond. “Come on, grab her legs.” The two of them carried the woman towards the tree-line. Harper put her in the recovery position. “I’ve got to go now.”

  Harper made a beeline for the Concord, or what was left of it. She noticed a large dark-skinned man standing close to a blazing hunk of metal. He was vainly attempting to douse it with a hand-held extinguisher.

  “What are you doing?”

  He stopped, somewhat confused at first. Noticing the insignia on Harper’s chest, he understood.

  “The ship is gone. Just grab what supplies you can and get as far away as possible!”

  Harper picked up a small bundle of nutrition crates, stifling a yelp as they disturbed her glass-inflicted wounds. She thrust them into the large man’s hands and called over two more individuals nearby.

  “Start a collection point up there!” Harper pointed at the rock where she had woken up.

  “You heard her, let’s get started,” said the taller man, gesturing to the shorter individual.

  “Thanks. If you can get these people away from burning wreckage too then I can worry about what we need from the cockpit.”

  Harper could see the pilots’ section of the ship had broken away from the main fuselage now, smoke billowing through the cracks. She had to find Captain Case, work out why they had crashed and identify where on Proxima B they had crashed. Only portions of the planet had been scouted by satellite, so ending up in the wrong place didn’t bear thinking about. Being able to send a distress signal would be a nice bonus.

  Contact with rocks had carved a human-sized hole in the side of the cockpit. Harper stared deep into the smoke, knowing that the searing heat was about to get worse. Looking back at the handful of colonists piling up supplies, she made her pe
ace. If she were to perish today there was comfort in not having to face an uncertain future on an uninhabited alien world billions of miles from home. At least it would be over.

  Pulling the hood back over her head and holding up a sleeve to her mouth, Harper took a deep breath and dived through the opening.

  There was a hot flash.

  Tongues of fire.

  She was in.

  Harper swore as she discovered the captain’s fate.

  His lifeless body was still strapped to his pilot’s chair. The shoulders were drenched in thick red fluid oozing from a fatal wound on the back of the head. An elongated section of the overhead panel had snapped free and was lanced through the captain’s skull, the tip visible through his blood-soaked hair.

  A communication panel roared into flames. It triggered another. And another. Fire leapt towards Harper from panel to panel, like a glowing serpent riding the waves.

  There was no time for a distress call. Firing the beacon would have to do. Harper lifted the plastic casing around a control switch and slammed her fist down on the button. Above the ceiling, she heard the vibration of a small metal container leaving its housing at high velocity.

  Harper clambered over hunks of rubble, looking for the navigation terminal.

  A jolt of pain scolded her thigh.

  She cursed, batting the metal panel away.

  Harper pressed on ungracefully, slipping as she arrived at the appropriate station. The screen displayed a map of the local area. It was exactly what she needed. Scrolling through the options, she selected ‘EXPORT TO EXTERNAL DEVICE’. That way, she could access this information without the ship. Battery power would probably only last a few days but it would be long enough for her and the survivors to work out a plan of action. It took some encouragement but Harper eventually convinced the power switch into the ‘On’ position and the portable machine’s screen lit up.

  She prayed its motherboard wasn’t already fried.

  “Yes,” Harper said fiercely, beads of sweat flying off her forehead. Extracting the back-up server was still a viable option. The terminal’s keyboard was missing a few keys but none of them were needed for this command. Steeling herself against the heat once more, Harper bashed through the various stages of the process.

  The ship threw her to the floor.

  Harper landed with a powerful stomach-lurching thud. The whole world rotated around her. A thunderous roar clawed at her ears. The captain’s body was hurled in Harper’s direction, spear protruding. She ducked to the left. The corpse hit the surface with a chilling clang. It was inches from her face. Chaotic yet lifeless eyes stared at Harper, bestowing the leader’s mantle upon her. She leapt up and stumbled away from Case’s body and peered through a hole in the hull. The main bulk of the ship had exploded. In the distance, fragments crashed into the sea like giant hailstones.

  Harper was lucky to be alive. Still.

  The device. Where had it gone?

  She scanned the cockpit, trying to find it.

  “Damn!”

  The computer station was no longer in front of her. After the explosion, the roll of the ship had swung it several feet above, now acting as the ceiling.

  Grabbing a hanging strap, Harper leapt up to what was left of a seating column and hauled herself closer to the prize. Edging over to the operating panel again, she confirmed that the terminal had not only survived but that the exporting had completed. All she had to do was physically remove the device from its slot.

  Swinging closer, she detached the first hook. The second was still out of reach. It took another careful dangle on the strap and Harper had her fingers on it. But not enough to break it free.

  One... more...

  This time, she hung in front of the switch long enough to flick it. The handheld device slipped out of its holding.

  It fell.

  Harper’s heart skipped a beat. If that smashes, we’ll be building this colony blind, she thought to herself.

  She leapt against the momentum of the strap. It landed in her hands.

  The steel hull welcomed Harper’s body with an offensive jerk. The breath was sucked from her body. She fought against an abdomen of lead to get off the scolding metal beneath her.

  Another explosion rocked the cockpit. Sparks flew once more, like rain in a hurricane.

  Harper quickly rolled over, using elbows to get into a crouched position. Powerful legs pushed her forwards, slightly off-balance, but it was enough. She wrapped up the portable machine in her overalls and ran at one of the fresh openings.

  Harper closed her eyes.

  An intense burning sensation roasted her arms and legs.

  Suddenly there was a saline taste in the mouth and a rough scratch on her cheek. She’d landed face first in the waves. She was safe, for now.

  Wading back to the beach, Harper kept an eye over her shoulder as the cockpit washed further out to sea.

  Arriving on the sand, she knelt. Looking up at the wooded and mountainous island on which they had landed, Harper could not bring herself to move. After a few moments to get some breath back, she turned to the device. Time to find out just how far away the planned landing site was. She didn’t need to log-in. The captain’s details had already been accepted and the device’s small screen showed that it was ‘RESUMING SESSION’.

  “That can’t be right,” Harper muttered under the staccato rhythm of her breathing.

  ‘DISTANCE TO LANDING ZONE: 2,479 miles’ read the caption on the on-screen map. Below it was the flight-path the ship had followed during entry into Proxima B’s orbit and atmosphere. It had been manually laid into the system.

  Captain Case had crashed the ship on purpose.

  2

  Every night it stopped him from sleeping. He remembered the trigger squeezing past the point of no return. Feet were nailed to the ground. He tried to sound a warning but his tongue refused to move. Bones snapped and ligaments stretched to the point of tearing. His wife’s breathing proved a gentle tonic to the agitated state.

  He felt the elbow in his ribs and was instantly alert.

  “Answer your phone, Donald,” complained Sally.

  He noticed the unpleasant whine coming from his bed-side table, accompanied by the garish flashing red of the handset.

  Groaning, Donald Stafford apologised for the disturbance at such an ungodly hour, pressed the transfer button on his phone and heaved himself out of bed. Not before kissing his wife tenderly on the cheek.

  He felt his way to the door, wincing quietly at the stiffness in his right leg. It always protested against bearing weight in the small hours. Don waited until he had closed the door to the master bedroom before turning on the landing lights. His eyes hated him for that. He wished Proxima A’s time zones corresponded better with Earth’s. Staying up late for footage to arrive of the so-called lunch-time game had been a mistake.

  Once in the study, he triggered the handset’s transfer button on the corner of the imposing mahogany desk.

  “This better be good,” Don snapped in his drawn-out southern accent. The permanent secretary to the department of defence had moved to the city of New Boston specifically to avoid this sort of thing. All that dramatic middle-of-the-night emergency stuff was for those who lived near the Arkan/Choctaw Border. Don had come to his senses years ago, or rather, his wife made sure he did when the Choctaw war had been in the history books long enough. Hopefully this was just another simple clash between overly patriotic citizens and separatist sympathisers. As long as it wasn’t anything to do with that damned Teslanium Agreement he’d be happy. Relatively speaking.

  On the other end of the line, Anderson, his deputy, sounded uncertain how to answer.

  “Err... we’ve had an incident up at Satellite Three,” came the nervous response.

  “What’s happened?”

  “It’s gone.” Despite having lived his whole life in the Proxima system, Anderson bore the strong New York accent of his parents.

  “What do you mean,
it’s gone?”

  There was a moment’s pause.

  “It’s been completely destroyed.”

  “I’ll be right there.”

  ✯

  “You better have a damn good explanation ready for me Anderson. You know I’m never in the best mood when Carolina quarterbacks throw fourth quarter interceptions,” Don cracked as he burst into the office, doing his best to hide the limp. Clearly the staff had not expected him so soon. Almost every one of them flinch upon his arrival.

  This particular night, there was a palpable sense of unease mixing with the smell of warm plastic and dusty servers in the air. Given the current situation, that was not surprising. Normally the night shift consisted of relentless rounds of office golf, excessive coffee consumption, frequent toilet trips and a steady stream of hard rock classics to keep the staff awake.

  Right now, the room was silent, save for the whirring of computer fans. The golf clubs and balls had been tossed to one side and every technician was either checking print-outs or staring into their screens.

  The dark haired Anderson looked up from the map.

  “We picked up a signal from an unidentified object approaching our sector of orbit roughly thirty minutes ago at this position,” he said, presenting the print-out. “It took us a few minutes to plot its course but by the time we had a fix it was too late.”

  “So... what happened?” Don asked gruffly.

  “Well, it was on a collision course with Satellite Three.” Anderson pointed to the line he had drawn on the chart in pencil. “There were no survivors on our side.” He struggled to get that last line out without a slight quiver of the lips. “It continued on its course.”

  Don pounded the nearest work station with his fist, frightening the living daylights out of the young man working there. Running a hand through greying hair, he stared at the wall bleakly.