The Storm That Follows

We're flying over the northernmost area, which I'm currently tasked with mapping. It's the prime place for settlement on the test planet, which is slang for what will be known as Ceres, when settlers set. We've mapped everything except the north so far, because the biology department says the climate's entirely different. We can't do our mapping work without being able to label plants and species that make up biomes.
But they still don't have to delay our work any longer just because they don't know whether there are blue or red flowers in the north. I flick the digital map display off my touchpad, and it expands into the middle of the room, just as Linkin, who's the head of biology, walks in. And we all work under the biology department.
Which means we work under him.

"What you people are doing," he pauses, and smacks his lips,
"Is truly remarkable." He smiles as everyone claps and applauds upon his entry. He's known as the forest man because he's one of the only people who can describe a forest. Sure, we used to have videos. And the forest Linkin could describe was only from those videos.
But everything got lost or stolen, and no one really knows anything but one thing.
There are no more videos.
"I'm over here to pick up a copy of your mapping work so far," Linkin says. He takes a clearly dreaded stare at the ground before continuing. "There's something that biology picked up, and we're trying to get a satellite image."
That's strange. That's more than strange.
Then he takes another clearly dreaded stare at the ground, which looks more antagonising this time, before walking over to my station. Linkin peels a sticky note from the stack and takes a pen from the pot. He scribbles down the words follow me outside so fast it's as if he's having a heart attack. We both gaze longingly at the words, then at each other, before I'm swept outside.
"It's not safe here." He says.
"Yes, Linkin, think about the videos."
"Marko, you have to leave this place now," Linkin says, sliding a flaregun out of his pocket and into mine, concealing the weapon as he does.
"You have to find the space probes on Ceres and destroy them all. The council plans on settling the first ship in a matter of weeks, that's too soon, and we don't have enough time to–"
He's standing there on his toes now, pulling on my jacket, trying to make me listen, but I'm not.
"Sorry," he says, easing his grasp of my jacket.
"What's the matter with you? It's impossible to destroy the probes, even if I wanted to." I ask, although it seems apparent that he's gone insane, which isn't so uncommon since the videos got stolen.
"It's not what I did, it's what I saw. The council members overlooked a climactic disaster. It's what biology picked up, will kill us all." He says. "And some people want that."
"You're insane. What's the flare gun for?"
"You know exactly what it's for," he says,
And I do know.
"Goodbye."
And those are the last words spoken by the forest man before he is taken away, and I am told that he has gone mentally ill. I solemnly head back into the mapping room, grab my equipment, and sign out for the day without saying anything.

There are these colossal lookout points all over the ship, and they look down at the test planet. The oceans are like a famine, while land blankets across the entire planet. We won't ruin it this time.
"Hey, is everything okay with you and the forest man," Rosetta says, walking up a flight of stairs to the lookout point, carrying two tinfoil bags. She's almost ten years younger than I am, and thinks of me as a parent, although I'm very far from it. But with no family, I'm all she's ever really had.
"It seemed kinda serious?" She asks.
"He's gonna be taken away to wherever they keep the crazies," I reply, "he was saying something about something to do with a climate disaster."
"I heard something about that too, apparently the council overlooks it."
"Yep," I say. She ruffles around the tinfoil bags, pulling out two sandwiches for both of us, and then we just sit there. After we finish eating, we talk about going to the cafeteria. There's no supermarket. You get what you're given four times a day, and can get things like apples, junk food, and sandwiches from local vendors.
And even though we have just eaten sandwiches, we are still hungry for more because it's this stage in the settlement plan that they didn't plan for. It will all be better in a few months because they promise we can get all the food and supplies we need from the land, and then everything will be okay again.
It sounds exactly like how we ruined our last planet, taking too much of the resources. At least the planet is bigger this time, and if humanity is going to pollute it, it definitely won't be in our lifetime.
So not a problem, right?
They promised us this.
We deserve it.

And then there's a sound.

Thunk.

Rosetta's eyes flash to the door.

Thunk.

I begin to stand, and she does the same.

Thunk.

The door starts to curdle and buckle inwards.

Thunk.

It shatters into a million little pieces, and the room is swarmed with men.
Men who have guns.
And the next thing–
They're taking Rosetta–
They're taking me–
We both flare and dance around the room away from the men, throwing blind fists. But it's no use. They're men, twice the size and strength of us.

Then we're both dragged by our ankles down the corridors, our heads thumping as we go. The men create a circle of protection around us. "Marko–"
"What's happening, Marko–" She says, exhausted and beaten.
Finally, they let go of our feet, and we're free to stand.

"I have no idea," I reply.
In front of us is this massive snaking line of people, being pushed around and hit by soldiers.
Few people aren't refusing to walk, heads hanging with their feet scrapping across the floor towards–
The first settlement ship. Which is one of many. It has 01 written on the front, and in the hangar the numbers go up to 42.
Rosetta and I have been pushed and manipulated and are now part of that line. That's when I decide I've had enough.
"I'm leaving," I say, but–
"Don't–" She says.
She's hanging onto my shoulder because she can't balance herself and crying on my shirt, and she's begging me to stay.
"Please don't go–"
And so, I stay.

*   *   *

I sit up in a flash, choking out mouthfuls of water. I'm slumped in the corner of the ship, bruised and blackened. There's a tear through one side of the ship that's leaking in a bright ambient light. I hold my hand up to the light, and the outside becomes more apparent. It's cold outside. I can tell.
The day is a cold blue, and the test planet has rings. I had forgotten. They span the sky in a gigantic arc, stretching from one side to the other.
I remove my hand and look back at the insides of the ship, and begin to move a few things around.
And, there are even more bodies than I imagined. Probably a hundred, maybe two. Some of the faces are recognisable, some of them are my crew members. They’re all dead, dried blood streaming down their faces, piled and stacked so high that you can't even see the floor.
I’m drenched in blood that probably isn’t mine because I haven’t got any open wounds, and I can’t seem to move any of my muscles. I can just manage a small wriggle like a worm. I don’t know where I am, and the spaceship I’m lying in is missing the other half. It's been ripped to shreds and crumpled like paper.
There are tons of supplies all around me. Repair tools, pathfinders, thermal scanners, and crates full of the ship's supplements. Everything needed to survive for a bit. So maybe I have a chance to get back to the mothership after the diasaster that went on.
I shuffle my way over to the tear and jump off a ledge, and I step outside. Something that hasn't been done in a very, very long time.
I can feel the grass between my toes and the constant rushing, overwhelming wind. I see the fields and hills of dry grass that roll and overlap. And there's this smell to the air that I begin to dislike because it smells so… different. The rings are even greater than when I was looking at them from the ship, wrapping around the land in a dozen stripes. The sun is shining less bright now that my vision's back, and there are two moons in the sky.
So then, I start to cry.

And it's not because the land is absolutely astonishing.
I'm the first person to set foot on Ceres.
But I feel like the last.