Populus Ex Machina: Ryland

"If we don't get out of here, we're going to die!" Ryland yelled, but everyone just stared at him. He scrambled to his feet and staggered over by Jack and the professor guy, Ed something he was sure his name was.
"You knew about this didn't you!" By the time Ryland made it to them and grabbed onto Jack's collar, the pilot and the rest of the council were there. He swung on the pilot and punched him in the face.
"You must have seen it! You know we're gonna die! That's why you haven't even tried to get us home!"
The pilot jumped up from the floor where Ryland's hit had flung him and threw himself back at Ryland. Just before his hands could wrap themselves around Ryland's throat, Jack and Kara pulled him away. Ed and the doctor lady had their hands on his own arms.
"Why don't we go up to the front of the ship, and you tell us what you're talking about?" Ed began pulling him that way even before he finished speaking.
"No! Let us hear him!" someone yelled from the crowd that had gathered.
With some satisfaction, Ryland glanced around at the press of bodies surrounding him and the council. The fear on their faces didn't seem as great as his own, but once he let them know what the council had been hiding from them, they'd feel more. And maybe he could get them to feel some of the anger he felt, too.
"Yeah, we have a right to hear this, too!"
"Let him speak!"
Jack looked around at the faces and the worry and uncertainty were clear on his face. The pilot's nose was bleeding, and he was glaring at Ryland, his hands in fists, but he wasn't making a move, even with no one holding him any more. Kara was looking at her husband, and Ed was trying to calm everyone down. The black-haired little rodent who followed Jack around was trying to hide behind her hair, and Ryland thought he saw a smile whenever she looked at him.
'What's so funny, girl? Did they tell you their plan? Did Jack spill it to you in bed?" That last finally got through, her cheeks grew bright red, and she ran away to hide for real.
"Everyone, please calm down. I don't know what this man saw, nor where his fifth companion is. Why don't we take a couple minutes, take some deep breaths, and we can let the Captain, here, clean up a bit, and then we can let Mr. Browne tell us about what he saw. I'm sorry, Mrs. Rajanapour, we'll have to postpone your story for a night or two."
The woman who had been speaking when Ryland had come in just held up her hands and shook her head; surprised she'd even been remembered in the tumult.
"And you, Mr. Browne. I understand you saw something that frightened you, and I'm very interested to hear it, as I'm sure we all are, but please try to restrain yourself, or so help me, " Ed leaned into Ryland's face, no mean trick for someone half a foot shorter, "I will restrain you myself."
Ryland pushed Ed's finger out from under his nose and stepped back. He regretted giving ground to an old man, but the intensity of that gaze would have made him give even more had he not been so angry.
"You let me tell all these good people what you've been hiding from them, and I'll be the very picture of restraint. Now, I'm going to get some water before I speak."
As Ryland made his way to the closet they laughingly called a galley, he was surrounded by people asking questions, their voices trembling. He kept the satisfied smile off his face, barely. He was going to milk this out, and by the time his story was done, by the time he'd finally exposed what that council was hiding, that'd be the end of them. If it was the last thing he did, and he was all but sure it would be with that thing out there, he'd make those five people who'd gotten him stuck here pay. He paid his debts, and he made sure those who owed him paid theirs.

When Ryland had gotten his water and made his way back to the crowd, he could see that the council had done very well in calming the people down. There was an open seat at the back end of the ship that was plainly meant for him. Ed and Jack sat on either side of him, Kara was across from Jack, the pilot across from his seat, and the doctor across from Ed – a very nice box. The rest of the passengers crowded around the council, and as Ryland made his way to his seat, he could make out the other four people from his ill-fated excursion on the inside of the crowd. It seemed the council had forgotten about them, with their attention firmly centered on him. As they should, he thought.
"So, where should I begin?" Ryland asked as he sat down. "I was born on Mars, signed on to the Martian Militia when I was 18. I helped put down the uprising in Planitia a few years ago, and I was going to go to Earth for some more extensive training for special ops stuff when our good Captain here, " Ryland smirked at the pilot's flash of anger, "crash landed us in this God-forsaken place.
"You guys," and this time, his gaze swept over everyone listening to him, "decided to put all the decision making power in the hands of five people you didn't even know, including the man who stranded us here, the first five people who even asserted a little bit of control. It seemed a bit convenient to me. I mean, they win your hearts and minds over the course of a very emotional day, and then decide to hold an election. Who the hell did they think we'd choose?"
Jack looked like he was about to say something, but Kara shushed him. When she looked back at him, Ryland noticed just how lovely her eyes were, even with the steely glint in them whenever she looked at him. Maybe even because of it. He smiled at her, just a little lifting of the corners of his mouth, and continued his story.
"I admit, I was as scared as everyone else was, and I thought the Captain might even be able to salvage something. He got us into the mess, maybe he could get us out, right? But as we can all see, he hasn't done a thing, and neither have the others. Sure, they've had you make this tin can more comfortable, but how does that help our most immediate problem? How does that help us get home? Have they even tried, have they thought of anything to try? Why do they go up to the front of the ship to have their little discussions and leave us all out?
"As you guys may remember, I was pretty vocal in my desire for them to try something, anything, to get us home. Shortly after that, they sent me, and a few others, out on a "reconnaissance mission." We were supposed to see what was out there that we could use, maybe find something we could eat. But of course, we weren't given any more instructions than that. I can scout an area, and the people we picked all knew their way around unfamiliar territory, but who do you think would have been better at finding us food? Maybe the professor who was so quick to figure out where we are? The one person who's even heard of the creatures out there? Don't you think he'd be helpful at telling us what was dangerous? He didn't even wish us luck; he sent us on our way and turned his back on me. I'd bet he was hoping none of us would make it back. One of us didn't, and his death rests solely on Ed's shoulders. Ed and the rest of this so-called council."
"Now you listen here!" Ed stood up and leaned into Ryland's face. "I can't tell you a thing about the animals and plants here except for what their shape was. I probably couldn't recognize most of the animals any way."
Once again, it was Kara who calmed things down.
"Ed, he's trying to rile us up," she shot another steely glance in Ryland's direction. "Sit down, whatever he says, we're bound to learn something. And Ryland, right?" He nodded. "You continue with your story, and instead of a polemic, why don't you let your captive audience hear about what happened out on your little adventure?"
Ryland glanced around him. He could see people mulling what he'd said. Too much, and he'd lose them; they'd see him as a mad man. He'd planted the seed, now he'd let it grow.
"Ok, just the facts, ma'am. There were a total of six of us: Jones, M'Busa, Leight, Franklin, Wei, and myself. All of us had some experience in, heh, similar situations. M'Busa, was military from Earth. Jones had been in the MM with me. Leight and Wei had been explorers of some sort, they weren't really clear, but they said they'd worked extensively on the Martian surface as well as the jungles of Earth. Franklin, well, Franklin claimed to have been in the military on Earth, but he was extremely close-mouthed about what service, what his rank was, or anything. My guess is he was a spook of some kind.
"I watched as our intrepid Captain fashioned breathing masks we could wear out in the wilderness. I couldn't exactly follow all he did, but the things worked, and I have to hand it to him," Ryland winked at the pilot who just grimaced back, "we never had any issue with them. Not as long as we were wearing them, at least.
"We set out in the early morning, and by the time the sun said it was about 10, we were all soaked in sweat. The breathing masks weren't the most comfortable to wear, even if they did work, and we were all stuck in long sleeves and pants to try and keep branches from cutting us, and animals or bugs from doing whatever it is they do in this time. Comfort comes a far second to survival, but after a few hours, survival starts to slip back a few paces.
"We had no idea where we were going, but we decided to walk back from the ship, along the torn up path from when the ship crashed. It was as good a direction as any, and it kept us from the trees for a while. The land began to rise, as well, and we figured we could get a better view from above. We saw quite a few more of those dinosaur things."
"Lystrosaurus, it means shovel lizard," Ed murmured. Kara reached across to lay her hand on his leg.
"Yeah, we saw more of them. They were eating plants, so we figured they weren't much of a threat, though those tusks they have sure don't make them look too friendly. We saw quite a few insects, and learned of at least three that like to bite." Ryland pulled the sleeves of his shirts up over his elbows and proudly displayed the red welts on his arms. They were all over, and about the size of the eraser on a pencil. A white top surrounded by redness, with short lines of deeper red radiating out from the white tip to just past the edge of redness. A number of those closest to Ryland gasped or took a quick step backward. When the rest of Ryland's expedition pulled up their sleeves as well, a small cushion of empty space formed around them. Ryland just grinned at the reaction, leaving his sleeves up for the rest of his story.
"By the middle of the day, we had reached the top of the ridge behind us. I had us stop for a bit and broke out the rations. We'd gone through quite a bit more of the water we'd brought than I'd anticipated, so I knew we'd have to find a stream or something, but of more immediate concern was trying to eat. M'Busa and Leight would each take a deep breath, pull the masks off their faces only log enough to shove some of the ration bars we'd brought into their mouths, and then snap the masks back into place. The rest of us took the things off completely and just ate, taking deep breaths to get enough oxygen. None of us wasted any time, and within a couple minutes, we'd finished our measly meal. Seeing the way taking the masks off made everyone react, I was pretty glad I'd made sure our intrepid Captain had installed a straw in the masks that ran into the water canisters we all carried. He wasn't going to at first; I guess he doesn't get thirsty walking around in the heat.
"With our lunch finished, we took some time to try and look around. The trees had thinned out at the top of the ridge, but we could see on the other side that a true jungle had grown up. It looked a lot like parts of South America look, or so Wei said. Through binoculars, I could see a pretty straight cut through the trees about 25 miles ahead, and I figured it must be a river, so that was my goal. With the trees, I didn't think we'd make it that day, but by lunch of the next, we should be there and able to refill our water. The sky was overcast, but the clouds were doing some weird things. It almost looked like a drain near the horizon, but the clouds were draining upward, if anything. Leight claimed to have seen it once before, saying a storm was brewing and we might get tornadoes. I wasn't too happy with that, but everything seemed to be moving away from us, so as long as the wind stayed on our side, I didn't think we'd have to worry about it too much."

A sudden shaking nearly knocked Ryland out of his seat. Those standing around were thrown to their feet. The whole ship was shaking like a child's rattle, and the air masks dropped out of the ceiling again. People screamed, some started crying. Ryland looked at the council and they were all just looking at each other. Jack's eyes were wide enough to see bright white all the way around his irises.
"Everyone stay on the floor!" Ryland yelled. "Cover your heads and try to hang on!" By the time he finished yelling, the shaking stopped.
"What was that?" yelled a woman lying on the floor near Jack's seat.
"An earthquake, probably," Ed said with more composure than Ryland thought he actually had. "Good job, Mr. Browne. You kept your head."
Ryland smiled. He didn't need the old man's praise, but having everyone hear that, along with the fact that Ryland had, indeed, kept his head and taken charge would sit in the back of their minds. The timing couldn't have been better.
"Perhaps we should all take a little break," Jack said, his face white.
"Good idea." Kara was completely steady. She rested an arm on Jack shoulders as she walked out into the aisle. "Everyone, we're going to go out and take a look at the ship from the outside. If you could all take a walk around the inside here and see if you notice anything that's more damaged than it was before," she chuckled a little, "please let us know. After we've made sure everything is ok, that the ship won't fall apart around us, we'll gather back here and listen to the rest of Mr. Browne's testimony. Feel free to have something to drink and some food, too."
Ryland couldn't help but notice the word 'testimony.' He narrowed his eyes at Kara as she made her way outside with the pilot and Ed. Jack got to his feet a bit slower than the others had, and the doctor was walking around the people, making sure no one was hurt. Before Jack made it to the door, the little black-haired girl grabbed his arm and pulled him into a hug. Ryland couldn't hear what she said, nor what Jack replied, but he could see the softening of Jack's eyes and the color begin coming back into his face. That was something he'd have to keep an eye on. Kara was fast becoming his only threat, but if he could drive a wedge between her and Jack, he might be able to get her on his side, and if he was really lucky, maybe even in his bed. With images of her eyes, among other things, dancing in his head, and a smile he wasn't even aware of on his face, he wandered outside to offer help in looking for damage.

Outside, the pilot, Ed, Jack and Kara were all wearing the gas masks that had been created for Ryland's excursion. Ryland didn't bother with one; he didn't expect to be outside for very long. Ed and the Jack were walking around the long ship arguing over whether a particular crack had been there before or not. Kara was talking with the pilot just out the door, their voices sounding a bit muffled by the masks.
"You think you can fly this thing?" Kara's skepticism was apparent in her voice even though Ryland couldn't see her face clearly. He was skeptical too if the pilot thought he could get this twisted pile of wreckage into the air.
"Not the ship, it has emergency escape modules. They're made for problems in interplanetary space; there wasn't enough time to get to them inside the atmosphere as we were. However, each module has two airlocks on it, one male, if you will, and one female. They're designed so any ship passing by, even one that isn't built exactly to our specifications, can pick up the survivors. If we can get them disconnected from the main ship and get them strung together, we could have enough thrust for a small flight. We couldn't get far, and I don't know where we could go, except by the river Ryland," he nodded at Ryland with a slight grimace, "found on his trip."
"How safe would that be? We'd have to string them together like beads, and it would be flying like an arrow traveling sideways, not exactly the most aerodynamic, is it?" Ryland couldn't help but be intrigued, the pilot just looked at him after his question, but a glance at Kara showed suspicion in her eyes, so the pilot looked back at Ryland, distaste written across his eyes.
"The thrusters have a little control, and because there is no gravity in space, there's no real floor or ceiling. We can alternate the side the thrusters are on, and angle them as far back as we can. With an even number of modules, the thrust should be balanced enough to get a sort of straight line out of it. If we have anyone with a little bit of wiring and programming knowledge, we could even slave the controls to the lead module, letting me, or whoever you want," the pilot glanced back at Kara, "control the entire string."
"Jack has the programming experience, and I'm sure you, he, and a few others could handle the wiring," Kara said reluctantly, "But what I want to know is, why are you so anxious to leave this ship behind? I know it's not a very good reminder of the crash, but it's all we have right now. It has space, enough oxygen for us to breathe easily, and all the supplies we're likely to need for a while. We can send people to get water if we need it, but the recyclers are working just fine, right?" At the pilot's nod, she continued. "Almost as soon as we crashed, you've been pushing for us to leave, why?"
Ryland leaned in, despite himself. He forced himself to remember how to breathe and mentally yelled at himself for forgetting the oxygen mask. This was getting interesting, and neither of them was forcing him away.
"A few years ago, I was working on Mars," the pilot began quietly, his muffled voice barely intelligible. "During the Martian revolution." A flicker of his eyes to Ryland, then back to Kara seemed to remind her of his presence.
"Why don't we catch up with Jack and Ed? You can let them know about your idea, and we can continue this later." Her eyes flicked to Ryland and away again.
This was more like what he was expecting, Ryland sighed. Rather than follow them, he went back inside, where he could breathe. If the council wanted to keep their little secrets, let them, they weren't going to have much power after he finished his story anyway, and if he wanted to try and get Kara on his side, he'd need to talk to her alone; he didn't trust the pilot much farther than he could toss him, even in Martian gravity. That went for the entire council, even Kara, but with her on his side he'd have a little more sway with those who may still support the council, even after he revealed the big secret they were hiding.

"So, we started hiking down the other side of the ridge. As soon as we got to the bottom we were surrounded by trees. The bugs we had thought were so bad on the hike up the ridge were positively terrible now. They swarmed around us, biting and trying to get into our ears and eyes. Once again, we were thankful for the breathing masks, they kept the bugs out of our mouths and noses. The heat and humidity didn't change much, but now that we were down among them, the sheer size of the trees kept our attention off of how uncomfortable we were for most of the rest of that first day. We saw all kinds of animals, but they all looked like strange lizards. There were no birds or anything with fur. The sounds were similar to what you could hear on Earth in our home time, but all the chirping and barking sounds came from lizard mouths. The droning of insects in our ears was exactly the same; I guess there isn't much to change in that respect.
"Franklin was the first to forget about the size of the trees. He started swinging his arms and hands at the bugs around him, trying to get them off of him. It looked like he had gone crazy, but his flailing just made the damn insects all the more noticeable to us. I yelled at him to stop it, but whether he heard me or not, I couldn't tell. He started running, still slapping his head with his hands. I almost said god riddance to him, and continued on my way, but the others wanted to go after him."
Ryland looked at the rest of his party, standing around him in the cabin of the ship. They all had varying expressions of distaste on their faces, but not one of them said anything. They had agreed it was necessary, if anyone found out how Franklin had died, it would undermine everything he was trying to do, but he knew they didn't like it. They had seen that thing out there, but they still thought that maybe the council could help. They were fools, but at least they were loyal fools.
"When we finally caught up to him, sweat streaming down our faces and pooling in our boots, he was already dead. A bright swath of blood was streaming out of his right ear, though the cloud of bugs covering his face made it hard to see until we took our hands and swished them away. Even so, they swarmed right back in almost as fast as we could clear them. I'm not sure if a bug clawed through his eardrum and that's what drove him crazy or if that happened after, but there was nothing we could do for him, and we were attracting bugs of our own. We took the clothes Franklin was wearing and ripped them into strips. We tied the strips around our foreheads to cover our ears and to keep the sweat out of our eyes. They worked moderately well at both tasks, but they were the best we could do. I was determined to make it to the river before nightfall of the second day.
"Since we had gotten a little off track on our chase after Franklin, I had Wei climb up one of the trees to see if he could see the river. I gave him the binoculars, and he gave me everything he was carrying except for the air tank. For a little guy, he's a mighty fast climber. Within minutes, he was out of sight in the canopy, all without ropes or harness. About an hour and a half later, he was back on the ground, and it turned out we had only angled slightly away from our original course, so we were closer to the river than I thought we'd be.
"By the time night fell, I knew we'd make it to the river the next day. We had a little…discussion…on how we were to go about sleeping through the night. I advocated climbing into one of the trees for the night. The branches were quite large so there was little risk of falling out, and we should be safe from most of the predators up there. If we kept a standard watch rotation, we'd have been fine. The rest, however, didn't want to climb into the trees; even Wei didn't seem to relish another jaunt up one so we were stuck on the ground. We settled up against one of the trees, hoping to have something solid at our backs, though we still had to worry about something coming at us from the front, sides, or even above. We tried making a fire, but we could barely get one started, and even then, it didn't burn very well, mostly smoke. It must have been the damn air again.
"I took the first watch, I wanted Jones to take the next one, and then I'd take the third again and wake everyone up to start early. The second night, I'd have M'Busa take the middle watch. On my first watch, nothing of note happened, just bugs, weird calls and screeches from the trees, and those weird shovel-lizard things. One snuffled his way right up to where our fire had petered out. I had to kick him to get him to leave our camp. I woke Jones, and he took over, and as soldiers for time immemorial have learned to do, I fell asleep almost instantly. When Jones woke me up 3 hours later, I was as refreshed as I needed to be. I took watch for another hour or so, while Jones went about getting things squared away for our next jaunt, and pulling out the fantastic energy bars we'd be eating for breakfast.
"The sun started coming up, giving everything a sort of grey, washed out color to it. As it did, the bugs came back out in droves.  I didn't need to wake the rest of the team; the bugs did it for me. These bites may look bad now, but they were worse to receive, I promise you." Ryland smiled around at the people listening. He could see they were hooked on his story.
"I was right in my guess; we made it to the river by midday. And what a river it is. It's easily a mile across, if not more, and full of rapids and swirling currents and eddies. It's beautiful. There's this little wave pool, filled with overspill from the river itself, and it's nice and cool. We all had to take a swim. I suppose we're lucky there wasn't any prehistoric monster living in the pool, but I don't think we'd have cared if there were, we were all sick being hot, sticky and sweaty. Fr the first time since we set out, we were feeling good. We refilled our water tanks, taking care to filter it, of course. As much as I would have enjoyed staying, and I know everyone else would have as well, I knew we had to keep moving. We had used up a good portion of our water on the trek to the river, and I figured we'd do the same on the way back. I did decide we should go back to the shuttle by a different route, though, so we could see a little bit more of the area. We'd walk along the river to the south for the rest of the day, then the next day, we'd head out again. If we made good time and had a little luck, we could make it back to the shuttle by nightfall of the second day from the river.
"As it turns out, we had no trouble making good time, but I'm not sure luck was smiling on us. That's the night we found out about the big secret these fine people surrounding me have been keeping from you." More than a few people turned suspicious eyes on the council sitting around him. He had to take a drink for his water glass to hide the smile that threatened to dance across his face. The council didn't even seem able to make him stop, he knew, as well as they, that if they stopped him now, the people would turn on them. He had the upper hand now, and if they wanted to avoid a riot, they had to let him finish.
"That night, as I told you, I was going to take the first watch, then let M'Busa take over for the rest of the night. Unlike the first night, however, this one was anything but uneventful. The clouds that had been blanketing the sky began to break up around sunset, and with the wide river, there was more than enough sky to see. The sunset was breathtaking, all the colors of the rainbow and the breaking clouds made dark streaks against the brightness. Even the training I had received on Earth couldn't have prepared me for the sight of that sunset. We don't get anything like it on Mars, and even the sunsets you guys see on Earth in our time just can't compare. I'd suggest you guys go outside some evening to see it, but I suppose you'd have to ask our council for permission or something, who knows.
"After the incredible sunset, and dinner, everyone else started stretching out to sleep. We didn't even bother trying to make a fire that night, so there was nothing to hamper my night vision. I walked down to the edge of the river and started looking at the stars, trying to figure out if I could see Mars at that time, when I noticed something to the northeast. As near as I could tell, it was in the same position as that weird storm cloud had been before, but there were no storms there now. There was just nothing. No stars, no planets, nothing.
"At first, I thought I was just seeing things. Nothingness against a dark night sky is a little hard to see. It might have been a cloud obscuring the stars, or maybe there just weren't any stars there. Who knows what the night sky looks like this far back, right? But the black area didn't move like a cloud would. I reasoned that if there really was something there, the stars would be moving behind it as the Earth spun, so I decided to stare at a star that seemed to be on the edge of the blackness. Nothing changed. I sat and stared at it for most of my shift, and while it seemed to dim a bit, I couldn't be sure.
"'What'cha looking at?" M'Busa made me jump out of my skin, his deep voice sounding like the voice of death coming out of the night like that. When I calmed myself down, and tried my hardest to convince him I hadn't been startled, I failed, by the way," Ryland smiled winningly around at everyone, who smiled back at him. He was doing it! "When I calmed down, I turned to point to the black space, but before I could say anything, my heart seemed to clench and my lungs just shut down for what seemed like hours. The star I had been watching was gone, there was something up there!"
As if to punctuate his pronouncement, another earthquake shook the ship. This one was stronger than the first one. People were flung out of their seats or tossed onto the floor like dolls in the midst of a little girl's temper-tantrum. Ryland managed to keep his seat, but Kara was thrown across his lap. He put his arm on her back, to hold her still so she'd be safe, but when the shaking stopped, she pulled away as if she were being burned by his touch. Her eyes went from merely flinty to full on stony.
"Thanks," she said, and spun around to help Ed up from the floor.
"What did this black space look like, exactly?" the pilot asked. Was that a tinge of worry in his voice? Ryland smiled, he thought it was.
"I told you, it was, well, a black space. The next morning, it was easier to see. In fact, it was impossible to miss. As soon as the sun began to rise, M'Busa and I realized we had been sitting there, watching stars disappear and occasionally seeing one appear on the other side, for the rest of the night. With the return of sunlight, the extent of the black space was easier to make out. As big as my fist held out at arm's length, it seemed to suck in the light. It was a deep black for it's entire expanse, until the very edge, where it began to look like wispy black clouds, fading to normal sky blue.
"We couldn't hide the thing from the rest of the party, not that we wanted to, of course. I didn't expect a full-on panic, not from these guys, but it was a near thing. The consensus was that we should hurry back here to the ship and let you all know, but I pointed out that the council probably already knew about it. They keep us in here so we don't see it, it's in a direct line from where we crashed following the ripped up trees behind us. The only thing it could be is the way we got here."
At that, almost every head that wasn't looking at him snapped to face him. Ed almost looked like he was going to have a heart attack. Jack's mouth was hanging open, and Kara looked just as stunned, though she masked it better. If he didn't know better, Ryland thought, he'd almost think they really didn't know what he was talking about it, until he looked at the pilot that is. He was the only face not looking at him, almost trying to disappear into the seat he was sitting in. That was more like it.
Ryland stood up and walked over to the pilot's seat, doing his best to loom over him. "What is that thing out there and what do you know about it?"
"You've already figured it out." Ryland could barely hear the man's voice, and he was sure no one else could.
"Speak up, let us all hear your confession."
"I said, you figured it out," the pilot's voice was stronger, almost defiant. Ryland didn't like how this was going, but he couldn't back down now. "It's the hole we came through, caused by the explosion of the engine module. I couldn't get it disconnected form the ship in time, it was jammed somehow, and when I finally got it free, it was too far into the atmosphere. Drag and gravity pulled it down, and it exploded, tearing a hole through time, somehow, and we got sucked in. I had no idea it would still be there, the rest of the council had no idea about it, other than what you've all heard me say about how we got here. I admit, I didn't think something like that would just disappear, but I wasn't trying to keep it from any of you. If anything, I just didn't want to start a panic."
"You didn't want to start a panic?" Ryland realized he had to get control back. "What did you think would happen when someone found it? Someone was sure to find it! All you have to do is climb that ridge back there, and if the sky is clear, you can't miss it!
"And why are you so anxious to get us all to abandon this ship and try to live out there where the very air can kill us? I heard you talking to Kara, making up some crazy plan about stringing the escape modules together like some sort of children's toy! Where would we go?"
Throughout the tirade, the pilot just shrank back into his chair, more and more of the whites of his eyes visible around his irises. He started licking his lips, darting glances at the rest of the council, but they all seemed to be interested in hearing the explanation, too. Ryland realized he couldn't take down the whole council, but he had one of them squirming on his hook, and he might get more people behind him if he played his cards right. But above all that, he genuinely wanted answers, and it was looking like he might finally find some.
"Come on! You can't have much more to hide, unless you caused the engine to explode on purpose!"
When the pilot's eyes went even wider and he jerked back like he'd been hit, Ryland's mouth dropped open.
"You did! You caused the explosion!" He lunged for the pilot, but before he got there, Jack's arms were holding him back. For such a scrawny guy, he was wiry.
Kara leaned over and put a hand on the pilot's leg, but he jerked it away. His eyes kept darting about, looking for a way out, but no one was inclined to help him, and the metal walls of the ship were just barely friendlier.
"Ok! Dammit! I rigged the engine to explode! But no one was supposed to be hurt, and we sure as Hell weren't supposed to be thrown millions of years into the past. The engine was supposed to disengage, it wasn't supposed to be jammed." His eyes settled on Ryland and panic gave way to the fires of anger. "I rigged the engines, but it's your fault, Ryland Browne! You're the reason we're stuck here!"