Beyond the Saga Time Capsule - Angst Settings Challenge, one-shot, OCs

Title: Time Capsule
Author: Thumper09
Characters: OCs
Timeframe: Sometime after ROTJ
Genre: Angst
Summary: Two friends head off on a camping trip.
Notes: This is my thread for the Angsty Settings Roulette Challenge in the Angstmongers Anonymous thread. My assigned setting was "minefield."

Constructive criticism is welcome. Star Wars is owned by Disney, etc. etc.

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“You have no idea how much I’ve needed this,” Liro said as he closed his eyes and leaned his head back against the headrest. “Exams have been killing me. I swear if I try to memorize one more fact, my brain will explode.”

“Hey, the rule was no talking about school on this trip,” Vhen admonished.

“I wasn’t. My mention of exams was incidental to the larger point.”

“Well, my larger point is that we didn’t want to think about school for the next few days, remember?” Vhen asked.

“Yeah, yeah, I do. All right, I’ll say I needed this and leave it at that,” Liro replied.

Vhen nodded in agreement and returned his attention to piloting the open-top landspeeder. It was a beautiful, crisp morning in early spring, and the cool wind rushing in carried promises of warmth as the day aged. The pale green-tinted sky was clear, obstructed only by the rock formations and weathered canyon walls rising all around. Scrub brush clung tenaciously to cracks in the sheer rock. The sun was just creeping up over the easternmost ridges, and the edges of the canyon floors were still swallowed in shadow. There was no road here, and hard-packed dirt and loose stones were kicked up in the wake of the landspeeder’s repulsorlift as the vehicle raced ahead of the dust cloud perpetually chasing it.

Vhen took a deep breath of the fresh air and let it out slowly, finally starting to relax. The city and their university were kilometers behind them, and he fully intended to keep them far away mentally as well as physically for the two friends’ brief camping trip out in canyon country. They’d never been to this particular camping location, but the spot had looked promising on the map so they were trying someplace new this time.

Until they reached their destination, though, the quiet drive helped Vhen and Liro decompress. They’d sped through several canyons already and passed many ridges and rock formations while mostly following a dry riverbed.

The wide canyon they were currently passing through gradually narrowed toward a considerably smaller opening ahead serving as the canyon’s mouth and their obvious exit to more open land beyond, and Vhen piloted the landspeeder that way. Liro had opened his eyes and was idly looking around at the scenery, squinting against the chilly wind tousling his brown hair. Then he leaned forward, peering at the encroaching canyon wall nearby. “What are those black marks?”

Vhen eased up on the landspeeder’s speed and followed Liro’s gaze. Long, faded black streaks and gouges marred the reddish rock’s worn facade all around. “Not sure. Carbon scoring, maybe?”

“Would have to be some pretty hefty lasers to make marks that big,” Liro said.

“Who knows, maybe they’re from some old Imperial/Rebel firefight,” Vhen said with a shrug. He increased the landspeeder’s throttle and steered toward the center of the swiftly-approaching narrow gap. There were large, craggy boulders scattered around the canyon floor in the immediate area, and he kept an eye peeled for any in their path while he continued, “I heard there were some skirmishes out this way back then.”

“Seems weird that the scoring would still be visible after all these years,” Liro mused. “I wonder if there’s anything they left out here we could find. Some old spent power packs or something. That would make an interesting souvenir.”

Vhen chuckled softly and grinned. “You really want to stop h--”

Vhen didn’t consciously register the explosion.

The next thing he was groggily aware of was violently coughing dust out of his lungs while painfully sprawled on the ground, having been thrown clear of the landspeeder. His head was spinning, and his ears rang like never before.

The air was thick with churned-up dust, a layer of which had coated him. The loose stones littering the ground were sharp, and he’d gotten cut up when he’d hit the ground and skidded after-- whatever that was. He felt the grit everywhere. Aside from that and his throbbing head and fuzzy thoughts, he didn’t detect any major injuries. But what... Why...

A wave of dizziness swept through him as he slowly sat up to try to figure out what was going on. The light from the bright, clear morning sky now hurt his eyes. Squinting, Vhen took in his surroundings.

Close by were the mangled remains of his landspeeder. It had been torn almost in half and was upside down, and smaller debris was scattered throughout the vicinity. There was a substantial crater in the ground where the landspeeder had been flipped into the air. Vhen stared at the twisted metal dumbly, trying to reconcile the sight with what he was supposed to be seeing.

What the hell had happened? What could have made his landspeeder’s engine blow up so catastrophically? He maintained the vehicle well, and there had been no indications that anything had been wrong.

The blackened ground of the crater drew his woozy, confused attention once more. The dry, stony dirt showed the radial blast lines coming out from the center of the crater, but the crater’s somewhat conical shape made his untrained eye think the blast had come from below and out. If the explosive energy had come from above and down by originating in his landspeeder, the impact and marks on the ground would all look different, wouldn’t they? Not as symmetric? Differently shaped?

Had something in the ground just blown up his landspeeder?

Had he just tripped a blasted landmine?

Vhen stared at the lightly smoking crater for a few more long seconds. Even if there had been a battle here years ago, did he really believe some sort of unexploded landmine could have stayed dormant and then gotten triggered and detonated after all this time?

The twisted debris that had once been his landspeeder seemed to think so.

Vhen’s head had finally settled enough to make him think he could stand without falling over or passing out, and he painstakingly climbed to his feet. It gave him a slightly better angle to see the shape of the crater.

That was when he saw the unmoving shape of Liro on the ground about ten meters away, on the other side of the wreckage-strewn path, and Vhen’s heart leapt into his throat.

“Liro?” Vhen wheezed out as loudly as he could.

Liro didn’t respond.

Vhen coughed more dust out of his lungs and tried again. “Liro, are you okay?” Vhen called more loudly.

Again, there was nothing.

Vhen started to panic. Without thinking he began to take a step toward his friend, but his foot froze in midair when his brain caught up and screamed at him to stop. He carefully put his foot back down exactly where it had been, and he looked at the ground with trepidation. What if that had actually been a landmine? If one had remained live until now, wouldn’t that mean that there could be other live ones scattered out here too? Waiting? Hiding?

He looked around frantically, trying to find anything that could shed more light on his situation and the stakes involved before he moved away from what he knew was his safe patch of ground.

Vhen glimpsed one of those large, craggy boulders on the canyon floor nearby, and a few unnaturally straight and skinny edges jutting out of the boulder caught his eye. He was just about to ignore it and keep looking for something useful when his brain identified it not as a boulder, but as half-buried metal wreckage. Even at this distance, he could tell there was enough debris there that the wreckage had likely started life as a vehicle or something of similar size.

When he took a more deliberate look, he spotted the crater close to the wreckage. It was harder to see after the years and elements had filled and softened it, but it was unmistakably there.

And it was almost the same size and shape as the brand-new crater behind what was left of his landspeeder.

Vhen paled as the realization and implications slowly started sinking in. “No, no, no...” he pleaded in a whisper. He spun in place, looking for another nearby “boulder.” Another datapoint would prove he was wrong, just imagining things...

Because absolutely nowhere in his mental plan of his life did he ever include getting stuck in an old abandoned minefield.

Vhen spotted another boulder, this one farther away and harder to see, though it was still simple to make out the pieces that identified it as another destroyed vehicle, partially buried by the passing years. He desperately snapped his eyes to the ground around it, and his stomach dropped.

There was another identical crater. It was almost in the same spot relative to the other old vehicle wreckage, making Vhen’s hopeful idea that the vehicles had been destroyed by a hit from another vehicle’s laser blast less and less likely.

He cursed his traitorous datapoint.

He turned back to his friend, still so far away, and who still hadn’t appeared to move. “Liro!” Vhen shouted, the panic surging again.

The only response was a faint echo off the nearest canyon wall.

Vhen had to get to him. If Liro was hurt, he needed help.

Vhen refused to let himself think any other way.

He looked down at the ground in front of his feet, and his chest immediately tightened in anxiety. It looked so innocent, so innocuous, so unassuming, so normal, but so had the ground with the mine that he’d driven over. There was absolutely no way for him to know if something lethal was buried under the soil and rocks in any given spot, and he had to assume that if one leftover mine was still active, any others could be too. His eyes slowly traced the interminable distance between himself and Liro, and his breathing got more difficult with the prospect of crossing each additional meter.

Vhen’s gaze flicked back to the crater, and then to the scattered pieces of what was left of his tough metal landspeeder.

He’d never felt so vulnerable or so... mortal.

He didn’t want to die. Not then, and not like that.

Vhen looked at Liro, and he cursed himself for being so afraid when his friend truly needed him, but he couldn’t make himself move. Not when he knew that one wrong step could easily be his last.

Everything suddenly felt so final.

Vhen spun in place desperately, looking for any other options. Something heavy within reach that he could push ahead as a dummy to make sure the path was clear. Some indications of previous passage by anything that would indicate a safe route to travel on.

Nothing.

He looked again, more frantic.

Still nothing.

He looked at Liro and yelled his name more forcefully.

Still nothing.

Liro should have moved by now, right? What if Liro was dead?

If he was dead, there was no reason for Vhen to risk his own life by trying to cross all those deadly meters to him. Right?

Vhen immediately felt hot shame flood him, but try as he might, he couldn’t shame those thoughts away entirely. He was well and truly terrified of dying, and his mind grasped for any excuse that could protect him from that horrible fate.

Even, apparently, at Liro’s expense.

He’d never be able to live with himself if it turned out Liro was alive and he could have helped him or saved him. But Vhen wouldn’t be living with himself in any mental state at all if he got himself killed, now would he?

Tears streaked down Vhen’s dust-covered cheeks. He pawed in his pocket for his forgotten comlink, knowing full well that it was a delaying tactic only. It was a way to convince himself he was doing something to help Liro without endangering himself.

Blast, he absolutely loathed himself right now for being so afraid.

Vhen turned on the comlink with shaking hands and felt a wave of relief when it seemed to operate normally. If it had been damaged in the blast, he was sure he would have starved to death standing still in that exact spot. He wasn’t sure how well the transmissions would work in the canyons and at the distance he was from the city, but when the emergency comm went through with only occasional static, he thanked his parents with a silent, strangled sob for insisting he get a better comm service when he started camping in the canyons last year.

“Emergency services,” came the calm, lifesaving voice.

“I-- I need help,” Vhen choked out, trying unsuccessfully to tamp down on his desperation. His words tumbled out at full speed. “We went out to go camping and now I think we’re stuck in an old minefield that’s still live somehow and my speeder’s destroyed and we can’t get out. My friend’s hurt. He’s not moving.”

“All right, I understand.” The voice was steady and unfazed, as if talking to someone in an active minefield was something they did every day. “We’ll get you help right away. Are you injured?”

“I-- no, I-- don’t think so.”

“Okay, good. What’s your location?’

After a minute of the dispatcher talking Vhen through how to use his comlink to determine and transmit his exact geographic coordinates, the dispatcher said, “There, I’ve got it plotted. Looks like you’re pretty far out. Help is on the way, but it’ll take them a bit to reach you.”

“How can they get here? Won’t the mines hit them too?” Vhen asked.

“I suspect they’ll come in an airspeeder and lower people down with cables. They’ll be all right. What’s your name?”

Vhen had to stop and think for a second. “Vhen. Vhen Terrilan.”

“My name’s Ireit. I’ll stay on the comm with you until the help arrives, okay, Vhen?”

“Please.” Vhen knew he’d crossed the line to begging, but he didn’t care in the face of such a precious lifeline. He looked back at Liro, who still hadn’t moved. He was too far away for Vhen to even tell if he was breathing or not. “My friend-- he’s hurt-- I don’t know how to get to him with the mines around...”

Vhen immediately felt ashamed again at the blatant lie. He knew exactly how to get to Liro. He just couldn’t make himself cross that potentially lethal ground.

“If you can’t safely reach him, then you need to wait for help,” Ireit said.

“But he’s hurt. If I could help... what if he dies because I didn’t help?”

“I know it’s hard,” Ireit said, gently but firmly, “but wait for the rescuers to reach you. You won’t help your friend by getting hurt or becoming a victim yourself.”

Vhen wiped more tears away, streaking them across his dirty face. “This wasn’t how today was supposed to go,” he said in a small, breaking voice. “I-- I wasn’t supposed to be afraid of the ground. Of taking a single step. He’s right there. But I can’t reach him without--” He cut himself off.

Without risking literally everything, over and over again.

And Vhen knew, deep down, that he couldn’t.

He hated himself for it. He’d never be able to look Liro in the eye again.

All Vhen could do now was pray he would have that problem tomorrow. He willed the rescuers to hurry.

Ireit was saying something in reply, but Vhen wasn’t listening. Vhen briefly muted his comlink and let out one more strained, tearful, frustrated yell of, “Liro!” at his friend.

Once again, all he got in return were echoes: echoes of his pain-filled voice, and echoes of a war that wouldn’t stay dead.


The End

Spoiler: Real-world notes

Today, nearly 60 countries have active landmines or other explosives from past wars or current wars, and they kill thousands of people every year. Organizations like APOPO train rats and dogs to detect these landmines so they can be disarmed safely.

 

Even a century after the guns fell quiet at the end of the Great War, there are still places that are considered deadly to tread - there are still places utterly poisoned, contaminated, by the nightmarish chemicals unleashed - and to only imagine what would be left over from war on a galactic scale...

Absolutely marvelous piece, @Thumper09 ! A surprise to be sure, but a welcome one.

I see what you did there.

A classic choke-point for funneling men and vehicles - a treacherous place, if fighting took place there.

And that is the unyielding horror of landmines and other booby-traps - the silent, indiscriminate nature. It doesn't matter who set them, be it the Rebels or the Empire, only that they still linger, and still bring terrible carnage. The War itself is the villain - the monster - present still even long after it has been slain.

This right here is the quintessential internal conflict for anyone that has ever had a friend, or a loved one, in a terrible situation where helping poses a far greater risk than not. That desperate, animal instinct to interfere, overridden by the primal urge for survival. As much as it hurts - you hope, or pray, that you can disappoint them later. That there will be a later.

Such a fantastic way to wrap this piece - the lingering cost of the war. When all the honor and glory fades, average folk are still left to pick up the pieces, and often at their own expense.

I know you said that concrit was welcome, and perhaps, given some time, I could provide a more solid analysis - but forgive me, I couldn't help but gush. I didn't expect to find something to speak to me so vividly tonight, and so it was quite a treat to read: short, sweet, and straight to the suffering. I always love seeing things like this that draw from very real sorts of experiences that we, as the audience, rarely consider as a part of the price of war, a leftover, still-increasing tally of casualties and victims.

I look forward to seeing more - whether a follow-up about poor Vhen or something completely unrelated! The way you handled his increasing panic, his burning shame, his utter desperation to help his friend, but the insurmountable fear that any step he took would be his last - the dread of it all. Excellent work.

 

AWW stuck in that minefield and worrying about his friend Liro. Will Vhen and Liro be saved?
A perfect angst story reflecting all that is left in places where wars have been fought and now a menace for who stumbles upon it.

 

Magnificent contrast of emotions. You set the stage first with two friends wanting to get away and relax and unwind. Then the sudden explosion. Vhen definitely can't go to Liro because he doesn't know which step will be lethal and just as the dispatcher at Emergency Services said, if he becomes a victom too, that helps no one. Yet that doesn't alleviate the guilt of being immobilized. An excellent use of the prompt. Very true to RL, as well, when the aftermath of conflict still reaps innocent lives.

You have managed to craft more original characters that I hope to encounter again.

 

This was a sobering read first thing in the morning, but an excellent read nonetheless. Even after the wars ended, their scars still remain. Thanks for the stats about land mines after.

 

A very good, very angsty story. I really feel for these two who were in the wrong place at the wrong time.