Survivors

As you know Joe had been blown out of the sky by the first explosion. He had only just been regaining consciousness and picking himself up off the floor when he was tossed twenty meters backwards by the second one. His shoulder was bleeding heavily again and felt sick to his stomach. His head felt like someone was hitting it with a sledgehammer from the inside and outside in a steady alternating. His mouth was parched, his lips were burnt and his eyes were stinging with the smoke. He lay on the floor breathing deeply trying to regain some composure.

When he felt like he was a little more in control he struggled to his knees and then his feet. He gazed at the destruction around him totally shocked. He was on the far side of the blast zone from where Holly had been standing with Jack so he wasn’t able to see her through the billowing smoke and fires. After a few seconds he did see people begin to move through the haze, as he watched they seemed to firing lasers at the ground. Joe was too dazed and too tired to understand what he was seeing so he just stood dumbly watching. Then just like Holly had experienced a little earlier one thought burst bright and clear into his mind that drove every other jumbled thought right out of his head.

“Where was Luke?”

He started walking on jelly like wobbly legs back towards where the transporter had been.

“Luke!” he called hoarsely. “Luke” but each call got more rasping, with less volume and less clarity until he sounded more like a cawing bird than a human being. His shoulder hurt so much his vision began to swim as he felt his strength draining rapidly away. He felt so tired, more tired than he had ever felt before. As he grew weaker and weaker he began to stagger. After a few more painful halting steps he slumped to his knees. He still kept crawling forward trying to call, trying to find Luke.

Then in the distance he saw a lump. There was something about the lump that looked familiar. He squinted with his human eyes trying to make out exactly what it was he was seeing. He tried to use his eagle vision, but he found that even that minor modification required more energy than he could muster.

He crawled forward a few more feet and stared again at the lump. This time he was sure, it was Luke! But he wasn’t moving. Not a twitch, no sign of life at all. He was lying face down about ten feet away. Joe tried to get back to his feet but it was too much effort and he fell forward onto the ground again. He rested for a few moments and then started to drag himself forward towards his brother. As he got alongside Luke Joe’s strength entirely gave out and he slumped onto the ground one last time and everything went completely black one more time.