Hall Kervean
Two Thousand Club
Hey, so, I've been working on this over the past week or so, and I just wanted opinions on it. The overall story is a work in progress, and there's some stuff after this that is only partially written, but this is a good spot to stop and ask how it's going so far. Please give me suggestions!! Nitpicks welcome and requested!
There is no sound in space. So when the research ship rapidly decelerated from many times the speed of light to many times the speed of sound, the only announcement was the radiation burst that spread outwards from the ship. The wave swept across the star system like a ripple on a pond, and one with minimal effect; most of it either being deflected by the magnetic field around the planets or passing through the system entirely, dissipating into deep space shortly afterwards. The only major effect the burst had was being sensed by technology on the surface of the third planet, but those aboard the ship remained blissfully unaware.
The pilot, a female geologist, slowed their rate of deceleration as they approached Mach 10 on their way towards the planet that knew they were coming. They were just under two hundred thousand miles from the planet’s surface and as the ship shuddered around its crew and cabins, she updated her captain.
“Sir, estimated final distance at optimal speed is one hundred seventy five thousand, give or take sev-” She corrected herself as one of her HUD GUIs refreshed itself with new data. “Six thousand.” The captain nodded silently, staring at the world ahead of them. Department Heads had demanded he land on the surface as quickly as possible and, despite his reservations due to crew safety and how much less they might accomplish, he had agreed to decelerating that close to the planet. Multitasking had been a strong suit for him and whilst musing over his superiors’ wishes he had also calculated the rate of deceleration needed at certain intervals, one of which the pilot needed to know.
“Once the marker has been reached, slow deceleration by V times D to negative three.” He commanded, calculating. “Continue that rate until we reach ten thousand from surface.” She nodded, brow furrowed and eyes staring at the data.
“Once reached, slow byV times D to negative three until ten thousand, aye, sir.” She repeated back at him, confirming. It was standard procedure, and would be both disrespectful and potentially hazardous to neglect it. Unfortunately, the captain occasionally thought of it as an optional waste of time, not a mandatory regulation.
“That’s exactly what I said.” He snapped at her, before immediately regretting the decision and sighing. “I’m sorry, we’ve been a little pressed….” He raised his eyebrows with how quickly she responded with an “Apology accepted, sir.” It was cold and crisp, like normal, but she placed extra emphasis on the absence of emotion that made her apology acceptance seem insincere, or at least passive-aggressive.
“Thank you. When you reach the marker and set us on a trajectory, head on back.” He gripped the arms of his chair and pushed himself upwards with a quiet groan. He didn’t have much room to move around, with the size of the ship small and the bridge even smaller, and he had some difficulty getting around his own seat on his way to the door. Once there, he pressed his hand against it and held it there for a second, pausing in thought.
His thoughts were not towards his uncalled-for and harsh response, nor her apology. They were not towards the crew, their strained relationships, or the only other female on the ship, Aria VonPart, who had done her best to resolve conflicts as serious as learning about a breakup to as petty as Karen’s frustration over losing her card game with their documenter and quickly escalating it. He owed her somehow, that much was certain to him. But in that pausing moment, he was not deciding what he owed her. He was formulating a list of requirements for their landing site.
His fingers tensed against the bright blue pad on the door before sliding them across the width of the door. There was a distinct pop and a quiet hum before the door vanished. The hardlight barrier between the bridge and the belly had deactivated, leaving the entrance wide open. Without a glance backwards the captain put his arm to his side and made his way out of the confining cockpit and into the cramped corridor that let him choose to go right or left with the knowledge both led to the same place. He ended up in the belly of the ship; a comparatively large compartment with a round table in the center, used for meetings, reports, communications, and putting objects onto, and traces of the entire crew able to be seen somewhere in the hub. He saw Aria VonPart sitting in the corner, flipping pages on an old paperback book about the weight of counsel on the counselor and the counseled. He wasn’t a psychologist, but he could tell she was definitely feeling affected by the book. He internally quipped that it was most likely what the book said that was affecting her and gave a small smirk at himself. He was distracted by a loud bang and a grunt of pain, accomplishment, or frustration, it was hard to tell, coming from his left. He saw one of the technician’s aides fixing a coffee machine… or, more accurately, “fixing.” Next to the machine, the captain spotted a half-complete drawing of the crew at a table and everyone bantering except one member. The only person not talking was Kagaya Killiaka, who was also the only person who was deeply shaded. Next to the presumably incomplete drawing was a cup belonging to Bradley Cooper, one of the two biologists aboard, partially filled with water. Given the sideways glares the aide was giving the cup, it was probably intended to be used for coffee. There was a fandom argument between the other technician’s aide and the technical specialist that had been carried out via sticky note under his nose and the two lance corporals had kept their combat suits stored in a pair of lockers. The only person who hadn’t left a trace in the room was Ken Long, their documenter. To be fair, he counted the pilot’s voice as a trace, even though its reverberation would soon dissipate.
“Sir, we’ve stabilized.” The captain turned as Karen approached him and gave him a quick salute.
“Good. Stay here.” He said as he saluted and turned back to the center of the room in one fluid motion. His motion continued as he strode forward towards the table in the center of the room; stopping only when he came upon the edge of the table and tapped a few buttons. The combination of buttons initiated the actions required for the elevated semi-sphere embedded in the center of the table glow bright blue and project its light throughout the room. After a moment of a disco-esque light show emanating throughout the compartment, the semi-sphere’s light quickly pinpointed onto his face and he reflexively closed his eyes to shield them from the painfully bright light. As it matched details of his face, the light began to fade, and he cautiously opened his eyes to see that the half-orb was now barely blue compared to its once star-like surface. As he became aware of this change, he heard a hum just before the semi-sphere spoke audibly; its light pulsing with each syllable.
“Begin message at the beep.” A pause, then a beep.
“Arm 2 Frontier Department Command, this is Jeffrey Polack, captain of E.C.R.S.S. Pendulum, enroute to S872, planet Verde, Discovery Division. We are in-system, and are closing on the planet’s surface. E.T.A. for landing site is a day and a half, give or take six hours. We will send another message once the trajectory for the site has been selected and we are within ten thousand miles. This is report one from E.C.R.S.S. Pendulum on Voyage Verde. This is also log #042 for E.C.R.S.S. Pendulum on Voyage Verde.” He waved his hand slightly, indicating that he wanted the orbs attention, which it gave by pausing the recording. “I want this duplicated and the duplicate stored. As for the message, purge the previous sentence. Confirm.”
The half-orb blinked once, confirming it had received and carried out its instructions. The captain nodded and waved his hand again, and the blue half-orb acknowledged it with a blink. “We will be receiving the buoy results within the next hour, and our next report will contain that data. Thank you for your time.” He waved his hand one final time. “Replay message.” The half-orb blinked in reply; replaying what it was prepared to send. It had, as instructed, purged the sentence about the log. “Send message.” The half-orb blinked once, paused, then blinked again.
“Message sent. Anything more?” Captain Polack nodded.
“Please play ‘intercom announcement seventeen’ over the speakers.” The half-sphere blinked, and Jeffrey’s voice rung throughout the vessel as Aria looked up from her book.
“All crew members, please report shortly to the meeting room. I repeat, all crew members.”
Aria looked up from her book at the announcement but lowered her gaze back down to the words below her that encouraged, instructed, and incriminated her about her efforts to counsel the crew. She thought she might be pretentious by thinking she was their stable rock, but that was what she felt like. She heard another bang and glanced up to see Bradley running into the room and bumping into the technician’s aide. She could tell it was supposed to be playful, but Bradley wasn’t gentle. The aide was knocked back and the coffee machine fell, jarring the loose components around and shattering the coffeepot. Anyone who was within earshot turned towards the broken machine, and the technician’s aide clenching his fist. She thought she heard a voice that sounded like Killiaka’s say something about a drawing, but she couldn't tell; he spoke like he hadn't gotten much sleep and she couldn’t understand the voice. Even if he had said something, she had a bigger problem to worry about than his art.
“I… told you… not to tou-!” The aide’s angry growl was cut off by Aria.
“That was friendly and you know it, Henry.” She was quick to establish her neutrality, though. “Bradley, you knew he was already upset with you, so that wasn’t funny. You shouldn’t have done that. Calm down, both of you.” She was internally jarred when she realized Bradley actually had kept his cool and blown the whole situation off, but was relieved to see that Henry had calmed down a bit.
“Sorry, Mrs. Vonpart, ma’am, I guess I lost my cool….” Aria nodded and put a hand on his shoulder, gripping it… hard but not too hard; that was how it had been put.
“It’s understandable, Henry; two weeks is tough. Once we land, I’m sure we’ll have plenty of time away from each other!” She realized, too late, that what she said did not convey her intended meaning. Thankfully, it didn’t look like he’d misinterpreted her words. Before she could be sure, however, she heard whisper-shouting that steadily grew louder as it approached the doorway into the hub.
“…Shinaki to completely annihilate Stang. I’m sorry, Shinaki is op, but that’s how it is.”
“Ah, but you see! Stang’s shield is made from the bones of Imori, which absorbed a Shinaki blast in episode 73.”
“But Imori was burnt to a crisp!”
“True, but his bones were unharmed when the rest of the planet was destroyed!”
“It was an exoskeleton. That means that it was basically a shield; and Imori was still….” The two technicians lowered their voices when they entered the hub, so Aria couldn’t catch the rest of their conversation. Just behind them, though, she saw Ken Long huffing through the corridors. He wasn’t in the best of shape, so his puffs helped to shadow the technicians’ debate further. He took a moment to look around and pause for breath before grinning and heading over towards Bradley. The videographer slapped the unsuspecting biologist on the back, making him spit room temperature water back into his mug. He whirled to look at Ken before coughing into his elbow politely, expelling water from his lungs.
“Well, I hope you’re ready!” Ken smirked, seemingly overconfident. In reality, and it was obvious to anyone who cared, he was a little nervous, and his overconfidence was both covering up his fear and another attempt to break the ice with his new colleagues, but as Bradley coughed up the melted ice he had been drinking, his ice hardened a bit towards Ken in momentary frustration. He was careful not to show it though; Aria would notice.
“I am indeed. I’m curious whether the planet is covered in late-successional forest or if this is just what passes as mid-successional. What about you?” He gave a lopsided grin at Ken’s confused look. He knew that Ken was trying to learn all he could so he could be more helpful, but he was having fun poking at Ken’s lack of knowledge in some sciences, though he had been cramming.
“U-Uh, I guess the metabolic efficiency of the trophic levels and how energy is passed between them….” He gulped, staring at Bradley, whose lopsided grin shifted into a surprised smile. Ken guessed that he had said the right answer and sighed internally as Bradley confirmed this.
“U-Uh… y-yeah! Yeah. We’ll be able to look into that after a little while, I’m sure. We’ll tell you about the results as soon as they’re discovered!” Bradley was a little shaken up, actually, by how detailed his curiosity was. It was almost like he’d been studying a textbook and had only read so far, which made complete and total sense to Bradley. He coughed again and took a small, cautious sip from his mug, wary of his surroundings lest someone bump into him again. The water had been sitting out ever since he’d poured some of it into the coffeemaker and it hadn’t responded. The issue, it turned out, boiled down to “Get a new one, take a long time to fix, or go without.” The first was impossible, the third improbable, and the second hadn’t gone over well with Henry. That didn’t matter though; those who forfeited a man’s right to coffee forfeited their own rights. He chuckled to himself as Ken walked away from him towards one of the technicians, apparently interested in their debate over how comparatively overpowered Stang was when paired with the likes of the Bonohagan, a secret society in the same fandom as Stang, and Naruto, from a different fandom that had been the first franchise to accumulate over seventy thousand episodes. So Ken liked Naruto… huh. Bradley took another sip and started to back away from the crowd so as not to touch such a toxic fandom, and inadvertently drew within earshot of a conversation that was being carried out through whispers.
“Stratica-9.” One of the two Equinox Defense Force LCPLs said to the other, unaware of the accidental eavesdropper. Everyone knew that the two were great men; an anomaly among the soldiers who usually accompanied most vessels, and that said much since most soldiers weren’t bad, either. The game changed if you were caught eavesdropping when they were whispering; the universal sign of “not your business.”
On the other hand, he was concerned for his younger brother.
“Hear they’ve got a band of freedom fighters trying to stir up trouble. Take the planet.”
“The whole thing? Ambitious grents….” Grents; a minor pest that got a break and starved a planet. Harsh comparison.
“I haven’t heard what HiComm’s planning, b…” Captain Polack interrupted Bradley’s attempts at overhearing the information exchanged by slapping a hand on his shoulder, surprising him and making him jump a little. The captain had approached right in front of him. Had he been innocent, he would have known it was coming and wouldn’t have budged. Bradley gave the captain a sheepishly guilty grin, but Polack shook his head.
“Brad, I know you want to hear about Ben. I felt the same way. Sometimes you need to just trust that he’s fine.” He saw Bradley nod sharply, and he could tell it’d stuck. He slapped his shoulder again, this time without a reaction, and walked back towards the center of the room. Polack could see that they were getting a little rowdy, and if they got rowdy, they wouldn’t pay attention. Which went against why he’d called them there in the first place. A solution came quickly, and he pulled himself up onto the table. When he’d made his way up and managed to stand, he felt a quick rush of impressiveness. His position as the officer over everyone had just taken on a double meaning. He was also very glad that the table was sturdy so he could relish the pun. He didn’t even need to make a move to silence the room; after a few seconds, everyone realized that the fact that their captain was atop a piece of furniture held some significance. He grinned.
“Ladies and gentlemen, we are closing in on the planet at around Mach ten. We’ll be planetside in a day and a half, give or take, so say your goodbyes and get pepped…” He paused in confusion as everyone began to chuckle at his error. When he realized what he’d done he had to take a second to calm down before he could see the humor in it. “Ahem, yes. Get prepped and pepped, boys and girls, because we’re taking this planet by storm.”
With that, he outlined their tasks that they would undertake upon landing. Their first expedition would be within a mile of the ship; Karen, Aria, Bradley, and Ken would collect samples of early-successional autotrophs while almost everyone else stayed behind and set some equipment up outside, though one would go on alone and start setting up a forward camp. As the assignments were finalized, Karen raised her hand.
“Yes, Ms. Cessner?” The captain asked, eyebrow cocked in interrogative questioning.
“Have we designated a landing site, sir?”
“Not yet; you and I will discuss it with our meteorologist when the data is processed, and…”
“Sir, with all due respect, we won’t know what to expect if we don’t know where we’re landing.” The room went silent. With the exception of the captain and Karen, it had already been silent, but now that one was regretting every mistake she’d ever made and the other had seemed to become sunburned indoors in a matter of seconds, the silence became oppressive.
That reign of tyrannical noiselessness was overthrown by an unruly din that exploded from the captain. Everyone, including the two veterans, took a step back. The gist of what those in the room heard and would never repeat to their mothers was that the pilot was a failure and that she could have been replaced by him. She appeared like a statue, transfixed in both angry resilience and absolute terror, resulting in her face taking on a more tame imitation of a gargoyle. When the captain paused for breath, Aria had her hand over her mouth, most were staring at the captain, and one of the technicians was close to having a panic attack, but Aria’s quick thinking and amateur psychology kept the disaster at bay.
“M-My apologies, c-captain, sir.” Karen managed to stammer. She spent the most time around him, so she knew the anger stemmed from a need to produce results and raise humanity up with the knowledge gained, not from a narcissistic need to remain unquestioned and respected absolutely. She knew.
And then Bradley dropped his mug, shattering it.
A yell burst from Captain Polack’s lips, echoing a bit around the room. Had the hardlight door been inactive, the ecstatic exclamation would have reached into the main compartment of the ship. Before the reverberations had finished their excited explorations of every edifice and crevice inside the confines of the bridge, Polack had pressed the button to activate the intercom. Since he didn’t have a prerecorded intercom command, he could bypass the ship’s option selections. A side effect of lacking a prerecorded command was that he was live. Normally when he was excited he would take a moment to calm himself so he didn’t misuse or abuse the intercom. Unfortunately, he was beside himself, and counseling never worked on a crazy man.
“Karen! Get the meteorologist and get in the bridge!” He was obscenely loud, and thanks to the intercom’s amplification and wide reach, none of the other ten members of the crew had their fingers outside of their ears. But while his shouting wasn’t necessary, his excitement was not unwarranted. After all, he had just received the files from the sensor buoys that had been dropped off in the star system a decade prior. He had been told to expect only about half to be able to send their data at all, and that number, to Polack’s jubilance, was wildly off; only one was incapable of transmitting. And while his excitement was watered down some when it turned out a few of the files were largely corrupted, he was still close to dancing when they arrived.
Their reactions were a concoction of equal parts excitement; “Wow, that’s a lot more than we thought there’d be!” and dread; “Wow, that’s… a lot more than we thought there’d be.” Polack remained oblivious to the half of the mix that didn’t match his own feelings, and this was clear when the dread began to lose its density in two of the three samples; rising to the top as their deadline of six or so hours seemed closer than beforehand. They’d need a landing zone, a certain one, once their time was up. It’d be a shame if they had to randomly select one in an acidic climate, as had happened before when a ship’s crew had tried to use guesswork for landing. There were still two crew members missing, but the rest were found in or around the skeleton remains of the ship… two weeks after they’d landed. But their captain was impatient, and she doubted he’d agree to turn around and make another pass because they couldn’t calculate in time. So they were going to calculate in time. They had to.
“You’re positive?” The captain asked the radarman, an edge of desperation in his voice that became visible on the officer’s face when the radarman nodded crisply. There was a tinge of weary resignation in his voice when he spoke a second time. “Alright. Keep track of them, and keep all of this quiet. We don’t want the other four to know. But do let the Councillor know.” The aide’s right fist swung around and collided with his left hip in a salute. The salute had evolved since medieval times; if one had respect for one’s opponent and oneself, they would pause a moment with their hand on their sword’s grip before unsheathing the blade. As swords became obsolete, the modicum of respect remained relevant. And of course, being of lower rank, the radarman had to respect both his rank and the regulations that demanded he did.
“Yes, sir!” He brought his fist back to his right side, a gesture that came from the need to use the hand for non-saluting purposes, before doing an about-face and walking away from the captain in precise, measured steps. His back was to the captain, so he could not see as the color slowly drained from his superior’s face as his chloroplasts slowed dramatically. The captain’s head swiveled around in a daze, trying to comprehend the vibrantly green and slightly translucent men who surrounded him as individuals instead of a unicolored blur. As every last one consumed the local vegetation and fruits without fear, the captain felt jealous at their blissful ignorance of their collective worst nightmare becoming reality: A Truly Foreign Entity. Their entire species had always been fearful there was something beyond their Sphere, and here it was. It had the drop on them, and it had as much power over them as it wanted. He confirmed it for him when he recalled the strange, unknown blinks and blips his sound officers had occasionally picked up in-system when listening for TFEs. It’d been a decade since the first.
When he was able to stop musing about the systems they could use to stop the unparalleled threat and moaning about the aliens’ mere existence for a moment, his eyes wandered inexplicably towards the Fully-Light-And-Touch (FLAT) Pad that lay on the table, taunting him with its pale-green lighting scheme that reflected his own unusually pale shade of green and scorned him with the instrument of their very demise displayed in unfortunate clarity. But when he could stomach a glance at it, he lowered the fork that had been on its way into his mouth to the plate below. As his eyes began to flick across the screen, picking up every hue, crevice, and curve of the ship, he began to feel the chloroplasts in his cells working again, pigmenting his skin and giving him a renewed energy. He was shocked, in the best way possible; there were absolutely no weapons on the ship that he could see. They had dispensed data detection systems; dozens of them, from the sounds they’d picked up; and when they returned, it had been… a single, relatively small, unarmed ship. His eyes widened as he came to a realization. He decided that it had to be a strike team; after all, there was no other logical explanation. He stood, leaving his dirty dishes on the table; while he felt guilty about his minor housekeeping faux-pas and eating only half a salad most enlisted servicemen would kill to enjoy, he had far more pressing matters. Specifically, survival.
The captain hastily snapped his fingers to get Karen’s attention whilst internally panicking. They’d processed all the data, but they only had thirty minutes, and they hadn’t found a landing site. She snapped back at him ostentatiously, giving him a bit of playful attitude that he knew was in good spirit but couldn’t take very well before leaning over and looking at the site he’d found. He gave her about three seconds to look it over, a time intended not to be enough to thoroughly analyze it, before he asked, “How’s that?” in a rushed, huffy tone to get her frazzled. He expected that if she did look over it carefully, she would spot more flaws than he had and would reject it, but his efforts ended in failure. Instead of agreeing in a flustered tone of voice, she held up a finger to him to clearly and nonverbally indicate he should quiet down and back up. She pored over the monitor as the captain worriedly recollected the list he’d made earlier, but his attention was refocused to reality the sight of her rejecting his requirements.
“No… won’t work.” She sighed, unintentionally stirring his wrath. But before it could spin out of control, she removed the spoon from the now-iced tea by mentioning she had another option. Desperately hoping his still-unspoken requirements had been met, he clambered over her in an attempt to analyze the site as fast as possible. In all fairness, her selection had checked off much of his list, and it was bit more safe, but at the same time…
“This isn’t as good. Species richness is lower, only mid-successional… Not even up to quinary consumers, this won’t do.” He dismissed her findings as one would a failure; which was what it was in his eyes. Karen slowly turned her head towards him and stared into his eyes for so long that one would think she had fallen for him. If one had come up with that faulty conclusion, however, they would have been in absolute shock when she opened her mouth. Her voice was a whisper, like the voice of a Nazgûl, and her words like a Morgul blade; short, stabbing deep, and, when finished, leaving a tip of poisonous shame within the captain.
“Do you value our lives less than biodiversity?”
Jeffrey Polack, unlike Karen Cessner, didn’t have any sort of imposing control of his anger; rather, he had imposing control because of his anger towards failures. As its possibility loomed while time shrunk, his control began to falter.
“No. However, as an experienced officer, I believe that the risk increase of the latter site is minimal to null, and I believe that experience outweighs textbooks.” He turned his head from her and forcefully gestured towards the display displaying his choice. His rank overruled her judgement, and despite judging that he had judged her judgement unfairly, she clamped her mouth shut and hunched over her console. She didn’t notice the long look he’d given her as she’d punched in the calculations needed to adjust their trajectory. If she had, she might have noticed his change in attitude. Instead of a vengeful and controlling demon, she would have seen a regretful, worn man.
He rose slowly, shakily, looking upwards, towards the heavens, and silently begged for forgiveness. He’d failed again. In his mind’s eye, a familiar bearded captain stared back at him and sighed heavily. He slowly shook his head and closed his eyes and began to turn his back on Jeffrey. Jeffrey’s eyes watered and he squeezed his eyes shut to shut out the tears. He opened them up after a moment to see a blurred, empty bridge; Karen was behind him and the other invitee had left. He hoped the meteorologist gotten something to eat; he’d left a lot untouched during meals.
There is no sound in space. So when the research ship rapidly decelerated from many times the speed of light to many times the speed of sound, the only announcement was the radiation burst that spread outwards from the ship. The wave swept across the star system like a ripple on a pond, and one with minimal effect; most of it either being deflected by the magnetic field around the planets or passing through the system entirely, dissipating into deep space shortly afterwards. The only major effect the burst had was being sensed by technology on the surface of the third planet, but those aboard the ship remained blissfully unaware.
The pilot, a female geologist, slowed their rate of deceleration as they approached Mach 10 on their way towards the planet that knew they were coming. They were just under two hundred thousand miles from the planet’s surface and as the ship shuddered around its crew and cabins, she updated her captain.
“Sir, estimated final distance at optimal speed is one hundred seventy five thousand, give or take sev-” She corrected herself as one of her HUD GUIs refreshed itself with new data. “Six thousand.” The captain nodded silently, staring at the world ahead of them. Department Heads had demanded he land on the surface as quickly as possible and, despite his reservations due to crew safety and how much less they might accomplish, he had agreed to decelerating that close to the planet. Multitasking had been a strong suit for him and whilst musing over his superiors’ wishes he had also calculated the rate of deceleration needed at certain intervals, one of which the pilot needed to know.
“Once the marker has been reached, slow deceleration by V times D to negative three.” He commanded, calculating. “Continue that rate until we reach ten thousand from surface.” She nodded, brow furrowed and eyes staring at the data.
“Once reached, slow byV times D to negative three until ten thousand, aye, sir.” She repeated back at him, confirming. It was standard procedure, and would be both disrespectful and potentially hazardous to neglect it. Unfortunately, the captain occasionally thought of it as an optional waste of time, not a mandatory regulation.
“That’s exactly what I said.” He snapped at her, before immediately regretting the decision and sighing. “I’m sorry, we’ve been a little pressed….” He raised his eyebrows with how quickly she responded with an “Apology accepted, sir.” It was cold and crisp, like normal, but she placed extra emphasis on the absence of emotion that made her apology acceptance seem insincere, or at least passive-aggressive.
“Thank you. When you reach the marker and set us on a trajectory, head on back.” He gripped the arms of his chair and pushed himself upwards with a quiet groan. He didn’t have much room to move around, with the size of the ship small and the bridge even smaller, and he had some difficulty getting around his own seat on his way to the door. Once there, he pressed his hand against it and held it there for a second, pausing in thought.
His thoughts were not towards his uncalled-for and harsh response, nor her apology. They were not towards the crew, their strained relationships, or the only other female on the ship, Aria VonPart, who had done her best to resolve conflicts as serious as learning about a breakup to as petty as Karen’s frustration over losing her card game with their documenter and quickly escalating it. He owed her somehow, that much was certain to him. But in that pausing moment, he was not deciding what he owed her. He was formulating a list of requirements for their landing site.
His fingers tensed against the bright blue pad on the door before sliding them across the width of the door. There was a distinct pop and a quiet hum before the door vanished. The hardlight barrier between the bridge and the belly had deactivated, leaving the entrance wide open. Without a glance backwards the captain put his arm to his side and made his way out of the confining cockpit and into the cramped corridor that let him choose to go right or left with the knowledge both led to the same place. He ended up in the belly of the ship; a comparatively large compartment with a round table in the center, used for meetings, reports, communications, and putting objects onto, and traces of the entire crew able to be seen somewhere in the hub. He saw Aria VonPart sitting in the corner, flipping pages on an old paperback book about the weight of counsel on the counselor and the counseled. He wasn’t a psychologist, but he could tell she was definitely feeling affected by the book. He internally quipped that it was most likely what the book said that was affecting her and gave a small smirk at himself. He was distracted by a loud bang and a grunt of pain, accomplishment, or frustration, it was hard to tell, coming from his left. He saw one of the technician’s aides fixing a coffee machine… or, more accurately, “fixing.” Next to the machine, the captain spotted a half-complete drawing of the crew at a table and everyone bantering except one member. The only person not talking was Kagaya Killiaka, who was also the only person who was deeply shaded. Next to the presumably incomplete drawing was a cup belonging to Bradley Cooper, one of the two biologists aboard, partially filled with water. Given the sideways glares the aide was giving the cup, it was probably intended to be used for coffee. There was a fandom argument between the other technician’s aide and the technical specialist that had been carried out via sticky note under his nose and the two lance corporals had kept their combat suits stored in a pair of lockers. The only person who hadn’t left a trace in the room was Ken Long, their documenter. To be fair, he counted the pilot’s voice as a trace, even though its reverberation would soon dissipate.
“Sir, we’ve stabilized.” The captain turned as Karen approached him and gave him a quick salute.
“Good. Stay here.” He said as he saluted and turned back to the center of the room in one fluid motion. His motion continued as he strode forward towards the table in the center of the room; stopping only when he came upon the edge of the table and tapped a few buttons. The combination of buttons initiated the actions required for the elevated semi-sphere embedded in the center of the table glow bright blue and project its light throughout the room. After a moment of a disco-esque light show emanating throughout the compartment, the semi-sphere’s light quickly pinpointed onto his face and he reflexively closed his eyes to shield them from the painfully bright light. As it matched details of his face, the light began to fade, and he cautiously opened his eyes to see that the half-orb was now barely blue compared to its once star-like surface. As he became aware of this change, he heard a hum just before the semi-sphere spoke audibly; its light pulsing with each syllable.
“Begin message at the beep.” A pause, then a beep.
“Arm 2 Frontier Department Command, this is Jeffrey Polack, captain of E.C.R.S.S. Pendulum, enroute to S872, planet Verde, Discovery Division. We are in-system, and are closing on the planet’s surface. E.T.A. for landing site is a day and a half, give or take six hours. We will send another message once the trajectory for the site has been selected and we are within ten thousand miles. This is report one from E.C.R.S.S. Pendulum on Voyage Verde. This is also log #042 for E.C.R.S.S. Pendulum on Voyage Verde.” He waved his hand slightly, indicating that he wanted the orbs attention, which it gave by pausing the recording. “I want this duplicated and the duplicate stored. As for the message, purge the previous sentence. Confirm.”
The half-orb blinked once, confirming it had received and carried out its instructions. The captain nodded and waved his hand again, and the blue half-orb acknowledged it with a blink. “We will be receiving the buoy results within the next hour, and our next report will contain that data. Thank you for your time.” He waved his hand one final time. “Replay message.” The half-orb blinked in reply; replaying what it was prepared to send. It had, as instructed, purged the sentence about the log. “Send message.” The half-orb blinked once, paused, then blinked again.
“Message sent. Anything more?” Captain Polack nodded.
“Please play ‘intercom announcement seventeen’ over the speakers.” The half-sphere blinked, and Jeffrey’s voice rung throughout the vessel as Aria looked up from her book.
“All crew members, please report shortly to the meeting room. I repeat, all crew members.”
Aria looked up from her book at the announcement but lowered her gaze back down to the words below her that encouraged, instructed, and incriminated her about her efforts to counsel the crew. She thought she might be pretentious by thinking she was their stable rock, but that was what she felt like. She heard another bang and glanced up to see Bradley running into the room and bumping into the technician’s aide. She could tell it was supposed to be playful, but Bradley wasn’t gentle. The aide was knocked back and the coffee machine fell, jarring the loose components around and shattering the coffeepot. Anyone who was within earshot turned towards the broken machine, and the technician’s aide clenching his fist. She thought she heard a voice that sounded like Killiaka’s say something about a drawing, but she couldn't tell; he spoke like he hadn't gotten much sleep and she couldn’t understand the voice. Even if he had said something, she had a bigger problem to worry about than his art.
“I… told you… not to tou-!” The aide’s angry growl was cut off by Aria.
“That was friendly and you know it, Henry.” She was quick to establish her neutrality, though. “Bradley, you knew he was already upset with you, so that wasn’t funny. You shouldn’t have done that. Calm down, both of you.” She was internally jarred when she realized Bradley actually had kept his cool and blown the whole situation off, but was relieved to see that Henry had calmed down a bit.
“Sorry, Mrs. Vonpart, ma’am, I guess I lost my cool….” Aria nodded and put a hand on his shoulder, gripping it… hard but not too hard; that was how it had been put.
“It’s understandable, Henry; two weeks is tough. Once we land, I’m sure we’ll have plenty of time away from each other!” She realized, too late, that what she said did not convey her intended meaning. Thankfully, it didn’t look like he’d misinterpreted her words. Before she could be sure, however, she heard whisper-shouting that steadily grew louder as it approached the doorway into the hub.
“…Shinaki to completely annihilate Stang. I’m sorry, Shinaki is op, but that’s how it is.”
“Ah, but you see! Stang’s shield is made from the bones of Imori, which absorbed a Shinaki blast in episode 73.”
“But Imori was burnt to a crisp!”
“True, but his bones were unharmed when the rest of the planet was destroyed!”
“It was an exoskeleton. That means that it was basically a shield; and Imori was still….” The two technicians lowered their voices when they entered the hub, so Aria couldn’t catch the rest of their conversation. Just behind them, though, she saw Ken Long huffing through the corridors. He wasn’t in the best of shape, so his puffs helped to shadow the technicians’ debate further. He took a moment to look around and pause for breath before grinning and heading over towards Bradley. The videographer slapped the unsuspecting biologist on the back, making him spit room temperature water back into his mug. He whirled to look at Ken before coughing into his elbow politely, expelling water from his lungs.
“Well, I hope you’re ready!” Ken smirked, seemingly overconfident. In reality, and it was obvious to anyone who cared, he was a little nervous, and his overconfidence was both covering up his fear and another attempt to break the ice with his new colleagues, but as Bradley coughed up the melted ice he had been drinking, his ice hardened a bit towards Ken in momentary frustration. He was careful not to show it though; Aria would notice.
“I am indeed. I’m curious whether the planet is covered in late-successional forest or if this is just what passes as mid-successional. What about you?” He gave a lopsided grin at Ken’s confused look. He knew that Ken was trying to learn all he could so he could be more helpful, but he was having fun poking at Ken’s lack of knowledge in some sciences, though he had been cramming.
“U-Uh, I guess the metabolic efficiency of the trophic levels and how energy is passed between them….” He gulped, staring at Bradley, whose lopsided grin shifted into a surprised smile. Ken guessed that he had said the right answer and sighed internally as Bradley confirmed this.
“U-Uh… y-yeah! Yeah. We’ll be able to look into that after a little while, I’m sure. We’ll tell you about the results as soon as they’re discovered!” Bradley was a little shaken up, actually, by how detailed his curiosity was. It was almost like he’d been studying a textbook and had only read so far, which made complete and total sense to Bradley. He coughed again and took a small, cautious sip from his mug, wary of his surroundings lest someone bump into him again. The water had been sitting out ever since he’d poured some of it into the coffeemaker and it hadn’t responded. The issue, it turned out, boiled down to “Get a new one, take a long time to fix, or go without.” The first was impossible, the third improbable, and the second hadn’t gone over well with Henry. That didn’t matter though; those who forfeited a man’s right to coffee forfeited their own rights. He chuckled to himself as Ken walked away from him towards one of the technicians, apparently interested in their debate over how comparatively overpowered Stang was when paired with the likes of the Bonohagan, a secret society in the same fandom as Stang, and Naruto, from a different fandom that had been the first franchise to accumulate over seventy thousand episodes. So Ken liked Naruto… huh. Bradley took another sip and started to back away from the crowd so as not to touch such a toxic fandom, and inadvertently drew within earshot of a conversation that was being carried out through whispers.
“Stratica-9.” One of the two Equinox Defense Force LCPLs said to the other, unaware of the accidental eavesdropper. Everyone knew that the two were great men; an anomaly among the soldiers who usually accompanied most vessels, and that said much since most soldiers weren’t bad, either. The game changed if you were caught eavesdropping when they were whispering; the universal sign of “not your business.”
On the other hand, he was concerned for his younger brother.
“Hear they’ve got a band of freedom fighters trying to stir up trouble. Take the planet.”
“The whole thing? Ambitious grents….” Grents; a minor pest that got a break and starved a planet. Harsh comparison.
“I haven’t heard what HiComm’s planning, b…” Captain Polack interrupted Bradley’s attempts at overhearing the information exchanged by slapping a hand on his shoulder, surprising him and making him jump a little. The captain had approached right in front of him. Had he been innocent, he would have known it was coming and wouldn’t have budged. Bradley gave the captain a sheepishly guilty grin, but Polack shook his head.
“Brad, I know you want to hear about Ben. I felt the same way. Sometimes you need to just trust that he’s fine.” He saw Bradley nod sharply, and he could tell it’d stuck. He slapped his shoulder again, this time without a reaction, and walked back towards the center of the room. Polack could see that they were getting a little rowdy, and if they got rowdy, they wouldn’t pay attention. Which went against why he’d called them there in the first place. A solution came quickly, and he pulled himself up onto the table. When he’d made his way up and managed to stand, he felt a quick rush of impressiveness. His position as the officer over everyone had just taken on a double meaning. He was also very glad that the table was sturdy so he could relish the pun. He didn’t even need to make a move to silence the room; after a few seconds, everyone realized that the fact that their captain was atop a piece of furniture held some significance. He grinned.
“Ladies and gentlemen, we are closing in on the planet at around Mach ten. We’ll be planetside in a day and a half, give or take, so say your goodbyes and get pepped…” He paused in confusion as everyone began to chuckle at his error. When he realized what he’d done he had to take a second to calm down before he could see the humor in it. “Ahem, yes. Get prepped and pepped, boys and girls, because we’re taking this planet by storm.”
With that, he outlined their tasks that they would undertake upon landing. Their first expedition would be within a mile of the ship; Karen, Aria, Bradley, and Ken would collect samples of early-successional autotrophs while almost everyone else stayed behind and set some equipment up outside, though one would go on alone and start setting up a forward camp. As the assignments were finalized, Karen raised her hand.
“Yes, Ms. Cessner?” The captain asked, eyebrow cocked in interrogative questioning.
“Have we designated a landing site, sir?”
“Not yet; you and I will discuss it with our meteorologist when the data is processed, and…”
“Sir, with all due respect, we won’t know what to expect if we don’t know where we’re landing.” The room went silent. With the exception of the captain and Karen, it had already been silent, but now that one was regretting every mistake she’d ever made and the other had seemed to become sunburned indoors in a matter of seconds, the silence became oppressive.
That reign of tyrannical noiselessness was overthrown by an unruly din that exploded from the captain. Everyone, including the two veterans, took a step back. The gist of what those in the room heard and would never repeat to their mothers was that the pilot was a failure and that she could have been replaced by him. She appeared like a statue, transfixed in both angry resilience and absolute terror, resulting in her face taking on a more tame imitation of a gargoyle. When the captain paused for breath, Aria had her hand over her mouth, most were staring at the captain, and one of the technicians was close to having a panic attack, but Aria’s quick thinking and amateur psychology kept the disaster at bay.
“M-My apologies, c-captain, sir.” Karen managed to stammer. She spent the most time around him, so she knew the anger stemmed from a need to produce results and raise humanity up with the knowledge gained, not from a narcissistic need to remain unquestioned and respected absolutely. She knew.
And then Bradley dropped his mug, shattering it.
A yell burst from Captain Polack’s lips, echoing a bit around the room. Had the hardlight door been inactive, the ecstatic exclamation would have reached into the main compartment of the ship. Before the reverberations had finished their excited explorations of every edifice and crevice inside the confines of the bridge, Polack had pressed the button to activate the intercom. Since he didn’t have a prerecorded intercom command, he could bypass the ship’s option selections. A side effect of lacking a prerecorded command was that he was live. Normally when he was excited he would take a moment to calm himself so he didn’t misuse or abuse the intercom. Unfortunately, he was beside himself, and counseling never worked on a crazy man.
“Karen! Get the meteorologist and get in the bridge!” He was obscenely loud, and thanks to the intercom’s amplification and wide reach, none of the other ten members of the crew had their fingers outside of their ears. But while his shouting wasn’t necessary, his excitement was not unwarranted. After all, he had just received the files from the sensor buoys that had been dropped off in the star system a decade prior. He had been told to expect only about half to be able to send their data at all, and that number, to Polack’s jubilance, was wildly off; only one was incapable of transmitting. And while his excitement was watered down some when it turned out a few of the files were largely corrupted, he was still close to dancing when they arrived.
Their reactions were a concoction of equal parts excitement; “Wow, that’s a lot more than we thought there’d be!” and dread; “Wow, that’s… a lot more than we thought there’d be.” Polack remained oblivious to the half of the mix that didn’t match his own feelings, and this was clear when the dread began to lose its density in two of the three samples; rising to the top as their deadline of six or so hours seemed closer than beforehand. They’d need a landing zone, a certain one, once their time was up. It’d be a shame if they had to randomly select one in an acidic climate, as had happened before when a ship’s crew had tried to use guesswork for landing. There were still two crew members missing, but the rest were found in or around the skeleton remains of the ship… two weeks after they’d landed. But their captain was impatient, and she doubted he’d agree to turn around and make another pass because they couldn’t calculate in time. So they were going to calculate in time. They had to.
“You’re positive?” The captain asked the radarman, an edge of desperation in his voice that became visible on the officer’s face when the radarman nodded crisply. There was a tinge of weary resignation in his voice when he spoke a second time. “Alright. Keep track of them, and keep all of this quiet. We don’t want the other four to know. But do let the Councillor know.” The aide’s right fist swung around and collided with his left hip in a salute. The salute had evolved since medieval times; if one had respect for one’s opponent and oneself, they would pause a moment with their hand on their sword’s grip before unsheathing the blade. As swords became obsolete, the modicum of respect remained relevant. And of course, being of lower rank, the radarman had to respect both his rank and the regulations that demanded he did.
“Yes, sir!” He brought his fist back to his right side, a gesture that came from the need to use the hand for non-saluting purposes, before doing an about-face and walking away from the captain in precise, measured steps. His back was to the captain, so he could not see as the color slowly drained from his superior’s face as his chloroplasts slowed dramatically. The captain’s head swiveled around in a daze, trying to comprehend the vibrantly green and slightly translucent men who surrounded him as individuals instead of a unicolored blur. As every last one consumed the local vegetation and fruits without fear, the captain felt jealous at their blissful ignorance of their collective worst nightmare becoming reality: A Truly Foreign Entity. Their entire species had always been fearful there was something beyond their Sphere, and here it was. It had the drop on them, and it had as much power over them as it wanted. He confirmed it for him when he recalled the strange, unknown blinks and blips his sound officers had occasionally picked up in-system when listening for TFEs. It’d been a decade since the first.
When he was able to stop musing about the systems they could use to stop the unparalleled threat and moaning about the aliens’ mere existence for a moment, his eyes wandered inexplicably towards the Fully-Light-And-Touch (FLAT) Pad that lay on the table, taunting him with its pale-green lighting scheme that reflected his own unusually pale shade of green and scorned him with the instrument of their very demise displayed in unfortunate clarity. But when he could stomach a glance at it, he lowered the fork that had been on its way into his mouth to the plate below. As his eyes began to flick across the screen, picking up every hue, crevice, and curve of the ship, he began to feel the chloroplasts in his cells working again, pigmenting his skin and giving him a renewed energy. He was shocked, in the best way possible; there were absolutely no weapons on the ship that he could see. They had dispensed data detection systems; dozens of them, from the sounds they’d picked up; and when they returned, it had been… a single, relatively small, unarmed ship. His eyes widened as he came to a realization. He decided that it had to be a strike team; after all, there was no other logical explanation. He stood, leaving his dirty dishes on the table; while he felt guilty about his minor housekeeping faux-pas and eating only half a salad most enlisted servicemen would kill to enjoy, he had far more pressing matters. Specifically, survival.
The captain hastily snapped his fingers to get Karen’s attention whilst internally panicking. They’d processed all the data, but they only had thirty minutes, and they hadn’t found a landing site. She snapped back at him ostentatiously, giving him a bit of playful attitude that he knew was in good spirit but couldn’t take very well before leaning over and looking at the site he’d found. He gave her about three seconds to look it over, a time intended not to be enough to thoroughly analyze it, before he asked, “How’s that?” in a rushed, huffy tone to get her frazzled. He expected that if she did look over it carefully, she would spot more flaws than he had and would reject it, but his efforts ended in failure. Instead of agreeing in a flustered tone of voice, she held up a finger to him to clearly and nonverbally indicate he should quiet down and back up. She pored over the monitor as the captain worriedly recollected the list he’d made earlier, but his attention was refocused to reality the sight of her rejecting his requirements.
“No… won’t work.” She sighed, unintentionally stirring his wrath. But before it could spin out of control, she removed the spoon from the now-iced tea by mentioning she had another option. Desperately hoping his still-unspoken requirements had been met, he clambered over her in an attempt to analyze the site as fast as possible. In all fairness, her selection had checked off much of his list, and it was bit more safe, but at the same time…
“This isn’t as good. Species richness is lower, only mid-successional… Not even up to quinary consumers, this won’t do.” He dismissed her findings as one would a failure; which was what it was in his eyes. Karen slowly turned her head towards him and stared into his eyes for so long that one would think she had fallen for him. If one had come up with that faulty conclusion, however, they would have been in absolute shock when she opened her mouth. Her voice was a whisper, like the voice of a Nazgûl, and her words like a Morgul blade; short, stabbing deep, and, when finished, leaving a tip of poisonous shame within the captain.
“Do you value our lives less than biodiversity?”
Jeffrey Polack, unlike Karen Cessner, didn’t have any sort of imposing control of his anger; rather, he had imposing control because of his anger towards failures. As its possibility loomed while time shrunk, his control began to falter.
“No. However, as an experienced officer, I believe that the risk increase of the latter site is minimal to null, and I believe that experience outweighs textbooks.” He turned his head from her and forcefully gestured towards the display displaying his choice. His rank overruled her judgement, and despite judging that he had judged her judgement unfairly, she clamped her mouth shut and hunched over her console. She didn’t notice the long look he’d given her as she’d punched in the calculations needed to adjust their trajectory. If she had, she might have noticed his change in attitude. Instead of a vengeful and controlling demon, she would have seen a regretful, worn man.
He rose slowly, shakily, looking upwards, towards the heavens, and silently begged for forgiveness. He’d failed again. In his mind’s eye, a familiar bearded captain stared back at him and sighed heavily. He slowly shook his head and closed his eyes and began to turn his back on Jeffrey. Jeffrey’s eyes watered and he squeezed his eyes shut to shut out the tears. He opened them up after a moment to see a blurred, empty bridge; Karen was behind him and the other invitee had left. He hoped the meteorologist gotten something to eat; he’d left a lot untouched during meals.
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