Expedition Nereus

by Ilya Martynov

  Jack regretted not checking for the safety belts before taking off.

  "Next time, I need to figure out how to switch on the deflector," thought Jack. "I could have fallen out."

  On the return trip, Anne didn't stop at their house or Alan and Laura's shuttle. Instead, she brought the hoverbike to a stop next to their own shuttle.

  "I need to show you something," she calmly said before asking for help out of the craft. "Let's go to the cockpit."

  She stopped at the hatch that led to the cockpit and handed her ID badge to Jack.

  It was incredibly archaic, a relic from missions of the 21st century. Nowadays, a plastic ID on a thick string looked hilariously out of place in 2211, but the Agency considered this form of security one of the most reliable.

  "There's a slot for the badge over there, below the bottom control panel. Insert it," she instructed, pointing at a location near the left of the hatch.

  Jack had never noticed the round hole in the wall with a slot in the middle. He inserted the thick badge as far as it would go.

  Part of the side panel shifted inwards, clanking slowly, before moving down to reveal an arsenal of liquid nitrogen grenade launchers and a dozen wrist-mounted electrophotonic plasma rifles.

  "What the hell!" Jack couldn't hold his emotions back. "We've got a weapons stockpile here! Are we going to war?"

  "Almost," Anne answered dryly, giving him an annoyed, serious look.

  "Why do we need so many weapons?" Jack asked at a loss.

  "We didn't know...rather, we don't know what's waiting for us here."

  "But it feels like..." Jack wanted to object.

  "Yes, you're right," she smiled slyly. The lieutenant had never seen such a smile on her face before. "It's forbidden. We assumed it would be a simple colonization mission on a relatively safe planet."

  "Yes," he furrowed his eyebrows and shook his head.

  "But you shouldn't blindly follow instructions. Right, Jack?" She gave him a sly smile again, but he could see fatigue and despair.

  "That's correct, Colonel Petrow!"

  "Now let's grab a couple guns and a grenade launcher and get out of here," she said, leaning on the narrow edge of the door with her shoulder.

  "Yes, ma'am." He nodded, about to carry out her order.

  "You'll need them tomorrow when you look for Alan and Laura's shuttle," she added when Jack approached to lend her his shoulder to lean on.

  "Roger," Jack nodded, lowering his shoulder so Anne could also hold a weapon.

  "You have to wonder. The only shuttle with probes reached the planet," she commented, stepping away and slowly moving through the hatch. "In fact, it was the only shuttle to land successfully. Curious coincidence, isn't it?"

  Jack recalled how during a staff meeting, the captain discussed the loss of four probes and expensive equipment. Each of the three shuttles was supposed to carry two probes each. Upon reaching the surface, the probe would circumnavigate the planet for some time, transferring data about atmospheric and biological activity. The first two probes sent, eventually, one probe stopped transmitting a signal, then the second one that had been sent to look for its partner in accordance to its programming had been lost too. According to the captain, the Agency wondered how two probes could go silent at the same time in a relatively calm area of the planet. Eventually, they explained it was due to an unknown atmospheric phenomenon.

  Deep in thought about the strange situation, Jack placed the weapon in the hoverbike's compartment behind the pilot's chair. He then lowered the seat so that Colonel Petrow could sit.

  They spent some time sitting at the table, examining a map of their surroundings on a central glass panel when Anne started coughing, but she didn't ask for help to lie down.

  Rummaging through the medical kit, Jack found plenty of useful medicine, yet nothing that could help her. Anne spent the rest of the evening lying in bed, silent, only nodding in response to Jack when he discussed his plans for the next day's search using the hoverbike. To clear his conscience, he had to cross a distance of tens of kilometers to find the shuttle remains as soon as possible. He couldn't put off the search for the remaining crew any longer.

  The pangs of guilt tugged a bit at Jack's conscience not only because the other crew members died, but also because he didn't yet consider himself a competent officer. He was aware that even if he managed to find the other astronauts, he may not be able to get rid of the burden in his soul.

  The lieutenant's mind pictured the living room of his friend Sam's dad, Mr. Norwell, the Director of Intergalactic Missions.

  "Jack, we're experiencing pretty hard times nowadays," he said, partially turning around in his armchair. "We're sending you because we can rely on your keen young mind. We need inquisitive young people." One of Mr. Norwell's eyes narrowed, looking more like a wink.

  Now he was sitting at the pavilion table, trying not to reveal his embarrassment. Jack regretted not reddening at that time. He was perfectly aware that someone much older and more experienced could have taken his place. The Nereus expedition was far from the first one. The Agency had even formed a whole pool of the research astronauts.

  At the time in Mr. Norwell's living room, Jack took the offer to go on the expedition for granted.

  "How unbearably reckless that was," he thought.

  He could see the worried look on his mom's face and how his dad's eyebrows were furrowed in worry. He had ignored all the signs back then, turning away and waving it off with a gust of hurricane-like wind.

  He bit his knuckle to cope with the pressure that overwhelmed him as he recalled the tearful eyes of his mom who silently helped him prepare for the trip.

  Realizing he had been sent on the expedition only because he was friends with the son of a high-ranking Agency official, Jack felt extremely bad.

  Anne was already asleep. Her heavy breathing revealed her fretful sleeping. Jack adjusted the colonel's blanket and went to his own bed. He hoped sleep would distract him from difficult thoughts.

  That night he dreamt of wispy clouds, like the ones on Nereus, draped around some mountains. He dreamt of Anne, who he was dancing with in their new home, and of Laura and Alan approaching the pavilion.

  9

  Jack woke up a bit later than usual, but when he did, his heart pounded wildly. The fear of seeing what he dreaded most had dulled in recent days, but it was impossible to deceive ancient physiological mechanisms. Their biorhythms tracked time like a molecular clock until the occasion Jack was loathing finally arrived.

  The day had come. The realization that he would learn the inevitable truth made him reconcile with everything, even the saddest premonitions.

  He waited for Anne to finish her meal before he cleaned up after her and helped her lie on the bed again. Soon after, he left the pavilion.

  The overcast, cloudy weather and high humidity made the air around almost suffocating.

  Jack looked around. The sand of the plain seemed to be somewhere between purple and blue, not green. The boulders almost cast no shadow in the scattered starlight. His head tilted down as if deep in thought, the lieutenant strode to the hoverbike standing next to the pavilion.

  Climbing into the pilot's seat, Jack flipped on the manual control systems and compared the map with the radar before heading towards the first cluster of points.

  It would be a 35-kilometer trip to the first destination, according to the map. Jack still hadn't completely gotten adapted to the hoverbike, so he proceeded at a moderate speed of about 200 kilometers per hour. He circled about for a few kilometers in the air as a warm-up then rushed forward. The rocky ridge could be seen along with small hills, a few bushes with thick pear-like stems, and boulders that resembled small wheat grains from his altitude. In the middle of the desert plain, he could see a sparkling line that represented a transparent stream.

  "Herbivores must have come to these streams to drink," Jack observed mentally to himself. The landscape didn't look so lifeless and faded as it had du
ring the first few days. He could make out some herbivores that were calmly eating the rest of the dry prickles of succulent plants.

  The climate on Nereus was strange. He couldn't detect any water anywhere, except for shallow riverbeds and the two seas, but the humidity of the lower atmosphere was abnormally high. Instead of easing the heat, on the contrary, it made the air stifling, causing Jack's entire body to be covered in a layer of sweat. Despite his thermosuit having been created for exactly this reason, it didn't help.

  Nereus' inhabitants on the other hand managed to acclimate themselves pretty well. The bodies and limbs of large animals retained water like a large sponge just in case a long drought happened. Their skin was thick yet porous to help maintain the internal temperature balance and avoid massive liquid loss. The bodies of some creatures contained shining luminescent spots of different colors from blueish-green to orangish-red, but mostly shades of purple and blueish-green.

  Flying above the plains and hills, Jack spotted a small pack of creatures that reminded him of rhinos but with dark skin and purple spots lined in a row. They looked like unnatural toys, but these creatures were genuine and had been evolving for millions or even billions of years! The animals scattered and then gathered in a pack, making strange exclamations that didn't resemble the cries of earthly animals at all. Then the group of "rhinos" came to another wall, a rocky ridge, and sharply turned right in order to go around the barrier measuring a few kilometers.

  Fortunately, Jack didn't need to turn anywhere. His route was set right above the rock wall. Just as he crossed it, in less than a few hundred meters, he noticed a tiny plume of smoke that trailed up, twisting around in the air.

  His heart, even though racing already, pounded even harder. Scared thoughts flew through his head. He imagined how it was true, that they had been falling through the planet's atmosphere, the bright explosion near him had been real and not an illusion of his exhausted mind.

  Lieutenant Sallenge slowed and gradually approached the surface. He could see shuttle debris spread about the area. The shuttle had broken in half, its tail section practically entering the cockpit, flattening until only a small part remained visible.

  He switched off the forcefield, turned the engine off, and hopped to the ground. His hands trembled, and his legs felt like jelly. He froze for a moment, unable to move. The stone in his gut sank, and he felt completely unable to breathe.

  Staggering left and right, Lieutenant Sallenge approached the still-fuming tail section. Despite the protective coating to protect the shuttle from heat, the outer layer was charred, causing the air around to smell burnt and electrified. The shuttle's fuselage still felt warm. Jack saw a small area where the tail entered the cockpit and the central compartment. Everything was squashed and distorted inside, as if the shuttle had gone through a Black Hole.

  At the top of the twisted cockpit, part of the pilot's panel jutted out slightly to the side, deformed and bent in several places. A little lower, he recognized a burnt bone protruding. Alan and Laura had no chance of surviving such a crash.

  He covered his mouth with his hand, trying to not to empty the contents of his stomach. Jack rapidly looked around, hoping that everything would vanish and Laura and Alan, safe and sound, would reveal themselves. In time, as he realized it would never happen, he leaned his head against the shuttle.

  "Why didn't they bail out?" Jack thought as his head spun. "Either they had no time, or they thought they could reach the surface."

  He carefully looked around, examining the rest of the shuttle. He could see debris leading out behind the tail over a hundred-meter area. Everything was damaged beyond repair. Bent, broken, crushed. Then he saw the hatch to the cargo compartment, which must have torn off as they crashed to the surface.

  Jack reached the hatch, tapped it, then took another look at the shuttle before sitting on the ground. He rested his elbows on his knees, holding his face in his hands, and sat in that position for twenty, or even more, minutes. Only the howling wind whistling through his ears reminded him he was in a real, cruel universe.

  Walking away from the crash site, he promised he would return and remove the bodies of his fellow crew members from the rubble to bury them with dignity and humanity, not abandon them to the cruel creatures on this soulless planet. With this bitter thought in his head, Jack climbed into the hoverbike's seat and moved further to the next cluster on the radar.

  This time taking almost no notice of either the landscape or animals fussing around, Jack reached the remains of the captain's shuttle. It was a little easier for him to comprehend what he saw. His mind was already used to the fact their brave captain and the kind-hearted engineer Frank both lost their lives the day of the ill-fated landing. Now it seemed to Jack that a few years had passed instead of a week. Time stretched out in his mind.

  Jack's memories were a bit disjointed, but there had always been Frank Warple, standing kindly right beside him. Frank's thin eyebrows raised, and his mouth smiling broadly but in a way so that his teeth remained hidden. Jack sensed Frank was ashamed of his yellow teeth and his slight plumpness. He was an incredible engineer. Frank knew gravity generators by heart, practiced dozens of flights on simulators, but he had never considered himself an athlete or strong. The engineer confessed that the offer to take part in an expedition to a recently discovered planet was a big stroke of luck for him. Yet compared to the other members of the crew, who were slim and athletic, this short, somewhat rotund man looked a bit awkward.

  The 40-year-old Frank must have thought he didn't belong on the ship, unworthy of being among such astronauts, guilty for some indiscernible reason. Frank couldn't entirely understand what he was being blamed for, whether it was the spot of someone else who was much more qualified or for standing out compared to the others. For this reason, the engineer always seemed to be trying to please everyone, especially the captain, as if he could make amends that way. When the captain would ask Frank something, he responded with all his friendliness and readiness to carry out any task. By chance one day, Jack overheard a conversation between Anne and Frank where he learned that due to the planet's atmosphere, which was much denser in the upper layers than Earth's, the landing wouldn't be easy. Standing on the heated sand, Lieutenant Sallenge was able to confirm his bitter conclusion.

  There were no large pieces at the crash site. Only fragments of the fuselage and nose, both of which looked nothing like before, were embedded in the sandy hill. The fragments were scattered so far apart from each other that it wasn't possible to see them at the same time. Jack reproached himself for not bringing along binoculars, but even without them, it was clear that the debris was quite distant, some seemingly having landed a few dozen kilometers away from here.

  Jack sat on the hoverbike and tried to zigzag along the plain where he glimpsed pieces of the shuttle. To take a closer look at the crash site, Jack decided not to activate the protective forcefield. Only miserable looking fragments remained from the massive craft. The officer didn't even notice the lump in his throat or the tears rolling down his cheeks, which were blown away by the wind. Perhaps, it would have been much better if he had crashed instead of them. Why them?

  Jack found himself thinking how concerned he was for his own life. Like a jackal, not a human being, he was cowardly afraid of his own future. Even if Anne and he managed to reach the Avant Light, how would they return? Would they be able to make it to Earth, just the two of them, without any of Frank Warple's engineering knowledge or Captain Graham's experience? What will happen to them now? Who will rescue them? There was only one option left. To wait for help from Earth.

  "But if help's on the way, how long do we need to wait? A year? Maybe two? Three? All our lives?" These worried thoughts didn't escape Jack as he flew the return leg back to their new home.

  10

  Based on the expedition's plan, there was enough food for three and a half months. By that point, the crew members ought to take a shuttle and return to the ship. This meant Jack a
nd Anne had just over three months to think of a solution to their situation while they waited for a rescue ship. The lieutenant was well aware they had little chance during this period. For more than two years, they voyaged towards the planet. The odds were extremely low that new, faster ships would have been built during this time.

  "The Center's already gone silent... Damn! Why are they so slow?" Jack tried to sort out his thoughts and make some sense of order. "Okay. Maybe they're trying to figure out what to do with us. Let's see. We've got a teleport. They can send us all the necessary equipment we need to survive. Frak! It's prohibited."

  He grimaced in angry despair.

  "I hope they think of something! Maybe they'll send us the equipment we need to repair the shuttle? Granted that's highly unlikely, and I can't fix it on my own. Trape probably can't either."

  He glanced at a slowly moving herd of wartstones.

  "Home's close," he thought, but he wasn't happy. The lieutenant's heart was heavy and filled with sorrow and anguish, causing him to slouch from the burden.

  "We've got enough food for three months," Jack stated, sitting on the edge of his bed in front of Anne. He flexed his leg, pursing his lips.

  "As we planned. If the other shuttles hadn't been damaged, there'd be more food," she croaked in a hoarse voice as she lay on her side. Anne adjusted her sticky, sweaty hair that clung to her forehead and added, "No. Why the hell am I thinking like that!?"

  "Anne, you're right," Jack said, leaning forward in an attempt to comfort her.

  "Help me sit up...please," the horror of losing consciousness, physical pain, and compassion towards her was written on her face. She hated herself for it.

  "I don't want to look pathetic, Jack," she admitted. "I don't want to be helpless."

  "Everything's all right, Anne," he replied, helping her into a sitting position.