by Trevor Scott
“Like a shortcut?”
“Like a shortcut.”
Liam sat back in his faux leather seat and took it all in. No human had ever traveled past Titan in their own solar system. It wouldn’t have been profitable. Now they were a third of the way across the galaxy in a ship that could hardly go a fraction of light speed. They were stuck.
Saturn turned off the star map and crossed her arms. “If we never get back to Earth, I’m blaming it on you.”
Liam understood her frustration. He too was questioning his choice. That said, the alternative wasn’t any better. One bit of good news was that there weren’t any other ships on the far side of the wormhole and the spatial distortions behind them had ceased, closing the vortex. Somehow, he didn’t think Saturn would see the bright side in that moment. They sat in silence until a flashing yellow light lit up his console. He moved to press it and when he did, a hologram appeared of a beige sphere, patched with brown. Liam zoomed out and saw their flashing yellow position a couple million kilometers from the small world.
“What is that?” Saturn asked.
“The computer is picking up a planet. And close.”
“Do you think that’s where the other ship came from?”
Liam ran his fingers through his hair, which was still sweaty from their narrow escape. It was a tough call, but there was one thing he knew for certain. Staying where they were wasn’t going to do them any good. Liam made a split decision and jerked the joystick, bringing the ship about so they were on course for the planet. The bright rays of the solar system’s star flickered behind the planet off in the distance.
“We have to try,” Liam said. “What can we pick up on the scanners?”
“We need to be closer than one million kilometers for accurate readings. The sensors on this thing are limited.”
Saturn pressed one of the controls and brought some figures up on the panel’s display. Liam watched the blue glow of the screen as several columns populated with data. Saturn pointed at the screen and said, “From here all we can tell is that the atmosphere is comprised of nitrogen, oxygen, and trace amounts of other elements, but not enough to be toxic in the short term. We should be able to breathe.”
Liam locked in the auto-pilot and unbuckled his straps. That last laser blast had taken out their small gravitational field generator, leaving them weightless. He floated out of his seat and used his hands to guide himself to the back of the cockpit, where he examined a control screen. He took images from the forward camera and blew them up on the display. The surface was mostly brown but gave off a slight yellow glow from the atmosphere.
“It looks rocky,” Liam said. “Maybe a desert.”
Saturn unstrapped herself from her seat and floated in place. She guided herself over to Liam, putting a hand on his shoulder to arrest her movement. “It will take almost twelve hours at our current rate. Until then we should try to assess the damage.”
Liam nodded and swiped his hand an inch over the panel. An image of their mining craft appeared as a gray outline with flashing orange sections where damage was present. Their nose was scraped up pretty bad and there was minor structural damage in patches around the ship. Nothing was as bad as their starboard wing. It wasn’t necessary in space, of course, and they could get by flying on Earth, but he wasn’t so sure about entering the planet’s atmosphere. If there were windstorms or if the atmosphere was too thick, they could run into problems. The vessel wasn’t designed to go in and out of different atmospheres at will.
Liam pointed to the wing on the screen. “What do you think?”
“Well we don’t exactly have a replacement,” she replied sardonically.
The cockpit’s door slid open and Ju-Long floated inside the cramped area, forehead bloodied and lip split open, bruising fast. His white tank top was stained with blood from where he’d used it to wipe his mouth and a few stray globules of blood sporadically broke off from his lip, jostling around through the air. Ju-Long’s muscular arms held him steady in the frame of the hatch.
“You should probably come see,” Ju-Long said.
Liam and Saturn exchanged a look, then followed him out of the cockpit and into the main corridor, kicking off from the walls to gain momentum. Along the main passage were four rooms, each only a few square meters. Enough room for a bed and a small trunk for personal items. Regardless, they were more spacious than the quarters at the mine, where workers were stacked three high in rows of uncomfortable canvas cots.
They used the railing on the ladder to descend to the cargo bay, which was the main intersection between the cockpit, the airlocks, and the engine room, forming a cross. Most of the yellow strongboxes of cargo were bolted to the floor, though a few floated free, likely a result of their trip through the anomaly. Ju-Long led them to the starboard side, pointing vehemently toward the airlock’s window. When Liam pressed his face up against the porthole, he instantly understood.
The starboard wing sparked and jolted violently. Chunks of the panels were missing from the frame of the wing where the aliens’ laser had cut clean through. It was worse than he’d thought.
“What are we going to do?” Ju-Long asked heatedly.
Liam thought for a moment. The mining ship’s supplies were limited, but if they had welding equipment, they could salvage some interior panels and perhaps work out an emergency fix. Liam took a deep breath and let it out. The cargo bay smelled of stale air and sweat. Ju-Long and Saturn looked to him expectantly, though he didn’t know why. No one had made him leader, but he was beginning to feel he’d been placed in that role regardless. He went with his gut and ordered, “Start checking these boxes, we need to know what we have at our disposal.”
Ju-Long and Saturn nodded in agreement and began tearing the tops off of the crates, careful not to let the contents float away. Liam searched the cargo bay for a panel that might fit, preferably something only aesthetic in nature. It took five minutes, but he finally found a wall panel near the ladder in the main passageway that could work.
“I’ve got something,” Saturn said, holding up a small cylindrical device that fit in the palm of her hand. “I think it’s a laser cutter.”
“Bring it here,” Liam said.
Saturn pushed off from the floor and met Liam at the ladder.
Liam pointed to a rectangular panel. “Try to get a clean cut along the edges. Start with a lower power so you don’t burn what’s on the other side.”
Saturn shot him a questioning look.
“What is on the other side?”
Liam didn’t know what was behind the panel, but he was sure whatever it led to was still inside the ship, so he said, pointing to the seam in the metal, “It’s a living quarters, don’t worry about it. Right here.”
Saturn reluctantly pointed the laser cutter at the panel and turned the dial to a medium power setting.
Ju-Long pushed off from the floor and met them at the ladder, interrupting Saturn before she turned on the cutter. “Forgetting something?”
He handed Liam and Saturn a pair of darkened goggles, pulling a third pair down over his own eyes. He jeered, “Have you guys learned nothing on the mine?”
Saturn’s mouth opened to give a retort but she stopped after the first syllable, simply nodding and pressing the button on the cutter, sending a blue laser at the seam of the metal panel. The plate turned orange around the cut as she went, a few bits of molten metal floating away. Liam hadn’t thought about cutting in the weightless environment. A small chunk flew out and caught Liam in the shoulder, burning his skin through his gray jumpsuit. He brushed it away with his hand and pressed his palm down on the burn. Liam kicked off from the wall and stayed a few meters back while she worked.
Saturn finished quickly and punched the panel through to the other side with her foot, floating backward into Ju-Long as she did. The orange edges of the remaining fixture faded until they retained only a small amount of color. Saturn removed her glasses and admired her work. Her expression quickly change
d from satisfaction to disdain. She moved her head in close to the hole and looked inside, then turned toward Liam, fuming.
“What?” Liam asked.
“Take a look for yourself.”
Liam pushed off from the wall he was holding on to and floated to the hole in the wall. Upon inspection it was pretty obvious why she was mad. If she’d cut into one of the living quarters it would have been fine, since they had a spare. Instead, she’d cut a hole a half meter by a meter into the side of their only latrine.
Liam smiled and jeered, “Come on, that’s a little funny.”
“I’m not laughing.”
Ju-Long Ma snickered in the background. “I guess this means we’re all going to get pretty chummy.”
8
It took Liam and the crew an Earth standard hour to find and cut a second panel for the underside of the starboard wing. Now that they had the materials, the big question was how they were going to attach the panels without leaving the ship. To Liam’s surprise, it was Ju-Long who came up with the solution. It turned out what he lacked in social skills he more than made up for with his engineering prowess.
The cargo bay had a side airlock along with several small portholes with views of the wing. Under each window was a control panel, capable of projecting a hologram or displaying numerous key statistics, acting as bank of workstations for scouts looking for a new asteroid to mine. All that could be seen out the windows now was the front of the wing and the vastness of space. Some of the cargo was still floating around the bay, but they’d managed to tie off the bulk of them to one wall so they would be out of the way.
“Are you ready?” Liam asked.
Ju-Long nodded and waved his hand over a panel, taking control of one of the ship’s robotic arms, normally used for collecting asteroid samples. They’d placed the panels in the side airlock, depressurizing the chamber to match the outside. The two panels floated aimlessly near the airlock, bumping into each other and diverting each other’s paths. Ju-Long positioned the robotic arm near the airlock and motioned to Liam. “Now.”
Liam pressed a button near the inner airlock which opened the outer door. Ju-Long grabbed the nearest piece of scrap metal with the arm and moved it out toward the wing, which sat several meters behind the cargo bay. Liam closed the outer airlock, sealing the remaining piece inside. It only took a minute for Ju-Long to position the panel over the hole in their wing, pressing down the arm’s pincers in the center of the panel.
“You’re up, killer,” Ju-Long said.
Saturn pulled darkened goggles over her eyes and waved her hand over the control panel nearest the cargo bay window and a hologram of a joystick appeared, shimmering orange in the weightlessness of the chamber. She motioned to grab the stick and a second mechanical arm extended outside the ship. She used her free hand to move a dial on the holographic projection, “Adjusting to lowest power setting.”
Liam held his breath. If the arm’s laser cutter was too powerful, it could very well tear a new hole in the wing. All they needed was to melt the sides of the panel over the hole. It would be a temporary fix, but with any luck, it would get them through the atmosphere of their mystery planet.
Saturn pressed the trigger and light from the blue laser reflected in her mirrored goggles. She moved a magnifying lens in front of her left eye, keeping close track of her weld. Slowly, the panel’s edge turned orange, molten. Saturn kept the arm moving so it wouldn’t burn through. When she reached the other arm, she released the trigger, twisting her hand so the arm she controlled spun under the first as though on a gyro. She continued welding until the panel was affixed, the orange glow quickly subsiding in the cold of space.
Ju-Long removed the first arm so they could admire their work. It wasn’t pretty, but it would have to do. Attaching the panel on the underside was going to be trickier. The robotic arms did have cameras, but when the laser cutter was engaged it would make it hard to see anything but flashes of blue and white.
Liam opened the outer airlock once more while Ju-Long clamped down on the remaining panel with his robotic arm. He moved the arm toward the wing, spinning it underneath at the last moment. Ju-Long pressed a button on the control panel and his window took on the perspective of the robotic arm, displaying the underside of the wing in vivid detail.
When the panel was in place, Saturn moved her robotic arm around the underside of the wing, displaying the arm’s camera angle in split-screen with Ju-Long’s on her window. She positioned the laser cutter over the panel’s edge and took a breath.
“You’re sure about this?” Saturn asked.
Liam nodded, “Obviously it’s not ideal, but it has to be done. I trust you.”
Saturn blew out a breath of air and said, “Here goes.”
The laser cutter jumped to life as she bore down on the trigger. The panel quickly turned molten orange, bits of metal coming together in globs and floating off into space. Saturn moved quickly but it was getting too hot, too fast.
“Easy,” Ju-Long said, trying to keep the panel from moving under the slippery liquefied metal.
Saturn took her finger off the trigger and let the panel cool before continuing. She’d moved just as fast as the previous panel but something about this one was different.
“This panel must have a different composition,” Ju-Long reasoned. “A different melting point.”
Liam examined Saturn’s control panel. “The laser cutter is already at the lowest setting.”
“Do we keep going?” Saturn asked.
Ju-Long pointed at his monitor. The panel was halfway attached already and the first blast hadn’t made it through the wing. “I don’t think we have a choice. We’re almost there, just work quickly.”
Saturn nodded and asked, “Ready?”
“Hit it,” Ju-Long replied.
Saturn pressed the laser cutter’s trigger and moved it along the edge of the panel, barely giving it time to turn malleable. She stopped the laser and examined her work, moving the arm and camera around to get a good look at the seam. It appeared to be intact. “How’s that?”
Liam clapped a hand on her shoulder.
“Good job, I couldn’t have done it better.”
“Then we’re in agreement,” Saturn jeered.
•
Five Hours Later
“We’re within scanning range,” Saturn said, pointing at the screen behind the two pilot’s seats.
She floated there, examining the readouts as they came in. Pages of information flashed on the screen, scrolling up to make room for more text, with a vibrant picture of the small world coming into focus. Liam unstrapped from the pilot’s chair and floated over to her, examining the display for himself. Liam was surprised the mining craft had sensors that detailed, but Vesta Corporation always seemed to deliver in that department.
The planet was smaller than Earth. Maybe only two-thirds the size. Its terrain was rocky and reminiscent of the deserts of Mars. Instead of red sand, it was a coarse yellow, much like the Sahara Desert. The surface had only two large bodies of water, akin to the Great Lakes of Earth in size, and the rest was one large expanse of nothingness. Saturn pressed her finger on the screen, stopping the flow of text.
“Do you see that?”
Liam examined the text. “Can that be right?”
“Two million humanoid life forms located primarily around the bodies of water. This area here looks like some sort of hub,” she said, pointing just west of the larger body of water.
“Can we compare these readings with the ones from the other ship near the Asteroid Belt?”
“I’m working on it.”
Saturn swiped her hand to the left, sending the scrolling information to the left-hand side of the screen while she pulled up the alien ship’s details on the right.
“Here,” she said. “One thousand humanoid life forms aboard. But this is interesting. They aren’t a match. The life forms on the planet surface don’t even match each other. We’re dealing with three distinct specie
s.”
“Three?” Liam asked.
Less than a day ago they were under the impression that they were alone in the universe. Earth’s scientists had long posited that alien life was sure to exist, but was far beyond their reach and perhaps didn’t even exist in their current time. This proved that they were real. This proved that there could be at least four species of intelligent life in the universe.
“The two species on the surface appear to be intermingled, living together in the same areas,” Saturn continued.
Images of Homo Sapiens living with Neanderthals came to Liam’s mind. The thought made him laugh a little inside. He hadn’t ever given it much thought, but they must have intermingled on Earth for some time.
“What kind of images can we get from the surface?” Liam asked.
“Not much,” Saturn replied. “We can zoom in and get a pretty good look at the topology, but remember, this thing was designed for searching for precious minerals on asteroids. It can tell you if there’s any palladium in the mountains, but beyond that it’s anyone’s guess. It can only distinguish lifeforms to ensure work crews are clear before an operation.”
Liam thought for a moment. The alien ship from before was hostile. Did that mean the two species on the surface were too? Liam remembered back to his days freelancing for Vesta Corporation. It would have been nice at the time having a ship that could detect rare minerals. He could have made a lot of money that way. Now he wished he had an explorer’s ship like the ones from the Titan missions.
“This is interesting,” Saturn said. “There’s a single moon that’s far smaller than the planet with a few hundred inhabitants.”
Liam ran his fingers through his thick blond hair, deep in thought. “It doesn’t change anything,” he said. “We need to get to the planet surface. We don’t know how intelligent they are, so maybe it’d be better to try to set down away from the major population centers a bit.”
“Liam, we don’t know anything about these creatures. What if they’re like the ones at the Asteroid Belt?”