Neighbors

by Brian Whiting

“I think they hide under the grass leaves.”

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  “You know you sound like an idiot when you say grass leaves.”

  “This is not the time!”

  “I’m losing air!” one of the scientists panicked.

  “Relax, the hole is tiny, and your suit is still producing air for you.

  You’re going to be fine.”

  “You can thank the atmosphere on this planet. It’s nearly equalized

  with our suit pressure.” One of the calmer scientist said.

  Lanora walked back to shuttle one as her suit display turned red. “I am

  losing pressure, too.”

  “There’s nowhere for us to sit in here,” someone said from shuttle two.

  “Get over here to shuttle one,” Lanora said as she approached the closed

  shuttle and switched to the shuttles comms.

  “—t’s no use.”

  “What’s the problem?”

  “Sir, it takes five minutes to take the suit off and an hour to put one on.”

  “We don’t have that kind of time.” She watched as the rate of escaping

  air slowly increased on her suit display. She still had a fair amount of time

  before she had to be truly concerned.

  “Okay, look, you’re going to put your helmet on, wrap your neck with

  your shirt, and cover yourself with the emergency blanket locked behind

  the cockpit. Then you’re going to hold your breath while the pilot opens

  the ramp.”

  “That’s crazy, sir!”

  “No…that’s an order!”

  “I’ll be killed!”

  “It’s not like space, it’s not freezing. Think of it like holding your head

  underwater. Once the door is closed, you can pop your head back up.”

  Lanora waited a few minutes while the soldier did as instructed.

  “Opening!” the pilot said as the soldier settled in his seat.

  The pilot hit the open ramp button, and Lanora switched comms.

  “Oh, thank God!”

  Someone was crying, a few people were cheering. As soon as the ramp

  was low enough, they all jumped up and ran inside. Several people tossed

  the sealed sample containers into the shuttle as well.

  “Leave the rest of the samples. He’s holding his breath right now.”

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  Lanora pointed to the man in the corner, a blanket over his shoulders and obscuring most of his helmet.

  The remaining four soldiers, whose seals had yet to break, unanimously

  each picked up one more sample container from the small pile outside the

  shuttle and ran into the ship as the ramp was beginning to rise. Lanora

  wore a disapproving expression, but she held her tongue while she focused

  on the soldier still holding his breath.

  “Ramp sealed!”

  “Circulate the air!” Lanora walked into the cockpit.

  “In progress.”

  She looked back at the man; fifty-five seconds passed since the ramp

  opened. The soldier was too covered up to see how he was faring.

  “How about now?”

  “Still too much nitrogen.”

  The soldier covered by the blanket moved his head a lot. The blanket

  burst open as the soldier pulled off his helmet and took a deep breath.

  He immediately coughed vigorously, curled into a ball, and continued

  coughing. His face turned bright red, his breaths becoming more shallow

  between coughs.

  “Still far too high, we just aren’t circulating air fast enough.”

  “Get us to the ship now!”

  Almost everyone standing fell over as the shuttles quickly took off into

  the sky. A few of the occupants were seated like they were supposed to be,

  everyone else sprawled across the floor. A pair of scientists tried to help the choking soldier, but the jolting of the shuttle made it incredibly difficult to treat the man. The heavy nitrogen in the air had inflamed his esophagus,

  closing his throat off completely

  “He’s out, we need to intubate him!”

  The shuttle shuddered for a moment.

  “Almost there, docking in two minutes!”

  “I can’t intubate, his throat is completely closed off!”

  “Emergency trach!” someone yelled.

  A combat medic pulled out a knife and carefully placed a vertical cut in

  the lower neck, right in front of the windpipe starting at the Adam’s apple

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  and cutting two inches down. He made a smaller horizontal incision over the thin membrane between cartilage pieces to open the lower windpipe.

  “Hand me a couple of straws or tubing from my bag.”

  Someone handed him a small foot of tubing. He inserted the tube and

  secured it at the incision point, then secured the man’s head to prevent him

  from thrashing around.

  “Is his heart still beating?”

  “I can’t exactly listen or feel for a pulse in this suit!” the scientist held

  up his thick gloved hand.

  Someone connected the EG tube directly to a squeeze bag and con-

  nected a line of oxygen from a tank to it.

  “Squeeze every two seconds, let it take you two seconds to squeeze

  the bag. Then wait three seconds and two seconds to squeeze the bag, and

  so forth.”

  “It’s not the oxygen, it’s the nitrogen content. It’s too high.”

  “Yeah, I’m diluting the nitrogen content with more oxygen.”

  The medic removed the glove from his suit and felt for a pulse. His

  helmet display turned deep red as his suit was completely exposed to the

  cabin air.

  “He’s got a pulse!” he quickly reattached his glove.

  “Okay, don’t worry about pressing on his chest then, continue feeding

  him oxygen.”

  The shuttle pilot switched to the crew comm line. “Okay, be advised

  we are under quarantine procedures. We are docking in the cargo bay, no

  one is authorized to leave the shuttle. Confinement and decontamination is

  being set up as we speak. Wait for further instructions.”

  “This soldier doesn’t have that kind of time.”

  As soon as the shuttle approached the UEF Enterprise, it shut off its

  anti-gravity drive. The shuttle turned off their gravity drive and used com-

  pressed air to maneuver into the bay, setting down on the artificial grav-

  ity plating of the Enterprise, which was turned on only one percent until the shuttle was settled on the deck, and then they increased gravity to

  fifty percent.

  The ramp opened, and everyone took off their EVA suits off but waited

  inside the shuttle as instructed. The hanger bay was completely empty of

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  other people, which was certainly odd, except for those in hazmat suits erecting containment chambers near the shuttle.

  Once they finished, the medical team entered the chamber and asked

  for the unconscious crewman. Four people had to squeeze through the

  tight entrance while holding onto the soldier, and they placed him on the

  medical table.

  Another medical person escorted those four to the other room where

  he took vitals, blood samples, and other such tests.

  It took six hours before everyone was examined and placed in the sealed

  waiting area. Food was brought to them as they waited for their designated

  seventy-two-hour quarantine period to pass before they were allowed to

  resume normal ship activities.

  * * *

  “How’s Huey doing?” Alex stood on the other side of a wide-open w
indow

  to the intensive care beds and watched as Huey lay on the bed, peacefully

  and unmoving.

  The chief medical officer moved a lock of hair out of her face. “I’m

  convinced the E Trach saved his life up to this point. There’s no telling if

  he will come out of his coma and, if he does, what his mental function will

  be like.” She looked at Alex, as he unflinchingly stared at the crewman.

  It wasn’t the first time she noticed the face of guilt. “You know this isn’t

  your fault.”

  Alex looked at her. “In some kind of capacity, I am responsible. Truth

  is, if it weren’t for me, he wouldn’t be in a coma right now.”

  “If it weren’t for you, we would all be dead right now,” she whispered

  in response.

  Alex glanced at her, unconvinced.

  “So, are we heading home, or are we going somewhere else?” the medi-

  cal officer waited patiently for a response.

  “That depends. If we go home, will he receive better care? Is there

  something else they can do for him at home?”

  “Honestly, right now it’s a waiting game. So no, we can monitor him

  here, or they monitor him there, makes no difference.”

  “Then I guess it’s up to the council.” Alex turned and walked away.

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  Alex sent a subspace message to command with a situation report.

  When he returned to his cabin, a response was waiting for him.

  The decision to return home is up

  to you. Aside from replacing your

  damaged EVA suits, we see no

  immediate need for your return. If

  you choose to continue on, you are

  directed to Proxima Centauri, then

  follow the list. The following are

  stars with suspected planets—not all

  habitable, of course.

  Luhman—Epsilon Eridani—Cygni—

  Groombridge 34—Epsilon Indi—Tau

  Ceti—YZ Ceti—–Kapteyn’s—Wolf

  1061—Gliese 876—Kepler systems.

  Suggest you plan your route

  with due diligence. Be sure to

  send situation reports with every

  departure and arrival into a new

  system. Tau Ceti and Kepler have a

  good chance of habitable planets. If

  you leave those for last, your sister

  ship might have finished construction

  by then; perhaps you should visit

  those together.

  Alex pulled up a three-dimensional map of the known stars near Earth.

  It took a few moments to visualize the map and Alex sat, thinking while

  waiting for it to load. He was about to plot out a course before realizing

  that he had other people for that. He messaged his pilot to plot a course

  and then submit it to the XO for review.

  He then pulled up the 2D map Kalibri gave him long ago, which indi-

  cated where the alien borders were located. He then realized the map was

  nearly useless compared to the 3D map.

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  Alex wanted to visit the populated planets first but recognized the sage advice of his command council. He would call a staff meeting on the ship

  and see what they thought.

  During the meeting, he made it clear he wasn’t taking votes, but wanted

  to hear everyone’s opinion. The crew was split on the decision; half wanted

  to wait for that extra layer of security, especially since their near disaster, while the other half were eager to go directly to the point, accomplishing

  what they set out to do.

  Alex reached over and typed out a message to the pilot.

  Plot course to Proxima Centauri,

  engage when ready.

  Alex stood at the end of the meeting and said, “We’re going to Proxima

  Centauri first; it was a mandated next stop. I’ll think about our destination

  after that a bit more. You’re dismissed.”

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  Chapter 23

  Proxima Centauri

  ALEX WAS ALREADY on the bridge when they approached the next

  system. The star was a darker yellow, fifteen percent larger than Earth’s

  home star. The viewscreen showed nearly unfathomable devastation across

  the entire body of the planet.

  It appeared an orbital body, perhaps the size of Earth, was shattered

  and destroyed, its debris floating out into the wider system. Larger chunks

  of debris orbited the mass that remained of the planet’s body. The beaten

  planet looked like a small dust cloud, with the mass at the center seeming

  to draw it all in. The system was littered with chunks of rock in various

  orbits, including a couple heading towards their ship.

  “What the hell happened here?” Fena asked from the pilot’s seat.

  “I’m picking up artificial debris, alloys, and precious metals.”

  “Where?”

  “Everywhere, sir!”

  “I’m nervous about bringing the ship into the system, sir. I doubt I can

  avoid that amount of debris. Some of that stuff is traveling awfully fast and

  would overwhelm the deflector for sure.”

  “What about locating the nearest artificial source? Near the edge of the

  system maybe. How far in do we need to go?”

  “Not far, sir. There is a smaller piece nearby.”

  “We’ll stop by it to pick up a piece of artificial debris. Any ideas on

  how we might achieve that?”

  “It would be safer to use a shuttle,” Lanora said.

  “It would be easier to use the ship. The cargo bay door is huge, and it

  gives us a wide margin for error.”

  “How big of an object are we talking about?” Alex looked at the

  sensor operator.

  “It’s about five meters in length, width, and depth. About ten million

  kilometers directly ahead of us.”

  “That’s pretty big. It wouldn’t fit in a shuttle.”

  “That settles that, I guess. Get us in front of it and let it approach us

  from behind. Maybe we can line it up directly with our cargo bay and let

  it slip inside.”

  Fena turned and faced her controls with a hint of unease. Controlling

  the ship using various numbers of anti-gravity pads located on the under-

  side of the ship was not like flying a space shuttle, where the thrusters are

  behind you and point in one direction. All the pads needed to be in align-

  ment with the source of gravity the pilot intended to use for the maneuver.

  If one pad were to pull a little bit harder than the others, would send the

  ship into a slow spin, forcing one of the other disks to adjust to compen-

  sate. The toughest part of the pilot’s job was to stay on top of constant

  drifting in rotation and position. No matter how in sync the pads were, the

  difference, no matter how minute, would eventually affect the orientation

  of the ship.

  She plotted a course and brought the ship fifty kilometers in front of

  the large object. It was in a vigorous tumble. As she reduced the speed of

  the UEF Enterprise, the object came closer. When it was within a kilometer, Fena was concerned that, no matter how gentle she approached it, the

  object was spinning too fast and would cause a fair amount of damage to

  the ship.

  There was a loud boom.

  “Sir, aft section took a debris strike. Debris passed through the entire

  ship, penetrated the hull on both sides.”

  “We can’
t stay here. We do this now, or we leave.”

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  “Sir, we are gonna take some more damage if we do this.”

  Alex looked at Fena for a few moments as she kept a steady distance in

  front of the object. “I am open to suggestions!” Alex spoke loudly.

  “We…could land on it and apply counter-rotational force.”

  “How would we land on it?”

  “EVA jump to the central point where it spins.”

  “Eh, I think the force of the spin would send the team on it out

  into space.”

  Alex racked his brain for other ideas, and none came. “We will take the

  hit, sound collision alarm. Verify the bay is empty.”

  Symboli, who was always listening, sounded the collision alarm with-

  out being told to do so. Alex took it as a sign of approval.

  “Collision alert. Collision is imminent, brace yourself.”

  “Okay, Fena, take it in easy.”

  Fena closed the distance with the object at five feet a second until it was

  thirty feet away, and then decreased the closure speed to one foot a second.

  The bridge crew watched on as the object fit into the cargo bay, much like

  a car in a small garage.

  Then the object was twenty-five feet inside the cargo bay, rotating as it

  had for countless years. A small outcropping of rock hit an upper support

  beam of the bay. The leverage flung the object forward, decreasing its rota-

  tional speed. It collided heavily with the far bulkhead in the bay, causing a

  severe indentation in the metal. The ship shuddered violently, sparks flew

  from behind the display screen on the bridge, and the screen cut out.

  The object bounced off and floated slowly backward, trying to return

  out into space. Before it could escape, Fena closed the bay door and then

  activated artificial gravity.

  “Is everyone okay?” Lanora asked as she peered around the room.

  “Success!” Fena shouted, elation in her voice.

  Alex, troubled by the damage to the viewscreen, stood up.

  “Damage report.”

  “All critical ship systems are functional. Interior bulkhead damages

  reported on deck three, aft compartments. Exterior lights in aft compart-

  ments are not functional. An electrical surge damaged over fifteen ship

  components. Estimated time to repair in space: twenty-five days. Estimated

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  time to repair in repair facility: eleven days.” Symboli spoke in the same monotonous and emotionless voice as Kalibri, making Alex start.

  Alex considered if heading home might be a good idea due to the