The Planetsider Trilogy

by G J Ogden

  Ethan swung his legs out of the bed and placed his feet on the floor, which was hard and cold, but he didn’t flinch. He fought himself upright, pushing back the pain that shot through his body like a thousand nettle stings. Angela Salus instinctively went to grab him, expecting him to fall, but Archer understood better, and remained still. Angela’s hands caught Ethan’s arms, but instead of weakness, she felt strength. And when she looked into his eyes, she saw his resolve, and gingerly let go.

  “Take me where I need to go,” Ethan said to Archer, staring intensely into the general’s clever eyes.

  “Of course…” Archer began, but Ethan had not finished.

  “But first, please let me see Sal,” he said. “I need to see her.” Angela looked over at Archer, and he nodded.

  “I will have someone bring you clothes and then, when you are ready, we will get started,” Archer said, and then turned to leave. After a few steps, he paused, and half-turned back. “You are a very brave man, young planetsider,” he said. “She is lucky to have…” and then he hesitated for a moment, glancing across to Angela, before adding, “… a friend like you.” Ethan was grateful for Archer’s discretion, but also encouraged by it. Archer’s subtle acknowledgement that he understood Ethan and Maria to be more than just friends almost felt like an avowal of their relationship.

  Once Archer was out of earshot, Angela turned to Ethan, “What you are is a reckless, headstrong, impulsive fool,” she said with a scalpel-like sharpness. Ethan was quite taken aback, and despite himself, almost laughed. But then Angela smiled warmly and added, “Which is probably why my block-headed sister likes you.”

  Ethan smiled back, relieved that Angela’s anger was not genuine. She then led him through a door and into an adjoining room. Inside on the bed, fed with tubes from a number of strange-looking machines, each with differing patterns of flickering displays, blinking lights and mechanical noises, was Maria. Ethan felt his heart sink.

  “Don’t worry,” said Angela, sensing his disquiet, “she is fine. Sedated, but fine.”

  Ethan stood in the room and looked at her. The blinking lights and rhythmic noises were quite soothing, almost hypnotic, and he felt his anxiety and worry slowly ebb away. He noticed that Angela was standing beside the bed, gently holding Maria’s hand. He thought of his own sister and family, and realized how they must also be feeling now, not knowing whether Ethan was alive or dead, and was again racked with guilt. But there was no time for that now.

  A man walked into the room holding a bundle of clothes and a pair of boots. “For you sir,” he said, politely, as he placed the items on a chair at the back of the room, “I’ll be waiting outside for you when you’re ready, sir,” he added and then promptly left the room again.

  “I’ll get you what you need to save her,” Ethan said calmly a few seconds later.

  Angela nodded, suddenly serious again, but then she said something that surprised him. “And then what will you do?”

  Ethan leant over, closer to the unconscious face of Captain Maria Salus. She looked peaceful, he thought. Peaceful and beautiful. “I don’t know,” he replied, honestly.

  Ethan didn’t see Angela smile, he only heard her words. “When you come back, you should ask her.”

  “I’m afraid of what she’ll say,” said Ethan without thinking. And there it was, unveiled as much to himself as to Angela. He was afraid that after this was over, there would be no Ethan and Maria. That he had imagined her affection towards him, or read too much into it. And that he would be alone.

  “We’re all just living one day to the next, planetsider,” said Angela. “Whether it’s up here, or down on the planet, makes no difference. You just need to decide where it is you belong.”

  Ethan straightened and turned to face Maria’s sister. He could see the similarities now, in the shape of the mouth and the eyes, and the way their hair fell over their faces. “I’ve never really felt like I belonged anywhere,” he said, openly, “But I’m wondering now if, maybe, I belong with her.” And then his face betrayed a sense of concern, “I just don’t know if she thinks the same.”

  Angela smiled again, and this time Ethan saw it. He was glad to see that it offered genuine warmth, perhaps even affection. The doctor shrugged and said, “Well, why don’t we start with you coming back here in one piece, and then let’s all of us find out together.”

  Chapter 21

  Angela had wished Ethan luck and left the room to allow him to change into the clothes provided. This proved more of an effort than he anticipated, as he struggled to fasten the various straps and buckles. Satisfied that he had finally done everything correctly he joined the man who was to take him back to Archer to start his preparations. His steps were awkward at first, but he soon felt his joints and muscles loosen, and the aches and pains ease. He was far from fully fit, but he was much stronger than he had been only an hour previously, and far stronger than he had expected to feel in such a short time. If they can do this for him then with the right equipment he was sure they could save Maria. And then he was truly in uncharted territory, probably for the first time in his life.

  His sense of wonder, and what Summer called his ‘obsessive curiosity’, always meant that Ethan had something to chase after. Whether it was his desire to learn about the past, to uncover the mysteries of the lights in the night sky, or to charge blindly into the unknown to investigate an alien object without a moment’s hesitation, Ethan had always been driven. It was what had kept him motivated and made him effective as a ranger. But it was also what prevented him from living in the moment, like he could never do with Summer. Perhaps that’s why she was always so competitive with him, Ethan wondered, because by challenging him, she retained his interest, and he kept her in his sights, instead of dreaming of something always just out of reach. Maria had been the ultimate mystery, the ultimate obsession. She was the very embodiment of the unknown, and so naturally Ethan would be drawn to her.

  On top of his anxiety about Maria, Ethan was still tormented by conflicting emotions. There was his guilt for leaving his sister and Elijah, which had swelled from a small acorn in his belly and sprouted roots that tugged harder on his insides each passing day. And then the worry about Summer, and if she had survived, or if she had killed Chris Kurren – Maria’s partner. He also continued to feel uneasy about the moon base and the people on it, whose comfortable lives were an insult to the suffering and struggle of the planetsiders. The injustice made him feel almost physically sick. And then there was Maria, the stormy, alluring stranger who had exploded into his life like a volcanic eruption and changed everything. She had revealed to him the truths he had desired since he was a boy, and at the same time shattered his fantasies about the past and his hopes for the future. It had been a rude awakening that had left him searching for purpose for the first time in his life. And so he had latched on to Maria, because of what she represented, and because it gave him a cause. Perhaps that was all there was to it. Perhaps once this was over, Ethan would again be left as barren and empty as the world below them.

  He mulled these thoughts over and over in his mind as he walked, silently, alongside his escort. Ultimately, such considerations were pointless, he realized, because he had no answers. All he could do was the same thing that had led him to this place – follow his gut. And his gut told him that he loved her. And that would have to be enough for now.

  They arrived at a large, slab-fronted black building with a UEC logo high on the side and, as he entered, his escort peeled off, saluting and saying ‘good luck’ in a way that made Ethan feel that it was said simply because his training had told him to be polite. Major Kurren was standing by a large, arched doorway. His eyes projected a certain menace, very unlike his brother, who had eyes that were welcoming and friendly.

  “This way,” said Kurren, gruffly. “We’re ready. I’ll take you through what you need to do, and we can begin.” Ethan nodded and followed Kurren through the doorway; the doors swinging open automatically with a power
ful, mechanical-sounding growl. They entered a large room with one side made almost entirely from glass, beyond which the base gave way to the open surface of the moon. Hanging above a dusty courtyard of white rocks, attached to a tubular passageway built into the glass wall, was a long, sleek-looking vessel, pulsing with lights. There was a windowed section at the front, illuminated brightly from the inside. “That’s our ship. She’s the best we have left,” said Kurren, proudly.

  “Good to know,” said Ethan, absent-mindedly, his thoughts still a jumble of a dozen different things.

  “Just do your part and I’ll make sure you get back,” Kurren said. It sounded more like an order than an attempt to reassure.

  “I’m sure you will,” said Ethan, unsure of what else to say.

  “I will,” said Kurren with determination. “Unlike others, I do not leave people behind. I see things through to the end.”

  Some of the reason for Kurren’s menace was finally laid bare. It wasn’t just a military gruffness, it was anger over his brother. And Maria and Ethan were the targets of this blame.

  “I meant it when I said I was sorry about your brother,” replied Ethan, matching Kurren’s resolute tone. “He saved Maria. He’s the reason I’m here, and that Maria is too. I didn’t mean for him to get stranded on the planet.”

  Kurren’s eyes narrowed. Perhaps he hadn’t expected such steel from the planetsider. “It was his choice to volunteer,” he said, matter-of-factly. “I just hope you’re worth it, that’s all.”

  “So do I,” said Ethan, honestly. Kurren seemed to appreciate Ethan’s candor, as his eyes lost some of their piercing sharpness. “Show me what I need to do.”

  Kurren nodded and led Ethan over to the console, where they were joined by two other men in plain blue overalls. Neither spoke to Ethan, nor did Kurren reveal their names, simply referring to them as ‘mission specialists’. For the next hour, Kurren and the mission specialists covered the details of the task before them and the part Ethan needed to play. He was given a replica of the EV suit that Kurren would remotely pilot close to the stranded ship, and for another hour he trained in this suit, learning the core functions, the vast majority of which he wouldn’t need, since Kurren and the mission specialists would handle almost everything remotely. However, once he was within ten to fifteen meters of the ship it would be down to him to pilot inside, navigate to the cockpit and insert the override control spike in to the pilot’s console. This was a metal shard about thirty centimeters long and roughly the same thickness as his thumb, which slotted into a section on the pilot’s console, clearly marked by two red circles, one surrounding the other. He was shown a replica of the pilot’s console and made to practice this procedure more times than he felt necessary, given the clear simplicity of the task. Once the spike was inserted, Kurren explained, it would restart the ship’s systems and boost the signal so that Kurren could remotely pilot the vessel back to the decontamination area, safely away from the moon base’s habitable zones, with Ethan still inside. The way it was described to Ethan made it all sound perfectly simple, though something told Ethan that the real mission would be more challenging than these simulations.

  After three hours of continuous training, Ethan was both exhausted and thoroughly sick of the continual repetition of tasks. The latest simulation came to an end and Kurren looked pensively over the simulation results with the same intense concentration as the previous twenty-one times. Then he looked up at Ethan and said, “Okay. We go in thirty.”

  The words had a sobering effect on Ethan, and he suddenly had a burning desire to do another twenty simulations, rather than face the prospect of venturing out into space for real. But he was too tired to argue and instead just slumped back into the training seat and grunted his acknowledgement.

  Kurren smiled – the masochist in him seemed to have enjoyed beasting Ethan around for the last few hours – and reached into his top shirt pocket, removing a small round container. He popped it open and shook out a small, red tablet, which he handed to Ethan. “Put this on your tongue,” he said. “It’s a stim, we use them all the time. It will restore your vitality for long enough to get this done.”

  Ethan took it and placed it on his tongue, where it almost immediately dissolved; leaving him with tingling sensation that began to spread throughout his body, washing away the fatigue. “Wow...” said Ethan feeling an intense rush of energy. “What happens after this wears off?”

  Kurren snorted, which Ethan supposed was as close as he came to laughing. “Then you’ll have one hell of a hangover.”

  Ethan stood up and stretched his arms and legs. He felt amazing. “What’s a hangover?” he asked.

  And this time Kurren did laugh.

  Chapter 22

  The commlink clicked on and a voice crackled over the channel. “Ethan, your heart rate is climbing, try to take some regular, deep breaths.” The commlink clicked off again without waiting for an acknowledgment, silencing the voice of the nameless mission specialist, who had been Ethan’s ethereal companion from the moment he had stepped out into space.

  Ethan could feel his heart pounding, and tried to do as instructed, but the breaths were still coming rapidly, a combination of the stimulant that Kurren had given him, and the fact he was flying through open space inside a shell made of fabric and metal. In front of him, hanging ominously in the blackness, set against the bright blue backdrop of the planet itself, was a large, black, spacecraft. It looked like a giant arrowhead with three blades sweeping back from the head section, with powerful-looking engines positioned between each blade. It was both considerably larger and more elegant-looking than the boxier craft that had brought him from the surface to the moon base, and looked like it could swallow up three or four of the sleeker combat aircraft he’d seen on the deck, where Maria had been injured. It was nestled among a flotsam of shimmering, twisted metal debris shrouded by opaque clouds of dust that almost looked like they were guarding it.

  “Two minutes to contact. Adjust 1.7 right, Z+ 0.2. Initiate remote hatch unlocking.”

  He adjusted the controls, as he’d practiced so many times before, making another minor correction to his trajectory. Ethan liked the commlink chatter. It had been almost constant throughout the thirty-four minutes it had taken him to reach this point, since he had jettisoned from the craft that Kurren and the two mission specialists had piloted a safe distance from the ship. And despite not understanding most of the content, he had welcomed the company. With the commlink silent, he was painfully aware of his rapid, shallow breathing, and the blood pumping in his ears.

  “Ethan, concentrate on your breathing. You’re doing great, nearly there,” the crackly voice announced.

  Ethan took consciously deeper breaths and felt his heart pump more slowly and evenly. In front of him the black object was looming large in his visor. A ring of lights illuminated between two of the huge fins, near the rear of the craft. “Remote hatch unlocking successful. Major, over to you.”

  “Affirmative, I have control.” The second voice was Kurren’s. It was the first time Ethan had heard it since boarding the smaller craft that had brought them closer to their target, and then spat him unceremoniously out into space. “Okay, Ethan,” said Kurren’s voice, solid and steady on the commlink. “This is the docking maneuver, you’ve practiced this, you can do it. Initiate on my mark.”

  Ethan nodded instinctively inside his helmet and then flipped the sequence of switches that he had committed to memory. “Ready,” he said, his voice far less steady than Kurren’s. There was silence for a few moments as Ethan considered his glide towards the flashing lights, which outlined the docking hatch. “Come on, come on,” Ethan said out loud, the commlink disabled, urging Kurren to give the order.

  “Three...two...one...initiate!” came Kurren’s voice out of the silence. Ethan fired the jets on their pre-programmed sequence. The sudden and rapid change of direction and orientation was briefly confusing and made Ethan feel queasy, but the sensation was momentary
as he halted directly in front of the hatch opening. “Well done,” said Kurren, sounding almost nice. “It gets easier from now on.” Presumably one of the many probes that had been attached to Ethan could detect ‘queasiness’, in addition to seemingly every other physical condition that a person could experience.

  “Good to know…” said Ethan, sarcastically. He manually pulsed the rear jets and felt himself move forward towards the hatch opening. The blackness of space was now replaced by blinding white lights, some of which emanated from the suit itself and reflected back off the metal shell of the disabled vessel. The object now looked far less forbidding, and Ethan again began to feel calmer, as if the end was close.

  Come on, you can do this… he said to himself as he passed through the opening and into the guts of the ship. Then following his training to the letter, he pulsed the thrusters one last time and felt his feet hit the decking. They stuck to it firmly, a phenomenon that one of the mission specialists had called ‘magnetism’.

  “Package on site, initiating ambulatory mode,” the commlink crackled, and Ethan felt heavy, as if he was falling. His natural instinct was to steady himself, adjusting his footing and balance, and to his surprise, the suit reacted in the same way as his muscles, stopping his fall. He stood tall and moved his arms and legs. It felt natural, just as in the simulations.

  “You’ve done the hard part,” said Kurren over the commlink, his voice sounding thinner and more distant, but no less severe. “About fifty meters ahead is the cockpit. You know what to do.”

  Ethan reached down with his right hand and grabbed the spike, which was attached magnetically to the thigh section of the EV suit. Holding it in front of him, he paced, deliberately, carefully, down the central walkway of the ship. It was almost exactly like in the simulation, and he knew precisely what to do. His heart rate was climbing again, but he felt in control, knowing he was through the most challenging section. He reached the cockpit door and held out his left hand in front of the panel to the door’s side, and just as in the simulations, it flashed into life, scanning his hand with a line of intense green light, before shutting off. The door hissed and slid open, but only half-way. In the simulations, it had slid open entirely. Ethan started to feel panicky.