The Loop

by Richard Leru

  As the shuttle neared the ground, they could clearly see green foliage growing all across the land mass. With wide eyes, they pressed themselves against the window for a better look. Indeed, there was life out among the stars.

  The pilot circled around the continent for some time, surveying the landscape of it all. Once he found a suitable spot, he set down in a large clearing near a forest and hillside.

  Jones sent back his initial report to the Erebus and everyone put on the Delta 5 breathing suits. These suits had been designed around a carbon nanotube weave system, originally meant for body armor but now repurposed. The Delta 5 suits could withstand the pressure rigors of space and had a one-hour reserve of oxygen. The group of explorers, scientists, and soldiers watched in vigilance as the door creaked open slowly, welcoming them to Planet B. Outside was the scene everyone had hoped to find, but never expected to.

  Planet B was a friendly environment, covered in green grass and trees. The atmosphere was thick with oxygen, nitrogen, and carbon dioxide, no need for any breathers here. Running rivers came down from the hillsides, bubbling past them, feeding massive lakes that looked like seas from the ground. The air was warm and humid. It was a tropical wonderland. The whole team stood in awe at the beauty in front of them. To the left stood white-capped mountain peaks, the sun shining bright off their icy slopes. Overhead, wisps of clouds gave a misty haze to the light that shone across the meadow in front of them. It was one massive subtropical landmass.

  “Alright, we don’t have much time on this first visit, people, so let’s get to work.” Jones called out an order to the group over his shoulder, never taking his eyes off a palm tree that stretched nearly 100 feet into the air. The awe and optimism in his tone betrayed his attempt to sound like the soldier he was.

  As the team began to set up a camp and prepare to take samples, Alex let a single tear drip down his cheek. “Angela, you should be here to see this,” he whispered under his breath.

  Jo was running around like a kid on Christmas. All these new species of plants everywhere. The sound of small insects buzzing around, crawling, flying, and hopping, brought joy to her heart. They had found life, all of it foreign and unknown. What great mysteries to solve; she could not hide her excitement.

  “Alex! Can you believe this? Look at these monilophytes! These are all clearly vascular plants! Ooh, ooh, and look, this one has thorns! That means it must have to defend itself against something. There must be large insect or even animal life on this planet!” Alex had no idea what she was talking about, but had to let out a small laugh, seeing her as giddy as she was. It was the first time he had felt a flicker of happiness since they left. Jones brought everyone back on point.

  “Right, everyone, we can’t explore the whole planet in one day. We have two hours until departure back to the Erebus, so let’s get to work and get all we can.”

  The team quickly set up a series of tables on which laid specimen jars of every shape and size. This was an exploratory mission, and they only had a few hours to work, but they were going to bring back as much proof of life as they could. Every person pitched in and a constant stream of samples was being bagged and tagged. Soil to leaf, fly to small fish-like creature, everything they could get their hands on was coming back with them.

  The heat was quickly becoming unbearable. At first landing, the warmth had been a welcome oasis from the cold dark of space, but now it was becoming tortuous. Beads of moisture covered every inch of the ship and every inch of the crew. Smeared labels from sticky hands and contaminated samples, were beginning to ruin the joy they had all possessed hours earlier.

  When it came time to return to the ship, every person was covered in sweat and nearly panting. The warm atmosphere felt like a sauna or an impossibly hot south Florida summer day. No one should be in a sauna for two hours in full gear without any cooling equipment. The tables were packed and all that remained was a small pyramid of cylinders, boxes, and beakers, containing the life essence of Planet B Solar System 1. As the security team put the samples in the storage compartment, a sudden yell from Jo brought everyone running.

  Alex was first to reach her. She was on both knees in the mud near the forest with her hands on her mouth.

  “Are you okay? Jo, what’s wrong?”

  Jones and the security team joined them, weapons drawn, scouring the tree line for threats and targets. All they could find was the echoing of crickets playing their tune.

  “Jo, are you alright?” Alex emphasized.

  “Look,” said Jo, pointing at the mud in front of her. There, in the dirt, clear for the naked eye to see, was a massive print. It was of a webbed foot with three large forward toes and a fourth coming out the back. It measured twice as long and three times as wide as Alex’s boot.

  “What the hell could that belong to?” asked Jones, wondering if his weapon would be able to stop something with that kind of size.

  “I don’t know, but I think it’s time we leave,” said Alex, grabbing Jo by both shoulders and helping her to her feet.

  “Agreed,” answered Jones. The small group made their way back to the shuttle and left Planet B. They were headed back to the Erebus, mission accomplished.

  “Roger, good work, Jones, Birch out.” Commander Birch turned to Arenta. “Get me the leader of the settlers on the com.”

  “This is Mr. Far.”

  “Mr. Far, this is Commander Birch, get your people ready. We’ve found you a new home.”

  8.Settlement

  By the time Alex and landing team Bravo arrived back to the Erebus, the shuttle bay was a cluster of commotion. It was crowded with people and gear shoving past each other in a hurried, yet organized, fashion. Crates were being lined up and prepared for loading onto the shuttlecraft. Men wearing orange armbands, the leaders of the settlers, were barking orders over the crowd, directing men, and women to staging areas. Everyone was getting ready to leave for Planet B, or ‘Eden’ as the settlers had chosen to call it.

  Unsure of what was taking place, Alex grabbed the nearest person wearing an orange armband. “What’s going on here?” Much to his surprise the man grabbed him and wrapped his arms around him, hugging tightly.

  “Thank you! I’m so excited for this!” The settler’s eyes were half filled with tears, eyes rimmed and puffy. In his late twenties, the young man had a wide smile frozen on his face.

  Slightly taken aback, Alex asked, “Excited for what?”

  The man looked at him slightly puzzled, emotions melting, “Settling the planet.”

  “What? On whose orders?”

  “Commander Birch, he said you found a habitable planet. You did, right?”

  Alex could see the alarm he had created in the young man’s face. A crowd had begun to form around landing team Bravo and the settler. Not wanting to cause a panic in a clearly emotionally charged crowd, he simply answered, “Yes, we did,” and made his way toward the center lift with haste to find Commander Birch.

  When the elevator doors opened to the command center, Alex burst through making a beeline for Birch.

  “Commander Birch, what do you think you’re doing?”

  Birch, who had been leaning over an instrument panel talking with a flight crewmember, cocked his head to the side, looking to see who had posed the question. He stood up straight and calmly asked, “Mr. Runner, is there something I can help you with?” Despite his icy, professional demeanor, Alex could see a silent fire burning behind Birch’s eyes. Birch’s fingers trembled slightly and his lip quivered for a half second before his mental fortitude reigned his emotions back in. Sensing this crack in Birch’s armor, Alex should have backed off from his aggressive tone. Alex did not have the same control over his feelings that the regimented commander did.

  “Yes! You can tell me why the settlers think they are going down to the planet.” Alex had used the slight break in Birch’s countenance as fuel for his fire.

  “Because they are, Mr. Runner.” The commander’s eyes narrowed, his shoulders pull
ed further back. Birch was now like the king cobra rising and showing telltale signs that his accoster should tread carefully. Alex did not.

  “What? We haven’t even run chemical analysis yet on the vegetation or water. Sending them down there right now is a dangerous risk. You can’t do this. We need to take more precau...”

  “Mr. Runner!” Commander Birch fully broke his usual calm, only for a split second, to silence the impassioned Alex Runner, and then returned to his determined emotionless self. “Our mission was to find a habitable planet with life sustaining atmosphere, large resources of water, a stable center star, and growing fauna. Once we have found that planet, we are to establish a colony, to send our settlers to the planet with their gear, to grow as a people and find suitable expansion options. This is our mission parameter; you, yourself, had a hand in writing it. Captain Jones reported that Planet B of Solar System 1 meets the criteria established. Tell me, is he correct?”

  “Yes. But…”

  “Good. Then we follow the mission parameters. As Commander of this ship, it is my job to ensure that happens. I suggest you remember yours.” Commander Birch took a step toward Alex. Birch was only inches from the smaller Alex Runner, staring down straight into Alex’s eyes. The alpha dog had just demonstrated his dominance in front of the entire crew.

  “We will soon be in need of the formulas for our next travel destination, do you require an escort to find your way back to the mathematics lab?”

  “Commander Birch, this isn’t wise. We only visited once, there are a million possibilities...”

  “Mr. Runner, do you require an escort?” The security officers behind Alex took a step closer.

  “No.” Alex raged under his skin, both at his public humiliation and at himself for allowing emotions to overtake him. A simple logical conversation would have been much more impactful. Birch was no fool and when confronted with wisdom and reason, he would have listened. Alex had wasted his chance.

  “Good,” Birch lightened his tone and took a step back. The victory was now complete. “And Mr. Runner, don’t ever tell me what I can or cannot do. You may have designed it, but this is my ship. Is that understood?”

  “Yes.”

  “Yes, what?” Birch’s face yet again showed no emotion, no pride or sense of happiness for his demonstration of power. He was yet again the Spartan his family had groomed him to be.

  “Yes, sir.”

  Alex walked slowly from the command center. He had taken his lashing, but it still didn’t feel right. It wasn’t Commander Birch’s fault. He was simply acting on the information they had. Captain Jones had reported before all the information was thoroughly processed. Of course Birch would make the wrong conclusion. Alex had to find Jones. Maybe together, they could convince Commander Birch to wait until more research was done.

  Alex found Jones with a checklist in his hands, verifying the cargo that was to be loaded onto the shuttles. “Jones, you have to help me stop this.”

  Jones looked up from his checklist, “What are you talking about? Why do you want to stop this?”

  Careful to keep his voice low enough so others wouldn’t hear, Alex replied, “The footprint.”

  “What about it?”

  “What about it? Jones, you saw that print, you know what could be out there. With more research we could know for sure if there were dangers in that forest.”

  “When would enough be enough, Mr. Runner?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Look,” Jones put down the checklist and placed his hands on his hips. “I’ve been around scientists all my life, hell, my parents were biologists. The one thing I learned is that no matter how much research and study you do, you will never fully understand something. If we stayed here and orbited for a year, launching exploratory missions, there would be still just as much unknown. Every question you answer only creates another mystery.”

  “But, Jones, it could be dangerous, and there is no need to rush into this. Our mission was to try and find a suitable planet to settle. If this planet is the end result of our mission, then we have nearly eight years we can use to make sure it is safe.”

  “Of course it will be dangerous. Just getting on this ship and travelling into space is dangerous. Eden has its own perils, but I trust these settlers. They will adapt and survive and thrive. Look at them. Look at their faces. Do you see any fear? They are all excited, energetic, and ready to go. They are going to start a whole new world! Besides, half our security forces are going with them, equipped with high tech weaponry. Now is not a time for haste. Sometimes, you have to take a leap of faith. That’s what we all did just getting on this ship. The settlers and I are taking another, now I have to get back to work.”

  “Jones, is there any harm in just waiting a few days? Why can’t we explore a little more?”

  “No, there isn’t any harm, but there also isn’t any guaranteed harm in just taking action. Besides, Commander Birch has made his decision, we are settling Eden.”

  “You can help me convince him to wait. Together, we can reason with him.”

  “I don’t want him to wait. I want to complete our mission. This is what we are here to do. It will all work out okay.”

  With that, Jones walked off. As he walked around the landing bay, Jones shook hands and gave hugs to settlers. Alex had never thought he would see Jones have such an enthusiastic, childish wonder. It was amazing that after years of mercenary work, he was still, deep down, an optimist. Alex hoped he was right but couldn’t shake the questions.

  What about the footprint? What were those settlers going to encounter once they got down there? He distracted himself from these questions with his calculations.

  Having finished the formulas, Alex watched from the windows in the math lab as the first two shuttlecrafts, laden with people and equipment, left, heading for Planet B. Six trips to the planet and back, and all those brave souls were now officially residents of a strange planet only discovered hours earlier.

  The settlers were an extremely diverse group. Taken from a list of volunteers, they represented nearly every race and ethnicity. There were twenty men and twenty women. They were all divided into five categories: Mechanical, Agricultural, Medical, Construction, and Scientific. This group would build a new society of the human race on the inhuman planet.

  Alex was deep in thought, reminiscing about Angela and how if she hadn’t come and changed his outlook on life years ago, he would have gladly signed up to live on a foreign planet, giving up the monotony of everyday life for the adventure. Leaving it all behind and starting new, knowing he could easily die. Jones was right. This was the greatest leap of faith he had ever seen. In that moment, he truly admired those forty men and women.

  “Alex, get in here!”

  Jo was across the hall in the biology lab, looking at some of the samples they had collected. The specimen she was examining was a small lizard from Planet B. It had died in transport of accidental suffocation from lack of nitrogen in its cage. The lizard was now splayed on a table with its organs dissected.

  “Is that the lizard from Planet B?”

  “Yeah, he died during the trip home so I figured I’d start with him while his body processes hadn’t shut down entirely.” Jo was clearly shaken, standing with her arms wrapped around her waist.

  “Okay. Well, what is it?”

  “Take a look at this,” said Jo, as she spread open the lizard’s tiny stomach with a scalpel. “There’s flesh in its digestive tract.”

  “So?”

  Jo looked at Alex sternly; clearly, he should have understood the importance. “So, that means that there are carnivorous creatures on that planet − the planet where our settlers are now. What if whatever left that footprint eats meat, too?”

  He understood the gravity of the situation. “Have you told the commander yet?”