Several other crewmembers came down the corridor, with Karl and Louise on their heels. All were in suits, carrying helmets and equipment cases. Karl spared Elsa a welcoming grin before giving orders to the assembled surface team.
“The initial sensor sweep of the planet is complete, and the place looks fairly human-friendly. Gravity pretty close to Earth standard, a potentially breathable atmosphere, and moderate temperatures by planetary standards. Still, we’re playing it safe for this mission. Arne, Alvolus, Vogel, and I will be in the first skiff, and we’ll be handling the mineral and lava samples.”
He glanced at an officer Elsa didn’t know, a lieutenant judging by his insignia. “Anders, you’ll be in command of the second skiff, and Marraine, Ginevra, and Oxlan will be with you. You’ll be taking atmosphere samples, but you’re not to leave the skiff or actually land on the planet’s surface.” He held up a hand to forestall the complaints that would inevitably follow. “This is just a preliminary, information-gathering mission. There will be plenty of time to explore the surface more thoroughly in the time to come. For now, no reckless behavior.” He gave Anders a stern look. Elsa smothered a smile. Apparently the lower-ranking lieutenant had a reputation.
“Local radiation is a bit high on this world, which is why you’re here, Marraine. But the rest of us don’t need to worry. A trip this short shouldn’t have any negative effect on us. Part of our purpose today is to determine what is causing the surface radiation and whether it will be a hindrance to further exploration of this world. We’ll keep in constant communication via commline, and both parties should immediately report anything out of the ordinary.”
To Elsa’s way of thinking, everything would be out of the ordinary on a new world, but she didn’t voice that thought aloud.
Karl scanned the circle of expectant faces around him. “Any questions?”
Louise lifted a hand. “Does this planet have a name?”
“Not yet, but let me know if you come up with something less boring than YT1300,” Karl replied. “Anything else?” Only an excited silence answered him. He nodded. “Let’s head out.”
He led the way into the shuttle bay, and the others followed, Elsa trotting to keep up. Anders, Marraine, and the rest of their team boarded a light skiff, while Karl, Elsa, Arne, and Louise strode towards a heavier armored vehicle. Before she boarded, Elsa was gladdened to see that her skiff had collectors similar to the mining coaches with which she was familiar. Her stomach was tight with nerves, excitement warring with the desire not to let anyone—especially Karl—down on her first mission.
Karl stood to one side to let his crew enter the skiff. He caught Elsa’s eye and flashed her a grin and a surreptitious thumbs-up. “You’ve got this,” he told her softly.
Elsa smiled tightly in return but didn’t trust her voice to respond. Her stomach seemed to think it was back on the sails again.
The skiff hatch was a couple feet off of the ground, and she was glad of the flexible suit that allowed her to climb inside easily. Inside, the skiff was more sophisticated than the vehicles she was used to, with forward pilot and co-pilot stations and seats in the rear section with panel readouts displaying information feeding from the exterior sensors. Arne had already taken the pilot’s seat and was running through the pre-sail checks with a flippant ease that told her he’d done this a hundred times. She took a deep breath to steady herself and sat down in one of the rear seats, buckling her harness as tightly as it would go. Even in the midst of her nervousness, she noticed that the seats were far more comfortable than those in a cinder coach. Fleet funding had some definite advantages.
Louise climbed into the skiff and chose the seat next to her, giving Elsa an encouraging smile as she buckled her own harness. “Well, look at you! You ended up getting planetside after all. Don’t tell Hon; he’ll be furiously jealous.”
“I won’t.” Elsa had no intention of provoking the strange, volatile engineer. “He’s an interesting character,” she commented carefully. She wondered how someone as cool and calm as Louise ended up with someone like Hon, but she didn’t know the older woman well enough to pry. “I look forward to working with him,” she concluded. It wasn’t quite true, but it seemed the right thing to say.
Louise guffawed, causing Karl to glance in their direction as he hopped aboard himself and sealed the rear hatch. “I seriously doubt that,” Louise commented. “No one really looks forward to working with Hon—at first. He’s all spines on the outside, but he has a mushy core, I assure you.”
“So I’ve been told,” Elsa said dryly.
“Cast off, Arne,” Karl said from the back of the skiff. The heavy vehicle clanked and lurched slightly as the clamps retracted, releasing it from its moorings. Karl walked past Elsa and Louise to the front of the skiff, a focused look on his face. She wondered if he took every mission this seriously, even after leading so many, of if he was maybe just a tiny bit nervous himself. This was the first time anyone from the Common Union would explore a new planet in almost fifty years. Even the son of Jacob Tsarevich might be daunted by the idea of leading such a noteworthy mission.
“He’s really quite wonderful,” Louise replied.
Elsa blinked in surprise, having lost the thread of the conversation. “He is? Oh yes, Hon, of course. I always thought I wanted to be a propulsion engineer, and I’m grateful to him for letting me train with him.”
“You thought you wanted?” Louise gave her a look that was entirely too shrewd for Elsa’s liking. “Isn’t that still what you want?” The skiff took off from the shuttle bay, and out of the corner of her eye, Elsa saw the brightness of the Sovereign’s interior through the skiff’s forward viewscreen give way to the darkness of space.
Elsa shifted in her seat. It was on the tip of her tongue to exclaim that she didn’t know what in the worlds she wanted. She thought she wanted to be a propulsion engineer—but the idea of planetside exploration thrilled her far more than the idea of being in the engineering section all day. She thought she wanted to be a part of the Fleet—but the idea of being connected, however remotely, with an organization that might have caused her father’s death turned her stomach. She felt affection for Karl, but she didn’t truly know him yet. They were very different—perhaps too different to be a couple.
Louise must have read some of her deep ambivalence on her face. “Ah,” she said quietly. “My dear, you’re very young. Your decision—to be a propulsion engineer or to do something altogether different—does not dictate the course of your entire life. Pursue one interest. If you find it’s not what you wanted, pursue a different one. You’re not tied to one career for all time.” She idly drummed her fingers against the helmet in her lap. “Stars, I wasn’t a geologist my whole life!”
Elsa was strangely touched by the advice. Was this how other young women talked with their mothers? She had lacked that resource growing up, and had been more aware of how much she was missing in that regard as she grew older and had to confront knottier problems. “What did you do before this?” she asked Louise.
“Propulsion,” Louise replied, and winked. “How do you think I met Hon? He’s not exactly a socialite. After our training was complete, we were both assigned to the same ship. He scared the socks off of everyone else in the department, even then.” She smiled with an affection Elsa didn’t fully understand.
“But not you?” she asked. She was peripherally aware of Karl and Arne talking via commline to the Sovereign and the other skiff, arranging for the shields to be dropped so the skiffs could exit their protective shelter. Their skiff dipped sharply for a moment, causing her stomach to lurch.
“Sorry!” Arne called from the helm. “We’re through the shields. We’ll be inside the planet’s atmosphere in about twenty minutes.”
Louise’s smile only deepened; she didn’t seem to have heard Arne’s comment or noticed the lurch. “Oh no,” she said. “Never me. I’ve never been scared of James Alvolus.” She looked at Elsa. “He’s an imperfect man with enough
idiosyncrasies to fill an ore barge, but I find his imperfections and idiosyncrasies hilarious. And they’re just the outer shell of the most loyal, dedicated, driven man I know.” She waved a gloved hand. “People get hung up on all of his theatrics, but they don’t matter. Hon and I, we’re a solid team. I know he’s always there for me and would do anything to keep me safe.” She looked Elsa straight in the eye again. “And my dear, there’s nothing in this universe better than the knowledge that there’s another human being out there who always has your back.”
Elsa found she had a smile on her face just from hearing about the couple’s happiness. Their strong relationship reminded her of her parents. Her mother would be close to Louise’s age now, she guessed.
“I know what that feels like on a platonic level,” she said. “My friends and I have always worked together on the same crew, and we guard each other like family. We still work together now on the Sovereign, but it’s different.”
She hesitated. Perhaps because of the similarity between Louise and her own mother, she found herself yearning to tell Louise things she would never ordinarily reveal to a stranger. She wanted to confide in her friends and have someone understand the panicky feeling that was her constant companion time now. Fear of failure perpetually hovered at the edge of her mind. But most of her friends were happy in their new roles and couldn’t understand her fear, and after their recent discussion, she felt a distance between her and Bruno that she couldn’t quite bridge yet. Somehow it almost felt easier to tell a stranger about her troubles than it was to share them with friends.
“I’m working with Hon occasionally and spending the rest of my time as a rigger.” She paused, and then blurted out, “But when I’m in engineering, I’m not really part of the same small, cohesive team as the rest of my friends. And when I’m on the sails, I’m constantly on the verge of puking up my guts.” She winced at the memory. “I’m no longer one of the leaders in the team; I’m the one everyone else has to care for.”
Louise observed her disgusted face and said, “And you hate that, obviously.”
“Yes!” Elsa exploded, feeling the old feeling of frustrated helplessness return. “I despise it! I’m not a functional member of that team. But that team is my family; they’re all I have. If I abandon them, I have nothing.”
Louise was quiet for a moment. “It’s a hard thing,” she said finally, “when the character of the ties we rely on alters. Leaving the propulsion field was difficult for me. Like you, I thought that was what I was destined to do for the rest of my career. Everything in my life, including my new relationship with Hon, was pointing that way. But I realized that the thing I had worked tirelessly for had become a habitual goal. I kept working towards it because that’s what I had always worked towards. But it was no longer what I wanted, and my passion was elsewhere.” Her voice took on a rueful note. “And let me tell you, finally getting what you want and realizing you hate it is a tough protein cube to swallow.”
Stars, Elsa could certainly relate to that. “What did you do?” she asked.
“Scrapped it,” Louise said brusquely. “I’d always had an interest in geology as a kid but had never really thought about pursuing it. I signed up for training in the geologic section, decided after only a week that it was the field for me, and entered a two-year education program to become qualified. My first assignment was as the lowest tier geologist, and I’ve worked my way up from there.” She added, “I did make it a priority that Hon and I would always be on the same ship, however. Even if that meant taking a lower-level assignment on a larger ship where he could still work in his chosen field. I knew that following my passion couldn’t mean him abandoning his—or either of us abandoning the relationship.”
Her parents had never quite worked that out, Elsa knew. Even as a young child, she had picked up on the fact that her mother had always felt torn between her work and her family. She knew now that her parents’ marriage had suffered as a result, though she would still call it a good relationship. She had sometimes wondered if she might repeat similar mistakes in her own relationships when the time came. It was a relief to know that someone out there had made it work so well, and she found herself even more intrigued by Louise, Hon, and their interesting dynamic.
She had been so engrossed in the thoughts sparked by her conversation with Louise that she didn’t immediately notice their approach of the planet.
“Elsa, want to take a look?” Karl asked.
She nodded, but hesitated a moment before unbuckling her harness. This was her first new world, and she wanted to savor the moment. She finally stood and walked to the front of the skiff.
She was used to seeing raw, red-hot mining planets from space, burning like coals in space. She had seen Dempsie and other industrial worlds, terraformed and predictable. She had even caught a glimpse of Atthis from space once, all jewel-green and blue.
This world was unlike any she had seen before. Large swaths of its surface were a silvery green color, and there were darker blue sections of ocean. But there were also vast expanses of darkness. Not shadow, but blackness, as if the continent itself were black in color.
“Darker forests, maybe?” Karl suggested, obviously puzzled by the same thing.
Arne shrugged. Sensors would tell them more when they were closer. The planet drew closer with an almost frightening speed.
“You may want to buckle back in,” Arne commented. “We may hit a little turbulence.”
Elsa reluctantly dragged herself from the viewscreen and strapped herself back into her seat.
“We’ll find out what this place is made of soon enough,” Louise said with relish as she prepped her scanners. She grinned at Elsa. “I love cracking the secrets of a new world.”
Her enthusiasm was infectious, and the glimpse of this new planet had whetted Elsa’s curiosity as well. As her excitement mounted, her nervousness faded into the background.
The rush of atmosphere outside the skiff grew loud, and Arne tossed back over his shoulder, “Almost there. We’ll be approaching the volcanic activity in the north shortly.”
Karl twisted around in his seat to look at Elsa. “Elsa, we’ll need you for collecting volcanic samples. Once we level off, this seat is all yours.”
She tamped down the new flight of snowflies in her stomach. Karl was right: she had this.
The roar of atmosphere intensified, became almost unbearable, and then diminished as Arne used the thrusters to slow the skiff, skimming it over the planet’s surface.
Louise unbuckled her harness and stood, initializing the panel nearest her to begin recording information. “Our initial scans indicated that this planet had extensive mountainous regions, occupying up to sixty percent of the planet’s surface. I’ll be taking mineral samples from several peaks, but I’ve had less experience with lava flow.” She glanced down at Elsa. “That’s all yours, my dear.”
Elsa sucked in a deep breath, unbuckled her own harness, and stood on slightly wobbly knees. “Thanks,” she told Louise. “I’ll do my best.”
“You’ll do fine,” Louise told her, but her eyes were already alight with the data incoming across her panel. Elsa could tell she lived for moments like this, the first taste of a new world.
“Elsa, come and see this,” Karl called to her, his voice altered in some way she couldn’t define. She moved to the prow of the skiff, glanced through the viewscreen, and choked on the words she had been about to say.
The planet laid out before them was dramatically impressive. Her home planet of Anser had possessed a few modest mountain ranges, but she felt embarrassed to have referred to them as mountains now. Those snow-covered hills couldn’t compare with the gargantuan peaks carpeting the planet’s surface. They shot into the sky, reminding her of man-made skyscrapers she had seen in images of industrial worlds. Their jagged fingers almost seemed as though they could reach out and snare the skiff, and she felt an irrational desire to ask Arne to fly a little higher.
The most striking aspe
ct of the mountain range, however, was the composition of the rock. From her vantage point, many of the peaks almost looked like black glass, glittering shards piercing the sky. Their smooth, fragmented surfaces reflected the bright sunlight back at her, shimmering like a broken black mirror. Far below the height of the mountains, Elsa caught a glimpse of several birds soaring, looking tiny from this altitude.
“How far does the range extend?” she marveled. “What in the worlds could those mountains be made of?”
Behind her, Louise was fairly dancing with excitement over the data pouring in from the sensors. “Some kind of extrusive igneous rock, I think. Something like obsidian, but it can’t be obsidian exactly; these formations are just too huge. Obsidian is too fragile to sustain that height.”
“How tall are these peaks?” Karl asked, his eyes still wide.
Louise made a delighted sound. “Twenty-five, maybe thirty thousand feet above sea level. Hard to tell here; sensors are having trouble telling where the formation begins.”
Arne spoke up, answering Elsa’s first question. “Anders reports that the southern region over which they’re flying now consists mainly of forest. This mountain range extends for hundreds of miles, but it certainly isn’t planet-wide.”
Louise came up to the front, looking at Karl with pleading eyes. “May I please, please take samples from one of the peaks?”
A slight frown furrowed his forehead. “I’m sorry, we’re not authorized to set foot on the planet.”
Louise dismissed that objection. “Aye, I’m aware. But we don’t need to. Elsa and I can manage with the exterior collectors.”
His face cleared. “Oh. Yes, in that case.”
Louise put a hand on the pilot’s shoulder. “Arne, can you take us right up to that peak, closest one on the port side?” She pointed with her other hand. “We’ll need to hover right above that ledge there.” She glanced over her shoulder at Elsa. “I know you were only assigned to do the volcanic sampling, but do you think you could help out with the core sampling too?”
The Star Bell (The Cendrillon Cycle Book 3) Page 8