Atlas

by Isaac Hooke

  A different solar system overlaid my vision now. A bright yellow star dominated the center, surrounded by ellipses representing planetary orbits. The map zoomed in on the second planet. The rotating surface was gray and brown, with no visible water masses. A smattering of clouds sprinkled the atmosphere. "Here we have the second planet, a terrestrial, rough Mars Analog. Turns out the planet's entire mantle is rich in Geronium-275. As in, 95% of the surface. That's right, a massive, naturally-occurring source of starship fuel just waiting for us to dig up. We've nicknamed the planet Geronimo. The SKs had already started terraforming it: see the little cloud specks in the picture? That's from Forma pipes driven into the surface. Even though the planet is abandoned, those pipes are still functioning. Don't get too excited though: The atmosphere isn't breathable, not yet. Nor is the pressure conducive to human life. The radiation doesn't help much, either. You're going to need full jumpsuits down there."

  My attention was drawn to a beacon that now flashed on and off in the planet's uppermost hemisphere.

  "Here we have what appears to be an abandoned SK outpost. Your target. Your job is to go in, land on Geronimo, scout the outpost, find out what spooked the SKs, potentially secure the planet for the UC, then get out."

  The graphical overlay faded from my vision.

  Sounds easy enough, Alejandro transmitted.

  Always sounds easy, Ghost sent. Never is.

  "There are no other ships in the system. No hostiles that we can detect. No signs of bioweapons. As I said, it's been eight months since the SKs abandoned the system. So it should be a cakewalk. But, there is one small thing I should mention."

  Here it comes... Lui sent.

  "Normally Slipstream jumps transport a ship between fifteen to forty lightyears. The longest jump we know of is ninety lightyears. Well, the Gate to Geronimo? When the probe returned and dumped its data, the telemetry told us it had traveled 8,000 lightyears."

  That statement was met with stunned silence.

  "We're going to travel 8,000 lightyears?" Big Dog finally said. The disbelief was obvious in his voice.

  "We are. Geronimo is located in NGC 3372, right inside the nebula known as 'God's Birdie' on Earth." A nebula shaped like a hand flipping the bird overlaid my vision. "This is the farthest anyone has ever gone, other than the SKs. Before now, we as a species have never traveled more than ninety lightyears away from our cozy little planet. We've barely scratched the surface of our own galaxy, let alone our own interstellar neighborhood. We would've reached NGC 3372 eventually, of course—in about five centuries, given the current rate of Slipstream discovery and colonial expansion. But we have ourselves a shortcut now, a chance to establish a foothold in a part of the galaxy entirely unknown to us."

  He paused, reflecting for a moment. "I'm excited, but also hesitant at the same time. Probes can be wrong. There's only so much data that can be read from orbit. Which is why we need the Teams in there. Alfa and Bravo platoons are among the best we have, which is why Brass chose you. When the feces hits the fan, you're the ones we want at the forefront, wiping that feces off and lobbing it right back in the face of whoever threw it in the first place." He glanced at the portal in the briefing hall, toward the Gate. "That said, we do have a contingency plan in place, if something goes wrong. A plan most of you won't like. Some of you may have noticed we're sending a probe back and forth through the Gate multiple times a day. Well, that probe is returning telemetry data, and once we're through, if the Royal Fortune drops off the map for more than an hour, Fleet has orders to blow the Gate on this side." He paused, letting the ramifications sink in. "We also have the full authority to destroy the return Gate, if deemed necessary. So." He gave us his biggest fake smile. "Any more questions?"

  "Other than the obligatory one about how we plan on sneaking a planet's worth of Geronium-275 through SK space if we're successful?" Fret said, smiling ironically.

  Braggs smiled patiently. "That's a bridge for the Brass to cross, if we ever come to it. Though I'm pretty sure you all know the answer to that."

  All-out war between the UC and the SKs.

  * * *

  Crossing Anesidora II was just as anticlimactic as passing through all the previous Gates, except we didn't have to queue up.

  I had my Implant linked to the external viewscreen so I could watch the crossing in realtime. When the Royal Fortune went through, as usual I couldn't tell how far the stars had moved, and they seemed completely different to my eyes. Normally I'd be able to orient myself after a few seconds, but not this time. The constellations hadn't merely shifted a few centimeters—they actually were completely different.

  Well, what did I expect? The Royal Fortune had just leapfrogged 8,000 lightyears. Of course the stars were going to be different out here. All our telemetry, and everything we knew about this place from Earth, was 8,000 years old—discounting the most recent data obtained from the probes of course.

  "Rade, you gonna get your girlfriend to give us a feed?" Bender said, toying with one of his gold chains.

  "She's not my girlfriend," I said, maybe a bit more defensively than I intended. He was just trying to bother me. Only a few people in the platoon knew what was going on between me and Shaw, and he wasn't one of them.

  Or so I hoped.

  "Just get us the damn feed," Bender said.

  Even if he knew about Shaw, he'd never bring it up with the Chief or the Lieutenant Commander. It was an unwritten rule: No one ratted out a member of the Teams. No one. Not even if that member was a caterpillar.

  "Fine." I keyed Shaw. She gave me access to her cochlear feed without a word. She knew what I wanted.

  I fed the feed through to the platoon comm line for my brothers.

  "Telemetry report," the Captain said.

  "Everything is consistent with what the probes sent." I didn't recognize the voice, but I supposed it belonged to one of the officers, or maybe one of the Fleet scientists we had on board. "G-class main-sequence star. Three planets. Mining outpost detected on the second planet, along with partial atmospheric terraforming. I'm not detecting any other vessels, nor any signs of life on the planets. The star field patterns are consistent with NGC 3372, taking into account the time dilation from our previous frame of reference. There's still something I can't figure out though."

  "What's that?" Captain Drake said.

  "Why the nebula, NGC 3372, isn't here."

  "Well, as the Brass said, things are going to change in the time it takes the light to travel 8,000 years back to Earth," the Captain said.

  "That's true, Captain, but according to my latest readings from the trace gases I'm picking up, that nebula should have stuck around for at least another 20,000 years."

  The bridge crew was silent for a moment. All I heard was the gentle whirring of various ships systems, and the occasional soft beep as someone accessed a bridge control.

  "Well," Captain Drake said. "We're the farthest anyone from the UC has ever gone. We're treading unmarked ground here. Expect things to be a little strange. Maybe this is some new attribute of nebulae that we haven't discovered yet, and our physics model needs some updating. I'll let you work on figuring that out. In the meantime, I'm going to call the stand down."

  Captain Drake's voice came over the main circuit.

  "Secure from General Quarters! All hands stand down. Return to normal duties. The time is 0800."

  "All right mates, time for the gym," Facehopper said. "We have forty days to Geronium. I don't want to waste a single one of them."

  * * *

  "Do you think we'll find aliens?" Alejandro said after PT later that day, when we were showering in the hydro-recycle containers.

  Facehopper laughed. "Bro, we're the aliens now."

  "Okay okay," Alejandro said. "But you know what I mean. Come on, you heard all that bridge chatter about the nebula being gone. What do you think? Gotta be an alien's work. If we meet one do I have permission to blow it up?"

  Facehopper gave him a look of mock
serious. "No you do not. You are to leave all alien life alone, for later tagging and bagging."

  "Stop talking about aliens," Lui said. "Like the Captain said, our physics model just needs some updating."

  "Aliens? Did someone say aliens?" Tahoe came into the showers. "Did I ever mention the Rare Earth Hypothesis?"

  Alejandro glanced at me, and I shook my head. "Nope."

  "For the benefit of those who haven't heard it, the hypothesis states that alien life is not possible, because the conditions required for life to develop naturally are far too rare. Earth is the only inhabited planet in the entire galaxy. And possibly the entire universe. Hence the name, Rare Earth."

  "You're discounting the colony worlds," Facehopper said.

  "That's true. But I did say alien life. We're basically just creating more Rare Earths by terraforming and colonizing. And actually, that brings up an interesting point. Can you imagine ten thousand years from now when the colonies we've populated come to fruition? Or how about fifty thousand years. Or a hundred. The genetic differences between humans on each colony world will be immense. We'll have created our own aliens."

  "A hundred thousand years," Alejandro mused. "Caramba. I can't even think past next week, and you expect me to imagine what life will be like a hundred thousand years from now?"

  "And I haven't even touched on biologics," Tahoe said. "We've already recreated the woolly mammoth. The Tyrannosaurus Rex. When are the custom bioweapons coming? An army of face-sucking creatures straight out of a vid. We're creating our own aliens, boys."

  It was a sobering thought. "That's not something any of us will have to deal with in our lifetimes," I said.

  "You keep up on the news, don't you, Rade?" Tahoe said. "The SKs have been performing bioweapons research for decades now, mixing and matching DNA from multiple species, insectoid, mammalian, fish, customizing the brains to provide easy access for implantable circuitry, with the goal being, of course, to create the ultimate biological weapon. You heard about the Ghengis Blast?"

  "Yeah." The Ghengis Blast was a planet-scale thermobaric test the SKs had conducted a few years ago. They'd launched it against one of their own minor colonies, Alpha Centauri 2. The planet's surface had been obliterated.

  "Well," Tahoe continued. "The conspiracy theorists think Alpha Centauri 2 had been overrun by some of the SKs own creations. They nuked the planet to hide the evidence, and prevent it from spreading."

  "The conspiracy nuts are wrong," Lui interjected. "Alpha Centauri 2 had a nitrogen atmosphere. Couldn't support any animal life, genetically engineered or not."

  Tahoe turned toward him. "Who says genetically engineered life needs an O2 atmosphere?"

  "Yeah, well, all this bioweapon stuff is overrated," Lui said. "You mentioned the Tyrannosaurus Rex. What about the Rex the SKs crossed with a Brontosaurus a few years back?"

  "Didn't work out too well for them," Tahoe said.

  "Exactly. Sure, the thing had the head of a Tyrannosaurus, but it's Brontosaurus body made it far too slow for any kind of predation. Couldn't even catch food for itself, let alone function as a real weapon. Though I suppose it would have been a great unit for tanking. Anyway, the SK government got its money back by setting up an exhibit in one of its twisted Bioengineering Zoos. They feed the thing fattened sheep, political prisoners, and disgruntled citizens."

  "The SK justice system at its finest." Facehopper dried himself off.

  "You're missing the point," Tahoe said. "The Tyrannosaurus Rex is perfectly capable of being a bioweapon on its own."

  Lui shook his head. "Give me an ATLAS mech and put me in a room with a Rex, and I guarantee you the Rex will be coming out of that room in pieces. As for my mech, won't have a scratch."

  "I hope you're right," Fret said. The super tall, super skinny MOTH had the odd habit of scrubbing himself with a brush whose stiff fibers ordinarily were used to clean torpedo shafts. He was working on his privates right now, which always made me cringe. I think he did it to show that although he wasn't as muscular as everyone else, he was tough. Or maybe he just liked the fresh feeling you got when you scoured your balls with a torpedo brush.

  "Well of course I'm right," Lui said.

  "You heard what the LC said during the briefing?" Fret persisted.

  Lui dried off under an air outlet. "What?"

  "Intel's best guess is that the SKs unleashed some sort of bioweapon on Geronimo. I tell you, I got a bad premonition about this one, people."

  "You always have a bad premonition." Facehopper patted Fret on the shoulder before leaving the hydro-recycle area. "Take a happy pill, mate."

  I had to agree with Fret on this one.

  In the coming weeks, the dread I felt only increased the closer we got to our destination, and the farther we traveled from the Gate. It felt to me like the thin thread that connected us to our homeworld was stretching, becoming thinner by the moment, like it was going to snap any day now and trap us here forever.

  Only when I was with Shaw did I forget that dread, losing myself in her. But the moment I left her presence, the sense of foreboding always returned.

  I had no reason to feel this way. Everything was quiet out there in the system. No sign of any hostiles. Or anything amiss.

  Maybe that was the problem.

  It was a little too quiet out there.

  The PT and training helped distract me, as did the camaraderie and competition among my teammates. If I didn't have them, and Shaw, I probably would have gone insane. I don't know how people could travel solo in space, especially on a dangerous mission. That was a recipe for mental disaster.

  * * *

  We were about ten days out from Geronimo when I awoke to the klaxon.

  "General Quarters!" came the voice over the main circuit. "General Quarters! All hands man your battle stations. Up and forward to starboard, down and aft to port. General Quarters, general Quarters. Torpedo strike, starboard side! Torpedo strike!"

  There was a fire in the berthing hall. I leaped down from my rack. Everyone had already made it out. Except Alejandro and me.

  I forced him awake.

  "What's going on?" Alejandro said.

  "We're under attack! Torpedo strike!"

  We hurried to the door. It wouldn't open. Lockdown.

  I checked my HUD map. Most of the crew seem congregated on the bridge and outlying corridors.

  I heard a distant explosion, and the ship rocked. I lost my balance but Alejandro caught me.

  "What are we going to do, Rade?" he said.

  I coughed. The smoke inhalation was getting to me. The entire far bulkhead was on fire.

  "Gotta get suited up!" I told him.

  The two of us retreated to the armory, and we put on the spare jumpsuits.

  I just finished securing my helmet when the bulkhead failed.

  The explosive decompression sucked the two of us into space.

  I was still facing the ship, and watched it recede. I instinctively reached a hand toward it, grasping at the empty space in front of me as if I could somehow clutch the privateer. I hadn't had time to attach a jetpack.

  "Alejandro. Did you get a jetpack? Alejandro?"

  The hull of the ship was blackened in several areas, and one exposed region was sparking repeatedly. That was the bridge.

  Shaw.

  I tried a message to her Implant. Shaw, can you read? Shaw!

  The ship drifted away. Or rather, I did.

  I had to get back to the bridge, somehow. Find Shaw. I hadn't seen any of the lifeboats launch. She was still aboard. She needed me. "Alejandro, where the hell are you? We have to get back to the ship. Alejandro?"

  No answer.

  "Alejandro?" I was starting to get a sinking feeling in my stomach.

  If he hadn't secured his helmet in time...

  A torpedo struck the Royal Fortune and the privateer split in two.

  "No."

  Another torpedo. Another.

  Each strike felt like a physical blow to my
own body.

  "Alejandro. Shaw. Anyone. Do you read?'

  No answer.

  I was alone. Trapped, immobile in a jumpsuit, waiting for my oxygen to run out.

  My ship gone.

  My friends, probably dead.

  And then I had a 9mm pistol in my hand.

  I was standing at the edge of some sort of obsidian cliff, in the heart of a volcano. A stream of lava geysered beside me.

  Alejandro was on his knees before me. He was looking up at me, his eyes entreating.

  "Please Rade, don't kill me," he said.

  My 9-mil was pointed right at his head.

  Of its own volition, my finger applied pressure to the trigger...

  I woke up drenched in sweat.

  * * *

  The end of the forty days finally came.

  I was doing PT in the gym with the rest of my platoon when Facehopper, who was leading us in a series of body-weight squats, abruptly froze. His eyes seemed to defocus, then he nodded.

  When he glanced at us his expression was grim.

  "It's time."

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  Every member of Alfa Platoon stood in the Royal Fortune's launch bay, which had been retrofitted with long magnetic tracks for the upcoming drop. All of us were in jumpsuits, jetpacks fully fueled, rebreathers charged. The only thing left was to wait the designated hour for our bodies to adapt to the suits.

  "This is the worst part," Ghost said. "The time before the drop. Being on the drop is fine. You know, taking fire. Dishing it out. Performing your mission. But right here, right now, this is the worst. The waiting."

  "Sure mate," Facehopper said. "But it always ends quick."

  "Not always," Ghost said.

  Beside him, I started tapping out a staccato rhythm on my jumpsuit leg assembly.

  "Stop fidgeting," Manic said. "You're making me nervous."

  "Definitely don't want that," Fret said. "When Manic's nervous, he shoots his mouth off. Better stop, Rade."