“Hello,” I said, slowly and clearly.
There was no reaction.
“Hello? Bonjour? Guten tag? Bore Da? Ohayo?”
The man looked at me blankly. I wondered if he was deaf, but then one of his group near the stream hit one stone on another. My fellow’s head swung around at the sound, then returned to stare blankly at me.
“Can you speak?” I asked.
He turned away, clearly neither comprehending nor interested. I wandered amongst the group, but saw no sign of speech or any other sort of communication between them. There were no tools or artefacts of any type in sight and I came to the conclusion that their civilisation was at a very early stage.
First Contact had been made though, and I had at least some data to send back to Star Base. Time to return to the ship, I decided. Turning around, I touched the surrounding hedge and a tremor ran around the village. Odd, I thought. Every face had turned towards me at once, but then the blank expression I was accustomed to returned. The humanoids returned to the little that they were doing, and became absorbed in the non-tasks.
At the tree line, I leant back against a tree and watched the settlement again through the binoculars. Apart from the excitement of knowing that I had just made First Contact with a new people, I had found the whole experience entirely underwhelming. My back felt warm against the tree. The leaves and shrubs rustled in the slight breeze, and even the light rain felt warm and welcoming.
If The Free Union of Worlds wanted to colonise a new planet I thought, then this would be ideal. The atmosphere was grand, the temperature pleasant and the slightly lighter gravity delightful. That the lower gravity than Standard had allowed the plants to develop wildly was rather a bonus to someone like me who spent most of his life in the arid environment of a star ship. In fact, I thought, it might be a good idea to take a plant back with me. It would brighten up the living quarters. More than one, I then thought? No, perhaps too much of a good thing.
Leaving the tree line, and the sight of the visually delightful but otherwise disappointing humanoids in the settlement, I made my way slowly back to the ship. In my absence the foliage had swiftly covered most of the ship, but the entry port was still just visible. I pulled the fronds and leaves away from it with no real difficulty, and tapped the entry code into the keypad beside the door. The keypad fizzled a bit, and nothing happened. I cursed, loudly. Of course, it was designed to work in water free conditions; and all the humidity and rain, not to mention the damp leaves slapping around the ship, must have affected it.
Fortunately, the designers had thought of that too, which made a pleasant change. There was an emergency opening device – which of course sat in pristine splendour inside the hatch, as I had forgotten to take it with me. The keypad however had not been designed to resist a determined attempt to prise it open by a pilot terrified of getting stuck on an unknown planet, and came apart without putting up much of a fight. I found a dry bit of clothing inside my flight suit, dried the contacts and tried the entry code again. This time the hatch slid open, and with relief I half fell inside.
With the hatch safely closed, and the ship secure against whatever might be out there, I went and had a shower. In a clean(ish) uniform, I went into the Flight deck and sat in the pilot’s chair. Hoping that the chair did not disgrace me by dropping me to the floor, I opened the commchannel and my superior appeared, yawning, in a very short time.
“Still alive then?” he asked.
An unconventional greeting, I thought, but responded politely.
“So,” he continued, “what did you find?”
“Life, sir. But not as we know it.”
“Don’t take the mickey, lad.”
“Sorry, sir. Human life, but their development stage seems to be pre-speech. About Level One on the chart.”
“Any other sentient life forms?”
“Apparently none, sir. I made First Contact, but their social development seems to be very primitive. Sentient seems to be a bit much to say about them.”
“Very well. You’ve concluded your assigned task, so now we can dispatch the second team to inspect them in detail. You may return to Star Base.”
“Thank you, sir.”
“Good job, well done. Send the recordings over on this channel before you leave, please.”
In a welter of static, my superior vanished. The images and sound recordings of the planet’s only more or less sentient life forms that I had taken were stored already in a compressed file, so I dispatched them to Star Base and prepared the ship for flight. After landing on any planet, the wise pilot carries out a number of checks, both electronic and visual. Everything seemed to be as it should, so I prepared to lift the ship. Then a stray memory filtered through and leaving the engines to warm up for flight, I climbed back down to the storage chamber. A suitable large container lay in one corner, so after peering through the glass I opened the hatch. Again warm air filled the chamber, and I sighed in pleasure. Then stepping outside the ship I chose a large plant at random and dug it out of the ground. It came willingly enough, and I dropped it into the container and brought it back into the ship. Once installed in my sleeping chamber it cheered the place up no end.
Back in the pilot’s seat, I opened up the engines, reversed the ship out of its hiding place, and lifted from the surface. Departing after First Contact is also a procedure subject to a number of protocols and regulations in order to avoid frightening the indigenous population if they are at an early stage of development. At a reasonable height I accelerated to escape velocity and set course for Star Base before relaxing.
*
On the planet surface, the sentient and thoroughly self-aware plant shook several fronds in satisfaction. First Contact was always a difficult scenario; but it had managed to install a spore of itself into the funny small can that had just flown off and it was confident that the new plant would thrive and soon be able to feed upon its favourite food – intelligence. After all, the other humans it farmed had arrived from other planets a few years back and some variety in diet would be nice. Perhaps the spore would return with more specimens before too long.
Chapter five
Running Repairs
The disturbance was really, really annoying. I was lying in my sleeping pod with my eyes closed, listening to Bach’s Toccata and Fugue (back at Base I tended to play more music related to my culture: but I found that reggae, dealing with the forced movement of a people around three thousand miles across one ocean didn’t resonate with me while out in space and three hundred light years from the nearest bar) and trying to relax. After all, even the pilot of a single seat scout craft cannot actually fly the thing 24/7. That’s what the flight computer is for; and any way, in Hyperspace things happen far too fast for the human to keep up. Scheduled breaks are essential, and I was enjoying mine until the speaker built into one wall suddenly exploded, showering a trail of sparks across the living area and setting light to my socks.
I know, I know, it was slovenly of me to have left my socks on the floor, but living alone it is unfortunately easy for your standards to slip. I poured some cold coffee on the smouldering socks and walked over to the wall to examine the speaker. Just as I reached out to the wall, a klaxon went off in the flight deck. Pausing only to turn off the music system, I hurried to the pilot’s chair to see what was going on.
Half the flight console seemed to be on fire: it wasn’t thankfully: but the flashing red warning lights everywhere made it look that way. With a lurch that threw me out of the chair cursing, the ship lost speed and fell out of hyperspace, and continued to lose power. Quickly I started shutting down the auxiliary systems. Then the dratted klaxon went off again, this time so close to my ear that I was deafened.
As I closed down the systems, the warning lights went off. At last only the main power system and my hearing seemed to be in crisis. Oh, and my heart rate. This was the solo scout pilot’s worst nightmare: a technical breakdown and the fire alarm. Gulping the remains of another
cup of cold coffee that just happened to be on the flight console, I decided to inspect the engine compartment. I stumbled through the living quarters which were now garishly lit only by the red emergency lights.
The door to the engine bay was half hidden in the kitchen area at the back of the living quarters, and had a keypad entry system protected by enough warnings to deter any but the most persistent visitor. Luckily in a ship as old as this, the keypad was so well used that the correct numbers had almost been worn away by the mechanics’ constant use. It wasn’t hard to gain access, but I rather wished that I hadn’t bothered.
The cause of all the fuss was not too hard to spot. The large cluster of wires running along the bulkhead was on fire. Quickly I dragged my tshirt over my head and beat at the flames. Unfortunately, that just set my tshirt alight and I had to drop it before it set the rest of my clothes on fire too. Fortunately, there was a fire extinguisher bolted to a nearby panel. Unfortunately, it had been overlooked at the last service, and only a small dribble of foam came out of the nozzle. There was another extinguisher nearby and I seized it with a glad cry; and dropped it at once. The metal casing was incredibly hot. It fell onto my bare foot and the pin popped out of the handle. I started hopping in pain and the extinguisher started spraying foam in random directions from the hose. After a minute or two the flow died away, and I managed to clear the foam from my eyes. With some relief, I saw that the foam had coated everything in sight including the burning cables, which had gone out.
The immediate crisis was over. I slumped back against the solid casing of the main drive unit and thought about relaxing. The fire alarm warbled uncertainly and went quiet, which did help me to relax. Whatever was wrong was, at least, not getting worse.
Leaving the engine bay, I went into the kitchen area and tried the kettle. No luck. The sockets had clearly been affected by the fire, as had the main lighting. However, the lights did shine properly in the flight deck. “Must be on a separate circuit,” I said aloud and was surprised to hear my own voice sound rather muffled.
Next to the vidscreen was a smaller monitor screen I could not remember seeing lit up before. In fact I had always assumed that it had been disconnected during one of the technical makeovers on the Speedbird, and not removed. Now however it was backlit and covered in glowing green script. Intrigued I inspected it more closely and discovered that it was full of useful, if disturbing, damage reports.
When you are floating in a tin can, far above the nearest world, it is astonishing how quickly you can get bored with reading reports describing the damage to said tin can. I tried the keyboard below the screen and quickly managed to change the screen to display the functions that were still available.
My first concern was the air supply and the air purifiers, known as Scrubbers. Once I had seen that they remained online, although on the emergency power supply, I felt easier. Next, the Flight deck itself was functional as it too had an emergency reserve source. The navigation system had limited functionality, as did the guidance computer. The main drive was working as was the secondary drive, so I had plenty of power; but neither were linked to the navcomm and guidance computers. The auxiliary jets for manoeuvring were fully functional though, which was a big bonus. The commscreen flickered but showed little enthusiasm for connecting me with Star Base. I heard snatches of distant conversations as I searched the frequency bands, but nothing that was helpful to me in my predicament.
Back in the living quarters I took further stock of my position. Most of the food I had on board was in deep cold storage, needing a microwave to make it edible. So that was not good news. Nor could I make any hot drinks; I would be forced to subsist on the cans of beer I had smuggled on board. The shower obviously wouldn’t work, and the toilet would no longer accept the by-products of my existence, package them neatly and eject them out into space for me.
The door to the engine bay was still open, so I went inside and stared at the damage. Now that the smoke and foam had cleared away, it was not as serious as I had feared and I began to wonder if repairs were within my scope.
The flight deck had an operations manual, so I went back to the pilot’s seat and started to examine the manual in detail. I hadn’t bothered to open it before, and several of the pages seemed to be glued together by a combination of old age, spilt coffee and a smeared substance that I hoped was jam. Finally, I came across a page that looked as if a three year old had been let loose with a crayoning set. After turning it round and round and staring it from several angles, I decided that it was either the electrical schematic diagram or an engineer had eaten some bad sushi before opening the Manual.
I longer for coffee to help me understand the scribblings, and the fact that until I had understood them coffee was impossible spurred me to greater efforts. After ten minutes, it became clear that what had caught alight was part of the main wiring loom running to the flight console. However, the emergency supply meant that the console would still operate and even give me a certain limited flight performance. But not hyperspace capability.
This was serious. I had no real idea where I might be in the universe but would take any sort of bet on the thought that it was a long way home in normal flight mode. Trying hard not to panic, I moved this train of thought along.
I wanted to get home.
The Speedbird could not get me home.
Could I abandon the Speedbird, and get a lift? That would depend on whether or not I was presently in The Free Union; and as I had been on a mission along the quiet part of the border, there was a good chance that I wasn’t and that I could wait a long time for a lift. A long time without coffee. Noooooooo.
Therefore, I had to get the Speedbird repaired. I had been on enough emergency training courses to feel confident that I could make some running repairs and try to get home, but I would have to land somewhere to carry out the repairs.
You see where logical thought can get you? I had a plan. Feeling more confident now that I had a plan, I returned to the Flight deck and activated the vidscreen and the navcomm. Where I was did not matter so much right now as what might be nearby, and there indeed was a likely looking planetary system.
The navcomm told me fairly quickly where I was. On the wrong side of the border with the Imperium. That wasn’t good. I really did not want to be captured and handed over to their intelligence unit. On the other hand, I was not in the normal militarised zone, which had been where I had been headed, so that was a positive. There was one planet in the system capable of sustaining my life, and realistically that was my only option, so I took it and tried not to think of anything that might go wrong. The list was too big, for a start.
The manoeuvring jets gave me enough control of the Speedbird’s trajectory to achieve a high orbit. While all that was going on, I went and turned off the main drive in the engine bay using the direct controls on the housing. The Speedbird was going fast enough already and needed to decelerate in any event. Then I finished another two cans of beer and thought about a serious problem. The lack of power meant that the waste compactor wasn’t working either, and I didn’t dare go back to Star Base with all those empty cans hanging around in the living quarters! With a fresh urgency, I examined the planet below me.
First, there were no air defenses visible against incoming craft. But there was one military base in view, with a couple of Imperium Space Freighters on the landing pad. That had to be good, as there must be some sort of maintenance facility with the materials to repair the Speedbird. I maintained the orbit, and thought.
Getting more information seemed like a wonderful way of managing to put off taking a decision, so I opened another can of beer and varied the rotation and angle of the orbit while we slowly lost height. The planet seemed to be only sparsely occupied. There were plenty of farms and several installations to extract other mineral resources, but no other – wait! There, almost hidden on one large island there was another military base. This one bristled with the most modern ground to air weaponry and detection devi
ces. Without any hesitation I veered away from the place, recording what details I could.
That particular spot was clearly too high risk as a landing place. Military bases of that nature usually have guards who are inclined to shoot first and ask difficult to answer (especially if they are asked of the dead!) questions later. So that meant trying my luck at the freighter port. Now, either I could try and sneak down nearby and using my newly learnt skills as a scout pilot, steal what I needed; or alternatively land openly at the freighter base and try and blag what I needed. At the last resort, I had a supply of useable Trading Credits for bribery.
At that moment the Speedbird lurched, spilling my last remaining beer across the flight console. The monitor screen flashed all sorts of alarming messages that boiled down to this: two of the manoeuvring jets had burnt out from overuse. The Speedbird lurched alarmingly and started to lose height.
I have found that when your options narrow down to just one chance of survival or as an alternative, certain death, it is a lot easier to make a decision. Quickly I set up an approach to the Freighter Base, and crossed everything I could move. The commscreen flickered with static and a bleary-eyed Vegan appeared, asking what my intentions were. For those who have never flown as pilot in command, ‘What are your intentions?’ is Interstellar Flight Controller shorthand for ‘Have you the faintest idea what you are doing and do you have any explanation for your idiotic or insane behaviour?’
At least all flightspeak is normally in Standard, so I replied in that language. “Classified mission Speedbird on approach for emergency landing with multiple electrical failures. Request clearance and emergency assistance standby. High Security Classification, do not log or record transmissions.” I hoped the latter comment might help me get away if I got down in one piece.
The Flight Controller stopped being bleary-eyed and became professional immediately. “Transmission acknowledged, Speedbird.” Casting a glance into the commscreen I saw his hand slam down onto the crash alarm on his console. The Speedbird trembled and shook violently, and I did the same in sympathy. “Will this be a vertical landing?” asked the Controller.
Scout Pilot Of the Free Union (Space Scout Book 1) Page 6