On to Tau Ceti

by David McCahan

  “It appears we won’t have a native population to show us where to live on this world.” Jeff paused and looked over at Saoi and Glory questioningly.

  Glory spoke up “Yes Sir still nothing on the Collective radar at this point. We should be alone here.”

  “Ok then once Nav has parked us where Astrometrics has indicated then Colonel Callaghan will direct the planet-side geo and bio surveys to determine if this landing site is suitable for our populace. Colonel any comments?” Jeff indicated to Glory.

  “Yes Sir. CentCom has laid out a detailed SOP for this survey and we will follow that so materials and personnel have already been allocated and scheduled. Check your email for itinerary. Since we have some very capable resources that CentCom could never have dreamed of we intend to make use of the ‘in spirit’ first landing similar to what we did on Eden. We are pairing up members of the Collective with Columbia crew in the same disciplines as will be making the physical survey and proceed to the planet almost as soon as we make geo-sync orbit. I believe by the location and estimated time of arrival it will be well past noon local time which means that the aerial surveys will take up the rest of the daylight. In the meantime, the Collective pairings can be making visits and pre-survey the area in shifts this afternoon and really overnight as well. The shuttles will bring down the survey teams then at first light so long as everything checks out up to that point. Any questions or comments?” Glory looked over the room for questions.

  “Colonel, how many Columbia crew in total and in shifts are we looking at for the in spirit survey.” Rhonda Evans asked.

  “We total 120 ship’s crew going down in 3 shifts of 40. We’ve paired them up with Collective members for the surveys. To get a wider look at the planet about 500 of the Collective are going to fan out and explore other areas. I take it that you would like the crew to leave their bodies in your care while they are on planet?” Glory figured that was where the question was going.

  “So long as you don’t plan to scare the living daylights out of me again when you come back, then yes the old worrying doctor would like to monitor the bio readings and I think we can manage the 80 per shift but another 500 I’m not sure whether we can manage enough monitors.” Rhonda replied.

  “Doctor Evans, we welcome your care but to the Collective this type of separation from our physical body is very routine and monitoring is not required. For the short amount of time that is being discussed here this is not even a full sleep cycle to us.” Saoi listened with Glory as he spoke hoping to not offend the doctor but to reassure.

  “Rhonda this is just very ordinary for them and he’s really hoping that you see that and not take any offense.” Glory interjected.

  Rhonda chuckled to herself slightly and waived off any hint offense. “No offense taken and give me some more time to adjust and I’ll stop insisting on monitoring the crew. I accept that the Collective do not need monitoring for this. It is cute watching you finish each other’s sentences and thoughts though.”

  “I second that notion. So does anybody have anything to add at this point?” Jeff looked around the room for a moment. “Then the time to orbit is fast approaching. Let’s get to our duty stations.”

  Index

  Chapter 6 - Landing

  “Reducing velocity to .4 C and correcting course to enter orbit.” Eva Svenson narrated on the com to C&C as she completed the final approach to Atlantis. “Entering orbit and approaching position over landing site …… all stop, geo-sync orbit achieved. Welcome to Atlantis!”

  The celebration of the crew could hardly be heard in C&C over their own cheering. Jeff walked over to Glory since it was so loud and he didn’t want to interrupt the revelry. “Glo you’re clear to send in the Collective and their pairings to start the spirit survey. Also get Lt Sato and his shuttles underway for the aerial survey. Once you’re sure that everything is on schedule then you two can head down and get a good first look.”

  “Yes Sir. The first flight of shuttles is lifting off as we speak, the 500 collective are halfway to the planet at this point and the first 40 crew are in medical and will be heading planet side in the next minute or two.” Glory stood and looked at her commander and friend for a moment.

  “Ok ok, I was just speaking so that I could actually say that I gave the order. Shoo, go on you two but be back by 10. No staying out after curfew.” Jeff said and then turned to go back to his workstation. “How come she gets to have all the fun? I never did get that puppy either.”

  Glory and Saoi proceeded to medical so that Doctor Evans could keep an eye on their bodies while surveying the landing site. Seeing them enter Rhonda walked over to meet them. “So you two ready to join the party?”

  “Yes and I really want to see his reaction to a planet with a yellow sun instead of the red sun he grew up with.” Glory commented.

  “I remember how weird that the green water was for me when we landed at Babylon. Too bad there will be no way to get a picture of his expression. Oh well you can tell me about it later, so I have two beds over here for you. I know this is being overly cautious but I’ll still feel better with you on our monitors so thank you for indulging me.”

  “Doctor it is our pleasure and we appreciate your caring for us.” Saoi said through his vocalizer as they stretched out on the beds and two techs hooked up their sensor suites.

  Shaking a finger at Glory in mock annoyance Rhonda said “Now you promised not to scare me when you come back and I’m going to hold you to that. You’re likely to give me a heart attack and I’ll come back and haunt you if that happens.”

  Glory gave Rhonda a wink, crossed her heart and said “I promise I’ll be good. Now you take really good care of me while I’m not here and we’ll see you in a few hours. Leave the light on and I won’t be late.”

  With that Glory and Saoi separated, then joined up and headed for Atlantis and the landing site which is to become known as Paititi if the surveys approve the site. Glory is now much stronger than when she first did this as they arrived at Eden and so the decent was much quicker but still very thrilling to be in open space and descending to the plant from hundreds of miles outside of the atmosphere. This time she didn’t fight the urge to let out a mental roller coaster scream as they rocketed towards the ground. This actually startled Saoi and he stopped, thinking something was wrong. Glory turned towards Saoi and reassured him she was just exhilarated and nothing was wrong. She merged with him so that he could understand fully. “I’m sorry I scared you I was just enjoying the rush and got carried away.”

  “I see now. This ‘roller coaster’ you are thinking of is quite unusual for us. Perhaps we can experience it physically when we’re back on Earth?”

  Glory was slightly embarrassed that she had not given any thought to bringing the Collective back to Earth but now that he mentioned it she couldn’t imagine life without him. For the moment she put aside any thoughts other than Saoi and truly joined with him just as she has done with the Collective and the warmth and loving embrace was unlike anything she could imagine. For the moment the two were of one mind and everything else was pushed aside. After a while Glory felt Saoi pull back but she didn’t want to let him go.

  “Glory we have a survey to complete, we must go on.” Saoi gently nudged her back to reality and began moving them slowly toward landing.

  Regaining her perspective and rousing back to consciousness she began moving on her own again. “Ok ok I’m going. Sheesh pushy much.”

  Back on task they were over landing in a few moments and decided to swing out from the landing site to explore the surrounding area. The area reminded Glory of the African savannah but a bit less arid. The grasses were interspersed with groves of trees that were 30 to 50 foot tall. A closer look showed that many of the trees were fruit bearing similar to apples or pears. They moved in and Saoi took to examine them close and Glory followed his focus. They concluded that the fruit, while not quite ripe yet, would be suitable for humans and Collective to eat.

  �
�I hope they taste as good as they look.” Glory thought with Saoi.

  Just then something passed by the tree they were inspecting.

  “What was that?” Glory thought.

  Saoi seemed perplexed and had not seen what Glory had. She mentally directed him at a large dark creature rapidly moving out of sight. “Over there. It just ran past us.”

  “I do not sense the creature. Let us follow and listen on this.” Saoi began to move in the direction Glory had indicated.

  “Yes let’s listen more on this. We are one on this.” Glory followed.

  The beast was very fast but big and appeared powerful. It stopped suddenly ahead of them and they moved close to listen.

  “I see the creature but do not sense it or any thoughts. How odd.” Saoi thought to himself and Glory.

  This “creature” looked very much a distant cousin to the Velociraptors from Earth only larger and furry. Standing on powerful hind legs, around 10 or 12 feet tall, this raptor had brown, green and tan striped fur covering its body. A very effective camouflage for the flora found in this area. Another difference were the forearms. We tend to think of the T-Rex family as having small arms and large powerful legs and jaws. While this raptor had both of the latter it possessed what appeared to be very powerful arms with long sharp talons to grab and tear prey. The raptor was standing looking from side to side as though trying to find prey. Suddenly it turned to one side and was off at an incredibly fast rate.

  Saoi and Glory moved to keep the raptor in sight as they could not sense this creature and that was very unsettling. In a short time the raptor burst through a bush and surprised a four legged animal very similar to a gazelle. With the speed and suddenness of the approach the prey had no chance to escape. The raptor pounced, snatched the animal with those strong arms and talons and then a quick bite to the neck ended the struggle.

  “We must report this creature so that we can all listen on this. This is a great danger to our people that must be considered.” Glory thought to Saoi.

  “The Collective are aware of this creature and are now looking to see where all it lives.” Saoi responded.

  With that the pair left the raptor to its meal and headed back to their bodies so that they could report their findings to the General.

  There was no sightseeing on the return and in a matter of seconds Glory was waking her body and in her haste forgot to take a deep breath to warn the medical staff before she sat up. Seeing that Glory and Saoi were not expected back for several more hours, Rhonda Evans was totally unprepared for Glory’s lifeless body to suddenly sit up and screamed in surprise.

  “Oh Rhonda, I’m so sorry.” Glory meant the apology but was still having trouble not busting out in laughter.

  “Hey I thought we had a deal here. I swear I’m going to start putting a nerve block in so you have to open your eyes to let us know you are back and that I have to remove the block for you to move. That’ll keep you from scaring me half to death.” Rhonda was approaching Glory and shaking a finger at her as she recovered her composure.

  “I really am so sorry, we just found a really nasty dinosaur down there that poses a huge threat and was in a hurry to report in and forgot all about warning you. Please forgive us, we promise to remember next time.” Glory pleaded with her friend.

  “Actually Glory, I remembered this time so I do not need to apologize.” Saoi deadpanned to Glory.

  That brought a snicker from Rhonda. “Glo, I think you’ve been put in your place.”

  “You’ll notice the smug expression too. Yes, I stand corrected. He remembered and I’m the one that was wrong. I’m sorry Rhonda, can you forgive me?” Glory gave her friend her best sad eyes expression.

  Shaking her head and trying to keep her smile from showing “Nope, never, not gonna happen. Now off you two to give your report. Not going to guarantee I’m going to watch over your body the next time your away again either.” Rhonda said as she walked over to another monitoring station.

  “Ok thanks, we’ll see you later” Glory waved as they headed for C&C.

  Glory sent the command staff an email report as they made their way to C&C and Jeff was reading the report as they entered the room. He motioned towards his office as he saw them coming and then proceeded there with his tablet as he finished reading.

  “So we have a large fast predator that you Psi types cannot sense?” Jeff asked

  “Yes Sir. Also their hearing or sense of smell or something else is very keen.” Glory reported “We could see it but not sense anything from it. Even as fast as we can move in spirit this thing almost got away from us. It disappeared through some bushes and then stopped in a clearing. It seemed to be looking or listening for something and then all of a sudden took off in dead run for over a mile, then burst through some bushes and pounced on a four legged animal, something like a gazelle, and killed it before it could take a step. The Collective are searching the planet to see if there are any others and what their range is but we will really need to fortify the outpost if we build in this raptor’s territory. I would suggest setting up a search with the shuttles to get old fashion technology on the task to learn what we can of them.”

  “Ok, if you haven’t messaged them already then please advise Lt. Sato and have the shuttles build scanning for these raptors into their survey and let geo sciences in on this so they can begin to study it.” Jeff said to Glory but with his right eyebrow up to indicate it was also a question.

  “General I’m shocked that you would think I would redirect the shuttle surveys without clearing with you first.” Glory said in mock indignation and then “Ok I clued in Colonel Unbuntu right after sending your email but I actually held off calling Hiroshi.”

  “Well alright that counts for something. Get the shuttles scanning then and let’s get the senior staff together in about four hours, so let’s make it 2100, and see what we’ve learned in the meantime.” As they all left Jeff’s office … “You know all I wanted was a nice boring day so I could get to robotics and order a puppy. Is that too much to ask?”

  Index

  Chapter 7 - Ghost

  “The Collective have found the Spiritusraptor on all continents as far north as here and as far south as here.” Saoi pointed on the plot in the Commander’s Conference Room indicating the observed range of the Spiritusraptor (Latin for Ghost Ravisher, it is the name Geo Sciences adopted for the beast) from about 60 degrees south latitude to 55 degrees north latitude.

  “The Collective were able to study us when we first encountered you, have you been able to learn anything else about our beast?” Jeff asked.

  “No Sir and we find it most curious. We cannot sense anything about them and cannot see into the smallest, their molecular makeup, as we have been able to do with any animals we have encountered. This also seems to be unique only to them. We can study other animals and see the smallest in them and the plants. It is as though this creature blocks us somehow. It is most confusing.” Saoi held his hands up and shrugged his shoulders.

  “Thank You Saoi.” General Fitsimmons commented “That’s close to 2/3 the area of the planet. I would like to just stay clear of any of them but that’s giving up a lot of real estate. Colonel what have you been able to discover so far?” Jeff indicated to Jasper Unbuntu.

  “Yes Sir, the shuttles have been searching for our Spiritusraptor for the last four hours and while they have been able to visually spot them, the sensors on the shuttles have barely registered anything of them. Virtually no trace on infrared which would seem to indicate cold blooded but this does not jive well with the active hunting along with their speed and endurance. Their camouflage is also very effective and makes them hard to spot visually. General, I would like to physically examine one of them, alive, to find out more, actually anything, about their physiology. We have no idea what it would take to tranquilize one of these and so would have to examine a small safe animal and hope that their base physiology is similar. Even though the Collective cannot sense these but can sense
other animals, our earth tranquilizers work across most animal genomes but here it would be total guess work and until we can get up close and personal we have no idea how to detect or deter them.” Jasper concluded.

  “Colonel Callaghan?” Jeff looked to Glory to get her opinion.

  “It would be nice to find a way to live with them or at least discourage from coming around our outposts. Also just because they do not range out of the temperate zones doesn’t mean they couldn’t if some nice juicy humans started living in the colder regions. I would suggest letting Geo Sciences have a go at examining a Spiritusraptor but at the same time send a couple teams to non-dinosaur areas to check for bio hazards and possible colony locations. It goes against our protocols to upset the biological structure of Atlantis and having seen their lethality first hand I would not want to be anywhere near one of them.”

  “I would concur. Jasper you have a go on trying to study one of these and also prep two teams to do the bio screens in safe areas. Captain Gerard please send along a healthy contingent of Marines on all planet side missions. If you encounter a Spiritusraptor and need to defend the personnel, then non-lethal means if possible but do what you have to in order to protect those onsite. I don’t want anyone, including Marines, in unnecessary danger. Do I make that clear to everyone?” Jeff looked about the room and saw agreement all around. “Then Colonel Unbuntu please begin your studies and when you have something to report we’ll reconvene. Anyone have anything else?”