Strange New Worlds

by Kevin McLaughlin

  If Dan didn’t know it was impossible, he’d swear he was looking at a starship. A vast, planet-sized starship. If there was one thing he was sure of after all his adventures, it was that in space, literally anything was possible.

  “Bring the Independence to alert status,” he said. “I want a flight of our fighters in the air.”

  Sure, it might be nothing. Or it could be a ship closing on their position, waiting until it got closer to strike. It never hurt to be as prepared as possible for whatever was coming.

  “Independence reports that there could be some ground disturbances coming up,” Martelle radioed to Charline.

  “How bad?”

  “They don’t know. Some sort of weird planetary shit,” the Marine replied. “Told us to be careful.”

  She laughed. “If we were going to be careful, we would have stayed home.”

  He gave her a dry chuckle in return. “Kid, when you’ve been on as many beaches as I have, you know that careful isn’t staying home. It’s staying alive wherever you find yourself.”

  “Good point,” she replied. “Scouting sweep is complete. How’s the base camp looking?”

  Her unit was closing on the shuttles again, so she could already see part of the answer to her question. A big dome stood on the ground between the three shuttles. That had gone up quick enough. It was an inflatable shelter, so it wouldn’t take a lot of damage if things got rough, but it wasn’t supposed to. That was where the science part of their mission could get their work done.

  “Preliminary results say the atmosphere’s OK to breathe, but they want to keep checking for potential contagions. Everyone is on hazmat precautions until they finish,” Martelle said.

  Charline felt for his Marines. Her people at least had a little room to move around in their walking coffins. Martelle’s troops would be stuck in their stinky suits until they could be decontaminated or given the all-clear to take them off. Better safe than sorry, but those suits had to be smelly hells already, after all the tromping around.

  “Understood. I’m standing down half my units for a rest. The other three will remain on overwatch near the shuttles,” Charline said.

  She tried to ease the tension in her back, rolling her shoulders and hearing her spine crack. The march hadn’t been that long, just a quick hike out and back. But the stress of maintaining careful vigilance when one didn’t even know what a threat might look like, never mind when it would strike, had taken a toll.

  Still, so far, so good. Everything was proceeding according to plan. With a little luck, they’d soon be able to get the data Hereford was after. Maybe this planet would prove to be the perfect hiding spot humanity needed.

  Something gnawed at the edge of her thoughts. The planet was strange in too many ways. Plenty of plants. Why were there no animals? Even a mile away from the shuttles, her motion sensors hadn’t picked up anything. Surely there would be some sort of animal life? Not seeing anything, not even bugs, felt off.

  She set the thought aside to consider it later and went about issuing orders to her teams for guard rotations.

  Six

  The Satori burst out of a wormhole, back into real-space. Beth shook her head to clear it. The exit still shook her some, even after god only knew how many jumps. Her vision cleared rapidly, and her thinking was as sharp as ever moments after arrival.

  “Report,” Beth said.

  “No encroachments detected,” Ayala replied.

  Beth heaved a sigh of relief, but in truth she was starting to get bored. The thought made her smile. Generally, being bored was a good thing out in space! It meant you weren’t at immediate risk of dying. But there she was, hoping for adventure. Wildly different from her old normal. How much had these missions changed her?

  This was the Satori’s fourth jump. They were working their way slowly outward from the star at the center of this strange solar system, checking the ‘lay of the land’ every time they exited from a jump. Then they’d charge up the engines a bit while taking some more readings and jump again to the next coordinates on the list. So far, they’d found precisely nothing out of the ordinary.

  If the system was as clear as it seemed, it might be the perfect place Hereford was looking for. One thing was sure; Beth agreed with the general that humanity needed a bolthole badly. The Naga had more ships than Earth and a lot more technical know-how. Humans were new on the interstellar scene. While Earth was doing its best to play catch-up, they were still behind, and she knew it.

  But the Naga were on the ropes against the Bugs. They’d lost entire worlds to the attacking force. Only with the combined efforts of every ship the reptilian race had plus the help of Earth’s fleet had they managed to hold on to their homeworld. It was barely a win even then. If that same fleet showed up on Earth’s doorstep, it would be game over for humanity.

  They needed a backup site badly. She prayed this would be the place.

  “How’s our charge looking?” Beth asked.

  “Good for another two or three jumps,” Lieutenant Foster said.

  “All right. Majel, you have the next jump plotted?” Beth asked.

  “Of course,” the AI replied.

  Beth tapped her fingers on her console. She wanted to continue the search of the system as quickly as she could. Any possible dangers to the Satori or Dan’s ship needed to be spotted as promptly as possible. But she had to balance that with being able to get away if they ran into any serious trouble! She was allowing enough time for the wormhole drive to recharge a little after each jump, so they always had some power to spare in case the ship needed to make a quick exit.

  “Communication coming in from the Independence,” Sergeant Harris said.

  Beth turned toward him. “What’s up?”

  “They’ve got something weird near the target planet. Requesting we check it out,” Harris replied.

  “Send the data over to my terminal,” Beth said.

  She looked over the information Dan sent. Weird was one way of putting it! The planet they’d detected shouldn’t exist. There were far too many irregularities. It was too large for its mass, the outer shell was too hard for its mass, and it was moving around the star at far too high a velocity for its distance from the body it orbited. None of it made any sense, but that last bit was especially concerning.

  An orbiting body had certain natural speeds that it could travel at and still maintain a stable orbit. If the planet went too slowly, it would fall toward the sun and either accelerate or continue dropping until it impacted the star. If a world were going too fast, like this one, it would spin off into deep space, eventually either settling into a much wider orbit or flying away from the star entirely.

  The only way it could be maintaining an orbit that rapid at that distance from the star was by the continued presence of some other force acting on it. She ran calculations in her head, trying to figure out if the nearness of its orbital path to the third planet could be causing the strange orbit, but it shouldn’t. In fact, that was another problem — their orbits were too damned close together! They ought to have collided or settled into some sort of binary planet system. Neither had happened.

  “Majel, what do you make of all this?” Beth asked.

  “Most likely answer is artificial outside interference,” Majel said.

  Beth nodded. “That’s my take, too. All right, we have enough juice for two jumps?”

  “More like three now, ma’am,” Foster replied.

  “Jump plotted to approach the planet at scanning distance,” Majel said.

  She was getting better at predicting Beth’s moves all the time. “Good. Send the jump course to the helm, and let’s get going. I want to take a closer look at our strange little friend.”

  If that planet was held on its strange course by some sort of alien tech, it was beyond anything Earth had encountered so far. The kind of power requirements to move a planet-sized object at that speed were astronomical. Beth couldn’t imagine how someone had done it. The Satori lacked
the energy required. Hell, a dozen Satoris couldn’t have accomplished that.

  But she was increasingly sure someone had. “Let’s do this.”

  The wormhole opened up brilliantly in front of the ship, and the Satori slipped through to the other side.

  “Got the planet on our scans,” Ayala said. “It’s dark. Barely reflecting any light at all.”

  Which explained why they hadn’t seen it on their first trip to this system. Not that she’d been paying much attention to the local system back then. All the crew had been more concerned with staying alive and finding a way home than they were with checking out the scenery.

  “Put it on screen,” Beth said.

  The main screen on the Satori’s bridge lit up with an image of space. Stars were everywhere, and in the middle of it was a large black blotch. There was barely any reflection from the surface at all. Mostly, she could tell where the planet was by seeing where it blotted out the stars.

  “What’s it made of?” Beth asked.

  Ayala looked over at her. “Our scans can’t penetrate the surface. Looks like a metal, to me, but I can’t get more information.”

  That matched Dan’s guesses. But if the surface was metal, the object’s low mass meant it had to be hollow. She was looking at a huge, round eggshell. “What’s inside there, you mystery?”

  There was no way to find out from this distance. They had to get closer, might even need to land on the thing to get the readings they would need.

  “All right, stand by on an emergency jump to get us clear. If that thing reacts at all to our presence, we jump back an AU away from it at once,” Beth said. “Otherwise, bring us in. Let’s see what this little package is made of.”

  Seven

  Martelle’s Marines were getting bored, just standing around waiting for the all-clear to take off their suits. Bored Marines were a bad thing. They tended to do things that everyone later regretted as a way to alleviate boredom. The better option was always to put them to work and keep them busy. He set up a patrol route, so his troops were circling the base watching for any potential problems.

  He didn’t see anything, though. The planet was practically bare. No movement at all, no bugs or mice, or much of anything else. Just the strange plants.

  “Second squad, third squad, report,” Martelle ordered over the radio. He was embedded with first squad. Boredom was as much his enemy as everyone else’s.

  “Nothing here, sir,”

  “Just plants.”

  “Same thing in our arc,” Martelle said. “Keep your eyes open. This might look something like Earth, but it isn’t. Heads on a swivel.”

  “Roger, sir.”

  His patrol was moving toward a small copse of tree-like plants. Martelle figured they’d enter the trees to see if they could spot any other signs of life there. He walked near the front of their line. Entering the tree-filled area was a strange experience. Although they weren’t tall, the trees blocked most of the light from entering. The ‘forest’ floor was only dimly lit. Martelle felt a tingle on his neck, always a warning sign for him.

  There was a rustle from behind him, followed by a thud. Martelle whirled, bringing his rifle up as he was turning. His finger ventured near the trigger well, ready to fire a burst of rounds into any threat. But there was nothing, no monster rising out of the trees to eat them all. Just a dumb private who’d fallen against a tree.

  “Williams. You couldn’t keep your feet under you?” Martelle bit out.

  “Sorry, sir! I tripped,” Private Williams responded. Another Marine was getting him back to his feet.

  He’d fallen against one of the trees, and now there was a large well-lit area around the space where he’d gone down. The tree was — well, it was still there. The trunk, anyway, and the major limbs. But the strange growths on each limb that looked like an analog for leaves were all gone.

  “What happened to the tree?” Martelle asked.

  “When Williams banged into it, the thing just whipped itself up,” Sergeant Keaton replied. “Like a crab going into its shell.”

  Well, that was damned peculiar. Martelle reached out to another tree next to him. His fingers brushed the smooth surface of its trunk. As soon as he touched it, there was a series of quick movements all over its boughs. Every leaf and most of the smaller branches just rolled up into balls!

  He reached out to tap one, and his armored knuckle thunked against its surface. It was hard, like a shell. Some sort of protective reaction? He tried to pry it free from the tree, but it was too well secured. The little lump wouldn’t budge.

  “Pull security. I’m going to see if I can get a sample from this thing to bring back. The docs at the shuttles will love seeing this shit,” Martelle said.

  He slung his rifle and whipped out a knife from his belt. With a grunt, the colonel pried at the shell, trying to peel it free from the bough. His eyes widened a bit when the thing refused to give way against his blade. Curious, Martelle tried hacking at the wood, then sawing into it. It resisted all his efforts.

  “Damn tough stuff, sir,” Keaton said. The sergeant had been watching over his shoulder.

  “Impressively tough,” Martelle said. If they could find a way to harvest this stuff, it had to be useful for something. It was hard as hell but at the same time felt lightweight. How had a plant grown like this? He’d never heard of anything like it on Earth.

  Another thought occurred to him. Why would a plant evolve a defense like this? It wasn’t like they’d seen a lot of critters out there that were munching down on the trees. It didn’t take a degree in botany to know that movement cost plants a ton of energy. They wouldn’t evolve the ability for no reason.

  So why had they?

  “Everyone stand back. I’m going to get a sample of this thing, one way or another,” Martelle said. He clicked his radio. “Base, this is Martelle. Blast at my location in one mike. No immediate threat.”

  Charline’s voice came back right away. “No immediate threat? You need backup?”

  He thought about it a moment before replying. There was no telling just how the plants would respond to what he was about to try. “No, but stand by.”

  Then he wrapped det cord around the low-hanging branch he’d been sawing at without success. The thing might survive his blade, but he’d bet it couldn’t just shrug off an explosion. The thought made him smile, remembering days when he’d helped clear trees away back home with this stuff. It wasn’t hard to take down a big old tree with a chunk of det cord! This was just a small branch. Tough as it was, there were limits.

  Once the cord was in place, he moved away until he was at a safe distance. They still didn’t have the all-clear on taking off suits, and Martelle was damned if he was going to let some splinter of tree blast a hole in his suit and infect him with alien plague or something. No sense taking chances. He backed up another few steps and then triggered the cord.

  A sharp crack was audible even through his suit, and the flash of light from the explosion was clearly visible. Smoke obscured his view for a moment, but the light breeze cleared it away rapidly. As it did, he saw that all the other trees near the blast had closed themselves up as well. Their leaves were all tightly furled into little balls, just like the others. It was a damned impressive reaction, one he was more confident than ever was defensive in nature.

  Martelle walked toward the tree. He’d managed to sever the branch all right, but that was all. There were no tears in the tree itself from splinter fragments. No sign at all that the explosion had even taken place except for one small branch laying on the ground. It should have blasted shards all over the place, embedded bits of branch into the tree, maybe knocked loose some other limbs as well, but there was nothing. His explosive had barely done anything to the plant.

  He scooped the branch up from the ground. All the leaves were still furled into tight balls, their armored surface unchanged. Martelle clicked his radio again. “We’re OK here, base. First squad is coming in. I’ve got a sample that t
he eggheads are going to want to see right away.”

  Then he turned back to the rest of the squad. “Let’s move, Marines. Eyes up. Stay alert. I don’t think we’re the only things moving around on this planet.”

  Eight

  The Satori exited a wormhole only ten thousand miles away from the strange planet. It loomed large in the screen, so big that Beth had to double-check their distance. She’d expected it to look smaller from this far away, but it was a lot larger than Earth.

  “God, how big is that thing?” Beth asked aloud.

  “Just over twelve thousand kilometers,” Majel replied. “About twice the size of Earth.”

  “Gravity?” Beth asked.

  “Negligible. Just a few percent of Earth normal.

  How was that even possible? The planet was bigger than Earth but massed so much less? What was it? Beth drummed her fingers on her armrest. “Curious. Bring us in on standard engines. I want to see if it reacts to our presence.”

  “You’re assuming it’s a ship?” Ayala asked.

  “With that mass? About the only way that could be possible is if it’s hollow,” Beth replied.

  “Could be the universe’s biggest geode,” Ayala said with a smile. “No, I concur. As impossible as a planet-sized ship sounds, I have to think that’s what we’re looking at here. It’s the only hypothesis that matches the data. Between the speed it’s moving and the weird density…”

  “Jump us clear the moment it so much as twitches,” Beth ordered.

  But there was no reaction from the sphere as the Satori glided slowly toward it through the endless night of space. They approached a point near the day/night line, where the star’s rays touched. That would allow her to maintain radio contact with the Independence. If the Satori slipped around the far side of the world from the other ship, it might interfere with their communications.