Strange New Worlds

by Kevin McLaughlin

  Jacobs and Kahale landed on either side of him, their boots touching down with the same ease his had. One advantage of working with this crew: everyone aboard was the cream of the crop. There were no weak links, not on a ship like the Satori.

  Ayala stepped out, unlimbering his rifle from where he’d slung it during the jump. He made his way to the spot Majel had tentatively identified as a hatch. It was round and recessed slightly into the structure, which did make it look like a circular doorway. But he couldn’t see a control panel or anything else that might let him open it from the outside.

  “Found the spot. No obvious controls. We may have to make our own entry point,” Ayala said. He’d brought along explosive charges in case of that eventuality.

  “We’ve touched down. I’m making my way to you now,” Beth said. “Let me take a look before you blast it to bits.”

  “Yes, ma’am,” Ayala said, smiling. One of the main reasons Beth was the right person to have along on this trip was her experience as an engineer. If anyone could figure out how to open this tin can up, she was the person for the job.

  He looked over the doorway, increasingly convinced that was precisely what it was. But near as Ayala could tell the mechanisms for controlling it and those for actually moving the door itself were cleverly hidden from view. This wasn’t going to be an easy door to open using anything except force.

  Eleven

  Lieutenant Rodriguez drummed his fingers to the music playing in his cockpit. Anything to relieve the boredom of this stupid patrol. Sure, there was something out there. Big as a planet, it was hard to miss. But the idea of a planet-sized spacecraft was too much for him to swallow. That was the sort of thing you saw in bad sci-fi films, not in real life.

  Of course, everything he was living was sort of like those films. He kept one eye on the scanners. He might be itching for some action during this dull patrol. Still, Rodriguez had enough experience to know that sometimes boring was good.

  “That planet-ship-thing can stay nice and quiet. I’m good with that,” Rodriguez muttered to himself.

  “You can say that again,” Perkins drawled over the radio. His wingman, flying another fighter just a few thousand meters away. “You bored, kid?”

  “Yeah,” Rodriguez replied. No sense denying it.

  “Bored means you’re alive, don’t forget that,” Perkins said.

  He was always nattering on like that. Just because he’d been on board the Independence during the big fight over the Naga homeworld, he thought he could lord it over the newer pilots? Rodriguez shook his head, smiling despite his annoyance. Perkins meant well, but he’d seen the numbers. One fighter in five made it back from that battle. The odds sucked.

  Nonetheless, he was out there anyway. Doing his thing for god, country, and a paycheck. Perkins had come back out again, too. Most of the old guard had. Rodriguez thought that was impressive on an almost spooky level. It was one thing to risk life and limb. Every pilot did that. But tossing yourself back into a blender where most of the guys you were flying alongside didn’t make it home? That took guts.

  He’d never say it out loud, but Perkins had balls. Same for the other survivors on the Inde’s flight wing.

  “Man, breathing means you’re alive. But a little action might make me breathe faster, if you know what I mean,” Rodriguez said.

  His radio chirped, a new signal coming in from the Independence. “Alpha Flight, we’re re-tasking you. Something about the unidentified object is screwing with our radio signals. Once the Satori got close, we lost contact. The Captain wants you to fly closer so you can provide relay service.”

  “Me and my big mouth,” Rodriguez said before clicking his microphone. To the CAG, over on the Inde, he replied. “Roger that. We’re on our way.”

  “Stay in touch, Alpha Flight. We want radio checks every five minutes,” the CAG replied. “Holler if you need backup.”

  Then the Independence went off the radio. On the fighter-to-fighter link, all Rodriguez could hear was laughter. Perkins had a big, rolling belly laugh that was infectious enough it made Rodriguez smile.

  “Sure, laugh it up. But when the alien buggers start crawling out and zapping at us, who’s gonna have your back?” Rodriguez said.

  “Kid, you have a mouth and a half, but you’ve got guts. You’ll do,” Perkins said. “Follow me in. Tight formation. I don’t trust that whatever it is out there any further than I can throw it.”

  “You’ve been lifting weights if you can throw planets around now,” Rodriguez said.

  “Nope, still old and flabby. Which was my point. Watch your scanner. First blip of anything...”

  “Oh, I’ll sing like a bird,” Rodriguez said.

  They both poured on the thrust. The F-51 class fighter was a leap forward from the birds used for the defense of Earth against the Naga. Those fighters could barely break orbit. But reverse-engineering captured Naga tech had spawned quantum leaps forward for human engineering.

  The F-51 was still more of an interceptor than a long-range ship. It was designed primarily to provide defensive cover for its mothership against enemy fighters. But where the old craft could never have made the voyage between two planets, no matter how close they were, the new fighters could manage. It involved some uncomfortable levels of acceleration, but by pushing five gravities for a little while, they had enough velocity to streak toward their destination.

  As they drew closer, Rodriguez pondered the enigma of that weird planet. It wasn’t where a planet should be. It didn’t have the mass a world ought to have. It blocked their scans. Now radio nearby was being jammed, too? It was all way too ‘that’s no moon’ for him.

  It took hours to bridge the distance, even as fast as the fighters were traveling. Rodriguez tried to keep his eyes on the scanner, but his leg kept tapping a nervous beat. He could see the planet through his canopy now, looming darkly in space, only a little glimmer of light reflecting from the edge facing the sun. He shook his head. No way that thing was normal.

  Checking the timer, he saw it was time for another radio check. “Independence, this is Alpha Flight, checking in.”

  Every other time the ship replied as quickly as the speed of radio waves would allow. Not this time. Rodriguez waited an extra minute over the time they should have had a reply. Nothing.

  “Negative reply on my radio check,” Rodriguez said.

  “Trying on mine,” Perkins replied. A few minutes later, he gave the answer Rodriguez had been expecting and dreaded. “No dice here, either. Looks like we’re being jammed.”

  There was only one possible source for that jamming. Somehow, the planet was blocking their radio. The Satori losing contact might be explained by the bulk of the planetoid blocking her signals, but the fighters still had a direct line of sight with their mothership.

  “Perkins, you got any ideas?” Rodriguez said. He tried to keep his mounting fear out of his voice. He eyed the thruster and checked his fuel levels. They could still turn around, slow their burn, and get back to the Inde in a jiffy.

  “Yeah, a few. We can push ahead and find the Satori, or turn and run,” the other pilot replied.

  “That’s not much help,” Rodriguez said.

  “You’re the team lead this run, skippy. Make the call. I’ll back your play.”

  Damn it, just because he’d held his rank a little longer than the oldtimer didn’t mean shit out here! He wanted to hand off the responsibility. To Perkins or anyone else who’d take it. Rodriguez sucked in a deep breath, working to find that calm center he relied on while flying.

  “All right. We arc our flight path. We’ll make an orbital pass close by the planetoid. Hopefully spot the Satori and tell them the Captain would really like to hear from them,” Rodriguez said. “But we’ll maintain most of our velocity so we can just zip right by. Sound good?”

  “Works for me, champ. Initiating thrust vector now,” Perkins said.

  Both fighters used small steering thrusters to change their attitude, th
en fired their main engines again, burning at a new vector. This path would shift their course into a tight orbit just a few miles away from the planetoid. Acceleration slammed him back into his seat as the drive kicked on at full power. It was uncomfortable as hell, but the more speed they built up, the less time anything down there had to squish them like bugs.

  He just hoped he’d made the right call.

  Twelve

  So far, everything was going well. It was almost too quiet. Dan was growing more nervous as the minutes ticked by. When was the last time he’d been on a mission to a new planet and they hadn’t run into crazy trouble? He couldn’t remember a single time that had happened.

  No, there was bound to be a problem sooner or later. That was the nature of exploring space, he figured. They were venturing out and finding things no human had ever experienced before. Of course, they’d run into complex troubles along the way.

  “Captain, there’s a problem,” De Toro said softly.

  Dan looked up from his console, feeling somewhat prophetic. He’d been reading the report on surface flora from the ground team. Curious stuff, but at least nothing dangerous had cropped up yet. They were on full alert down there just in case. A cautionary measure he approved of.

  “What’s up?” Dan replied.

  “It’s Alpha Flight. They’re overdue for radio contact, and our scans show they’ve shifted vector. They’re burning hard toward the planet,” De Toro replied.

  Dan flicked his fingers over his console, pulling up the relevant data. The computer plotted out the pilots’ projected path for him. “They’re not headed for the planet. They’re going around it, making a hard turnaround to get back to us.”

  He tried to put himself into the shoes of those pilots. What was causing them to react like this? Losing contact? Or had they seen something else? If they’d spotted the Satori in trouble, they would have slowed down to assist, not accelerated.

  Whatever was going on out there, he didn’t like it. Luckily, the Independence could cross the gap between the two worlds much more quickly than its fighters. Dan loathed leaving the ground team without any support from space, but if Beth and her crew were in trouble, he had to go. He tapped open a radio link to Martelle.

  “What’s up, Captain?” the old Marine replied.

  “Got something going on over by that planetoid. The fighters we sent to take a peek might be in trouble. We need to jump over and check it out,” Dan replied.

  “Leaving us high and dry, are you?” Martelle asked. He smiled and shook his head. “No, it’s all quiet down here right now. A few tremors, probably from that planet getting closer, but nothing we can’t manage.”

  “All right. We’ll be back soonest,” Dan said. He cut the link. “Ready the main drive.”

  “Aye, sir,” Ensign Scott replied.

  Dan plotted the coordinates. He wanted to end up just on the far side of the strange planetoid from where he was. That ought to put him into visual range of the Satori. If they needed help, it had to be his top priority. But the course should also place the Independence roughly in the path of Alpha Flight so they could be recovered more quickly.

  “Recall Bravo Flight,” Dan said. It would mean taking a little more time while the second pair of fighters on patrol flew back in and landed, but he didn’t want to leave the small ships out in space alone. Not with evidence of possible enemy action.

  That’s what he had to be looking at, right? Why else would signals near the planet be jammed? It certainly looked intentional. “De Toro, have you figured out what’s jamming our signals yet?”

  “Yes, sir. The planetoid is emitting very high-powered EM waves over a broad spectrum,” De Toro said. “They’re simply overwhelming the fighters’ transmitters.”

  “Any chance they’re natural in origin?” Dan asked.

  “I can’t say for sure, sir,” De Toro replied.

  “Your best guess.”

  “I’d say...intentional, sir. That much power being poured into EM emissions? I mean, I guess there are ways it could possibly happen. But it doesn’t make sense given the mass of the object,” De Toro said. “It would have to be much denser.”

  That matched up with his thinking. Energy output like that would require a significant power source. Maybe a radioactive core or something similar. But there wasn’t enough mass to account for that. Occam’s razor said the signals were most likely being transmitted by a machine, not a natural phenomenon.

  Dan nodded. “Good enough. We’ll assume we’ve got a contact situation here until we learn otherwise. General quarters.”

  Klaxons rang on the bridge, and Dan knew elsewhere every crew member was scrambling for their duty stations. At the same time he prepared for battle, Dan reminded himself that jamming transmissions was not necessarily a hostile act. This might be a first contact with a new alien race, but that didn’t mean whoever they were about to meet was an enemy. Earth could use more friends and needed new enemies like a hole in the head.

  “Fighters are docked, sir. Main drive is at full power and ready,” Scott said.

  “All right. We’re going in, but they haven’t fired on us as far as we know,” Dan said, hoping he was right, and the Satori was still undamaged. He worried about Beth. She wouldn’t have sat still if they came under attack. She’d have jumped the Satori back to him to pass along a warning.

  Taking a breath, he went on. “If this is a new form of alien life we’re meeting, we will not fire first. But our people are coming home with us. That’s our number one priority.”

  He looked around the bridge, catching the eye of each crew member. They’d fought alongside him before. Dan saw in each pair of eyes the determination to do so again if called on. He had a damned exceptional crew.

  “Let’s go get our people back,” Dan said.

  Thirteen

  Charline lingered behind as Colonel Martelle stalked from the room, off to check in with his Marines. She’d heard his conversation with Dan on the Independence. Without support from space, they were on their own for the time being. It made sense to ensure their security was as good as it could get.

  She tapped her radio. “All Armor units, I want you back in your suits and in defensive positions until further notice.”

  It might be an unnecessary precaution, but it was one she felt comfortable taking, anyway. The last time she’d been abandoned on a planet by her starship, it was an unmitigated disaster that she and her people had barely survived. Some hadn’t.

  But this wasn’t Dust, and she wasn’t unarmed this time. The Armor they had with them this time was worlds better than the hacked together suits they’d constructed to defend themselves back then. Charline was cautiously optimistic.

  “I’ve got to go, too,” Charline told Linda.

  The other woman nodded, not looking up from her work. Was she that engrossed in the alien flora, or was she avoiding Charline’s gaze? It was hard to tell.

  Another little tremor shook the room. She had to get going, but Charline loathed the idea of leaving Linda without trying harder to bridge the gap that had opened up between them. They’d been friends, for the brief time they’d been crewmates aboard the Satori. Confusing as that last mission had been, Charline hoped they still could be.

  “Well, that’s interesting,” Linda mused aloud. She continued poking at the stick in her containment area.

  “What’d you find?” Charline asked, stepping closer.

  “Metal,” Linda replied, pulling free a little sliver of something.

  That sounded weird. “Is that why the plants are so tough?”

  “No, I don’t think so,” Linda said. She maneuvered the object under a microscope and peered inside. “Take a look for yourself. If that’s naturally occurring, I’ll eat my degree.”

  Linda stepped back, allowing Charline to peek into the eyepiece. It looked like a tiny bit of shrapnel. Definitely not something the planet grew. There were tears and cracking along the edge where it had split off from something else
.

  “Maybe from the equipment the Marines used?” Charline asked.

  “I don’t think that’s from our gear. I’ll have to do more analysis to be sure, but I’d be willing to bet those shards aren’t from Earth,” Linda said.

  “Those shards?” Charline asked.

  “Sure. The branch is peppered with a bunch of them. Looks like the plant grew right around the fragments, just absorbed them into its structure,” Linda said.

  Charline peered at the bit of metal again, trying to imagine what it had been a part of. Some sort of explosive shell? A lawnmower? There was no way to tell. It could have broken off from almost anything. But the object did have a machined look to it, like it had been made. More evidence that there was something out there they hadn’t seen yet. Or at least, that there once had been. She clicked her radio, opening a command channel.

  “Martelle here,” the Marine replied.

  “Dr. Paris found some more interesting bits. Metal shards stuck in that branch,” Charline said.

  “Metal? I used det cord, not a grenade. There shouldn’t be any metal,” Martelle replied.

  “She doesn’t think that it’s ours. She’s pretty sure it’s native,” Charline said.

  There was a pause while Martelle digested that information. “Understood. I’ve got my people on full alert.”

  “Mine, too,” Charline replied. The ground moved a little beneath her feet, a reminder that they still had to worry about the steady chain of quakes, as well.

  “Damned bad timing for the Independence to go haring off. It almost feels like it was planned that way,” Martelle said.

  That felt paranoid to Charline. There was no way an emergency in space could be connected to them happening to find evidence of metal-working on the planet. Was there? “Could be a coincidence.”