by Ian Woodhead
As the projection moved over the students, a small planet covered in oceans of sand and islands of lakes appeared. “This is 51 Golgotha a, our final destination on our long voyage from Earth. We have traveled 7 light years at this point. We have arrived at a planet that caught our interest because it has something no other exo-planet has yet shown: signs of civilization.”
The camera angle swept over the exo-planet’s many deserts and came to a jungle. Along the horizon, a tall, gray wall appeared. From behind the wall peeked the tops of twelve long pyramids. They rose slow and steady over the wall, like giant sentinels.
“This is what we have been chasing since before Neil Armstrong walked on the moon. We know we are not alone in the universe. Microbes and fungi have been discovered on other planets. 51 Golgotha has plants. But these pyramids are something totally different. They hold the answers to questions we’ve been asking since we first looked up at the stars thousands of years ago. Are we the only civilization in the universe?”
The video did not show the fields of dead, mummified bodies that lay beyond the wall. Some things were not meant for school field trips. She was certain the children had seen photos of the aliens. Who hadn’t? They were aliens. But this was a government program, not a Ripley’s Believe It Or Not.
She paused. “But that’s not what you came to see, is it?”
Kids gasped. On the screen, the point of view of the camera swarmed from the planet back to IV-104 in orbit. The point of view breached the hull of the Anchor. Inside, small robots no bigger than a soccer ball whisked around the ship’s interior, performing maintenance chores. They whizzed by larger, bipedal robots that walked heavily down the interstellar vehicle’s halls.
“There are robots like these already on 51 Golgotha, taking measurements and relaying data back to us. But not until humans get there will there be robots like these…”
One of the bipedal robots seemed to walk across the screen. It bumped into a shadow, then stepped back as if it had run into something solid in the dark. Out of the shadow emerged the giant robot, a large DSMU, a Dynamic Supplemental Mobility Unit. It was 8 meters tall. The DSMU was painted white and black like a space shuttle, and it had the EPSP 18 mission patch painted on one shoulder and an American flag and NASA logo on the other. Its large feet stepped forward onto the stage. Each step made a big whumph noise as the weight of the DSMU met the stage. Only then did the children realize that while they had been looking at the holographic projections above them, the screen had been lifted. An actual DSMU stood on the stage with them. It was so tall it had to duck to fit into the theater. The DSMU raised its arms wide. Its giant robotic arms fanned over the children. Much like theater goers being mesmerized by a chained King Kong, some children smiled, others laughed, and others screamed in glee. And fear.
Then they all cheered and clapped. Even the teachers stood in awe.
Emily looked off stage to her husband Cole, who was sitting on the front row alongside a Public Affairs Office specialist and the JSC Center Director. Emily winked to her husband. Then to the children she said, “Okay, who wants to see the DSMU jump?”
More cheers.
3
Sensors were blaring, most of them warning codes, and none of them serious. The system was not happy with the freefall event. Through the portal window above him, Cole could see the Anchor. It seemed to be falling away from him into space (or maybe he was launching away from it—being in space had really messed with his sense of up and down). He turned to look outside the EDLS. 51 Golgotha was getting closer with every second. It was lush and green and full of alien plants. Anna had been gushing about them the entire course of the trip. He had seen holograms from the autonomous devices already exploring the planet. But now they were actually going there.
Boom! Boom! Boom! Boom! Boom! Boom! Boom! Boom!
Imagine the loudest explosions you have ever heard. These were louder. The sound was so intense, Cole could feel the vibrations rattling in his chest and tickling his ribs. They startled the hell out of him.
The explosions came to a crescendo, and then the shell flew off of the DSMU. The robot lay kneeling in its EDL configuration tethered to the heat shield. An intense orange and red glow was burning all around Cole’s DSMU. He was sure that, from an outside perspective, this looked very much like a giant robot skateboarding through the atmosphere. In the future, assuming he survived the landing, he would assure anyone who asked that it was nothing but terrifying.
The world was coming up to meet him as he plummeted to the ground at nine Gs. The status screen showed Environmental Controls and Life Support Systems (ECLSS) as nominal. His kph was somewhere around 500. He was 80 kilometers from ground. As his vision tunneled, he focused on the DSMU temperature readout, which was pushing toward peak heat, 1600 degrees Fahrenheit. And then Cole blacked out.
4
The elevator opened, and Cole walked onto the ninth floor of JSC’s Building 1. On the other side of a glass door, the executive admin smiled and waved him on.
“They’re waiting for you, hon,” she said cheerily.
Suddenly nervous, he checked his watch. “Am I late?”
“Oh, no. You’re fine.”
The admin opened the door for Cole. Inside the executive suite sat the Center Director (and former astronaut) Dr. Elaine Ybarra. Across from her, stretched out casually, was Dr. Robert Albright, also a former astronaut. Next to him sat Colonel Mitch Brown, the first black man to walk on an exo-planet. He was now the center’s “Chief Astronaut” and in charge of running JSC’s astronaut corps. In fact, Cole reasoned, he was the only non-astronaut, former or otherwise, in the room. Seated at the table were three people he knew very well, and his wife.
“Hello, Dr. Ybarra,” Cole said. He shook her hand.
“Come on in, Cole. You know Robert, Mitch.” He shook their hands.
“And of course, Expedition 18,” she said. “Dr. Anna Altieri, the medical doctor from Ciudad Juarez; Anchor Commander C.C. Crenshaw; Dr. Mathieu Du Pleises, the EVA specialist and general technology wizard from Paarl, South Africa; C.C. Crenshaw, the geologist from Amarillo; and your wife, planetary commander, also from Amarillo.”
“What can I do for you all?”
“Well, first off, I wanted to thank you for everything you’ve done for us,” Dr. Ybarra said. “For three years now you’ve been working with the mission team to help teach them the language of the Jedik-ikik.”
“I can’t take all the credit. Dr. Butler and a whole team of linguists deciphered the language and taught it to the crew.”
Cole could’ve sworn he heard Anna giggle under her breath. He started to glance at her to see what was going on, but then Dr. Ybarra said, “Yes. Leo is a fine linguist. One of the smartest in the world. But after the accident, well, it is going to take at least a year for him to fully recover, if he recovers, and we have a timeline.”
“I don’t understand.”
“It’s time for you to lose the green stripe, Cole,” C.C. said. “You’re now a civil servant.”
“What?”
Dr. Ybarra gave C.C. a sideways glance. “What he means is, three years ago we asked you to apply to the Astronaut Corps.”
“Right. I was turned down.”
“You were pulled from the pool of applicants because the government believed you were more useful teaching astronauts. Things have changed. Welcome to Expedition 18, Dr. Musgrove.”
Behind him, the four other members of Expedition 18 cheered and clapped.
“Really?” he asked his wife.
“Yeah. Originally it was just going to be me in the room, but I didn’t want you to think I pulled rank.”
“Screw that,” Mathieu said. “We all pulled rank. They asked us. You were the only one on the list.”
Cole smiled. “Thanks, guys. I’ll try to live up to everything you expected of Leo.”
C.C. said out of the side of his mouth, “Oh, now the hard part begins.”
5
Cole ca
me to and said, “Oh my God. We’re still falling?” He checked his distance. Twenty five kilometers from ground.
What woke him from his blackout was the popping of the parachute. The supersonic chute was made of special materials that could reduce the speed from 500 kph to 300 kph in less than a minute. He checked the heat. It was down to about 1000 degrees Fahrenheit, which meant that—
Wham! The heat shield ejected away from the DSMU. The shield would eventually land sixteen kilometers away, scarring the planet with its collision.
“Mellifluous,” Cole said. “The worst part is over. Most of the pyros have been blown, and the heat shield is gone.”
Then the warning light blared. Cole’s DSMU was coming in too fast. He should have already slowed down to 300 kph already, but he was only at about 350. It was a small discrepancy, but a disastrous one. This meant that—
RIIIIIIP!
Cole looked up to the last thing an astronaut wants to see during descent. His chute had outlived its testing. He manually released the chute. Twin ribbons of shiny fabric curled up and away from him. Another set of pops followed, and three smaller drones deployed.
He watched in terror as his computer relayed data to the ground, tracking the landing site, and came to the conclusion that the DSMU would not survive the crash. He tried to suppress the initial pangs of panic and engage his training, which had included parachute fails.
“I can parachute out,” Cole said. “Eject to safety.”
Wham! Something large and bulky slammed into his DSMU. The world spun as if on an invisible axis.
“That never happened in training!”
Emily’s voice came through his com. “Belay eject. Your fall is too fast.”
“What do I do?”
“Don’t worry. I got you.” Out his side window, he could see that Emily’s DSMU was in full mech mode, the one the kids loved. She was attached tighter than a tick to his DSMU.
“You’ve got me? But who’s got you?”
“I released my chute when I saw you weren’t with us. I tried hailing you, but you didn’t answer.”
“I’m sorry, baby. I think I blacked out.”
“Don’t be. I’ve got an idea. I’m going to do a powered descent with the ascent boosters. It’s going to be badass.”
The ground was coming up very quickly, and he was feeling sick to his stomach from all the spinning. 183 meters. “Do whatever you have to do.”
He heard her set off the ascent rockets. The burning of the boosters crackled outside his DSMU. Alarm bells went off again. The structure of his mech was breaking down due to the heat. The most intense heat was of course close to his own boosters.
“Um, hon…”
“I know. We’re almost down. Brace for impact!”
“What does that even mean?”
And then he heard the cracking of tree limbs followed by the crunching of metal and dirt. The DSMU was rolling on the ground, having slammed through the trees like a bowling ball, and he was spinning inside the cockpit. After the hurricane in his head stopped, Cole looked around. He couldn’t find his wife, so he shouted for her.
“Emily!” If anything had happened to her…
“I’m okay,” she said. They both caught their breath, then Emily added: “This chair works amazingly well.”
Cole turned off the EDL and put his DSMU into transport mode. The DSMU determined up from down. Then arms and legs of the DSMU pushed outward from its central cockpit area. The canopy popped open, and Cole dropped out with all the grace of a newborn hippo.
Cole steadied himself, then stood and looked up at 20-meter-tall palm trees. A large debris trail showed his crash landing. On the other end of the trail stood Emily and the other astronauts.
Cole was finally, happily, on the ground.
Kaijunaut is available from Amazon here.