“Have you found me a safe landing area yet?” Captain Kriss asked. “You can do all your experiments once we are on the planet’s surface. This is a one-way trip, and I don’t care what is down there. Just find it and tell me how to kill it before we get there.”
“So far, the bio scanner has revealed nothing,” said Connie. “If there is an alien presence, it is hiding itself.”
“How much longer to scan the entire planet?” asked Kriss.
“I’m estimating about a week, sir,” replied Connie.
“A week! Jesus Christ. No sooner?”
“No, sir, it wouldn’t be safe to land sooner. We have come a long way, and to speed up our landing process at the end of our voyage could be disastrous. We only get to land one time, and I want it to be right.”
“Well, it’s your call,” said the captain. “But that doesn’t mean I have to like it. Let me know if there is anything more you discover. I’m headed to the gym to blow off steam. You coming, Smitty?”
“Aye, sir.”
Both women headed to the gym, leaving Connie and Sophi alone on the bridge.
“How is that programming coming?” asked Sophi. “I don’t want to sit here for a week.”
“I’m sorry. I forgot it,” Connie said absentmindedly. “Don’t worry. I’m working on it now.”
*
Eventually, Connie got the ship’s computer to control the drone without Sophi’s input. It gave everyone a break but Connie. She stayed at her station until the captain gave her a forced rest and bath. Poor Connie had to suffer the indignity of being thrown into the wash pod by Smitty. It wasn’t an enjoyable experience for the first mate, either; they both complained miserably. However, everyone on the bridge, including the captain, was quite pleased that the smell was gone.
“Welcome back, Commander,” said Kriss with a twinkle in her eye. “Now let’s find a place to land this boat. I’m tired of these sea legs; I’m ready to have dry land under my feet.”
The 3-D computer rendering of the planet turned on its axis as the ship passed over it. Connie was staring intently at the screen when the stainless steel doors of Command swished open. In walked Pickle carrying a small box with Dozer in tow, Libby sitting on his back.
“I have something of importance,” Pickle said.
Without looking at the intruders, Captain Kriss replied, “Not now, we are about to drop the SOB.”
“I anticipate the best area is coming up live on the drone’s monitor in two minutes,” said Connie.
“Are we going to be ready?” asked Kriss.
“Slow the drone down to two hundred and fifty knots,” said Connie.
“Slowing drone to two five zero knots,” repeated Sophi.
Dozer stood still as Libby got off his back. Then he crouched down and leapt into the air, landing in Connie’s lap.
“What is it?” asked Kriss in an irritated tone.
“I have a little surprise for the crew,” said Pickle.
“What is it?” repeated Kriss in exasperation.
Opening up the top of the box, Pickle smiled shyly as everyone looked in. At first all they could see was a white blanket, but then it began to move. First one, then two, then three little heads appeared, covered in fur. Pulling the blanket open for all to see, Pickle said, “May I introduce you all to Hiccup and Dozer’s kittens?”
The bomb’s deployment was forgotten. All eyes were on the little bundles of life.
Connie’s cloning had been a success.
Everyone crowded around the box. Kriss ordered Pickle to bring them up to the Roost so that she could touch them as well.
Hiccup didn’t mind the intrusion; instead, she purred like everyone was her best friend. Dozer couldn’t figure out what all the human distraction was about, and kept his eyes on the monitor, watching it intently as Connie moved the mouse around. He watched her flip open a clear plastic covering over a red button and observed the monitor zooming in on a green area of interest to the chief science officer.
“Well done, Connie,” said Kriss as she stroked Hiccup’s head. “I have no doubt you will get the DNA out of the male cadaver.”
Looking up for a brief instant, Connie was momentarily distracted by the praise. That was all it took. Without hesitation, Dozer reached out with his paw and hit the red button.
Chapter Seventy One
The noise was deafening and the ground shook. The viperlike hiss of the electromagnetic pulse engines could be heard for miles, and their combined roar announced the new arrival of man. The red claylike soil of Alpha-64 was violently blown away from the engine’s nozzles, forming a mile-wide ringed curtain of suspended dirt. Even with both suns shining, the debris cloud was dense enough to block the landing. Though the ship was camouflaged, the billowing cloud and roar of the engines were a dead giveaway that this ecosystem was being invaded by a new life-form.
It took thirty minutes for the sediment to filter back to the surface and coat the dense vegetation. The ship’s hull looked like an alien artifact thrust above its new surroundings.
Nothing like this had ever been on the planet before. The women on board would either thrive or die.
“You all just did one hell of a job landing our ship. This was one giant leap for all mankind,” roared Captain Kriss over the ship’s com. “Attention, this is your captain speaking. I have just turned off the seatbelt sign. Everyone may get up and walk around the cabin. We are home, ladies. I hope you enjoyed your flight.”
The crew cheered, their voices echoing throughout the ship. The chief science officer was already thinking of all the experiments she was going to conduct.
The first noticeable thing was the death of the ship’s engines. Then everyone felt the enormous gravity of the planet. On board, the only gravity had been the synthetic version in the gym; now, all sections of the ship felt the increased gravity of Alpha-64. Anything previously suspended in space was now on the floor. For the first time since launch, there was up and down, and it was possible to fall and get hurt.
Libby was the first one to suffer from this, falling off of Dozer’s back and hitting her head. A welt appeared over one eye, and then came the tears. But overall, the mood of the crew was bright. Everyone wanted to get out of the confines of the ship and explore their new home.
Connie wasn’t letting anyone off without first doing a long list of experiments to make sure the planet was safe. Captain Kriss shortened her list by ordering Merc to cut open the outer airlock. But, after a heated debate, Connie managed to win the captain over by suggesting that the prisoner, Leea, be used as a human guinea pig.
Locked between airlocks three and four where the dead astronaut still was entombed, Leea was ordered to cut the outer airlock door open with a plasma cutter. The prisoner wasn’t keen on the idea, but Kriss told her it was a better option than the death sentence she had in mind if Leea didn’t obey the direct order.
It took Leea over two hours to finally cut through the last piece of the hull’s skin. The massive airlock door tilted outward and hung in space; then gravity exerted its pull, and the heavy door fell with a monstrous crash that blew up a cloud of recently settled dust.
Dropping the plasma cutter, Leea timidly inched forward and peered down. She was struck with the nauseous feeling of standing at a cliff’s edge. Her disbelief was apparent in her voice. “My god, it’s a hundred feet down!”
Leea was wearing one of the issued space suits used on the telescope repair; everything she was seeing was picked up by her helmet cameras and fed onto the ship’s monitors. Everyone, including Leea, had thought the airlock opening was closer to the ground, which would have made it easier to exit the ship. However, the ship’s designers had thought ahead, mounting the airlock opening far enough from the electromagnetic engines to allow a safe spacewalk if needed. If the airlock had been closer to the aft end of the ship, the astr
onauts on a spacewalk would have been incinerated immediately.
“What do you want me to do now?” asked Leea, speaking into her helmet mic.
“Place the aerology probe outside the ship,” said Connie.
Following the issued orders, Leea deployed the probe. It took several minutes of analysis before Connie broke the silence.
“The probe says the atmosphere is 30 percent oxygen and almost 70 percent nitrogen, and has trace amounts of argon and carbon dioxide,” said Connie. “There is almost 10 percent more atmospheric oxygen on Alpha-64 than on Earth, which means we can breathe the air!”
“Captain, I request permission to take off this suit,” said Leea. “It’s hot, and it’s heavier than hell.”
“Silence, prisoner,” barked Kriss.
“I could put on the other suit and go through the airlocks and remove her suit’s rear entry port,” said Merc.
“I advise against it,” said Connie. “We first have to test the planet’s air for possible human pathogens before—”
Her sentence was cut off by Kriss. “An excellent idea. Merc, suit up and let the parrot out. Let’s test our new mine the old-fashioned way.”
“But—”
The captain interrupted Connie. “No buts about it—it’s an order.”
“But, sir, she may die,” Connie said quietly.
“Then natural selection will make our dwindling food supply last a little longer.”
Once suited up, Merc navigated around her dead crewmate and avoided looking directly at the corpse as she approached Leea. Both she and Leea were having difficulty maneuvering. The space suits in zero gravity were awkward but functional; here on the planet’s surface, they were cumbersome. Both women were out of breath.
“Leea, lay down on your stomach,” said Merc. After she had done so, Merc kneeled down and began the process of removing the suit’s rear hatch. This involved removing three layers of plates and seals and overriding the suit’s computer with an authorization code. Once the innermost hatch released, the expected air pressure differentiation noise never occurred; the suit had adjusted its air pressure to match the planet’s.
Instead, the only noise came from Leea. She let out a squeal of delight as she escaped the suit’s prison.
Everyone on board held their breath. It was as if everyone expected Leea to blow up.
But no morbid atrocity occurred. Instead, Leea took in the fresh exoplanet air and let out a scream that rivaled Tarzan’s. Her voice carried from the newly cut hole in the ship’s hull to the speakers onboard. This spark of human passion ignited the crew and electrified the ship. Even Kriss had a smile on her face.
They had made it.
Chapter Seventy-Two
Connie insisted that metal scaffolding be built around the entire circumference of the ship at the airlock’s exit height. It was tricky, but Merc and her Engineering staff managed to work twenty-four hours straight to get it done.
At each ninety-degree section, a small platform, mounted with a bolt gun, jutted out from the scaffolding. High-resolution cameras and thermal imagers were mounted on each gun. During the day, each one was manned by a crew woman who scanned for any potential threats to the crew. At night, all four defensive stations were monitored and operated by the ship’s main computer. After these defensive measures were taken, the crew then focused on building a giant set of metal catwalk stairs that would reach the ground one hundred feet below.
Leea begged to be the first one to step on the planet’s surface, but Kriss threw her back into the Hole. She had served a purpose, and the last thing the captain wanted was to waste precious manpower guarding her when they needed all eyes watching the perimeter.
The SOB had leveled a five-acre area of vegetation right down to the red soil of the planet. What remained had burned up completely when the ship landed; the engines had acted like a giant incinerator. The heat was so intense that it actually had changed the soil composition right under the ship into a black, shiny, reflective surface that looked like volcanic rock found on Earth. It couldn’t have been a more ideal situation. What had formed was a solidified pad that acted like a reinforced foundation to support the massive ship. Without it, the ship could have easily tipped over and destroyed itself.
The only problem was the ship had a noticeable list. Two of the electromagnetic engines on the same side had shut off prematurely, and Connie reasoned that they hadn’t had sufficient time to cook the ground to form the pad. The sooner they desegmented the ship and took the weight off the pad, the better.
But first things first: the burial had to be done, and the dead mission specialist, still suited, was lowered in an aluminum basket. The pulley that assisted squeaked from the weight of the roped corpse.
No one had stepped off of the metal catwalk stairs to be the first to stand on the surface; that honor had been unanimously bestowed upon Captain Kriss by the crew. She stood on the bottom stair and looked up at the lowering basket overhead. It was her intent to grab the basket when it got close and guide it down to the ground as she stepped off the last step. She felt that it would be a fitting way for her and her dead comrade to equally share the honor.
The overhead scaffolding was full of women watching, and a long line waited inside to walk down the stairs. Stretching, Dozer bunted Libby with his head and started walking down the stairs. Before she could utter a word, he was leaping off onto the surface of the planet. It was perfect timing on his part, because Kriss wasn’t looking; she had just grabbed the basket and was carefully lowering it to the ground as he bounded past.
Realizing what had just happened, Kriss broke out in a string of profanities. Libby screamed in distress as she watched her best friend disappearing across the cleared area.
“That goddamn cat!” yelled Kriss.
Dozer didn’t break stride once. Instead, he disappeared into the junglelike maze of vegetation. The last thing the crew saw was his orange tail as the planet swallowed him up.
Libby cried uncontrollably, which only added to the somber mood of the crew. It was like the final spark required to start a blaze, and soon many of the crew began to cry with Libby.
Eventually, everyone except Leea in the Hole and the four guards manning the guns were on the surface. They unhooked the basket, and six pallbearers carried it almost to the edge of the clearing. Everyone else followed in single file with an escort of guards with shouldered bolt guns. The captain wasn’t taking any chances.
The area they had selected was on a slight knoll. Everyone not on guard duty took turns digging the grave. The soil was claylike, with chunks of hard, fist-sized rocks. It was slow digging, but Merc had picks and shovels, and no one complained about the blisters that started to form on their hands.
When the hole was dug, the crew gently lowered Charlie into her final resting place. Clearing her throat, Captain Kriss began to speak:
“Born on Earth a life away
Giving all to see this day
Dust to dust or so they say
It makes no sense; it’s just the way
Placing the remains in this foreign space
Now our home, this resting place
Never forgotten how big or small
Your spirit lives within us all.”
Kriss threw a handful of soil onto Charlie’s basket. Each woman in attendance did the same, repeating the Captain’s words. The last person to come to the grave was Connie, and she placed the golden phoenix over the heart of the dead mission specialist. The remaining exhumed soil was shoveled in, filling the hole and covering the deceased.
With the body buried, the next focus was the desegmentation of the ship to form the new colony. All the section commanders were meeting in Command for a briefing from their captain. Kriss was about to start speaking when Spice raised her hand.
Annoyed at this interruption, Kriss, with unveiled irritat
ion, boomed, “What is it?”
“Sir, I have a critical announcement to make,” replied Spice.
“Out with it,” barked Kriss.
“With the ship’s reserves seriously depleted, we are going to have to be on emergency rations immediately. I have already discussed this with Connie, and with the demands put on our bodies by the added gravity, we are going to burn more calories just to sustain ourselves.”
“An average adult diet on Earth is around two thousand calories; here it will be more like thirty-five hundred to four thousand,” added Connie.
“And we don’t have that luxury now. I’m estimating that if we cut everyone back to seven hundred and fifty to a thousand calories per day, we have about a one-month supply of food left,” said Spice.
Audible gasps came from everyone around the table, including Kriss.
“We make it all the way here and now we are going to starve to death?” yelled Kriss.
“I recommend we plant a garden and get it up and running. It will be my number one priority,” said Spice.
“I want Connie assisting you. Get every seed we have on board growing in our new garden. Use the ship’s garden as our greenhouse and the outside one for the hardier plants. I want you both using all your knowledge to bioengineer seeds and plants to grow here, and fast,” barked Kriss. “Spuds, cut the rations back and don’t let the crew know. Put sawdust in as filler if you have to. We can’t afford poor morale.”
“Yes, sir,” replied Spuds.
Turning to Merc, the captain said, “You are in charge of dismantling the ship. All other section commanders temporarily are subject to your orders. I want everyone else getting our colony set up and secured. Understood?”
“Yes, sir,” everyone responded as the captain’s chair spun to the sound of their voices.
As the chair slowed to a stop, Kriss stood. Saluting, she said, “I’m giving you two weeks to desegment my ship, establish our new colony, have a defensive perimeter set up, and have plants growing in both gardens. We need food and a safe home. No one eats more than their new ration size. We work around the clock with only four hours of sleep per day, and anyone not following this new protocol gets thrown in the Hole. Failure is not an option.”
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