by Alex Deva
“What does Effo know about that planet?“ asked Mark.
“Bit smaller than Earth, over ninety percent water, no air. I mean there’s something but it’s not like our air.“
“Different atmosphere. So it’s not breathable for humans?“
“Effo says I’m not to breathe it.“
“Wait. Why does Effo bother to tell you that? Isn’t it a space ship?“
“Good question.“ There was a long pause, as Aram conferred with the ship.
“Hmm,“ he said, and then there was a longer pause.
“Well. I don’t know how I feel about Effo keeping this a secret from me, but it turns out that she can fly all the way down to the surface, and she could’ve done that on Earth, too.“ Aram sounded clearly disappointed. “We’re gonna have a word later. Anyway, that’s good news, right?“
“Yes,“ said Mark. “That’s good news.“
“Not to be a prick, but can you fly it in atmosphere, Aram?“ asked Zi. “It’s a totally different way of flying.“
“Yesterday I would’ve said sure,“ said Aram after pondering a little, “but after today, I guess the only answer is, we’ll see.“
Zi raised his eyebrows, but said nothing.
XXXVII.
“I can’t leave her,“ said Mark.
“I understand,“ said Zi. “But we do have a mission. Aram and I can begin until Doina recovers, and then you two can join us.“
“What do you have in mind?“
“Look. Aram and I fly to the planet, find Jox, get the Square gun and, if it’ll still be needed by then, ask for help for Doina. She wakes up, fixes the ship, we fly home, take it from there.“
“Effo only takes one,“ came Aram’s voice.
“I know. I’m thinking I can hang on to it if you don’t accelerate or decelerate too swiftly.“
This stunned even Aram.
“You want to fly a hundred thousand kilometres through space holding on to an alien space ship?“ asked Mark.
“Look, I’ve done it before.“
“I… doubt it!“
“Well, something like it. It’s part of the Rook training. We can fly solo through space, stick to the outside of ships, that sort of thing. Pretty much like you did, only out in space.“
“Won’t work,“ said Aram.
“Sure it will. If I’m strapped…“
“No, that’s not it. You were right — atmospheric flight is different.“
“How do you mean?“
“It spins. Effo spins in atmosphere.“
The soldier was quiet for a moment.
“Oh.“ He rubbed his chin. “How fast?“
“Fast. Almost a thousand times per minute.“
“Ah. That’s pretty fast.“
Again, the soldier appeared pensive.
“I remember the inventory list,“ said Mark, reading his thoughts, “and there was no HALO rig on it.“
“I thought of that when we packed, to be honest, but just assumed that your starship could dream one up, per specs.“
“Which was my next point. Without knowing atmosphere density and composition, you can’t decide on a parachute, even if you had the option.“
“Ah. But you’re thinking like a twenty-first century SAS,“ said Zi, with the beginning of a smile.
“Well, unless people have become crash-resistant in the past few centuries, you still need a canopy to hang under.“
Aram’s voice intervened. “You guys really jumped from high places and didn’t die? I thought Mark was joking.“
“I have a few hundred jumps in my logbook,“ said Mark, “and I’m pretty sure Zi has at least as many, but still: unless the gravity on that planet is as forgiving as our room-to-room, the only way down ends with a splat.“
Zi scrunched his face and rubbed his nose. They needed to find a way to get to the surface; Aram could probably fly alone, but he’d need someone to watch his back. There was no way, under the present circumstances, that the whole mission could be allowed to rest on the shoulders of one man, ancient Dacian or not. But, as long as Effo only had one place, and there were no other means of transportations apart from the dead starship, they seemed to be out of options.
“Not necessarily,“ said Aram, suddenly.
* * *
One hour and much pointing and explaining later, Zi and Aram were suited up, in the starship’s airlock. Effo’s cockpit lay open at their feet.
“You know what, I can’t fly with this fucking thing on my head,“ said Aram, annoyed, taking his helmet off.
“Why not?“
“Effo can’t see me.“
“How are we gonna talk then? Suit radios are all we have.“
“Effo can talk to your, what’s it? Flex chip?“
“Okay. So no voice comms.“
“What’s to talk about? We’ll talk once we’re on the ground.“
Communications were indeed a problem. Their suits had radio and laser comms, but the only way of talking to Mark was via Effo, and then only if Effo called Doi. They had brought some rather capable Earth comms technology, but decided not to use it, as it would’ve probably meant giving away the starship’s position. Once Doina woke up and fixed things, perhaps other options would present themselves; or, at the very least, they would be able to afford being detected. Until then, the decision was made to stay as silent as possible.
Aram descended into Effo’s cockpit, while Zi watched with interest.
“You ready?“ he asked.
“I’m ready,“ Zi answered, finishing the suit’s self-checks. Effo’s jet black canopy closed over Aram, and after no more than two or three seconds, Zi’s suit sensors noticed no more air around them.
A small, thin, black circle appeared around the base of the airlock, as Effo gently detached. The circle became thicker, and when the little ship was about half meter down, Zi stepped down on it. As he laid flat on the right side of the extruding cockpit, he felt himself being sucked down, or glued, or perhaps tied to the side of the ship. He tried to peer inside the canopy, but it was just as opaque as everything else.
He looked around him. Myriads of stars filled the sky in every direction. He tried to identify a constellation, but even though there were many, he recognised none of them. He tried to look higher up, and saw the starship’s huge torus, a black void on the starry background, farther and farther away. He caught a glimpse of Effo’s dock iris shutting, and then Aram changed direction.
A blue-green planet appeared in his field of view, flying in from his left. It seemed terribly small and far away, no larger than Zi’s thumb perhaps. He flexed to Aram:
— How far exactly?
He felt the answer as a long sequence of tiny twitches in his fingers:
— One hundred and nine thousand, three hundred and eighty-one kilometres and two hundred fifty-nine metres.
That’s gotta be a record, he thought, although not really sure about what kind of record. Riding an alien ship to an alien planet, perhaps?
— Ready?
He flexed confirmation, and braced himself for the acceleration. It was unexpectedly gentle, but continuous. When it passed one g, his suit kicked in with hydraulic help, and he checked the indicator on his helmet visor; it appeared to stabilise at around 4 g.
— Too much? came a question into his fingers.
— How long? he asked instead.
— About half hour.
He thought about it. A half hour weighing three hundred and sixty kilos. He’d had worse; not much, and not often, but he thought he could take it. He was well-trained and in great shape, considering that he’d just been reborn not a long time ago. He flexed confirmation, and started to concentrate on his breathing.
After about five minutes, he began to feel somewhat envious on Aram, who, by some alien miracle, felt not one bit of the acceleration, and started to think that, whatever that alien miracle was, it wouldn’t have killed that woman to extend it a little above the ship’s hull. But then, strapping passen
gers on the hull was probably not in the ship’s operations handbook.
He knew — they had debated it — that the ship could accelerate much faster, and then the trip would’ve taken much less. He also knew what his limit was. He would black out at around ten g, but after about seven or eight, for anything longer than a minute, he’d be useless for a day or two. They’d decided to trade it for time, and stay on the good side of human limits, and he was now thankful for it.
He checked the mission clock; seventeen minutes and counting. He’d have sore legs after all the pumping that the suit did to make sure that his blood wasn’t pooling. The pulsations felt good at first, as they always did, but now there was a serious amount of pain involved. He focused on the planet in front of them; was it hypoxia, or had it really become bigger? It must have! Surely accelerating like this for a half hour would put a dent in that distance?
After what seemed like an eternity, the pressured eased up. At first he had the insane thought that he was getting used to it, passed some kind of runner’s block or something, but the visor digits were clear: three g, then one-and-a-half. He felt light, breathing seemed to happen almost against his will, and as his visual acuity returned, he thought he could see bits of dust ten metres away.
— Eighty klicks per second, he felt.
One Albania every five seconds, he converted. And still accelerating.
— How long till atmosphere? he sent.
— About twenty minutes.
The planet was definitely getting bigger. At one point five g, he could take this forever. He started to go through the plan again.
— Mark asks if you’re ok.
He smiled inside his helmet. The suit’s water reclamation subsystem had kept his face dry, otherwise he would’ve been drenched in sweat. His legs felt as if a whole division of tanks had run over them, and he had neck cramps because of his position.
— Perfect, he flexed.
The big moment approached with every minute. The halo around the planet was almost engulfing them now; at first he thought that the globe was covered by flat, green clouds, but then he understood that it was, in fact, one huge ocean. He started looking for continents, and found some irregular, insular shapes of not-quite-brown. Aram had switched to a trajectory that had them flying over the dark side; it was Mark’s suggestion that they may be able to figure out the important places by how much light they gave.
Of course, that was always assuming that this particular kind of aliens required visible light, or had eyes to see it with. Jox certainly had what appeared to be optical organs, but then, who could tell?
More time passed, and the planet had become huge, filling up almost all the sky in Zi’s visor. He began to brace himself. On Earth, he’d done jumps from the edge of the atmosphere; it was standard training for special forces. But then, in training, he usually knew more or less exactly what would be waiting for him on the ground; among others, breathable air was usually a given.
And, of course, he used to have a parachute. He waved the thought away.
A fluid, transparent, white pressure wave began forming at the leading edge of the ship, a few metres to his side. The suit’s thermometer numbers began to climb, nearing zero; up until then, Aram had flown in an attitude that had kept Zi on the shady side, and he still couldn’t see the sun, but the molecules of the topmost atmospheric layers had begun to hit him and impart their energy as heat. The suit could handle free descent through Earth’s atmosphere; here, who knew?
— Almost time.
— Ready when you are.
And then, suddenly, the binds that tied him to Effo vanished and he fell off. Technically he was still falling, so the sensation wasn’t too unpleasant. He manoeuvred into the free-fall position and then flew a little farther away from Effo, to avoid its developing wake.
The temperature gauge quickly went to positive numbers, and jumped to fifty in almost a blink of an eye; then to a hundred, then resolutely towards three hundred and still kept climbing. He felt very little of it. The layered fabric of the suit, and the computer interface in it, would insulate him up to four and a half thousand degrees.
As the atmosphere thickened, he began to feel resistance. He had a laser range finder on his sleeve, but didn’t dare to use it. On Earth, he approximated, he would’ve been about sixty thousand metres high.
And still he fell, with Effo at his side.
— OK? came a question.
He flexed confirmation, and took a closer look at the ship. It was only then he noticed something different about it; it looked somewhat blurry, as if he couldn’t resolve its details anymore. And then he got it: it was spinning. He assumed that Aram was either not spinning or not feeling it — surely the first? In any case, he felt unable to tell which way the cockpit pointed towards any longer.
Soon it would be time to deploy a canopy — if he’d had one. As a part of his mind began to furtively sabotage his confidence, he tried to busy himself doing suit integrity checks. The temperature was well up into four digits, and whatever he was flying through felt reasonably thick. He moved a finger, waited, and judged the attitude change; it was measurable, but not quite as big as it would’ve been over Earth.
He hit a thick cloud, and his suit automatically analysed it. It thought it was water, but Zi didn’t know if it was capable of detecting any other types of clouds. For a few seconds, he fell through a white, milky substance, suddenly unable to tell up from down, and he had a brief disorientation spell, which he’d entirely expected. Keeping calm, he focused on the gyroscope readings projected inside his helmet, and determined, as always, to trust them no matter what his inner ear told him.
Effo’s light grey shape accompanied him to his left.
Surely they’d be detectable? Zi was large enough to be visible on any radar, by Earth’s standards of technology. And Effo, even if it was absorbing radiation, was still heating the atmosphere and probably leaving a wet condensation trail.
Well, there was no turning back anyway.
He pierced the cloud, and the water surface came at him incredibly fast. Inside his space suit glove, his fingers instinctively twitched the deploy command, and a small voice at the back of his mind suddenly remembered a few special Albanian words which were normally set aside for fatal tragedies and bad toothaches.
He braked as well as he could, spreading his arms and legs. The suit helped a bit, automatically extending a triangle of fabric between his knees. He tried to hit every molecule that was coming up his way, but the water just came and came.
Effo flew past him, tumbling chaotically head over tails, accelerating beyond terminal velocity and ending up about a hundred metres underneath. It looked as if they would crash together; it looked as if Zi would pierce the water surface like a stone and all the bits he would break into would take at least a minute to stop, lost in the depths of the alien ocean.
Effo stopped spinning. For an instance it fell just as before, and then it started to vibrate. First, it shook wildly, then, it stabilised. Aram was probably wrestling with it inside. They had only seconds left. No time to waste with gentle actions; Effo braked its fall and rose towards Zi like a giant, black saucer. He fell on it hard, harder than he’d expected, but the suit took some of the brunt. He gasped, panted, and expected to be glued down again.
He wasn’t. Aram either didn’t have time for that, or else stopping Effo from spinning somehow incapacitated whatever sticky mechanism it had. Zi began to glide towards the edge, and in two short seconds he was hanging half out. He caught a glimpse of the water — it couldn’t have been more than a hundred metres — before Effo turned on its side. He found himself leaning over the ship’s edge, holding on for dear life, as it braked powerfully, drawing a long, sharp wake on the surface of the ocean.
Effo flew sideways, oscillating madly, barely a few centimetres above the water, leaning left and right, until Aram simply had to give up.
— Bye, twitched a quick message in Zi’s fingers.
The ship began to spin in its vertical plane, and Zi knew it was time to let go. He let himself glide off into the water, and fell with a splash. Effo spun faster and faster, already a hundred metres away, but then stabilised in its normal position.
Zi began to tread water, fighting the pain in his legs. He looked up; a full moon, somewhat larger than Earth’s, lit the waters around him. He decided to float a little, to catch his breath, and his suit obliged with some added flotation and a little extra oxygen in his air mix.
He tried to imagine where Doi was. Was it beyond the moon? He couldn’t remember seeing the satellite as he fell. What a jump! No parachute, unknown atmosphere… and yeah, unknown planet.
Yes. First Lieutenant Erbardh Xhaka was the first human being to step foot on a planet outside the Solar System. And he didn’t even know what planet that was. Way to go, Zi. Way to get in the history books.
XXXVIII.
Effo’s cockpit opened, and the last chord of Sonata Arctica’s “San Sebastian“ reverberated into the alien atmosphere at a very respectable decibel level. The Dacian’s helmeted head popped up as he pushed himself out of his seat, looking around. He saw Zi swimming about ten metres to his left, and waved to him. The soldier waved back, and with a few broad strokes arrived at the floating ship and hung onto its side.
Aram stood up and inspected their surroundings. The blue-green water was calm, and stretched to the horizon in all directions. He had aimed for an island on their way down, but had lost all directional control and navigation as soon as he’d forced Effo to stop spinning. He had no idea where they’d ended up. The backup plan was to lift off, leaving Zi temporarily behind, get his bearings, and then progress towards civilisation by means of swimming, flying, walking or whatever combination of the above.
Aram was just about to get back into the cockpit and let Zi know that they were lost, when four columns of water erupted around them.
Four large objects breached the ocean surface. They were shaped like long needles, thicker around the base, like long, white scallions. As soon as they cleared the surface, their stalks split into three and bent horizontally, then began to spin like helicopter rotor blades. The ships took position in four corners of a square, hovering around Aram, Zi and their black ship. Thin, blue, laser-like beams appeared from their cockpits, aimed straight at the newcomers.