“Sir, we dug through the intel from Elizabet’s team. It’s…” the man left off, unsure of what to say.
“It’s better than expected,” a woman spoke up. “In fact, it’s too good to be true. If I had to make a guess, I’d say they doctored some of this information to make this deal look better than it really is. According to their numbers, the atmosphere is a near match to Earth as far as air composition. It may take a little while to adjust, but heavy breathing equipment won’t be necessary. Excuse me for saying this, sir, but I don’t believe they would be giving us land with this much profit potential if all of it was true.”
Elida raised his head and met her eyes, nodding his understanding, but he did not speak.
“We also have some preliminary contacts for your exploratory team, but we need to know exactly how many engineers, scientists, and medics you need. Also, any other specialties you foresee needing in your early days. We are trying to prepare for worst-case scenario here,” a fidgety little man piped up from the far end of the table.
“I thought that’s what you guys were for?” Elida interrupted. “Dammit, Meeks, you’re the brains of this operation. You tell me how many of these people it takes to run a successful colony. Do the math. Scale it down to 50 or 100 people and then give me your advice. If I had all the answers, I wouldn’t need an advisory team,” he finished with a disgruntled huff.
“Y-yes, sir. You’re right, sir,” the nervous Meeks conceded, and then hurriedly swept his papers and clipboard off the table and whisked out of the room before recieving another round of fire from Counselor Elida. The whole room watched him go without a word.
“All right, we will need to do better than this. This isn’t some operation in the desert, where we can just fly home to get extra supplies when we need ‘em. This will be the real deal. Our people are hardy from years of tough labor, but until we set foot on that soil, we do not understand what we’re facing. I hope that intel hasn’t been doctored, but I agree we should expect it to be, and we don’t want to look surprised when we get there. Where are my historians? What can you tell me about successful colony upstarts on other foreign planets? Where did they focus their energies? Tell me what I need to know!” His fists fell on the table like hammers and his advisors jumped involuntarily.
“Allow me,” came a soft voice. A few chairs squealed back from the table, and a moment later the mousy man placed a device on the tabletop. With the click of a button, it projected a map on the wall, along with a variety of images.
“What am I lookin’ at, Zeke?”
“These are the newest upstart colonies I could identify in our local star system, sir. I chose colonies that were built on planetoids roughly matching the identifying attributes of Nero 821, assuming the intel is correct, and those colonies that had a starting crew of 50-100, just like your proposed team. I traced their progress to identify their starting point and reached out to those that are still functioning colonies today to gather feedback about what they wished they had done differently. I haven’t heard from most of them yet, given the distance and all, but I’m hoping to hear something soon. In the meantime, I can tell you about the ones that didn’t make it, and we can use those as guideposts for what not to do.”
Elida waved a hand for Zeke to continue and listened intently. Looking around the room, his other advisors were taking notes of supplies, weapons and other details that they needed to work out in advance. He was glad they had his back, so he could focus on leading the mission ahead, and he could keep his head clear for whatever might come up along the way.
“There’s just one last thing,” Zeke stated, drawing the commander’s attention back to him. He paused and stared Elida straight in his steely eyes before saying, “There will be deaths, sir. There is no way around it. Some of your crew members will probably not survive the first few weeks. Whoever you take with you needs to understand this. But more importantly, you need to be prepared to lose these men and carry on without them. Due to the sensitive nature of this mission, it makes sense to take the very best of our specialists, but if one of them were to… perish… we need to make sure we have other men able to pick up the jobs they leave behind. Redundancy, if you will.”
Zeke was rambling now, sounding almost as nervous as the man who had excused himself earlier, but Elida cut him off.
“You’re smart, Zeke, but I sure as hell don’t need you to tell me about the sacrifice I’m asking these men to make. How many times have you launched out of a craft and gone to war, eh?” Elida raised an eyebrow, tapping his finger on the table impatiently.
“None, sir,” Zeke answered, before remembering his courage. “But that’s exactly what I’m trying to tell you. You will not be landing on this planet with a team of highly trained space marines. You will land with a few space marines and a bunch of engineers and horticulturists. You will have to work double-time to protect them from whatever’s waiting for you over there. Some of them will die.”
Elida rolled his eyes and grumbled at the young advisor. “Point taken.”
Zeke was sharp. In fact, if Elida had his way, Zeke would be onboard the ship with him when they took off for Nero 821. He just didn’t know it yet.
3
“ATTENTION, CREW. WE will land shortly on our destination planet. Please listen closely to the following orders from the Captain,” the words piped through the ship and echoed back through the metallic halls. They had been hurtling through space at break-neck speed for ninety-six days and nights by Earth calendar, relying on a few hops and skips among the solar system’s outer planets before using an enormous slingshot-like propulsion device to hurl themselves out toward the next star system at a rate faster than any engine could possibly take them. This last part of the journey was particularly harrying, and it wasn’t an exact science. Once they got close enough to their intended target, they would have to take back control of the ship and guide it to a smooth landing. Until then, there was little they could do to steer clear of obstacles, and more than one ship had been lost in this process. There was a good reason that Earth’s inhabitants had been slow to explore outlying star systems.
Human beings had been a space-faring people for decades, but their innovation had some blind spots in Elida’s view. For instance, they had achieved this primitive means of reaching deep space, and instead of providing more funding to scientists to develop on the idea further, those wasteful leeches known as the Central Government had instead handed money over to defense contractors to build more weapons for space. As a military man, he appreciated the need for weapons, but he would have much preferred a comfy ride to his new home at this juncture in his career. Besides, as far as they knew, they were still the only beings in space, and the central government had more or less quashed any ideas of Earth-side warfare that would require heavy weaponry. The officials in the Central Government were corrupt to their core, along with the whole structure, but at least they had managed to stave off a nuclear holocaust. He had to give them credit for that.
With less than eighteen hours left to their destination, Elida paced through the cargo hold once more, checking that his crates were secure, double-checking the inventory of rations left to them for their first days on land. His calm outward appearance masked a jittery, childlike glee that coursed through his veins at the chance to put his boots on foreign soil once more. When he became head of the Helechi tribe, he assumed that his adventuring days were behind him, but this would be one last romp through the wild before he settled in for good.
“It does a soul good,” he mumbled to himself from among the stacks of supplies.
“What’s that, sir?” Zeke called.
“Nothing, Zeke. Carry on.”
It had taken some coaxing to get Zeke on the ship. To be fair, the kid was young. This wasn’t exactly the kind of job he had signed up for, either. He was more of a scientist type. He didn’t have any of the tough-guy bravado that Elida was used to seeing among new recruits, and it had taken a while for the two of them t
o find a middle ground where Elida could give commands and the scrawny twerp didn’t just piss his pants in fear. Alas, ninety-six days trapped in a metal tube sailing through space is as good a time as any to work on interpersonal communication skills, and that is exactly what they had done. The better they came to understand one another, the more they trusted that the other one would be there when things got rough, and that was what really mattered. Besides, Zeke’s expertise would be more valuable on their new home planet than an extra gun. Elida was confident in his choice.
The ship rumbled and kicked up dust as the rockets fired. Everyone on the ship strapped into their seats and the air tingled with their collective anticipation as the crew nudged the craft back and forth to find a suitable landing spot. It didn’t matter how many times you had flown on a standard ship between the local planets, the first trip outside the system was always a mixed bag. Some people held it together, trusting to the crew to land them safely. Others jumped and quivered at every lurch and creak that the ship made on the approach. Elida watched his crew with some amusement, learning a little more about each of them as their expressions wavered.
“This is it, boys and girls!” Elida roared as the ship shook violently and then crashed, throwing them hard against their restraints in a way that would surely leave bruises for the next few weeks. It wasn’t the smoothest landing, but it certainly wasn’t the worst he’d seen either.
Everyone seemed to release the breath they had been holding all at once, and Elida jumped out of his seat and straight into action.
“You guys know the drill! Security team, you’re on point. Hit the ground and stake out our first perimeter. Make sure we have enough room to drop these first few tents. Once that’s done, we’ll start working outward. Science team, you’re staying on board to survey and study samples that the other crews bring back. I don’t want any of you wandering off, now.” He gave them a scolding look, and they cowered. In his experience, it was always the scientists that made trouble. They were too eager to look about, and almost never took their own safety into consideration. He couldn’t risk it this time.
With a hiss and a loud bang, a door swung open below. The security team already had their gear strapped on and they were lowering themselves down a ladder one by one and making their way out. Elida watched them fumbling through the small opening with irritation. What kind of idiot built a ship where your defense team had to climb blindly down a ladder to face whatever was outside the door? he thought. Then he remembered that this was not exactly a military ship, and it definitely was not fit for facing off with enemies. As expected, Elizabet had over-promised and under-delivered with the equipment she could provide the Helechi’s on their maiden voyage, but Elida would not quibble over the little details if it meant he might lose his chance. They took what they could get, and they made arrangements for whatever else they needed, but there was no turning back. Not now, not ever.
4
“SIR? YOU’RE GONNA want to see this,” the voice crackled through Elida’s headset.
“You’re in charge, kiddo!” Elida announced, swatting Zeke on the back and making him stumble forward before jumping down the small ladder opening and dropping to the floor below like some exaggerated action hero.
Elida bounded out onto the ramp and looked around in bewilderment. He had instructed the crew to look for water before landing. They hadn’t seen any water from up above, but they had spotted a green area where things appeared to be growing, and they had made a bet that there would be water nearby. Stepping out of the ship, the two suns burning high in the sky overhead stung his eyes, and his nose wrinkled at a smell that could not be described with mere words. It was a nauseating mixture of rotting corpses and burning fuel that made his stomach lurch. The sensation was made only worse by the fact that the wind blew steadily in a single direction, whipping the scent and tiny grains of sand across his face all at once.
The wind. The intel had not mentioned the wind. No wonder they hadn’t agreed to turn this into some sort of resort for the wealthy, he thought grimly. Nobody would want to golf in a wind like this. Putting a hand up to block his face from the flurry of blinding sand, he marched further out to greet his men. They were trudging their way across the small open expanse toward the tree line, wrestling a small section of a fence along with them to begin their perimeter wall, but Elida already knew it wouldn’t do them any good.
“Fall back, we will have to come up with another plan,” he said dejectedly, but before the men could get turned around with the fence, another gust of wind picked it up and sent it tumbling end over end across the open land. The sound of its frame making a dull thud every time it struck the ground and turned another flip.
They all watched it go, feeling the first pangs of defeat deep in their hearts, but Elida marched back toward the ship, carried in little hops and skips by the wind lifting his feet and forcing him onward. He refused to show his disappointment now. The other men followed, using the railings to pull themselves back up into the relative safety of the ladder opening. Once they were inside, their ears continued to ring with the whistling of the wind, leaving them half-deaf.
“All right,” Elida began, shaking sand and dirt out of his clothes. “Now we know what we’re up against. There’s no way we can drop these tents down there. They’ll blow away in seconds.”
“They set us up, Captain,” one of the security men asserted angrily.
“Of course they did, son. They’ve been setting us up ever since the first time they realized we could be useful to them. This isn’t any different, except this time, when we find a solution, it will be ours to keep. Keep your head up.”
As they hauled themselves back up the ladder and into the common area, the rest of the crew watched them expectantly. There was a long silence before one of them spoke up.
“Well?”
Elida’s eyes snapped open, and he glared at the speaker. “Well, it’s going to be hard. But we already knew that. Now, let’s start solving problems instead of whining about them. The wind is harsh. Our supplies aren’t going to help us now. You engineers need to devise a way for us to have shelter, and quick. Go down there for yourselves so you can see what we’re up against and then report back.”
Three engineers gave a sloppy salute before heading to the ladder. The security team hung their heads sullenly and sat on the floor to dump the sand out of their boots. The scientists hurried forward, scooping the sand up enthusiastically and observing it in their hands before scuttling away to their instruments to get a closer look.
A few minutes later, one engineer popped his head back up through the porthole. “I think we have a plan, sir,” he offered confidently.
Elida spun on his heel and looked down upon the man. “Ferik, right?”
“Yes, sir.”
“All right, Ferik, what do you propose?”
“Heading for the trees, sir,” he stated, shrugging his shoulders as if this solved their problem.
Elida growled in frustration, “That’s where we were headed! What kind of engineer are you?”
“Just hear me out. The trees appear to be blocking much of the wind. The forest is dense. We don’t know what’s in there, but once you get in among the trees a few yards, things quiet down. We can set up a perimeter inside the tree line, using the larger trees and plants as anchor points, and lash our fences between them. Then we can clear a little space and put our tents down inside the line. The biggest problem is how to get our supplies over there. It’s going to be hard, and we will be moving away from our ship, which means we need to take as much as we can with us. We will have limited access to the ship after that.”
“Are you proposing we ditch our ship out in the open and hope for the best?” Elida’s eyes widened in disbelief.
“No, sir. I’m just saying, if we want a camp, we’re going to have to deal with a little inconvenience. Once we’re settled and everyone is safe, we can start working on a tunnel or something so we can get back here easily.”
Elida wrung his hands together, twisting his knuckles against one another until they turned white. “Fine. Do what you have to do. The security team will carry the supplies for the perimeter once we have everything packed tightly, and you help them find a place that’s workable. The rest of us will follow with as much stuff as we can carry. We won’t have much time to get this done before it’s dark out. It’s all hands on deck.”
The three engineers use a long safety cable to create a guide from the ship’s ramp to the nearest tree. They secured it tightly at both ends, and then helped their crew mates make their way along the line one arm length at a time. As long as they hung on, the wind didn’t give them too much trouble, but if one were to fall down, it would take serious work to get back on their feet and moving again. The whole process took several hours, and some of his crew members were forced to abandon equipment on the ship until they established a permanent camp, a concession that made them uneasy and infuriated at once.
5
THE FIRST STEPS into the greenery were overwhelming. After walking fifty yards through blinding sand, the affront of colors was hard for the mind to handle. Elida stared around at flowers bursting with every color. The stench hung heavy in the air here, but he had visited plenty of places where death and decay filled the air. He knew he would grow accustomed to the smell eventually, but he couldn’t resist the urge to cover his mouth and nose, and the others followed suit.
His strongest men worked their way ahead, clearing trees and brush as best they could, running back every few yards to move the perimeter supplies forward on makeshift pallets. The rest of the crew followed closely behind, shaking their heads with disapproval at the careless destruction they were a part of, but gathering samples nevertheless. They pressed leaves of every shape and size between thin sheets of paper, and they uncorked small tubes to gather bits of soil and tiny grubs. There was very little talking going on, both because of the noise and because of the awe at discovering a new place, previously untouched.
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