by Elin Wyn
I did not move. I turned my head to look him in the eyes. “I do not wish to waste my time as a babysitter for some dirt-collector, sir.”
“I’m not a ‘dirt-collector,’” I heard her say, fury in her tone, but I ignored her.
The general and I stared at one another for what seemed like many long minutes. I could hear the men shuffling their feet behind me. I had no intention of breaking, but when he smiled, I somehow knew things would not go well for me.
“You, my old friend, truly are a fool,” he said as he kept staring at me. His words were calm and whispered. “You have decided to turn your back on your team, your crew, and me. You have decided to place yourself into exile in order to search for a way off this planet and back to our world. While I do not dismiss the necessity of your search, I do not believe in the obsession behind it.”
I opened my mouth to challenge his statement, but his words came faster. “You are the one that has chosen to become this person that you are now. So, I present you with a choice. You will take this assignment and complete it in the manner in which you complete all of your missions, or you will resign your commission.”
“Then I resign, sir.”
“Ah, you should truly let me finish.” A smile split his face, and it wasn’t friendly in the least. “If I accept your resignation, you will no longer be allowed to use the Aurora, live on the Aurora, or have contact with the Aurora, since it is currently a military installation. You will be a civilian, without military access and without military privilege.” He stepped away from me and walked over to the human woman. “Now, old friend. What is your decision?”
At the moment, I disliked the general immensely. To blackmail me into working this assignment was beneath him. It was juvenile, and petty.
But I needed the Aurora and her computers.
I nodded, not trusting my own voice to be civil at that moment.
He clapped his hands and rubbed them together. “Good. Doctor Parker, you have already been introduced to the others, and while this is certainly not the introduction I had wanted, I would like to introduce to you Commander Karzin, leader of Strike Team Two, and normally a more reasonable person than now.”
She nodded, looking as though she would walk towards me, then thought better of it. “Thank you, General.”
“What exactly will we be investigating, sir?” I asked.
The general turned the floor over to the woman, who looked at me, but made a point to look at the others as well. “My sensors have been picking up seismic activity at the Xathi crash site, something that has not happened before. I am being sent to look into it, take samples, and ensure that the sensors are working properly.”
“Fine. I assume we’re leaving soon?” I asked.
Again, she was the one to answer. “As soon as you’re ready to go, Commander.”
I grunted, and turned to leave.
The sooner this babysitting assignment was over, the sooner I could get back to my real job.
Finding a way home.
Annie
If someone had told me I’d be spending my afternoon sandwiched between two giant aliens as we sped off to the middle of the desert, I would’ve said they were insane.
When I reported the tremors to the head of the lab, I never expected they would send me to General Rouhr on my own. The stories in the news painted him as some kind of fearless and fearsome warrior. While there was no doubt in my mind that he fit that description, I didn’t expect him to be as polite and kind as he was. I found I wasn’t scared of him at all.
The glaring Valorni sitting beside me, on the other hand, I was a little scared of. My arms were tucked into my sides as close to my body as possible. I didn’t want to bump him by accident. The scowl on his face had remained in place from the moment he entered General Rouhr’s office until now.
If he hadn’t been so determined to frown, he’d have been almost handsome. And there was no doubt that his broad frame was intriguing.
And I’d happily stare and touch him if he hadn’t been glowering the whole time.
As my mind focused on what the Valorni would look like without a scowl, my arm suddenly brushed his.
Electric sparks shot through my body as he turned to look at me.
Startled, I removed my arm again. He stared at me for a long moment before looking away.
This was one angry alien.
That whole argument between the Valorni and General Rouhr was unsettling. I wasn’t sure how I felt about being escorted by a team with a leader that seemed to want nothing to do with me.
The general also mentioned something about an intervention. I wondered if putting this…Strike Team Two on my case was part of that intervention. I couldn’t say I was pleased to be dragged into what sounded like quite personal problems, but as long as I got to look at my equipment and figure out what those tremors were, I didn’t care.
Still, by the look of the Valorni’s face, this little excursion was a major inconvenience for him. He came off as an asshole in General Rouhr’s office, but my mother had always taught me to be polite and considerate of others.
That applied even to the grouchy Valorni.
“If I’m pulling you away from a more important assignment, I apologize,” I said, though I couldn’t imagine anything more important than this. “I didn’t anticipate your general would assemble a whole team to escort me.”
“Karzin? More important assignments?” One of the other aliens, a Skotan, chuckled. “That’s quite humorous.”
“Do you like your teeth, Rokul?” The glowering Valorni, Karzin, snapped. “Keep talking and I’ll make them into a windchime for you to hang in front of your door.” The Skotan, Rokul, snorted but didn’t say anything more.
There was clearly some tension in this group, but that was completely uncalled for. I turned to face Karzin head on.
“If I’d known your general was going to send me out to the desert, I would’ve insisted on picking escorts that were actually willing to go,” I told him.
“I can’t imagine anyone that would be willing to go poke about in a desert collecting grains of sand,” Karzin snapped.
That was the second time he’d insulted my profession, this time it was to my face. I wasn’t going to put up with this for the rest of the day.
“It’s not my fault you can’t grasp the concept of geology,” I replied. “Don’t blame me for your ignorance.”
A heavy silence settled over the transport unit. Karzin stared me down, no doubt expecting me to cower under his steely gaze. To be honest, I wanted to, but if I did, he’d feel free to be a pain in the ass for the rest of this excursion. I wasn’t prepared to deal with that.
To my surprise, he tipped his head back and laughed.
“The rock lady has a backbone!” he laughed. “How refreshing.”
The tension in the carrier evaporated. I hadn’t expected him to react in that way. I didn’t have any clue how I was supposed to respond.
Karzin didn’t seem to care.
“So, rock lady, answer me this,” he continued. “General Rouhr introduced you as Annie, but that fancy key card around your neck says Andromeda. Which is it?”
“I prefer to go by Annie,” I explained.
“But your real name is Andromeda?”
“Yes,” I nodded.
“I’m going to call you Andromeda,” Karzin said decidedly.
“Prepare to be ignored then,” I replied.
“What’s so wrong with Andromeda?” Karzin asked.
I didn’t respond. I felt childish, but I had the sense that with Karzin, if I gave him an inch, he’d take a mile. He reminded me of Cassie in that way, but all comparisons stopped there. A small, twisted part of me wanted to see what would happen if Cassie and Karzin went head to head in an argument.
“I don’t like it,” I finally replied.
“Why not?”
“Do I need to have a reason?” I answered. “I simply prefer to go by Annie.”
“Whateve
r you say, Andromeda,” Karzin smirked.
Jerk.
I folded my arms across my chest and looked away, making a show of ignoring him. Unbelievable. I’d known him for all of five minutes and he was making me, a grown woman, pout like a child.
I told myself that everything was fine. I just had to deal with him for this one assignment. Once I recovered my data, I could retreat to my lab and do some real work for once.
“Hey, Andromeda,” he said. I ignored him.
“Andromeda,” he repeated. I continued to ignore him,
“Annie!”
“Yes?” I replied.
“I think I might know what caused your sensors to go off the charts,” Karzin said. He was looking out the window. I leaned past his massive body in an attempt to see what he was talking about. Below us, the landscape was dotted with pieces of the fallen Xathi ship. Right in the middle of the fallout area was a massive, perfectly circular crater.
“What the fuck is that?” I gasped. “That wasn’t there before.”
“You don’t say,” Karzin commented. “Mystery solved then?”
“No.” I settled back down in my seat. “Mystery far from solved. I don’t know what it’s like where you come from, but pieces of the planet don’t just collapse here.”
Something cold flitted through his gaze but was gone before I could fully comprehend it.
The pilot of our transport unit set us down as close to the edge of the crater as he dared. Karzin was the first to leap out of the unit. I quickly followed after him.
“What’s the plan here, Andromeda?” he asked.
I walked by him without a word, but heard him laugh softly behind me as he followed.
“Were any of you in the area when the pieces of the Xathi ship fell here?” I asked.
“We all were,” a K’ver responded.
“Oh,” I said quietly. “Well, does anything look different?”
“Aside from the hole?” Karzin asked.
“Yes, aside from the hole,” I nodded.
“Nothing stands out,” Karzin replied. “I’d have to see the original pictures taken of the area to tell you for sure.” He shaded his eyes. “We were all pretty busy with the battle.”
Oh. Of course they were.
Not all of the Xathi had been killed when their ship crashed. The strike teams had taken care of any survivors.
“I can examine the photos myself when I get back to the lab,” I said. I stepped up to the crater, the toes of my boots inches from the edge. I slowly leaned forward, peering into the depths of the crater.
“See anything?” Karzin’s voice startled me. I hadn’t realized he was standing so close.
“Are you trying to kill me?” I snapped.
“I would’ve caught you if you tumbled forward,” he said with a dismissive wave.
“Like I’m going to trust you,” I grumbled.
“You should. I’m in charge of your well-being,” he replied.
“That doesn’t make me feel any better.”
Karzin stepped up next to me and peered in. I was tempted to startle him, but I didn’t want to stoop to his level.
“Looks deep,” he commented. He took something out of his pocket, a clear vial of some sort. He clicked the button on the top of the vial and it suddenly began to glow. He tossed it into the crater. Together, we watched it fall until it was completely swallowed by darkness.
“I’m going to send a probe down,” I announced. I walked back to the transport unit for one of my supply packs. The silver probe was remotely operated and could change its orientation so that it could embed itself at any angle. I returned to the lip of the crater and deployed it.
“What will that do?” Karzin asked.
“I’m going to send it down as far as I can and stick it into the side of the crater. It will collect information and give us a better idea of what’s going on here,” I explained.
“I didn’t know you needed so many fancy gadgets to look at dirt,” Karzin said.
“Says the one carrying glowsticks,” I scoffed.
“Those are useful survival tools,” Karzin replied.
“That’s a shame. Now yours is at the bottom of a chasm. Won’t be very useful to you now.” The probe reached maximum depth, about a half mile below the surface. I reoriented it so it could bury its spike in the crater wall. After a few moments, data started pouring to my portable console.
“Interesting,” I mumbled.
“Are you going to share with the rest of us or are you going to keep us in suspense?” Karzin asked.
“From the lip of the crater inward, the planet’s crust is unusually thin,” I said.
“I could’ve told you that,” Karzin said, gesturing to the gaping hole.
“Can you tell me why the planetary crust is thinner in this specific area?” I looked at him expectantly.
“No,” Karzin admitted. “Can the probe?”
“It can give me clues,” I explained. “The probe is telling me that this specific area has always been thinner than the surrounding area, it didn’t recently degrade into this state. The fact that it’s perfectly circular tells me that this didn’t occur naturally. The impact of the Xathi ship pieces probably cracked the thin crust. A slight shift in the tectonic plates would’ve been enough to make this whole thing collapse.”
I looked up at Karzin. His mouth was open, he looked like he was struggling to come up with a quip. When he didn’t say anything, I kept going.
“The probe can’t tell me much more than that. It can’t collect samples for me, either, so I’m going into the crater.”
“I’m sorry, what?” Karzin blinked in surprise.
“I misspoke,” I corrected. “We’re going into the crater.”
Karzin
“I misspoke, we’re going into the crater.”
I had not anticipated that. I’d found her slightly interesting when she stood up to me and defended herself.
I found it even more intriguing to learn that our pretty, prickly Annie Parker was Andromeda Parker and how much she hated her name.
This, though, this took me by surprise.
She had said she was going into the crater, changed it to ‘we are going into the crater’, then immediately turned around to get her gear. The others were flitting their glances between her and me, amusement when they looked at me, pride and admiration when they looked at her.
Fine. If she wanted to rappel down, we would rappel down. “Rokul, you’re going down with us.” If he wanted to make snide comments about me, then the least he could do was fall down a hole with me. “The rest of you will be our lookouts and carry the slack. Gear up.”
I was happy to see the team respond without comment or hesitation. It wasn’t long before the three of us were geared up, hooked up, and looking over the edge of the crater. “You ready, Andromeda?” I asked as I looked at her.
She was good at ignoring me, but I could see a small vein in her neck throbbing. She really hated her name.
“You ready?” I asked again.
She looked up at me, winked, and said “Watch me,” as she went over the edge. Iq’her was working her line and was almost caught by surprise with her sudden departure. I shook my head and chuckled to myself. She had guts.
Rokul was next, his brother handling his line. I followed them down, knowing Sylor would take care of my line no matter how angry he was at me.
It was plain to see that Annie was enjoying herself. I just couldn’t see how. It was dirt, rocks, sand, and more dirt. Sure, some of it was a different color and consistency than the rest, but it was still dirt. While I hung there, I picked up a small rock and looked at it. It wasn’t actually a rock, it was small sheets of rock stuck together. It broke apart easily and barely had any weight to it.
“That’s called shale,” I heard her say. I looked over to see her watching me.
“Shale. Huh. Did you need a sample?”
She nodded, then reached into one of her pouches. She pulled out a
small bag and showed me how to label it after I put the shale inside of it. She then bounced over to Rokul and had him do the same. I was picking rock and dirt out of a crater and putting it into small baggies. This is what my missions had been reduced to.
“Don’t skip any parts, get me samples from as many types of soil as you can,” she called out to us.
I looked around. “It all looks the same. Look, it’s gray here, it’s gray over there,” I pointed to my right, “and it’s gray down here,” I finished with a light kick to the crater wall.
She fluttered her lips with a big exhale. “It might look the same to untrained eyes, but I promise you, that’s all different. Each layer of dirt and rock tells a story.” Her voice became gentle, almost serene as she spoke. This was where she wanted to be, it was easy to see.
“You see, each planet is made up of billions and billions of layers of rock, dirt, and sediment, and each layer tells a different story. If it’s compressed together like that shale,” she pointed at the section I was dangling on a level with. “Then something was happening at the time that forced the dirt down on itself with such heat and pressure that it essentially glued itself together.” With a wave she gestured to another level. “The parts where it’s looser, that means the planet was potentially experiencing a more humid period that allowed the dirt to stay lose and fertile.”
“Each layer is a page in the history book of this planet. Even if they look the same, each story is different. Each story is a chance to learn something about this planet that we never knew before.” I watched as she dangled in the air, looking at the crater walls in admiration and joy. I still only saw dirt and rocks, but I had more appreciation for what she was doing. To find something that gave you that kind of feeling, that kind of joy, it was something to admire.
We went lower to collect more samples and to get closer to the probe she’d dropped earlier. “So, what could be the story for the dirt here?” Rokul asked as he rappelled down next to her. I stayed a little higher up, still working on getting a particularly difficult rock out.