Quarantined Planet

by John Allen Pace

  “What? Are you sure? Is it going to hit?”

  “I just saw it, come on.” Gordon bolts for the opposite door before his puzzled mates follow.

  ***

  Sephora’s crew sprints down a curved hallway toward the airlock, their ship visible through windows as they pass.

  “A rock buster’s failed then,” Chloe says, running behind the men.

  “Great,” Nix sighs.

  ***

  Sephora is of the same design as Lilith but older, worn, and weathered with dents and deep scratches around her hull. Gordon had originally called her Exeter after his hometown in England, but after Chloe became co-pilot, he changed it.

  “It’s too military sounding,” she’d told him. “Plus, Sephora is a girl’s name that means bird, and every ship is female, right? It’s perfect,” she’d argued. In the end, Gordon didn’t really care.

  Inside, the ship is divided into three sections. Her flight deck is rounded with a large glass porthole in front and smaller rectangular windows wrapping around either side. There are four workstations, each with one chair and two extra seats in the rear.

  Her midsection is a bit roomier, without any controls taking up space, while the rear compartment, as her dragonfly shape would suggest, is more narrow and devoted almost completely to an anti-matter engine.

  As pilot and co-pilot, Gordon and Chloe face the forward porthole in chairs better suited for Alien Greys. Before each are similar groupings of lights, knobs, and buttons amid brightly colored alien symbols.

  Chloe tosses the fruit to Nix, who’s sitting at a station behind her. He gladly accepts and takes a nervous bite. “You know there’ll be a riot if we come back empty.”

  “Don’t wet your knickers, yeah?” Gordon tells him before turning to his co-pilot. “Release the docking clamps first.”

  “I know that,” she says, annoyed.

  “We should have guns,” Nix declares with his mouth full.

  Gordon scowls, “Nix, you donut. Strap in.” Then to Chloe, he grumbles, “What is this, your first time? Let’s go.”

  “A minute,” she says.

  Nix pulls hard on his seatbelts to get them as tight as possible.

  ***

  Sephora breaks free with a lurch, traveling not altogether smoothly away from the orbiting satellite. Her main engines fire, and she rockets toward Gaea.

  Chloe presses buttons in deep concentration. “How are we supposed to stop a rock exactly?”

  “Bat your eyes and ask nicely,” Nix says, stuffing the half-eaten alien fruit into the crease of his seat.

  “Quickly, love,” Gordon orders, “we have to get it before it hits atmosphere.”

  The massive asteroid, which has a bit of a spin on it, soon fills the ship’s forward porthole.

  “I don’t think it’s afraid of us,” Chloe says.

  “Get our nose parallel and match its rotation. We just need to give her a nudge.”

  “It’ll probably just burn up, don’t you think?”

  “No, I don’t.”

  Chloe soon has the tiny ship out in front of and spinning in tandem with the rock. Both hurtle toward the planet.

  Gordon’s busy on his side of the helm with a set of controls above the rest. “Nicely done, love, now don’t switch off.” As he punches buttons, two powerful metal arms, each ending in an Alien Grey-like hand with four fingers, extend out from the ship’s bow. “Gently—ease us in ‘til we make contact. Gently.”

  Sephora’s hands open up before she latches on to the tumbling asteroid. One finger bends slightly further out than it should. Chloe cringes at the grinding, creaking noise from the ship.

  “Alright, give it a push,” Gordon tells Chloe. She takes a deep breath while Nix holds on tight to his seat straps.

  With a flash, Sephora’s engines ignite to no effect. The stone is seven times her size and both continue plummeting in a straight line for Gaea.

  “It doesn’t want to play,” Chloe announces, fearing that the big rock is in control.

  Gordon doesn’t agree. “Let me have her.”

  “We’re going to hit atmosphere.”

  “I got it.”

  Another blast from Sephora’s engines and, to Chloe’s surprise, the rock begins to change direction.

  Blue, green, and yellow indicator lights turn bright red. The ship shudders violently, and an audio alarm sounds.

  “We’re in atmosphere,” Chloe warns.

  “That should be enough. I’ll get us clear.”

  Still attached and tumbling together, ship and asteroid begin to glow, skimming across the rusty world’s upper atmosphere.

  “She won’t let go,” Gordon says to more audio alarms and red lights from the ship’s helm.

  Chloe’s scared now. “We’re going to burn up.”

  Gordon’s efforts aren’t having much effect, and with her claws burrowed in, the rock now drags a helpless Sephora across Gaea’s atmosphere. Flames fill the forward porthole from corner to corner, and all are tossed about in their seats.

  “It’s getting hot. Just pull the arms in,” Chloe says above the rumbling protest of her ship.

  “Hold tight,” Gordon commands.

  While retracting, Sephora’s hands pull her into the asteroid with a crunch sufficient enough to knock the tiny ship free, and she begins a rapid, flaming descent.

  The asteroid skips over Gaea’s upper atmosphere before spinning off toward a deadly web of rock busters, where it’s vaporized.

  Gordon is relieved even as flames fill the forward ports. “Well, that unlikely adventure is over,” he observes before turning to his co-pilot. “She’s all yours. I want a perfect landing, yeah? Remember to cut the artificial gravity.”

  “I know that.” Chloe has a dangerous lack of confidence in her flying abilities and struggles with putting the ship on solid ground. Color leaves her face as she takes the helm.

  Sephora straightens out and enters Gaea’s lower atmosphere with a boom. The ship rocks and bounces, and Gordon mimics flying her just above his own set of controls. “Don’t get ahead of yourself.”

  “That was such an amazing thing you just did,” Chloe begins. “Why spoil it?”

  “You won’t spoil it—now focus. This is the easy bit, yeah?”

  The ship shudders.

  Nix checks his seat straps, pulling them even tighter. “Ouch,” he exclaims with another hard jolt.

  Chloe stiffens up. “Air’s unsettled. Currents are too strong. Take her, Gordon.”

  “I already know how to do it,” her captain says.

  “I see ground,” Nix starts, “it looks harder than usual.”

  “Nix, shut it. Chloe, a good pilot works with the elements. Don’t fight ‘em. Use ‘em to your advantage. Don’t overthink it and loosen up, yeah.”

  Sephora bucks and Chloe’s hands slip across several controls, sending the sleek craft into a full spin. Her fingers come off the helm as if it’s suddenly white hot.

  Gordon takes over, feverishly working the buttons, knobs, and levers in front of him while his crewmates grab on for dear life. “Bollocks!”

  Sephora skims across a grove of dead trees just beyond Saucer City. Gnarled and wiry branches shatter all around before the ship disappears in a cloud of dust and smoke.

  ***

  Sparks from the craft’s operation panels fill her bridge with a light haze. “Everyone still have all their bits?” Gordon coughs out as Nix removes his straps with a frown of pain.

  “Yes. It’s still here,” Nix declares. “Chloe, you okay?” The young woman doesn’t answer and wilts in her chair, turning away from Gordon. “Hey, no one’s in hospital, right? Better dead than end up there…”

  “Nix. Get out.”

  “Chloe? You alright?” the young man asks again.

  Shaking and unsteady, she holds up a hand to cut him off.

  “Nix! Move your trouser hams. She’s fine.” Gordon huffs about, straightening the bridge until Nix does as ordered. “Or is
she? Look at me.”

  She doesn’t, and he continues, “What the hell happened? You’re good in the air. What—you enjoy making me look like a cow’s backside?”

  “No.”

  “Isn’t this what you want—to be pilot?”

  “Yes.”

  “Well, you have to be able to land the damn thing! Where is your head?”

  “She wasn’t responding to me…”

  “Now you’re blaming the ship?”

  “No. I just…”

  “Look—stop. Pull it together and show me some bloody passion, damn it!”

  Chloe buries her face in the ship’s helm, and Gordon storms out.

  Chapter Four

  At the center of Saucer City is a massive former spaceship that serves as home to Gaea’s government, such as it is. More like a Wild West sheriff and his deputies than a regime.

  Gordon and Nix are still in their space suits while Chloe wears the Grey’s version of a T-shirt and cargo pants.

  They stand in a sparsely furnished, high-ceilinged room with a small group of people gathered behind them. Bright shafts of sunlight stream in from large open windows. Governor Ulysses Carver is in his late fifties. He’s a buff black man who seems better fed than anyone else. He is a man who used to command respect with his penetrating brown eyes, but too many failed coups by one fringe group or another have left his governorship weakened. His recent attempt to slow the production of alcohol brewed from fermented alien fruit nearly finished him altogether. Much of the planet’s population would rather starve than go without booze.

  There’s a desk between Carver and the others—more of a control panel, really, and likely re-purposed from somewhere else in the grounded ship.

  All eyes are on a holographic image of the planet and its orbiting protective grid.

  Carver points to one of the simulated rock busters flashing on and off in red. “We’ll move forward with your idea, Nix. Take a power cell from one of these less critical rock busters and place it in the sphere that failed. Are you up to it, Chloe?”

  The question takes her by surprise. “Well, ah—I’ve never worked the arms…”

  “I’ll complete the transfer,” Gordon jumps in.

  “Very good,” Carver nods, “you’ll get underway as soon as possible?”

  “Yes, of course, Governor.”

  “Then our thoughts are for your safe return.”

  Chapter Five

  The third planet is a dark, foreboding world, its surface obscured by electrically charged black storm clouds. A thick shroud of glimmering debris circles it in low orbit. Farther out is a moon very similar to Earth’s that has obviously been the victim of some unfortunate cosmic collision, leaving it disfigured and like a cookie with one bite taken out. Rocky chunks of various sizes tag along behind it.

  Under the turbulent and electricity-filled sky, Earl and his crew sneak cautiously through gnarled trees and vegetation. A thick mist covers the ground. His small band, who are not wearing helmets, carry alien rifles. They crouch near the opening of an Alien Grey bunker built into a hillside. Two armed Greys stand outside.

  “They know we’ve been here,” Frey whispers.

  “To hell with ‘em.” Earl fires off several laser blasts at the aliens, none of which hit a target.

  The Greys scramble for cover and return fire with rapid precision. Frey joins the fight as the rest of Lilith’s crew dive for nearby rocks or trees.

  Earl tears off into the forest. “Keep them busy, Frey.”

  “Wray! Get up here!” Frey shouts to his Japanese crewmate, who appears and begins blasting away.

  Dodging a couple of lasers from his own men, Earl narrows his eyes with vicious determination. The aliens have separated, and Earl sneaks up on one. From behind, he wraps his arms around the Grey’s neck, produces a laser torch, and jams it into the creature’s head, turning it into smoldering mush. Covering his nose from the smell, Earl drags his victim into the forest.

  Frey drops the second Grey with a couple of well-placed shots as another exits the bunker. Earl is there in an instant and snaps the third alien’s neck before severing its head with his torch. Frey is soon at his captain’s side.

  “Think there’re more in there?” Frey asks.

  “We can hope,” Earl says without emotion.

  The bunker door opens automatically as Lilith’s crew nears. With little hesitation, Earl and Frey charge in.

  Chapter Six

  Sephora bobs, her backside to the planet, just meters from the massive rock-busting machine in need of a new battery. The powerful metal arms are extended from her bow, and one holds on to a glowing cylinder.

  On the flight deck, Chloe strains against her seat straps to see clearly out Sephora’s forward port. Gordon operates the ship’s arms, and Nix, not having anything to do, is standing behind him just being Nix.

  “Come on, Gordon. Ya don’t have to buy it dinner first.”

  “Nix, sit down,” Chloe says before asking her captain, “What can I do?”

  “Just hold her steady, yeah?” is his annoyed answer.

  Gordon eases Sephora’s hand and its glowing payload toward a narrow opening in the rock-busting orb as asteroids whiz by above. Having entered at a slight angle, however, the cylinder becomes stuck about halfway in. “I’ve jammed the damn thing in there.”

  “British for foreplay,” Nix smirks.

  “Nix, sit down,” Chloe pleads. She watches Gordon with nervous concentration, biting her lip until it bleeds. After some gentle wiggling, he’s able to dislodge the cylinder and lines up Sephora’s arm for another attempt. Just outside, a rock zings by.

  “That was close,” Chloe says.

  “Yeah, we’re thin enough already,” Nix adds. “Can we get outta here?”

  “Put a cork in it. Both of you.” Neither Gordon nor the rest have done anything like this before, and the job requires his full attention. After much finessing, the canister jams again and then cracks, exposing its blinding anti-matter interior. Gordon remains cool while his co-pilot slumps in her seat.

  “Time to clear off, Chloe. Nix, ya donut, sit down.” The young man finally does as told. “Chloe. Wakey, wakey.”

  “Now we’re down two busters,” she says, closing her eyes.

  “Chloe!”

  The young woman snaps to and begins backing her ship off. The sphere quickly shrinks out Sephora’s forward port as the distance from it grows.

  Sephora’s fingers collapse into a tight V-shape and retract back inside.

  Not long after, the cracked cylinder explodes, rupturing the rock buster and catapulting sparking bits of it in all directions. A shock wave hurtles toward tiny Sephora.

  Gordon and his crew are momentarily open-mouthed by the cascade of debris careening their way. “Love, we need you now like there’s no tomorrow.”

  Chloe puts her ship in motion, making a three-hundred-sixty-degree spin just ahead of the oncoming firestorm and nose-diving straight for Gaea. A shockwave of debris wallops the ship from behind, sending a helmet bouncing across the floor. Sparkling shards of the shattered buster rush by Sephora’s forward ports.

  Gordon’s ship is overworked and not in the best condition due to a few hard landings by Chloe. Now, it’s under siege again. “Bloody hell.”

  With a flash from her engines, Sephora rockets toward Gaea, zooming past the planet’s space station seconds before it’s pelted by shards of the rock buster.

  Nix stands and watches the river of destruction through a small porthole. “Doubt they’re thinking ‘bout our safe return now.”

  “Nix. Strap in, ya pillock.” Gordon’s wrinkles deepen.

  “Maybe we should just stay up here.”

  “We’ll go back—come up with another plan,” Gordon says before turning his attention to Chloe, “and you are going to set her down beautifully right next to Saucer City. Leave me gob smacked.”

  “What number is this?” Chloe asks tentatively.

  “Six.”
>
  With an over-the-top enthusiasm, Nix says, “Six-ccessful!”

  Sephora enters the world’s atmosphere with a boom.

  Chapter Seven

  An asteroid tears through the gap in Gaea’s protective grid. It skims across the planet’s atmosphere before being obliterated by rock busters on its way out the other side.

  Bits of that asteroid fall through the sky, leaving long trails of smoke behind. One bounces off a rusty spaceship and comes to rest, still red hot, next to Center Saucer.

  Inside the seat of government, a high-ceilinged room is filled by Sephora’s crew along with a few Carver detractors and three members of his ragged police force. Chloe hides behind her captain. Beside the governor is his enforcer, Robbie McKenna, a tough Irish man about the same age. The desk is a thin barrier between the officials and the excited gathering. Nearby is a holographic projection of Gaea’s protective grid. Two simulated rock busters flash on and off in red.

  “Like a back pocket in a shirt,” McKenna says to Gordon with a smile.

  Gordon ignores the insult, and Carver puts a hand up to stop the Irish man from saying more. “For years they’ve taken care of the grid…we’ve no experience with it. Our only option now is to find that supply ship.”

  “Assuming it’s out there to be found,” Nix says.

  “Nix,” Gordon shushes the young man.

  “Something must have gone wrong,” Carver continues. “Unless Nix is right.”

  There is a sudden buzz from the small crowd before Gordon pipes up, “If they have run into trouble, I don’t see how we could possibly help.”

  “We need power cells and as much food as your ship can hold. I only hope Amon Earl isn’t the source of this trouble,” Carver replies to more mumbles from the gathering. Chloe perks up with the mention of Earl.

  “Governor, with respect, ferrying supplies from the Eye is one thing—”

  “Gordon, don’t go arseways on this one,” McKenna interrupts.