Strange New Worlds

by Kevin McLaughlin

  “Open a channel for me,” Dan said. There was a brief burst of static, then Majel’s voice came through the speakers to him.

  “We’re all set over here, Dan,” the AI said. He smiled at that. He might be a colonel to everyone else, but never to her. The old crew of the Satori was all forever on a first-name basis.

  “Independence is a go for hyperdrive,” Dan told her. “Link with our computer system, and you’ll be in control.”

  Dan’s helmsman seemed a little less than comfortable as he leaned away from his console. It looked a little like he was sucking on a lemon, in fact. Dan couldn’t blame him. When he was piloting a ship, he hated handing over the controls to anyone else.

  But Majel wasn’t just ‘anyone else.’ She was a computer and could do the precise calculations required for this jump better than any other living being. Dan had more faith in her piloting skill than just about anyone else.

  Himself being perhaps the only exception.

  “Jumping in ten seconds,” Majel said.

  Dan gripped the arms of his chair, trying to will calm into his posture. Beth had survived not one trip like this but two, after all. The Independence was up to the task. They’d come out the far side in one piece. Keep telling yourself that, he thought, and hopefully everyone else in the room will think you actually believe it.

  Majel’s voice intoned the last digits of her countdown. “3...2...1...”

  A bright light came into being across the viewscreen that dominated the Independence’s bridge. At the same moment, he felt the thrum of his ship’s hyperdrive click on. The ship leaped forward, and Dan could see on his scan that the Satori jumped right alongside them. Both ships surged into the wormhole.

  Which felt longer and more intense than usual. Dan had been on a great many wormhole jumps before. Every time, their watches said that no time passed while they were in transit. The time in the outside universe from arrival to exit was zero. It was an instantaneous transit.

  That wasn’t what it felt like, though. There was always a sense of some time passing. An illusion the mind put out to make sense of the impossibility it was experiencing, scientists said.

  But if that was so, why did this wormhole jump seem to drag on and on...?

  Then with a burst of photons, they exploded back out into real-space. Dan shook himself, trying to recover from the strange experience. His crew seemed likewise affected.

  “Scan the area,” Dan called out, trying to put all the strength he could into his voice.

  “Aye, sir. No encroachments,” Ensign De Toro replied. “We’re five AUs from the target planet.”

  Not bad at all! That was reasonably close targeting, as a jump of this distance went. Majel had done the numbers incredibly well. “Set course for the target planet.”

  “Aye, sir.”

  “And put it on screen, so we can take a look at what we’re dealing with,” Dan added.

  The screen blanked, then presented a high-resolution image of the world they were headed toward. It was a bit like Earth, but also not. There were oceans of some sort, if that blue he saw was actually liquid water. The landmasses seemed to have as much red as they did green, but the presence of even a little green was a good thing. Green probably meant chlorophyll. If the planet had plants that much like the ones on Earth, then it was that much more likely the world could support human life.

  It was a mystery they hadn’t solved yet. So far, all the worlds they’d visited hosted life of one sort or another. Vastly different on each planet, of course. But none of them were so strange that they weren’t recognizable to Humans. Maybe life just had certain patterns it tended to fall into, and thus ended up with similar results every place it came into being?

  The other possible answer was that the jump coordinates in the Bug database were only for worlds that matched their own biology enough to be attractive to them. That also made sense. But this was a new world, a new place. A star system that as far as they knew, the Bugs had never visited.

  If it too had life which resembled that of Earth, it was possible that life was just similar, no matter where it popped up.

  “Looks good from here,” Martelle said.

  “Promising. But we’ll need to get closer to know more,” Dan agreed.

  “You mean my men will need to get down there in the dirt to find out,” Martelle said with a chuckle.

  “Yup. That’s what you Marines love best though, right?” Dan replied. They’d done enough ribbing of each other’s services for it to be a habit for both of them now. “Don’t worry, we’ll be waiting here with the donuts and coffee when your guys are done.”

  Martelle laughed. “You do that! All right, I’m going to go make sure my Marines are all locked down and ready to go. How long until we arrive?”

  “Not long. A couple of hours, maybe,” Dan replied. “I’ll give you a warning as we get closer.”

  “Much appreciated.” Martelle stood and exited the bridge.

  Dan resumed his look toward the planet. So much hope rested on that place being inhabitable. Would it prove a viable home for humans?

  “Incoming transmission from the Satori,” De Toro said.

  “Put them through,” Dan replied.

  “Independence, we’re getting ready to begin our sweep,” Beth said. “We’ll be out of radio range for much of the survey, but we’ll report in every six hours. That work for you?”

  The Satori would be jumping all over the system, collecting as much detail as possible on other planetary bodies, asteroids, and anything else of note. The Independence had a quantum communication device that let them call Earth. It was a Naga design, and not something Humans had been able to replicate yet, so the Satori lacked one. Dan felt a little concern about Beth being out of touch for so long. He shoved aside the worry. Beth wouldn’t like him playing mother hen to her. She was smart and tough.

  “Understood, Satori. We’re en route to the target planet. We’ll broadcast our findings to you via radio as well as to Earth via the Naga systems, so you can stay in the loop on whatever we find,” Dan said.

  “Sounds good, Independence. Be careful down there!” Beth said.

  “You as well. Good hunting, Beth,” Dan replied.

  There was a flash of power on his display as the Satori engaged her wormhole drive again. Then the ship was gone, flitting off to some other corner of the system.

  Dan turned his attention back to the planet on the main screen, wondering what mysteries it was about to reveal to them.

  Four

  “All right, everyone! Hold on to your hats,” Charline called out. “We don’t know what we’ll run into down there, so the pilots plan to run this as a hot drop. You know what that means.”

  Groans were the only response over the radio. Charline smiled to herself. They’d drilled this sort of drop enough times that everyone knew some bruises were on the way. Their mechs would protect them against a lot, but enough rattling around inside the tin cans would give some bumps and bruises anyway.

  She reviewed the scan data Independence was feeding her on her Armor’s computer. The planet looked uninhabited. It was a little bigger than Earth, and the local gravity was about one-point-one Earth normal. Not enough to make it really hard to get around, although the Marines riding along with them would have a tougher than usual time.

  Weather nominal, air content breathable. The temperature was warmer than Earth on the equator and cooler at the poles. They were bound for a temperate zone in the middle of one of the big patches of green, hoping that would give them better odds of finding a habitable region.

  The timer ticked away the last seconds before launch. No backing out now! Not that she would have. Charline felt more at home inside her Armor than she’d ever been behind a computer keyboard. That old hacking life felt like it had been eons ago, not just a couple of years. At last, she felt like she was where she was supposed to be.

  “Here we go!” Charline called into the radio. There was a massive burst of acceler
ation that cut off any responses from her platoon as the shuttle took off. Independence was in orbit over the strange planet, so they didn’t have far to go. But the shuttle pilots were taking them in as rapidly as possible, treating the target as potentially ‘hot.’ Even if the readings from Independence’s scans showed no power signatures or signs of construction on the surface, it never hurt to be careful.

  Not being careful got you dead in this business.

  The burn continued for a long time. Moments after the engines shut down, she felt the beginning kicks of the planet’s atmosphere buffeting the ship. As the turbulence picked up, some of the Armor pilots started cat-calling one another, cracking jokes and making remarks. It was lousy radio protocol, but she let it go for the moment.

  Let them get it out of their systems now, before they were down. Some banter would burn off the stress they all had to be feeling. Once they had dirt under their feet, she’d expect proper call etiquette and knew they would be as disciplined as ever.

  The wind buffeted hard against the shuttle’s wings, rocking her around inside her suit. Charline was thrown against her support straps more than once, and she was glad to be wearing a helmet after her head cracked noisily against the side of her cockpit.

  Then the engines flared again, slowing the ship down as it approached the ground. Charline ground her teeth together against the strain she felt as her weight quadrupled in seconds. The shuttle was slowing so rapidly they were pulling a lot of Gs. It was hard to breathe. She saw stars form around the edges of her vision.

  As quickly as it had come on, the extra weight subsided, and Charline was able to breathe freely again. Ugh, she was never going to entirely get used to that! The shuttle slowly came in for a landing, two more of the small ships setting down nearby so that they made a little triangle on the ground.

  All units were split among the shuttles so that each carried a couple of Armor units, a bunch of Marines, and a handful of scientists. That way, if a shuttle didn’t make it, the mission could still go on. Technically, so long as one of the ships made it to the ground, they could still accomplish their objectives, but Charline figured if the planet was bad-ass enough to take out two of their shuttles on approach, it was probably time to abort the mission.

  A loud clang sounded as the shuttle set down. Almost immediately after, the main hatch dropped with a thud Charline felt even through her Armor. Daylight spilled into the hold.

  “Let’s move, Armor! Time to earn our pay,” she called out. Then Charline set her mech into motion, storming forward across the deck plating and down the ramp.

  When she was out in the open air, she took a moment to survey her surroundings. The sky had a reddish tinge to it. The ground underfoot was mostly rocks and pebbles. It looked arid. But green plants were growing in clumps all around. Most of them were a meter tall or less, but some stretched up several meters. They looked like something out of a dinosaur picture book, the sort of plants that hadn’t existed on Earth for a very long time.

  She stepped forward, moving toward the nearest copse of tree-like growths. Motion sensors picked up nothing from the plants. No movement at all? Charline tapped the screen. No birds, no small animals, nothing? That seemed strange.

  But even coming right up on top of the nearest trees showed no movement at all. Maybe all the animals fled when the shuttles touched down. Charline expanded the range of her sensors, looking for anything that might pose a threat. Nothing presented itself.

  “Armor Platoon, what’re you seeing?” Charline asked.

  “Lots of rocks, lot of little trees, nothing else,” Tessa replied.

  “Same over here,” Arjun said.

  Every unit reported in the same results. The LZ seemed clear. “Foster to Martell. Looks safe. Send your boys out.”

  “Roger. We’re sending in the Marines,” Martelle replied.

  She grinned. He had to be hating that a little bit. Marines were used to being the first down in a hot zone. Instead, Dan ordered that her Armor lead the way. Of course, each mech was much better able to survive damage than a Marine was. If they ran into anything nasty, the mech was a hardier target.

  That he was second in had to gall the Marine colonel at least a little, though. Charline made a note to rib him about it later on. Her unit was still a new thing, and everyone was trying to determine how best to use them in battle. As she saw it, part of her job was to make sure her people shined as much as possible.

  Marines poured from the shuttles. Each wore a combat suit, basically a spacesuit with armored plating. Nobody wanted to take chances of breathing the air here until they were confident it was safe. They hadn’t yet run into any alien micro-organisms that could infect humans, but there could always be a first time. Let the scientists check shit out first.

  The Marines fanned out, one squad ahead of each Armor mech. Charline kept a careful watch on the guys assigned to her. They were squishier than her by a long shot, and they were counting on her guns for fire support if they ran into trouble. So far, so good.

  She started her mech forward, walking along close enough to the Marines to provide support, but not so near that she got in their way. They were moving away from the shuttle, sweeping an arc to clear it. As they went, one of the squads placed sensors. Charline was careful to avoid stepping on or near those. They’d form an early warning signal if anything came at the shuttles.

  They went out a full mile before Charline called them back. The looping return went by a different route, to lay down another line of sensors.

  “We’re on our way back,” Charline radioed to Martelle. he was back by the shuttles, ready to coordinate a defense if it became necessary.

  “Find anything interesting?” Martelle asked.

  Charline glanced around. Everything was the same dusty red rock and bright green proto-plants she’d seen when they first landed. “No. Nothing but rocks and those plant-things.”

  “That’s good news,” he replied. “Maybe this will be one of those boring missions where we sit around a lot.”

  “Now you’ve gone and said it,” Charline replied with a laugh. “Any second now, a giant sandworm is gonna come up underneath you and suck you down into the dirt.”

  There was no answer on the radio. Charline glanced back toward the shuttles, alarmed. “Colonel? You OK?”

  There better damned well not have been a giant sandworm...

  He came back on the radio, chuckling. “No monsters here. Come back to base, Foster. Good first scouting trip.”.

  Five

  The worst part of any mission had to be the waiting around. Dan drummed his fingers on his armrest. The shuttles were down safe and sound, and so far their scouting run was going according to plan. Colonel Martelle had his people digging in and preparing defenses, just in case they needed them, but it was starting to look like the planet was precisely what it appeared to be.

  “How’s our sensor sweep of the system progressing?” Dan asked. The Satori would be doing a more in-depth survey, but Dan had the Independence scanners looking anyway. Never hurt to have a second set of eyes peering around.

  “We’ve got one weird bit, sir,” De Toro replied.

  Dan leaned forward in his seat. Out in space, ‘weird’ often meant ‘dangerous.’ “What’s up?”

  “The planet we’re orbiting is the fourth from the sun, sir. And there are at least two more decent-sized planets further out.”

  He knew all that from preliminary scans. “And?”

  “Well, sir, it’s planet number three. The one just a shade closer to the star than we are. It’s not normal. It’s not even vaguely normal.”

  Dan called up the data on his screen. “Explain.”

  “It’s bigger than this world, for one. Not just a little bigger. It’s a lot larger, but given the size, it’s much less massive than it should be. It’s not kicking up much gravity, which is why we didn’t spot it right away,” De Toro said. “But it’s moving crazy fast. Running around the star in only a few Earth-days.
”

  Dan glanced through the readings they were pulling from the strange object. It was spherical and enormous. So it probably wasn’t a ship — although he couldn’t discount the possibility of planet-sized vessels. But there was no power reading coming from it. The thing was flat black, hard to spot against the background of space. Their instruments were only detecting it because of the gravitational anomaly it created.

  “Any threat to our people down on the planet?” Dan asked. He’d pull them all out in an instant if there were.

  “I don’t think so, sir. I mean, something that big so close might have a little tidal impact, but it shouldn’t be enough to mess with our target planet too much. There might be some mild earthquakes, but maybe not even that because its mass is so low,” De Toro replied.

  Their data on the other planet continued to grow as it came around closer to them. It was going fast. Faster than it ought to have. Planets tended to have fairly predictable orbital velocities, which meant their orbits were determined by physics. Too slow, and they’d fall into the star. Too fast, and they’d probably fly off into deep space. This dark planet was going fast enough that it ought to have flung itself out into deep space long ago.

  “Ping Satori with a radio message,” Dan said. “Ask them to check this thing out. I’ll call the surface and warn our people down there about the possibility of a quake or two.”

  While Dan set up the call to Martelle, he kept glancing back at the data stream his ship’s sensors were giving him. The more he looked over the readings on the dark planet’s data, the more worried he felt. No atmosphere, even though it should have been in the Goldilocks zone. No detectable water. The surface was pocked with craters, but none of them were significant, indicating that the ground was made of some extremely dense material.

  But based on its gravity, the object couldn’t possibly be that dense. Either the long-range images were playing tricks on his eyes, or the rogue planet’s core was made of something much less dense than its outer shell. Like an egg, or a manufactured object.