by Megan Alban
The Broadcast
BILLIE HART
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Chapter 1
I was done. My feet took me toward the Captain’s office. My hands shook over the letter of resignation.
His room was the biggest on the space station, fitting for a proud and sensible man. Captain Darner stood with his broad, suited back facing me, stirring the attention he deserved. The military uniform fit well over his shoulders, just as I’d seen it every day for the last four years.
I’d been standing here, seeing him at this angle, in his doorway, many times before. With the same letter, drafted months ago — just dated and signed in a different pen.
Shit, what are you thinking? I asked myself. I went to turn.
“Ah, Miss Alyse Pepperfield,” his voice boomed.
My jaw dropped, and at the same time, my eyes found him. He watched me while I freaked out.
My face flashed boiling hot. I felt stupid around Darner. Not only because of my doubts about the resignation, but just because he had that manly face that had my pulse rushing. His handsome features looked toward me with intrigue.
I took a step back and brought the resignation around my back. “Captain Darner,” I stuttered, trying to tilt my face this way and that so my red cheeks wouldn’t be seen.
“I trust you are well. Although you do seem flustered,” he said.
Crap. I panicked. What could I say to that? There was so much wrong with the station. Could I tell him why I wanted to return home? Could I tell him the truth about the boys? That it was the hundredth time this month I’d been singled out as the only female on Alpha Station and called “tuts” one too many times? And that my boring, same-old desk job for three years was not floating my boat? That I wanted to be out on the field with the others?
I shook my head, fully aware that my pausing was way too awkward. It was useless. Darner knew full well I’d passed the field exams, too. He knew I was qualified. I had been ready to do my part since I arrived on the mission for SH-17.
“I’m just walking around, sir. It’s nothing. Working on trying to decode the broadcast, as always. And helping analyze excavation samples so far,” I said.
Darner turned his body to me, smiling with relief. He raised an eyebrow as he stepped forward. A feature I could never get out of my mind’s eye.
“Well then, keep up your good work, Miss Pepperfield. You’re the best scientific analyst I’ve got. Don’t forget that,” he said in his baritone voice. The depth of it reminded me just why I’d stuck it out on the base for so long.
“Of course, sir,” I nodded in reply.
I turned back, leaving him in his office’s observation deck, looking down over the surface of SH-17. On the way back to my office table, I looked out the smaller side windows. The floodlights from the station aimed outward only illuminated two large ellipses of land. Beyond the sparkling, purple ground, light from the Milky Way galaxy above glimmered back at me.
A squeaking and clicking noise sounded by my foot. It was followed by a tap on the tops of my shoes. I looked down.
“Aippaq, what is it?” I asked my scientific assistant. Aippaq was a Fuzzario, a member of a peaceful alien race adopted by humans happy to give them a new home. They were all simple in construction. Essentially balls of fur, armless and legless, but what they lacked in limbs, they made up for in computational capacity and telepathic energy.
Aippaq, the furball who had been assigned to me, was a blue and black analytic genius.
The Fuzzario’s body jumped about before he clicked at me again.
“Oh woops, sorry!” I put a hand to my ear and turned the real-time translator on.
“That is the third time this month you have forgotten to turn on your translator,” he paused, then poked his eyes about to see what I had in my hand. “I suppose you have not handed in those papers?”
I let out a sarcastic sigh. “How did you guess?” But of course Aippaq knew. His helpful, telepathic bio-brain was full of wisdom.
“You have been thinking about it for some time now. What’s stopping you?” he asked.
I made my way to my office desk and glanced down at the pictures on the digital display board on the wall. “You know, a bunch of stuff,” I said. Why say it out loud when Aippaq probably knew anyway?
The pictures were various shots from the excavation mine site that was located several miles from the station. Huge pieces of equipment sat in the cavernous rooms. One showed a flexible dark-armed conveyor belt with many hooked scoopers. Another had many linked-up transport carts, and yet another, the pride and glory of intergalactic mining technology, the Galactic-Bertha underground drill, complete with six axes of movement.
But during all this time on the station, I hadn’t had a chance to go out there. Since landing on SH-17 three years ago, I’d spent all the time in the canteen, the office and of course, the tiny sleeping quarters fit for a morgue.
At first, I thought I could wait it out. I had hopes that Captain Darner would see my enthusiasm and usefulness. And maybe see something more in me... But a girl couldn’t wait forever.
I let out a groan. “I guess I thought I’d be making a difference out there by now.”
“That is unfortunate. Please do not fret, Miss Pepperfield. You will get a chance if you stay positive,” Aippaq said.
“’Cause that’s been working out for me, hasn’t it?” I looked down at my hands and the bare, dry fingers splayed out. I wondered if someone new was in control of the freezing cold air conditioning. “Anyway, thanks for the chat. I need to get back to it.” I smiled at Aippaq.
He nodded back.
It was then I noted the floating flask by his side. Levitation. Yet another of the Fuzzario’s useful skills. The refreshing scent of aromatic coffee hit my nose. The scent of my office-bound existence.
Chapter 2
My appointment notifier went off on the PDA on my hip. It was time for our weekly update from across the mission.
I made my way through the sea of silent office workers to the lecture hall. It resembled the seminar rooms back at the space academy, except this one housed a floor-to-ceiling cylindrical hologram projector toward the front.
Once inside the double doors, I sat in my lonely spot in the first row, closest to the window, looking out over SH-17’s surface.
Then, right on cue, the forty or so other space marines on-site burst in, patting each other on the bums and fist-bumping each other. Somewhere in the mix, Captain Darner had come in, too.
I sat up a little. The top dog on base with the eyes of an angel stood by the podium. He spread out his big, youthful hands along its surface. His fingers worked the control buttons with expert ease.
“We’re ready to go. Report in, boys,” his voice boomed.
I pressed my lips together. Why did I always feel that much cozier with Darner around?
The hologram machine buzzed on with green floating particles dotting up the space between the top and bottom circles of the cylinder. Then, from the dots, the outline of a cliff wall showed up. The inside of the mines.
“Report in, boys. Are you there?” Darner asked again.
A face walked onto the hologram screen. The chief miner of operations, a half-Hispanic looking man with slicked-back hair stared back at us from the shoulders up.
I’d known Carrera since attending the space academy. We were in our graduation gowns, holding our degrees together at one point. His in space mining and mine in alien technology. Carrera was one of the brightest in our cohort, and he was a good friend and brother to me. We happened across the same call for volunteers to the SH-17 mission back then, and he was accepted without a whim. I applied for two years before I got a position.
He was right for the job, though. He
was bright. He passed his field fitness tests and also his alien geology test without any trouble. His drive to advance the human frontiers was so strong it probably dazzled them in the interview. Carrera deserved it. If someone was in charge of the frontier of human mining operations on an alien planet, it should’ve been him.
“Captain Darner, sorry about that,” Carrera saluted a white gloved hand over his helmet.
Darner nodded, “Good of you to join us, Chief. Now, let’s begin our mission briefing for the week. As always, you seem to be the busiest there, so why don’t you go ahead, Carrera.”
“Well then,” Carrera cleared his throat.
I sat up. This wasn’t the usual start to our weekly debriefs.
The miner went on with a rising excitement in his voice, “We have some good news, sir.”
Darner clapped his hands in the air then set them back down on the lectern. His blue eyes were wide open. “About bloody time. Go on, don’t keep us waiting.”
“Well, sir, it looks like we’ve stumbled upon something important in the mines. A chasm of sorts. It seems to pulse with energy similar to the broadcast that our outpost received five years ago.”
The broadcast? The one I was still trying to crack from years of cryptographic study and application?
Carrera beamed. “We think we could’ve found the source of the transmission in Mine Site Four!”
“Woohoo!” Clapping erupted in the lecture hall
I clenched my fists. A lump formed in my throat. In all the time I’d been assigned to the mission, I hadn’t made any advances, and yet these guys on the field had already pinpointed its location?
I wondered if I was going to make any contribution to this mission at all. I kept my hands clutched over the armrests on my seat.
“I knew we were onto something. So what’s the next step?” Darner asked.
Carrera cleared his throat. “Well, sir, that’s where this meeting becomes very timely.”
The room quietened as if the atmospheric climate machines had been switched off.
“It seems the last layer of amethyst crystal between us and the transmission origin is much harder than we anticipated. Our Galactic-Bertha drill bits are wearing out like last century’s jeans. We need a backup one fast.”
Another field mission, I grumbled to myself and slouched. What was the point of trying?
“We’ll send some supplies out right away,” Captain Darner nodded. Then he pointed to me, “Miss Pepperfield?”
Oh my god. He called my name. I shot up in my seat. My choked neck tried to enunciate. “Y-yes, sir?”
Darner’s lips curled into a gentle smile. The smile of the gods. “Do you want to take on this resupply mission?”
My jaw joint was already in pain. I pointed to myself. “Me?”
“I appreciate all you’ve done on the broadcast and helping around the office. You deserve a change of pace.”
I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. After all this time. Was this my chance at last to apply my space academy training out in the field? “Yes. Yes! Of course!” I nodded.
“Good, Pepperfield. I’ll assign a couple of my men to go along with you. The miners need that drill bit; I’m trusting this to you,” Darner pointed to a couple of marines. I noted their faces in the hall. My first mission.
Darner spun back to the hologram. The meeting switched subjects and continued, but their chatter turned into muted white noise as I glanced out the window.
A stupid grin hurt my cheeks. This was it. What I’d always wanted on Alpha Station. To get out on the planet’s surface!
It was always my dream to help make the discovery that would solve the mystery of the broadcast. The Milky Way outpost had received the alien transmission from this planet five years ago. And since then there were two goals for this mission: To find its origin, and to decode its multi-channel, almost biological signature.
My attention turned back to the hologram.
“Oh before we conclude, Miss Pepperfield?” Carrera asked, “When can we expect the drill bit?”
Darner nodded my way to answer.
I shot up to my feet, “Carrera, I can have a Rover ready and loaded within the next half hour.”
“Excellent. Thank you. Please do that. We need all the replacements and resources we can get,” Carrera said.
Darner clicked on the keypad on the lectern. “Good, then if that’s all, we can conclude this meeting. Send your regards to the miners from us. This is great news, everyone. We’re finally making some headway —”
A piercing screech blasted off the station’s walls.
No… it couldn’t be. I reached to cover my ears.
“What on Mars’ surface?” Darner yelled.
An all too familiar announcer’s voice spoke up, confirming my fears, “Incoming meteor shower. Incoming meteor shower. Base alert RED, Base alert RED.”
“Seriously? That’s the third one this station-month,” a marine sitting behind me grumbled.
Darner slammed his hand on the lectern. “Carrera, you heard it. Meteor shower incoming,” he turned to the lecture theatre as seats flipped back up into place with thuds and boots hitting the metal floor. “Get to your defense stations!” He rushed out the door. They turned a sharp right as soon as they were past the door to go into the locker rooms and farther, the armory.
I stood, trying to distance myself from the rushing chaos. This couldn’t be happening. Not on the day of my first field mission. I reached out to the two marines who Darner assigned to me. “Where are you going? We have to help with the resupply mission.”
“No way —station defence comes first!” The marine replied, and ran out the door.
“Sorry, miss. We’re still under Milky Way Protocols here. Defense of the space station takes priority over any resupply mission, sorry. I’m sure the miners will understand.” He vanished, too.
Before long, I stood alone in the middle of the hallway with my mouth trained into a defeated O. I swore in my head. So close. So goddamn close, I thought. I’d worked myself up into such an intense excitement. But I consoled myself. Just a couple of hours till the meteor shower finished, right?
A soft thud sounded from the speakers around me. I spun about. The connection to the miners was still live.
I watched Carrera’s face without an expression. The hazy green dust through the transmission reminded me how far away he was. And how deep under the surface he was, too.
“Miss Pepperfield, you might want to rethink that ETA,” Carrera joked.
Then, a hollow thudding groaned from the chamber on Carrera’s side. His face jumped and went cross. The cries of other miners pierced through the transmission. Something was wrong.
Chapter 3
“What’s going on there, Carrera?” My voice shuddered.
Carrera looked behind him side to side. He let out a quick chuckle. “It’s uh, nothing I hope. That’s just the sound of the meteor shower overhead. One never gets used to just how loud each impact sounds from down here.” He let out a long breath.
I rubbed my chin to calm myself, too.
Then more thuds pounded through the hall’s speakers. Carrera looked more shaken. “Actually, to be honest, I don’t think I’ve heard anything quite this bad before…”
I let my skipping heart catch up with my racing pulse. Crap. Surely it couldn’t have been that bad. Not while the boys were stretched thin trying to defend the station.
Through the lecture hall window, I saw the anti-meteor artillery blast another meteorite. The marines manned the cannons with efficiency and brotherly encouragement. With each boom, the shock wave rippled over the amethyst surface of the planet.
The big guns were necessary. As SH-17 was a medial planet, it sat on the edges of both galaxies — Milky Way and Andromeda. Any passing meteorites were drawn by the gravity to spin about either galaxy. And where two gravitational pulls came together, a directional, almost sling-shot stream of meteorites came upon us. Frequently.
Carrera ducked for cover at the sound of another boom. The camera shook.
“Carrera, hey. Stay on the line, buddy. Are you okay? Tell me you’re gonna be all right down there?” I asked in a shaky tone.
But Carrera wasn’t focused on me. His eyes were pointed to the roof. He held a hand up. The resounding boom from the artillery sounded again. “Alyse, something’s not right down here…” His eyes darted about.
Every muscle in my body remained frozen. “What do you mean Carrera? Don’t play around —”
“Shh, quiet,” Carrera whispered into the screen. His eyes were trained low, almost as if he was trying to look backward. “What the heck was that?” Carrera’s hologram faced his back to me.
“Hey!” A man shouted.
Then Carrera’s body disappeared out of view as the camera lens shook and then fell sideways.
“No!” I cried.
But he was gone. The crushed and flattened crystalline ground took up half the view. The other half showed the sideways legs of the men running about.
“Carrera? Carrera!” I shouted. But it was no use. Nobody was listening.
The miners’ cries shrieked from the conference room speakers, “No… no! Where are you going, Carrera? Get away from there. There’s no time!” Another miner’s voice screamed. Soles of space boots flew past the hologram screen.
“Stay away, get away!” I heard swearing among the shouts.
“Leave him, run. You can’t save him now, run!” a faint voice shouted. “Alpha Station, Alpha Station. Help us!”
Then the hologram stream cut away.
I panicked. I raced to the microphone near the lectern and channelled my inner Captain and pressed buttons. I needed to regain the transmission.
“Carrera. Anyone. What’s happening? Report. Report in!” I slammed on the communications keypad, knowing full well that the controls only worked for our side of the transmission.
But the screams of the miners down in the Amethyst pit was the last thing I heard before the audio cut out.
Chapter 4
“Oh shit, oh shit,” I muttered to myself. My fingers were still frozen and digging into the lectern. What did I need to do? I resisted the urge to run around screaming. Protocol, protocol, I reminded myself in my head. I needed to tell someone in authority. I needed to find Darner.
