Kaijunaut

by Doug Goodman

  “You are the bravest woman I know,” Mathieu said. “Dankie, Emily. Saam met God, my suster.”

  “I will see you all soon,” Emily said. The largest monster, the one with all the teeth and the spines, reached out for the Ascent Vehicle. Emily pressed the launch button. Sparks fired, and the vehicle spewed LOX. Emily throttled down, and the Ascent Vehicle exploded into the monsters. The monsters shrieked. Covered in fire, they staggered backwards away from the launch complex.

  8

  The sound of the Ascent Vehicle’s engines firing was so intense, it woke Cole from his slumber. He looked across the plains and saw the Ascent Vehicle taking off in a plume of fire and smoke.

  “Noooo!” Cole shouted. He nearly squirmed out of the arms of C.C.’s DSMU.

  9

  Emily had never been kicked in the guts so hard she felt her intestines have an out-of-body experience. She tried to figure out what was happening, but her screen had gone dark. Whatever happened, she was going to do it blind.

  Without sight, all she could rely on was her hearing, but it was hard to discern anything through the cacophony playing out around her. Alarms blared, things bumped around in the cockpit, and her heart was thudding in her chest louder than the rest combined. It was like a big bass drum keeping time for the ensuing disaster. Through it all, though, she distinctly heard the monsters roaring, and then suddenly three explosions in quick successions. Bmpf! Bmpf! Bmpf!

  The Crew Escape Vehicle was hurtling away from the collision like a piece of debris in an auto accident, tumbling over and over while red hot. The Abort System emergency overrides (different from the Abort locks) blared at her while the Control Compromise Engines flared outward. Within seconds they had performed a minor miracle and stabilized the CEV in mid-air. Slowly, the CEV descended to the ground.

  Emily had only commanded space missions twice before, and she’d never had to use the CEV. While overly grateful for the system that saved her life, she wasn’t sure she’d ever try that again. Her insides felt like jelly, like somehow in all the tumbling, her intestines had wrapped around her lungs, and her heart was flung under her stomach. Everything was out of sorts.

  “How are you, Commander Emily Musgrove?” OGRA asked.

  She knew the question was purely perfunctory. OGRA had the readings of all of Emily’s vitals and a bunch of less-than-vital, too. OGRA knew better than Emily how she was doing. Still, Emily said, “Other than my guts having an out-of-body experience, I think I’m fine.”

  Emily unbuckled and slowly opened the CEV’s door. She stood on the ladder and scanned for the monsters. They were retreating back to the graves from where they came. She was a little disappointed. She’d hoped the monsters would be torn to pieces by her last-ditch effort. Yet somehow, they survived.

  Chapter Six: Fault Tree Analysis

  1

  “Do we go after them?” Mathieu asked. “They aren’t that far.”

  “You must be joking,” Cole said. “Emily, are you there? Come in.”

  Using the sights on their suits, they could see the Ascent Vehicle standing erect on the plains. Emily stood in the open cockpit door.

  “She’s about six clicks from us,” C.C. said.

  “Why doesn’t she answer? Were her mics broken?”

  “Possibly,” C.C. replied.

  “I need to go to her.”

  “She’s at least a half hour’s run from us in a DSMU that’s fully charged. She’ll catch up to us.”

  “Screw that. She’s my wife. I am going to go see my wife. You can do whatever the hell you want.”

  C.C. sighed. “Okay. Take my DSMU. Everybody else, we’ve got some cleaning up to do.”

  “What about the Mega Xenon?” Anna asked.

  “That’s a nice word for it. I like it,” C.C. said. “We’re going after the Mega Xenons once we do a bit of recovery and work out a strategy for killing or containing them.”

  2

  The DSMU ran full throttle across the plains, kicking up dust as it ran. On his screens, Cole saw his wife’s DSMU running toward him. Both DSMUs stopped abruptly in front of each other. The husband and wife climbed out of the mechs as quickly as possible and ran into each other’s arms. Emily had tears down her face as they held each other tightly.

  “I thought,” he started to say, but then she put her hands on his face and pressed her lips hard against his. She held him there for what felt like a lifetime to her. He did not mind. He did not want to lose her again.

  As their arms moved across their bodies and they hugged each other tightly, he said, “I thought you were dead. I didn’t see the CEV escape. I thought everything went up.”

  “I’m sorry. I won’t do that again.”

  “You better not. I think I aged thirty years over there. I was so scared.”

  “I know. I’m sorry. I had to, though.”

  “I know. It was your plan. All of it. Including the backup plan. Why couldn’t I be the person to do the backup plan?”

  “You don’t know all the sequences backwards and forwards and how to shut them down.”

  “I know. But I would have felt better being the one doing it.”

  “I wouldn’t have felt better.”

  “I’m just so glad you’re alive. Don’t pull another stunt like that again.”

  “I won’t.”

  Cole knew differently. This was the woman who rappelled off of Olympus Mons on a dare. NASA was not happy with that stunt, and neither was Cole, but she did it anyway. It nearly cost her the command of this mission (NASA called her “controversial” during her interview, and it had been widely rumored that Kirk Bearcousins would have received the command had she not argued passionately with the center director for the position). Cole had resigned himself long ago to the idea of being married to a woman as likely to jump off the top rail as she was to take the stairs.

  “But maybe it’s time to really mean it. We’re out here on a distant planet where every minute something’s trying to kill us, whether it’s undead aliens or giant monsters or the inherent environment itself. So maybe it’s time to accept the high likelihood of death and not compound the equation?” He thought if he put it in engineering terms, he could win her over.

  “Or maybe we are already so many magnitudes of order higher in that percentage of likelihood of death, that any brash, crazy thing I do is insignificant in comparison to what is out there?” A smile twitched at the ends of her lips when she said it.

  “Seriously, Emily? After all that, you’re going to stand here and…”

  “I’m just kidding.”

  “I’m not!” His cheeks were flushed with anger.

  “I’m sorry.” She brushed his arm up and down. “Let me make it up to you.”

  She was smiling again. At first he didn’t understand what she was getting at, but when it finally did, he asked, “Out here?”

  “Well, no. I can’t hold my breath that long.”

  “This is really awkward,” C.C. said over the comm. “Neither of you turned your channels off. You’re fully mic’ed up.”

  “Please turn off your mic before going to the CEV,” Mathieu said.

  “I’m never going in the CEV,” Anna said.

  Emily’s mouth was a giant “O” of surprise. She turned her channel off.

  3

  The three-legged, magma-spewing beast and the rock dragon limped to the open graves, where stone lay split open like eggs. The giant monsters searched the area, noses sniffing at their long-lost comrades. To the north, they gave a silent nod of regret to their fallen brother, melded under magma. A giant crowd of Jedik-ikik worked to break him open. They wanted to steal the secrets within the Rentok. The Jedik-ikik had out-survived the Rentok, so they would have their secrets soon enough. The Jedik-ikik stopped their buzzing and watched the two monsters warily. When the two giants moved away from the city, away from its broken walls, and away from the mountains, the Jedik-ikik returned to their victory.

  The last two Rentok wandered t
o the west. Each footstep was a huge undertaking. Slower and slower they walked, until finally, the Rentok fell over. By then, they had entered a desert full of sand dunes. The wave of energy from their fall was big enough to reform the dunes in a three kilometer radius.

  The wind blew.

  4

  Back at the Hab, Emily and Cole entered with a glow and a half-smile.

  Mathieu whistled at them teasingly. Anna clapped.

  “Knock it off,” Emily said gently. Cole would have nothing of it. He took a bow.

  “Don’t get too proud,” Emily said.

  “You all were gone for at least two hours. I’m impressed,” Mathieu said.

  “Well, she was ready to go back, but I was like, ‘Hey, I gotta impress Mathieu. He doesn’t impress easily.’”

  “Always glad to help.”

  “This is getting weird,” Emily said. “Knock it off. Where’s C.C.?”

  “He is at the satellite station. It was damaged, and he was trying to send a message back to the Anchor.”

  “What kind of message, Mathieu?”

  “He was just saying that we are all well.”

  “You’re still a terrible liar, Mathieu. What is he really saying?”

  Mathieu glanced at Anna. She shrugged.

  “He’s taking control of the team again, isn’t he?”

  “He says now that the two giant monsters are dead, the threat is over.”

  “And Ximortikrim?” Cole asked.

  Their lack of an answer was all that Cole and Emily needed.

  “You stay here,” she ordered her husband. “This is commander business.”

  5

  Of the three satellite dishes at the station, only one was still operating. One looked like a half-moon. The other had no more than a rind of the original dish.

  Hands swinging, Emily took big steps toward C.C.

  “How dare you?” she asked.

  “It’s not what you think,” he said. “Turn off your comm. Please.” He turned his off.

  She turned hers off and spat out, “What do you mean, not what I think? According to every other Titan Space employee on this planet, you’re phoning home to say that you’re taking command of the mission.”

  He held his hands up. “I know. I know. And that’s what I came out here to do. But I didn’t do it.”

  C.C. set the wrench against a bolt that didn’t need tweaking and tweaked it anyway. “You’re reckless, and you’re brash, and you’re even a little derisive sometimes. And you don’t see the world the way I do. I wish you did. I wish you could see its potential for commercialization. For jobs. For money in pockets of people who really need it.”

  “I see it, too.”

  “No, not really. You’re an explorer, Emily. You always have been. All you see is the next mountain to climb, the next planet to visit. And I’m not saying there’s anything wrong with that. I’m just saying that there has to be more to what we do than exploring. We can’t always be in Palo Duro Canyon, looking for lizards and ghosts and lost mines. We gotta build something, too.”

  “So build. You don’t need me.”

  “But I do, Em. I’ve always needed you.”

  Emily searched his eyes for something dangerous, something she didn’t want to talk about.

  “I’m not trying to dig up bones here, Em. The past is the past, especially when it’s seven light years away.”

  “Then what is your goal here? What are you trying to accomplish with this conversation?”

  C.C. sighed. Something was bugging him, and he was having a hard time getting it out.

  Emily held his hand. “Earth to C.C., come in.”

  “I need to make a deal with you, here and now, that we are going to colonize 51 Golgotha.”

  “What? No.”

  “Listen to me first. Our goal is the colonization of planets with viable resources, resources Earth needs. Now, as soon as we set foot on the planet, it belonged to us.”

  “It belongs to international law. It belongs to all people.”

  “And we have an agreement with the government to cultivate the resources. That’s one step away from colonization.”

  “That’s completely different from colonization, C.C.”

  “I don’t need you to say anything. I don’t need you to agree to anything visibly. And I’m not taking command. But I need you to let Titan Space colonize. I need you to not argue when we plant our company flag.”

  “You know I can’t do that.”

  “Do it for me, Em. I need a break here. I need this to go well.”

  “Too bad. You’re not talking to me, you’re talking to a government official.”

  “No, I’m talking to my friend, and I’m telling her to get out of the way of progress. Do this, and I can guarantee you the farthest-reaching mission in the galaxy. You can explore places nobody’s ever dreamed of, Em.”

  “And now you’re bribing a government official.” She reached for her comm. He grabbed her wrist.

  “Em, don’t.”

  She glared at him until he removed his hand. Then she turned on the comm and said, “I’m heading back. Mission protocol and rank remains the same.”

  6

  C.C. stood in front of a strange painting. If it could be called that. He wasn’t an artist, and he didn’t know his Picasso from his Dali. He knew art, as a concept, was good. It just wasn’t for him.

  “You’re struggling with it. I can tell,” said a voice behind him. C.C. looked over his shoulder. C.C. still had oil in his fingertips, but he’d at least been able to switch out shirts on the way to Jax Bennett’s office.

  “I’m sorry for my appearance, Mr. Bennett. We were changing out parts on the engine when I got your call.”

  Jax waved him off. “No problem. There’s nothing better than getting dirty at work. It is a sign of forward momentum. I wish my hands were still covered in grease.”

  Jax Bennet wore casual blue jeans, suit jacket, and v-neck shirt combination that said he was easy going and not part of the old establishment, yet C.C. knew it was an outfit that probably cost more than most people make in two weeks.

  Jax pointed to the painting. “It’s a Roy Lichtenstein. It shows Cronos eating an apple, and Zeus plugging in a television set. I like to keep it out in the open where everyone can see it. Not because I expect them to ‘get it,’ but because they don’t. You, like them, are an engineer. You see in requirements and rules and laws of physics. You have a hard time with art because there is no set rigor for defining it. How do you know something is art? You know it when you see it.”

  C.C. said, “I see a comic book panel.”

  “Exactly! Right there. You see form. You would give it function. Zeus is plugging in a television set. You would define the set: a Zenith. Ask an engineer to judge this painting, and he will have out a magnifying glass trying to determine what model of Zenith is being plugged in. But there is more than a television set. You have to ask why? Why is Zeus with the television and why is Cronos, his father, eating an apple?”

  “Something about Adam and Eve and electricity?” C.C. didn’t want to be here, but Jax Bennet was the CEO of Titan Space.

  Jax clapped. C.C. wasn’t sure if he was being insulted or not. Part of him wanted to punch the guy. But he hadn’t joined Titan Space for the ordinary or for the usual. Jax Bennet was a Silicon Valley icon and a maverick entrepreneur who only broke into aerospace ten years ago. And that, C.C. was down with.

  “That’s it,” Jax said. “Look, I know you see me as some wisecrack 20-something with more money than good sense.”

  C.C. protested perfunctorily, but Jax shook his head. “Let’s be honest. I’m a guy who got a lucky break on computers. But then I got a lucky break on a renewable electricity technology. Then I got into a malaise. I thought I’d reached the pinnacle and would do nothing more. But that’s when the government started talking about exo-planet exploration finally being viable. They wanted to partner, and I wanted the challenge. I saw myself as a kind
of Elon Musk-meets-John Carter of Mars persona. And you know what? I liked me again. I started a company, made a few agreements, found some smart peeps like you to build these great Anchor ships.”

  Jax tugged C.C. away from the painting and over to the glass wall, which looked out over the long, wide warehouse that was the home of Titan Space. “See this? Over twenty-two-hundred individuals work here on engineering the Anchor. Worldwide, fifty-six hundred work for Titan Space. I’d do anything for this company. Like the great titans themselves, they are going to create the world as we will come to know it. You know in my first year, I had to sell my house in Malibu just to make sure my employees got paid? That’s how important this is to me, C.C. You’re probably wondering why you’re here.”

  C.C. nodded.

  Jax lifted a manila folder off of his glass table. He opened the folder and showed C.C. the file. C.C. knew the file well. It was his application to NASA to the astronaut selection committee. The file had a big “DNQ” (Did Not Qualify) stamped on it.

  “The astronaut selection committee turned you down, C.C. They said there were some mild concerns about your ability to thrive in close quarters for a long period of time. But you know what? Expedition 18 is coming up, and I want you on it. So I talked to NASA. They are instating you. They are going to make you an astronaut.”

  Inside, C.C. was smiling. Externally, though, his demeanor didn’t change.

  “Come on, man. You should be happy. You’re going to be all you can be. You had the right stuff. Well, most of it, at least.”

  “What’s the catch?”

  “The catch? No catch. You are going to be my guy. And that’s going to come with lots of perks. Increased salary, your own parking spot, and of course the chance to visit an alien planet.”

  “All I have to do is represent you on this mission, though, huh?”

  “No. Not me, C.C. You represent all of them.” Jax pointed out of the glass window to the warehouse full of workers. “Their salaries are dependent on the continued success of our company. While you are away at 51 Golgotha a, your job is to remember that, and keep an eye out for company opportunities.”