Second Earth: Part Two (Second Earth Serial Book 2)

by Samways, L. D. P.

  “But if we can’t get in contact with the people at the Jump Gate, then we’re stuck here?" The comms guy asked, staring at the idle screen in front of him. The blank screen only reminded him of the severity of their predicament. The comms were probably the most important thing on the ship not including the engines of course. If the comms went walkabouts, then they were stuck. If the engines went, then they were stuck some more. So the Orion Traveller was their only hope. Their only hope of survival.

  “Yeah, as I said, we’re pretty much fucked,” Commander Williams said, the beeping from the trajectory sensor starting to grate on his senses. He was usually a patient man, but the stress of this situation was absolutely getting to him. And the more Williams thought about it, about the fact that they were indeed fucked, the more he realised what a stupid mission this was. He didn’t know these people, but he assumed that they had families. People at home. On planet Earth, waiting with baited breath to find out if their loved ones had made it to the Andromeda Galaxy just fine. And if they hadn’t, then it would be on him. Solely on him. And that was a lot of weight for a Commander to carry. Especially one that wasn’t used to running such critical missions as this. Usually, these sorts of operations were left to the Generals, and Commander Williams dreamt of becoming a General one day, but under the current circumstances that he found himself in, that day could wait. After today, after this mission, if they survived it that is, Commander Williams was rethinking his position in the fleet. Maybe he didn’t have what it took to continue in his military career. Maybe he was just better off in a less stressful job. A job that didn’t involve putting other people’s lives in harm’s way.

  “Don’t worry about it Commander, we all believe in you, let's just board the ship and take things from there, what do you say?" One of his crew members said. Williams didn’t bother looking behind him, by now he recognised all of their voices, but right at that moment, he was too engrossed in aligning the ship with the Orion Traveller to pay attention to small talk. Because that’s what is was … small talk … a pep talk … he didn’t need building up, he wasn’t no damn recruit, he’d get them out of this just fine. So he ignored the goodwill gesture from his fellow comrade. The beeping coming from the trajectory sensors was overwhelming. It brought a hush over the whole of the ship. Everybody went silent.

  “Steady, steady, steady…," Commander Williams uttered under his breath.

  The ship was steadying out on command. Even though the Commander was feeling such strong torrents of emotion running through his core, he was able to tame the beast that was this star ship. And after only a few minutes of holding his breath while keeping a firm hand on the controls, the ship was securely docked into place with the Orion Traveller. As soon as the ship docked, the beeping from the trajectory stopped. The hush over the vessel ended and his crewman burst into cheers. Williams himself was smiling. He’d done it. They were docked. And that meant only one thing; they were out of danger. A docked ship is a safe ship as his own Commander used to tell him when he was just a lowly deckhand. The smile on Commander Williams’s face grew bigger. His teeth were showing. His hands had relaxed. Easing his hands off the controls, he felt the metal and plastic coating the various instruments on the dash panel relaxing as well. In the stress of docking the ship, he’d managed to hold the levers in a vice-locked-grip. But now that grip had dwindled. And Commander Williams's shoulders felt light. The proverbial weight had been lifted off them.

  But Williams and his crew were unaware that they were far from safe. For the Orion Traveller held many dangers. And those dangers would become common knowledge soon enough at the expense of the Commander and his ragtag crew. But Williams wasn’t the sort of man that went out without a fight.

  And a fight there would be …

  ***

  Earth:

  The men in suits sitting at the conference table are feeling a little nervous. In reality, they’d been planning for this for a very long time. They had certain protocols in place. Protocols that would stop the blackness from spreading. But that didn’t mean that they enjoyed these meetings. If the Universal Press, Earth's number one news outlet, picked up on this meeting, then the men in suits would have a lot to answer for. There would be many questions. Questions that these men could not answer. If they did, and the world came to know how close it was to being destroyed, a panic would grip the core of the planet, spreading from country to country, enveloping all of humanity within it.

  It started off innocently you see. All they wanted was a better life. A better economy. But with their quest for great riches and perfect health, a beast was awoken. A beast so terrifying that if the public knew, the world would stop spinning on its axis. Not physically of course, but the people on Earth needed to remain ignorant. Sometimes governments have to do things that are questionable. The public would not know how to process certain events. They would be at a loss for words. But the government doesn’t have time to speak any words, let alone be at a loss for them. So it was done. Protocols were set in place. Protocols that would stop the ignorant from becoming informed. For with knowledge comes death. And with death comes the end. And The Company could not and would not allow the end to become the present. They would not let this hiccup become the end. The end of everything. They’d all worked far too hard to let that happen. Too many people had invested in this project. And if the project failed, then it would also become the end of them.

  “I’m glad that you all found your way here today. It is with great distress that I announce that Protocol One must be initiated. It is with a heavy heart that I inform you, my peers, that we have lost contact with the Orion Traveller,” the man at the head of the table said. He was short - but powerful. He wore an expensive suit that the mere peasants of Earth could only dream of being able to afford. The economy was hurting. But The Company was flourishing. The Company didn’t have to worry about debt. They controlled debt. They owned debt. It was something that they invented. A global economy. The chance to flourish. A universal credit system. The planets above and the stars beyond was their goal. And they would reach it. A couple hundred years ago they did just that. They reached their goal. But things have changed. In an attempt to find life out there in deep space, they came across something much more important. A resource. A resource with infinite potential. But, that potential grew into something far more sinister.

  And the blackness was born.

  There was a mumbling in the room. The men in suits were sitting at the conference table. They were worried. Protocol One existed solely for the purpose of a cover-up. And the company weren’t great fans of covering stuff up. Universal Press were known for being able to uncover various secrets. They’d done so on many other occasions. It made the men in suits uneasy. For nearly eighty years, their ancestors had been able to keep the blackness a secret. And then the torch was passed on to them. But now, now the flame was dwindling. The light was extinguished. And they were in trouble. Soon everything would go dark and the blackness would consume everything.

  “What can we possibly do? There are too many people in the loop. You have the crewmembers on the Orion Traveller. And then you have the rescue team. That’s a lot of people to silence. I don’t know about you guys, but that sort of thing doesn’t come naturally to me. Life is life. And taking one is the same as taking one million,” one of the men said.

  The room erupted into agreeable grunts. Nobody in the room liked to kill. They were businessmen after all. And businessmen were only interested in the bottom line. The people - their people, the people they controlled - were far more valuable to them alive than they were dead. It was elementary business. They made their money from tax. And you couldn’t tax the dead. But then there was the moral issue of taking a life itself. In their case, it was taking more than one life. It was taking many. Five men on the rescue mission ship. Many more on the Orion Traveller. But, unfortunately, it was all they could do. The men were contaminated now. Infected. And infection had to be dealt with at the root
of its cause. Stopping the spread was paramount. But they had something working in their favour. And that was the Andromeda Galaxy and the fact that it was two-point-five-million light years away. That was plenty of distance. Their secret was safe. But the only way it would remain safe was if protocol one was initiated.

  “It’s all we can do; that’s why Protocol One exists. Its purpose is to stop the spread. Once we contain the spread, we can continue to use it for our expansion. You need to remember; it’s not a virus. The only purpose of a virus is to destroy or to inflict some form of malice on its victim. We’re not dealing with a virus here. We’re dealing with power. If it finds its way into the wrong hands, it could spark the end of our very existence. So we have to weigh out our options here people. We either allow the power to fall into our enemies’ hands, or we contain the power, stop it fluctuating, and harness it to continue our way of life,” the man at the head of the table said. It was a good speech. His cohorts agreed. Protocol One was their only choice. It was their only option. And although it saddened them, it was all they could do to stop anybody finding out the secret to humanities greatest technological feats.

  There was a quick stint of silence in the room. The men around the conference table were reflecting inwardly until the leader stood up and nodded. The other men around the table also stood up. They looked at each other and then somebody new came into the room. The men turned to see who it was, and as expected, they were greeted by the person they’d all been waiting on. The person was carrying a briefcase. He gently set the briefcase down on the table. The leader nodded at the young man who’d brought it in. He waited for the man to disappear back through the door, closing it behind him. The silence and anticipation was electrifying. There was a buzz in the room. The time had come. The leader opened the briefcase. He then fished into his front pocket - pulling out a key. He slotted the key into a device. A glass cylinder came rising out of the case. Inside the glass cylinder was a button. Before the leader pushed it, he nodded at his men. And the men nodded back at him.

  “So it is agreed. The power remains in our hands,” the leader said, just before pushing the button.

  ***

  “So tell me what Earth is like," Gustoff said as he sat down at the end of the bed he’d woken up on. Now and then he found himself looking down at his stomach. He remembered it bleeding before he woke. But now, now he was just fine. Fit as a fiddle. It was like he hadn’t been shot all - like it never happened. But Gustoff knew it happened. And he was still finding it tough to trust anybody. Especially the new people. But he had to know, he just had to know what life was like on Earth. All he’d ever known was the colony. So finding out what Earth was like made all the sense in the world to Randy.

  Timson smiled as he sat next to Gustoff on the bed. The wood frame creaked a little as it struggled to keep both men's weight from fracturing and splintering the timber. Timson looked at Gustoff and shrugged his shoulders.

  “Earth? Kind of like here. Loads of different faces. Loads of buildings. Bigger than the ones in the colony. But quite similar. To be honest, I’m impressed at how your people managed to copy Earth’s infrastructure so well. I take it you found those crates, the ones that were sent by Earth, or, at least, one of them right?” Timson said. Gustoff nodded, all the while looking down at his sandals. The sandals were made out of Beachwood and bamboo found in the island bush.

  “Yeah, we found a few of those crates. The elderman keep them now. For a long time, they saw the boxes as religious artefacts sent from God. But I knew that there was something more to them. And it turns out I was right. I mean, here you are, in front of me, a real life being from outer space. It’s a spectacular thing. Knowing that my life was not wasted. Knowing that you exist. That the elderman were wrong. And that there truly is life out there.”

  Timson smiled. It was weird hearing Gustoff talk. Gustoff’s accent had a certain twang to it. A twang that wasn’t exactly familiar. But it was there. And it was hard not to notice it. But Timson knew that there was no reason to be afraid of Gustoff or the people of the colony. They were so far behind in their technology that they just didn’t possess the ability or the know-how to destroy on the same level that humanity - humanity on Earth that is, had. So there was no point in being scared. If anything, the people of the colony were in need of their help. And Timson wanted to help as much as he could. He found Gustoff and the people of the colony fascinating. There was a story here. A story as old as humanity itself. Good versus evil. Evil being the elements on this planet. Timson remembered battling the elements in the pod he and his crew were in when it crash-landed on their planet. There were electrical storms. But the area in which they landed on appeared to be calm. So maybe there were more people like the men, women and children in the colony somewhere on this planet.

  Timson was determined to find out.

  “So as far as you know, you and the people of the colony are the only actual people on this planet?” Timson asked.

  Gustoff nodded. He seemed disappointed.

  “Yeah, I spent many years studying the maps that I’d forged in my spare time. In studying the maps and traversing the wild bush that surrounded the colony, I came to the conclusion that we must be the only people on this planet. But then again, who knows? There could be more of us. If you exist, millions of light-years away on another planet, then surely it’s not so far-fetched to think that there may be more people on this planet, let alone another planet. Third Earth. In the distance. Sitting undiscovered. Somebody just like me, looking up at the stars and wishing that he knew if there was more out there. But I’m the lucky one. And that’s all that matters to me.”

  “Yeah, you are lucky. But let’s not get too ahead of ourselves here. Third Earth does not matter. Humanity only cares about one thing. And that’s finding new life - intelligent life - and new planets teeming with said life. Now we’ve found it. So who cares about third Earth, when Second Earth is so goddamn impressive?” Timson said, feeling warm inside as he formed a bond with the not-so-alien Gustoff.

  It was a fantastic moment. Never in a million years … or more precisely, never in two-point-five-million light years did Timson think that he’d ever form a bond with an alien, let alone find one. It was a monumental moment. A moment for the history books. History books that would feature his face on the front cover. And the faces of his team, his crew, his comrades. Yes, Timson was happy. He stood up and looked around. The hut was adorned with ornaments and cooking equipment. Prehistoric cooking equipment. Equipment no doubt the colony designed and based on the information that Earth had sent into space hundreds of years ago. For all of this to come together, the time capsules, Gustoff, Timson and his crew, the Andromeda Galaxy, and Earth was spectacular. What were the chances?

  “I suppose you’re right. Second Earth is just as important, if not more. I guess I’m just sceptical that anybody will care about the colony or the people on it,” Gustoff said, fidgeting with his hands. Timson noticed that Gustoff had a habit of twitching. He seemed restless.

  “They will care. Trust me, they will,” Timson said, about to put an arm around Gustoff in an attempt to comfort him, but before he could, the hut door opened and a woman came rushing in. It made Timson and Gustoff jump off the bed. They were a little on edge. It had been a rough couple of hours. Timson didn’t recognise the woman, but Gustoff did. And he had every reason to. It was April, and nobody mattered more to Randy than April.

  “Randy… um … space people? Something is going on with the aircraft you crash-landed in. There’s some sort of light shooting out of it. The sky, it’s gone purple. Have any idea what could be the cause of such a thing?” April asked, sweat dripping down her brow. It was obvious that April had ran to the hut. It must’ve been an emergency. If what she was saying was true, then it was definitely an emergency. Gustoff craned his neck toward Timson. Timson blinked a few times; his eyelids were sticky and moist. He needed a drink. Something to eat. And judging by the looks on his two teammates’ faces,
they were just as famished. None of them had eaten in a very long time. But now was not the time to rest. He nodded at his two crew people and signalled them to follow him. The three of them ran out of the hut, and down a narrow passageway that lay between three larger huts. Timson thought that one of the huts looked like some sort of town hall. He ran past it and into a mass of people. The people were staring up at the sky. A massive beam of light was rising from the ground all the way up into the atmosphere. It seemed as if the light never ended. It looked as if it was stretching on for miles. It was causing the sky to discolour. But Timson wasn’t interested in the heavens. He pushed his way through the mass of people. They seemed to be hypnotised by the light. They didn’t pay Timson nor his two crew people any attention. Like insects to a light source, they were oblivious to everything else around them. And as Timson got closer, the source of the light became apparent. The pod was no longer visible. It had erupted into a brilliant flash of light that was fuelling the beam of light. And as he stared at the beam, he wondered what the heck was going on.

  “Is that normal?” Someone said standing next to him. Timson didn’t bother answering. No words would leave his mouth. His tongue didn’t work. His teeth were chattering. Something was going on.

  Something terrible.

  Chapter Three

  The airlock sputtered into life as Williams and his men stood in the terminal waiting for the doors to the Orion Traveller to open and let them pass. There was an excitement in the air. The Commander and his men were glad to be on board the big ship. Knowing that their own ship had lost communications was more than just a bummer for the men and their Commander. It was more than just a hitch. If the Orion Traveller hadn’t been in the vicinity, then they would have been stuck in space, with no way to hail anybody, for any sort of rescue. It was every space traveller’s worst nightmare. No contact. No way of getting home. But that was all in the past. Their ship was docked, and now they were on the Orion Traveller. The airlock terminal finished spraying jet air on the five of them. And after the hissing died down, a few seconds passed, and the doors to the Orion Traveller slowly creaked open. They were expecting to see a few people standing there waiting for them. After all, they were an unidentified ship that had just boarded with the Orion. And an unidentified ship boarding and docking with any ship warranted, at least, a few security personnel to subdue them and enquire as to what they were doing on board.