by J. N. Chaney
“Me?” I asked, curiously. “Is that supposed to be some kind of joke?”
“A joke?” he repeated.
“Do you have any idea how much I’d prefer cruising in a starship to—” I paused. “—well, anything else?”
He didn’t say anything.
“Besides, it hasn’t been easy down there for anyone,” I continued. “Even if I didn’t enjoy living off the land, you know full well how infertile the whole damn planet is, and those elevated cities aren’t exactly the most hospitable. We’ve had to cycle out two dozen crops just to get one that sticks, thanks to the temperature fluctuations.”
“You finally managed to grow something?” he asked.
“Deki,” I said. “Tart and sweet, once you break the skin, which is three centimeters, by the way. It’s a far cry from—” I stopped, tilting my head. “Hold on. You still haven’t answered my question. Why the hell are you trying to leave? And don’t try to bullshit me, Fred. You should know by now that I can smell it.”
He gulped. “O-Okay, Captain. You’re right. I’m just trying to avoid somebody, that’s all. It’s nothing serious.”
“Avoid?” I asked, crossing my arms. “Is someone giving you a hard time? Is it one of the colonists? Want that we should teach them a lesson?”
He waved his arms back and forth. “No, no!” he exclaimed. “Nothing like that!”
“Then, what?” I asked.
“Uh,” he muttered, cringing at the question. “Well, it’s nobody. She’s just—”
“She?” I asked, suddenly more interested in Freddie’s babbling.
“J-Just one of the soldiers we brought from Lucia’s team. It doesn’t matter, really, Captain.”
“Well now, Freddie, I think I beg to differ,” I said, crossing my arms. “What’s this girl’s name?”
“Frederick?” called a voice from the other side of the bay.
Freddie tensed up, looking over his shoulder at the far end, near the other elevators. “There she is!”
“Oh?” I asked.
“I heard she was looking for me,” he said, more afraid than I’d seen him in some time. He grabbed my wrist. “Please, Captain!”
I raised my hand, but not all the way. “I think I’d like to meet this woman.”
“N-No!” he stuttered.
“Why not? She seems nice,” I argued. “And I wanna find out what her name is, since you won’t say.”
“It’s Petra!” he blurted out.
“Petra, eh?” I asked, chewing on the name. “She sounds too good for you.”
“But you don’t know anything about her,” he said.
I shook my head. “Doesn’t matter. If she’s a woman, she’s too good.”
He frowned in defeat.
I reached into my pocket and retrieved the shield Abigail had given me.
“What’s that for?” asked Freddie.
I smacked the device on my shoulder, activating it with the tap of a button. Instantly, I took on the appearance of an albino soldier—white hair, blue eyes, and pale skin, wearing the same uniform as the others. “Too many eyes on me when I landed,” I explained.
“You don’t like your new celebrity status?” asked Freddie.
“I’ll talk to these people when all of us are on the ground and I don’t have a list of other priorities to deal with.”
Freddie nodded as we walked towards the crowd. Most of them ignored us, except to step out of the way, since I looked like a member of the crew and it was presumed that I had important business to attend to.
When we reached the airlock, I entered my access code to open the door, breaking the seal. “How many colonists did you bring us, anyway?” I asked, glancing at Freddie.
“Didn’t Abigail give you the report?” he asked.
“We got a little—” I paused. “—distracted. Just tell me.”
“I think it’s somewhere around two hundred,” he said, but didn’t seem entirely certain.
“Not a bad haul,” I answered.
He nodded. “Abigail said the same—”
“Frederick!” yelled a voice from across the bay. It was a woman, albino, wearing a blue top and black pants. She locked eyes with us and waved, a fierce look in her eyes.
“Uh, oh,” muttered Freddie.
I always had a hard time distinguishing the albinos when they were this far away, but as I continued to stare, I quickly realized it was the same woman I’d seen in the brig—the one who’d given Abigail that toxicology report. Apparently, I’d been spending time with Freddy’s little girlfriend without even realizing it.
Small world.
“Frederick! Where are you going?!” shouted Petra.
I felt a hand on my bicep, tugging my sleeve. “I think we should go, Captain!”
The shield distorted from the interference of Freddie’s hand, so I quickly shrugged him off. “Easy, man. What’s the big deal? Are you really that terrified of a woman?”
"Frederick!” called Petra.
"Captain!" pleaded Freddy. He took a step back into the airlock.
I rolled my eyes. "Oh, all right." I smacked the back of his shoulder shoving him further through the door. "But you owe me one, kid. And I want to know what the deal is with whatever the hell this is." I motioned to the closing airlock right as Petra arrived.
The woman banged on the wall with her fist, a hungry look in her eyes. I stayed near the door, raising my brow, then turned away and sat in the pilot's chair in the front. Freddy was already strapped in beside me, nervous sweat beads pouring down his forehead.
I reached to the dash and touched the control pad, activating the engines and detaching from The Galactic Dawn in one fluid motion. As we trailed off and away from the carrier ship, I heard Freddie breathe a long sigh of relief.
I looked at him, pausing to see if he was going to actually say anything or if I was gonna have to pull it out of him.
Thankfully, Freddie knew better than to make me ask. "I'm so sorry about that, Captain," he apologized. "This is so embarrassing. Please, don't say anything to Abigail or the others about this. I'd rather nobody find out."
"I'll decide for myself once I hear what you did to that poor woman."
He frowned, bowing his head in shame. "Petra and I have been seeing each other for the past month."
I scoffed. "Seems to me like she was a little jaded at you, Freddie. What the hell did you do?"
"Well, y-you see," he began, bumbling over his words. "She wants me to meet her family."
"Her family?" I chuckled. "Is that all?"
He waved his hands and shook his head. "It's not what you think. In their culture, getting introduced to the family is a big deal."
“How big?” I asked.
"It's something you do right before you get married," he explained.
The words hung in the air for a few seconds as I imagined Freddie standing in the middle of an aisle, dressed in a suit, waiting for his bride. When I added in the prospect of an albino father-in-law standing beside him with a weaponized staff in his hands, I couldn't help but have a nice, long laugh. "Freddie, you stupid bastard."
"Captain, I know!" He exclaimed, throwing his head into his hands, elbows on his knees. "I have no idea what to do! I care about Petra. Quite a bit, actually. She’s beautiful and a gifted scientist. I just don't think I'm ready to do all of that."
"Sounds to me like you might not have much of a choice, pal.”
A voice broke in on the comms, disrupting our conversation. "Captain, this is Octavia. Alphonse, Bolin, and I have returned to Verdun."
"I hear you, Octavia. I'm on my way back with Freddy," I answered.
"I trust I'm not interrupting anything," she said.
I glanced at Freddy. "No, we were just discussing poor life choices. Go ahead with whatever you've got."
"Well, we didn't find anything abnormal in grids 61, 62, 63, or 64," she explained. "However, because we still had another hour on the clock, we decided to go ahead and investiga
te grid 65."
"And?" I asked.
"And," she continued, "we found something."
I perked up, then leaned forward. "I'm listening."
"You'll recall the trilobites,” she continued.
“What about them?" I asked.
"We spotted a trail of them, crawling through the cliffs, and we decided to follow them for as long as possible. At the end of it, we discovered something interesting."
"And what's that?" I asked.
"An opening," she said, somewhat emphatically. "A massive chasm leading into the ground, undetectable by normal scans, with at least two hundred trilobites along its inner walls."
My eyes widened at the thought of such a place. "How's that possible? Why couldn't we see it from Titan?"
"I don't know," she admitted. "But I'd certainly like to find out."
I scratched the side of my jaw. "Meet me back at Verdun. I want the three of you ready to leave immediately."
"Let me guess," she responded. "You'd like to have yourself a look. See it up-close?"
"Wouldn't you?" I asked cocking my brow. I turned to Freddy and cracked a half smile. "Seems like you got here just in time, Fred. Things just got a little more interesting."
FIVE
I sat inside the room that had recently been converted into my office, although it was really more like a collection of storage crates and equipment. I’d been using a table we had found during cleanup, and I was in no rush to replace it. I spent so little time here, I figured it hardly mattered. Aside from the Foxy Stardust bobblehead—which currently sat on my desk—everything in this room was expendable.
Alphonse, Octavia, and Freddie were already here, ready to discuss the situation involving the recent find. I was eager to get things underway, but I didn’t want to do this without the rest of my team. That meant waiting for Abigail, Lucia, Dressler, and Karin to arrive, not to mention the two Cognitives.
"How long should we wait?" asked Octavia.
"Abigail and Dressler are on their way," said Alphonse. “I can’t speak for the others.”
I nodded. “As soon as they're here, we’ll brief everyone on your findings. I want that site secured by the end of the day.”
“Secured?” asked Freddie.
A flicker of gold light caught my eye as Sigmond appeared beside my desk. We had just recently installed a set of hard light emitters, giving both Athena and Sigmond the ability to come and go as they pleased. Before that, we had to use mobile emitters, which were less reliable and didn't allow for direct interaction with the local environment. That was what the Cognitives had claimed, anyway.
If you asked me, I think they just liked making demands.
Sigmond smiled as his body quickly materialized. "Since receiving this information, Athena and I have been analyzing the terrain. We have several theories on its nature."
Another spark of light, this time blue, began to appear right next to Sigmond. “As well as the reason we could not detect it before today,” finished Athena.
“It sounds like you need more data,” said Octavia.
“An understatement,” replied Athena. “The pit appears to be quite deep, possibly several kilometers.”
“You can’t tell?” I asked.
“Something is disrupting our scans,” she answered. “An electromagnetic field, possibly.”
“But you don’t know,” said Alphonse.
“Correct,” she said.
The door opened and Dressler walked inside, along with Karin. “Good afternoon, everyone,” addressed the doctor. She took an empty chair and brought it beside Alphonse. “I trust we haven’t missed much.”
Karin joined her, taking the last remaining chair.
“We were waiting for you,” said Freddie.
“I appreciate that,” she said.
“How long before Abigail and Lucia get here?” I asked, looking at Sigmond.
“They departed some time ago,” he answered.
“Who departed?” asked a voice from the doorway. Abigail beamed a smile towards me, crossing her arms as she leaned against the wall. Lucia was right behind her, looking as stoic as ever.
“Eerie timing,” remarked Octavia. “Were you waiting in the hall to make an entrance?”
“No, that was just luck,” answered Abigail.
The two women came inside and shut the door, each of them remaining on their feet. “Let’s go ahead and get started,” I finally said, looking at Alphonse and Octavia. “Tell them everything you told me, and don’t leave anything out.”
* * *
The briefing was quick and to the point. Octavia explained what her team had found, laying out the day’s events in chronological order, and then the conversation shifted to Athena’s attempts to scan the interior of the chasm.
Unfortunately, after an hour of theories and explanations, we still knew very little. “The fact is, we won’t fully comprehend what we’re dealing with until we go there and investigate,” said Alphonse.
“It’s large enough to fit a handful of strike ships,” said Octavia. “We could take a squad.”
“Each ship can be configured to perform continuous proximity scans,” said Athena. “Data collection should multiply with each additional ship.”
“Hold on,” said Freddie, pulling everyone’s attention to him. “Are we actually sure we need to investigate this?”
“What do you mean?” asked Octavia.
“Well,” he continued, scratching his ear. “If the planet is terraforming itself, maybe that hole is part of the process. If we interfere with it, we might cause a problem.”
“That is a valid concern,” agreed Athena. “However, without knowing the cause and purpose of the chasm, we cannot definitively state such a conclusion. It is, therefore, just as likely that the formation is a product of a failing system.”
I leaned forward. “You think that hole isn’t supposed to be there?”
“I do not know,” admitted Athena. “There is so much about this planet that I do not fully comprehend. It is but a shadow of the world I remember, and I would very much like to know why.”
Bolin raised a finger. “I think this might be a good time to point out the trilobites gathering underneath the city, too.”
“What about them?” I asked.
“I meant to tell you, but a few more showed up this morning,” he explained. “They’re just sitting there, doing nothing, but it’s concerning.”
“And every time we shoot one, another pops up to take its place,” said Karin.
Bolin nodded. “If they attack, we can probably take them all out, but more are bound to come, just like always.”
Dressler nodded. “Bolin is correct. That chasm might give us information that could allow us to better understand the machines. It’s worth investigating.”
The idea that the chasm might hold answers had certainly grabbed my attention. I just wasn’t sure about it being an accident or even a byproduct of some terraforming process. Considering how those trilobites beneath the city were acting, I was inclined to believe that someone was controlling them. Why else would a bunch of automated machines act so strangely? What reason did they have to gather together like that?
But if that was true, who were the people responsible?
The Union was one option, and I sure as shit wouldn’t put this past them. Brigham had told me they wouldn’t stop chasing us, and I had no reason to doubt him, but still. Abigail had stopped a squad of their thugs from boarding The Galactic Dawn a few weeks ago. If they were already here manipulating trilobites, why bother trying to infiltrate a colony ship full of trained soldiers?
Maybe all of that was just for show, I thought, providing the answer to my own question. Had all of that been misdirection? Was that squad sent to be captured, all so we could rest easy in our overconfidence? Was I being played for a fool?
I felt my shoulders tense at the thought. There was so much I didn’t know, and I couldn’t stand being in the dark.
“
Captain?” asked Dressler, breaking through my thoughts.
I blinked at the sound of her voice. “Sorry,” I said, clearing my throat. “I was just weighing our options.”
“Did you come to a decision?” she asked.
“We’re going,” I said, quickly but firmly. “If we want to survive on this planet for the long haul, we need to understand what the hell is happening. It means taking a risk, but none of us are strangers to that. Right, Freddie?”
He nodded. “Right.”
“What about the new colonists?” asked Abigail. “Someone needs to stay behind to help make the transition.”
I hesitated to answer. I’d forgotten about the new arrivals. They would need new rooms, food, and other supplies before things were settled, and we couldn’t let them wander around the colony on their own. Who knew what they might do? We also couldn’t keep them on The Dawn for much longer. It had already been a month. They might riot if we kept them cooped up, especially with the Earth staring at them through their windows. “Any volunteers?” I asked.
“I’ll go where you need me,” said Bolin.
I shook my head at Bolin. “I need you to pilot one of our ships. Anyone else?”
“I can stay behind,” said Karin. “I’m certain the rest of The Galactic Dawn’s crew would be eager to join me, too.”
It was a tough decision. I could always use Karin’s expertise, given what she knew about ancient Earth technology. She spoke the language, understood how to use their systems, but so could Dressler, and we didn’t need both of them.
“Don’t forget about Dr. Hitchens,” interjected Freddie. “I’m sure he’ll volunteer to help.”
“Where is he, anyway?” asked Abigail. “I’m surprised he’s not here.”
“He’s busy helping the cleaning crew organize the new classroom,” said Octavia.
“How do you already know about that?” I asked.
“He met me when I landed,” she said. “He always does.”
“Isn’t that sweet?” asked Lucia, finally cutting in with a snide remark. “Enough prattling. Let’s get on with this. I have things to do.”
“Looks like you’ll have to decide, Captain,” said Alphonse. “Which of us stays behind while the rest plunge headfirst into the belly of the world?”
