Project Green Earth

by Brett P. S.

PROJECT GREEN EARTH

  Brett P. S.

  Copyright © 2014 Brett P. S.

  All rights reserved.

  TABLE OF CONTENTS

  CHAPTER I – THE LAST ONE

  CHAPTER II – GREEN PLANET

  CHAPTER III – OPEN THE GATES

  CHAPTER IV – NOSTALGIA

  CHAPTER V – WAKING SHADOWS

  CHAPTER VI – SURVIVOR

  CHAPTER VII – CHANGE OF PLANS

  CHAPTER VIII – SABOTAGE

  CHAPTER IX – UNSEEN ENEMIES

  CHAPTER X – EXPEDITION

  CHAPTER XI – A CHANCE

  EPILOGUE – HOPE

  Act I

  Discovered Country

  Chapter I

  The Last One

  It’s dark … quiet, with only a background of static to serve as mental stimulation. It’s cold from my toes to my neck, as if the only thing working is my brain, letting the rest of me rot. I try to open my eyes, but the damn things won’t budge. How long have I been like this? How long?

  “He’s coming out of it.”

  What the … who’s that? The speech sounds familiar.

  “You know, sometimes they never do,” says someone else. It’s different … female.

  The male voice replies, “I’m confident he’ll pull through. See that? EEG readings are approaching normalcy.”

  EE … what? Wait, I heard all that! I’m … I’m on a ship. Yes, I’m sure of it, which means that …

  “Still, wouldn’t expect the Major to be a straggler of all things.”

  I’m an officer. These two must be civilian medical personnel. At the least, one of them must be qualified to bring me up to speed, but that won’t matter unless these things will open and my body can move again. At the least, I have to try …

  “What’s this?” the man exclaims in a worried tone. “The readings are off the charts!”

  “What do we do?” she asks.

  “I’ll have to administer an anesthetic, and quickly.”

  In retaliation, the woman shrieks, “The man’s half alive! He could sink into a coma!”

  “At this rate, he’ll have a stroke!”

  I will not let him stab me! Something has to give here or else I’m done for. Do something, body! Reach out and grab something!

  “I won’t let you … EEEK!”

  My eyelids finally pull back, if only at a snail’s pace, but that’s for the best. The facility’s lights are more than blinding. It’s not so different of an experience from before, but at least I have some degree of control over my faculties. My body feels sick and sluggish, strapped in place by what appears to be a complicated harness. I’m upright, judging by the vertical orientation of the two figures, which are much more distinct.

  That’s when I notice I gripped this young woman’s wrist. As soon as the information processes, I let go, but I manage to see a thick mark of black and blue bruised skin where my hand gripped before she covers it underneath her lab coat sleeve. I must have been holding on for a few minutes without ever realizing it.

  “Well,” the man says with a pause, “That was certainly an experience.”

  The harness has my face glued in place, but I manage to glance over with my eyes to see the sorry bastard with a primed syringe of god knows what concoction. The room is silent as he places it on the table next to him. I don’t know where the other scientist has run off to, but she isn’t here any longer. Lapses of missing time are a common element of waking up from stasis. I’m glad I woke up at all, but I don’t trust this one … not one bit.

  With a growl present in my voice, I tell him to, “Get me out of here.”

  Chapter II

  Green Planet

  The hum of freshly whizzing machinery buzzes about as I make my way onto the main deck. It’s a cramped locale toward the stern of the ship. A young man I remember as my second in command stands poised to greet me, holding up a salute. Behind him are two pilots squished firmly against a large front control console spanning several meters. Glancing at the wall panels, I see an emblem with text reading, “Newton-II.”

  “Good to see you back among the living, Major,” he says with a smile.

  “How goes the voyage, Lieutenant?”

  He pauses, peering down at a tablet he held in the other hand.

  “Maybe I should just show you.”

  With a few strokes of his fingers and a few seconds to process the command, what I thought were dark steel panels running across the stern wall light up with colors like those I’ve never seen. From a mile above the surface, the sight of lush greenery nearly brings tears to the eyes of an astronaut from a barren planet. Trees and rivers … it’s all here. All of it like an Earth centuries past. I’ve waited years to see this. Even though it felt like an instant … I really have waited years.

  “Unbelievable,” I say.

  “Initial scans show a rich and breathable atmosphere. Plant life as far as the eye can see.”

  However, coming back to the matter at hand, I ask him, “Can we even land?”

  With a nervous pause, the Lieutenant replies, “We’re working on that.”

  “Sir,” one of the pilots shouts, “this spot looks good!”

  A large square outlined in red appears on the panoramic screen, outlining a target below for the fire control systems. Really now? Hardly the best way to announce our arrival, but, “Go ahead and do it.”

  I can hardly hear the soft boom of the Newton’s cannons as they raze the patch of land in a sea of fire. The vibrations are subtle as well; hardly noticeable to someone who wasn’t paying attention, but inertial dampeners will do that.

  While the smoke clears from the vid screen, I ask, “Where is my crew, Lieutenant?”

  To which he answers, “The science team is preparing their equipment for transport in the hangar.”

  Not quite the response I was looking for.

  “And my people?”

  “Waiting for you,” he replies. “Honestly, some of us thought you wouldn’t make it.”

  “Damned if that’s ever going to happen. Nobody’s getting off this ship until I brief them.”

  “Understood, sir. I’ll round them up.”

  Chapter III

  Open the Gates

  A resounding thud rocks the ship as it touches down on terra firma. Inertial dampeners do well to simulate artificial gravity and handle a few G’s of Newtonian force, but the sheer decelerating shock of landing a craft this huge is too much for them to handle completely. The full crew of the Newton-II stands in the hangar bay, waiting for the hatches to open.

  They’re heterogeneous, even to me. Soldiers and mercenaries stand to the port side, fitted with armored vests and heavy gear, from combat knives to some scientific semi-automatic rifles. Earth’s military spared no expense. I’ll admit that much, but it remains unknown if the preparation in personnel was worthwhile.

  Toward the starboard side of the hangar is the science team, fitted with light survival gear, pockets with rations and pens. Every man and woman here has a flask and a pack of rations. Of course, I know why, though it would be better for the project manager to explain. As for the rest, I’ll do my part.

  “Okay, let’s get this over with,” I say with a sigh. “This is a scientific expedition, first and foremost, but my job is keeping the science team safe. In matters of safety, everyone will defer to me.”

  One crewmember asks, “Why do we need to worry about safety? Surface scans showed no threats.”

  Of all the stuck up … “My job is to assume something is out there and it wants to eat us. I don’t give a damn about the scans.”

  At this point, the project manager takes the stage. H
ammond hustles up from what is definitely a tense and frustrated bunch at this point. He sets his gear on the flooring and gestures for his team to calm down with open hands.

  “He’s right, Mark,” Hammond urges. “Listen there could be carnivorous plants, and we haven’t tested for poisons either. On that note, I assume you’ve all gotten a lunch box and canteen?” Most of the men and women glance down either at their hands or at the flooring if they set them there. “Good, that should be enough rations for the first week. I know it might be tempting to be the first human alive to ingest an alien cuisine, but there’s no telling how it might affect our own physiology.”

  “Simply put,” I add, “don’t eat anything. Don’t even touch anything without a glove.”

  Hammons glances at me, expressing some discomfort. He rubs his stubble back and forth across his chin and slowly motions toward my weapon. I held it at my side for so long I forgot about it.

  “Right,” I say. “I assume you have an idea of the rifles you’re carrying.” I hold up my own. “This is a BlitzCorp. ER-98. Each one of these houses a miniature fusion core. No bullets. To spare the jargon Hammond here would give you, it condenses the air around you into an ice cube harder than steel and fires it. You won’t run out of ammunition in your lifetime and the only downside is the rate of fire, but it’s ideal for the extended stay we have.” With a grin, I peer over at the young man from earlier. “If Marcus is right, you’ll never even get to pull the trigger. Too bad, eh?”

  “Well, Major,” Hammond asks, “are we set?”

  That covers it.

  “Open the gates to the green Earth!”

  I must’ve shouted loud enough for the engineers to hear me, because only seconds later, the huge hangar bay doors crack open. Sunlight from a foreign star radiates in and envelops us in the beating beams. Outside, the scent of dew from a recent shower creeps in and tickles my nose with a sensation I’ve never felt before.

  “Take a good look,” I say, “because in one month, you’ll never see it again.”

  Chapter IV

  Nostalgia

  Dusk falls on the landing site, covering dirt with a warm glow. It’s a late coming color compared to a day on Earth. What should have happened in six or so hours took nearly twelve, but that’s to be expected. Not only will the days and nights be longer, but the years will also be slightly shorter. It was something like 286 Earth days … roughly. For the life of me, I can’t remember exactly how long a day here actually is, though I’m sure Hammond would know.

  “Thinking about something?” the man pops out from behind. I must be out of it if he managed to sneak up without my noticing. Hammond looks up at me and asks, “Or someone?”

  “Sort of,” I reply.

  “Human life is so short,” he says, staring off toward a group of his employees who are tilling the dirt in search of new, shattered specimens. “I wonder if families weren’t meant to endure the hardships of deep space travel.”

  Yes, well, “It’s not what you think.”

  For some reason though, he continues, saying, “I’ve got a little one. He’ll be an old man before I return … but my wife … well …”

  “I understand your situation, Hammond, but you chose to come here.”

  “So did you, Major,” he says. “Problem is I can’t figure out why.”

  So that’s what this is about. Well, I can’t pin it down to a reason. I’m not leaving behind much. Then again, that might be a reason in itself.

  “When I was a kid,” I say, “I had this little book, ‘Cities of the World.’ The text was torn and smeared all to hell, but you could see the pictures pretty well.”

  “I see,” he replies with a pause.

  “I want … I want it back,” I say, clenching my fist. “I want to see it for the first time outside of a fairy tale.”

  For nearly half a minute, I stare at him, watching the beads of sweat drip down his stubble filled neck from the evening sun. He takes a moment to wipe it semi-dry with a handkerchief, and looks away.

  “You realize …” he says, “There is a possibility this planet won’t work for us.”

  “It will,” I say. “If you can’t make it work, you aren’t thinking hard enough.”

  “I … I’m sorry I asked … and I hope things work out for our sake … and for yours.”

  At any rate, it doesn’t matter. I can still tell myself for the moment we can make this work, but I don’t know what I’d do if …

  “Well, it’s getting dark,” I say. “Time to do a head count.”

  “Right.” Hammond ruffles through his coat pockets and pulls out a comm. device. I don’t know all that much about gadgets, but its wireless. Hooked up to the Newton’s speaker system, though I didn’t imagine the ship had audio emitters outside the hull. “Listen up everyone!” his voice booms from the surface of the ship high above us. “It’s getting dark, so let’s all turn in! Line up beside me, and the Major will take roll!”

  As the crew gathers into a loose formation, I look up and see the Newton came built with an exterior speaker system shielded by scaffolding. The panels appear to have slid open, revealing deep shafts in which the speakers likely must be.

  I heard the Newton wasn’t manufactured solely for this expedition. It could double as a sort of envoy in case we discovered intelligent life. It would definitely be nice to communicate from a place of safety, but that blasting earlier wouldn’t be the best introduction. At any rate, the presumed possibility of intelligent life on this planet is an overstatement.

  All right. Looks like everyone’s in a nice and easy line. Just have to check off the people. I reach down by my side and unhinge a tablet device. I press the power button and wait for the lights to flash and the thing to whiz. On the screen, I press the program icon for what I need, and it brings up a list of names and faces. Looking at the first woman in line, I match her face to one on the list and press down.

  “That was easy enough,” I say under my breath.

  Reaching the end of the line, I check off the last one but …

  “The heck?” I stammer, looking down to find one face not marked. “Where’s Stevenson? Stevenson!”

  Hammond hurriedly asks the group, “Has anyone seen him?”

  Commotion floats in an unsettling vibe until one of my men states that, “I saw him a few minutes ago. He was over there.”

  He points to the southern edge of the camp, where the broken tree-like structures fade into the brush. That’s bad … but it’s good. A few minutes means he couldn’t have gone far, much less dragged as a corpse.

  “Damned fool,” I say. “Send the rest inside.” Hammond nods and motions to break up the line. I point to the officer that spotted him along with one other. “You and you, come with me, and power up a locator.”

  Hammond tries to shout above the bustling crowd, “Be careful!”

  “You’re in charge until I get back, Hammond. Lock the Newton down, and don’t let anything in.”

  Chapter V

  Waking Shadows

  Leaves and slimy tendrils of vines whipping past my face is an experience I never grew accustomed to. All the while, as the locator emits its steady pulsing beep, I can’t help but savor the thrill and the discomfort. I’ll admit … I’m enjoying this, even with a crewmember’s life at stake. It’s euphoric.

  “We’re getting closer, sir,” she says, the officer to my three o’clock.

  “How close?”

  She says it’s, “Within fifty meters.”

  I grab my rifle and power on the fusion core. It takes a few seconds, but the translucent panels that surround the bulb shaped gunmetal center glow a light blue, like lightning in a bottle. The slight vibration doesn’t do the monster credit, and I know what could happen to this in the wrong hands. Between the three of us, there’s enough explosive power to level a city. That’s a small part of why these aren’t practical.

  “You s
hould be able to have a visual. He’s within 10 meters.”

  “I can’t see a damn thing through …”

  When I take one more step, my foot drops right through what should have been firm soil. I try to grab something … anything, but the shock of it all sends me plummeting down until my body crashes into a muddy puddle at the base of some kind of chasm. The disorientation startles me for a second or two, but the ground is moist … nice and soft to break my fall even a little. Looking up, I notice the two of them peering down through a hole not much bigger than a meter or two.

  “You alright, sir!” he says.

  Yeah, I break my tailbone every day.

  “Get me a rope,” I say to him. “And tie it to something that won’t break.”

  “On it!”

  While that commotion is going on top side, my eyes have finally had a chance to adjust to the damp darkness of this tiny cavity underneath the soil. The orange hue of dusk is slowly turning to red, and it doesn’t do much coming down through the hole above. With the press of a button housed by the butt of my 98, a LED light brightens up the surrounding area in a somewhat focused beam.

  “Sir?” he says, throwing down the rope.

  “Give me a second,” I reply. “I’m going to have a look around.”

  Cautiously, I sway the beam from end to end. It’s a cave all right, but there’s an odd shape to the walls, like mechanical protrusions. I walk over to one such jutting mound and rub my fingers across it to feel for anything unusual. My fingers rub off a thick layer of mud to reveal something reflective underneath.

  “The hell?”

  I prop the gun against the cave wall to give me ample light and start clawing at the section in front of me, tearing down heaps of mud with every swipe. I barely cleave a few square feet before I notice something underneath. It’s hard to tell, so I grab the rifle and aim it, revealing what was actually a layer of glass. Behind it … is a living creature. I can’t tell what it is, but the form of the head is remarkably humanoid.

  “This is big,” I say.

  The apparatus is either a burial coffin or some kind of stasis device, like the ones we used for our trip here. Either way, this planet has … or at least has had sentient life. Still no sign of the missing scientist.

  Damn, but, “Hammond’s going to have his hands full with this.”