Solar Twins

by Jason F Crockett

  “Brent, we received that call not long after we landed, what did the F.L.E.N. COMET have to say?”

  “I just recorded it as you requested. Would you like me to play it back for you now? I haven’t even listened to it myself.”

  “Yes,” the captain said turning around. “Let’s see how they are faring, and perhaps we can raise them if they are in range afterward to fill them in on our situation. I hope they and the Outpost are faring better than we are.”

  Brent adjusted the audio and pulled up the recording received from the COMET.

  “Here it is, Captain,” he said making one final adjustment to the volume. A moment later an automated voice came on the speakers reading off the communications envelope information.

  “Just skip through the envelope data Brent,” said the captain. After tapping a couple more buttons, the actual recording came on. There was a loud squeal that had everyone on the bridge covering their ears and cringing. Brent muted it and brought the volume up slower.

  Dorothy’s voice was barely discernible as she screamed into the mic, “MAYDAY—MAYDAY! Impact with … imminent. Avoid … planets at all costs”

  Over-modulation of the signal distorted the reception causing her to be nearly unintelligible.

  “We have total loss of control... unknown source. —N O O O—.” The rest of what was heard was just unintelligible background noise and chatter. The long “No” seemed to echo simultaneously from more people than just Dorothy. The Windfall’s crew seemed to sense that there was more to what they were hearing than they could understand. With a cacophony of screams, screeches, and deep groans, the recording soon echoed into silence; complete and utter silence.

  The captain was the first to break the silence. “Brent, put the transmitter on high output and broadcast all frequencies. We need to know what happened. If we can’t raise the COMET, maybe the Outpost will hear and respond.”

  Brent, still half in a daze from what he had just heard, turned and began to program the communication system to broadcast his message. He started with the most common bands before switching to the less common.

  “Windfall to F.L.E.N. Fleet M.A.G. 30 C., come in. Windfall to F.L.E.N. Fleet M.A.G. 30 C., come in. COMET or Outpost, come in.” Nothing. Brent’s tone became more agitated as he tried more and more frequencies.

  The captain turned back to the window and gazed out, his hands deep in his uniform pockets. This time as he looked out, he looked up not down. Somewhere out there was the COMET, possibly in distress. Here he was stranded until who knows when and unable to help.

  Brent broke through his train of thought. “I am very faintly picking up the transponder signal from the Outpost. There is no voice communication from them, but we were not necessarily expecting that until the COMET deployed the communication satellites. I have received no communication at all from the COMET, not even their transponder. I am getting a distorted reflection of our own signal back on some frequencies. I assume that it is bouncing off the other planet. I don’t know what is distorting it though.”

  “Record a message.” the captain said, “Automate its transmission to as many bands as is feasible. Scan and record all frequencies for any possible responses."

  “Windfall, come in.” Everyone jumped and Brent grabbed his mic, “This is the Windfall, go ahead.”

  “This is Opie,” the voice began. The captain smacked his hand heavily on the window and everyone on the bridge started. They had been hoping it was the COMET. “We are getting your message loud and clear on every channel. You’re going to fry us with the microwaves if you keep it up. What’s going on?”

  Brent looked questioningly at Captain Gaston, holding the mic out towards him in his left hand.

  “Brent, tell him that it’s nothing that we can explain, yet. Set up a short range of frequencies that we aren’t going to spam and give those to him so that we can communicate with them and they won’t be so troubled by the noise.”

  Brent repeated what the captain had said back to them. “I’ll clear out the frequencies that will be equivalent to channels 10-20 on your radios, and start with channel 12 as your channel. I’ll give 10 and 11 to our transportation and building crew that we have heading out.”

  “Thanks,” Opie said. “We were starting to get headaches because of it.”

  “How is the survey going?” asked Captain Gaston. Brent relayed his question, and after a moment of static, Opie replied.

  “We are doing fine. We have seen a lot of small wildlife. We had to detour a bit out of our way to find a ford shallow enough to cross the river. I know it’s rated for water travel, but I didn’t want to take a chance at capsizing. We will probably have to try it out at the mouth of the river when we get there if we don’t find another shallow ford on our way back up the coast. The marsh is even larger than we thought. We will try to make it back to the base camp tonight, but it’s not looking very feasible at the moment.”

  Seeing the question in the captain’s eyes, Brent asked, “Are you set up to make camp tonight or do we need to send somebody out with supplies?”

  “We’ve looked through the emergency supplies, and we should be good for a couple of nights at least.”

  At a wave from the captain, Brent broke off the contact. “O.K. Well just let us know if you need anything and keep checking back in with us.”

  “Will do. Over and out.”

  No sooner had they disconnected than Caleb’s voice sounded. “Captain, this is Caleb, come in.”

  The captain strode over to Brent from the window and took the microphone. “Go ahead, Caleb, this is the Captain.”

  “Captain, we are ready with all the logistics and need you to announce the situation for us. Jerry has already gathered his workers, as have I. We want to evacuate each level beginning with the first and work our way up. If you can make the first general announcement, I can make each subsequent announcement for each floor as their turn to leave draws close.”

  “That sounds fine,” the captain said. “I’ll make the announcement in just a couple of ticks.”

  “Thanks, Captain, we’ll get her done just wait and see.”

  “That I will.” After handing the mic back to Brent he began to pace slowly. “Anything from the Outpost?”

  “Just the transponder, Captain. Nothing yet from the COMET either, but we are getting a really weird signal that is originating from the other planet,” Brent said.

  “What kind of signal? Is it the COMET?”

  “I don’t know and no,” Brent said, wiping his balding scalp with his handkerchief.”

  Brent’s wife Lori walked over to his console from where she sat. Each step she took was a noticeable effort as she struggled to adjust to the gravity. She wasn’t obese, just overweight and because of her chipper personality, most people scarcely noticed how heavy she was. But it was obvious that the newer, higher gravity was going to be difficult for her.

  “Captain,” she said looking up. “This looks like the same Gamma energy pattern that we were seeing prior to the probes that we sent out. I think we are being watched.”

  The captain settled back into his chair to think. His fingers silently rubbed his temples attempting relief from the headache that was teasing at him. He could hear Lori explaining to the team what they had seen. He looked up as she pulled up some of the images that they had taken when the drones were sent in.

  “Nick, what do we have in the way of telescopes or long-range imaging? I don’t think the shuttle has anything built in that would suffice.” The captain didn’t wait for him to reply but continued to explain. “Once we are set up, out there,” he said with a wave of his hand, “I want to set up an observatory to learn as much about our new neighbors as we can. I will set up a radio telescope and then we will really be able to figure out what is going on.”

  “I brought a telescope with me, but it is small and purely optical. It doesn’t plug into any of our equipment. But, we do have the equipment to make a larger one if it comes down to tha
t. Like you said, most of the shuttle’s equipment will work from space down to the surface of a planet, but may not give us accurate information from one planet to another through two atmospheres.”

  “Make sure you bring it with you tonight, will you? I want to see what I can of our neighbor up there since they seem to be so interested in us.”

  “Sure, Captain. That will be enjoyable after this whole stuck in the muck thing.”

  All the captain could do was grimace in response and shake his head. “Brent, patch me into the system-wide paging so I can go ahead and get folks moving. Everybody should already be ready, but this will still not be easy on them.”

  Brent brought the mic over after flipping a few switches. “You’re good to go, Captain,” he said handing it over to him.

  “Attention! Attention, everyone! This is Captain Gaston speaking. I know many of you are aware that something is amiss but have nothing but your fears of the unknown to entertain you. Allow me to put those fears to rest. This is the situation: We landed safely on Magellan. However, the surface where we happened to land is softer than was expected and has led to some instability with our shuttle. We are unable to quickly relocate the shuttle so we are going to push forward our schedule for disembarking and will begin immediately. Our priorities are: removing any people and removing large equipment first before we get the smaller stuff. We intend on having everybody relocated by nightfall. We will be starting on the lower level and working our way up to the top. Please work with us to make this transition as smooth as possible. Thank you and Godspeed.”

  CHAPTER FIVE:

  Rescue

  Yakobe and Rakhabi huddled and stared in fearful apprehension at the smoking, smoldering hulk that had impacted heavily not 200 meters from where they had been eating and resting in the middle of their journey. The guards that had also stopped, fanned out around the meteorite or whatever it was, to secure the location.

  As they picked their way around the trees that had been knocked over, they heard yells and shouting from the other side. The guards were doing their best to keep the underbrush and the trees from catching fire. From what Yakobe could gather, they were able to isolate the fires in small bubbles of energy that collapsed in on the flames and suffocated them. That was an interesting concept he thought and wondered if they needed their crystal-tipped spears to do so or whether any skilled could do so without the outside focus that was often necessary to accomplish a feat like that.

  There was a loud hiss and a grinding noise as a portion of the debris fell away. Yakobe dashed backward, stumbling over Rakhabi who was also trying to get out of the way. Together they half toppled-half dove under the trunk of a large tree leaning out from the debris. The hand-thick block of metal broke completely off and struck the trunk of the tree before sliding off onto the ground where they had been moments before. The guards shouted and ran to investigate, arriving just as a creature crawled out of the opening. Smoke churned around it as it toppled out of the opening to collapse on the ground in a heap. Scratching and whimpering continued to follow the smoke out of the dark gaping hole in the wreckage. Rakhabi darted in to check on the creature huddled on the ground. She gently straightened it out on its back and attempted to staunch the flow of red blood bubbling up from a wound running up the inside of the creature’s leg. That was not its only wound. It looked like it had been rolled down a cliff with a bunch of boulders.

  Rakhabi felt helpless and pleaded with the guards to find a healer. Surely a healer would be able to help. All she could do was try to staunch the flow of blood, but she was not a healer. Knowing that what she was physically able to do was inadequate, she abruptly switched to the alternate perception and now, able to see not only the outside, but the inside and the other side, she reached through and tied off the artery that was severed, and after some concentration, cauterized the other remaining wounds both to seal them from bleeding and to protect them from infection.

  Drawing her perspective back to the purely physical, she looked to Yakobe for support and advice. He was not there. She was on the verge of collapse. Where had he gone?

  Yakobe leaned a broken branch up against the opening and scrambled up it into the opening, careful not to touch the hot steaming sides. The guards were no help, and Rakhabi would have her hands full for some time. Steam rose from the branch as the leaves withered and shrank with the heat still radiating from the debris. His left hand smarted from where he had first laid his hand on it to climb up. Someone was obviously still in there and hurt. The creature lying on the ground was a mess, but its structure was the same as his own was. It was not just an animal. It was a thinking creature, so it was only natural to lend it aid.

  He tested the sides of the corridor with the back of his hands to make sure that it too wasn’t too hot to touch as well. It wasn’t, and he braced himself against the sides as he stepped carefully over all kinds of unidentifiable junk littering the floor. Everything was tipped at a sharp angle from level and he ended up walking partly on one wall and partly on what was most likely supposed to be the floor. Everything he touched was either highly polished metal or some other material that was much lighter but still very stiff. There was no grain to it, so it wasn’t a type of wood. Nor was it crystalline in structure. He had to continually blink his eyes against the tainted smoke that was swirling past him. He took off his shirt and wrapped it around his head to filter the smoke so he could breathe.

  He was brought out of his reverie by the sounds of painful whimpering from somewhere off to his right and down. He took one more step preparing to greet whoever was crying, but his foot slid on a slippery liquid covering the floor. With a grunt, he crashed to the floor and began to slide faster and faster through the smoke. Faint lights, just bright enough to see the smoke better flickered eerily against the smoke. He tried to scrabble for purchase, but the floor was as smooth as polished crystal and covered with the slippery goop that now covered him with its foul smell as well. With a loud clatter, he hit the bottom and began to disentangle himself from the heaps of metallic pans and bundles of cloth, tubes and strange looking dials, and other unrecognizable items. As he attempted to take a step, the whimpering turned to a grunt beneath his foot. He had found the source of the creature making the noise. At the same moment that he leaned down to lend aid, his life partner broke through his consciousness in a panic.

  “Where are you?” she all but screamed in his head.

  “I’m inside the debris. I’ve found another. I will need light and a rope to get back out. Arrange it with the guards.”

  “Just tesser,” she countered. “I’ll anchor you.”

  “O.K. Hold on a moment while I get it.” He fumbled in the smoke and dark to get a grip on the creature. It had gone totally quiet. He changed his perspective into that of the fourth realm hoping that he’d be able to see better, but though he could now make out Rakhabi, the smoke was still interfering where he was. He tried one of his hunting tricks and looked for the heat that all living creatures gave off. (Only the ice yulupalexa gives off no heat.) There was a lot of heat in the smoke and debris, but it did work. However, he noticed that there was not just one creature underfoot, but three. “I’m not going to come all the way through, Rakhabi. I’ll just hand them out to you. You will need to step into the 4th realm too. I will create an anchor for myself here until I’m ready to go all the way through.”

  “Yakobe, you know that I’m not as skilled as you. I don’t know if I can do it. Not now.”

  “Well, I can bring them all the way one at a time, but I’d probably have to climb back in the way I did the first time. I almost hurt myself quite badly. Can you just try it? Maybe ask the guards to help. Let me know when you are ready.” Yakobe gathered the first creature buried in the heap and mentally fashioned an anchor to mark his position so that he would easily be able to find his way back. It would have been as easy as playing Powerball for some folks, but he didn’t tesser to unknown places as often as others did. Sensing Rakhabi was now ready
, he expanded his perception out looking for Rakhabi and once he had fixed her location in his mind, he tessered directly to her. He handed the first one over and silently encouraged Rakhabi who seemed quite tense. She staggered under the weight, but he didn’t wait to see how she did. He let himself go and snapped back instantly to his anchor. Twice more they repeated this and when he could find no more living, he released his anchor and slid back to his wife where they stepped together back into the third realm and collapsed, encouraging one another. Yakobe could not stop coughing for some time, as his lungs flushed out the contamination from the smoke.

  The guards made some stretchers from branches and pieces of cloth tied across ladder style. Soon they had all three of the odd-looking people loaded up and secured. They would have carried Yakobe as well, but he waved them away and stood up with Rakhabi. It seemed they had tied themselves to the unfolding situation by helping and were marched along almost like prisoners as the guards carried the stretchers up to the observatory.

  It wasn’t far, but they didn’t realize that was where they were headed and in their worn-out state, they almost wished that they were being carried up the hill. (Not that they would have admitted it.) Their steps throbbed in time with the rumble still trumpeting from the bridge-tunnel.

  “Yakobe,” Rakhabi croaked out loud before continuing in the peaceful silence of their minds. “That sound, does it remind you of anything?