Chapter 1 - Sent
“Space is big. You just won't believe how vastly, hugely, mind-bogglingly big it is. I mean, you may think it's a long way down the road to the chemist's, but that's just peanuts to space.”
Now I learned in school that space was huge. Ginormous even. Bigger than anything you could imagine. Unless the entire observable universe was what you were imagining. Many of us don’t think about our size relative to the sky above us. That’s what I did in my free time. Yeah it made me a bit of a nerd or a geek or whatever, but it's what I enjoyed. I always wondered if there was life beyond our little blue and green protected planet.
I went on to finish a major in Astronomy and a minor in Astrophysics. Which promptly led to a job offer in an experimental branch of NASA, the Intergalactic Exploration and Search for Extraterrestrial Life, or IESEL for short. These geniuses were tasked with finding the right places to look for life outside our solar system. After a few years, they were about to be shut down when they got a Wow! signal from SETI and rushed to investigate.
The source of the signal was interstellar, strong and certainly meant for us. Which put it at 9 on the RIO scale. Extremely Noteworthy, which was immediately investigated by all space organizations on the planet. Our organization was thrown to the forefront and their long denied request for funds was quickly approved.
I had only been there for about six months when this happened. It was the first ever signal to be detected that was over a 3 in the last decade or so. My job was routine maintenance of the servers over the world and keeping the main room clean. Sure not the most exciting jobs but I was doing what I enjoyed. The guys were nice and everyone knew each other except for me. They integrated me ready well for people who spend most of their time inside scanning the universe for aliens. Of course the new guy gets poked at occasionally but I didn't care. They did replace my NASA hat with a tinfoil hat for a week as a joke, which I took in good nature.
All of this was about a year ago. We confirmed the source of the signal when we got access to the state of the art Deep Seeker Orbital Space Telescope. Pretty much an astronomer’s dream. It was a lot more work than just pointing at a star and saying “Look that's where it came from.” Although that's what I did when they were getting close to locating the correct star and I guessed it right. Of course, I checked and double-checked my math and it worked out. That pretty much landed me dibs on the next part of the project.
NASA and IESEL were cooperating on a manned mission to the area around the star. Now I questioned the thought process of this mission but was quickly silenced as NASA said they had a two decade old satellite in the vicinity of where I was to be going. It still had a few weeks to get there but I was to prepare for the manned mission.
Little did I know, I would be doing more rigorous training than a normal astronaut as I would be going alone. The representatives assured me that it would be of no consequence as they would be testing out their new cryo-stasis pod, fully tested. At least that's what they told me.
Basic astronaut training consists of medical tests, physical training, extravehicular activity (EVA) training, procedure training, rehabilitation process, as well as training on experiments they will accomplish during their stay in space. Exclusively in that order, and since I had no training in basic knowledge of how to be an astronaut, it took a lot longer. I also had to familiarize myself with a robotic assistant that was going to be pretty much attached to me the entire time. Its designation was TZ-42. He was a Friendly Synthetic Sociable Android, or FSSA prototype. Since they told me not to name him, I did and called him Marvin.
After basic astronaut training came centrifuge training, which I did not like at all. Namely I pretty much threw up on every single time. Except when I started getting used to being spin around at 7-9G’s for a few hours a day.
“Hey you didn't throw up this time!” A worker yelled, in mock enthusiasm. “This is certainly a special occasion!”
“Woohoo.” I said, getting out of the pod a little more green in the face then I would have liked. But at least I didn't blow my chunks. Or toss my cookies or whatever term you use for vomiting. “I'm just glad Robert isn't here. He would just say how easy this is and stop being a wimp. But am I done for the rest of the day?”
The worker, Ames I think his name was, looked down at his sheet and gave me a shit-eating grin. “Nope. Says here you are only halfway through your daily centrifuge training.”
“Fuck.” I said, walking back to the pod.
It was interactions like that that kept me going through the annoyingly long and hard days and the tedious and mind numbing days. Though there were some fun days as well. But I think it all was worth it in the long run. I mean how many people can rightly say they went to space? Not many. But I would be the first to exit the solar system and all I knew.
Around halfway through my training, I had just finished another bout of EVA training, some mechanics came to take me on a tour of the ship that they were building. I was expecting something relatively small and compact, but I was open to anything. Of course my opinion or concerns meant nothing to any of the higher ups.
“There she is!" One of the mechanics said, snapping me out of my thoughts.
It can't be that…. Woah. I thought, gaping in awe at the spaceship that looked like someone cobbled together the Planet Express and the Millennium Falcon. ”Dude that looks awesome!” I exclaimed gazing at the epic ship before me.
“We’re outfitting her with the best engines and commodities this side of planet Earth. So it'll be like you are at home. Except in a ship, flying at thirty percent the speed of light and looking for alien life. So yeah, you taking a fancy to her?"
“Guys this is awesome! Where did you get the funds to build this?!” I knew the answer of course, but it just didn't seem believable. I rubbed my eyes just in case. Nope still there. “This looks so stunning and sleek.” I was still awestruck from the sight of the vessel.
The grins on their faces said enough as they left me to wander around the shop and talk to the workers and have them explain what part they were building or working on, whatever the case would be.
“Alsa, if the planet ya land on ain't taken kindly to ya bein there, there's an inflatable bia-dome in the cargo bay.” His accent was so heavy I could barely understand what he was saying. The accent was akin to Scottish but I had never known anyone Scottish so I didn't want to offend him. “That should protect ya from most threats a planet has ta offer ya. Not like we'd send ya in blind eh boy?”
Still having a hard time understanding you. "Thank you, I can't wait to get into space and see what kind of aliens I am going to get to meet.” I was probably too enthusiastic considering that I had totally misjudged where the signal came from.
“Now I gotta get back ta work so I'll see ya around eh?” McKelly said, at least that's what his name plaque sewed on his shirt said.
“Yeah definitely. I can't wait to see what else you guys have for me. This is certainly going to be a great mission.” Of course the loneliness part could wait. That I wasn't sure of, I mean I could go days without human interaction but I wasn't sure about a few years.
“....of the basic soil content it might die because there is too much precipitation or watering..."
The teacher was droning on about the makeup of some plant species and I had almost fell asleep when someone yelled my name.
“COSMADA KYNER!”
“AH WHAT THE FUCK!” I shouted, jerking out of my stupor and falling off my chair.
“Why are you sleeping during the lesson?!” Professor Tycho asked, pointing at me with the wooden yardstick he has been using to point to things on the board.
“Uh,” My tired brain tried to form a coherent response, “I was doing homework?"
Tycho face-palmed. The other few students in the class laughed.
A shit eating grin spread onto my face and I opened my notebook again, ready to continue the class. I’m beyond idiotic.
So that began the crusade to piss each one of my teachers off, but I still worked hard on my studies so I could get the damn learning over with. Not that it’s boring, I love learning. Just too much of it at one time just knocks me out.
Them came the day of launch, a culmination of three and a half years of building, planning, learning and perseverance of everyone who had worked on this project. I was going to be rocketing through space at thirty percent of the speed of light thanks to many scientists and engineers who made this ship possible. And of course my parents who helped me and encouraged me throughout my life's endeavours. As I sit here writing this I now understand how much they are missing me and how I am doing the same.
Much is space travel is boring as hell. Like yeah there is some awesome stuff to look at outside the window but you can only look at so many stars and nebula s before getting bored and going back to getting iced. By iced I mean hitting the cryo-pod and setting a time to come back. Usually I put it for every few months so that I can send a binary message back to Earth and talk to my parents. Then two months and I would have a reply increasing considerably until around Y.21. In which I never received any messages back. Either from cosmic background radiation or frequent bursts of radio waves from sources around the area from stars.
Either way it became very lonely. Until I remembered I had Marvin.
“Marvin?” I called into the empty halls of the ship, "You there?”
“Oh hello Cosmada, I wasn’t expecting a summons until around Y.25. That's when humans are slated to go insane from loneliness.” He stated matter of factly.
“That's pretty creepy honestly.” I said, a bit uncomfortable. “So is there anything interesting to do around here? Other then go back to the cryo stasis pod?”
He paused in thought, putting a hand to his chin. “There was a game station put on this ship by Crew Officer Renton, and a swathe of refresher materials provided by Professor Tycho if you are interested.” Marvin stated, pointing down the port side hallway and at two doors.
“Thank you Marvin.” I said, walking down the hall towards the gaming room. I'll visit the learning room later. I thought to myself, chuckling all the way there.
“Always a pleasure, sir.” Marvin added before I closed the door and relaxed for a long time.
Many days later, about a few months, we encountered an interesting nebula and decided to take a detour through it. For science of course. Since nebulae were not very understood, mainly because it would have been suicide had the person's spaceship not been equipped with a electromagnetic repulsor field. This repelled an extremely high portion of the debris in space that could cause harm to my ship and its components. Of course each room is sealable in case of a breach. Of course I had to actually test this with a vacuum chamber and me in the ship.
That was probably one of my least favorite test of all time.
I had been out of the cryo-pod for over six months and most of that time had been playing video games with the occasionally studying botany and quantum mechanics. Mostly the first as I would have to get a steady supply of food going as soon as I got there, not knowing if the food was safe to eat or not. I didn't know botany was so labor intensive. Of course that was another activity I had to do, raise a garden of multiple different plants.
I did above average but with a few shortcomings. Mostly remembering to harvest at the the opportune time in order to optimize best taste and seed collecting. I had to preserve as many seeds as I could from every plant or I would run out. Which wasn't an option when that was my only way to get those seeds.
I had just about made it through the entire game collection when the navigational system beeped angrily.
We had arrived at the nebula. Since a nebula appears dark from a fair distance away, I had to wear polarized goggles when I went to observe the nebula. I was scientist, cataloger, botanist, engineer and navigator. No one could surpass my abilities!
I was joking of course. There wasn't anyone out here to surpass. And I had no idea how intelligent the alien species was in order to find another sentient civilization out in the galactic scale. Pretty damn smart was my guess.
But back to the nebula, words can't really describe it but some images I took with the external camera did well enough to capture the full scale of how awesome it looked. See? Words don't do it justice. You kinda had to be there.
There I go. Rambling again like anyone is going to read this. I just file it away so no one can find it. Usually just in a desk or something so that its out of sight, but not out of mind. I need someone to talk to and hang out with like I did back on Earth, thank goodness this darn thing is almost over. I only have about five years left. That means around Y.26 I'll be wherever I am supposed to end up. On another planet with sentient aliens.
I guess I am gonna be a hero when I get back to Earth. If I ever get to go back. A few decades without anyone to keep him company grates on a man. Except Marvin, he's great and all but he can't tell jokes because he hasn't learned any yet. Mainly because I didn't think it relevant to tell him any since he can't really laugh. Most of them just go right over his head. And when I say that he responds with, “Nothing goes over my head. My reflexes are too quick, I would catch it.”
I'm not sure where that's from but it always makes me chuckle. By gosh he does try. I mean I'm still thanking him for telling me we had a game room. I would have gone insane if I hadn't found that. And the room with all the books and learning materials, so helpful. I probably would have forgotten everything before I even got there. The human mind is such a fascinating place.
Of course, the entire mission would have gone as planned if I hadn’t made the mistake of miscalculating, as well as misreading, the location of the radio wave burst. It didn’t actually come from a planet or a star for that matter. It came from an unstable pulsar about 1500 light years away from the star system we had thought it came from. The planet was that supposed to by my destination was struck on the side by the beam and thus we made the mistake of thinking it was a message from another planet.
More or less, I got a surprise when I arrived at the star system about eight years later. In Y.29, I landed on the planet that supposedly the signal had come from and found something surprising.
The probe that was in the system a few years ago had crashed, and had been scrapped.
Scrapped.
What in the fuck? I looked all around me, suddenly getting the feeling that something was watching me. Not like the uneasy feeling when you find someone looking at you from afar, but the kind of feeling that makes your skin crawl. Hair stood up on the back of my neck as I slowly reached to the pulse rifle across my back. Grasping it tightly in my hands, I flipped the sight to thermal and slowly scanned the area around me. Giving me nothing in the bushes in front of me and behind me. I slowly scanned one side as I saw a yellowish-orange mark glide across the sensor. FUCK! I thought, sprinting quickly towards the ship.
My suit amplified my speed tremendously but not before I heard a loud roar behind me. I turned on the backwards camera in my HUD and almost screamed in terror. The creature following me had a snubbed snout with a maw full of razor sharp and pointed teeth hellbent on devouring me. The body was long with four legs pounding away on the ground, while two reached trying to nab and consume me for a meal. I quickly flipped a switch and sent the leg actuators into overdrive, giving me berth between the claws that wanted to rend me apart.
I knew that the creature (Whatever the fuck it was) was not going to relent until it had to captured me. I grinned as I ran; if I could reprogram the laser turret to shoot at me I could avoid the projectiles and kill the thing advancing behind me. I made a dash to my left, surprising the creature and giving myself extra space between it and me. I pulled up the laser turret’s code and it snapped to attention as it prepared to eliminate its target. I linked my bio-signs with the turret’s targeting program and then ran the edited code. I saw the laser follow me, waiting to fire upon its quarry. I said a quick prayer to the deities above and hoped it worked.
I could hear the breathing of the monster behind me as it struggled to get closer, and my suit giving urgent warnings that the cell was running out of power. I pushed the red button on my wrist mounted computer and ducked.
Three bursts of red light later and the beast was lying on the ground, holes in what looked like its chest neck and one clean through its head. I had ducked under the ship just in time so it wouldn’t have a chance to fire another burst at me and turn me to a smoking husk. Reverting the weapons system to its original state, I opened the ramp to re-enter the spaceship and get to someplace that was not reachable by the chimera I had just brutally slaughtered. Fearing that there might be more, I pulled the ramp up before going into the airlock.
I closed the airlock and let the hissing air flow over my suit. The panel on the wall beeped and turned green, signifying the end of the pressurization sequence. I tore off my helmet and put it on the bench near the door and started stripping off my external reinforced shell, then my sweat drenched insulation layer. Leaving me in my underwear and soaked white shirt. The door slid open when the panel on the wall beeped viciously and turned green.
“Maybe I should have used the scanners to scope out the landing site before I land next time.” I growled under my breath, putting on a pair of pants provided for me by NASA. Made of some spandex and polyester combo, they were very form-fitting. Sometimes too much so, but very soft.
“I could have assisted you so sir. I still don’t understand why you humans must be remarkably arrogant.” Marvin accosted, clearly unhappy with my choice not to include him in my plans with going out onto the surface of the planet.
“You never offered me your help!” Throwing up my hands, I angrily replied, “I mean isn’t that one of your primary directives? Protect me from creatures that want to erase me from existence?”
Marvin looked offended and angry, like I had done something to seriously hurt him. “Well you never asked about what my instructions for this mission were and I didn’t think you cared or thought enough to ask.” He walked towards me and laid a mechanical hand on my shoulder. “Just because no other humans came with doesn’t mean you have to keep to yourself. I know you feel lonely. Yes, I didn’t help and it could have cost you your life but because I didn’t you made up a plan ‘on the fly.’ Yes you did violate protocol and venture out onto an alien planet without surveying the surface first. Also you did so without requesting assistance. So yes, you did screw up.”
“.....You aren’t making me feel any better.” I said, not glaring angrily at the android in front of me. “But maybe I’ll think about asking you for help the next time we happen to be on an unknown planet. Or you know, scan the landing site before we land. You know by protocol.” Who would have thought I’d be lectured by a robot? “You can just do whatever you want Marvin, I have no further orders.”
“You really haven’t read our mission’s guide have you?” Marvin sighed and grabbed a packet about a hundred pages long and handed it to me. “Remember, I don’t take orders from you, not before I follow my laws of self-preservation and then the manual. So in a sense you are last in things I take order from.” I ground my teeth in frustration, throwing up my hands. “But that doesn’t mean I won’t take suggestions.” He gave a throaty chuckle and walked back down the halls.
Was he serious when he said I had to read this? Grumbling, I opened the book and began to read what I was supposed to read the first day after I had left Earth.
We stayed on the planet a few more days, mainly to conserve fuel and transmit information back to Earth.
What worried me was that we hadn’t received a response from Mission Control in over ten years. Of course it would take a few years for the information to relay back to them, if they still existed. And information was still coming from them, and it was all dated in Y.19, and then nothing. Unnerving if you ask me, knowing no one is there to respond to information you send. So I stopped sending mission logs and began storing them on external storage drives and keeping them in the storage room.
A few months later I was supposed to go in for my twelfth missed medical exam, administered by our resident DOC. I’m not going to bother typing out its name, it's aggravating to spell and I don’t feel like it. Usually I would avoid these visits as I don’t enjoy being scanned, probed and poked as I don’t think anyone does enjoy that kind of stuff. If you do, you have some problems. Anyway, I’ll skip over the visit as I don’t really enjoy discussing my body or condition with anyone but myself. And I’m going to keep it that way because that is private information.
It was kind of sad to leave the planet, in my opinion. It was so tranquil and aesthetically pleasing. A nice respite from the boring wastes that is space, but don’t get me wrong. Its great but only when taken in measure. I’ve been out here so long everytime I see a nebula or a star it kind of aggravates me so.
So I said to myself, “Why can’t space travel be a bit more interesting?”
Marvin looked over at me from his usual place against the wall, by the cockpit. “What do you mean Cosmada?”
“I mean space gets boring after a while, like that star there,” I gestured to a blue giant, “I’ve seen hundreds if not thousands of the same ones.”
“Maybe you need to change your perspective,” Marvin said, “Look it it like this, each planet that the star possess might have a chance to produce intelligent life. Of course we might not live to see it but possibly our descendants might.”
I just shrugged and went back to reading this infernal manual, still upset that it was so long and boring. Of course it did detail our entire trip so I had to understand it all to make sure nothing went awry. “So what are we going to do when we get back to Earth? If they even still exist anymore?”
“Check the mission directives.” Marvin said, turning back towards the stars that flew past the window in the cockpit.
I grumbled to myself as I went back to reading. “It doesn’t have anything about that. Why would they put that in there anyway?” That’s what she said. “It just wouldn’t make sense.”
Marvin didn’t look at me, just kept staring out into the reaches of space, “There could be a gravitational anomaly so their messages got trapped in it and never reached us. There are many situations that could have stopped them from communicating with us, although I doubt they would just stop communicating altogether.”
A few panels in the cockpit started beeping in urgency as we slowed, seemingly for nothing. “Hey what gives? Why’d we stop?”
“Cosmada, you might want to come see this.” Marvin said, an edge of worry creeping into his voice. “It’s very important.”
“Oh can’t you just deal with it? Just jiggle the knob or whatever to get it working again.” I said nonplussed, still reading the mission book thing.
“No Cosmada, it’s not a machine problem. It’s what is in front of us.” Marvin growled. “Now get over here.”
I turned my head to look at the viewing window of the cockpit, only to have my mouth drop open. “Marvin? What is that?”
“A gravitational singularity, so my suspicions were confirmed.” He said matter of factly. “We are still far enough away from it to not be in any danger, let’s go around it shall we?”
“Uh no argument there. Who even knows where that thing leads?” I said, still gaping at the universal phenomenon before me.
“I shall pilot the ship from here. It requires a machine's touch to correctly navigate around such an obstacle,”He quickly added, “no offense Cosmada.”
“None taken, Marvin.” I was quivering, thinking about everything that could happen if we were pulled inside. “Wait, that's no black hole, that right there is a wormhole. See how it has streaks of blue and green in the center? That means it opened on it’s own.” I said, staring with intensified curiosity at the formation before my eyes.
“What do you want me to do?” Marvin said sarcastically. “Steer into it and see where it goes?”
I rolled my eyes. I’d say yes but…. Fuck it let's do it. “Sure, for science after all. Where do you think it leads?”
Marvin rolled his shoulders and continued his course around the wormhole, “I’m not going out on a limb here Cosmada. We are heading back to Earth, no questions asked.”
“I know Marvin, I was only joking.” He’s getting better at this. “Plot a course for Earth after we get past the thing.” I began to turn on all the scientific instruments and monitor the wormhole as we skirted around it. I turned on the external cameras and began photographing the astronomical occurrence. I doubted we’d ever see one again so I made sure to identify everything that the object had to offer.
“Cosmada?” Marvin said, “I think we have a problem.”
“Don’t worry you can handle this Marvin.” I said, looking over the instruments making sure they were all still in working order. Hey you never know what could go wrong when you see something like this.
“No, Cosmada you don’t understand. The wormhole, or gravitational singularity. It’s growing bigger. As if someone or something is feeding it extremely large amounts of energy and mass to keep it open and make it grow larger.” A look of horror, that I didn’t think that he was capable of, crossed his face. As if in abject realization, he understood what was going to happen. “Charge the laser engines Cosmada.”
“W-w-w-what?” I stammered, choking on my spit. “What do you mean?”
“We need to get out of here, and fast. The wormhole, it's like it's alive. It’s looking for something or someone to pull through it and it’s using energy from its own universe to bring something back with it.” Marvin disclosed, not very perturbed that this could mean our deaths.
“WHAT IN THE HELL?” I yelled as I felt a pulling sensation begin to creep its way across my body. “MARVIN WHAT’S GOING ON?!” I shrieked, not liking at all what I was feeling.
“Well it caught us. I guess the only thing we can do it hope that you are right, and that this is indeed a wormhole not a gravitational singularity. Or in your terms a ‘black hole.’”
“CAN’T THIS THING GO ANY FASTER?” I shouted, trying in vain to find a way to get us out of the situation we were in currently.
“Unfortunately no, Cosmada.” Marvin said softly, no hint of emotion in his voice at all. “It appears we are ‘in a pickle’ as you said once.” He went back to staring out the front of the cockpit window.
“HOW ARE YOU NOT FREAKING OUT RIGHT NOW?!” I shrieked, appalled at his sudden lethargic tone of voice.
He turned his head towards me and just stared at me. This lasted a few seconds then he began to speak. “I am not programmed to ‘freak out’ or to display any semblance of fear. They designed me to be somewhat ‘superior’ to the common man.” He put up a metal hand to silence me, “When I say superior I mean emotion wise. Not with intelligence, although that may show itself in the future. I am meant to stand my ground and protect you at all costs. It ingrained in my programming, as well as in my personality guidelines and parameters.”
I just stood there, stunned. I didn’t know they went through that much work to make a synthetic robot just to accompany me on my journey. “Thank Marvin, that means a lot to me.”
“I’m a robot, Cosmada. Don’t get any ideas.” Marvin said, ann edge of warning creeping into his voice. “Also, by the records I have in my data banks, there is a ninety-eight point seven percent chance you aren’t gay.”
I rolled my eyes and went back to staring out of the viewport, at planet Earth and the (possible) impending doom that was the wormhole or black hole looming towards us.
Now, getting sucked into a wormhole is quite the interesting experience. I had all the external cameras on so we could send the footage back to Earth whenever we got out of the rip in spacetime that we were currently travelling through. It was a myriad of colors that flew past in all directions. Here’s the weird part, and Marvin didn’t notice this at the time until I told him about what happened, as I went back to the security cameras to make sure I wasn’t going crazy. As I was looking out the front window, a strange distortion began to snake its way across my field of vision. I couldn’t figure out what it was doing until I thought that I saw it trace the letter ‘E’.
That’s the weird part, it spelled out ‘COME TO US’. Whatever that meant, see I didn’t know that until I showed Marvin my memories and he traced the finger on the projector.
The wormhole, unlike speculation, took almost ten hours to get through. Most scientists that studied theoretical phenomenon like this, assumed that it would be almost instantaneous. It wasn’t so I can prove them wrong, and move wormholes out of the ‘theory’ category and into the ‘proven’ category. And as far as my knowledge about videography, it might be very hard to fake a video like that.
The exit was definitely the most annoying part of it, barring the entry inside. The whole ship jolted and it felt like we had just crashed into something. Then came the most unnerving feeling I never want to feel again, the sensation of being crushed. Now if you know what that feels like I’m sorry for you. But not as sorry as you are gonna be when I catch you reading my journals you sick miscreant.
As I got over the sudden exit from the wormhole, and peeled my face off the wall that I had hit on impact, I beheld the most beautiful planet I had ever seen. The yellowish-orange sun blazed with its fusion fury in the background, making the planet look like something out of a science fiction book.
“My my what do we have here?” Marvin said, marveling at the sight before us.
Haha, get it? No? Screw you then, I was trying to make a joke. “Yeah. Do you think we should land on it? I mean what could go wrong?” I said, gesturing towards the picturesque world in front of us.
“I suggest not using that phrase until we identify an ideal landing spot away from any local wildlife that may inhabit this planet.” Marvin said, carefully. He started to direct the ship towards a low earth orbit.
I went to the observation deck right above him and looked through the Advanced Spectral Analysis Telescope, or ASAT. I hate making acronyms, but I guess if I wanted to reference something later and was too lazy to write it out, I could but why waste the effort? I increased the optical lense to as far as it would zoom in and stared at the landmasses that covered at least half of the face of the planet that I could see. It seemed that the planet was easily half and half but it could change when I see the other side of the planet. As we got closer, the ASAT went offline as it has to be a certain distance modifier away from something to be effective and I’d have to enhance the image in order to actually see anything so it was just a hassle at closer ranges. “Marvin, are in low earth orbit yet?”
“Yes, and I do suppose you see if you can scan for bio-signs on the surface so we can identify if there are any sentient life forms present, and prepare for them.” He turned his head to face me, “And not encounter them the way you did, hm?”
“That was one incident and I was foolish enough to violate protocol because I was very curious about the surface of the planet. so lay off.” I said, the last statement coming out a bit more harsh than I would have liked.
“As you say, Cosmada.” Marvin said, turning back to the controls in front of him.
I shrugged and went over to the second scanner we possessed on the ship, and the more important one in my opinion. I turned it on and plugged my ears as it made a loud whirring sound and then I began to flip some switches and turn a few dials to focus the scanner on a certain part of the planet. It began to whir softly as it scanned for any trace of living things within a 2 kilometer radius. A loud ping, and then the scanner brought up a new image. The tracks of creatures dotted the edges of the scan, as if they were just skirting around an object and going on their daily trek. It was a totally open plain and there wasn’t a thing around. Not a town, settlement or a forest. I zoomed out a little more, a hint of dark green crept into the top of the scan. I stopped scrolling out.
“Marvin? I think I found a spot, it’s an open plain near the edge of a forest.”
He dropped the controls and looked at the map. “Are you sure about this Cosmada? It doesn’t look like anything wants to go near that area for some reason.” Marvin questioned, clearly serious about landing spots since my last incident. I nodded. “Initiating landing procedures.”
The engines on the ship began to fire up as we began to land on the surface of the planet, not knowing what we would find on the surface of such a beautiful planet.
Approximately two hours later, we both stood on the surface of the planet, and looked around. I was wearing a spacesuit and Marvin was just looking around him, not really moving at all. I was already exploring the plain that we had landed on, an atmospheric barometer and toxin detector in my hand. “Marvin, this planet seems to have a stable atmosphere of 1.21 times Earth’s and the gases are leaning towards oxygen heavy. With about 59% being Oxygen, 16% Nitrogen, 9% Hydrogen, 12% Helium and the rest being trace gases like Argon, Krypton, Chlorine and Fluorine. I think it’s safe to take off my helmet.” I began to set my suit to depressurize when a robotic hand clamped down on the hand reaching towards my wrist computer.
“Do. Not. Even. Think. About. It.” Marvin said, his voice dripping with anger. “We have no idea what the difference in atmosphere could do to a normal human under these circumstances and directly exposing yourself would be a horrendous idea Cosmada.” He let go and began walking back to the ship. “We can test it on the lab rats that we brought for that specific reason.” I grumbled to myself as I went back inside the ship, Marvin on my tail the whole way.
Get it? Because rats have tails? Okay okay bad joke, I don’t know why I wrote that, wait why am I writing this?
None of the indigenous creatures noticed or cared about our arrival as nothing bothered us for a whole two months. A whole two months raising a bunch of rats that I could test the atmosphere on. It was me playing games, reading up on botany and raising rats for a whole two months. Then once the rats had grown to a decent size, I put one into a sealed cage filled with the planet’s indigenous gases and waited to see what happened.
The machine whirred as it began to circulate the air inside the cage softly, producing airflow as the rat began to sniff its way around its confinements. The biosensor next to me began to beep along softly to the rat’s slowing heartbeat.
“That’s odd, normally while moving the rat's heartbeat would accelerate the more it is moving, but the increased oxygen concentration in the atmosphere would account for the decreased heartbeat.” Marvin said, indicating the biosensor next to him.
“So would it be safe to assume that I would not have any adverse effects to being exposed to this atmosphere?” I said, trying to see if I could go outside without my suit on and breathe the fresh air once more, as I did back on Earth. “When will the test be complete?”
Marvin rolled his electronic eyes and moved back over to the biosensor and checking more vitals on the rats that were still scurrying around in their glass confinements. “I guess Cosmada, but I would advise you not do anything foolish until then.” He turned his head towards me and gave me a calculating look. “Don’t.”
I just grinned and wandered back towards my quarters not thinking in the slightest about going outside, but with how to keep myself preoccupied in the few days I would have before I could breathe fresh air. Not this damn canned air that I’d been breathing for so long. It's gonna be a bittersweet reunion for sure.
Have you ever noticed when you are expecting something in a certain time frame, that said time frame gets noticeably longer? That’s actually a theory of mine, but that’s a story for another time. Anyway, those three days that the rats were quarantined had been the longest thing I had ever waited for. But in the end it was all worth the reward: fresh air.
“So?” I said, impatiently tapping my fingers by the biosensor, waiting to see the test results. “When’s it gonna be ready?”
“Cosmada, I’ve seen you excited like this before,” Marvin said, putting his steely arm onto my shoulder, “And I think you should just ‘chill.’”
“.....Did you just?” I said, gaping in amazement. The temperature of the air outside was about eight degrees fahrenheit colder than the atmosphere on Earth, hence his ‘chill’ pun. “Okay, I think the test is done now.”
The biosensor took that as its cue and began spitting out results, which didn’t look confusing at all. To a normal person yeah, but not me.
“Well the test results check out. The oxygen in the atmosphere is abnormal but can’t harm you. You might experience a slower heartbeat and some temporary exhaustion when you re-enter the ship at night but that should be all. The hydrogen and helium will be harvestable for our engine and other mechanics aboard the ship. Other than that,” He saw me creeping for the door, “Go ahead Cosmada.”
I dashed out, hearing him mutter some disparaging comment about me and problems with space air. Opening the airlock door, I jumped through and then closed it carefully behind me. Practically smashing the ‘Release Pressure’ button, I waited impatiently for the whooshing to end and then flung myself out the door and into the alien, yet so Earthlike, atmosphere that awaited me.
“Now this is something,” I vocalized, to no one in particular. “Now all I need is to stay like this until Marvin comes out and yells at me to do some ship related chore.” I sat up straight as I heard what sounded like a whisper from the bushes behind me. “Hm?” I said, sitting up straight and looking around. “Must be nothing.” That chill from a few days ago went up my spine, making the hair on my body stand on end. I slowly inched my way back to the ship. I was almost inside when I heard more whispers from behind me, and a crunching of a few leaves. I whirled around, grabbing the laser pistol from the holster on my left side and aiming it at whatever had made the offending sound.
A purple horse with a horn jutting out from its head and some force holding a piece of parchment and a quill, all while jotting down notes. As well as a very surprised looking green and purple dragon. All standing behind me, although the horse looked like it was trying to sneak around.
We both shrieked, me sprinting inside of the airlock and closing the door. While the purple horse and its dragon sprinted back into the bushes, and out of sight.
Marvin saw me and gave me a quizzical look, “Not all that you expected it to be hm?”
I growled and went to go put my gear on and go back outside.
