“Captain, we were sent here on a recon and re-contact mission. That’s why there’s only two of us. I’m required by law to stay at the controls of this ship. If you go poking around out there and something goes south, you have no backup, no rapid intervention team, and no fucking—pardon my language—hopebeyond the crappy exo-suit we’re carrying. I’d like to once again, strongly, urge you to stand down on this. Protocol says we get a search team geared up and they take over from here.”
Sonya rubbed a finger against her forehead. Everything Kat was saying was right. Absolutely to a T. Well, the exo-suit wasn’t as rinky-dink as all that. Sure, it wasn’t weapons grade, but it would stand up well enough for a quick stroll. Maybe she could see something the cameras and sensors weren’t picking up? Some trace of what the hell had happened to a dozen crew and their ship?
The question made her insides twist. She’d been playing scenarios over and over in her head since the previous team had first dropped off the radar. Every rabbit hole she went down ended in the same place. They’dfoundsomething out here. Something or some… one, if that’s what they’d call extraterrestrial life.
And now they were missing.
The thought sent a chill down her spine. Decades of searching the cosmos might have finally paid off in the most ominous way possible.
“Not sure I like all that quiet thinking going on down there,” Kat said from up top.
Sonya smiled. She took a breath and chewed on her lip for a moment. “Kat,” she finally said.
“Captain?”
“Let me be Sonya for a second,” she replied.
“I don’t like the sounds of that. Not very professional if you ask me.”
“Imagine it’s you and me on that crew. Imagine we’re not here, not at the landing coordinates, but somewhere close. Somewhere where we can see the recon mission that just landed. We can make out the ship, but for some reason, can’t get to it.” She heard Kat sigh over the headset. “Now imagine what it would feel like to watch that ship taking off without eventryingto find us.”
“Captain… Sonya, you’re being crazy about this. That mission was a volunteer job. Everyone knew what they were signing up for. They knew the risks. They knew… hell, we all know there’s always a chance we might not come back. If it were me on that crew and I saw an unsupported astronaut going for a stroll in a hostile environment, I’d bepissedshe was putting her life on the line. The possibility of another casualty, or whatever, another stranded astro? No. What you’re proposing is wrong. I’m going on the record saying this. We log the no-show and burn back up. Report to command. They’ll send a bigger,prepared,team down. I bet you could even get on, if you wanted. That’s the right thing to do. That’s protocol. That’s my opinion, and I’m sticking to it.” She paused, which was rare with Kat when she got going on one of her diatribes. “But you’re the captain. So you do you. Whatever that ends up being.”
Sonya rolled her eyes and looked out of the porthole at the windswept sands in front of her. Kat was a good pilot. But she was no scientist; curiosity never got the better of her. She was also as robotic as they came when it came to protocol, which was a fine quality in a pilot and something Sonia valued about her, but was also the reason Kat would remain a pilot and never be given any command. She couldn’t think outside the box.
Sonia spoke authoritatively. “Listen to me. I’m putting the exo on. I’m going to head twenty paces out and circle the ship. You sit tight. I’ll be back before your pre-flights are done.”
When Kat came back, her voice was tight and laced with resentment. But this wasn’t their first disagreement, and in the end, Kat always deferred to rank. “Aye, aye, cap,” she replied.
Sonya unbuckled her seat straps and hoisted herself out of the chair. She walked to the glowing blue capsule next to the plank and pressed her palm against the scanner. As the capsule swung open, she turned around and settled into the back of the exo-suit. The front of it lowered into place, clasps latching and a quiet hiss sounding as the seal formed. The first breath took a little more effort as the rebreather kicked in. She tapped the side of the helmet.
“You got me on comms?” she asked.
“Strength five,” Kat came back.
“Seal the airlock please,” Sonya said. Another hiss sounded around her. She stood up and walked the remaining few steps to the exit, pressed the scanner next to it, and waited as it lowered, forming a gangway between the shuttle and the planet.
Excitement spiked through her. She’d been on exploratory missions dozens of times. But they’d all been dead planets. Nothing had happened. Something washappeninghere, and if she was lucky, she was about to find out what. She looked around as she descended toward the swirling sands.
The funny thing was this planet looked as dead as any. No signs of water. No signs of vegetation. No signs of life. She wasn’t even sure why the admiral had sent the first mission down to what they’d classified as Ab-904. He’d said it was a hunch. From seeing the readouts, she’d thought it was a waste of resources. But as she took her first steps on the foreign body, a rush of adrenaline shot through her.
Therewassomething here. Now that her boots were on the soil, she was sure of it.
Kat’s voice over the comm, startling her, and she jumped.
“Everything okay out there, cap?”
She nodded, turned and looked up at the porthole Kat was peering through. “Everything’s fine,” she said, giving a thumbs up. She turned and counted twenty paces out from the ship, looked around for a moment, then turned and started walking a wide circle around their spacecraft. Everywhere she turned was barren. Nothing in the soil. No landing tracks. No evidence the exploratory mission had even made it this far.
It made no sense. The logs had clearly registered a landing. There were five minutes of radio communications between the lander and the orbital before they went dark. They couldn’t have just disappeared without a trace.
She didn’t understand how Kat could justleavesomething like that, with no answers, and no attempt to get them. Kat was totally correct that the rescue team was better suited for the humanitarian aspect of the mission, but that wasn’t what was really driving Sonya out of the ship.
It was thequestion.The thrill of finding the answer, the solution to the mystery.
She felt it long before she saw anything, and even before Kat’s panicked voice came over the comms. She felt it like ice crystals forming just beneath her skin, forking into every sensitive void.
Somethingwas coming up from behind her, and it was fearsome.
