Chapter 1
It might not be her first time in space, but it would be the first time Brook had set foot on an alien world. Captain Jennifer Brooklyn, or "Brook" as the crew she commanded called her, wasn't sure what to expect on the trip to JL-398. She wasn’t able to anticipate and therefore, the plan made her uneasy.
And that wasn't the only thing.
Brook was being sent to JL-398 to try and locate Dr. Sylvia Cohen, the brave and perhaps foolish scientist who had agreed to take the first one-woman mission to the newly discovered planet to look for signs of life. She hadn't been heard from since her ship breached the atmosphere almost six weeks before.
There was a high possibility that she had, in fact, found signs of life, but maybe they'd been more than she'd bargained for. Perhaps NASA hadn’t prepared the headstrong scientist properly enough.
Brook pulled up the report on her display and leaned over, trying to clear her fearful thoughts. Dr. Cohen was a renowned astrobiologist who'd chaired the scientific committee charged with assisting NASA in planning the exploratory mission to JL-398. She'd convinced them that a human, and not modified scavenger robots, would be a more appropriate choice for leading the expedition. She'd headed out to JL-398 in her one-person craft with only one FIDO to guard her.
And there was no sign that she survived the crash landing that the craft apparently suffered.
NASA had debated the wisdom of sending a ship after the missing scientist. It wasn't until the government had gotten involved that a mission had been seriously discussed. Since Brook had the most experience out of their other options, she and her crew were selected as the search party.
Captain Jennifer Brooklyn had been the first woman to breach the solar system. She'd logged more hours in space than anyone except the astronauts who lived on the international space station. After faster-than-light travel had been achieved, she had been the first captain assigned to one of the new FTL ships.
While she'd never faced a possible alien threat, she had experienced plenty of tumultuous situations in her tenure as a space shuttle captain. Radiation scares. Microfractures in the hull. Decaying orbit. Life support failure.
That last one almost got me. She skimmed Dr. Cohen’s file for the tenth time, hoping to find something that might help bridge the gap in her knowledge of the events that took place.
If we hadn't managed to slingshot around Jupiter and haul ass back to base, we would have breathed our last, stuck between the giant planet and Mars.
There were plenty of things to fear in space without having to add the possibility of a hostile alien presence.
Brook had to remind herself over and over again that there was a high probability that there was no alien presence at all. Dr. Cohen could have experienced a malfunction and ended up stranded on the planet’s surface with no way to call home to Earth. NASA thought that to be the most likely cause of the communication blackout. Since they’d warned Dr. Cohen that rescue wasn’t assured, perhaps the professor had considered herself abandoned and had concentrated on other things besides communicating with Earth.
Like survival.
I’ve got a bad feeling about this. Brook frowned, exiting the display and leaning back in the chair of her cramped office. As captain, she was afforded more space than any of her crew, but the ship wasn’t large, and her room was about the size of her closet back on Earth.
She had learned to trust her instincts, and that meant being on edge for most of the mission from start to finish. They’d departed Earth almost two days before, and would be reaching JL-398 by late the next day.
In the time since their departure, Brook had been drilling her team on every eventuality she could concoct. Her lieutenant had finally persuaded her to give the crew a break. They assured her that they were prepared for every conceivable eventuality.
Brook had grudgingly let the crew have a respite, but she knew there was no way to prep for everything. Although she trusted her crew, admiring the way they functioned like a well-oiled machine, something inside her told her that this mission would change everything.
You’re overreacting. You’re going to land on JL-398, pick up the lost professor, and come home a hero.
Brook wanted to laugh at the naivety of her thoughts. None of her missions ever went as easily as she wanted, and to expect this one to was sheer folly. Still, if she went by Lieutenant Cheerful’s estimation, they’d discover an ice cream waterfall on JL-398 and spend the whole trip making friends with alien ponies and wishing on rainbows. Brook chuckled as she glanced toward her first officer.
Lieutenant Jeffrey Brunt, a.k.a. Lieutenant Cheerful, had joined her crew nearly a decade ago when NASA hadn’t yet figured out how to break the faster-than-light barrier. Her mission had been to circumnavigate Pluto, dropping probes that would use the pseudo-planet as a launching ground for exploration outside of the solar system.
At first Brunt had been quiet, reserved, interested in cementing his place as second-in-command. She hadn’t blamed him. Her crew at the time was a bit rowdy, and she’d left it up to Brunt to earn their respect and cooperation. Besides, if he couldn’t handle a little grumbling and good-natured ribbing, then he wouldn’t be a good fit to serve under her command.
Brunt had stumbled initially, but when they’d run afoul of a comet’s tail and ended up with microfractures in the shuttle’s hull, he’d stepped up and proved his mettle by donning an EV suit and heading out to fix the fractures himself. The shuttle’s engineer, Talia Bryant, had given him instructions through the comm system, and she’d reported that Brunt had sung “Sunshine, Lollipops and Rainbows” to himself the whole time he’d worked.
When Brunt crawled back in through the hatch afterward, Brook had asked him how it had gone. They’d barely cleared the tail, and the chance of pieces of debris dislodging him or puncturing his suit had still been very high.
“Piece of cake,” he’d said when he’d pulled off his helmet.
His performance had earned the crew’s respect and his nifty nickname. Lieutenant Cheerful seemed to think every mission would have a happy ending. He was already writing his speech for after the victory parade when they returned to Earth with Dr. Cohen.
Brook wished she had his confidence.
“Captain, we’ve picked up something on long-range sensors.” Talia’s voice over the comm system broke through her reverie.
Brook stood up and left her office, striding onto the bridge.
