Chapter Two Strange Data
Chapter Two
Strange Data
Selena
The readout scrolled its ghostly white pattern across the attractive features of their mission commander, Lieutenant Strabo. Her lips pursed as she read, her long blonde hair pulled back in a ponytail. “They’re all the same then?”
Across the table, Lindemann perused his own screen, nodding. “Every one. Mother satellite has been transmitting the incident reports almost continuously.”
Strabo touched the top of her screen, looking over at Lindemann.
“But it’s the same problem? The gap in the recording?”
“It’s not a gap.” Lindemann folded his screen down, fixing his gray-eyed gaze upon the commander.
“It’s an absence of recording. The carrier wave is there—the whole time—but nothing is being recorded.
The probes—both the ground rovers and the aerial units—they show they’re all in the green.
No malfunctioning at all. But every single one has had the same problem when filming this little… ritual.”
“Which means what?” Richland took a long drink from her tall, clear glass, the amber liquid sloshing slightly as she set it down on the table. “We don’t even know what’s causing it.”
“We do. I think.” Lindemann sat back in his chair.
“Each time the absence has happened, there has been a burst of full-spectrum radiation. It’s been picked up clearly by the mother sat, and both the rover and aerial units confirm it.
But the particulars of this emission are inconsistent with any known source or transmitter.
I’ve never seen anything quite like it before—and neither has the ship’s computer. ”
“So… the planet has a messed-up magnetosphere.” Selena laid a hand on the cold table, trying to shake the growing unease in the pit of her belly. “We already know that. It was pretty bumpy coming in before we made high orbit. You all remember. Maybe it’s affecting things on the surface too?”
As a pilot, Selena was paid to consider contingencies, to weigh risks—and to make sure they all got back to Terra in one piece. Something didn’t sit right here… and she’d been a survey jock long enough to know it was stupid—and maybe even suicidal—to ignore one’s instinct.
“We can rule that out,” Lindemann said.
“And why is that?” Strabo tipped her head toward Selena. “Her explanation’s just as good as any other I can think of.”
Lindemann’s inscrutable gaze coursed over Selena for the briefest of moments, cool, assessing—and aloof.
She didn’t like him. He gave off a vibe that was about as human as the Gambier Bay’s central computer—and with even less personality.
But he was damned smart. Maybe too smart.
“We can rule it out, because we were able to use the rover, the aerial units, and the mother sat to triangulate an origin.” Lindemann flipped his screen back up, and turned it toward the other crew members at the table.
He tapped the image shown on the glass. “Every single time, the radiation is emitted from that cave.”
“Holy shit,” Richland murmured.
Strabo didn’t say anything for a moment, looking intently at the image, then back at her own computer. She sighed, rubbing the bridge of her nose between thumb and forefinger.
“This… I’d been hoping to avoid this.” Strabo flashed a sharp glance at her taciturn science officer. “You’re absolutely sure we’re not going to get anything more from the remotes then?”
Lindemann nodded slowly. “The mother sat has been in orbit for almost twenty months. She’s already sent her entire complement of remotes to the surface. They’ve all reported identical data. We’re at the limits of what we can learn from orbit, Lieutenant.”
Strabo frowned, fine lines deepening at the corners of her mouth. “All right. We don’t have much choice. It’s a surface mission then.”
Richland drained the last of her protein drink. “Full gear?”
“Full gear.” Strabo held up a finger, swiveling her chair toward Richland. “But no powered exo. We’re exploring, not going to war, Corporal.”
“You’re not giving me what I need then, Lieutenant. We’ll need two of us, if I’m going down there with one hand tied behind my back.”
“I’ll go,” Selena said. She was the only other crew member with weapons training, and at the very least it would make her feel a little more useful.
Once on station, and the survey had begun in earnest, as a pilot she often felt about as necessary as wings on a cruiser.
“Lieutenant, you can man the crate while we’re gone. ”
“Marks, I don’t think that’s a good idea.” Strabo leaned back in her chair, looking up at the ceiling. “Last thing we need is a survey ship without a pilot.”
Selena grinned at Richland. “Jarhead’s gonna make sure I get back in one piece. It’ll be fine.”
“Bitch.” The marine said it through a barely suppressed chuckle. She stood. “I’ll prep the reconnoiter. How soon, Lieutenant?”
The expression on Strabo’s face resembled someone who’d just stepped in dog shit. “As soon as we can. I want to get this over with, and get you two back on board as soon as—”
The lights flickered twice. A piercing klaxon began sounding, the noise of it unsettling both because of the volume—and because Selena had never actually heard one outside of simulator.
It was the emergency distress beacon. And there was only one reason it would ever sound off while on a mission.
Imminent crew death.
“What in hell is that?” Strabo said, looking around. “Nav—systems report. Now.”
The computer’s voice was strangely attenuated.
Main reactor failing. Auxiliary power unit offline. Main computer emergency power failing.
“There’s no time,” Selena said, her heart already pounding. She leaped to her feet, waving toward the docking module. “Go! Go! Now!”
Strabo stood, but took hold of Selena by the shoulders. “Get to the pilothouse. This is a malfunction—it has to be.”
“And if it’s not?” The question didn’t need an answer.
Every one of them knew it. Selena could see the truth of it in Strabo’s blue eyes.
“Lieutenant, we don’t have time to wait.
We have to get to the lifeboats now. Without aux power to light the motors, if we lose the mains before we punch out we’re stuck here. And we’ll die here.”
While it had never actually happened in over five hundred survey missions, it was theoretically possible to lose main power, auxiliary power, and the central computer all at once. But short of an EMP burst, there was nothing that was remotely capable of causing such a thing.
However it might have happened, Selena knew one thing for certain. If the central computer shut down, then life support shut down too.
They would die on their own vessel if they didn’t get the lifeboats away fast enough.
The Gambier Bay was mortally wounded. Somehow, she was dying.
“Nav—program lifeboats for surface coordinates. HW14-3.” Strabo’s jaw tightened as she looked from Selena to the other crew members. “Abandon ship.”
They were already running.
Lindemann and Richland got to theirs first, the hull shuddering as the lifeboats’ primary rockets fired. The tiny escape craft leapt clear of the ship, accelerating at a mind-bogglingly swift rate, arcing off and down toward the planet far below.
The lights went dead, and both Selena and Strabo made their way through almost inky blackness, only the illumination reflected through the windows from HW14-3 allowing them to find their way.
They reached Strabo’s boat, and Selena stopped to make sure the lieutenant got strapped in. They locked gazes for an instant, before the blast shield descended, locking Strabo inside.
Oh, fuck!
Selena turned away, the shriek of the rocket reverberating through the steel of the launch silo. Strabo’s boat dashed into space, pirouetting as its rocket hurtled it toward the surface too.
Strapping into the grav seat, Selena’s heart was pounding, her mouth dry. Her training kicked in, allowing her to keep her terror at bay just enough to matter.
Leaning her head back against the grav seat, she closed her eyes as the blast shield descended around her, dropping her into utter sepulchral blackness, the sounds of even the klaxon completely cut off.
Only her breathing and the frantic pounding of her heart could be heard.
“Please God, get me the fuck out of this!”
Then the rocket motor lit and Selena was away, the impact of the acceleration like a giant sledgehammer against the bottom of her gravity chair, the Gambier Bay receding rapidly in her tiny viewport.
Relieved to be alive, Selena tried to calm her breathing, the bright surface of HW14-3 dominating her view.
She’d managed to save her life.
But her troubles were only beginning.