It was half-seven local time when the connie arrived dirtside.
The angular spaceship, a horizontally-oriented collection of ginsu-bladed nacelles the size of two neighboring suburban houses, settled onto its stout landing legs heavily as the VTOL fans on its prominent winglets spun down.
The Alligator had arrived just in the knick of time. The landing zone her crew was aiming for was only available for five or so minutes total, and a bit of navigation confusion had nearly cost them the window. Her pilot had to come in fast and hit the deck hard. It would've been another week before they could even try another landing.
The planet-wide storms of this rocky world were lethal to even the best pilot with the hardiest craft. The only exception to this rule was landing wherever the eye of the Roamer happened to be at this moment, hence the tight window. The shearing vortices of the planet's storms could slam a ship into the ground or eject it from the atmosphere in a matter of seconds.
"Down safe and sound. Though... only just." Ally, a cheerful younger redhead, chided from the copilot's chair.
Oli, a tall, older Scandi with white hair and a ruddy complexion, put a bear paw of a hand to his eyes in exasperation. "Look, all I'm saying is if we had skipped the scan we wouldn't have had to hurry." He sat in the pilot's chair in the middle of the cabin beside her.
“Skipped the scan? You mean run the barricade! For shame, Oli Mikkelsen!” Ally exclaimed, a smile in her voice.
Amongst these storms, there is one incredibly large, somehow more dangerous permanent hurricane that roams the surface. The eye of this storm, however, is a predictable kilometers-wide region of clear air with minimal winds - a roving bubble of access to a world closed by the sky. Once a ship has passed down this column, reached the surface, and was securely anchored, it could stay as long as its shields could hold out or until the eye returned.
The local detachment of UEE Navy kept an LEO station just outside the atmosphere. The unit maintained a permanent air patrol consisting of a few hornet fighters circling just inside the eyewall and rotated them out on shifts. The Navy regulated travel on or off the surface; exploiting the unique doorway to this new world to screen travellers, harass the odd trader who serviced and resupplied the only outpost on the surface, and protect miners who operated under imperial license.
Due to the unique transient nature of the storm's eye, the patrol also acted as surveillance and saviour as its path moved around the planet, the calm air revealing the dusty surface like a giant magnifying glass. A recovery vessel flew standby in low orbit to tow disabled ships withiin the tight window. Many a stranded miner had been seen by the patrol as the shearing winds of the eyewall cleared their buried Prospectors. Most weren't so lucky.
A matronly voice came from above the bridge crew, from the dorsal turret well. "If we didn't stop for the scan we'd have arrived in pieces, kids." Clara, exobiologist, crewmom, and part-time-gunner, lectured. "The Navy doesn't pull punches out here, and I’m not losing another research expedition to tomfoolery."
The ship's PA system crackled as Dinah, expeditionary engineer and geologist, radioed from somewhere near the cargo bay. "Fair-chance civilizations, exotic and essential flora and fauna, illegal drug precursors... This place has everything. Why they want to control access is a... total mystery." Her sarcasm made Oli roll his wheat-colored eyes. "Everything's still intact back here, at least."
The sound of an approaching freight train rumbled into their attention. "Alright, here comes the eyewall!" Ally shouted. She turned off all but the most essential systems and put the extra power into the shields and coolers. A buzz and a warning light indicated a minor issue, but Ally didn't seem concerned.
"Here goes the paint," Dinah radioed when the serene eye suddenly became howling chaos and fizzling shield-hits as the hurricane moved over the ship. "This is the worst part."
We were cut off from the universe for the next week.
I looked up at Dinah from the cargo pit. It was recessed into the floor of the middle compartment of the Constellation and surrounded by a mezzanine walkway. Dinah stood on the railing that circled the compartment, eight feet above me, doing something to the ceiling with a multi-tool.
She was middle-aged, thick in her jumpsuit, but athletic. The kind of build that passed you in a framed backpack, going up a mountain most people only day-hiked. Her features were weathered, her shoulder-length black hair and bangs were streaked with white. She clearly spent a lot of time outside.
I cursed as my palm slipped and the torque bar slapped my knee. I had been tasked with prepping the Ursa rover, a large six-wheeled expeditionary vehicle, for our initial rollout. "Ach!" I let fly a few choice phrases in low Scots I'd learned from my grandfather.
"Well, what'd you do that for, Rab?" Dinah laughed from her perch.
I rubbed my knee furiously. Every now and then, a thunk or ping rang out as debris hit the outside of the hull, inches from my face through the shield. "I was trying to see what you were doing up there." I said.
"One of the relays burned out when Ally maxed the shield. I needed to repair the contacts before we pop a new one in there. Should quiet down a bit in here when we get back up to full." She said as she hopped down. "Toss up a new relay, will you?"
I looked around the packed cargo-bay-and-elevator at the next seven-days'-plus worth of supplies stacked behind the Ursa. I knew there was an engineering kit in there somewhere.
"Hurry up, kiddo, the paint's pitting out there as we speak." She detached and reattached the canister of recycled material from her multitool nervously. "I can see the kit, it's on the top, near the Human Food Bars."
I blanched. "Uh, I see the kit. You know those are illegal right?"
"Jeeze, boy scout, I was just jokin' ya." She laughed and held her hand up expectantly.
"Right. Humor. Here you go." I underhanded the relay up to her, clumsily bouncing it off the missile rack that protruded from the roof. It was much darker in here than it needed to be.
"Easy, tiger. We're gonna have to work on that arm of yours. Manual dexterity is important on an expeditionary ship." She smiled flirtatiously as her hands disappeared into the ceiling to insert the relay.
The door to the living quarters amidships slid open, and light spilled into the dim cargo bay. "Getting acquainted, I see. Don't make me too jealous," Clara said, smiling at Dinah. Clara's long white hair shone, rimlit by the crew quarter's bright lights. Even from deep in the cargo bay I could see her blue flightsuit was set up for science.
"Ready to go already, Mz Arrol?" I called out.
"I'm always ready to count eggs, Rab. How's the rover?" She leaned on the railing above the lift. I smacked the steel-mesh of the tire with the wrench.
"Just finished tightening the lugs, topped up the hydrogen, confirmed the coolant is still liquid." I replied. "Tire pressure's good, interior clean enough. I think it's ready to go outside."
Dr. Clara Arrol stood at the top of the short ladder above me, back straight and hands clasped behind. You could tell she was used to authority as a lifelong professor and expeditionist. "Great, Mr. Adoma. Let's get dressed and fed and underway in..." She checked her wrist-mounted mobiGlas. "...two hours. I'm anxious to get to the cavern tonight."
I looked at the rest of the cargo on the lift. It would have to go down with the rover because the lift was the entire cargo bay. The whole thing was designed to drop from the belly of the ship, exposing everything on it to the sandblasting winds outside. "I'll have to cover the rest of this stuff."
Dinah chuckled and held out her multi-tool. "Give me a minute." She thumbed the mode switch and began tractoring the fifty-plus-pound boxes with ease.
The mezzanine catwalks were full of stacked boxes after Dinah had finished moving the cargo from the lift. Once off the gravlock cargo grid, though, the boxes would be unsecured and could move about dangerously.
It's lucky we're stuck dirtside for at least the next week, I thought.
Nearly every other ship you could find at Teach's had better layouts for cargo protection, this was definitely a tick in the minus column for the Connie for me. I made a mental note for when I was putting together my own expeditions someday.
I made my way to the front and looked out from the dark, empty cockpit's expansive diamond-glass. The air outside looked like how the color brown would if it could be angry. It assaulted the shields relentlessly, slinging tiny grains at the plasma shields, causing constant flashes of blue light like ripples on bioluminescent pond water.
It was eerily quiet, however, as the shields provided a sort of vibration-exclusion function that felt a bit like active noise cancelling. Every now and then something large and soft would impact the shield and be disintegrated in a blinding zap.
"Waff pods." Ally said from the starboard copilot's chair behind me.
"Jeezus-journeyman, Ally. You been there the whole time?" I tried to ignore the beating pulse of embarrassment in my ears as I spun around. She had her feet up on the hanging chair, so I didn't see her when I walked in.
She laughed. It was a hearty sound for such a small frame. "Haaa, yeah. You gotta check your corners, mister Badass Marine."
She was a year or two out of University, with round glasses framed by red curls. Her green eyes were magnified and shining through her spectacles, and her face naturally fell into a wide smile. She perpetually wore a Terran university hoodie and jeans, today was no different.
I gave her a withering look. "Badass Marine, psh. I got basic and a couple years fixin' guns. Closest thing I got to real combat was chewing people out for forgetting to clean their boots when they turnt 'em in." I said.
"Oh, well, we did hire you as security..." She teased.
"You needed someone to deal with the Navy and shoo cave spiders away from your picnic blankets while you're counting rocks. We'll probably be fine." I really hoped that was true. The planet wasn't known to have megafauna, and we'd be invisible and unreachable by pirates or ne'er do wells because of the storms - if they could even get past the Navy to find us.
She raised an eyebrow in mock concern. "See, it's the probably that worries me."
I laid it out for her. "Beside some venomous but largely benign plant and insect life, unstable caves, the threat of instant death from invisible noxious gasses, windborne projectiles, or infection with unknown pathogens, it's very unlikely we'll have trouble requiring my basic combat training. My training as a quartermaster will be much more useful, Ally. Wrangling all the PPE you're going to need to stay alive and un-stung."
She nodded and scooched forward off the copilot's chair, standing to her full height below my chin. "Okay, Mr. Badass. You keep us safe from all that. I'm going to see if Oli needs any help in the kitchen."
I settled into the pilot's chair, and pulled up my own wrist-mounted mobi. I had downloaded local topo data and basemaps for the expedition area, with a healthy margin for safety. The glowing blue wireframe hovering over my forearm was a hologram of the ship, centered on my location in the cockpit. The 3d model of the ship stood in the bottom of a small dip in the undulating wireframe terrain, shielding us from some of the winds, which were represented by a few scattered vectors showing the direction and magnitude. The ship's shields were represented by four large squares on each side, and one front and back. It was clear that Oli had set the windward side to receive priority - the square on the port side was much larger.
I twisted my fingers mid-air and the view zoomed out, until the ship was small against a vast terrain of hills, valleys, and spiky mesas. A glowing yellow diamond rested in the middle of a cave mouth in the side of a mesa. The original landing site that Clara and Oli had picked out was marked in green, about 600 meters from the cave. The yellow marker on the cave had our current distance underneath. It read 4.3km.
In any other conditions, four kilometers wouldn't be a problem. A couple minutes' drive in an Ursa's jumpseats with climate-control and suspension, it would almost be comfortable.
But the winds brought visibility to literally zero, and we would need to be using active scanning radar and visualization to pierce the angry brown air. Driving like that would be incredibly dangerous, as our map data was only as up-to-date and with enough resolution as the last full survey several months ago. Sand drifts, biological accumulations, landslides, chemical and mechanical erosion, or plain bad luck could turn the expedition into a nightmare. We'd be crawling along, feeling our way through the dark at best.
I really wished Oli had been able to set us down in the original spot. The navy scan had taken longer than expected and the eyewall was already over the original landing site when we were released.
He did the best he could under the circumstances, I repeated to myself.
I sighed, and switched to a recorded feed from Hubnet about the recent changes to Sataball rules. Best to get a few minutes of shut-eye before we go.
I woke to a loud pop and a cheer from the 'kitchen,' the galley/locker room/lounge/dining room/bathroom just aft of the cockpit. I looked at the mobi emitter on my wrist where the time was displayed - three minutes til!
"Heorna!" I shouted as I jumped from the seat in the blue darkness. "Late late late late late..." I dodged around the central turret access pillar and made for the galley door.
Oli was pouring sparkling wine into cellulose party cups around the pop-up table. Ally looked up as the door slid open. "There he is, it's Mr. Sleepy Badass!"
I blushed as she shoved a cup of bubbly into my hand. "I'm sorry, I-" I began. I was cut off as Clara called from the wrap-around couch behind the table. "Gotta christen the expedition, Rab." She leaned forward and looked around. "Well, gang. I know we got off to a later start than we wanted, and we've got a longer journey than we needed, but these things happen. We've got plenty of time to get where we're going and there are two more windows to leave next week before we need to worry about fuel for the Alligator. We've got food and fuel, time and ability."
She lifted her cup. "So, here's to taking our time, enjoying ourselves, and getting some great research done!"
We cheersed and all took sips. Oli's cup was downed quick and he went in for another. Clara pretended not to notice. Ally rolled her eyes. Dinah made another 'cheers' at him.
When the celebration was done, we grabbed our individual cases with rations, toiletries and basics for a few nights' camp and headed for the Ursa.
I was already in my undersuit and only needed to grab the helmet from my locker. I hung back as the gang left and went to retrieve it.
"You saw Oli go for seconds, huh?" Ally's voice came from behind me at the door. I reached into the locker to don my helmet. "I hadn't seen it yet, but mo-, er, Dr. Arrol says he used to have quite a problem."
My eyebrow shot up at her slip of the tongue. I could see from the little mirror on the door she had a helmet under one arm.
"Is that so?" I said into the locker. The helmet slid over and I locked it in place, testing the suit ox. Looks good.
I turned and followed Ally to the cargo bay and let her climb down first. The Ursa sat in the middle of the cargo bay, which was about to extend down, elevator-style, into the howling maelstrom.
Clara sat at the controls, with Oli as co-driver. She fired up the engine as we dropped from the ladder. Dinah was hanging out the back of the rover-van, which opened completely into a short ramp. Ally boarded via the side door as I gave it one last walk-around.
Aside from a box that rattled suspiciously of glassware and liquid that wasn't on the manifest, and the personal backpack-cases for the crew, the Ursa was as I had prepped it. A crate of science gear, electronic instruments, sample jars, and reagents took up one of the four inward-facing jumpseats along the walls.
I took Dinah's place at the back, and she moved to sit across from Ally. The interior of the Ursa was spacious enough to stand and walk around, even with three of us and a big crate, but it was close. The driver compartment had its own door, and most surfaces were white and utilitarian. Life-support ventilation, scanner controls, shield components, and various technical panels decorated the walls.
Clara's voice streamed in over my helmet comms. "All sealed?"
I leaned forward around Dinah to check the side door, and she gave a mock swoon as I encroached. I shot her and Ally inquisitive thumbs-ups. They each returned the gesture. "All set," I radioed.
The Ursa jolted, and I could feel downward motion as the cargo bay lowered. The wind hit us full blast and we were off.
The door to the driver compartment slid open and we were treated to a view over Clara and Oli's shoulders through the windshield and dash. There wasn't much point to lights more than a few inches off the ground due to the amount of high-velocity sand and dust. The sheering miasma was illuminated from below, obscuring all forward vision. A layer of slimy gunk was already building up on the windshield.
"What's with the snot?" I asked from the back.
"That stuff is the intra-cellular media of waff pods - they're a little like giant rock-lichens." Clara, the exobiologist, said, and waited to see if I got it.
I did not.
"A lichen is an organism that lives on rocks. It's actually made up of two types of cells - a fungus, that gives structure and protection, and a bacteria, that digests and metabolizes minerals along with sunlight, and secretes food for them both. Lichens are tiny, though, and on a single rock you might find millions of little photobiont-mycobiont pairs." She waited for confirmation.
"Uh, okay. So, microscopic things that work together to eat rocks." I offered.
"Yeah, basically. But lichens eat the sunlight more than the rock. Its basically just a source of trace minerals. Hold on, there's a pothole here." The scanner made its strange electronic riffling sound as she probed the hole with radar. I felt the rover change course and we began to tip to one side as she apparently went side-hill to get us through.
Ally had already turned green with the rocking of the suspension and her eyes went wide at the change in angle. I smiled at her and gave a thumbs-up.
Clara continued. "So, here, the photobiont cell wouldn't have enough light from the local star to use photosynthesis due to the constant dust. Instead, an extremophile lithobiont cell - a thing that lives on rocks - teamed up with a fungal cell - a mycobiont. Here, that lithobiont uses chemosynthesis instead of photosynthesis. It is able to use..." She trailed off as she navigated another hOli, this one filled with some sort of vegetation, maybe. The scanner only has one color, so you're kind of guessing on what the shapes might be.
She continued. "It's able to use the energy from rock dust - as you can see, freely abundant here - and carbon dioxide in the atmosphere," She tapped the dash where the exterior environmental composition readout showed a dangerously high level, "to make sugars that feed the cell and its fungal partner. On this planet, with lower gravity and abundant food, they're super-sized."
Ally piped up, "They're barely-living golfball-sized sacks of sugar water with mushroom wings that eat dust. They kind of just, bounce along with the winds, until they end up in a crack or something. But they're fragile so they usually just splatter sugar-water everywhere. If there were ants on this planet, they'd be very, very happy."
I sat with that description for a few seconds. "Wow. That's... intense. I'm not sure I'm happy to hear that as the guy who's going to have to wash the rover when we get back."
Dinah laughed. "I got a fun way to deal with that, I'll show ya when we return. We can use the ship’s shields like a car wash."
Something occurred to me. "Is that why the outside of the rover is unpainted?"
She nodded. "Yup, I invert the Ursa's shield polarity, drive it through the ship's shield layer. The interaction burns off anything not made of high-temperature alloy. The resulting electrical field feels real tingly, in all the right places."
Oli laughed, his head against the starboard window up front.
Clara giggled, Ally again rolled her eyes.
We drove in silence for a few minutes, Oli pointing out adjustments to the line Clara was picking through the rocky, sandy terrain outside. After a while I piped up.
"So, I can see y'all are pretty familiar with the planet, this, uh, obviously isn't your first expedition here. What happened to the previous ‘Me’?" I asked, warily.
"Oh, our last security person? Well," Clara began, "it's not a nice story. But it won't happen to you, we're sure. We learned to... avoid it,"
Oli turned over his left shoulder and looked me in the eyes. The glow inside his helmet made his features appear grotesque. He pantomimed a little man with one hand, walking. Suddenly, his other fist flew sideways, opening at the last second and engulfing the little man. The fist continued downwards, as if falling.
"I'm sorry, what is that?" I gasped.
"It's a plant-like organism that feeds by trapping and dissolving prey." Clara sighed.
"It ATE him? How does a plant eat a human?!" I shifted in my seat as I stressed the word.
"Well, no, the acid from the digestive probably only compromised his suit." Clara said. "He probably asphyxiated inside the lamina."
I sat, silent.
"How long did that take?" I asked.
Clara ventured, "Well, I'd assume about a day and a half, with his reserves."
"What?! How was he inside a plant for a day and a half?"
Dr. Clara Arrol stared off into the angry brown miasma, "Of course that's assuming he survived the fall. We can't know."
Ally noticed my expression and took over.
"Ok, so... He was leading us along this corridor in the caves that opened up on a ravine. It was dark, and we're using flashlights to try and stay on this ledge that you have to turn sideways and shimmy along, right?"a
I nodded slowly, beginning to feel disposable. "He's hugging the wall, shuffling along, and comes up on this crack where the... trap... was living. I guess he must have put his hand in the wrong spot and BAM," she clapped her gloves together, "it jumps out of the crack, taking him over the edge into the ravine, way, way down. There was nothing we could do, there wasn't any way down to get him. We're not even sure there was a bottom to that ravine. He could still be falling." I slumped back against the wall, stunned. I knew the pay on this job was too good to be true. "At least the one before that went instantly," Dinah offered.
I had decided I didn't want to know specifics. Whatever fate befell their previous babysitter wasn't going to be mine, I decided.
We rode in silence for the next click and a half, putting us only 800 or so meters from the cave mouth, and solidly on the apron of the mesa.
I checked my mobi's blue wireframe map and fiddled with settings to pass the time in the back of the Ursa. From time to time glancing around as the six-wheeled rover tilted or jostled over some unseen obstacle. The air in the Ursa smelled of ozone from all the electronics and dust seeping in from some failing weather-stripping somewhere. For a positive-pressure sealed lifesupport system, that was a bad sign.
"We're coming up on the original LZ," Oli said from the codriver's seat. A red warning sprang from the radar's hologlobe in the middle of the dash. "Aw, shi.." Oli punched at buttons while Clara brought the rover to a stop. The windshield was nothing but darkness, having been caked over by dust and wet sugar for the last hour.
"We've lost coherence from the sensors out front." Clara turned to the middle of the cabin, "Rab, we need you to clear them. Be careful, there's a sheer drop to the left, so go out the back, not the side door."
Time to earn my keep. I unhooked the jumpseat's restraints and stood, slightly stooped in the cramped crew compartment. I adjusted my chestplate and rotated to face the rear portal, seating my helmet as I did so. "Everyone ready?" Dinah asked as she and Ally leaned away from the back hatch, clearly knowing what was about to happen.
"Go for it!" Ally yelled.
The rear panel of the Ursa split horizontally, the bottom half becoming a short ramp and the top a small awning. The rear of the Ursa was pointed downwind and we avoided a blast of hot wind directly into the cabin, but dust swirled in the eddy and flowed inwards.
I jumped out as quickly as possible and landed on a loose rock, nearly twisting my ankle. As soon as I was clear, or maybe a little before, the back hatch slammed shut against the fine-powder maelstrom.
I cursed to myself as I teetered on the edge of a precipice. In my haste, I had jumped straight out without looking. The 'drop on the left' Clara cautioned me about curved sharply just behind the rover and I perched on its very edge. I could sense a large void through the dust, see broken stone where the ceiling of a cavern had collapsed. I knew I was looking down into a portion of the caves we were heading towards.
The rock beneath my feet teetered and my legs began to shake, overcorrecting the movement of the rock simply led to a more precarious vibration as my arms pinwheeled for balance. I worked my way to stability and finally was able to step away from the brink.
"You good out there, Rab?" Clara's voice buzzed in my helmet.
"Yeah, I'm okay. I'm moving around to the front now." I replied.
I put my left hand on the rover and moved towards the right side. I gingerly put my face into the wind. As soon as my helmet breached the protection of the rear wheel, my head was thrown back.
"Aw, jeeze." I muttered. "Here goes nothing."
I pushed into the roaring, buffetting wind. I could hear my faceplate etching in realtime. It took all of my force of will and a nearly 45-degree tilt forward to walk the 6 meters or so to the front. I imagined losing my footing and being flung skyward.
My hand met the angle of the front glass, and I could make out the goopy brown mass of the lights, grill, and sensor housings.
"Ok Rab, we see your shape out there. Do you see the front radar?" Dinah paged.
"I do, Dinah. It's covered. Stand by."
I reached out both hands and began swiping away the sugary mud. It looked like the sludge left at the bottom of an Elroy's hot chocolate. As I removed the slimy exterior, the exposed dry dust underneath eroded away into the gale. I continued this as I worked my way through layers of the stuff. My gloves became heavy with it. Every now and then I could feel or hear the splat of a waff pod impacting my body. It felt like being pelted by water balloons flung by some unseen platoon of third-graders.
Clara's authoritative tone. "Okay, Rab, we're getting picture again. You can come back inside."
I retraced my steps, and this time, pushed violently along by the wind, nearly overshot the rear of the rover. My left foot sunk as I came to a halt on the edge of the drop. The lip of dirt eroded, and I shifted my weight back awkwardly to stand up straight.
I could sense a sinkhole crater in front of me. As the dusty wind varied in intensity, I could make out a dark entrance in the opposite wall. An eerie feeling of calm swept over me as I focused on the opening, the sound of the wind died away and my universe became a dark tunnel of attention.
I felt my conscious mind drift forward across the ravine, into the cave. I imagined a subterranean world of darkness - chasms filled with spikey stalagmites, unknowable horrors of xenobiology, incredible wonders of geology and chemistry. I experienced a hundred lifetimes of loneliness in the black depths. I hungered for a single morsel to sustain my hibernation for another eon. I yearned for just the merest distant crack of thermal expansion, just one randomly excited photon of light, a single neutrino collision in the darkness. Anything but the still, cold emptiness of eternal entombment.
"Rab!"
I snapped out of my reverie to Clara's voice.
"Get in the truck, Rab."
I was yanked into the back of the vehicle roughly by a cursing Dinah.