Chapter 3

The airlock to the shuttle opened, and a crisp oblong of light shone through. All five rows of capsules rotated and shifted until the crew were perfectly parallel with the exit floor. Everyone pressed the release pads and the capsule shields split open, allowing them to step out. Even though they had only been riding for less than half an hour, Ava couldn’t wait to finally stretch her legs. Being so tall meant that it was difficult to fit in seats meant for five-foot-ten astronauts; she had her father’s genetics to blame for that.

One by one, the team stepped out. The sky was dark with smoke, rain pattered down, and the heat of Poseidon sept into Ava’s tempsuit. On her Echo, which was attached to her wrist and bound to the side of her helmet via a long, telecommunications wire, the temperature rose to a whopping 41°C. She had some adjustments to make. First, she opened her mouth and activated the hydration feature; the water tube extending up her neck and sitting at the centre of her space helmet spritzed out fresh water, and she swallowed it without delay, not once but three times. At the same time, she navigated to the firmware settings and amped the cooling unit up to max. After a moment, her body vibrated, and a dull thrumming sounded out from the Life Support System built into her backpack. Just like that, she cooled down, feeling more comfortable than ever. Looking at the rest of the team, she noticed they were doing the same.

Tyrone approached her. Through the visor, she could just about see the scar under his left eye, along with his bulbous nose and lips that, when matched with the rest of his ratlike facial features, made him look sulky. That, of course, couldn’t have been further from the truth. He began fiddling with some of the settings on his Echo. Even though they were only a couple feet apart, the helmets made it next to impossible to hear one another, so he still had to speak through the muffled telecommunications line. “Told you you wouldn’t puke.” It was a shabby joke at best. He chuckled, revealing a set of straight white teeth.

Ava folded her arms. Tyrone and Jack were the only members in the team she didn’t have to look down at. “I never said I would.” Though, after what happened in the Farnborough machine, it wouldn’t surprise her if he thought that. She had puked several times on her first few runs, but over time, her stomach adjusted.

“I know,” he said. “Thought nerves might have got the better of you. Hell, I thought Terrygrew was gonna crash after I saw those creatures. Did you see ’em?”

“The inkasum? Yeah, not for long though.”

He glanced around the place, then reverted his attention to her. “… Don’t think there’re any here. Must have scared them off.”

That was exactly what happened. It was only natural that a creature would bolt at the sound of a tumultuous machine, although, knowing inkasum, she wouldn’t have been surprised if some stayed. What with them being inconsistent with their behaviour and all.

“Me, specifically,” he added.

Ava laughed at that. “You’re not that ugly. Not yet anyway.”

Before Tyrone could respond, Zef’s name appeared on the top right of her helmet overlay. Through static, Zef said, “Alright ladygents. The Federation’s currently on their way to collect us. A separate containment vehicle will stop by later to retrieve the cargo. So all of your beloved possessions will take a bit of time before they end up in your lockers.”

That was fine. All Ava had really packed were old pictures of herself and her mother; science books; and a diary where she could note down her feelings, findings, and ideas surrounding her father’s disappearance. She wasn’t necessarily in a rush to receive those any time soon.

“Now,” said Zef, “I know we had some chats about privacy and that, and due to Federation regulations, we’ll be splitting the team into two groups: men and women.” He cleared his throat and started pointing people out with his thumb. “Kingston, Crook, Nielsen, Tucker – you’ll be in Slot BX-15.

“Foal, Anderson, Longwood, Harper – you’re in Slot GX-27. Federation’s paying for it, so don’t worry about that. All I need from you as a team is respect, diligence, and competence. We’re here, we’re alive. Terrygrew didn’t crash for once. Be thankful. That understood?”

“Yessir,” everyone said.

“You’re an excellent bullshitter, Mindfield,” said Jack in a despairing voice. He was sitting on a cut-off tree log, gloves clasped together.

“You keep quiet,” said Zef. “You talked enough on the ship.”

“Not enough. Still ought to make you red in the face.”

“Not on this trip, Jack. We have to take this serious. Isn’t that right, crew?”

“Yessir,” everyone said.

“Righto, ladygents.” Zef reached into his holster and pulled out a small weapon. An LX-56 phaser. It was a sleek, silver pistol with a slender barrel and a semi-triangular grip. A holo-screen projected from the handle, displaying the energy level. It was connected to his pants via a long retractable hose, meaning the ammunition was coming from his Life Support System as opposed to an internal battery. This was one of the more recent additions to the Galactic Federation’s arsenal. Using the Life Support System as a source of energy meant that it could carry a lot more ammo in the long run, which would come in handy if the team came across any of the more dangerous inkasum out there. “Before you head out into the uncharted sectors, you’ll be given one of these. I expect you all to use these in emergencies only, yes? Animal encounters. Remember, you’re engineers, not military. That understood?”

“Yessir.”

“Righto.” Zef sheathed the pistol.

From the deforested path ahead, a vehicle emerged from a corner of dense vegetation, the gravel crunching beneath its wheels. It was a large military truck, capable of holding up to twenty people; Ava had seen one of these on an article covering the Federation’s goal of terraforming Zurn 852. Reading the updates to the planetary development had been the only way she could gain an insight into the look of the surface, as well as any potential findings on the ‘lost men’. No information about the lost men had surfaced, but there were plenty of videos of these vehicles carrying colonisers across the planet, capturing inkasum and taking them back to the research facility, particularly the vicious breed. They wanted to find out what made them so different. What made one evil and the other peaceful?

“Speak of the devil,” Jack murmured.

The military truck squeaked to a stop. The back doors flew open and several officers stepped out, each holding a phaser rifle. Ava was reminded of the time Mr. Broker had snatched an X-74 blowout pistol from an officer’s holster and blown his brains out in the same instance. The sick knot that had earlier eased up tightened again, the gory image fresh in her mind.

One of the officer’s tapped into the team’s Echo cloud and spoke: “Inside.” The officer gestured towards the butt of the truck, and soon V-Knox 852 made their way inside. When the doors shut and there was nothing but shade, the vehicle grumbled to a start and drove off, through the many different twists and turns, causing Ava once again to feel ill. It was a silent, nauseating ride. Not even Jack spoke, at least not to the crew.

Finally, after thirty minutes of travel – although with hindsight it might as well have been two hours – the truck stopped. Everyone began standing up. Seconds later the back doors opened and the team stepped out. Site 101 was much larger up close; domes the size of towns were joined together by heat-resistant tunnels, and through them Ava could see people dressed in dark-blue tempsuits bustling from one side to the other.

This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.

Outside, beneath the dark, rainy sky, the ground was devoid of grass; it had all been stripped away to make room for large rectangular machines that were stacked atop one another. Connected by ion-circuited tubes, they dominated the forefront like a mechanical graveyard, leaving little to no space to walk. On the opposite side were the vehicles, each covered by an acid-protective tarp.

Ava didn’t know what to think of the place; she was once again reminded of how humanised this area had already been. Building infrastructure of this size and complexity would no doubt cause adverse effects on the environment if continued in bulk. That said, it was a start, and right now she was happy that she had finally been given the opportunity to act on her dream, both of working on this new Earth and finding out what really happened here.

The team were brought inside; they had to go through a decontamination unit in which they each had to strip naked and have foam sprayed over their bodies. After stepping inside, they were given new tempsuits and were told to change in the locker rooms, which they did.

When fully dressed, V-Knox 852 followed the officers through the central foyer of the first dome. The interior wasn’t round and expansive like Ava had expected it to be; instead, the building had been divided into floors, each with a different purpose. The second to highest floor was their destination: the accommodation units. Everything from BX-01 to GX-30. Fifteen rooms delegated to men, fifteen rooms delegated to women. And they were large, with plenty of podbeds, toiletries, and showers.

Ava and the other three women in the group ended up being the only ones in GX-27, which meant they had a lot more privacy than the other accommodations, especially the guys’. It was no lie that these sorts of jobs were primarily taken up by men, but not for sexist reasons; statistically, women were less likely to go for engineering or gun-facing positions. An unfortunate but true reality.

It didn’t matter much, Ava supposed, but she would have liked to see more ladies in the field. After all, they were just as capable.

Their first task wasn’t until tomorrow morning, which gave them a lot of time to settle in; most of the day had been dominated by paperwork, speeches from the leader of the Colonisation Officials, Dr. Quentin Hughes – particularly about the areas V-Knox 852 would cover (everything from the fortieth to fiftieth parallel), the exact duties he wanted from their team (to install the new-range optic fibre tech, which the team had already been made aware of), and steps moving forward (building organic atmoshields, which was currently in the works).

When night came and everyone was back in their rooms, the girls were tired, but still they had enough energy to chat. They always had enough energy to chat.

“What kind of doctor is he?” said Jade Harper. It was nice to hear their voices in person again as opposed to through telecommunications. Jade’s was high pitched despite her intimidating look. She was the only one in the group who took working out seriously, with muscles so big you could see them popping through her sleeves. Her pink hair was shaved at one temple, because in this line of work you were recommended to either keep your hair pulled back or cut short, and her face was angular, strong. She was sitting on her podroom bed, arms folded.

“Who?” asked Kira Foal. A nice lady, with what would have been a British accent had the colony not been destroyed centuries ago. “Dr. Hughes? He’s a madman.”

Jade raised a questioning hand. “But what does he actually do?”

“Nothing,” said Sibyl Anderson. She was from a different galactic station entirely, and as such had grown up to see things differently than the rest of the girls, who all came from the SS Constellation. Her voice was cold, soulless.

“Not a very satisfying answer.” Jade pulled her pillow up and flumped against it. The dim lightbulb dangling above her head flickered as if it were about to burst.

Ava herself wasn’t sure what Dr. Hughes was responsible for either – as far as she was aware, he helped design the terraforming tech – but having a concrete answer wouldn’t hurt. “Does he design the firmware?”

“Define firmware.” Sibyl furrowed her brow.

Ava didn’t feel much like talking. “The code.”

“Permanent software,” said Kira.

Sibyl shrugged. “If he does, then at the very most he’s doing what hundreds of other software engineers are. His main purpose is giving orders, and we the engineers…. We follow them, without question.”

“Capitalism’s a sparky bitch,” said Jade.

Kira raised an eyebrow. “That so? Without capitalism, you’d be piss poor because you’d finally have to do some work.”

The girls laughed. Ava smirked.

Jade began flicking the switch to her lightbulb on and off, slowly, almost in rhythm to a human heartbeat. “What time did he say tomorrow? Six A.M.? Christ, that’ll be the earliest I’ve gotten up in years.”

“There should be a law against working that early,” said Kira. “Call it the Law of Laziness, don’t care. I need my beauty sleep.”

“If you call a big nose and slouching forehead beauty, then sure,” said Jade.

Ava expected Kira to take offense to that, but then she remembered they were good friends. Kira laughed.

“What do you girls plan on doing when the world’s up and runnin’?” Jade added. “If it’s up and runnin’, I should say.”

A good question; a better one would have been: What do you plan on doing after you find your father, Ava? To be honest, she wasn’t entirely sure. Maybe take some time off to catch up with him. Maybe explore the world together. The sky was the limit.

Ava hadn't spoken much about her father to the girls; the only thing she had mentioned was to Jade, that he was a member of the Crimson Collective. Outside of that, they were clueless.

Kira hummed. “I’ll probably save up to buy the first house. Or maybe I’ll build my own, away from you lot.”

“No matter where you go, you can’t escape me, Kira,” said Jade. “Just a heads-up.” Jade stopped flicking the switch for a moment, then resumed.

“Would you stop doing that?” Sibyl said, irritated.

“What?”

“The lightswitch. Stop flicking it. You’re giving me an aneurysm.”

Jade, surprisingly, stopped. “Alright then. What do you want, Sibyl?”

Sibyl cocked an eyebrow. It was clear that she didn’t have a simple answer. “What do you mean?”

“When this planet’s fully terraformed, they won’t need us to colonise it anymore. What are you gonna do then? You gonna make use of your degree for anything?”

“I don’t know,” said Sibyl.

“My plan is to open a gym.” Jade flexed her bicep. “I can get you jacked, you know.”

“Stop,” said Sibyl. “No one’s impressed by your muscles. It’s frankly embarrassing.”

“So what do you want then?”

“I told you already, Harper, I don’t know. Enough with the stupid questions!” Her tone surprised everyone; even Ava didn’t see that coming.

Jade’s eyes widened. She lowered her arm. “Sorry, Sibyl—”

“I told you before, don’t call me that. That name is reserved for family only. Keep it professional, Harper. I’m Anderson. We’re not friends. We’re here to do a job.” Ava knew there had been tension in the past between Sibyl and Jade, particularly about the naming, but she didn’t expect this level of anger to come from her.

Jade nodded. “Understood. Won’t call you that again, Anderson.”

Sibyl lay back in bed, turned over, and switched the light off. Her side of the room was covered in shadow, being quite distant from the rest of them, while Jade’s and Kira’s and Ava’s had been fully lit.

After a moment, Jade turned. “What about you, Ava? You’ve been quiet today. Everything alright?”

That last question was perhaps impossible to answer in the moment. There was too much at stake to consider. “I’m fine,” Ava said. “Just tired.”

“Any plans?”

She had done her best to avoid that question, but now she had no choice but to continue. “I guess I just want to explore. That’s it, really.”

Jade smiled. “So you sort of get your dream early then?”

“Sort of. It’s been my dream for a while now.” And much more than that, since childhood.

Kira interjected. “I think that’s enough questions for tonight, Jade. If you keep talking you might cause more problems than necessary. It is your speciality after all.”

“It’s her birthright,” said Sibyl, still stern.

Kira nodded. “Well, yeah. Turn in for the night? We get you’re an energetic freak but it’s been a long fuckin’ day. Wait till tomorrow and we might be able to match your enthusiasm. Might, now. Might.” And that was a very arduous might.

Jade agreed, and soon all of them were in bed with their lights out, doing their best to rest up for tomorrow morning. They would go out into the uncharted lands for the first time. They might even have to fight off some of the creatures. Ava, still unsure, managed to convince herself that she was more excited than anxious.

The last thought that infiltrated her mind before the sleeping darkness came was: We’ll get to see Dad again. I promise, sweetheart.