The stylized patch on his arm said “RR” in bright yellow letters. Relay reconnaissance or ‘Relay Recon’. The icons and colors on the patch were pregnant with adventure and excitement. Promises of an interesting life on faraway worlds, where discoveries lay waiting around every corner and beyond the crest of every hill.
In actuality Relay Recon was a lonely, tedious and more often than not dangerous life. Samuel was born for this life. Not because he had a particular interest in adventure or a hunger for discovery but mostly because he hated people and RR operators always worked alone for months at a time after deployment.
He was checking his drop ship for the last time while Karl, his resident AI and only friend, ran through the manifest of equipment he was carrying on board. It was a routine job. His primary mission was to reconnoiter and secure a proper site to deploy the RM, short for Relay Mast. The RM’s purpose was to pick up, boost and redirect communications signals directed at it. RM’s were a vital component of interstellar communication; especially out here on the frontier were UASA, the United Aeronautics and Space Administration would first set foot on a distant and insignificant solar system.
It would have been ignored altogether if it weren’t for the fact that a giant asteroid field blocked other proper Relay sites. So it was Sam’s job to land on the planet with the clearest line of sight around the asteroid field.
The planet wasn’t named like the ones in the Genesis solar system; the solar system that housed Earth. No divine denominations for this star and its planets. Just a simple code: LV-427. It wasn’t much to look at, an arid wasteland much akin to Mars in the Genesis system. Analysis indicated that the planet used to have an atmosphere, though not breathable and even so, it had been destroyed several million years ago when violent solar flares from the now gentle star nearby had caused a catastrophic shift in the planet's magnetosphere. It still had an atmosphere, but it was mostly ruled by never-ending lightning storms.
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Sam couldn’t care less, it wouldn’t affect the RM’s efficiency or its physical security. The masts were designed to endure. LV-427 was an unremarkable planet in an insignificant solar system and the highlight of its existence would be the alien technological obelisk Sam would leave behind once his work had been completed. Depending on the conditions on the ground Karl estimated it would take around three to four months.
Sam hoped it would be four; he couldn’t wait to get away from the chatter aboard the “Magellan”. The interstellar spacecraft he was currently on. He hated it, the mindless conversations he had to endure by crewmembers of various sorts. Sam wasn’t entirely incapable of small talk or social interaction, he was just extremely easily bored with the mundane. Such was the irony of his life. He despised talking to others but he loved ensuring others could talk to each other. A fact firmly established in early childhood when his great grandfather gave him a HAM radio. He would tweak it for hours on end trying to increase its reach and the clarity of the signal. And now the UASA had given him the mother of all radios and an entire planet to call his workspace.
He couldn’t wait to get off the Magellan. Sam had done it dozens of times before but it always fascinated him that he would be the first human to walk the surface of a planet. Everywhere you went you discovered it for the first time. Walk over a hill? First to do it. Swim in a lake? First to do it. Build a mast? First to do it.
LV-427 was a planet in a very remote solar system at the very edge of the galaxy. Beyond this solar system lay nothing for a very, very long distance until the nearest galaxy. The UASA wanted to establish an RM here to consolidate signal strength even at the edge of the galaxy. Sam knew it was mostly a matter of prestige. There was no real need to establish a mast here as it would reinforce coverage by only 3%. It was a marketing matter.
It would also mean it would take longer to pick him up once he was finished. When the job was completed the UASA would not dispatch a ship just to pick up one engineer and his AI. It was way too expensive. They would wait until it was possible to deroute a regular vessel on a shipping route or some such to take the detour of picking up Sam and Karl’s dropship. Sam loved it, less people there to bother him. It could be as long as seven months before he was picked up again. LV-427 was so remote there had never even been humans in adjacent solar systems and the ones adjacent to those. Sam would be utterly alone.