ARCHIVED MEMORY TRANSCRIPTIONS OF THE ORIGINAL CREW OF ECOLOGICAL SURVEY VESSEL Nº419.
ORIGINAL OBJECTIVE: SURVEY EXOPLANETS AND DETERMINE LIKELIHOOD OF SUCCESSFUL SETTLEMENT AND/OR TERRAFORMING EFFORTS.
AMENDED OBJECTIVE: INVESTIGATE THE POSSIBLE APPEARANCE OF PREVIOUSLY UNDETECTED SPACE CAPABLE SAPIENT RACE.
[WARNING: THE FOLLOWING CONTAINS INFORMATION SENSITIVE TO THE TERRAN UNITED NATIONS AND THE GALACTIC FEDERATION AS A WHOLE, AND IS NOT TO BE VIEWED BY UNAUTHORIZED INDIVIDUALS]
MEMORY TRANSCRIPT LOG: MICHAEL HAYES SPEC: NAVIGATION LOCATION: TUN-C11-4362 T-35 DAYS TO MISSION START
I walked through the endless corridors of our little research outpost, located squarely in a random crater, on an empty planet in the ass-crack of nowhere space, making the rounds to deliver the news to those in this section of the base. My first destination, of course, was the lab, not because it was closer than any other room, but because of who I knew was there.
“Hey there, whatcha doin’?” I said as I entered and closed the door behind me.
“Just wrapping up, you?” replied Alice Lane, one of our team’s xenobiologists, currently sitting in front of her desk, which held a small sample of this planetoid’s soil.
“Nothing much, just looking at rocks, having the time of my life.” I said sarcastically, fully aware that her job involved looking at rocks to determine the viability of colonizing and/or terraforming worlds, and she loved every second of it.
“Oh really? And what did you learn?” she answered quickly, to which I immediately replied “That there’s an incredible woman sitting in front of some of them.”
These sorts of conversations, where one false move or my dumb tongue would say something vaguely insulting before my brain could process it, and then make everything worse by attempting to backtrack, used to be fucking terrifying to me, but after living with these people for a few years, stuck in a cabin on a planet with no atmosphere where ‘going outside to get some air’ was more trouble than it was worth, you eventually learn to just go with the flow feeling safe in the knowledge that even if you do blurt out something stupid, no one will be offended by it.
It was either that or hating each other’s guts… Anyway!
“I bet you say that to every other girl you see in here.” She said with a smile.
“Well yeah, otherwise they would be on my ass for not flying us out of this godforsaken rock” I said in an attempt to keep the humor going.
“Would you say that to the captain?” She asked, teasingly.
“Well first of all, there’s no possible way that would ever end well for me” I said, answering her joke before turning serious. “And besides, the captain I respect, but you I love, so she could never compare.” At this, she giggled.
There it is, that is what I live for. That smile never fails to give me the warm fuzzies.
“Is that insubordination I hear?” Said Captain Chloe Paxton, her tone accusatory and not even remotely questioning despite her phrasing.
Uuhhhh…
“Uuhhhh…” I explained my thought process in that situation. The captain had a way of moving around without letting her footsteps make noise, so she tended to surprise everyone she ran into. When she had been confronted about it, she claimed it was an old habit that she couldn’t easily break anymore, so we let it go, and eventually started making a game out of people’s reactions to her jump scares.
We all stared at each other in awkward silence for a second before chuckling, the women genuinely and me with fake embarrassment, before she delivered the news I had intended to give before getting distracted.
“Data packet just arrived from HQ; we’ve got a new mission on another planet so everyone needs to be in the briefing room in fifteen. Before that, though, Alex wants his ass kicked, so if you have time to spare, you might as well come watch the show.” The captain explained quickly before excusing herself.
“Well, you heard the boss, time to move, we have at least five minutes to finish everything up if we want to be there in fifteen.” I stated, to which she gave me a small frown and replied with “She said she was going to fight Alex first.”
At that, I couldn’t help but smile and say “Correct, and my statement is untrue because…” I left the question open, letting her arrive at the only possible answer, which she quickly did, and snorted.
“Ok, fair, just help me pack this up.”
MEMORY TRANSCRIPT LOG: ALEXANDER BELMONT SPEC: GUNNER LOCATION: TUN-C11-4362 T-35 DAYS TO MISSION START
Today is the day! Today is the day I finally beat her and take the title of captain for myself! Or something like that, I dunno how chain of command works.
Laughing at the silliness of my own internal monologue, I walked into what everyone else had taken to calling the toolshed. It was a place I could barely fit in, with its many stacked shelves reaching close to the ceiling leaving little space unused in any direction. Despite the unwelcoming dimensions, this was a place I visited often, especially before important events, to ensure my left arm was still operating optimally. I’d had it replaced with a metallic prosthetic some time after losing it, and luckily for me, I have the best mechanic on this side of the galaxy.
“Hey Fae!” I called out. “Are we going to the gym or are you planning to flutter over there by yourself?”
“Coming!” She replied, poking her head out from one of the shelves high up off the ground. The woman, small even when compared to everyone else here, had taken advantage of this planet’s low gravity by outfitting her workshop like a climbing gym, with each shelf acting as a different workstation reachable by climbing or jumping, and of course each was carefully reinforced to be able to take the force of doing this without damaging itself or whatever happened to be on it.
With practiced ease, she lowered herself from her position with seemingly reckless leaps before carefully lowering herself to the usual spot atop my shoulders. This whole setup might have looked like a disaster waiting to happen, but with the reinforced surfaces and this planet only being an uninhabitable ‘Class 11 Deathworld’ due to its lack of an atmosphere, it was actually relatively safe. Provided nobody did anything too stupid.
“How are you feeling, big man?” She asked from her perch behind my head.
“Honestly? Kinda nervous. Think maybe you could take a look at my arm again before the match?” I asked, forgetting my previous attempts to distract myself in this moment of sincerity.
“I did that two hours ago, it’ll be fine. Unless, of course, you wanted something new, like, say… a railgun?” She tried to tempt me with the tantalizing offer of installing a heavy-duty weapon capable of piercing a battlecruiser’s armor at the literal tip of my fingers.
Dating a mechanic who likes to tinker with prosthetics has some additional benefits, after all. As long as you don’t mind occasionally finding out you got more than you asked for, but if you ask me, that’s part of the fun!
“Wouldn’t that blow my arm right off after the first shot?” I asked, ignoring the many other ways firing that thing in here could easily kill us all.
“You want to shoot a person… with a railgun… TWICE?” She asked incredulously, and there was only one possible answer to that question, really. “Well, if the first shot doesn’t work, then yeah.” She let out a genuine laugh at that and ushered me to take us to the gym, where the pipsqueak and I had set up a little arena for our sparring matches and whenever we decided to challenge the captain.
MEMORY TRANSCRIPT LOG: SARAH DI PIETRO SPEC: CHEMIST LOCATION: TUN-C11-4362 T-35 DAYS TO MISSION START
I waited, facing the ring where the captain already stood, with Curt by my side. The anxiousness he felt was apparent in the way he stood ramrod straight with his fists slightly clenched, and I knew why he felt like that, he’d told me just earlier.
‘He’s either gonna break our losing streak, or have his ass handed to him spectacularly. Either way, it’s gonna be a fight to remember’ he’d said. In truth, what he was feeling was a combination of anxiousness that his friend would be the first to eke out a win, and anticipation to seeing said friend do something stupid he could use as teasing material.
“Think he chickened out?” I asked, trying to strike up conversation to distract him from his intense staring contest with the door.
A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation.
“No, he’ll be here.” He said, and was almost interrupted by the sound of the door opening to the tune of that classic song from that timey centuries’ old movie about the rock that became a boxer. With that as background music, in walked Alex, an utter behemoth of a man that dwarfed everyone else at this base, strutting like he owned the entire place in a display that might have been intimidating, had it not been for the comparatively tiny woman sitting on his shoulders, whooping, cheering, and generally being as obnoxious as possible, utterly draining the scene of any faux gravitas it might have otherwise had.
“You guys made it! How’re you feeling?” I asked the both of them, and it was Fae who answered. “We did, and he’s ready to kick some ass! He even has a strategy and everything.” She said, after having pressed a button on her ride’s robotic shoulder which caused the music to stop abruptly. She then used the larger man’s inorganic arm as a handhold to aid her in the process of climbing down. The size difference was almost comical between the two, with Alex being Alex and Fae being even shorter than Curt.
“You know I can hear you from here! Any low blows and I’m not just beating you black and blue, you’ll also be going home for good!” The captain chose that moment to interject in the conversation from her spot on the other side of the large room, drawing a laugh from the four of us.
“I’m rooting for you, you know? Just don’t go at her too hard or you’ll blow a fuse.” Curt said somewhat sincerely, but of course he couldn’t help himself and had to add a tease at the end.
“Heh, shove it pipsqueak, just watch me.” Alex said confidently as he walked into the ring.
He’s gonna pay for that one later.
There’s only two people in the universe that Curt allows to call him “pipsqueak”, one being me and the other Alex, and the latter only with the knowledge that Curt will always give as much as he takes in any fight, whether it be a real one or a joke.
When the two fighters entered the ring, the atmosphere suddenly turned serious, neither saying a word as they eyed each other, unarmed, and settled into their stances. There was a clear contrast between the two as they stared each other down. Where Alex was a hulking mountain of a man, whose entire figure spoke of the power he could bring to bear, captain Chloe was the epitome of function over form. Lacking clear excess in any regard, she might appear unimpressive at first glance, but a closer inspection revealed unmatched expertise in her stance, and a toned physique with a dense layer of muscle clinging tightly to her form, making her one size larger in volume than one would assume by just looking at her average height.
Curt walked up and took the role of announcer, which in this case meant little more than signaling for the fight to start. “You may begin when this coin touches the ground.” He said, producing a metallic coin and tossing it into the air.
PING!
Immediately upon hearing the coin drop, Alex dashed forward with a big, right-handed swing headed straight for his opponent. Despite initial appearances, there was some nuance to his tactic, for this big obvious swing was, in fact, a feint. As such, he stepped onto the accompanying right foot rather than pushing off it for maximum power, which would leave him in a decent position for a follow up. Of course, this strategy hinged on his opponent not reacting fast enough to notice this, but Chloe did, pivoting to the side and delivering a devastating kick to the back of the now load bearing right knee, which quickly sent him tumbling down to the ground. From there, she moved up behind him and put his neck in a stranglehold, and much as the larger man tried to dislodge her, his own oversized frame got in his way, making it impossible for him to reach his attacker, and he quickly was forced to tap out, surrendering in the process.
“Well, that certainly went…” said Fae, after making sure he was alright. Of course, remembering the earlier name-calling, Curt chose that moment to interject and rub salt on the man’s bruised ego.
“Nah, it was good! You should be proud, you even managed to beat my record!” He said enthusiastically, drawing a confused look from the exhausted, panting fighter.
“Really?” He asked between breaths and quickly received a reply. “Yup! You are now the proud holder of the record for the fastest defeat by the captain! Congrats! I even made a small sticky tag to remember this occasion.” He said, and slapped the tired giant’s back between the shoulder blades.
Alex, quickly forgetting about his tiredness, sputtered confusedly before getting up, muttering “What the… You little shit!” as he reached for the small tag stuck to his back. In the process, he revealed that there was no such tag there… Not that he would ever find out, since he couldn’t reach its supposed location. Realizing this, he gave up on it and instead opted to take his fake anger out on Curt, who deftly avoided his grabs at every turn.
I walked up to Fae and just settled beside her, both of us enjoying the spectacle of our partners acting like goofy morons with no words needing to be exchanged.
Of course, like with all good things, someone eventually had to ruin them, in this case that being Billy Carter, who had apparently been lurking around this scene for some time now.
“Y’all are adorable, but you do know we actually have shit to do today, right? So get your asses to the briefing room yesterday.”
Everybody groaned, but had to admit that he was right.
MEMORY TRANSCRIPT LOG: CHLOE PAXTON SPEC: CAPTAIN LOCATION: TUN-C11-4362 T-35 DAYS TO MISSION START
As the last people filed into the briefing room, it was all I could do to hide my emotions, and the earlier fight certainly wasn’t helping.
On the one hand, I was as glad as everyone else to be leaving this desert rock and going somewhere with literally any living things other than the people we live with. On the other, the abridged notes I was given to prepare myself to break the news were somewhat bleak.
Ah, whatever, it’s only a Class 7, we should be fine.
The Galactic Federation had a ranking system for every registered planet they encountered based on how likely any random lifeform pulled from anywhere in the galaxy was to survive and/or thrive if dropped onto that planet, with a particular focus on sentient lifeforms for obvious reasons. Classes 1-5 were called ‘gardenworlds’ and were those were you could generally expect most, if not all living things, practically regardless of their origin, to do just fine unassisted. Classes 6-10 were called ‘roughworlds’ and were those where most beings could live with the help of protective equipment and a relatively select few could stay unassisted for long periods of time. Anything above Class 10 was called a ‘deathworld’ and the Feddies didn’t want anything to do with them. Somehow, Earth had ended up being labeled as one of these deathworlds because it had what the GF considered ‘exceedingly strong gravity’ and ‘extremely hostile native flora and fauna’. With how ridiculous that sounded, we just tended to label anything below Class 10 a gardenworld and call it a day, much to the annoyance of Federation members everywhere.
When everyone was settled, I began explaining the mission parameters, both the bits and pieces I had already read through and the details that I would mostly be finding out along with the crew.
“Alright people, as you’ve heard, we will be leaving this rock by the end of the day.” I had to pause for a second to allow the more riled up crew members to do a quick cheer, but a glare quickly sent a message that I no longer had to say aloud: ‘This is serious time, and it will be treated as such.’ When everyone was quiet, I continued. “This new mission will be taking us to investigate GF-C7-89573, a gardenworld owned collectively by the Galactic Federation, home to an indigenous species that look like what you would get if you stacked a slug on top of a pillbug, which is why the eggheads back home have taken to calling them…” At this I had to stop, do a double take, and sigh “…pillslugs.”
I had no choice but to allow the faint giggles and chuckles that emanated from the dozen people seated in front of me, my own reaction not having been dissimilar. It was when I caught Sarah’s whispered “Well, that’s an image…” that I had to put a stop to the antics before the briefing could be derailed any further.
“As far as we’ve been able to tell, these creatures are eusocial, and communicate by sending electrical signals through the slime they coat their dens with. They have poor senses, but are always surrounded by a number of Guardians, each possessing wildly different traits to each other and are highly aggressive and dangerous, to be treated as though they originated from a world several classes higher. Now…” I said, finally getting to the meat of the infodump “…What’s really strange about these beings and the reason why we are even bothering to investigate them in the first place, is that this species, previously thought to be non-sapient, have –seemingly overnight and unaided– launched a tree into orbit.”
You could hear a pin drop in the room as everyone processed that information and reached the same conclusion: Foul play was afoot. Someone was trying to exploit these creatures in some way and doing a poor job of hiding it, meaning they were either really confident or really stupid.
“As you can imagine, the GF wanted someone to investigate, and as Class 12 deathworlders,” When I finished saying that word, I was interrupted, something that rarely happens, by William Carter, who felt the need to loudly exclaim “You mean Galactic badasses…” He trailed off in shame before he could finish that comment, so I continued with the brief. “…The GF determined that we would be the most suitable to safely look into this development. Be aware, though, that they did this reluctantly, after having sent their own teams, which all failed to report back.”
Once again, silence, you could practically hear the gears in everybody’s head turning in unison, as of the two previous hypotheses, that whoever’s doing this is either confident or stupid, the latter was immediately wiped out by how competently they had prevented outside powers from meddling in their affairs after being found out, and now the situation clearly didn’t add up.
While everyone brainstormed, I, who had already been privy to this bit of information, was making other calculations in my head, namely, who I’d be taking with me to investigate and who would be left behind to man the mothership and rescue us in case of an emergency.
I’m definitely going to need a chemist, xenobiologist, and scout, and some heavy weapons would be nice, given the state of the previous groups dispatched to investigate. Alex is unmatched in that regard, and if I don’t want to mix squads, then my sub-captain should be Curt, who is also a scout specialist. Besides, I don’t want William possibly in charge of first contact after that comment, so I guess it’s settled.
It turns out that when you stick 13 people in a tiny house and seriously limit the amount of time they can spend outside, you either get a new found family or multiple murders, and very rarely something in between. This case had been one of the rare exceptions, since while everybody tried to make it work as best they could, in the end, two different groups were formed, each tightly knit with several platonic and romantic relationships within them, but also constantly rubbing the other group the wrong way, which led to them avoiding each other as a sort of professional courtesy, with me being the only one able to freely interact with both.
Silencing the murmurs going around about the new information, I went on to finish the briefing. “Alright, we will be anchoring to and infiltrating the tree in orbit with a docking pod. I want Curt, Alex and Alice with me when we get in. Per standard protocol, I’ll also be taking a chemist, engineer and navigator with me. You are free to fill these positions as you see fit, but I’m guessing…”
“ “ SQUAD LOVEBIRDS-1 READY FOR ACTION “ “ Half the assembled people cheered, while the remaining half could only groan in frustration at having to spend more time locked up while everyone else got to have fun possibly making first contact with secretive beings that may or may not be hostile.
“Alright, that is all, remember that standard protocol is that we are to record our memories with the transcriber, and log them should anything go wrong. Any questions?”
“Ugh, that thing always gives me a headache.” Alex groaned, to which Curt responded without missing a beat “Well, that’s because it needs an actual brain to work, or are you afraid we’re gonna find out you are juicing?”
At that, with an evil glint in his eye, Alex coldly responded “Well, there’s that, but there’s also a bunch of other things I’ve done that I specifically want to be there to see your face when you find out.”
NOPE. Nonono, Not touching that, this briefing is now over.
“Alright!” I interrupted before we were all cursed with forbidden knowledge. “If that is all, you are dismissed! Navigators, plot a course to our destination!”