In the PuddleJumper

Headed to Communications Station Impact Site

Johns sat with Rick, Raimes, Sara, and a team of eight security personnel in the cramped puddlejumper transport ship when the probes began sending their data back to his terminal. The whole team was clad in their bulky environment suits, which were always worn when venturing out of the stations on Kazi. The suits were once white but years of baking in the Kazian sun had turned them an old mustard color.

The air was breathable. Not perfect. A little oxygen-rich for humans. But damn close to Earthlike compared to most planets in the Ring Network. You could take your helmet off and you’d probably survive. For a while, anyway. But our immune systems weren’t built to handle foreign exposure. You might survive a half-hour walk through the jungle, but eventually, something would get to you that would make your body go haywire. If someone were to track something truly vicious back into one of the stations, there could have been thousands dead before they knew what happened. The whole planet could be wiped out. It was a lesson that had been hard-earned in the earliest days of the Ring Gate Network

Unless you were in a station, domed city, or on one of the few planets with a vaccine regimen effective enough to make the open-air livable, environment suits were just a fact of life. Even then, many still opted to wear environment suits outside of structures.

Even though this puddlejumper was as uncomfortable as any that he had ever been on, the truth was that Johns was happy to get out of Kazi Depot. In the hours after the impact, things had been bad. Their medical bays were stretched far too thin. Broken arms and legs were being reset in the hospital hallways. Luckily they had a strangely healthy stockpile of bone regrowth medication. Seven people had been trampled to death, including a child, and all in the smaller offshoot corridors.

Johns pulled up a video and opened a packet of data that began displaying on the puddlejumper’s dual wall displays, directly in front of the crew. Five video feeds, each from a different probe, displayed in quadrants across the wall. It only took a few seconds for Johns to feel the knot in his stomach cinch down.

The feeds showed various locations around the Communications Station site, or at least where the station had once been. Now, it was nothing more than heaps of smoking rubble. The object’s impact site was clearly visible toward the Northern end of the structure, with what appeared to be a deep crater at the point of impact. The northern side was destroyed. Completely. The southern side seven-story structure had collapsed in on itself. Fires burned out of control throughout the heap, fueled by the oxygen-rich Kazian environment.

A probe swung down near the landing pad. It was gone, completely unrecognizable, and covered in what appeared to be insulation. The small station that had stood next to the landing pad was eviscerated as well. Another probe that had ventured closer to the impact site showed stacks of rubble taller than two stories, with a weird blue hue emanating from the areas closest to the impact.

“What is that blue color?” Alan asked.

“I have no idea,” Johns said.

They stared in silence, with the whirr of the puddlejumper’s engine as it skirted above the jungle canopy as a backdrop. Johns knew they all were on the same page — this wasn’t a rescue mission anymore. There would be no survivors. Maybe some poor saps were stuck down there in a bubble underneath the tons of concrete and steel, but they would have no way to get to them. Especially with the landing pad gone. Some of those slabs of concrete would weigh multiple thousand pounds. What a way to go.

The probes hung high. On all sides, as far as the eye could see, were lush green forests surrounding the station. Where the station had been were giant twisted piles of gray cement and steel. The faint blue color covered about a quarter of the surface area of the rubble as if someone had taken a paintbrush and coated the entire area in a single coat of a glowing translucent blue.

“Any ideas?” Johns asked Sara.

She shook her head.

“No. Maybe a chemical reaction of some kind. Or what the impact left behind.”

A few minutes later the pilot came over the coms channel into their environment suit helmets, letting them know that the landing pad had in fact been destroyed and that they were going to have to hot drop in.

“What’s a hot drop?” Sara had asked. Johns detected a bit of panic in her voice.

“The pilot will take us as close to the ground as he can, and we will take turns sliding down a rope to the surface.”

Sara’s eyes widened.

“No. I can’t do that. I never have—” she said.

“Yes, you can.” Johns cut her off. “It’s not difficult. You’ll go right behind me, latched onto me. You won’t fall.”

Sara nodded faintly and stared down at her lap. Johns could see that she was terrified, the poor thing. He didn’t blame her. She didn’t wake up this morning expecting to have aliens fall out of the sky then to jump out of a puddlejumper.

Johns beat his fist against his chest twice and the team lined up at the back of the ship. Sara awkwardly moved into position behind him. The pilot came over the intercom and informed them that he was going to drop them into a clearing about a mile from the station. It was a small clearing, so he was going to have to hover above the forest canopy. Johns knew that this meant that their hot drop was going to be from quite high, but decided it was best not to tell Sara. A few minutes later, Johns felt the ship come to a stabilized hover over a small patch of grass more than sixty feet below them.

“Hatch opening,” the pilot said into their helmet coms.

The back of the plane began to open, exposing the sky and thick forest below them. It stretched deep into the horizon until the green met the pale grey-blue of the sky. The puddlejumper sat motionless, its solar engine bursting wind from the horizontal and vertical turbines on either side of the plane.

The thick forest canopy didn’t allow for a view of the ground anywhere besides the small patch they had identified just below them. It had been a while since he had an opportunity to see something like this. Usually, he traveled between stations through the train system.

Despite the situation, his view of the forest was a momentary vacation from the metal corridors of Kazi Depot and its connected stations. Kazi Depot, at over 30 miles away, was too far to make out.

Sara made eye contact, her hesitation palpable. Johns used his HUD’s eye-tracking features to switch his environment suit coms to broadcast only to Sara.

“Don’t worry. It’s not as dangerous as it looks. Even if you fall, you’ll be hooked to me.”

Sara nodded, but Johns could tell that he wasn’t helping much. Maybe he shouldn’t have mentioned that falling was a possibility. He switched his the group com channel.

“Alright everyone, remember, we don’t know what is out there. Get to the ground, take cover, be ready. We’ll get our supplies ready, then we have a one-mile hike to the station. Play this like we have an unidentified live threat, even if we have no reason to suspect one now.” Johns said, and he watched as their environment suit helmets nodded.

The man at the front of the line hooked a long, dense rope to a hook at the back of the puddlejumper and dropped it out of the hatch toward the ground below. With no hesitation, he hooked his fastener to it, grabbed the rope, and slid down out of sight. A few seconds later the man behind him followed. Then Raimes and Rick. Then the next. Sara and Johns were the last to go. He switched to a private channel with Sara to speak with her while he latched a secure line between them.

“We only have about 10 feet between us, so we are going to slide down together. Like this.”

Johns demonstrated the correct way to hold onto the rope, wrapping his legs and arms around and gesturing with the rest of his body to stay loose.

“I’ll go first and set the speed. Wrap your legs around the rope, loosen your grip and slide. If you go too fast, tighten up to slow down. Now grab on,” he told Sara as he wrapped himself around the rope and slid down a few feet, giving her enough room to grab a hold with the environment suit’s gloves. “Don’t look down. Keep your eyes on the rope and think about holding on tight. We’ll be down in about five seconds flat.”

Sara nodded reluctantly.

“Now!” Johns yelled.

He pushed off from the puddlejumper and out the open hatch in the back. He began rapidly descending toward the grass field below them. He watched for a split second, waiting for Sara to do the same. But she never did. Johns slid until he reached the end of their connection rope and braced for impact. He felt the tug of the rope reverberate throughout his body and watched as Sara was pulled, face first, out of the hovering ship. She fell right past him.

Johns almost let go as Sara reached the end of their connection line with a thud and hung. She screamed into the coms channel, ringing throughout Johns’ helmet.

“Fuck!”

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He felt himself be pulled faster along the rope, gaining momentum with Sara’s added weight pulling quickly toward the ground below. His left hand slipped off as Sara’s weight pulled at his environment suit’s harness. Not far behind it, he could feel his right hand slipping too. As they descended, Sara grabbed onto the main rope below him and pulled herself in, beginning her own slide and reducing the pull against them.

Still, they were falling too fast. Johns squeezed the rope with his gloved hands, trying to apply enough friction to slow them down, but was keenly aware of the fact that they were running out of space.

He squeezed with every bit of strength that he could muster, until it felt like the friction from the rope might tear through his gloves.

Thud.

Johns hit the ground directly beside Sara, his environment suit taking the brunt of the force. Sara moaned through their private channel. He laid on his back, staring up at the tops of the trees that surrounded the clearing. The puddlejumper hovered about one-hundred feet above. That hadn’t gone as planned.

“You alive?” he said without looking away. The rope disappeared as the pilot pulled it from the back of the ship above.

“Yes,” she said meekly.

“Good. Let’s not do that again.”

“That would be nice,” Sara said.

When he switched his coms back to the main group channel, Johns was greeted by the entire team laughing hysterically. Rick stood above him, looking him in the face through his visor.

“You still kickin’ in there boss?” he asked.

“Always, shithead,” Johns said, grabbing Rick’s hand and pulling himself to his feet with a groan. The group’s laughter echoed throughout his environment suit’s helmet.

They took a few minutes to get their bearings, and then made their plan. Because the thick Kazi jungle was likely going to be very difficult to walk through, they had brought along several machetes to help them cut through the brush. They would have to chop quickly. Due to the oxygen-rich atmosphere, plants on Kazi had evolved to grow back very quickly, sometimes reaching full capacity growth within a few short hours after being cut back.

They decided that the leading man would chop away at the dense vegetation, and the others would follow behind keeping a close eye out for any movement in the trees. They didn’t expect any problems, but Kazi’s animal kingdom was filled with predators. They mostly left humans alone, but could always pose a threat if they weren’t on their toes. The conversations they had about those predators had once again made Sara noticeably uncomfortable. It was her first week on the planet. Here she is traipsing through the jungle, on the lookout for reptile-like beasts that run as fast as cheetahs.

From the moment they set out, Johns could see the thick smoke being pumped into the air from the impact site. Had he not been in his environment suit, he was sure that the smell would be just as thick. The closer that they got, the hazier the air around them became. A smoky haze hung visibly in the jungle, most evident where the light cut through the dense forest.

The cut through the jungle went about as smooth as Johns could have hoped. An hour and a half after they had first set out they saw the first views of what was left of the Communications Station through the trees.

They exited the forest on the south side of the station, which was in ruins but had clearly not been as close to the impact point as the Northern side. Various corners, arches, and steel beams were still standing, poking out of the devastation below.

They followed the collapsed walls toward the impact site. The closer that they got, the more the bluish hue enveloped the rubble. From a distance, it appeared to be some form of thick liquid — like liquid metal. A thin fog settled above it, giving the air above the ground a blue mist-like quality.

“When we get to the impact site, don’t touch anything. Especially that blue shit. Even in your environment suit. It doesn’t look like we have any chance of finding anyone alive in this mess, so we’re going to take some pictures, grab some samples, and get to the extraction point as quickly as we can.”

“Yes sir,” Rick replied, the sarcasm in his voice was notable. Johns didn’t mind too much, but at times Rick’s attitude could border on insubordinate. Johns was much more laid back these days, but he did wish that Rick wouldn’t pull his bullshit while something as serious as this was going on.

A few minutes later, as they reached areas of the building that had been completely leveled, they saw their first up-close signs of the mysterious blue liquid. It was a thick, mucous-like material that coated the outside of several plants and concrete chunks at the outskirts of the impact site. It gave off a strange blue hue that glowed slightly. Sara had looked toward Johns to see if she should collect some samples, but he had pointed ahead to signal that he wanted her to wait a bit.

The closer that they got to the impact site, the thicker and more frequent the blue goo became. It also appeared to be moving. But not in the way that a living creature would move, more as if someone had shaken a bowl of gelatin. Every plant, scrap heap, and giant slab of the building started to become increasingly drenched in the material. In several places, fires were still burning among the broken station shell.

As they approached the northern side of the building, they could see a giant mound of brown dirt in the distance. It looked as if it had cut right through the communications station itself. It stood at least thirty feet high above the rest of the wreckage, curving around the area where the gymnasium had once been.

The farther they walked, the more difficult it became to avoid stepping on the blue goo that dripped from the surfaces around them. As they approached the mound, they had to play a weird game of hopscotch, touching down in areas that the goo didn’t cover. From the forest, Johns heard a loud yelping noise that he identified to be from a Marmak, a cougar-like creature with scales that inhabited Kazi.

Soon, they began to run out of room to step. Johns looked back at the crew to find that several had been stranded as far as 25 yards behind him, having walked into a location where the goo could no longer be avoided. They doubled-back to see if they could find a better route. Ahead of him, he saw some open patches that he thought he might be able to get to. He may even be able to make it to the top of the mound and see what was on the other side.

“Alright, that’s far enough boys,” Johns said to the group. “Everyone fall back to the perimeter where the blue goo isn’t as thick. Half of you keep walking farther down the perimeter and see if you see anything. The other half take up defensive position on the treeline. Sara, you collect any samples that you think might be relevant. I’m going to make my way to the top of the hill here and see what’s what on the other side,” Johns said.

A few of the men nodded and made their way toward the treeline. Sara bent down, unhooked her backpack from her environment suit, and took out several sample kits. With precision, she opened the kit, bent down, and used a spoon-like device to scoop globs of the blue mucous into a collection container. She took her time, scooping small amounts, making sure that she didn’t smear any on the outside of the container, before turning the lid closed and placing it in a sealed bag.

Johns started hopscotching his way up the side of the hill. The farther he went, the fewer goo-less spots there were for him to step. On one leap, he wasn’t completely sure that he was going to make it without landing right in it. He imagined a terrible death where the goo ate through the feet on his environment suit and then started making their way up his legs.

Knowing full well that he couldn’t bring that back on the transport ship, he would have to strip down and leave his environment suit behind, which carried its own risks. The crew would have to remain in their environment suits throughout the flight, and then they would all need to follow hazmat procedures outside of Kazi Depot upon their return. Then, likely, Johns would go into a month-long quarantine, with rigorous antiviral regimens, until he either died or was allowed back amongst the public. With the current situation, he couldn’t afford to be locked up for a month.

He continued carefully, hopping his way toward the top of the mound. With each new leap, he could see more smoke rising into the air from the wreckage beyond. With one last leap, he reached a point where he was able to see over the top.

He felt that knot in his stomach cinch down once again. It wasn’t so much that he saw something that he wasn’t expecting. It was the vastness of the devastation before him that took him by surprise. As it turned out, the large mound of dirt had been the outer rim of the crater that had formed around the impact site. It stretched perhaps a half-mile across, with the dirt mound running in a circle around the crash site, cutting through the middle of the building. Inside the crater, the land looked as if the entire area had been lowered by the blast compared to the land outside of the crater ring.

Everything in the crash site was an even worse state than the areas of the building that had been outside of the crater. There, you could still make out support beams and portions of the building that had burned and collapsed onto themselves.

Inside the crater, Johns could barely tell that a structure had been there at all. There were no fires, and every inch of the crater was covered in the thick blue goo. It occurred to Johns that none of the goo itself was on fire, but he could see charred barren pieces of concrete and wondered if those had been spots of goo that had burned away. He captured some video through his helmet cam and transferred it back to Command.

The heaviness of the air was apparent within the crater, where the blue mist that rose out of the blue goo was much thicker. The ground was so blue, that Johns thought that it resembled a swamp.

Johns enabled the camera in his helmet and used his eyes to tell the user interface to broadcast the image to his team.

“Holy hell,” one young officer said.

“Wow.”

“Jesus Christ with tits,” Rick exclaimed. “What the hell is that blue shit?”

“I have no damn clue,” Johns said. “Any idea, Sara?”

“Not sure. Could be the remains of the creature that crashed here. Could be some sort of growth.”

“Remains, you mean like this blue shit is its guts and blood?” Rick said.

“Exactly. It could be. We really won’t know much of anything until we get it back to the lab. ”

“Growth? what do you mean by growth?”

“Well...I think we have to entertain the idea that the creature that crashed here was a seed. If it was able to fly through space, certainly it’s instincts would not tell it to crash land into a planet unless there was a purpose for it. It’s entire purpose might have been to spread this...thick mucus-like material,” Sara said.

“Great,” Johns said with a sigh. “For now, the working theory is that this shit is its guts strewn all over. Just because that is what I want to believe. Do you have enough samples?”

“Yes, I couldn’t find anything else to bring back aside from samples of the material from a few different locations.”

“Alright, sounds good. I’m heading back down the hill. Let’s get away from this blue goo”

“Is that what we’re calling it now? Blue goo?” Rick interjected.

Johns smiled. “Good of a name as any, I suppose.”

The group that had walked farther ahead was just arriving back at the defensive position when Johns arrived at the treeline. They said had walked about a mile farther but had only seen more of the same.

Johns contacted the pilot, who agreed to pick them up in about an hour’s time at the same spot he had dropped them off at.

When they reached the jungle path that they had cut on their way to the crash site, Johns was disheartened to see that much of the vegetation had already grown back. Not fully, but by the time they reached the end of their trail it would be like they were chopping their way through the forest for the first time. He had expected to have a few more hours. It made for slow going, and eventually, the entire team was forced to help cut through the brush to ensure they were able to get out before sundown.

When they reached the extraction point, Sara was happy to see that the pilot sent down a basket from the hovering ship, picking each member of the team up one by one. Johns chuckled to himself as he wondered if she had expected that she was going to have to climb back up.