Leon’s sweat ran in rivulets down his face and neck, pooling in the hollows of his shoulders as he exerted himself. His undershirt was soaked and his legs burned as he made another lap around the gym’s short track. He could have used one of the machines, but he liked to feel like he was actually getting somewhere. On occasion when the rest of the crew was busy he sometimes ran in the main corridor of the ring itself. But he tried to avoid it as the path was narrow and he was likely to run into somebody most days.
He shook his head, his hair flinging tiny droplets of moisture that were absorbed by the firm antimicrobial foam of the floor. He looked at his wrist, the CAMs device strapped there doing more than acting as a communications device. It also monitored his vitals and kept track of his pace.
He checked his time, eight minutes and forty seven seconds on his last mile. He smiled. “Not too bad old man.” he gasped to himself, his breaths coming in heavy pants that he was matching to the beat of his feet upon the ground. He kept his arms close to his body, his experience of running track and cross country as a youth doing him justice.
As focused as he was he failed to notice the door opening and another person entering the room. He was jolted out of his running trance by a cool voice calling out to him. “Heck, if we need to run from anything I certainly know who to call.”
He looked over and then huffed in mild annoyance, it was Aden. The short biologist wasn’t wearing anything resembling exercise clothing and so Leon assumed he had been looking for him.
He returned the comment, “And if we need.. anyone to tell us the.. likely clade of aliens we find.. we will be sure to call.. you.” Leon panted out as he continued to run.
Aden shook his head and walked a few more paces into the room before taking a seat on one of the exercise benches near the edge of the track. Leon stumbled to a halt and leaned forwards, resting his hands on his knees as he sucked in deep breaths. As he recovered he could see Aden looking at him with the expression of a man that was unsure of what to say.
Leon stared up at the man, feeling as if he had something to say but not sure what the man could possibly want.
Aden wrung his hands and then stood, causing Leon to do the same. The shorter man had to tilt his head up slightly to look into Leon’s eyes. “Chris said he spoke to you. About what we found?” His nervous demeanor didn’t change but his voice seemed to harden with resolve as he spoke.
Leon nodded warily. It wasn’t exactly the topic he was the most excited to talk about. He ran a hand through his damp hair, flicking it to the side, the droplets of accumulated sweat scattering upon the floor to his side as he looked back at Aden. “Yes, and I told him that we needed to be one-hundred-percent sure of these results before we even dared to give them to the rest of the crew.”
Aden nodded, his feet shuffling as he flexed his knees. “Yes, I know. And we are, well.. sort of.” Leon raised an eyebrow, the implied question so obvious that he didn’t even have to ask it. Instead Aden put up his hands in a placating gesture. “Yes, yes. We are still sequencing the genome, and to be perfectly honest I might have overreacted at first. We have found significant discrepancies, but even so the similarities are staggering if not outright damning.” He looked set to continue so Leon preempted his further remarks with a simple question.
“Aden, if we were back on Earth would you feel comfortable releasing these results in their current completeness to the general scientific community. Especially knowing the importance of their meaning and the potential chaos it could cause?” Leon watched the man’s face intently.
Aden opened and closed his mouth several times as he attempted to reciprocate. Finally the brown eyed man nodded as if in defeat. “No. I would not.”
Leon took a step towards him and placed a comforting hand on the man's shoulder. Aden gave him a half smile as Leon tried to reassure him, “I am not saying to give up. Nor am I saying that I don’t think you should be pursuing this. Now I will be the first to freely admit that I find the idea both terrifying and awe inspiring, but it is for that reason explicitly that I want to be so sure. Don't give up, I have the utmost faith in your ability to get to the bottom of this.” Aden nodded appreciatively and Leon smiled. This was what being the captain meant, not giving orders and delegating tasks. But being the one that others came to in confidence, being that pillar of trust that the crew could cling to.
He removed his hand and slapped the man on the other shoulder in a playful manner. “Alright, now that we are over the hard stuff, how goes the work with Myung on those new spices?” Myung had managed to convince the brass to allow them to bring various seed types for future cultivation before they had left Earth and she had slowly been introducing them into the hydroponics section over the last two years. With several portions of the ring now as verdant on the floor as in the trays, she had been experimenting with gardening in several ways.
With the extra soil that the composters were always producing and the filtered waste from the bioreclamation tanks, there was no shortage of nutrient rich base to plant them in. Their main issue was always water reserves. As the water was recycled over and over it would eventually begin to evaporate into the rest of the ship. As much as the system was a closed circuit, there was always loss. Mainly through the reactor coolant and the warp drive radiators.
Aden nodded to the comment, seemingly not noticing Leon’s momentary lapse in concentration. “It has been going well. Several of the seed forms didn’t take properly, but with some cutting and grafting I believe we have been able to save the hardiest specimens. Soon we may be eating spinach and basil, and I for one am excited for the prospect.”
Leon nodded, he was as well. They did well with the limited menu they had, but variety was the spice of life as the saying went. And with their limited variety he was sorely missing the many flavors he had once taken for granted back on Earth.
Aden said something else about getting some exercise and Leon nodded to him. “Alright, the gym’s all yours. I was just finishing up anyway. See you Aden.” He gave the man a thumbs up as he started towards the door.
Aden returned the gesture and walked towards one of the stepper machines as Leon reached the door to the gym. It sighed open before him and he soon found himself in front of his room. He entered in the personal code and stepped inside.
He looked around but the room was empty, Natalia must still be working on something. Probably over in the sixth ring with Myung and Joice. He stripped out of his sweaty underclothes and threw them into the dehumidifying hamper next to the bathroom door. He groaned as he stretched his sore muscles and then proceeded to take a quick shower, setting the water to cold to soothe his muscles.
He emerged from the brief shower tingling and feeling like a new man. He dressed and checked his CAMs device, they were completely waterproof and he had elected to simply wear it in the shower. It was none the worse for wear, like usual. It was nearly noon and so Leon decided an early lunch would be his next priority.
He was excited to test out Joice’s newest experiment. After her last few attempts at baking with their more non-standard ingredients had gone well, she had tried making bread without using any of their dwindling wheat reserves. Instead she had used something called quinoa flour, Leon shook his head as walked along the gently curving hall towards the galley. He hadn’t even heard of the feisty little grain before this mission, and now it was ending up in everything. Now admittedly, it was pretty good, the grain had been one of several major grain crops to survive the collapse and over the last few hundred years had become a staple in many different parts of the world.
All this meant was that now Leon could have a toasted sandwich without feeling too guilty about using up a limited resource. And from what Joice said about the stuff it was just as good if not better for their diets than regular wheat.
Not for the first time Leon wished that they had chickens or cows on the ship. While he understood why such high maintenance critters had been left at home, it was still a bummer that he had no good red meat options to layer into his culinary experiment. So instead he chose some leftover baked tilapia with fresh tomato and cabbage. Onto the bread he spread a thin layer of what they were calling mayonnaise. But without eggs it was a poor substitute in his own opinion, still, it was far better than nothing and didn’t taste half bad.
He grabbed a prepackaged chocolate protein nutrient bar from one of the undercounter boxes on his way to his seat. A glass of vegetable juice finished his feast and he took a large bite with a satisfied noise.
The bread wasn’t quite as fluffy as pure wheat bread would have been, feeling a little less like a cloud and more like biting into loamy soil. But the taste was quite pleasant and he appreciated the fresh vegetables. He washed down the terrific bite with the fresh vegetable juice, the taste of carrots and several other healthy juices pairing well with the meal.
Leon shook his head and smiled. It was a far cry from the simple stews and casseroles that they had started out the trip with. Sure back then they hadn’t been rationing their non-renewable food stocks nearly as much, but the greater variety of dishes made up for the narrower range of flavors in his mind.
He finished the sandwich and juice, starting on the protein bar as he cleared his place. The coarse chewy snack reminded him of Earth. It was one of the dwindling stocks left from home, but one that was well and truly appreciated.
The warm yet slightly bitter taste of chocolate covered his tongue as he polished off the protein bar. After a hard morning of exercise he had been ravenous. It was necessary though, the rotating habitat rings of the Leif Erikson only produced about seventy percent of Earth’s gravity. While this was more than enough to keep them from experiencing the total bone density loss and muscle atrophy of zero gravity it was not enough to keep them in top condition. For that they needed to exercise a lot.
Dr. Kimathi and Oliver were generally very strict on their exercise regimes, it fluctuated depending on what kind of activity the crew member wanted to engage in, but it was all generally quite intense cardiovascular activities on a semi-weekly basis.
Leon didn’t mind it too much. He had already been in decent shape before the onset of the mission and the few months of training before launch had helped to iron out any remaining kinks.
He pocketed the protein bar’s wrapper and then checked his CAMs device. They were scheduled to exit warp early the next morning, always something that he liked to be prepared for. He walked down the main hallway of the habitat ring in his soft soled shoes. The gentle upwards curve of the ring making him feel as though he were walking up a hill despite his feet insisting he was on level ground. He thought over all that Aden had said one more time, it was a truth that didn’t need rash action. They needed to proceed with utmost caution, if what the man was saying was true then it meant that everything that Leon had accepted as reality was a lie. Or at the very least, not the truth as he had come to see it.
Entire civilizations had collapsed when their previously held beliefs of life and their place in existence had come crumbling down. He didn’t want to be responsible for another such event in microcosm aboard their ship. He put it out of his mind, no sense worrying about things he had no control over. That would simply lead down the road of stress and anxiety.
The rest of the day passed quickly and without incident. Leon slept and woke feeling much refreshed, his mind clear of the dark stain that sometimes infused it like a dark cloud. He followed his normal morning routine before making his way to the bridge of the UNSS Leif Erikson.
As he drifted through the airlock and donned his voidsuit he again noted the stunning lack of adornment upon the walls of the room. It was clinical and bare except for the profusion of monitors and screens. Only the great shuttered windows of the main viewing are breaking up the general monotony of the space.
‘As jolly as a hospital.’ He muttered silently in his own mind. While the room was not in need of tidying up, it could perhaps benefit from some manner of homey touches. A poster or two for motivation he mused. He immediately suppressed the idea. Nothing was quite as grim as seeing one of those black border pseudo-motivational posters blanketing otherwise perfectly non offensive blank spaces.
He had to crack a smile at the thought of Sabine’s reaction if he were to print off and apply one of those terrible ‘Hang in there.’ posters with the small kitten on one of the walls near her station. He was sorely tempted in that moment to do it, but his train of malicious intent was derailed as the door opened once more to admit a pair of figures in grey overalls.
It was Terry and Taylor, the young couple were the ships main astrophysicist and communications specialist respectively. They were leaning close together and talking rapidly in hushed tones. Leon gave them a friendly wave as they looked his way. The motion sending him spinning lazily through the air as he neglected to hold onto a nearby railing.
“Aww, damn it.” He muttered as he flailed around in the middle of the air, far too slow to reach one of the handholds effectively but similarly unable to keep himself from drifting further away into the main part of the room. He felt all at once helpless and panicked, the deep responses of his brain to the stimuli of falling shocking his system like a blast of cold water to the face.
He heard a snicker and turned his head to see who it was. Sabine was giggling at his plight, one of her gloved hands covering her mouth as she tried and failed to suppress her amusement. He seemed to be slowly drifting in her direction, his speed like unto that of a snail or starfish as he gradually floated closer.
He grunted as he flailed around again, trying to grab onto something, anything, before he reached her. He swore under his breath as all he succeeded in doing as turning himself fully upside down as he drifted within arms reach of the young woman.
“Hello Leon, good to see you up and about. Do you, uh, need a hand?” she asked, again failing to suppress a chuckle as she reached out towards him.
Leon wanted to say no, to posture that he was in control of the situation, but he was pragmatic enough to admit when he needed help. “Yeah, a hand would be terrific.” he mumbled sourly.
She giggled again as she grabbed his reaching arm and swung him one-hundred-and-eighty degrees, his feet touching down on the floor. The slight thud of his weighted boots reverberated through his suit.
He activated the magnets in them with a single button press and nodded to her. “Thanks. I was a bit adrift I suppose.”
She just smiled.
Leon gave her a small grin in return and slowly worked his way back to his command chair. It was only a few meters away, but the slow pace of his magnetic boots made it feel as though it were many times that. He could have deactivated them and pulled himself over to the chair with ease, but he didn’t want to risk floating off again. How embarrassing would that be if he needed rescuing twice in a single morning.
By the time he had situated himself upon his command throne the entirety of the bridge crew had shown up, as well as Dr. Kimathi. He raised an eyebrow at her as she slipped into one of the seats near the periphery of the room.
“Hello, Blessing?” Leon nodded her way, the inquiring tone of his voice giving root to the question he wanted to ask.
She picked up on his interrogative manner immediately as she responded in kind. “Yes, Leon?”
He let it go. She didn’t have any active duties on her roster this morning and there was no real reason why she couldn't be on the bridge. It was highly irregular, but not unprecedented. If she was on the bridge then she either had good reason to be that wasn’t any of his business or she was just looking to see what they were dealing with in this new system first hand.
Thinking of their soon to occur warp translation made him frown. The sour look that crossed his face was full of distaste. If only there was some better method for breaking all known laws of physics and energy conservation, but warp travel seemed to be the way of the future. He let out a sigh as Samuel raised his voice to speak, his hoarse wiper barely audible from several meters away. “We are nearing the allotted translation point. T-minus ten minutes.”
Leon nodded. “Good. Alrighty, I want you all to be paying close attention. All we know about this system is that it has a dim G-Class main sequence yellow dwarf with at least two detected outer planets. We don’t know what is waiting in the inner system, so keep your eyes peeled for potential signals or signs of life.”
He hadn’t needed to say it, but he had wanted to set the tone. Dr. Kimathi’s presence making him feel strangely nervous. He was the absolute authority on the ship, in technical and command matters. Anything medical, health or otherwise wellness related was strictly her domain and he had no more power over her than a grape would have over a fruit salad.
He hunkered down in his chair for a moment, surprising himself as the yellow alert lights flashed on. ‘Has it already been five minutes?’ he asked himself silently. He looked around the room, the others seemed more or less prepared for the jump. He frowned as he saw Terry and Taylor leaning close together for support. Taylor looked like his normal apprehensive self, warp jumps were always hard on the man. His mind seemingly much more sensitive to the effects of warpshock than most of the others.
It was the deeply concerned look he was giving Terry that gave him pause. He cocked his head slightly and then cast a suspicious glance at Dr. Kimathi in the near corner of the room. Her focus was laser-locked on the pair, her dark eyes narrowed and her face impassive.
There was something more going on here, something involving Terry. He didn’t have any time to dwell on the matter at hand however as the flashing of the yellow alert lights marked imminent translation. He only had a second to suck in a deep breath before the universe flattened. Each millisecond passing like the pages of a book being flipped by in sequence. The smell of fresh strawberries and the sound of fluttering wings assaulted his raw consciousness for that brief eternity before reality was reasserted. He found himself coughing, doubled over as he expelled the breath that he had seemingly held for far too long, even though it had been but a moment.
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“Shit..” He swore aloud.
Joice sucked in a deep breath next to him and agreed. “Yeah, I second that. I hate that.”
Leon had enough presence of mind to glance towards Terry and Taylor. Again, he cocked his head as Taylor seemed to be comforting his wife. Usually it was the other way around. She was holding her stomach and looked to be a little sick, before he could ask anything he jerked as a grey blur shot past his vision. It was Dr. Kimathi, she had undone her restraints and settled in at the pair’s side with some words of encouragement and comfort.
Now everyone on the bridge was starting to notice that there was something decidedly odd going on. Sabine was craning her neck towards the odd sight and Samuel seemed similarly distracted. Leon shook his head, the mission was paramount. Not whatever was going on with Terry. He trusted Dr. Kimathi to look after her, to keep her healthy and notify him of any serious or threatening conditions.
He rolled his shoulders and tapped his computer. “Terry, when you are feeling better can I get a reading of the inner system. Sabine, how are the ship’s vital systems looking? Any more heat blooms on the outer plating?”
Sabine answered him first. Her normally bright voice was a little subdued. “Everything is reading a solid green, well, almost everything. The ablative panels on the outside of storage room sixteen are still showing suboptimal structural strength. I think the welds might be weakening again, Chad can go and EVA it if you want.” She turned from the whispering trio and looked towards Leon.
He gave her a nod. “Sure, we know how much he likes those.” he chuckled. That man had taken to space like a flea to a dog. “But hold off, we need to determine if the system is safe.” She nodded and turned back to her system reports.
Terry seemed to be better, Dr. Kimathi giving her one last muttered word of encouragement and then pulling herself back towards her seat. As she passed Leon she gave him a flat look that he responded to with a simple shrug. If it wasn’t his business then it wasn’t his business. One thing he had learned quickly was not to push people’s boundaries too hard when they had nowhere to run. When flight was no longer an option, fight was the only recourse. And he didn't need any more drama at the moment.
Leon watched as the ship’s telescopes turned to face the inner system, their powerful lenses filtering out background radiation, interstellar dust and the interference from the system’s star. A large bright object soon resolved itself on the screen. “Is that one of the outer giants?” he asked Terry.
She nodded, her face a bit more composed now after whatever her ordeal had been. “It looks to be about the size of Saturn, though given its brightness I would assume it has much more metal in its atmosphere than any of the planet’s in Sol’s system. Though it is hard to tell from this distance, the planet could simply be much bigger than I expected or perhaps has large rings that also add to the reflected light.” she stopped. “No, it’s not rings, I would have been able to resolve them dimly from this distance.” She continued on muttering to herself as the image slowly cleared. The telescopes gaining better focus as she trained them with the skill of a professional.
Soon the planet was in focus, its bright surface taking on a slight yellow tinge. Leon nodded in a satisfied manner. “Alright, can you do a sweep for inner system planets? Judging by what we have found in the past it is more likely than not that there will be a terrestrial world or two hanging about.”
Taylor shook his head suddenly. “I’m not detecting anything but standard solar emissions here Leon.”
Leon knew from previous experiences that that did not necessarily mean the system was a bust. They needed to take a closer look at the inner system. “Terry, keep scanning the inner system. Please notify me if you find anything promising.” He gave the woman a nod that she returned, her normally taciturn nature seemingly in full force as she kept her lips tightly sealed.
Leon watched the progress of the telescopes as the system was observed. He marveled at its sheer complexity, many of the systems they had visited in the past had been complex. Their profusion of comets, dwarf worldlets or asteroid belts all leading to ever more impressive displays of grandeur and majesty. But there was something to be said for the stark simplicity of this system, so like home in its layout and scope.
Several outer gas giants with a single super earth sized terrestrial world had already been spotted, the super earth was a frozen ball of inert rock though. No life could be possible on its void kissed surface. Of the three gas giants so far observed, only one was jovian in scale. The other large reflective one was saturnine in scale while the last was barely larger than Neptune. Its freezing blue atmosphere seemed composed of mostly elemental hydrogen and some other as of yet unidentified simple molecule.
He sighed quietly. He didn’t often admit it to himself, but there was a small part of his mind that missed home. True home, not his little villa in town, but the Earth. He sat up straighter in his seat as the telescopes seemed to hone in on yet another possible contact. The small bright point could have been nearly anything. A comet, a large asteroid or even a particularly dense patch of interstellar dust.
Terry didn’t seem to think so as she seemed to get excited. After another moment of silence she tapped Taylor on the shoulder and whispered something to him. Taylor nodded and Leon watched as he manipulated the main bridge viewscreen to show a small pale dot.
Leon leaned forwards and squinted. “It’s so fuzzy. Is there any way you could clear it up?”
Taylor glanced at his wife and then back to Leon. “No, not without getting a lot closer to the inner system. Which I begrudgingly recommend doing. I haven't seen or detected anything to suggest that there is any danger in the system. But I don’t know if we should jump directly to this object.” The man seemed a bit unsure. More so than was usual for him. Leon knew how much Taylor hated jumps, but there was more to it than that. He seemed almost afraid.
No, that wasn’t the case. Taylor was many things, but a coward was not one of them. It had to be related to Terry, maybe she was getting sick. She certainly had looked a bit paler the last few weeks, and from what he had heard she had been vomiting too. Leon had toyed with the idea of mandating masks for the crew, they couldn't afford an outbreak of sickness on the ship. He put two together and realised that was likely why Dr. Kimathi was monitoring her so closely. She wanted to prevent an outbreak.
He felt his already tremendous respect for the Chaddian woman rise slightly. She was always looking out for them and making sure they were well taken care of.
Samuel glanced his way as he relayed his orders. “We need to get closer then, Samuel, take us in..” he glanced at Terry. “Slowly.”
He caught a grateful glance from Taylor before the yellow alert lights slammed down, casting the bridge in a deep amber glow that seemed to flatten out the shadows and gild everything with an ominous pall.
The tension built till the lights flashed and the ship entered warp. For a femtosecond the barrier of reality was rent to tatters, exposing the crew to something other. This brief contact was enough to send madness surging through their minds, the impossible colors of infinity bearing down on their consciousness for an instant. In that instant Leon could have sworn he could taste the stale cookies he had left in the pantry of his home, their distinctly chocolaty taste lingering on his tongue even after the strange phenomenon subsided. And then minutes later they exited their jump, this time he tasted nothing. Instead he was greeted by the vision of some vast shining metal construct that seemed to ring a distant point of light, the structure so impossibly vast as to fail to register in his beleaguered mind.
Leon sucked in a heavy breath of air. He hated warp jumps.
“Report.” he croaked.
Taylor was shaking his head vigorously as Terry seemed to cry softly next to him. Sometime in the intervening time between the jump and him regaining awareness of his surroundings Dr. Kimathi had launched herself back to the couple’s side. She was talking to both of them in a soft voice.
Leon spoke up, hesitant to intervene but not wanting to cause the young woman any further distress. “Terry, if you are ill then you can take leave. I’m not going to force you to remain on the bridge if you are unwell.”
He frowned in concern as she seemed set to refuse, but then Taylor gripped her hand and nodded. “It’s okay Terry. I can watch the telescopes for you. You should go with Blessing.” He smiled as she nodded shakily.
Dr. Kimathi helped her unstrap and then nodded to Leon. As she helped Terry pass by she whispered to him, “Thank you Leon.” And then the two women were gone, the airlock hissing closed behind them. They had not even opted to remove their voidsuits before rushing off the bridge.
Leon felt concern for the young woman, she was his responsibility. But she was more, she was his family. He looked around the room, many of the faces peering back at him full of concern as well.
He gestured towards the front screens. “She will be fine, Blessing will take good care of her. She will be fine Taylor.” The man nodded at his words, though Leon had to admit he looked more worried than Leon would have liked.
“We need to get scopes back on the inner system. Taylor, if you would?” He shuffled uncomfortably in his restraints as the other man nodded. They would be fine, Leon knew that the man was simply worried about his wife. He needed a distraction, Leon intended to give him one.
“Sabine, what is the status of the warp drive?” Leon asked the auburn haired woman.
Sabine glanced over his way before replying a little carefully, “The warp drive appears to be cooled and charging. We would be able to warp again in about three more minutes if we needed too.”
Leon gave her a nod and turned to look back at the main viewscreens. The previously fuzzy picture of the planet they had so far discovered was resolving itself slowly as the telescopes focused on that distant point of light.
Another few minutes passed that he spent looking through their long range objects scanner. Their water supplies were full, but it never hurt to top them up if a handy comet happened to be nearby.
Taylor shook his head, the motion drawing Leon’s attention. “What is it?” He asked, a little apprehensive. Now was not really the time for something to go wrong.
The wide shouldered man gestured to his computer. “I don’t really know. I have a more resolved picture of the planet, but it looks wrong. It should be a pretty clear image but I can't get the lens to resolve the image clearly. I don't know these things as well as Terry does..” Leon watched the man trail off, his face becoming crestfallen as he clearly began to doubt himself.
Leon stepped in quickly. “Hey, I am sure it's just a calibration error with the telescopes. Easy enough to fix from what I have seen. Just do another range calculation and then account for the ship’s inherent vibration.”
He watched as the man did as he suggested, Joice gave him an encouraging word as well. Soon the main screen was showing the planet in question in much greater detail than even before.
Leon had to suppress his sudden desire to stand from his seat. The planet glittered like a gemstone, thousands of points of light refracting from its seemingly airless surface like nothing he had ever seen.
“What is that?” He heard himself mutter.
Taylor shook his head. “I don’t know. But if I had to guess then I would assume that there were some sort of formations on the surface that are fragmenting the incoming light and refracting it back towards us.”
Leon thought about it. It was possible, not likely but certainly something that was possible. But for that to occur over the entire surface of the planet? How unlikely was it, he had to wonder.
He must have spoken the last part aloud as Joice answered the question. “Well, given that we are looking at pretty clear evidence of something, I would say one-hundred percent.”
He chuckled. Leave it to Joice to be diplomatic in her response. “We need to get closer if we are to determine the exact nature of the formations. Samuel, would you..” He began to speak, but he was soon cut off by a worried Taylor.
“We can’t do that.. not yet.” Taylor spoke, his tone a little more than worried.
Sabine looked at Leon, her fingers poised over her keyboard. “I think that we can. What’s wrong Tayor? You still feeling a little woozy?” she asked the question genuinely, no malice in her tone. But Leon couldn't help but feel that she was prodding the other man slightly, trying to gauge his reaction.
It worked. Taylor’s face turning a darker shade of red than it had been before. The short haired man leaned forwards and to the side as if trying to escape its clutches. “Are you suggesting that I am unfit for duty?” The man’s poise was angry, his voice shaking slightly as his anger bled through.
Leon was a bit taken aback, what could possibly have the man in such a short temper? “Sabine, calculate an orbital path please. Samuel..” He glanced at the still fuming communications specialist before turning his attention back to Samuel. “Take us out into the black.” Taylor tensed but said nothing as the other young man nodded and began pressing a series of buttons. Leon tensed as Taylor opened his mouth to object but then relaxed as the other man decided against it.
Samuel seemed a bit at odds but nodded as Leon gestured for him to continue. “Full ahead Samuel, might as well get it over with. Taylor, there is no easy way to do a two light-hour hop. I recommend you hold onto yourself.”
Leon saw the man’s face turn a bit grey. Not for the first time he wondered what it was that the man saw when they jumped. Was it more horrific than the visions that commonly assailed his own senses? Maybe it was simply more intense for the younger man. Either way, he would likely never find out as it wasn’t something that he had ever heard the man offer to explain.
The ship jumped after a few minutes, quickly smashing through the intervening space between them and their target at impossible speeds. Before Leon’s gibbering mind even had time to make sense of the first jump the ship’s warp engines spooled down and they popped out of their protective even horizon into reality once more amid a burst of shimmering white light.
These lights fluttered like butterflies for but a moment before fizzling out as if they had never been. In that time Leon had gotten his brain put back together. He looked at the main viewscreen to see if they had gotten closer. They had indeed, much closer in fact.
The planet hung outside the ship, so close that he could actually see it through the armoured glass of the main windows. It was tiny, about the size of a marble held at arm's length, but even without it being magnified he could tell something about it was off. It was as if the image were blurry, indistinct. Whatever was on its surface splitting and refracting the light in such a way as to make the planet seem fuzzy.
Taylor groaned, his head in his hands as his pale face broke out in a sweat. Leon wished he knew of a better way to help the man, but he wasn’t exactly in any position to aid him. He needed to get the telescopes operational and targeted on the object that hung in that dark void outside. It took him but a moment to get them aimed in the right direction. He may not be as skilled in their fine tuning as Terry, but he had picked up the basics of their operation and it was with this limited knowledge that he began to show the first grainy, staticy images of the new world.
At first he wasn’t sure what he was looking at. The planet’s surface was irregular and jagged. Tall thin spires of strange colored rock were apparent everywhere. The largest of them must have been many times bigger than the kilometer tall skyscrapers he had seen on Earth. The planet seemed to be smaller than the Earth though, this must have been a contributing factor for what in all other appearances looked exactly like gigantic crystal columns and spires the size of city skylines.
The ship was close enough to resolve the surface in great detail. Leon could make out as many colors as the rainbow, there were blues and yellows, reds and greens. Smokey blacks and gold laced crystals that seemed to glow from within from this angle. He shook his hands, trying to grasp the scale of the sight and failing somewhat. He understood logically the size of the planet and how large the formations would have to be, but there was a difference between knowledge and understanding.
Joice leaned forwards in her seat as much as her creaking microgravity restraints would allow. “We should inform Chris. I think he would like to see this.”
Leon was compelled to agree. He messaged the man and left him a link to the live feed. If that failed to get Chris’ attention then nothing else he could think of would work better.
“How would something like this even happen?” Leon asked aloud, not to anyone in particular as he pondered aloud.
Sabine answered slowly, “Maybe if the entire planet had once been a hot ocean, then it could have acted as the perfect growth medium for millions of years.” She didn’t sound sure of her own speculation. “It’s how we used to grow synthetic emeralds in science class when I was in elementary school.” She seemed to reminisce for a minute, Leon taking the time to comment on the idea.
“Yes, it could have been possible. But what kind of dissolved levels of minerals would have been needed to grow to these extreme proportions..” He paused, thinking it over.
Samuel spoke up next, his hoarse whispering voice hardly louder than the ambient background noise of the bridge. “Yes, unless the world oceans were highly acidic, then they would likely have been able to dissolve the base rock leading to a more mineralised state. But that's just speculation..”
Leon just shrugged internally. It seemed as good an explanation as he was likely to get without sending a probe to the planet’s surface. “I don't think we are going to find out for sure.” He muttered just loud enough to be heard by the others.
Sabine objected immediately. “Yes we could. If we send a probe down to the planet, we could use its chemical lab to determine the composition of the crystals and underlying rock.”
Leon watched as Joice glanced at him. He just shook his head.
Joice looked at the image of the planet and then zoomed it in. “Yes, that is all well and good. But where would we land the probe? Because I am not seeing any major landmarks that look both flat and unobstructed enough to land.” Sabine opened her mouth but Joice just continued, “I am sure there are patches in the crystal, but think about it. This planet is clearly interesting, but does it harbor the potential for life to exist?”
Sabine was silent. Leon hated telling her that she couldn't perform the one task that she felt most qualified for, but the choice was simple. Use one of their existing limited stock of probes on a clearly dead world and risk losing it for nothing, or don’t. He opted for the latter personally, as much as it irked his curiosity.
“We can stay here in the system, maybe launch an orbiter to take some more detailed photographs if Chris thinks it would help. But I will not use one of the probes on a world that is so clearly of no consequence to the mission.” Leon looked around and saw no dissent. There were a few faces that looked a bit on the disappointed side, but it would have to do. He wasn’t about to try and force the issue, but they only have so many of the probes to begin with and they had already used a sizable portion of their stock.
Joice clapped her hands together once, grabbing everyone’s attention. “Ok, now that we have agreed on this we should get back to work. Taylor, have you detected any other planets in the inner system yet?” the man shook his head. “Then keep looking. I am sure that there must be one or two more small rocky bodies in the inner system. It makes sense for them to be there anyways.” Her voice was cheerful, but it seemed to hide a measure of annoyance or perhaps dismay.
Leon frowned as everyone on the bridge got back to their tasks, there was a sense of growing discontentment with their mission. Likely brought about by their seeming lack of progress. He knew that in all likelihood they would make it back to Earth at the end of their mission without ever encountering any living sapient species, but a part of him had to hope. Had to hold onto that dream or else be lost amid that dark sea of hopelessness.
He chuckled as the first magnified images were sent to his console, “I’ll bet Chris is going to have a field day with this one. Look at all the different colors, I am assuming they must be different minerals? Maybe even included ores and contaminants forming structures we have never seen before?” He nodded towards Sabine and asked, “So, which one is your favorite? We can pick it up and take it with us. Or maybe just a piece of it I suppose.” Taylor shrugged as Joice gestured towards the distant world.
“What would it matter? Each one of those formations weighs a hundred times the entire ship, we would never be able to get them off the planet’s surface intact.” She frowned, clearly not understanding the subtle humour behind his jest. Leon just shook his head and smiled.
He leaned forwards in his chair, the image of the strange colorful world in the corner of his eye. He closed the live feed of the world on his console and opened his link to the stored Aori archives.
He started processing the newest astrological data he had unlocked. Cross referencing their own observations with the marked worlds in the fragmented Aori archive they had recovered. If only he could find a connection between the inhabited and uninhabited systems then maybe he could lead them to an inhabited system, maybe even one with survivors of the seemingly extinct Aori race.
It was slim, but not impossible. And what with everything that had happened to him along the journey already, that was all he needed. A slim enough chance to grasp.