Chapter 8

28 Librae System
GNS Neil Armstrong
15/14/41 NR 2645 Hours

A soft electronic sound intruded into her nightmare, and Luisa’s eyes opened. She raised herself on one elbow and pressed the audio only key on the comm panel. She hadn’t bothered to dress for bed, and it wouldn’t do for anyone to see her like that. “Yes?”

“Commander, we’ve entered orbit, and a shuttle from Foster will arrive in twenty minutes.”

“Thank you, Perla. I’ll be there.” Luisa cut the circuit and reached for her clothes. Ten minutes later, she waited at the scout’s airlock with her bag in hand. Perla Myers, Armstrong’s captain, waited with her as the shuttle approached. “Thank you for having me, Perla.”

“It was the least I could do,” the tall woman replied quietly. “Aaron was my friend.”

Luisa nodded and closed her eyes. They had fled across the 10 Ceti System as the battle raged behind them. She could still see the horrible images of the battle in her mind. Their warships had struck hard, but the enemy cruisers’ weight of fire turned the fight into a mutual slaughter. Three frigates and five scouts had survived the battle, all of them savagely battered. Aaron’s ship wasn’t among them, the Dyan had to be abandoned after its power plant was destroyed and two thirds of its crew killed – including Aaron and his command staff. The remaining warships transited to Beta Mensae, where both fleet repair ships waited.

She’d had to continue on, but the nightmares still tore at her soul. She still couldn’t believe that Aaron was dead, and a part of her still insisted he was alive. Luisa also relived the last moments of her own ship’s battle at the New Geneva wormhole nearly every night. Now, she had work to do. Armstrong orbited Zene, a moon of Odin, the innermost gas giant in the system. Adam Thomas and his team were on the surface, investigating the most significant archeological site in human history.

The site had been tightly secured, and no information had been broadcast about its nature other than the encrypted report sent to President Davies. Rumors were rampant, of course, but Luisa had been surprised to learn that no one had any idea that Thomas’ team had discovered irrefutable evidence of an extraterrestrial race.

A soft thump heralded the shuttle’s arrival; the pilot had performed the maneuver with finicky precision, and the green light of a good seal glowed over the outer hatch. Luisa smiled at Perla and keyed the unlock button on the airlock’s control panel. “Thanks for the ride.”

“You’re welcome here any time, Luisa.” Perla extended her hand, and Luisa took it with a smile. “I hope you find whatever you’re looking for.”

“Thank you, Captain.” Luisa turned as the airlock opened and she pulled herself inside, closing the inner hatch behind her. She waited until the interior control panel indicated that the pressure has equalized on the shuttle’s side of the lock, and that there was indeed air pressure on that side before she opened the outer hatch. People who made mistakes like opening an airlock into vacuum didn’t get to often repeat them.

“Hello, Commander McDaniel,” the shuttle’s first officer greeted her. “Welcome aboard.”

“Thank you, Lieutenant.” She followed the crewman as she led Luisa to her seat. There was no one else in the cabin, and the after half was taken up with pallets of supplies, presumably bound for the research station. Luisa eeled into her seat and strapped herself in.

“We’ll be underway in a couple of minutes, Ma’am. The approach shouldn’t be too bad, the atmosphere’s pretty thin.”

“Zene is much like Mars, so I should feel almost at home.” Luisa smiled wistfully.”

The young woman nodded. “Yes, Ma’am, I didn’t think about that.”

“I know; it’s fine.” Luisa finished checking her seat harness and smiled up at her. “I’m ready to fly.”

“Of course, Ma’am, excuse me.” She turned and disappeared into the flight deck. A minute later, the craft shuddered as the airlock disengaged and its thrusters pushed it clear of the scout’s hull. Luisa looked out her viewport, spying the mottled brown surface of the planet-sized moon she’d come to see. The planet seemed to rotate as the shuttle flipped end for end, pointing its main engines in preparation for the deceleration burn that would set them on course for entry into the moon’s atmosphere.

“Prepare for acceleration,” the pilot called over the PA system, and then Luisa was pushed back in her seat as the shuttle’s engines fired. After two minutes, the engines stopped and the shuttle rotated again, positioning itself in the classic nose high attitude shuttles had used since Columbia’s first flight over eighty years earlier. Streaks of light flashed past the viewport, and the craft started to buffet as the tenuous atmosphere clutched the spacecraft in its fiery grasp. Luisa sagged into her seat under two gravities of force; the shuttle slowed quickly in the increasing dense atmosphere as it descended.

The pressure eased as the shuttle slowed, and Luisa watched as the wings swung outward to their full span to get the most possible lift. They banked left, and Luisa was looking almost straight down into a massive canyon that snaked though a series of barren and windswept hills. The vista made her eyes water for it looked so much like Mars. The surface wasn’t the rusty red of her home world, but the resemblance was uncanny.

Finally, the shuttle’s maneuvers became less spectacular, and it turned one last time. “We’re on final for the research station, Commander,” the pilot advised. A new rumbling under the cabin floor sounded as the landing gear extended. A mountainside flashed by, and the belly thrusters fired as the pilot slowed the craft even further as it descended below five hundred meters. Ochre hills liberally dusted with rocks and boulders passed below them, and then a cliff topped by a mesa appeared. The thrusters roared, and the shuttle slowed even more, and then came a solid thump. They were on the ground, and Luisa felt the pull of a planet’s gravity once more.

The shuttle rolled to a stop, lurching across the primitive runway in a cloud of dust. The pilot has shut the thrusters down immediately upon landing, but there was still an impressive cloud of dust rising around them in the thin atmosphere. Luisa released her belts and stood carefully, allowing her body a few seconds to adjust to the point four three gravity field. She picked up her bag, set it on the seat, and opened it. Inside was her helmet and gloves for her combat suit.

The combat suit was the standard dress for all Genevan naval personnel, although the term was a bit of a misnomer to Luisa. Unlike the Martian combat suits, these were not designed for soldiers, but for naval personnel. They were much more lightly armored and lacked the ground pounders’ trauma packs, but the other functions were the same. They kept the wearer alive in conditions ranging from very thin atmospheres to the hard vacuum of space. Luisa’s suit also featured a navigation package and communications equipment.

She set the helmet over her head and settled it onto the mating collar. As she picked up the gloves, she noticed the back of the right one. Aaron had presented the suit to her, and the Moshe Dyan’s crest was imprinted there in blue and gold.

“Are you ready, Commander?”

Luisa opened her visor and wiped her tears away with her fingers. The first officer stood by the main hatch, her helmet and gloves in place. Her face radiated sympathy, for everyone knew of Luisa and Aaron’s relationship.

Luisa pulled her gloves on and sealed them with more energy than was really necessary for the task. Damn it, why did everyone look at her like that every time she even looked sad? There were over a hundred dead and missing Genevan naval personnel, and many of their families were here, too. Not only that, everyone had left family members behind in Xi Pegasi and 10 Ceti. Why was her case so special? Luisa took a breath and slowly let it out. When she was sure she was back in control, she turned with a smile and closed her visor. “Ready.”

There was no terminal for the shuttle to dock with, so the cabin would have to be depressurized to efficiently unload the cargo. The first officer murmured something into her suit comm, and Luisa’s suit stiffened as the pilot vented the cabin to the outside environment. Two minutes later, the first officer operated the door handle and opened the door. The shuttle’s airstair extended from its compartment under the floor and locked into place. “After you, Ma’am.”

“Thank you. I enjoyed the ride.” Luisa smiled at the woman, and stepped past her to the doorway. Three suited figures awaited her at the bottom of the stairs, and she carefully made her way down to them. Adam Thomas, as his name tag proclaimed, headed the welcoming committee. He extended his hand as she gained the bottom of the stairs and set foot on Zene’s dusty surface.

“Welcome to Zene, Commander. I wish it could be under better circumstances.” His eyes proclaimed that he, too, had heard about Aaron’s death and its significance to Luisa.

“Good to be here, Mister Thomas. As you say, things could be better. Hopefully, they will be much better, if the report you sent is indeed accurate.”

“If it isn’t, my colleagues and I will never get tenure.” He grinned irreverently behind his visor, his eyes dancing with why humor. Speaking of whom, may I present my assistants, Werner Keller,” he indicated a tall man to his left, “and Joanna Westerfall,” he pointed to the woman to his right.