Emi sat at the scanners and compared the readings to the records she had. “I’m showing human life forms.” She tweaked the settings. “Can’t tell for sure, but in approximately the same numbers we should be seeing.”
Aaron’s businesslike frown bothered her. He’d slipped into full captain mode, which made it harder to read him. He reached over and activated the com link. “Hey, Rob, it’s Aaron.” The captains had dropped the formalities over the weeks, making it easier to work together.
“Yeah, go ahead.”
“You’re further back in orbit than we are. Can you lock onto their com satellite?”
“Hold on, let me check.” He came back a moment later. “Yeah, we need to shift orbit a bit. Why?”
“Can you pull it in and take a look at it? See if there’s anything wrong with it? Or at least dump its memory into your computer and see if we can retrieve the whole message?”
“Sure. Give us an hour.”
Aaron sat back and stared at the front vid screens. The planet looked remarkably similar to Earth, only with more land mass, two gigantic continents surrounded by a freshwater ocean. If plans for its development succeeded, it could provide a lot of food for this section of the galaxy. The planet’s life forms hadn’t evolved to intelligent humanoids yet. The highest apex predators were reptiles similar to dinosaurs, but none larger than a big dog. Mammals were limited to birdlike animals and small, rodent-like creatures, and the oceans teemed with a variety of sea life suitable for human consumption.
The area settled had been picked for a variety of reasons, including climate, soil, and commonality of habitat. The DSMC wanted to balance sound ecological practices with their need to expansively develop the planet and didn’t want to wipe out any native species if they could possibly avoid it.
“What are you thinking?” she asked him.
“I don’t want us to go down there without knowing as much as we can first.”
“Well, they’re not dead. At least, most of them aren’t.”
“Yet.”
“That’s a creepy thought. We need to get down there.” The doctor in her wanted to be on the way down there ASAP, worried lives might be lost because of the delay.
“We can’t walk in there without knowing what’s going on.”
“What about an unmanned drone?”
“I want to see what Rob comes up with first.”
It felt like a long wait. The com link whistled when Rob hailed them less than an hour later.
“We got it. The same message the DSMC received, and it cut off in the same place. There’s nothing wrong with the satellite. Whatever happened went down at ground level, during transmission. I had it ping back and didn’t receive a response from its base.”
Aaron stared out the front vid screens, deep in thought. “What kind of com traffic did it have before?”
“Nothing spectacular, outbound and inbound reports, mostly data links. The usual.”
“What do you think?”
“I think we have to land. Sending in a drone will only waste more time.”
“Emi and I will go.” Elloy started to protest, but Aaron cut him off. “Rob, no offense to Donna, but Emi has more skills than she does. We need Emi on the ground to evaluate the situation, and I’m not letting her go without me. I need you up here in case there’s a problem.”
“At least let me send Greg and Sam with you for backup.”
John Tarrence from the Braynow Gaston sounded off. “Why don’t you take one of my guys?”
Rob said it before Aaron could. “Because my guys have combat experience, and we might need all three of you working in the labs. We can’t spare your guys to go down there yet. Besides, there’s only three of you, and two need to stay onboard. He’d still need one of my guys anyway. It doesn’t make sense to waste time picking crew up from two ships.”
“Oh.”
“Don’t worry,” Rob said, amusement in his voice. “You guys will get your turn to explore soon enough.”
Aaron mulled it over. “Okay. We’ll leave at their dawn, that’s in,” he consulted the computer, “twelve hours our time. Emi and I will come over and pick your guys up then.”
“Roger. Out.”
Emi prepared for the vocal protests from Caph and Ford as soon as Aaron disconnected the com link. Sure enough, they didn’t disappoint. Their twin voice sounded, perfectly in tune.
“There’s no way you’re going! I’ll go!” the men protested then scowled at each other.
Aaron shook his head. “We need two on board to run the ship.” His face hardened. “As Captain, I’m making this an order. I go, you two stay.”
The twins shut up despite their angry scowls. From the tense set of their shoulders, Emi knew they felt less than happy about the decision, but they would obey their captain.
Emi and Caph spent the evening loading supplies into the lander, including scanners, basic first aid supplies, protective hazard suits, and decontamination units. She thought she was done until Aaron stuck his head inside the door and glanced at the neatly stacked items.
“How many weapons?”
“None.”
He shook his head. “Two side arms per person, one rifle per, a case of grenades, and three cases of cartridges for the weapons.”
Her eyes widened. “You can’t be serious!”
“I am.” He looked around one more time. “And restraints. Add a case of energy shackles. Just to be on the safe side.”
He disappeared. Emi wasn’t happy about his decree, the scientist and doctor in her wanting to think the best, not the worst, but she added the items to their inventory.
She got very little sleep that night, the delay in getting to the surface pecking at her conscience. The next morning, they hugged and kissed Caph and Ford in the cargo bay before they sealed themselves into the lander and launched.
Never having flown in one before, Emi’s stomach did a nervous roll in the reduced G before settling again as Aaron skillfully guided the lander into the K-2’s cargo bay. Gregor and Sam piled in, bringing even more supplies with them. Ten minutes later, they were on their way to the surface.
Aaron located the colony’s main landing pad homing beacon. An hour later, they slowly descended the last thousand meters to the pad.
He reached over and punched in a code after they touched down. The front armor plates slid out of the way as the vid screens deactivated, but the lander vehicle seemed encased by a yellow, hazy glow.
“Energy field,” Aaron explained at her questioning look. “Until we know for sure there’s no physical danger.”
Several women and a couple of men had gathered at the edge of the landing pad, well out of the way of their vehicle. They waved their arms at the lander, trying to get their attention.
Aaron activated the external com unit. “Please do not approach any closer. We have an energy barrier activated. We were sent by the DSMC. They received a distress transmission from your colony, but it cut off in the middle.”
All the people nodded.
Emi couldn’t read the people from that distance, especially with the energy barrier around the ship.
Aaron spoke to them again. “Is one of you in command?”
An older woman stepped forward. “I’m Governor Ilse Martinez. Our transmitter was destroyed.”
“What’s the nature of your medical emergency?”
“Some of our population is infected with an unknown pathogen.”
Emi leaned in to the com panel and spoke. “I’m Dr. Emilia Hypatia. What are the symptoms?”
“Extreme intermittent rages, worsening every time. We haven’t had any new infections in over three weeks, but we’re not any closer to finding out what’s causing it or why.”