Space Bimbo Story, Pt. 2

The Gallifrey woke up. Outside, the silver hull was lit by a red sun, the light reflecting off the skin of the ship. The view screens inside showed that same sun, casting the interior in a hellish light. The crimson hue was broken by new banks of lights, winking eyes of yellow and green and blue. The Gallifrey was waking up. 

At the center of the ship, five sleep pods were arranged like a star, the feet extending outward in radial spokes, the heads close together. More lights flickered at the base of these. The gel that kept the travelers in stasis heated and swirled around the bodies of the crew. The semisolid became liquid and drained from the pods while air was pumped inside. Just like the ship, its crew stirred. Life signs were measured, found acceptable, and there was a pause, an inhalation, as the computer determined that all was well and the next step was taken. 

A thunk sound, then the pods slid down and up, raising from the dark metal, five chrysalises opening to spill their contents. The draining sound was thick and wet, like the sound of wet mud sucking at footsteps in a marsh. There was a rattling cough as the fluids drained away completely, leaving the crew exposed to the chill of Gallifrey’s atmosphere. It was warming to greet the crew, but the ship heated slowly, and the first pair of eyes that blinked awake winced against the nip in the air. 

Reese Callahan swung his legs over the side of the sleep pods and rubbed his head, shaved for the trip. Stubble scratched his tender fingers, made sensitive by their time suspended in the sleep gel. It kept their bodies stable and their skin moisturized. Coming out of stasis was like waking after the best spa day Earth could offer. He flicked his hand into the pod, wiping it against the singlet he wore. Little good it did. The viscous gel covered him head to toe. He longed for a shower that would not come soon enough. 

“Jesus wept,” Lyle said from his right. The navigator’s voice rattled with phlegm. Some of it was the gel that fed oxygen to his lungs while he slept. The stuff was miraculous and disgusting in equal measure. 

Callahan cleared his throat. “Get to the console once you towel off. Confirm our position.”

“Good morning to you, too.”

“Right. G’morning. Now dry off and get to your station. If we’re where we should be, you get first shower.”

“You got it, Chief.”

Lyle was already standing, swiping the white towel from a nearby table. On it was the navigator’s watch and wedding ring. He dried and slipped the other items on, kissing his wedding band in a familiar appeal for luck. Then he was up and on his way to the navigator’s chair.

Callahan managed to stand as the others stirred. Peters, the ship doctor, who was busy checking his own pulse with a finger to his throat, nodding at Callahan in recognition. He was older, salt and pepper stubble atop his head. You could trace the receding hairline by the shadow of his retreating bristle.

“Everybody good, Doc?” Callahan prompted.

Peters gained his feet, checking a nearby terminal as the others clambered out of the pods. Callahan didn’t need the doctor to tell him that everyone was up and moving, but he had. A weakness for tweaking the nebbishy doctor. He couldn’t find much use for the man, or any doctor, on his time in space. The med teams, in his experience, ate up rations and sucked up oxygen and clucked their tongues and that was about it. 

“All the levels are good, Chief,” Peters replied. 

Callahan was up now, as were Wells, the ship’s engineer, and Briscoe, the pilot. Both were new to his command, like Peters. Lyle was the only holdover from previous assignments, and he trusted the navigator implicitly. That was the problem with missions assembled by the Foundation. It was all based on personality profiles and job assignments, not actual chemistry. That kind of sorting led to strange bedfellows, and long runs like this didn’t allow the chance to get to know one another. They spent so much time in stasis, everyone on board woke up next to a stranger. 

Briscoe was making his way to the ship’s main console already. A good sign. Up and at ‘em and ready for work. Callahan approved. The engineer, on the other hand, was still standing beside his pod like a goddamn totem pole. Wells was big and tall, a side of beer crammed into the wet white singlet. His expression was stupid, flying in the face of the psych profile that said Wells was just shy of genius level on his practicals. Those tests paced him in the upper five percent. 

“You with us, Wells?”

“Huh? Yeah, sorry, Chief. I feel hungover.”

“This your first time in stasis?” Callahan asked. He hadn’t bothered to check his previous flight logs. What did it matter? The Foundation selected the crew, and he had to live it, whether he approved it or not. 

“No, sir. First time in stasis that long. I didn’t expect it to make such a difference.”

Callahan nodded. “Shake it off, Wells. I think we’re here.”

Lyle confirmed. “We are approaching orbit of Pancor,” the navigator announced, “and will be slipping into stable drift in about twenty minutes. We’ll circle three times before we set down. That should give everyone time to clean the goo out of their ears and get dressed. Chief says I have first shower. Suck it.”

“Good work,” Callahan said, but Lyle was already pushing away from the display to make his way to the shower. The gravity arm was spinning, one of the first things to happen before the crew was awakened from stasis, so the artificial gravity was in effect. Not quite as strong as Earth, but in the ballpark. Enough that the water spilled down instead of floating away. “Make it quick. We have four bodies to clean before we land.”

Less than thirty minutes and all five crew of The Gallifrey were washed and dressed. The outfitting was spartan and functional. Gray uniforms one could Velcro into, pockets at the waist and breast, shoes that slipped on and clung to the feet with rubber soles. Nothing heavy, nothing that would restrict movement. The environment suits, viros for short, would be awkward enough. Pancor boasted a breathable atmosphere, but they’d be wearing viros until Wells could confirm that it was clear. They weren’t here for vacation, after all. Something happened out here, and it was their job to find out what.

“Buckle up,” Callahan ordered. The crew found their seats and strapped in, thick metal buckles clicking as their bodies were secured to the cushioned seats. 

Briscoe and Lyle were in the fore seats, manning the controls. While much of Gallifrey’s operations were automated, landing had to be monitored. That’s why the crew was awake now. The AI pilots could account for many variables, but the human brain was still the quickest and most accurate decision-making tool in the ‘verse. The atmosphere of Pancor was thick, and little sunlight found its way beneath the canopy. The ship shook as it descended. Wells’s knuckles were bled white, gripping the arms of his chair as Gallifrey shuddered and pitched. 

“Don’t worry,” Callahan told the engineer, “the ride is rough, but the landing is smooth.”

That turned out to be a lie. The winds whipped hard across the face of Pancor. The pilot and navigator were engaged in quiet, tense discussion all the way down, madly punching buttons on the console until the ship pitched once more and set down. The crew lurched to the left as Gallifrey settled unevenly on the patch of ground nearest the settlement and then to the right, leveling and lowering as hydraulics whined and hissed.

“Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to Pancor,” Briscoe grinned. He adopted the slow drawl of the commercial pilots, looking over his shoulder at the passengers. He gave Wells a wink, encouraging him to loosen his death grip on the seat’s armrests. 

Callahan was unbuckled and up, stepping forward to the main console. 

“Lift the shields and let’s see what we’re dealing with.”

Briscoe hit a button and thick metal plates slid up from equally thick plastishields. Grit buffeted the window as winds scoured the surface, collected loose dust,a nd whipped it at the ship. The landscape was gray and rocky, uneven and desolate. The rock formations were smooth, eroded into tubes by the wind and sand blasting them. It was as lifeless a rock as Callahan had seen. 

The Foundation liked sending teams out here, small crews to set up environmental actuators. In a couple of decades, this might be a lush planet, overrun by flora and fauna seeded by the Foundation as it spread through the galaxy. Now, it was a lifeless hunk of rock that held no comforts for its human guests. 

“Where are the shelters?” Callahan asked.

“Behind us,” Lyle answered. “Some weird reading coming off them. Heat and humidity are up in the shelter.”

“Any word?”

“Not a peep,” Lyle said.

Callahan nodded. “Wells, join Peters and Lyle. Suit up and let’s do a cursory scan of the structure. If there’s anyone alive in there, I want to find them.”

“Yes, sir,” the trio said in an uneven cadence. 

Wells looked sick. Callahan flagged him as a potential problem, but they had a job to do. If the Foundation’s tests said the engineer could handle exploring an alien world, they must see something Callahan didn’t. The chief put a hand on Wells’s shoulder as he made his way to the back of the craft, toward the virosuits and airlock.

“You good?” he asked, quiet so as to keep his concern between the two of them.

“Yeah. Just another gig, right?”

“That’s right,” Callahan replied. “Just a gig. Get in there, scout it, come back. Easy as that. If you find bodies in there, and you might, keep your breathing slow and steady. We’ll come in after and help with the clean-up. For now, just see what’s in there.”

“Yes, sir,” the engineer said. There was gratitude in his voice. Callahan clapped his shoulder and released him. Maybe he’d be fine after all.

The virosuits took several minutes to assemble, like a puzzle that fit over appendages, buckled and snapped and sealed until the helmet sat atop the bulkier form of a human. There was a hiss as the suit pressurized and filled with recycled air. It tasted stale, but it was good and filtered any environmental hazards. Until the crew knew what they were up against, all precautions would be taken.

Finally, the three-man team was sealed inside their viros and the airlock closed behind them. Gallifrey was not meant for large crews, so even the three men standing abreast in the airlock filled the small space. They waited whil lights turned from red to yellow to green, and the hatch leading to the outside rose up, like the a container lid turned sideways. 

Lyle led them out, moving down the metal ram extended from the rear of the craft. The ground was rocky, but they could see the squat buildings of the makeshift colony less than half a kilometer away. Even on foot over bad terrain they’d be there in half an hour. 

“Lights are on,” Peters said, his voice tinny in the suit speakers. The crew remaining on board would hear them, too. 

“How many souls again?” Wells asked.

”Thirty-six.” That was Callahan, reminding them all of the number of colonists expected to greet them.

”Not exactly rolling out the red carpet, are they?” Lyle was already moving toward the prefab buildings. 

“You think they have some better rations in there?” Briscoe asked. 

“Gotta be better than the shit onboard,” Lyle fired back. 

“We shouldn’t eat anything inside,” Peters offered. He was behind Lyle, keeping pace while checking behind him every so often for Wells, who staggered and stumbled. The more intense gravity of Pancor was giving the slender man trouble in maintaining his balance. “Until we know what’s happened to the colonists, we don’t eat or drink anything inside. Hopefully, this is all a comm problem.”

”If it’s comms,” Wells asked, “why don’t we see anybody moving around? It’s mid-morning here. They should be working on the actuators. Right?”

”We’ll know soon enough,” Lyle said, ending the conversation. He wasn’t a man who allowed his imagination to run away with itself. Maybe it was the curse of a navigator. He believed in precision, and guessing was anything but precise.

The trio marched in an irregular line from the rear of Gallifrey to the first of the prefab buildings. It didn’t take long to manipulate the external door into opening for them. The atmosphere was, after all, breathable, even if no member of the crew would inhale the pure air of Pancor until Peters had a chance to scan the data from the installation and Callahan approved. There was also the matter of finding the residents of Pancor. 

Lyle led the way. The entry point was where the virosuits for the colonists were kept, alongside some light arms for defense, carefully locked away so that only the mission commander and head of security could free the weapons from the metal cabinets. Lyle noted that none of the arms were missing from their slots according the the handwritten sign-outs dangling from a clipboard attached by red yarn. Not exactly high-tech. One realized very quickly when in one of the colonies that technological did not mean advantageous. 

“Wells,” Callahan said in the squawking speakers of the viros, “head to the command core. Find out if they had to abandon the buildings. Surely somebody left a goddamn note.”

“Yes, sir.” Wells shot a look to Lyle, one that conveyed an uneasy courage through the plastic windows of their helmets. 

“Peters,” Lyle offered, “why don’t you go with him? I’m going to check any logs from the shuttle bay, see if they’ve gone off-world and didn’t bother to tell anyone. Stay in touch. Until we know what happened here, we have to assume it was trouble.”

“Sure,” Peters agreed. He twisted his waist to see every detail of the industrial hallway between their entry and the first long corridor. 

The installation was an asterisk stamped on the surface of Pancor, arms radiating from the central command hub. Those arms led to research rooms and living quarters and recreation rooms. Each arm was a hundred yards long, the central command a room large enough to house most of the thirty residents. No one lived extravagantly on Pancor, but there was elbow room and a sense of purpose. They were there to create a new world and would be paid handsomely for a five-year tour to get the actuators up and running. Even through the walls of the installation, Lyle heard the scratching wind, like skeletal fingers clawing to get in. He thought maybe enough of that sound would drive anyone crazy. In a flash, he decided that what they would find on Pancor were bodies.

Lyle parted ways with the other two and stumped toward the shuttle bay at the very end of one of the installation’s spokes. The metal echoed under his feet, enough give in the walkway to make his stride unsteady. Some of the doors were open as he passed, most of them the residential cubes. Not luxurious, but nice. Some were decorated with pictures of family. In one, a lonely soccer ball jostled as he passed, a game left unplayed.

The shuttle bay was a swollen tear at the end of one arm, and the entrance hissed open at his presence. No locks. Nobody turned their lights out on the way out. 

The greater mystery sat in two rows of three - six shuttles to be used in the event of an emergency. They sat cool and unmoving as the sones outside, awaiting passengers that might never return. 

Lyle found the activity log and scrolled through the sterile blue text. Nothing. The shuttles hadn’t been run for three months, the last time the engines were fired and the craft deployed to ensure they still worked and the batteries were holding a charge. Foundation protocol to keep the worst from happening. Better to have a shuttle and not need it, Lyle mused. 

“Nobody left,” he informed the crew, hitting the green button to open comms in his suit. “Least not on a shuttle. If they abandoned the base, it was on foot.”

“Regroup at the hub,” Callahan ordered. 

Lyle didn’t bother to reply. Bodies, he thought again, that’s what they’d find before this assignment was done. And maybe whatever killed them. The virosuit hid the shiver that shook him.