Charalee
The pod's controls connected to her aedee, and the seat held her secure against the atmospheric friction that shook the vehicle. The descent was gradual and following the dropped trajectory that she'd started upon when she disembarked. She'd sent her sister a message, letting her know she'd arrived in atmo and the sundry protocols and biometrics needed to activate the Portal were all in her aedee, safely stowed. Nevertheless, Charalee didn't feel like she was in control. And she hated it. Thumbing her display to forward cameras, she saw, as she burst out of the cloud layer, the sprawling colony of Prospero. The pod's retroboosters pushed back on her, the change in gravity failing to affect her. Descending from a stargazer was never a simple--or safe--task, so she was attired for it: A skin-sheath wrapped her entire body, which provided basic human necessities via its (uncomfortable) catheter, but also interlocked its own battery-harness with the pod's seat. With a thin helmet firmly in place, the skin-sheath could regulate the effects of additional gravity up to ten times Earth 1-G. This prevented her from passing out or vomiting all over the place as she rapidly decelerated. It was also claustrophobic and made her itch. The soft voice of the pod's systems spoke in her ear. "Orbital velocity reduced. Approach to Prospero imminent. Time to destination: Five minutes." "It's about damn time," she muttered. Thumbing over to a display of her files, she selected the protocols for landing that Prospero needed, okaying the pod to access the clearances and beam them to Prospero. The system beeped. "You're being asked to hold." "What?" A flare of indignation rose in her chest, but she pushed it back. She needn't get angry until she knew more. "You're being asked to hold." "I understand that. Why am I hanging out above the colony instead of landing?" She no longer needed the camera's view--she could see the swelling bubbles of the Compound as she approached. According to the information her aedee overlaid on her vision, the southernmost dome was the Hangar--not only where she was supposed to land, but also where the Portal had been receiving its final touches. If there were any justice in the galaxy, Charalee wouldn't have to do anything but stop in there, send some information through her aedee, and then walk through the Portal--home again after six weeks in space, teleporting across the expansiveness of space as easily as stepping through a doorway. At least, if everything went according to plan. "They have asked you to hold." Charalee snorted. "Of course they have." All the momentum of atmosphere-breaking was gone now, and her pod hovered on its vertical thrusters, consuming energy for no real reason, while she waited. And waited. And waited. Finally, twenty minutes after arriving--and only because she'd been pinging the station for permission to land every ten seconds--Charalee was given permission to land. Giving the pod the clearance to follow the Compound's instructions, Charalee sank back into her chair, its contours shifting to give her a perfectly fitted seat. She touched her helmet to release it, but the pod squawked at that. "Please do not remove any safety devices until the pod has come to a complete stop." Charalee swore at it, but the pod didn't seem to care. The pod touched down gently, and Charalee felt the pressure around her torso and shoulders release. Straps retracted into the back of the chair. Through the microphone attached to her helmet, she could pick up the sounds of crewmembers servicing the pod and preparing the door to open. Standing on slightly wobbly legs, Charalee balanced against the bulkhead, then straightened as the pod's entrance dilated and the gangplank extended. Stepping onto the surface of a planet--even if it was the concrete ground poured by the colonists--was an exciting proposition, and she'd be lying to herself if she didn't admit that a thrill went through her body. Because of the skin-sheath, Charalee didn't feel the effects of the greater gravity than what she was used to on a 'station, but none of the crewmembers appeared bothered by the extra gravity. They moved about the pod, double checking its smooth surface for damage from the extreme heat of entry, as well as any areas that could stand additional scrutiny. One saluted her--a man wearing what looked like security coveralls--and said, "Welcome to Prospero, Envoy Timpson. I'm Nolan Lannings and I will be your guide." He extended his hand. "I have some aedee protocols I need to send to you so that you can access public areas of the Compound." He raised his eyebrow. "If you please?" Charalee looked at him through her helmet, the sound of her own breathing loud in her ears, despite the ambient noise coming in through the outward-mounted microphones. Taking in a stranger's aedee message was asking for problems. While she doubted this Nolan was skilled enough to have concocted a way to hack her aedee, he could have a way of submitting tracking viruses, hiding Trojan protocols that could sabotage some functions, or beam sensitive information from Charalee to him. There were other possibilities, too, and Charalee didn't see why she would need to risk herself. "I'll rely on you to guide me, then, Lannings. Isn't that what you're here for?" Shock registered on Nolan's round face, his pale cheeks flushing. "You…" It took him a moment to gather himself, all the while his pudgy body stood perfectly still. "You don't want the clearances?" "You're here, right? I'm not going to expose myself to anything I don't have to." She looked around, trying to catch sight of the Portal. "Is it ready? I'd like to do what I need to and then go through the Portal. I'm not keen on sticking around." Blinking a handful of times, Nolan dropped his hand and shook his head. "Uh, no it's not ready." "What?" Her voice, distorted by the helmet's speaker, still made Nolan flinch with its sharpness. "What's the problem?" "Yesterday, we had a massive storm. Largest we have on record. We lost a lot of our planned power conduits. They'll need to be repaired before we can activate the Portal." Charalee felt a flame of frustration flash through her. "Why did no one tell me of the delay?" "I can't answer that, Envoy. I'm simply here to guide you." He waved his hands. "The workers are on it as we speak. Last I heard, there was only one major conduit to restore, then the Portal can be properly prepped." He gestured to a group of people standing what felt like a quarter klick away, all of whom were deep in conversation. "Those are the engineers who are awaiting the final powering. Once that's done, they'll be able to get you ready to deliver your protocols." He faced her and shrugged, forcing a smile (she could tell). "Sorry to be the bearer of bad news. One thing you learn about Prospero, you have to be flexible. It's the only way to survive." Her face hidden by her helmet's glass, Charalee felt comfortable sneering at the pudgy man. "Is that so?" Nolan nodded. "Besides, Envoy, the captain has asked that all dignitaries always meet him as a first stop. If you'll follow me?" Unable to do anything but comply, Charalee started after Lannings. "The air is set to standard atmo, so if you want to take off your helmet, you're welcome to." "Maybe in a bit." "Suit yourself. The outside air isn't ready for human respiratory systems yet, but it'll change. Not in our lifetime, most likely. But that's what work is for--the future as much the present." Charalee rolled her eyes, glad that the helmet covered her response. Lannings blathered on as they snagged a passing hover-pod--a platform that drifted about the immense hangar, shuttling people from place to place--chatting as they approached the main entrance. Nolan pointed out the different features of the "landscape" as they zoomed by, but Charalee didn't pay much attention. She had her aedee on record mode, so if he said anything she wanted to review later, she could. Odds were likely that she wouldn't bother, purging the documents when she got back to the Vanguard. Instead, she chewed on the bone of discontent the inconvenience had thrown her way. A storm? She had a theoretical knowledge of weather, the same way a blind person could conceive of color as being part of reality, but having no capacity to interact with the experience. In Charalee's case, she'd seen visuals of prelapsarian Earth where weather happened. It was strange to think about how much space there was--how much sky, how much water, how much land--and, until she'd arrived on Prospero, thinking was where her understanding remained. She fingered her aedee to a query mode, turned off her internal microphone, and asked, "What makes a storm?" The aedee began to list off information, applying appropriate snippets of visuals and audio descriptions on her eyes, allowing her to watch it comfortably within the confines of her own head. As the aedee read off the information of the database, Charalee began to understand what it was, exactly, that the "storm" could have done. She paused her aedee and looked upward, through the yellow-hued glass of the hangar. The sun had set--she'd seen the star as she'd approached the planet, but, after the delay and the amount of time it took to travel through the Hangar, night had fallen--so she couldn't see the endless expanse of the sky. That was a disappointment: She'd had some exposure to simulated, similar effect on the Gateway, but spacestations weren't the same thing as being on a real planet, staring up at the spreading canvas of a sky. Shaking her head, she tuned into what Nolan was saying. "…is pretty good, for the most part, but I would avoid the broccoli. It's not the same as on the 'stations." Charalee queried her aedee, ran back a moment of the conversation, and had her augmented device play the information over again, albeit at a faster speed. Was he talking about food? Here? "I currently have no plans to be dining here, Lannings," she said, her tone crisp. "Surely you'll want something before the long trip back?" "My trip back won't be long," she said. Before Nolan could ask, the hover-pod slid to a stop, allowing them to step off. Like all of the doors that connected to major thoroughfares, these doors were thick, heavy, and took a fair amount of time to open and close. As a result, a smaller, more personnel-friendly aperture had been constructed to one side. This allowed a smaller number of people to pass into the Compound's side halls without the drain of time and energy needed to lift the large blast doors. Charalee's understanding of this came from the precautions that DP had felt were necessary to ensure the Portal was not only safe, but--and no one hoped for this--also protect the Compound from any malfunction or problem with the Portal. "Will the PRISM engine work without a direct sight-line to this planet's sun?" she asked, the question obviously taking Nolan by surprise. "Excuse me?" "The PRISM engine. It's powering the Portal. I'm assuming that it will work even with a planet between it and the sun?" Nolan frowned. "I'm not an engineer. You'd have to ask them." Charalee felt another layer of frustration coat her. She basked in the holy righteousness of her justifiable rage. "You mean to say that I'm not going to be able to leave until morning?" Nolan held his hands up in an expression of helplessness, and triggered the small aedee box next to the access door. It dilated, and he gestured her through. "I'm sorry, Envoy. I don't know what else to say." "Then don't say anything," she snapped. The helmet was getting too hot for her, now, and she twisted her left wrist, fingers splayed as the aedee movement to release the armor. It cracked along the seams, and she felt an immense pressure ease off her head. Plucking it off, she shook her long black hair free of its confines. She eyed Nolan, who stared at her in mute shock--a familiar expression she'd seen on more than one person who had assumed, for whatever reason, she couldn't be both competent and beautiful. But it was gratifying to see that even on this stone at the ass-crack of the galaxy could contain people who were dazzled by her as those back in the more civilized sections of space. Nolan looked about ready to speak when an alarm went off, a buzzing sound, accompanied by the flashing of Compound lights. The alarm buzzed again. Nolan wiggled his fingers and looked at his empty palm. Charalee didn't ever bother to use the flesh-writing feature on her aedee--she found it tedious, preferring instead to have her aedee write any comms on her eyes, as it had the footage of storms--but it was clear that Nolan had received an important communication of some sort. "Um," he said, licking his lips and looking around anxiously. "Uh…" "What is it?" she asked, the irritation of everything that had gone wrong flashing through her. "What's that damnable buzzing about?" "There's been a breach." "A breach?" She looked at the walls, as if the tunnel that stretched in front of her, leading to who knew where, was the one attacked. "Where?" "In the Laboratory. A…a creature escaped." "Creature?" Charalee's eyes flicked to the world outside the Compound lights, a black smudge in the distance, scarcely visible through the transparent terraglass of the tunnel. Nolan frowned. "Yes. It looks like…" He sighed. "This would've come to you if you'd had the protocols." "I'm not interested in downloading from people I just met," she said, letting her anger flavor her tone. "Use your damn words: What's wrong?" "We're on lockdown until we can figure out where this creature is." "Lockdown?" Charalee looked behind her. The door had constricted already. They only had this one tube. It didn't look too thrilling, and she doubted that the captain was in it, to say nothing of the fact that-- A movement at the far end of the tunnel drew both their attention. They were the only two in the space, yet the both saw what could only be the missing creature. Charalee couldn't see it well, but her aedee read the fact that she was squinting and enhanced her vision, allowing her to zoom in on the beast. It was covered in bumps and protuberances, and though she logged the shape as looking similar to other quadrupeds she'd seen on 'stations or in visuals, it was the fact that it was covered in gore that drew her attention. "What do we do?" asked Nolan in a low voice. "I don't want to get stuck in this tunnel forever. Do you?" Nolan shook his head, but Charalee could see a thin sheen of sweat beading on the man's upper lip. Disgusted, she looked away. "We'll move in on both sides. Try to capture it." "With what?" asked Nolan, his face paler than it was when she'd first seen him. She held up the helmet. "This'll do." He swallowed, his pudgy face vibrating with the action. "O-okay." They prowled closer. The creature didn't seem to notice them. It was busy sniffing, scrabbling against the terraglass, then puffing its body with a tremor before taking a few steps forward and repeating the process. As they approached, a distinct, rotten smell filled Charalee's nostrils. Nolan made a gagging noise, but a sharp look from her kept him from retching right there. When she was within a dozen paces, she froze and readied her helmet. It would only take a moment, a quick leap, and the creature would be pinned beneath her. Licking her lips, she dropped lower on her haunches. She counted down with her fingers. Three…two…one… She jumped forward just as the creature squeaked in delight and ducked down to begin tugging on the vent at its feet. The movement made her overestimate the jump, and she managed to clip the creature instead of capturing it. In an ungainly heap, the thing fell, knocked back by the force of the failed capture. The beast squeaked in alarm and began writhing on the ground, the smell in the room becoming even more unpleasant. "What…what is that?" asked Nolan around another choke and gag. "Forget the smell!" shouted Charalee. "Just get the thing!" The creature scrabbled to its feet, then began running away, heading toward a low vent on the ground some four meters from where Charalee had landed. Nolan took a tumbling step toward it, but tripped over his own feet. The creature skittered away. Before it could get to the vent--from where it must have come, for Charalee hadn't seen the creature when they'd first entered the tunnel--she did the only thing she could think to do. She threw her helmet. It spun like a discus and crashed hard against the creature's side, stunning it. Charalee let out a whoop of delight. "Call it in, Nolan. We caught their pest." She hurried over, scooping up the creature into the helmet and sealing the base with a command to her aedee. "And get them to open the damn doors." |
What is this?This is a NaNoWriMo project that publishes, day by day, the chapters I'm writing for 2017. If you're confused, go to Chapter 1 Ann and start there. ArchivesCategories
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