Codename Alpha

Chapter 8

The flight towards the planet took nearly thirty minutes. At some point, both Vance and I had begun to read the technical manuals for the shuttle, out of boredom.

"So, we're in complete control of where we want to land, right?" I said, trying to break the silence.

"Yeah, that's what I was told," Max said. "I hadn't really considered a landing site. You guys got any picks?" he asked.

Despite the zero-gravity environment, ensign Vance and I both sat up and looked at the planet through the window. From our current angle of approach, the day side was horizontal. There was still a good view of all the continents, though. "Hmm, looks like there's a little sea right there," I said, pointing out the small inlet, next to a leg-shaped peninsula and close to an interesting looking archipelago, somewhat obscured in darkness from the night. Max was planning on having us land in an area where the sun was going to rise, as to maximize the amount of time the rest of the crew had to set up camp on the surface, when we returned. "Probably bound to be a fertile region. Maybe a bit more north?"

"It's not like there's much specific choice here," Vance commented. "Can't get the best grip of terrain from this high. Looks like one giant piece of land. Big deserts to the south and east. I think I'm going to have to go with you on that one, Pearce."

"Hopefully it's not too cloudy in that area," Max said, pointing out the large mass of clouds that were being revealed as the sun rose in front of us. Confusingly enough, it was dipping below the horizon as we drew closer and closer to the surface of the planet. "Man, this is pretty cool. Despite the situation, looks like we'll get to do some science, at the very least."

"So... should we do icebreakers, or something?" I asked Vance, swiveling my chair to face her.

"Yeah, I don't see why not. Who wants to start?" she asked.

I waited a couple seconds to see if Max said anything. He did not. "Alright, well, I-"

"Sorry guys, but we're entering the atmosphere now. Prepare for entry." The interior of the shuttle was suddenly bathed in the light from red-orange plasma forming on the hull.

"Guess I'll finish that later," I said, turning back around in the chair and facing the communications console. As was to be expected, there were no incoming messages. I activated the shuttle's radar and watched the screen to see if anything interesting popped up. We were currently out of range for any high-detailed scans of the surface, but there were distinct mountains showing up on the screen.

"Structural integrity is holding steady," Vance announced. "Hull temperature is nominal... we're looking good. Shuttle is 85 kilometers from the surface, with atmospheric pressure rising steadily, currently at 0.005 millibars."

"Switching to atmospheric thrusters," he announced. The humming of the ion engines changed to the louder atmospheric engines. "Hmm... this is a science shuttle, right?" Max asked. "Scientific equipment and all that?"

"Yep. Looking to get some readings?"

"You read my mind. Even if we're stranded in an alien system, we must not forget that we're scientists, first and foremost. Take some gravimetric readings, Vance. Jack, you scan the surface to see if there's anything interesting down there."

"Aye, sir," we both said.

Almost as if on cue, the scans showing up on the screen became more detailed. However, there was something that caught my eye. An airborne moving object, around 13 kilometers above the surface, moving at 925 kilometers per hour. Immediately, I raised everyone else's attention to it. "Guys, there's some sort of... aircraft down there," I said.

"Excuse me?" Max asked, incredulous. "You better not be messing with me."

"I'm not kidding, see for yourself." Both Vance and Max got up and looked over my shoulder. I pointed out the specific blip on the radar.

"It could be birds," Vance said, as she sat back down in her chair. "Veta had plenty of those giant of flocks." She didn't seem to believe what she was saying.

I glanced to see if we had cleared the cloud cover yet. Currently, we were inside it, obscuring the view of anything significant outside. I sighed, and turned back to the communications console, half expecting to receive a message from someone.

"I've got those gravimetric readouts, sir. Gravity is roughly equivalent to Valdera, reading at a 0.3 G variance."

"Understood. Barometric rea..." he suddenly trailed off. "Oh my god." We all turned to see what he was seeing.

We had cleared the thick layer of clouds blocking our view of the surface. Instead of endless uninhabited wildlands, as I had expected, the golden and white lights that distinctly belong cities and towns were spread as far as the eye could see. Many different feelings suddenly washed over me. Horror, enrapture, fascination... too many differing emotions to count.