The Chronicles of Monster Planet

She started crying again. But I wasn't thinking about her anymore. I was re-living that elation I felt when I found out that Alan broke his shoulder during hockey practice. There I was, standing still, gazing upon a monument to the first astronaut, Yuri Gagarin, but my thoughts were far away in the sky. I will fly, I will be there, I will become one of the first settlers on another planet. Out of billions of people, I was one of the lucky five.

But now… I shrugged away the memories, the picture changed. It’s over. Cancelled. What if we don't fly anywhere at all? So much time, money and hopes wasted. The Hope. That was the name of our ship. It was an allegory, the hope of humanity. Our planet was almost irreversibly destroyed, and we could not prevent its further deterioration. So-called presidents and prime ministers of developed countries paid lip service to environmental protection, participated in various congresses and public organizations, but all of them still remained miserable slaves of private capital, which was bleeding the planet dry. Oil, natural gas, shale gas, open-pit mining, deep-sea mining, carbon dioxide emissions, greenhouse effect, ozone holes, endless wars and much more. The planet was dying and there was a part of society that understood this very well. Among those were some very rich and influential people who managed to push the corruption-riddled United Nations into arranging an international space expedition.

Our expedition became possible only after the Pullman-Anderson drive was created. Based on the Pullman effect, the Anderson Design Bureau managed to develop a uniquely fast sub-light drive.

Our mission was to gather intelligence. To land on a designated Earth-type exoplanet, send the Hope back home and wait for the Ark, a new larger ship with settlers, which had just entered the design stage at the time of our launch. The Hope was essentially a large house that could be detached from the carrier and work autonomously on nuclear power for hundreds of years. We were to confirm that the planet was, in fact, habitable.

Our target planet was located more than a hundred light years from Earth, thus, induced suspended animation – deep conservation – was required. The DC machines developed at that time were tested on us. Time was precious.

Nearly two hundred years in a capsule with an artificially maintained microclimate, including pressure to simulate gravity. That's what we had to endure. Then it was either “new Earth” – or not. The latter option was not a pleasant one.

According to the scientists, it was highly likely that the planet would be similar to Earth. It was discovered a long time ago with the help of NASA's Kepler telescope. The telescope operated from 2009 to 2013 and made it possible to discover over three thousand exoplanets. Planets outside the Solar System. And the very first exoplanet was discovered at the end of the twentieth century, orbiting the orange subgiant Gamma Cephei A. Our destination star was also orange, although it was a dwarf. It was located in the Vela constellation, the largest star of which was nicknamed after astronaut Roger Chaffee.

Thus, our goal was a planet orbiting an orange dwarf. To be clear, an orange dwarf is a cross between a red dwarf and a yellow dwarf like the Sun. Something in between in terms of luminosity and size. That orange dwarf was seven tenths the size of the Sun, yet had the same luminosity. Possibly, there were other bodies in orbit around it, but only one was confirmed by the Kepler telescope. The planet was solid – in contrast to gaseous ones; there are four such planets in the Solar System. The planet was about one and a half times the size of Earth, and it was closer to its star than Earth is to the Sun, but within the habitable zone. The planet had an atmosphere and presumably water on its surface.

After several years of heated debate, the scientists selected it from a rather long list of candidates. The list included about three hundred planets in our galaxy, the Milky Way. Some of them were rejected due to qualitative characteristics, others – due to their remoteness. Our spiral galaxy is about one hundred thousand light years or zero point six quintillion miles in diameter. Can you imagine that? I can't. The Solar System is closer to the edge of the galaxy, at a distance of two-thirds of its radius from the center. That being said, the closest star is four light years from the Sun, while the farthest systems are about eighty or ninety thousand light years away.

The concentration of stars, and likewise, of planets, is higher in the center of the galaxy – for instance, in the Sagittarius constellation. If we could explore planet after planet, like in science fiction novels, we would fly there. But in reality, we could only fly along the route from point A to point B. Moreover, the crew was in a suspended animation state during the flight, so it was the automatic systems of the ship that controlled everything. The flight plan was as follows: the ship takes off from Earth via a launch vehicle. The Pullman-Anderson drive is activated in orbit, sending the ship along its course toward the stars. The ship then enters the orbit of the orange dwarf planet and detaches the housing and research modules. These modules descend to the surface with astronauts on board. In a month or less, at our command, the Hope was supposed to take a reverse course and bring the research data and information we had transmitted from the surface back to Earth. In any case, we, the Hope crew, would not live long enough to see the second ship. In addition, the chance that the ship would safely reach the planet and return back was significantly lower than the chance of the planet being similar to Earth.

Memories and thoughts raced through my mind, then turned into fragmentary colored spots, and I fell asleep without even realizing it.

I woke to the sound of an opening door and rubbed my eyes. Sheila, who had not bothered to knock, was standing at the doorstep.

“It's time,” she said, and walked on.

I put on my shoes, splashed some cold water on my face and went out to the corridor. Everyone was already there. Apart from the expected fatigue, their faces showed discontent. We, astronauts, have never been treated this way. I stole a glance at Werner, it seemed that this whole time not only had he been standing in the same spot, but he’d also remained completely motionless.

“Follow me,” Sheila Hill commanded rather than asked.

We followed her in single file. I looked back and saw Werner trailing us like a shadow. This time we reached the door of a large freight elevator. There were twenty buttons on the elevator panel, the first floor button at the top. This means that we are underground, I concluded. Perhaps a military base? But why would they drag us here? I didn't notice which button Dr. Hill pressed. My attention was focused on my own face in the elevator mirror – it was as gloomy as the other crew members', with black circles under the eyes. I caught Werner's gaze in the mirror.

“Fell in love already?” I quipped. “Sorry, babe, I'm straight through and through.”

My joke fell flat, not a muscle flinched on Werner's face. Only Sheila cast a disapproving glance in my direction. I shrugged. The elevator stopped, and the doors opened.

The corridor in front of us was flooded with light. Its walls and ceiling were covered with decorative panels, most likely made of foam plastic. We proceeded to the left toward glass doors. When Sheila reached the door, she let us go ahead, then entered herself. Werner stayed outside. It was a conference room, somewhat similar to a small lecture hall at a university. Judging by its height, it occupied two floors of the underground facility.

The room housed metal-framed tables arranged in rows.

“Please sit down,” said the man at the lecturer's desk.

There were two people sitting there. The one who spoke and a balding man of about forty-five, who seemed vaguely familiar.

I sat in the second row. Boris took a seat next to me.

“I think terrorists blew up the ship, and we are in prison. They are looking for accomplices among the crew,” he whispered confidentially in my ear.

This was complete nonsense for sure, but I didn't exactly like Werner and his gun. Why was he here? Well, there's no use in guessing, so I just listened.

The first man – in his fifties with gray hair and short gray mustache – got up and began to speak.

“I would like to explain what happened to you, and it will be easier if you refrain from any comments for a while,” the man said, instead of what normally should have been a greeting. “This way I'll be able to tell you everything without getting swamped with premature questions. Okay?”

We all nodded with interest. He isn't going to torture anyone yet, I thought and looked at Boris. Apparently, the peaceful beginning did not convince him at all.

“First of all, let me introduce myself,” the mustachioed man continued. “My name is Edward Trevor, the commandant of this base. This is my deputy, Alex Bush,” he pointed to the man next to him. “You already know Dr. Hill and Dr. Stein. And this is our security chief, Vincent Taney,” he introduced the man just entering the room.

“Sorry for being late, I was busy,” Taney said, taking a seat. “Go on, Ed.”

I didn't like this new person, another camouflaged guy. Slender build. About thirty years old. Dark slicked back hair.

“Now, after all introductions, let's proceed to the matter at hand. I would like to congratulate you on a successful arrival and welcome you to the Terra Nova planet on behalf of all colonists living at this base.”

Saying that my jaw dropped in surprise after his words would fail to describe the true extent of my astonishment. I turned my head and saw that my fellow astronauts felt the same – they looked as if competing for the world's most surprised expression. As befits a commander, Finn was the first to come to his senses.

“It can't be true. Is that some kind of a sick joke? Was the flight canceled?”

We shouted in support of our commander, asking the same questions all at once. Trevor raised his hand for silence.

“Yes, you heard it right. It's hard to believe. But it is true.”

“But how?” Finn asked.

“Your flight was a very long one. Almost two hundred years. A lot of things happened during this time. The most important of them occurred on Earth ten years after you left it. A way to move through the Droescher-Heim space was invented, that is, the ability to puncture conventional space in order to travel faster than light.

We fell silent.

“You had a Pullman-Anderson sub-light drive leveraging the Pullman effect. But puncturing space is instantaneous, all you need is an enormous amount of energy,” he cleared his throat.

I think all of us just sat there for a while – confused, with our jaws dropped.

“You see,” the speaker continued, “a new expedition was arranged and sent to Terra Nova. It reached the planet one hundred and thirty years before you did. Do you understand?”

We kept silent. I finally closed my mouth and heard Boris grunt incredulously next to me.

“The colonists reported that the planet is habitable, but humans can't breathe the local atmosphere. Which means modified atmosphere is required to establish bases here,” he paused.

“But a new problem arose,” Trevor continued. “The planet is inhabited. It is inhabited by an aggressive life form showing vestiges of intelligence. And these creatures have an advantage. It is their home world. These monsters wiped out the colonists from the first expedition. And from the next one too. We are descendants of the third colonization wave. This,” he made a circular motion, “is the third human base on this planet.”

“Were there other expeditions?” Finn asked.

Trevor shook his head and answered, “Communication with Earth is lost. We don't have enough power for a hyperspace puncture. And there have been no ships from Earth in the last fifty years.”

The hall sank into a deathly silence. Everyone was gripped by foreboding thoughts about the fate of their home planet, as well as relatives and friends back there. About humanity as a civilization.

“How many people do you have here?” Lisa asked.

“Twenty-eight,” Trevor replied. “Thirty-three, counting you.”