She hated the feeling, being trapped in the cocoon with nothing but the smells of her own nervous sweat mixed with the resilient foam she was encased in.
“ So this is how an egg feels,” she muttered aloud. She’d never seen a real egg, but she’d recently read about them while trying to pass the time on the journey to Vitalis. The planet was outside the edge of controlled space, five light years beyond the closest jumpstation. That meant hibernation cycles for the crew and marines. Nine months in, 3 months out. Only way to keep the body from falling apart. Seven years of that, even though it only felt like a little less than two, left a person with a lot of time to kill.
So she’d read up on Vitalis in her spare time, pulling everything the ship’s library could tell her. Humanity had been colonizing other worlds for close to one hundred and fifty years but terraforming had not been a practical or sustainable as promised. Mars had enough of an atmosphere to be comparable to living several thousand feet above sea level on Earth, but even Earth’s sister planet was lacking in nutrients and necessary minerals to support agriculture. With time and research resilient strains had been engineered, but the dreams of unlimited farmlands feeding the starving throngs of humanity had fallen short. And that was Mars, the planet that resembled Earth the closest.
Vitalis offered to change all of that, according to the preliminary data she’d seen. The planet not only supported human life, but the research conducted showed it supported super-human life. Data from the researchers that had been sent to the planet showed amazing preliminary results. It was as if the planet was a fountain of youth. That, in turn, made it a suddenly very valuable resource. All the more so since the beacon that notified the Terran Coalition of its existence had no one alive that claimed it, making it an open planet.
Her unit had been dispatched to the planet to offer support to the advanced research team onboard the Terran Coalition Ship Explorer. By the time Elsa’s frigate had left the Explorer was already a year enroute. They knew of the reported two crashed vessels, one a registered transport and the second an unregistered vessel that had launched a salvage beacon in orbit around the planet. When the research team arrived no survivors had been reported, making the salvage claim pointless.
A research station was established and the TCS Explorer was standing by orbit for support. The research settlement had been destroyed by an unknown force and within days the entire crew of the Explorer had died. The lack of further communications had changed the Marine vessel’s mission. When they arrived in system reconnaissance of the Explorer returned preliminary results of the entire crew dying of malnutrition. The larders and galleys had been full, confusing and complicating the issue.
A beep sounded, drawing her out of her reverie. Impact was less than two minutes away. She took a few deep breaths, ignoring how the unfiltered air tasted on her tongue. With ninety seconds remaining she saw the flashing warning of a proximity alert and felt the screamer jerk to the left. She stared at the screen, her fingers trying to push dents in the armor that covered her chest. Her breath whistled quicker as the seconds ticked off on the display. Being knocked off course was always a threat, but seldom a reality. When it happened it was always somebody else, never her.
With five seconds to spare the screamer exploded. She felt like she’d left her heart behind as the armored pod disintegrated around her. It took the last of the inertial arresting with it, leaving her in horrible motion that twisted her stomach into knots. The capsule slammed into the ground, sliding and rolling in the path made by the hardened nosecone of the deployment pod.
Chapter 2
Elsa spat out some blood from where she’d bitten her lip. Mouth free, she croaked out the
“ So this is how an egg feels,” she muttered aloud. She’d never seen a real egg, but she’d recently read about them while trying to pass the time on the journey to Vitalis. The planet was outside the edge of controlled space, five light years beyond the closest jumpstation. That meant hibernation cycles for the crew and marines. Nine months in, 3 months out. Only way to keep the body from falling apart. Seven years of that, even though it only felt like a little less than two, left a person with a lot of time to kill.
So she’d read up on Vitalis in her spare time, pulling everything the ship’s library could tell her. Humanity had been colonizing other worlds for close to one hundred and fifty years but terraforming had not been a practical or sustainable as promised. Mars had enough of an atmosphere to be comparable to living several thousand feet above sea level on Earth, but even Earth’s sister planet was lacking in nutrients and necessary minerals to support agriculture. With time and research resilient strains had been engineered, but the dreams of unlimited farmlands feeding the starving throngs of humanity had fallen short. And that was Mars, the planet that resembled Earth the closest.
Vitalis offered to change all of that, according to the preliminary data she’d seen. The planet not only supported human life, but the research conducted showed it supported super-human life. Data from the researchers that had been sent to the planet showed amazing preliminary results. It was as if the planet was a fountain of youth. That, in turn, made it a suddenly very valuable resource. All the more so since the beacon that notified the Terran Coalition of its existence had no one alive that claimed it, making it an open planet.
Her unit had been dispatched to the planet to offer support to the advanced research team onboard the Terran Coalition Ship Explorer. By the time Elsa’s frigate had left the Explorer was already a year enroute. They knew of the reported two crashed vessels, one a registered transport and the second an unregistered vessel that had launched a salvage beacon in orbit around the planet. When the research team arrived no survivors had been reported, making the salvage claim pointless.
A research station was established and the TCS Explorer was standing by orbit for support. The research settlement had been destroyed by an unknown force and within days the entire crew of the Explorer had died. The lack of further communications had changed the Marine vessel’s mission. When they arrived in system reconnaissance of the Explorer returned preliminary results of the entire crew dying of malnutrition. The larders and galleys had been full, confusing and complicating the issue.
A beep sounded, drawing her out of her reverie. Impact was less than two minutes away. She took a few deep breaths, ignoring how the unfiltered air tasted on her tongue. With ninety seconds remaining she saw the flashing warning of a proximity alert and felt the screamer jerk to the left. She stared at the screen, her fingers trying to push dents in the armor that covered her chest. Her breath whistled quicker as the seconds ticked off on the display. Being knocked off course was always a threat, but seldom a reality. When it happened it was always somebody else, never her.
With five seconds to spare the screamer exploded. She felt like she’d left her heart behind as the armored pod disintegrated around her. It took the last of the inertial arresting with it, leaving her in horrible motion that twisted her stomach into knots. The capsule slammed into the ground, sliding and rolling in the path made by the hardened nosecone of the deployment pod.
Chapter 2
Elsa spat out some blood from where she’d bitten her lip. Mouth free, she croaked out the
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