In the Vortex (part 1)

ASA Space Base Outside of New York City 2203 AD

The wind gusted heavily as Levi jogged across the snow-swept field. All around, ships were taking off, boarding, and landing in a messy, loud, crowded fashion. It was sort of comforting, though —the talking, the engines roaring, the vessels soaring away —it was home to Levi, almost as much home as the Wayfarer.

Two men, tall and broad in civilian clothes, came into view. Levi cracked a grin and switched course to intercept them. He ran up and stopped ahead of them, “Hi guys, haven’t seen you in a while.”

Shane broke a grin, “I’ve seen you though! On every TV station and magazine cover!”

Levi cleared his throat. “So, uh, what’s been up with you guys?”

Daniel let out a hoot and slapped his knee, “What’s been up with us? That’s rich, isn’t it?”

“We’ve been accepted into training to become Solites!”

Levi stepped back, stunned briefly. All three of their childhood dreams were to become Solites, a special group of ASA operatives, like the Navy SEALs of outer worlds. “Really? That’s great!”

“Not like we’ll ever be as famous as you, though!” Daniel added.

Levi grinned cheesily again, “I got lucky, most people in my line of work aren’t the least bit famous!”

An engine nearby fired off as the ship took to the air; the deafening roar drowned out Levi’s last words. Shane motioned them both closer, shouting to be heard, “Can we move this conversation somewhere else? I have a great restaurant booked, and some of the boys from the academy days are waiting for us!”

Levi nodded and motioned to the barracks, “You guys go ahead. I’ll meet up with you after I get ready.”

They nodded and departed. Levi sprinted to the barracks and the small room on the top floor. He quickly washed some grit off his face, did a brief shave, and changed his clothes. A knock came at the door. Levi turned and opened it. Robert stood outside the door, looking rather uncomfortable.

“Umm… hi, Levi. You left a bag on the Wayfarer,” he said in his ultra-deep, gravely voice. His facial expression was grim as ever. Yet something sad lurked behind his eyes, behind the grizzled beard and tough expression; he looked uncertain in this new setting.

Levi smiled and nodded at the older man. Robert was his senior not only in age (he was fifteen years older) but also in rank (he was a captain), yet Levi felt a strong friendship with him, especially after what they had been through together. “Thank you, Captain,” he said with a salute.

Robert turned to leave, Levi cleared his throat, “Excuse me, Captain, but I was wondering if you’d like to join me and some other soldiers for a get-together at a place in town while we’re on leave.”

Robert glanced back and hurriedly coughed embarrassingly, “Uh, thank you, Lieutenant, but I would find that, um, well, rather hard. I’ll see you in two weeks when we take off again.”

Levi smiled, slightly disappointed. So far, Robert had been eager to avoid public appearances, and only Levi had consented to be interviewed about their co-discovery while they were on their way back to Earth. Now that he was here, he had even more interviews scheduled for him by the ASA so he could tell the world his discovery. Robert was a quiet and reserved man. He didn’t like attention in any form. Levi sighed and went back to getting ready. Within five minutes after he had cleaned up, he went down to the small Marqui restaurant in town that Shane had booked for their small party.

Immigrants from and to other planets were just now picking up speed after all this time, nearly a hundred years since the militarization of NASA and then the formation of the ASA (the American Space Association) from that. Several new and popular restaurants from Marquesh run by natives of that planet had cropped up in the past two to three years.

Marquesh (home to the Marqui) was the planet closest to Earth (in distance and relations); its people were also the most humanoid of the four other non-human species. Their dishes had grown increasingly popular on Earth in the last dozen years, so a restaurant was only natural.

Levi entered the door into the steamy room, a splendid change from the outdoor cold. A Marqui at the entrance greeted him in English, “Good evening, sir, are you part of the ASA party in the back room?” He spoke with a light Marquesh accent, which made the words come out sharp and clipped. But his face was all smiles, the Marqui were known as good-natured people generally, and had the highest regard for humans, as it was the ASA who freed the Marqui from enslavement to the Frigii (a species of alien believed to now be extinct).

Levi nodded and responded from his somewhat limited store of Shellom (the language of the Marqui), “Yes, I am. Could you show me the way?”

The Marqui smiled at Levi’s use of Shellom and nodded, leading Levi to the entrance. He was about six feet tall, the average height for a Marqui, and even somewhat short. He looked like a human, all but the thick, leathery blue skin and the bright green, large eyes. But the strangest and most distinct feature about him was the long black dreads that they all wore and the dark blue and black tattoos over his skin, glyphs and pictures for luck and to identify his tribe.

“In here,” the Marqui said in his language. Pressing a button that slid the door to the side, Levi thanked him and entered the room. The party inside consisted of Daniel, Shane, three fellow Solites in training, and an odd half dozen friends from the academy. They all cheered when he entered, and Shane drummed out a fanfare.

“Hey, it is the famous ASA explorer!” a soldier, Levi remembered, was named Timothy, shouted.

“Five bucks for my client’s autograph!” Daniel said as he sat down.

“Oh, please,” Levi said, sitting down, “I’m not famous.”

A brief moment of silence, then Shane spoke: “You are.”

Everyone laughed, and Daniel ordered all of them: classic Rizpa meat shish kabab, with some Maqui-style drinks to start. Finally, after five minutes or so, everyone quieted down of their own accord and looked at Levi.

“So, you gonna tell us about your amazing discovery?” Shane asked.

Levi cleared his throat, “Well, you already heard about it from the reporters and the news, why do you need to hear it from me?”

“Oh sure,” Daniel said, “we’ve heard the reports how you and your partner expanded the horizon of space by discovering the fourth non-human species, making the total of known species in the known galaxy up to five or six if you count the Frigii. But what we haven’t heard is the story. From you, our friend, straight to us with no TV reporter in the way.”

Levi had to smile at that. Daniel had a way of sounding intense and serious, but he was friendly and encouraging while he did it. “Okay, where do I start?”

“Start from the middle right where that reporter told you to!” shouted one of the other soldiers, Levi couldn’t quite remember.

“Start from the reassignment,” Shane said, “start from where you met Robert.”

Levi nodded, “Okay, well, you guys know how upset I was when the ASA turned me down to become a fighter pilot, which also ruined my chances of ever becoming a Solite. I had to do technician training for about half a year, and then I found myself one day under an eave waiting for my new partner, the notorious Captain Robert.”

• • • • •

Levi shivered in the biting cold of a New York Winter as swirls of snow indicated a blizzard was soon approaching. Won’t bother me, Levi thought, there is no weather in space. Yet it was colder in space, Levi mused, but it was warmer in a ship like the building behind him was.

A burly, grizzled man with a scowl on his face walked up to him, “Lieutenant Lunum?”

Levi saluted, “Are you Captain Jameson?”

“Yes, Lieutenant,” The fearsome and infamous Cap. Robert Jameson said, “What is up with your name?”

Levi looked puzzled for a moment. “Sorry, sir?”

“Lunum! What kind of name is that?”

“It is a family name, sir, my ancestors changed their name when they moved to the moon; they were one of the first settlers.”

“Enough with the history, Lieutenant, we have work to do.”

Levi shrugged and followed. So far, Captain Robert was living up to his reputation. Supposedly, he was the hardest captain to work with. Levi had heard stories from the crew who had stuck with him on his nearly half-year-long voyage, as he berated them at every turn. Then he would kick them off and have them demoted. Supposedly, that is. Levi hadn’t met anyone who knew the name of anyone he kicked off his ship.

Levi put his small duffel bag across his shoulder and followed Robert across the snowy field. It seemed weird to think that he would miss almost all of winter in space, but then he hadn’t ever had seasons until he moved to Earth from Moon City, so it seemed strange to miss them.

Robert led him up to a dark, nearly black, bulky ship near the end of the field, where you could almost hear yourself think, finally. Robert kicked the hull, “It ain’t much, Lieutenant, but it’ll do.”

It was like a large rectangular prism on its side. It was hideous. Levi wasn’t sure if it could take off; the boxy shape was only broken by the angled front and the large circular thruster behind. Two ‘wings’, if you could call them that, in the shape of trapezoids, filled the length of both sides. The wings were thin. They looked strong, though. Another pair of thrusters nestled under them, and they were swiveling ones, unlike the back. Levi had to guess that somehow they got the ship into the air.

“Well?”

Levi looked up at Robert, “What is its name?”

Robert rubbed his chin, deciding whether or not to tell Levi, “Well, Lieutenant, she is too small to have a name, just a cereal number, ES-57. I like to call her ‘wayfarer’.”

Levi smiled at that. “The Wayfarer.”

“Enough grinning, Lieutenant! We have work to do,” Robert said, going back to scowling, while he opened the door in the side of the ship. Levi followed him in and examined the insides. The front was a large cockpit attached to the hallway that ran down the entire vessel, though there wasn’t much for it to run down the length of.

The first room was a small closet-width space using both sides of the hallway. It was where Levi entered; it was how you entered the hallway or cockpit, a sort of in-between area. The other four rooms were arranged in pairs, each the same size, down the hall. Levi looked into the first two: a small bathroom across from a room full of scientific instruments for measuring space stuff. Then there was a room with a bunk bed across from a room full of storage boxes of supplies.

There was no shower on board. Levi couldn’t help but notice, and he wrinkled his nose as if it had already been six months aboard this ship, just imagining the smell was bad. He sat on the unoccupied bunk to put his bag away.

Levi went to join Robert at the front of the ship a few minutes later to run the pre-takeoff diagnostics. Then they took off, with no fanfare, no explosion, or thrusting back into their seats.

Robert silently and grimly piloted the ship through the Stratosphere and up above. Levi twiddled his thumbs, finally clearing his throat. Robert glanced over at him when they reached the Thermosphere. “What do you want, Lieutenant?”

“I was just curious what we were going to do.”

Robert stared at him, “You didn’t read the mission description?”

Levi shook his head, “No, I read it, it was just sort of vague. It said we would be searching for other planets and systems and plotting them on the map to increase the area of the known galaxy, but it didn’t say how.”

“Boy, you are in for a treat then,” Robert said, laughing mirthlessly, “this is the faction of the ASA that they put people like you and me in to rot and rust. First, we go to a star; we have several plotted out in a course that will take us to them and back to Earth in roughly five to six months. When we reach a star, we use several scientific devices to locate any fast-moving, whizzing planets that orbit it for millions of miles. You don’t just look through a window to see a planet shoot by.

Once you find a planet, if you can, it is almost always a big gas ball or a tiny rocky, atmosphere-less satellite, so you have to move on. When you finally find a planet in the habitable zone, it never has any atmosphere, but of course, to make sure, you have to come in close and analyze its chemical makeup.”

Levi was beginning to regret having asked. “What do we do if it has aliens on it?”

Robert glanced at him, “There are four worlds with life on them, no one, not any of the hundreds of squads like ours, in the nearly eighty years since the ASA began, has discovered another. But we have found thousands of Earth-like worlds devoid of life because they were just a tad too hot or their electric field was a little too weak, and supposedly, there are fewer than a hundred habitable worlds with no life on them beyond plants and small animals. And get this, if we find life at any point in our exploration, we are immediately to send a message to the ASA and they’ll send back a cruiser of important people who will decide how best to make first contact. While we continue on our way, looking for more planets.”

Levi leaned back into the seat, examining the beauties of the utterly empty and black exosphere. “So do we ever land on any new planets?”

Robert laughed. If it is habitable but has no life that we can see from space, we need to go down and fly low. If we still don’t see anything, we put one of the small probes we have in the back down and send one of our companion satellites into orbit so it can transmit data to Earth.”

Levi looked around as if to divine their whereabouts, “Where are these satellites and probes?”

Robert motioned with his hand back down the hallway, “When I say small, I mean really small. There are about six back in that storage room.”

“Wow,” Levi muttered, “that is small.”

Robert didn’t say anything until an hour later, when they accelerated above lightspeed. “I’ll call you in for your shift at the controls.”

Levi walked to the cabin and sat down with an ASA handbook for required work. He must have fallen asleep, and unfortunately, the secret of osmosis had yet to be discovered, so when Robert shook him awake, he hadn’t gotten much done. Levi sat at the controls, eating a sandwich and drinking a mug of coffee that Robert had prepared. Strange behavior for the mean gruff soldier that Levi had heard of. However, Robert had made their conversations very brief, and he scowled a lot.

Because they traveled at lightspeed, all light got left behind them, so it was pitch black ahead. If you could look behind you, you might see a mess of colors and streaks of the universe’s lights left racing away, but dead ahead through the front camera was nothing. The ship didn’t have actual windows; even Levi’s porthole in his room was actually a screen with a camera positioned on the other side of the wall. Because they were like that, Levi could toggle to different cameras on the ship to change the view.

He switched the settings to the back window and stared at the bright display, with Earth somewhere behind. It was going to be a long trip.

• • • • •

“We have her in our sights now!” Levi shouted, a smile splitting his face.

Robert, uninterested, glanced up from the crossword puzzle on his lap. “Nice, you got coordinates?”

Levi nodded and glanced at the screen below, showing a red-brown, rusty-looking world. He and Robert had been in space for three months now; this was their first hit at a planet in the habitable zone. “7983.48592.3920,” Levi said quickly. Robert barely had time to reach for a pen.

“78 what?”

“No!” Levi said, shaking his head, “7983.48592.3920”

Robert rolled his eyes, “Slower, please, Lieutenant!”

Levi read it to him, and Robert wrote it down, entering it into the computer navigation system. Levi jumped into the co-pilot seat as Robert grabbed the controls and sent them just below lightspeed towards the planet. Now and then, he’d jump to above lightspeed for a minute and then slow back down to do a course correction.

“It is a gaseous planet, I think,” Robert muttered, “so it will be devoid of life.”

Levi shrugged, “It is still cool.”

Robert rolled his eyes again. He’d warmed slightly to Levi, but still could be incredibly grumpy and pessimistic. It nearly drove Levi crazy sometimes.

The planet came into view, just a rapidly growing speck that grew brighter and brighter. Its sun grew as well until if you actually had been looking at it with your eyes, it would have probably damaged them, but as it was (a computer screen), it didn’t blind them with its brightness. The shape slowly emerged from the darkness to join the light reflected from its sun. Rusty brown and red, the swirling patterns of storms and gas. It looked somewhat like a small Jupiter. Levi turned on several computer systems and started to analyze gravitational data.

“It has some kind of satellite,” he noted.

“Probably those rings,” Robert said.

“Something more, like a moon, probably.”

Robert shrugged.

“I think that it has a rocky surface.”

“Most gaseous planets do, but Saturn has a tiny rocky core.”

“No, like it is mostly rock that or is a lot bigger than it looks,” Levi said, showing Robert the screen. “The readings are intense.”

Robert pulled them in lower, dipping into the outer edge of the atmosphere, still technically space. Using readings of chemical composition and some sonar mapping, Levi attempted to get a clear view of the planet. After a moment, he pointed at the screen again. “Sonar just came in. It has a relatively large rocky surface. The gravity isn’t too powerful. We could probably walk around down there.

Robert shrugged, “I’ll take us down, maybe we can set up a probe.”

Levi continued to analyze the atmosphere as they went down. “It seems safe to breathe. The oxygen levels leave some to be desired, but we can wear filters just in case.”

Robert raised an eyebrow at him, “Are you actually excited to be stepping onto this planet?”

Levi grinned. “Are you not? I finally get to leave this ship!”

“It is just going to be a hike on a stormy surface! And then we pack up and get back onto the ship.”

Levi stretched, “Well, I haven’t gotten a good run in forever.”

Robert set them down gently on the storm-torn rocks, “Let’s unload my jogger, then we’ll be off as soon as possible.”

Levi clambered out, barely even thinking that his foot was the first to touch this soil of another world. The scenery was bleak. It was ridiculous to suppose anything could be living here; his hopes of alien civilizations weren’t that high, but now they were gone. The sun was hidden in the red clouds as a broiling storm rolled its way towards them.

Levi helped Robert unload the probe and got it moving. It was a small spherical object that crawled along on spidery legs. It communicated with the tiny satellite that they would be putting in orbit. They watched it sprint its way away.

“Okay,” Robert said, “time to leave. I hope you had fun!”

Levi rolled his eyes. “No one told me this job would be interesting or even stimulating, I guess.”

Robert swatted at an insect buzzing near him and climbed inside the ship. Levi hesitated. Something seemed very wrong. He stepped away from their vessel, towards one of the rocks. It quivered slightly at his approach.

“Heyyyy, joooogger boyyy,” Robert slurred, wavering in the door.

Levi looked back, remembering what the insect looked like, a dart of some kind. Motion exploded around him. Levi spun away across the ground as a feathered spike stuck into the ground where he had been. Shouting and howling in some language Levi couldn’t understand, strange creatures leapt up from the dirt, covered in gray war paint and wearing what looked like rock backpacks for camouflage when they curled up. Their bodies under the paint were bright red, helping them blend in with the magnitude of red dust flying around.

Levi crouched lower and rolled under the ship. Robert had collapsed on the other side, and already, many six-fingered red hands with two thumbs were lifting him up, pulling the dart out of his neck, and lashing him to a pole.

Before Levi could do anything more, the same hands grabbed him, and with a shout, they pulled him out. The leering creature grinned. And silently tied and gagged him. When he struggled, one simply reached over and jabbed his neck with what was likely the same dart they shot Robert with, and he slumped, his vision fading to black. Aliens had kidnapped him on his first mission out, just his luck.

TO BE CONTINUED…