Author's note:
This story takes place in the same world as Lost Colony (previously published), but may be read as a standalone story. The characters and setting are new, with only the Lost Colony backstory tying them together. It is also more science-fictiony than most of Lost Colony.
All characters are over the age of eighteen. Thank you for reading!
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-Kyle-
Why did it have to be the woman who said he fucked like an under-powered mining drone?
Kyle Danton clicked off his communicator, stood, and brushed away the leaf debris from his uniform. He should have been left alone to relax in the grove for another hour or two, reading a book or just closing his eyes and letting the sound of Kaybe birdsong swirl around him like a melody. Instead, Commander Sanz had called him into a meeting about a new mission. One which, regrettably, would involve Lissa. He grumbled a curse.
A month ago Danton would have welcomed a chance to spend time with his girlfriend. At least, she had been his girlfriend at the time. Now, as he walked back to the Odysseus camp, his thoughts were swamped with how wretched the experience might be. What had been an exciting and pleasurable distraction from camp life had ended in a messy breakup, culminating with the demeaning comments about his performance in bed. Weeks later he was still hurting. It hadn't been until Danton had found himself suddenly alone that he realized how much emotional stake he had put into their relationship.
Danton paused at the edge of the camp. The Odysseus had brought Danton, Lissa, and their shipmates on a mission to investigate the fate of a colonization attempt on Kaybe. What they had discovered were survivors who had reverted back to a desperate society without technology or written language. Eighteen months later the mission was still struggling to steer the planet's inhabitants toward a more civil society. Although the Odysseus itself had departed for Earth months earlier, the name was still used when referring to the camp. Danton checked his uniform for stray leaves, fussed with his hair, and strode into camp.
"Specialist Danton." Commander Sanz didn't look up from her datapad when he stepped into the briefing room. He could never tell when the commander was irritated, and when she was simply distracted. "Take a seat."
He did, choosing a spot at the corner of the table. With luck, Lissa would choose one at the opposite corner, as far away as possible. Since their breakup, the two had made an art out of staying out of each other's way. The confined briefing room would test that unspoken agreement. While waiting, his mind tortured itself with fresh questions about what had happened between the two. Had Lissa already found someone else? Had the two been fucking somewhere when Sanz sent her summons?
Lissa's appearance, when she did arrive, did little to soothe Danton's worries. Almost as tall as he was, Lissa was wearing a snug-fitting field uniform. She wasn't a voluptuous woman, but with the front closure open perhaps a bit farther than necessary, her fit body was easy to appreciate. Her spiked, platinum blonde hair was arranged even more carelessly than usual. She didn't even bother to look Danton in the eye.
Sanz paid no more attention to Lissa than she had to Danton. "Alright," she said as the former took a seat, "let's get started." She tapped the table. "Carpenter, are you still there?"
The display table lit up, revealing a somewhat pixelated view of Melissa Carpenter, head of anthropology. The scene behind her, a patch of scrubby woodland, had been partially cleared and marked off into a grid. "I apologize for the poor signal quality. We're in a bit of a ravine here, and I think it messes with the satellite reception." As if to emphasize her point, the display flickered momentarily before snapping back.
"It's fine for now," Sanz assured her. "I have Danton and Sloane here. Can you share with them what you've found?"
"Yes, of course. And if the signal holds up I can show them as well. Oh, hi, Lissa and Kyle." Carpenter was a well-liked woman who treated everyone as a friend.
"Hi," the pair replied in unison. The moment might have been humorous if not for the weight that hung between the two.
Carpenter turned her communicator toward the dig site and began narrating as she walked the perimeter. "Mapping Operations discovered the wreckage two weeks ago. From the ground, it looks like nothing, but pattern recognition picked it out as a likely crash site. They sent a drone, which confirmed the hypothesis."
"One of the colonist air cars?" Kyle asked. Four hundred years earlier, as the colonist society began to collapse, scores of air cars, and in some cases larger craft, had been abandoned or fallen from the sky.
"That's what we thought at first," Carpenter said, "but those dropped straight from the sky at low speeds. This site represents a high-speed impact. It tore a pretty good gouge through the ravine before it came to a halt." She panned left, revealing a scar in the soil.
"Did you find Alain Sparr's escape pod?" Lissa asked. Sparr's perilous first year on the planet, starting with his unceremonious ejection from the Odysseus in an escape pod, was ingrained in camp lore.
"It is an escape pod," Carpenter confirmed, "but no one, not even Alain, could have survived this crash." She panned again to reveal the scraps of dull metal and glass which littered the dig site. Few were larger than a dinner plate.
"Perhaps you can spare us further guesswork from our eager specialists," Sanz said, her voice flat. "Show them the fin."
"Yes. Yes, of course." The video feed bounced erratically as Carpenter circled to the far side. Once there, she knelt, providing a clear view of two pieces of scrap which had been pieced together to form an angular shape. A name spanned the two pieces.
"Ark I - Pod 3"
"Son of a bitch!" Kyle gasped.
"Language, Mr. Danton, but yes, it's quite unexpected." Commander Sanz was finally eyeing him, the faintest trace of a smile visible on her lips.
It took Lissa a moment longer to process the clue. "Ark... wasn't that the original colonist ship?"
"Yes. Well, sort of." Carpenter was treating the question as if it had been directed to her. "There were two. Ark I was an uncrewed ship that was sent first, arriving packed with supplies the colonists would need to get started on Kaybe. It arrived approximately three months ahead of Ark II, which carried the colonists themselves."
Kyle chewed on the morsel of information. He and everyone else in the camp had arrived aboard the Odysseus, the Alliance craft sent centuries later to investigate the fate of the colonists. The efforts that had gone into looking for Ark I and Ark II hadn't been successful, and in any event, the crew had other priorities. To find a clue after so long presented an enticing mystery.
"I'm sorry to bring it up, but did you find any bodies?"
"Yes," Carpenter said softly. "The pod appears to have carried four souls, all of whom were killed on impact. A blessing, I suppose."
"I don't get it," Lissa said. "Why have escape pods on an uncrewed ship?"
"I'm not sure 'uncrewed' really applies here," Kyle muttered.
Lissa glared at him, ready to unleash a retort, but Sanz stepped in. "The why of the escape pods we know." Again she tapped at the table, bringing up an image that occupied the entire surface. "This is the best image we have of Ark I. It dates from just before her launch, over four hundred years ago."
The ship was enormous. To Kyle, it looked like a scaffolding floating in space, bulky containers of various sizes clinging to its utilitarian frame. He shook his head. "It certainly doesn't look like there were any habitats."
"Look closer," Sanz said, zooming in to the aft section of the ship. Just forward of the engine cluster was a disc-shaped structure, like an enormous coin, hundreds of meters in diameter and perhaps one-tenth as wide. "The design was modular. The frame used for Ark I was the largest built by the Shell-Bauer shipyard. It could support bulk cargo pods, smaller craft like shuttles, and habitat rings. We're pretty sure that's what is pictured in the last section."
Kyle had long ago read the history of the Ark expedition. "It is well documented that Ark I was supposedly uncrewed-"
"Thank youuuu," Lissa said, cutting him off.
Kyle ignored her. "I get that they would have been required to equip any habitats with escape pods, but why build the habitats to begin with? Ark I could have been smaller, and far less expensive."
Sanz once again met Kyle's eyes, her smile now more pronounced. "That's what I want you to find out."
"Mmmm what?" Lissa asked.
The Commander's self-satisfied grin now took them both in. "We found Ark I."
"Fuck. Me!"
This time Sanz didn't caution Kyle on his language. "Here," she said. The table's display shifted once more, bringing up a chart depicting a wide view of Kaybe before zooming in on a glint of light barely visible against the consuming emptiness of space. "We picked it up two days ago, incoming on a stellar orbit."
Kyle could just stare, but Lissa had questions. "So Ark I, the ship which was supposed to be uncrewed but which apparently wasn't, has been in orbit around Kaybe for four hundred years?"
"More or less," Sanz said, "except it's in orbit around our star K2-136, not Kaybe itself."
"And we're just now seeing it?"
"It's a function of the orbit," Sanz explained. Somehow Ark I ended up in a slow stellar orbit. We don't know why, but it explains why we never spotted it before."
"And you want
us
to figure out what happened?" This came from Danton. "Pardon me Commander, but neither Ms. Sloane nor I work in Orbital Operations."
