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Resonance
Sam fidgeted with her exosuit’s gloves as she waited for the airlock’s decontamination cycle to finish. “How much longer, Simon?”
“Eighty seconds, Miss Hyatt,” came the AI’s brusque reply.
“Easy there, kiddo,” Astera said as she turned to give her a half smile through the wide window of her helmet. “Don’t wanna rush things and give this place a cold.”
Sam scowled at her. “Okay, first of all, I have a PhD, I think I’ve earned the right to not be called ‘kiddo’. Second, you’re not even a decade older than me. And third, forgive me for itching to finally set foot on a planet I’ve spent the majority of my academic career studying from seven thousand light years away.”
Astera held up her hands with a laugh. “No ‘fense meant, Sam. We’re all eager to get started.”
“You’re both kids from my perspective,” Captain Zhang grumbled ahead of them as he checked the fuel cell on his oversized cutting torch. “This is just a field trip with hazard pay. Let’s try to stay focused when we’re out there, yeah? We’re not here to sightsee.”
Sam exchanged a look with Astera, then said, “Captain, we’re a research team on an unexplored planet. We’re explicitly here to sightsee.”
Captain Jaxson merely grunted in response as the lights switched from red to green. The heavy airlock hatch cracked open, letting in bright amber sunshine.
There was a chime as Simon announced, “Captain Jaxson Zhang, Astera Haugen, and Samantha Hyatt are away. Felder Orlov has the bridge.” Somehow, the AI managed to sound bored.
Felder’s voice came in over the radio. “Be sure to bring me back something shiny!”
“That shouldn’t be too hard,” Sam muttered as she adjusted her helmet.
Strictly speaking, a full exosuit wasn’t necessary to survive on the surface of Kohatu Nui. A simple rebreather apparatus would suffice to deal with the too little oxygen, too much carbon monoxide atmosphere, with the pressure at a tolerable 1.6 atmospheres. There were no caustic toxins to speak of, nor any airborne microorganisms or organic materials which could trigger anaphylactic shock.
However, even the most resilient human would find it difficult to endure more than ten minutes of exposure to the planet’s surface, let alone the endless caverns that honeycombed its thin crust. The average temperature was a stifling 62 °C, made all the more intolerable by humidity that rarely dipped below 90%.
Still, Sam found herself wishing it was more feasible to have an unadulterated view of the glittering landscape before her as the hatch door thumped to the ground below.
Breathtakingly complex crystalline structures erupted from the ground at irregular intervals around the landing zone. Some robust specimens soared dozens of meters into the sky to dwarf the science vessel they had arrived in, some barely rose to Sam’s waist, fine and delicate as a plume of feathers. All reflected and refracted the sunlight into a dazzling array of hues against the otherwise dark, stony terrain.
Sam, at a loss for a more profound insight, simply said, “Wow.”
“Yeah,” Astera said, jaw hanging open.
Even Captain Zhang seemed subdued as he slowly descended the ramp. “C’mon, last known position of the drone is just under that ridge.”
Sam found it galling that her first assignment planetside would be little more than a retrieval operation for a missing research drone, but it did make sense to see what it had managed to suss out before they started poking around an unknown planet on their own. “Any idea what may have caused it to lose contact?”
“You saw the same data I did,” Captain Zhang replied. “My guess is the crystals scattered the signal to the satellite when it got in the shadow of the ridge, and some programming glitch caused it to shut down instead of coming back out in the open to re-establish a link.”
“Well, that’s what the company gets for cheaping out on ’em’,” Astera said, eyeing the loading drone that waited patiently at the bottom of the ramp to be of use.
Sam dialed up the opacity of her faceplate a bit and held up a hand to shield her eyes from the glare. “I don’t see it from here. Do you suppose it went into that cave?”
“God, I hope not,” Captain Zhang replied with a sigh. “I don’t want to have to go spelunking to find it.”
“Don’t be such a sourpuss, Cap,” Astera said, “I’ve got some rope and rappelling gear in my pack, so we don’t need to go through decon twice to do a bit of underground sightseeing.”
Sam could hear the smile in Astera’s voice, and couldn’t help but smile herself as Captain Zhang groaned.
As impressive as the surface had been, it was nothing compared to the staggering beauty of the cave. The crystals above caught the sunlight and transmitted it down through meters of rock to the cave below, suffusing the cave with a soft amber glow. Massive columns of crystal jutted at every conceivable angle, forming a makeshift series of columns, walkways, and walls that gradually descended deep under the ridge.
Sam had never seen anything so beautiful in person.
“Well, now,” Astera said softly, “you don’t see views like this on the holo very often.”
Captain Zhang unslung his cutting torch. “I don’t like this. Way too many spots for something to hide.”
Moment gone, Sam frowned at him. “Paranoid much, Captain?”
“Yeah,” said Astera, “preliminary results from the drone showed zero signs of organic life on this planet. Cool your jets.”
“That’s a song I’ve heard before, Haugen. Now my leg’s metal below the knee, and the head of the thing that ate it is mounted on my wall.” He advanced slowly. “Just keep your eyes open.”
They didn’t need to go very far into the cave to find what they were looking for. The shattered remains of the drone lay at the base of the first crystalline walkway that descended from the entrance. A slender spire of crystal jutted up through its center of mass.
“Exquisite,” Captain Zhang sighed as he picked up a sheet of metal and tossed it aside.
Sam bent down and started sifting through the broken shell of the drone for its storage drive. The more she dug, the deeper her frown became. “Something’s wrong here.” She looked up to see the ceiling only a few meters above. “Almost every component in here is in pieces, but there’s no way it could have fallen far enough for it to have caused this much damage.”
There was a soft bwee as Captain Zhang primed his cutting torch. “Sam, find what you’re looking for so we can go.”
Sam dug deeper, then pulled out the matte black brick that served as the data storage unit for the drone - or rather, she pulled out two thirds of it. “Well, shit.”
“Maybe Simon can still salvage something from it,” Astera said, though she didn’t sound hopeful.
“Maybe.” Sam put the broken drive in her bag, then paused and held up a hand. “Hey, does anyone else hear that?”
Astera and Captain Zhang froze. “Hear what?” they asked in unison.
As a silence descended, a faint whine could be heard above the hum of the exosuit’s cooling units. Sam frowned, then shifted a piece of metal debris away from the crystal spire. The noise immediately stopped. She picked up another piece of shrapnel and held it against the crystal, and the whine resumed, slowly increasing in pitch. She touched the metal to the crystal they were standing on, but heard nothing.
“That’s weird,” Astera said. “Maybe a short somewhere in there is causing it to vibrate like that?”
“Maybe.” Sam touched the spire with an outstretched finger, but couldn’t feel anything through her glove. “It’s faint, whatever it is.”
“Well, while we’re here, we may as well get a sample of this stuff for Felder. And for me, for that matter.” She dug in her pack for a hammer and chisel, but stopped when a pair of hand sized chunks of crystal fell away from the stone wall beside her. “Oh.”
“That’s it, everyone out,” Captain Zhang said, voice strained. “I’m not letting you lot die in a cave in over a busted drone.”
“Yeah, I’m suddenly keen on leaving too.” Sam helped Astera hastily put the crystals in sample containers, then hurried out of the cave with the captain hot on their heels. A low hum rose as they ran, almost below Sam’s hearing range, which faded away once they emerged into the sunlight.
Sam entered the ship’s lab to find both Felder and Astera hunched over their workstations. “You guys said you’d found something?”
Felder reached up and stretched his shoulders, the servos of his prosthetic arm clicking against each other. “In a way. Astera, did you verify the results on your sample?”
Astera sighed as she tossed a mechanical pencil vaguely in the direction of an empty coffee mug. “Yeah. Same deal.” She looked up at Sam with a tired smile. “Hey, Sam. Have you and Simon found anything yet?”
Sam shook her head. “It’s the damnedest thing - every board in the drive is broken into pieces, just like the rest of the drone. All Simon’s been able to dig out so far are isolated batches of fragmented code, nothing concrete.”
“Not for lack of effort, mind,” Simon chimed in from an overhead speaker. “I am still in the process of testing each board fragment in sequence, which will take additional time. I will compile a full report of my findings once I have completed the task.”
Sam shrugged. “We figure it’ll be another few hours at the rate we’ve been going. What’s up in here?”
Astera looked to Felder, who rubbed his face with his non-mechanical hand. “Well, we can tell you what it’s most definitely not.”
“I’m hoping you can do better than that, Orlov,” Captain Zhang rumbled as he stepped into the lab.
“Ah, Captain, excellent timing.” Felder grabbed a sample container and placed it on the small table in the center of the room. “This crystal has a structure nearly identical to selenite, except for three distinct characteristics.”
At the blank look on the captain’s face, Sam said, “Gypsum.”
The captain waved her off. “Right, right. Continue.”
Felder gestured at the sample. “First, selenite doesn’t clock in at 9.5 on the mohs scale.”
Sam raised her eyebrows at that. “Whoa.”
Captain Zhang’s frown deepened. “I’m gonna need this in Captain Dummy Talk, people.”
Astera caught Felder’s helpless look and said through a half smile, “It’s just this side of diamonds in terms of hardness, Cap. If we’d been less careful when landing our bird, those spires out there would have torn the hull open like paper.”
The captain’s expression softened. “Okay, what else?”
Astera stood as she continued. “Second, this stuff behaves more like a semiconductor - closer to silicon in terms of electrical conductivity than anything like selenite.”
Sam furrowed her brow. “So, definitely not selenite, then.”
Astera’s smile widened. “You haven’t seen the best part yet. Felder?”
Felder reached up and hit the light switch above his head, then said, “Finally, and this is the important part, I think; selenite doesn’t glow.”
It was fainter than the light emanating from the various monitors in the room, but there was an undeniable luminance coming from deep within the chunk of crystal in the middle of the room.
It was the captain’s turn to rub a hand across his face. “Please, please tell me that stuff isn’t radioactive.”
“Nope,” Astera said as she shook her head. “That was the first thing we checked, and we checked it three times each. We’re more radioactive than this stuff is.”
“We suspect some form of mechanoluminescence, as the crystals do give off a faint electromagnetic field,” Felder added, “but we can detect no progressive deformation of the crystal structure, be it fractious or elastic in nature.”
Sam whistled. “Yeah, that’s… That’s something, alright.”
Captain Zhang looked ready to pop a blood vessel. “So, when you said you had something, you meant…?”
Astera exchanged a glance with Felder, then said, “We meant we have no fucking clue what this stuff is. It’s a brand new mineral, Cap. We’re in uncharted territory here.”
“Uncharted, potentially lucrative territory, Captain,” Felder hastily added, mismatched hands upraised in an attempt to mollify the reddening captain. “There’s definitely a market for a nigh-indestructible semiconductor in the galaxy, I can assure you.”
“Fine. Great.” Captain Zhang set a foot outside the lab, then said, “All of you get some sleep. Tomorrow’s going to be a long day.”
Sam smirked. “Well, the local day is 46.7 hours long, so-”
“Stow it, Hyatt,” the captain said as he left.
Sam emerged from the head from brushing her teeth to find Astera wrapped in a blanket, looking at a map of the galaxy on their bunk’s holo. “Hey, Astera? I just wanted to apologize for being kind of a bitch earlier today. I’ve been on edge since I first got this assignment, is all, and–”
Astera was already waving away her apology. “Already forgotten, Sam. I shouldn’t have gone infantilizing a fellow PhD, anyways.” She gave Sam a winning smile. “Old habits, I guess.”
Sam smiled back, then gestured at the galaxy map. “What’s this?”
“Oh, just a little ritual of mine. Helps take the sting out of homesickness some, is all.” Astera shifted over on her bunk. “Wanna join me?”
“Sure,” Sam said as she sat next to her. She saw that two locations on the map were highlighted: one, their current location, Kohatu Nui, and the other, about twenty thousand light years away, the chilly, fertile planet of Novaya Ray. “Is that your homeworld?”
“Yep. Born ‘n raised. I’ve got two little sisters still going to university there.” Astera sounded wistful as she said, “It helps to put the distance in perspective like this. Like, if you zoom out far enough, you can still have home on the same map as you.” There was a throaty chuckle. “It’s silly, I know, but it helps to stop trying to fathom how far apart I am from them.”
“That’s a neat way of looking at it, though,” Sam said. She reached across Astera and tapped a quick command into the terminal. As she sat back up straight, their gazes locked, and for the first time, Sam saw flecks of silver in the depths of the surrounding dark blue of Astera’s eyes.
Hastily, Sam turned away to point at a new location on the map. “There’s mine, Londinium.”
Astera chuckled again. “Well, shoot, that’s what, only twenty some light years? Just a hop, skip and a jump away.” Astera stared at her, a sleepy smile on her face. “Practically a girl next door.”
Sam felt the room get a little warmer. “What, um, what are your sisters’ names?” Sam noticed out of the corner of her eye that the map had gone out of focus.
“Ilia and Selena. Our parents were always the poetical sort.” Again, that smooth, throaty chuckle. “Their Sun, Moon, and Stars, they’d call us.”
“Those are really pretty names,” Sam breathed. Any semblance of clarity to the holo map was gone, just a blur of light on the periphery of her vision.
Astera was somehow closer to her. “So I’ve been told,” she said, smile softening at the edges. “I think Sam’s pretty, too.”
“My name, or…?” On a far off planet, the mirror in the head shattered, glass shards clattering to the metal floor.
“I think you can figure it out, PhD,” Astera said as she leaned in to lightly brush her lips against Sam’s.
Sam was vaguely aware that Astera’s pupils were completely blown, in the same was that she was vaguely aware her blanket had fallen away, revealing her to be wearing a loose tank top and very little else. And then, all that mattered was the touch of Astera’s fingers on her cheek, the solidity of Astera’s shoulder beneath her hand, the heat of Astera’s breath–
“Ladies, if I may interrupt,” Simon’s voice echoed tinnily through the overhead speaker.
“You may not,” said Sam.
“Fuck off, Simon,” Astera added.
“Feisty,” said Sam as she mashed her lips against Astera’s once more. The room was too warm for clothes, and Sam hurriedly began clawing at–
“Ladies, if I can convince you two to extract yourselves from one another, there is a crisis occurring elsewhere on the ship that needs your direct attention.” Simon’s words grated, as though wasps had gained the ability to sting her via sound.
“The only crisis that needs addressing is twixt my nethers, darlin’.”
“Oh my god.” Sam threw herself at Astera, and they tumbled to the floor in a heap with the blanket.
“Miss Hyatt, Miss Haugen, I insist that you cease fraternizing and pay attention. Captain Zhang and Mister Orlov have–”
Simon’s voice continued droning on, but all Sam could hear were the soft, desperate, primal noises coming from Astera, coming from herself, an endless song of sensation expressed beyond the need or means of conscious thought. A loud hum drowned out all other noise, and all she could feel was the desperate ache deep within her that longed to be filled.
A sudden tickle at her nose, a sudden slackness in her limbs, and Sam slumped to the ground, unsatisfied and yearning, her fading vision showing Astera falling over beside her.
The first thing Sam became aware of was the harshness of the light above her. The second was the skullsplitting headache that reverberated through her skull. The third was that she was lying naked beneath the blanket on her bed.
“Ow,” Sam said as she sat up, eyes shut tight against the wave of nausea that assaulted her.
“Welcome back, Miss Hyatt.” Simon’s voice sounded frazzled, as though the speaker had blown.
Vague memories started to trickle through her mind, and Sam felt herself submerge in a pool of deep dread. “Simon, what the hell happened?”
“A number of things, chief among them the premature end of your research operation. We are currently en route back to company headquarters, where we will wait under quarantine until we can establish you and the rest of the crew are safe to return to duty.”
“Wait, what? Captain Zhang pulled the plug?”
“I’m afraid not, Miss Hyatt. As all crew members were affected to some degree by the phenomenon, the company has ceded authority of the mission to an offsite official. They pulled the plug, so to speak, and I am acting on their authority.”
Corporate override was almost unheard of, except for the most dire of circumstance. Sam suddenly felt grateful to be alive and in one piece. “What phenomenon?”
“I have a detailed report ready for your perusal, but in summary, the crystal samples you retrieved from your away mission began to vibrate at varying frequencies as you and the rest of the crew were preparing for bed. These vibrations somehow caused localized phenomenon in two separate locations on the ship, one of them being your quarters, whereby the vibrations triggered the release of excessive amounts of oxytocin, dopamine, and serotonin in both your and Miss Haugen’s systems.”
“Astera?” Sam looked over to see Astera asleep in her bunk, a troubled look on her face. The presence of the loading drone explained how they had both been returned to their respective beds.
“So… it was all, um,” Sam paused. “None of that was real? It was just the planet fucking with us?”
“That is a question only the two of you can answer, Miss Hyatt. All I can say for certain is your hormone levels were altered, significantly, by an exterior force. As the two of you have had the majority of your contact with one another within the environment that provided the impetus for your activities, it may be prudent to revisit the matter now that we are elsewhere.”
The news did little to alleviate Sam’s headache. “You said it happened elsewhere on the ship. What happened to the captain and Felder?”
“The vibrations triggered a dramatically different response in the two of them, releasing adrenaline and dopamine. Both Captain Zhang and Mister Orlov became paranoid and aggressive, becoming violent with one another over a dispute regarding food rations. Their actions rendered it necessary to release sedatives into the ventilation system to prevent further harm to each other and to themselves, and they both remain under heavy sedation in the med bay.” There was a pause, then, “I also vented sedatives into your quarters as a precautionary measure, as you and Miss Haugen were both also beyond coherent thought by that point.”
That explained the headache. “Let’s fly right past where you explain why there’s sedatives hooked up to the life support system on the ship. I take it you jettisoned the samples?”
“Correct, as soon as it became clear they were the source of the phenomenon.”
Sam sighed. “So what happens now?”
“That’s largely up to you and Miss Haugen, though in the near future I will require your assistance to move Captain Zhang and Mister Orlov into stasis for the journey back to headquarters. Beyond that, I would encourage you both to return to stasis yourselves, though there are provisions on board for a significantly longer field mission than what transpired, should you choose to dally.”
“Ugh. I think it’s probably best to put this trip behind us. I’m going to the galley to get some food and something for this headache. Send Astera my way when she wakes up?”
“I will relay your wishes to her.”
“Thanks.” Sam got dressed, then plodded to the galley.
She tried her best to shut out her memories of the previous night, but as she mechanically ate her oatmeal, they flooded back. It had been years since she’d felt anything even close to that kind of connection with someone, however manufactured it may have been. It didn’t help that she kept dwelling on the softness of Astera’s lips, the heat of Astera’s body against her own, the–
“Hey, Sam.”
Sam’s spoon pinwheeled away as she looked up to see Astera, a blanket draped over her shoulders, covering a loose shirt and coveralls. “Hi, Astera. Did Simon, um, fill you in on what happened?”
“He did.” Astera refused to look her in the eye as she rehydrated a protein pack.
Sam felt a lead weight form in the pit of her stomach. “Did you want to talk about it?”
She sighed. “Not really. I’ve got a lot to think about.”
Too quickly, Sam nodded. “Of course. We should probably sleep on it.” She gave a tight smile.
The smile Astera gave back fell away almost instantly. “Sam, I...” She shook her head. “Yeah, we should sleep on it.” She pointed her thumb over her shoulder. “I’m gonna sleep in the common room.”
Sam felt her face getting hot. “Sure. I’ll see you later, then.”
“Yeah.” She left without another word.
Sam stared at her oatmeal until her vision blurred, and she angrily wiped away her tears before wolfing down the rest of her food.
Astera was a ghost over the next couple of days, seen only in fleeting glimpses as Sam rounded corners between the galley and her bunk.
Simon informed Sam after the fact that Astera had volunteered to help inter their incapacitated crewmates to stasis with the loading drone’s assistance while she slept. Upon learning this, Sam told Simon that she’d had enough, and wanted to get the journey home over with. Simon agreed to prep a stasis pod immediately.
Sam spent the intervening time collating the last of the data she included in her addendum to Simon’s report on their findings on Kohatu Nui, closing with a strongly worded warning against visitation by humans, and recommending further exploration be done exclusively by remote drone.
She sighed as she signed the document with her personal code, then shuffled to the stasis pod storage chamber. She pointedly avoided looking at the burned out slag of Felder’s prosthetic arm, as well as the wide gash across Captain Zhang’s face, as she opened her pod.
She had one foot in when she heard a soft noise from behind her. “Sam, wait.”
Sam’s head snapped up. “Astera?”
Astera stood in the doorway, hugging herself. “Hey, Sam,” she said, eyes locked on a blank spot on the wall beside her. “Would you, um,” she shifted her weight from one foot to the other, “would you want to grab a cup of coffee in the galley with me, before we turn in for the long haul?” Slowly, wonderfully, her gaze turned to meet Sam’s, and her half-smile let a wave of hope surge through her.
Sam opened her mouth to respond, but Simon cut in to say, “I am afraid I must protest that action, Miss Haugen. It will delay your return to stasis by several hours as the stimulant runs its course through your system, and you have both expressed a desire to foreshorten this journey as much as possible.”
Astera’s smile widened a fraction as she raised her eyebrows. “I don’t mind if she doesn’t.”
Sam stared at her for a beat as she swallowed past a sudden thickness in her throat. “I’d love to.”
“Eighty seconds, Miss Hyatt,” came the AI’s brusque reply.
“Easy there, kiddo,” Astera said as she turned to give her a half smile through the wide window of her helmet. “Don’t wanna rush things and give this place a cold.”
Sam scowled at her. “Okay, first of all, I have a PhD, I think I’ve earned the right to not be called ‘kiddo’. Second, you’re not even a decade older than me. And third, forgive me for itching to finally set foot on a planet I’ve spent the majority of my academic career studying from seven thousand light years away.”
Astera held up her hands with a laugh. “No ‘fense meant, Sam. We’re all eager to get started.”
“You’re both kids from my perspective,” Captain Zhang grumbled ahead of them as he checked the fuel cell on his oversized cutting torch. “This is just a field trip with hazard pay. Let’s try to stay focused when we’re out there, yeah? We’re not here to sightsee.”
Sam exchanged a look with Astera, then said, “Captain, we’re a research team on an unexplored planet. We’re explicitly here to sightsee.”
Captain Jaxson merely grunted in response as the lights switched from red to green. The heavy airlock hatch cracked open, letting in bright amber sunshine.
There was a chime as Simon announced, “Captain Jaxson Zhang, Astera Haugen, and Samantha Hyatt are away. Felder Orlov has the bridge.” Somehow, the AI managed to sound bored.
Felder’s voice came in over the radio. “Be sure to bring me back something shiny!”
“That shouldn’t be too hard,” Sam muttered as she adjusted her helmet.
Strictly speaking, a full exosuit wasn’t necessary to survive on the surface of Kohatu Nui. A simple rebreather apparatus would suffice to deal with the too little oxygen, too much carbon monoxide atmosphere, with the pressure at a tolerable 1.6 atmospheres. There were no caustic toxins to speak of, nor any airborne microorganisms or organic materials which could trigger anaphylactic shock.
However, even the most resilient human would find it difficult to endure more than ten minutes of exposure to the planet’s surface, let alone the endless caverns that honeycombed its thin crust. The average temperature was a stifling 62 °C, made all the more intolerable by humidity that rarely dipped below 90%.
Still, Sam found herself wishing it was more feasible to have an unadulterated view of the glittering landscape before her as the hatch door thumped to the ground below.
Breathtakingly complex crystalline structures erupted from the ground at irregular intervals around the landing zone. Some robust specimens soared dozens of meters into the sky to dwarf the science vessel they had arrived in, some barely rose to Sam’s waist, fine and delicate as a plume of feathers. All reflected and refracted the sunlight into a dazzling array of hues against the otherwise dark, stony terrain.
Sam, at a loss for a more profound insight, simply said, “Wow.”
“Yeah,” Astera said, jaw hanging open.
Even Captain Zhang seemed subdued as he slowly descended the ramp. “C’mon, last known position of the drone is just under that ridge.”
Sam found it galling that her first assignment planetside would be little more than a retrieval operation for a missing research drone, but it did make sense to see what it had managed to suss out before they started poking around an unknown planet on their own. “Any idea what may have caused it to lose contact?”
“You saw the same data I did,” Captain Zhang replied. “My guess is the crystals scattered the signal to the satellite when it got in the shadow of the ridge, and some programming glitch caused it to shut down instead of coming back out in the open to re-establish a link.”
“Well, that’s what the company gets for cheaping out on ’em’,” Astera said, eyeing the loading drone that waited patiently at the bottom of the ramp to be of use.
Sam dialed up the opacity of her faceplate a bit and held up a hand to shield her eyes from the glare. “I don’t see it from here. Do you suppose it went into that cave?”
“God, I hope not,” Captain Zhang replied with a sigh. “I don’t want to have to go spelunking to find it.”
“Don’t be such a sourpuss, Cap,” Astera said, “I’ve got some rope and rappelling gear in my pack, so we don’t need to go through decon twice to do a bit of underground sightseeing.”
Sam could hear the smile in Astera’s voice, and couldn’t help but smile herself as Captain Zhang groaned.
As impressive as the surface had been, it was nothing compared to the staggering beauty of the cave. The crystals above caught the sunlight and transmitted it down through meters of rock to the cave below, suffusing the cave with a soft amber glow. Massive columns of crystal jutted at every conceivable angle, forming a makeshift series of columns, walkways, and walls that gradually descended deep under the ridge.
Sam had never seen anything so beautiful in person.
“Well, now,” Astera said softly, “you don’t see views like this on the holo very often.”
Captain Zhang unslung his cutting torch. “I don’t like this. Way too many spots for something to hide.”
Moment gone, Sam frowned at him. “Paranoid much, Captain?”
“Yeah,” said Astera, “preliminary results from the drone showed zero signs of organic life on this planet. Cool your jets.”
“That’s a song I’ve heard before, Haugen. Now my leg’s metal below the knee, and the head of the thing that ate it is mounted on my wall.” He advanced slowly. “Just keep your eyes open.”
They didn’t need to go very far into the cave to find what they were looking for. The shattered remains of the drone lay at the base of the first crystalline walkway that descended from the entrance. A slender spire of crystal jutted up through its center of mass.
“Exquisite,” Captain Zhang sighed as he picked up a sheet of metal and tossed it aside.
Sam bent down and started sifting through the broken shell of the drone for its storage drive. The more she dug, the deeper her frown became. “Something’s wrong here.” She looked up to see the ceiling only a few meters above. “Almost every component in here is in pieces, but there’s no way it could have fallen far enough for it to have caused this much damage.”
There was a soft bwee as Captain Zhang primed his cutting torch. “Sam, find what you’re looking for so we can go.”
Sam dug deeper, then pulled out the matte black brick that served as the data storage unit for the drone - or rather, she pulled out two thirds of it. “Well, shit.”
“Maybe Simon can still salvage something from it,” Astera said, though she didn’t sound hopeful.
“Maybe.” Sam put the broken drive in her bag, then paused and held up a hand. “Hey, does anyone else hear that?”
Astera and Captain Zhang froze. “Hear what?” they asked in unison.
As a silence descended, a faint whine could be heard above the hum of the exosuit’s cooling units. Sam frowned, then shifted a piece of metal debris away from the crystal spire. The noise immediately stopped. She picked up another piece of shrapnel and held it against the crystal, and the whine resumed, slowly increasing in pitch. She touched the metal to the crystal they were standing on, but heard nothing.
“That’s weird,” Astera said. “Maybe a short somewhere in there is causing it to vibrate like that?”
“Maybe.” Sam touched the spire with an outstretched finger, but couldn’t feel anything through her glove. “It’s faint, whatever it is.”
“Well, while we’re here, we may as well get a sample of this stuff for Felder. And for me, for that matter.” She dug in her pack for a hammer and chisel, but stopped when a pair of hand sized chunks of crystal fell away from the stone wall beside her. “Oh.”
“That’s it, everyone out,” Captain Zhang said, voice strained. “I’m not letting you lot die in a cave in over a busted drone.”
“Yeah, I’m suddenly keen on leaving too.” Sam helped Astera hastily put the crystals in sample containers, then hurried out of the cave with the captain hot on their heels. A low hum rose as they ran, almost below Sam’s hearing range, which faded away once they emerged into the sunlight.
Sam entered the ship’s lab to find both Felder and Astera hunched over their workstations. “You guys said you’d found something?”
Felder reached up and stretched his shoulders, the servos of his prosthetic arm clicking against each other. “In a way. Astera, did you verify the results on your sample?”
Astera sighed as she tossed a mechanical pencil vaguely in the direction of an empty coffee mug. “Yeah. Same deal.” She looked up at Sam with a tired smile. “Hey, Sam. Have you and Simon found anything yet?”
Sam shook her head. “It’s the damnedest thing - every board in the drive is broken into pieces, just like the rest of the drone. All Simon’s been able to dig out so far are isolated batches of fragmented code, nothing concrete.”
“Not for lack of effort, mind,” Simon chimed in from an overhead speaker. “I am still in the process of testing each board fragment in sequence, which will take additional time. I will compile a full report of my findings once I have completed the task.”
Sam shrugged. “We figure it’ll be another few hours at the rate we’ve been going. What’s up in here?”
Astera looked to Felder, who rubbed his face with his non-mechanical hand. “Well, we can tell you what it’s most definitely not.”
“I’m hoping you can do better than that, Orlov,” Captain Zhang rumbled as he stepped into the lab.
“Ah, Captain, excellent timing.” Felder grabbed a sample container and placed it on the small table in the center of the room. “This crystal has a structure nearly identical to selenite, except for three distinct characteristics.”
At the blank look on the captain’s face, Sam said, “Gypsum.”
The captain waved her off. “Right, right. Continue.”
Felder gestured at the sample. “First, selenite doesn’t clock in at 9.5 on the mohs scale.”
Sam raised her eyebrows at that. “Whoa.”
Captain Zhang’s frown deepened. “I’m gonna need this in Captain Dummy Talk, people.”
Astera caught Felder’s helpless look and said through a half smile, “It’s just this side of diamonds in terms of hardness, Cap. If we’d been less careful when landing our bird, those spires out there would have torn the hull open like paper.”
The captain’s expression softened. “Okay, what else?”
Astera stood as she continued. “Second, this stuff behaves more like a semiconductor - closer to silicon in terms of electrical conductivity than anything like selenite.”
Sam furrowed her brow. “So, definitely not selenite, then.”
Astera’s smile widened. “You haven’t seen the best part yet. Felder?”
Felder reached up and hit the light switch above his head, then said, “Finally, and this is the important part, I think; selenite doesn’t glow.”
It was fainter than the light emanating from the various monitors in the room, but there was an undeniable luminance coming from deep within the chunk of crystal in the middle of the room.
It was the captain’s turn to rub a hand across his face. “Please, please tell me that stuff isn’t radioactive.”
“Nope,” Astera said as she shook her head. “That was the first thing we checked, and we checked it three times each. We’re more radioactive than this stuff is.”
“We suspect some form of mechanoluminescence, as the crystals do give off a faint electromagnetic field,” Felder added, “but we can detect no progressive deformation of the crystal structure, be it fractious or elastic in nature.”
Sam whistled. “Yeah, that’s… That’s something, alright.”
Captain Zhang looked ready to pop a blood vessel. “So, when you said you had something, you meant…?”
Astera exchanged a glance with Felder, then said, “We meant we have no fucking clue what this stuff is. It’s a brand new mineral, Cap. We’re in uncharted territory here.”
“Uncharted, potentially lucrative territory, Captain,” Felder hastily added, mismatched hands upraised in an attempt to mollify the reddening captain. “There’s definitely a market for a nigh-indestructible semiconductor in the galaxy, I can assure you.”
“Fine. Great.” Captain Zhang set a foot outside the lab, then said, “All of you get some sleep. Tomorrow’s going to be a long day.”
Sam smirked. “Well, the local day is 46.7 hours long, so-”
“Stow it, Hyatt,” the captain said as he left.
Sam emerged from the head from brushing her teeth to find Astera wrapped in a blanket, looking at a map of the galaxy on their bunk’s holo. “Hey, Astera? I just wanted to apologize for being kind of a bitch earlier today. I’ve been on edge since I first got this assignment, is all, and–”
Astera was already waving away her apology. “Already forgotten, Sam. I shouldn’t have gone infantilizing a fellow PhD, anyways.” She gave Sam a winning smile. “Old habits, I guess.”
Sam smiled back, then gestured at the galaxy map. “What’s this?”
“Oh, just a little ritual of mine. Helps take the sting out of homesickness some, is all.” Astera shifted over on her bunk. “Wanna join me?”
“Sure,” Sam said as she sat next to her. She saw that two locations on the map were highlighted: one, their current location, Kohatu Nui, and the other, about twenty thousand light years away, the chilly, fertile planet of Novaya Ray. “Is that your homeworld?”
“Yep. Born ‘n raised. I’ve got two little sisters still going to university there.” Astera sounded wistful as she said, “It helps to put the distance in perspective like this. Like, if you zoom out far enough, you can still have home on the same map as you.” There was a throaty chuckle. “It’s silly, I know, but it helps to stop trying to fathom how far apart I am from them.”
“That’s a neat way of looking at it, though,” Sam said. She reached across Astera and tapped a quick command into the terminal. As she sat back up straight, their gazes locked, and for the first time, Sam saw flecks of silver in the depths of the surrounding dark blue of Astera’s eyes.
Hastily, Sam turned away to point at a new location on the map. “There’s mine, Londinium.”
Astera chuckled again. “Well, shoot, that’s what, only twenty some light years? Just a hop, skip and a jump away.” Astera stared at her, a sleepy smile on her face. “Practically a girl next door.”
Sam felt the room get a little warmer. “What, um, what are your sisters’ names?” Sam noticed out of the corner of her eye that the map had gone out of focus.
“Ilia and Selena. Our parents were always the poetical sort.” Again, that smooth, throaty chuckle. “Their Sun, Moon, and Stars, they’d call us.”
“Those are really pretty names,” Sam breathed. Any semblance of clarity to the holo map was gone, just a blur of light on the periphery of her vision.
Astera was somehow closer to her. “So I’ve been told,” she said, smile softening at the edges. “I think Sam’s pretty, too.”
“My name, or…?” On a far off planet, the mirror in the head shattered, glass shards clattering to the metal floor.
“I think you can figure it out, PhD,” Astera said as she leaned in to lightly brush her lips against Sam’s.
Sam was vaguely aware that Astera’s pupils were completely blown, in the same was that she was vaguely aware her blanket had fallen away, revealing her to be wearing a loose tank top and very little else. And then, all that mattered was the touch of Astera’s fingers on her cheek, the solidity of Astera’s shoulder beneath her hand, the heat of Astera’s breath–
“Ladies, if I may interrupt,” Simon’s voice echoed tinnily through the overhead speaker.
“You may not,” said Sam.
“Fuck off, Simon,” Astera added.
“Feisty,” said Sam as she mashed her lips against Astera’s once more. The room was too warm for clothes, and Sam hurriedly began clawing at–
“Ladies, if I can convince you two to extract yourselves from one another, there is a crisis occurring elsewhere on the ship that needs your direct attention.” Simon’s words grated, as though wasps had gained the ability to sting her via sound.
“The only crisis that needs addressing is twixt my nethers, darlin’.”
“Oh my god.” Sam threw herself at Astera, and they tumbled to the floor in a heap with the blanket.
“Miss Hyatt, Miss Haugen, I insist that you cease fraternizing and pay attention. Captain Zhang and Mister Orlov have–”
Simon’s voice continued droning on, but all Sam could hear were the soft, desperate, primal noises coming from Astera, coming from herself, an endless song of sensation expressed beyond the need or means of conscious thought. A loud hum drowned out all other noise, and all she could feel was the desperate ache deep within her that longed to be filled.
A sudden tickle at her nose, a sudden slackness in her limbs, and Sam slumped to the ground, unsatisfied and yearning, her fading vision showing Astera falling over beside her.
The first thing Sam became aware of was the harshness of the light above her. The second was the skullsplitting headache that reverberated through her skull. The third was that she was lying naked beneath the blanket on her bed.
“Ow,” Sam said as she sat up, eyes shut tight against the wave of nausea that assaulted her.
“Welcome back, Miss Hyatt.” Simon’s voice sounded frazzled, as though the speaker had blown.
Vague memories started to trickle through her mind, and Sam felt herself submerge in a pool of deep dread. “Simon, what the hell happened?”
“A number of things, chief among them the premature end of your research operation. We are currently en route back to company headquarters, where we will wait under quarantine until we can establish you and the rest of the crew are safe to return to duty.”
“Wait, what? Captain Zhang pulled the plug?”
“I’m afraid not, Miss Hyatt. As all crew members were affected to some degree by the phenomenon, the company has ceded authority of the mission to an offsite official. They pulled the plug, so to speak, and I am acting on their authority.”
Corporate override was almost unheard of, except for the most dire of circumstance. Sam suddenly felt grateful to be alive and in one piece. “What phenomenon?”
“I have a detailed report ready for your perusal, but in summary, the crystal samples you retrieved from your away mission began to vibrate at varying frequencies as you and the rest of the crew were preparing for bed. These vibrations somehow caused localized phenomenon in two separate locations on the ship, one of them being your quarters, whereby the vibrations triggered the release of excessive amounts of oxytocin, dopamine, and serotonin in both your and Miss Haugen’s systems.”
“Astera?” Sam looked over to see Astera asleep in her bunk, a troubled look on her face. The presence of the loading drone explained how they had both been returned to their respective beds.
“So… it was all, um,” Sam paused. “None of that was real? It was just the planet fucking with us?”
“That is a question only the two of you can answer, Miss Hyatt. All I can say for certain is your hormone levels were altered, significantly, by an exterior force. As the two of you have had the majority of your contact with one another within the environment that provided the impetus for your activities, it may be prudent to revisit the matter now that we are elsewhere.”
The news did little to alleviate Sam’s headache. “You said it happened elsewhere on the ship. What happened to the captain and Felder?”
“The vibrations triggered a dramatically different response in the two of them, releasing adrenaline and dopamine. Both Captain Zhang and Mister Orlov became paranoid and aggressive, becoming violent with one another over a dispute regarding food rations. Their actions rendered it necessary to release sedatives into the ventilation system to prevent further harm to each other and to themselves, and they both remain under heavy sedation in the med bay.” There was a pause, then, “I also vented sedatives into your quarters as a precautionary measure, as you and Miss Haugen were both also beyond coherent thought by that point.”
That explained the headache. “Let’s fly right past where you explain why there’s sedatives hooked up to the life support system on the ship. I take it you jettisoned the samples?”
“Correct, as soon as it became clear they were the source of the phenomenon.”
Sam sighed. “So what happens now?”
“That’s largely up to you and Miss Haugen, though in the near future I will require your assistance to move Captain Zhang and Mister Orlov into stasis for the journey back to headquarters. Beyond that, I would encourage you both to return to stasis yourselves, though there are provisions on board for a significantly longer field mission than what transpired, should you choose to dally.”
“Ugh. I think it’s probably best to put this trip behind us. I’m going to the galley to get some food and something for this headache. Send Astera my way when she wakes up?”
“I will relay your wishes to her.”
“Thanks.” Sam got dressed, then plodded to the galley.
She tried her best to shut out her memories of the previous night, but as she mechanically ate her oatmeal, they flooded back. It had been years since she’d felt anything even close to that kind of connection with someone, however manufactured it may have been. It didn’t help that she kept dwelling on the softness of Astera’s lips, the heat of Astera’s body against her own, the–
“Hey, Sam.”
Sam’s spoon pinwheeled away as she looked up to see Astera, a blanket draped over her shoulders, covering a loose shirt and coveralls. “Hi, Astera. Did Simon, um, fill you in on what happened?”
“He did.” Astera refused to look her in the eye as she rehydrated a protein pack.
Sam felt a lead weight form in the pit of her stomach. “Did you want to talk about it?”
She sighed. “Not really. I’ve got a lot to think about.”
Too quickly, Sam nodded. “Of course. We should probably sleep on it.” She gave a tight smile.
The smile Astera gave back fell away almost instantly. “Sam, I...” She shook her head. “Yeah, we should sleep on it.” She pointed her thumb over her shoulder. “I’m gonna sleep in the common room.”
Sam felt her face getting hot. “Sure. I’ll see you later, then.”
“Yeah.” She left without another word.
Sam stared at her oatmeal until her vision blurred, and she angrily wiped away her tears before wolfing down the rest of her food.
Astera was a ghost over the next couple of days, seen only in fleeting glimpses as Sam rounded corners between the galley and her bunk.
Simon informed Sam after the fact that Astera had volunteered to help inter their incapacitated crewmates to stasis with the loading drone’s assistance while she slept. Upon learning this, Sam told Simon that she’d had enough, and wanted to get the journey home over with. Simon agreed to prep a stasis pod immediately.
Sam spent the intervening time collating the last of the data she included in her addendum to Simon’s report on their findings on Kohatu Nui, closing with a strongly worded warning against visitation by humans, and recommending further exploration be done exclusively by remote drone.
She sighed as she signed the document with her personal code, then shuffled to the stasis pod storage chamber. She pointedly avoided looking at the burned out slag of Felder’s prosthetic arm, as well as the wide gash across Captain Zhang’s face, as she opened her pod.
She had one foot in when she heard a soft noise from behind her. “Sam, wait.”
Sam’s head snapped up. “Astera?”
Astera stood in the doorway, hugging herself. “Hey, Sam,” she said, eyes locked on a blank spot on the wall beside her. “Would you, um,” she shifted her weight from one foot to the other, “would you want to grab a cup of coffee in the galley with me, before we turn in for the long haul?” Slowly, wonderfully, her gaze turned to meet Sam’s, and her half-smile let a wave of hope surge through her.
Sam opened her mouth to respond, but Simon cut in to say, “I am afraid I must protest that action, Miss Haugen. It will delay your return to stasis by several hours as the stimulant runs its course through your system, and you have both expressed a desire to foreshorten this journey as much as possible.”
Astera’s smile widened a fraction as she raised her eyebrows. “I don’t mind if she doesn’t.”
Sam stared at her for a beat as she swallowed past a sudden thickness in her throat. “I’d love to.”
"As you know, backstory, backstory, backstory..."
Already these characters appear as annoying brats arguing with each other. I laughed, but not in a good way.
There's better ways to show that a character has a PhD, or that they're a research team on an unexplored planet. Without making me think they're too immature for either of the above.
Already these characters appear as annoying brats arguing with each other. I laughed, but not in a good way.
There's better ways to show that a character has a PhD, or that they're a research team on an unexplored planet. Without making me think they're too immature for either of the above.
I liked the description of the planet. In particular, it's a good excuse to light up the caves.
Ominous crystal is ominous. Nice balance, though. Dangerous, without being too terribly overt. Makes me wonder if their ship is going to be there when they get back to it.
And they just leave the sample there in the lab overnight in their spaceship, after bad things happened with it around electronics before. Not winning any awards for genre savvyness.
They're acting strange. Not a complete surprise, but I'd expected more of a technological effect. Silver in her eyes? Are their bodies being invaded by the chrystals?
It might help to give the AI a less human name - it's easy to forget that they're an AI.
Overall, it's a decent arc, though I'm not seeing the connection between the drone's circuits being smashed, and people's emotions being affected.
Ominous crystal is ominous. Nice balance, though. Dangerous, without being too terribly overt. Makes me wonder if their ship is going to be there when they get back to it.
And they just leave the sample there in the lab overnight in their spaceship, after bad things happened with it around electronics before. Not winning any awards for genre savvyness.
They're acting strange. Not a complete surprise, but I'd expected more of a technological effect. Silver in her eyes? Are their bodies being invaded by the chrystals?
It might help to give the AI a less human name - it's easy to forget that they're an AI.
Overall, it's a decent arc, though I'm not seeing the connection between the drone's circuits being smashed, and people's emotions being affected.
Need an editorial pass. Some constructions are awkward (e.g. “informed after the fact that…”)
I’m pretty positive you got your inspiration from this, which match both crystals’ shapes/sizes and the climatic conditions you’re mentioning.
So, to the story now. If I had to summarise it up, it’d be: underwhelming. You bring up several “mysteries” here: why did the drone crash? What are those crystals? But none of these are addressed. They’re just hanging here in the air, and instead you chose to focus on a “minor” twist of the plot (as far as one can call a lesbian relationship a “twist”), which, by the way, seems a diversion rather than anything else. That’s why I said the story was underwhelming: you promoted what should’ve remained a byway to the core of the story, and demoted the real plot into a mere setup. As such, you lowered the stakes so much that the story loses almost all interest.
So, interesting idea, botched execution.
I’m pretty positive you got your inspiration from this, which match both crystals’ shapes/sizes and the climatic conditions you’re mentioning.
So, to the story now. If I had to summarise it up, it’d be: underwhelming. You bring up several “mysteries” here: why did the drone crash? What are those crystals? But none of these are addressed. They’re just hanging here in the air, and instead you chose to focus on a “minor” twist of the plot (as far as one can call a lesbian relationship a “twist”), which, by the way, seems a diversion rather than anything else. That’s why I said the story was underwhelming: you promoted what should’ve remained a byway to the core of the story, and demoted the real plot into a mere setup. As such, you lowered the stakes so much that the story loses almost all interest.
So, interesting idea, botched execution.
tl;dr: A competently written collection of ideas that fails to really gel into a singular cohesive story.
A piece of advice I once picked up from Writing Excuses is that you should generally attempt to resolve your points in reverse of the order they started. If you open with a big conflict, you should basically end with that big conflict, and resolve smaller plot points within that space. This helps create satisfying arcs and resolution patterns.
I bring this up because I find the biggest issue in this story is that it isn't structured in a way to really give us satisfying reveals. It ends on character drama, but that character drama doesn't really matter until our two hormone inflamed characters suddenly need to have a character moment. As a result, it ends up feeling both unearned and honestly fairly unengaging. For satisfactory results, a story must promise its reader things and deliver on them.
If the romance angle is one you want to take, then you need pretty much open on it to establish that this is going to be a character relationship story with the backdrop of a sci-fi exploration story. Instead, you set us up to expect a sci-fi exploration story and then don't really deliver on that. So, not only do we feel cheated out of the story we were expecting, but we also end up not really caring about the romance because it largely comes out of nowhere.
I'm also find it a little odd that some of the mysteries here are really weird. Like why the satellite crashed sems to still be in the open. Also the question of why the two women got super horny and wanted to fuck while the guys got angry and had to fight. Your specification with the released chemicals implies that it was two dramatically different effects which is... convenient?
A tact I might suggest for the story is establish a bit of will they/won't they for our main two girls at the beginning that is eating at them, then have their reaction to the phenomenon ALSO be violent. Now that is a space for some getting to know each and tension. Whoah, we nearly killed each other. How about that? That sets up a stronger arc and conflict going into the climax while still maintaining the heart of what you want to tell, I think.
You definitely have all the pieces in place. You just need to shuffle them about a bit.
A piece of advice I once picked up from Writing Excuses is that you should generally attempt to resolve your points in reverse of the order they started. If you open with a big conflict, you should basically end with that big conflict, and resolve smaller plot points within that space. This helps create satisfying arcs and resolution patterns.
I bring this up because I find the biggest issue in this story is that it isn't structured in a way to really give us satisfying reveals. It ends on character drama, but that character drama doesn't really matter until our two hormone inflamed characters suddenly need to have a character moment. As a result, it ends up feeling both unearned and honestly fairly unengaging. For satisfactory results, a story must promise its reader things and deliver on them.
If the romance angle is one you want to take, then you need pretty much open on it to establish that this is going to be a character relationship story with the backdrop of a sci-fi exploration story. Instead, you set us up to expect a sci-fi exploration story and then don't really deliver on that. So, not only do we feel cheated out of the story we were expecting, but we also end up not really caring about the romance because it largely comes out of nowhere.
I'm also find it a little odd that some of the mysteries here are really weird. Like why the satellite crashed sems to still be in the open. Also the question of why the two women got super horny and wanted to fuck while the guys got angry and had to fight. Your specification with the released chemicals implies that it was two dramatically different effects which is... convenient?
A tact I might suggest for the story is establish a bit of will they/won't they for our main two girls at the beginning that is eating at them, then have their reaction to the phenomenon ALSO be violent. Now that is a space for some getting to know each and tension. Whoah, we nearly killed each other. How about that? That sets up a stronger arc and conflict going into the climax while still maintaining the heart of what you want to tell, I think.
You definitely have all the pieces in place. You just need to shuffle them about a bit.