PROTOCOL

Nobody can hear a scream in the vacuum of space, or so they say.

After this pronouncement captain Axel looks at me expectantly.

“Short answer,” I say, “no they can’t. However, there are sound waves moving through the clouds of gas between stars. The frequency is so low it can’t be heard by human ears if I am remembering correctly. I may be confusing a couple concepts.”

“Very interesting Sergeant Nerdo but uh, I really wasn’t expecting that detailed of a commentary,” says the captain, “maybe we should pay attention to our current mission, you know, like landing safely on our prospective new planet.”

The first priority when surveying an area for a landing, especially on a new planet, is risk assessment which has been done remotely from the carrier crafts on previous missions and will be done continuously until we safely evacuate the planet. We scan the area, where we are planning to land, with heat sensors. The screen blinks the results in a yellow color, UNDETERMINED.

“Problem,” I say holding the scanner up for him to see, “contradictory reading to previous data.”

“Sergeant Julie, the current readings from the carrier ship are SAFE. We will go in, but with great care,” Axel says smiling at me and throwing me a wink. He is the ranking officer and the leader of this mission as designated by the director of our space station, the Bella.

I wink back at him, feel glad that a romance is developing and if this mission goes well, I have decided he will be having his way with me back at the space station.

I have worked very hard for this career opportunity and after years of mental and physical training, plus 2 years in the terrorist prevention unit, and then 2 years in the rescue division, I was selected for the interstellar scout team which is earth’s top designated exploration task force. There are only about fifty members per space station which holds the equivalent population of a small state.

I am the youngest member of all of the specialized units. The cost of the years of complete and total effort is, and was a lack of a romantic connection. Being in a male dominated profession, I always have plenty of opportunity. On the logical level I know that I'm beautiful, and the intense training regimen has sculpted a fine figure. Now, I acknowledge, maybe the time is right for romance and I am enjoying the excitement of that prospect.

Captain Axel is a handsome, achievement oriented, smart and funny man. I hope he is the one.

He guides our scout craft in a couple small circles over a hilly, uninhabited area, the sensors picking up readings the entire time. A bright red “DANGER” reading will set off all kinds of warning systems.

Nonetheless, we watch our screens for signs of irregularity which could signal peril.

Axel executes a gentle vertical landing onto a bed of short grass and leaves our craft activated for the required two minutes in case, despite all precautions, we need to escape. We are quiet, focusing our attention on the sound and heat sensors.

The scout craft has landed in a bright green meadow. The surrounding terrain is hilly and ragged, the vegetation is thick, and the view is limited. Much of the vegetation resembles earth type plants, trees and shrubs, from a previous era. I have seen pictures of this vegetation from a time when they flourished on earth, which was maybe a couple centuries ago.

The scout craft is very compact. It is constructed for brief reconnaissance missions transporting the team from the larger carrier craft above, down to the planet, and back to the carrier craft when the mission is completed. The scout craft carries light weaponry, sound and heat sensors, has visual capacity, high maneuverability and carries a pair of scout cycles which the task force can ride to physically explore an area. If the investigation deems a locale as “safe” the larger crafts and manpower are brought in later.

The door slides open, we step onto a ramp, phaser pistols ready, and listen to the wind rattling the trees and the chirping chatter of unfamiliar species of bird.

I survey the terrain with a high-powered pair of readers which check for visuals, heat and sound. I set the sensors for HIGH which means high sensitivity to any heat or sound detection. The visual sensor is automatically on high sensitivity unless manually changed.

The reader's topographical map displays all kinds of red dots (heat indicators) and blue dots (sound indicators). I study the map for a few moments and reduces the sensitivity of the readers to MEDIUM thinking the high sensitivity is showing too much data, registering the smallest sounds and the heat of the tiniest animals. Unlikely, I think based on preliminary data, that the smallest indicators are presenting danger. The dots are not moving towards my position on the bottom of the screen, a good sign they are not hunting me.

We have just landed on a planet considered to be a candidate as a new home for a nice segment of what is left of the earth’s population.

Incomprehensible, I think, that given our technology, and the knowledge that we were poisoning our planet and destroying its atmosphere for over 150 years, that we continued on that path of destruction. Currently, most of earth’s population lives in a chain of space stations that are seeking new planets to colonize. The situation is desperate as we do not have enough stations to transport the remaining population and earth has only a century of minimal life supporting sustenance left.

“Ready the scout bikes Julie,” Axel says quietly as he scans the terrain.

Julie holds instrumentation up above her head, looks at it. “Very promising,” I say as I activates sliding panels on the scout craft revealing the scout cycles, “this atmosphere mirrors that of a healthy earth almost perfectly.”

“We know that Sergeant obvious, and you don’t need to hold that above your head,” Axel says shaking his head and smiling.

“Yes, I do know that, but you are missing the big picture here Mr. Captain grumpy pants. This is the most promising planet we’ve found in over a year. This could be the one.”

“I appreciate your optimism, but I have seen too many 'promising' planets to make a premature anointing speech,” says Axel scanning the area with his readers.

He raises his hand, the sign for stillness and quiet.

We hear it at the same time. A scream, so piercing it feels as if the calm fabric of the day is being ripped open. The unnatural, shrieking wails, filled with agony, stab into us.

“Let’s go,” he says. In two strides he is on the sleek scout bike and in moments we are off in the direction of the sounds. The bikes travel a couple feet above the ground, travel at speeds up to 60 mph, are almost silent and have great maneuverability.

We both know that the protocol directive from command center in this situation is to abandon the planet at the first sign of trouble. At this moment, we are breaking protocol which could cost us our careers.

The screams are too desperate, too filled with pain and terror to abandon. We have served in the anti-terrorist section and deserting people in need is not part of our personal code.

I am scared; assume Axel is. The shrieking wails carry so much torment I feel their pain. As we speed towards the sickening, agonizing screams, I feel fear, and anger.

I am ahead of him, have my sound sensors on but turn them down because the shrieking is too loud, too disturbing, but I do need them for guidance.

I glance at the reader's sensor screen and the blue dots for sound, in that area, are 3 times the size of normal dots, and pulsing frantically.

We follow a trail into the darkness of the forest, cut the speed a bit, and put the scout bikes on auto pilot which almost insures, that in these narrow confines, below a thirty mile per hour speed we will not crash.

There are thrashings in the now active forest and sounds we've never heard, unknown species rustling in the darkness.

At least, I think, they aren't attacking.

Just as suddenly as we plunged into the darkness we burst into the open. Cool light, cast by the two suns, coats the meadow and the canopy of the forest.

The bike is auto piloting in the direction of the screams. It hums along the base of a couple of low hills startling a flock of large, brightly colored birds which burst skyward from the shadows of the trees and scatter off behind the hills. There is movement in the grass, shorter animals scurrying away and ducking into their dens.

The blood-curdling screams are near, desperately crying out, begging.

We speed through the shade of a couple of leafy canopies when the bike automatically slows. They are close. We pull in behind a large, ragged white boulder, stop and dismount.

He is beside me, about ten feet to the side. We move ahead quietly, phasers drawn. Axel is watching me when I make a short, chopping motion with my left fist. The motion means shoot on sight.

At the edge of a small glen is the site of a slaughter. The air is filled with low, pain filled moans. There are bodies, twisted into grotesque positions, laying in the grass. The bodies are covered in a greasy type of brown liquid I presume to be the equivalent of blood. They are torn open, showing red and pulsing organs.

Some bodies are larger, some smaller. I presume the smaller ones to be children or maybe females. I can’t really tell how many of the species have been butchered, but I guess there are maybe four or five of them.

I stand in a crouched, ready position, phaser ready to fire, scanning the edge of the woods and nearby hills.

Seems clear.

“Check them,” he says, still sweeping his phaser along the edge of the forest.

I know he means, see if any are alive. I don’t think so.

The first body is covered in a leathery, dull green skin and the greasy, blood liquid. It appears that the skin is changing color to match the surrounding terrain. The organs have stopped moving, lost their brightness of color.

I am startled by a nearby wet, wheezing sound.

Breathing, I think, and move quickly around the area until I find the body, almost whole which has been dragged into the grass and ripped open. The bright colored organs are still pulsing

I click on the translator. The animal uses telepathy and its own translator system.

The thoughts, weak signals, unnatural and pain filled, materialize in my mind. I visualize two words which appear to me as a strained whisper.

Prisoners. Children.

I can barely understand him. The pain filled eyes of the creature are on mine. With a great effort he focuses, sends me another thought.

Please.

I see it in the eyes, the life force is fading. The eyes close. There are no more transmissions.

“I heard him,” says Axel. “I will transmit to the Bella.”

He strides over to the scout cycle, speaks into the sound relay system. In a few moments he shakes his head, takes the few steps back to me.

Axel says in a voice coated with disgust, “command is ordering us to return immediately. We are jeopardizing the mission, or so they say.”

We stand in the silence; the butchered bodies strewn about the nearby grass.

I say with desperate emotion, “he was begging us to help the children.”

“I know Julie,” Axel says as he scans the terrain. “Protocol says we return.”

I can’t respond. The emotion catches in my throat.

“Children,” I whisper.

“Julie, if we go our careers are over,” he says looking at me.

“We must save them,” I say, almost crying, realizing that the decade of training could be washed away.

Axel looking far into the distance says evenly, “we are trained to make hard decisions. That training says we return to the ship,” he pauses, says, “the right thing to do is help the children. Julie, I say we do the right thing.”

“Let’s go,” I yell running for the scout cycle as a fierce anger rises in me. I leap on the cycle, cut a one eighty turn, and wave Axel, now melting into a blur as the cycle gains speed, after me as I shoot past him.