The Crash of HM-2306

No one can hear a scream in the vacuum of space, or so they say. It seems cliché and maybe it’s true, but I can tell you one thing for certain: you can hear a blaring siren in the vacuum of space.

I remember being sound asleep one second and in the next I was shooting out of bed like a bullet, putting on my suit and darting for the escape pods. It wasn’t screams that I heard, I don’t remember hearing anything apart from the relentless ear-piercing siren filling my brain as I raced for the pods. I don’t remember asking myself if I could hear my friends, colleagues, and even rotten bosses scream as I watched the mining ship that I had been sleeping on moments ago collide with the asteroid we had been drilling. I watched HM-2306 disintegrate into a heap of twisted metal amidst the red flashing lights and continuous blaring sound that was becoming more of a muffled ringing in my ears.

I could only hope a few of my fellow miners made it to the pods as well.

A blinking green light drew my attention away from the red flashing catastrophe to a screen that said I was entering the atmosphere of a planet. That was a good sign, maybe the air would be breathable. I had no desire to go through the reanimation process again. Dying hurt, but reanimation was a whole new world of pain. No one really considers how traumatic it is to wake up in a different body, as even a clone of your original had different aches and different sensations. I had no desire to go through that a fifth time.

Asphyxiation sucks. Terrifying at first, but at the very end, you feel a sense of serene peace and deafened numbness. Coming back from that is a struggle because you are forced back to a breathing, aching new body from a place of utter stillness and calm. That is, until you realize where you are... and who you are. Most people undergoing reanimation need to be sedated for a few hours for their safety, and that of the life crew.

Entry through the atmosphere was rocky at first, but once I heard that loud clunk and tell-tale airlock whistle of the landing thrusters being engaged, I knew the parachute would release next, and the descent to the surface would be smooth sailing. The nuances and familiarity of these pods helped me refocus and gather my thoughts. The blaring red sirens had ceased, being replaced by a soft blue light and relative silence, muffled only by my ringing and deafened ears. If I do get reanimated, I hope the next body has a better set of hearing apparatus.

I started to wonder what could have caused the crash. Judging from the angle of the forward thrusters as I left the ship, it seemed as though the heavy miner got too close to the asteroid. Was it a mistake from the pilot? Maybe one of the engineers miscalculated the distance and power needed for the gravity stabilizers and we got pulled in?

Only the people reclaiming the ship’s log would know. A grunt like myself would be lucky if he got anything more than accident pay and a “Now get back to work,” from the bosses.

I shook myself out of wondering ‘what if’ and reminded myself of my current problem. I unfastened my harness, peered into the monitor, and breathed a sigh of relief. The air contained no toxic gases, and was composed of oxygen at twenty three percent, nitrogen at sixty-one, carbon dioxide at eight, and the rest were various inert gases. If I died here, at least it wouldn’t be asphyxiation.

I opened the compartment with the emergency supplies. The first aid kit was fully stocked, the backpack had a short-range radio, binoculars, a knife, matches, water, rations for about a week, and the emergency beacon was transmitting my location. Good, all I had to do was wait… and stay alive.

The pod landed in what seemed to be soft soil, or sand maybe? Either way, it was thankfully a smooth landing; I won’t be dying by pod crash this time. I turned off my oxygen supply and took my helmet off. There was no point in wasting precious oxygen if the air was breathable. I felt my heart race as I pressed the button to open the door. The sensors were always right about their readings, but something in me was afraid of the unknown.

The ramp disengaged to the planet’s floor with a metallic thud. I delayed breathing as long as I could, until I couldn’t hold it back anymore. I sucked the alien air into my lungs and immediately felt the burn of the high oxygen atmosphere. This would take some getting used to, but hey, some people pay a lot of money to breathe this much oxygen at once!

I surveyed my surroundings as I stepped off and found the land here to be vastly different from what I know. I was in an arid area with red soil. A layer of dirt covered a hard rocky surface not far underneath. Also, there were strange pink shrub-like plants all over the ground. I moved closer to inspect them, leaving the safety of the pod for the first time. To my surprise, they didn’t look like plants from up close, more like some crystalline type of coral with thin, fleshy, leaf-like appendages.

I wanted to touch them, but as I reached for the pink fleshy tendril of one coral shrub… I think I’ll call them ‘crub’ maybe? I stopped myself, remembering that time when ol’ Silas touched the fever tree back on Ayo 3287. Let’s just say that being reanimated from death by toxic alien plant or animal is not the way I would like to go.

Looking around, I could see green in what I assumed to be the east and went back to the pod to grab my binoculars. There seemed to be trees there, just a few kilometers away on the horizon’s edge maybe. Everywhere else was just more red sand and crubs as far as my binoculars could reach.

I put my binoculars back and pulled the radio out. “Hello? Can anyone hear me? This is Steven Thompson of the HM-2306.” I paused for a moment to hear a response. Nothing. I tried on every frequency and got no answer. If anyone else had landed here from my ship, they hadn’t turned their radio on yet, or they were dead. I decided to leave mine open to all channels and hopefully someone would contact me soon.

The sun was already setting on the horizon, so I decided to head back inside. I had no desire to see what the night was like here. I made myself as comfortable as I could by lifting the arms of two separate seats and laying on both like a makeshift bed. I wasn’t even tired, but what else would someone do at night on a strange planet?

It took me a long time to fall asleep. I couldn’t quiet my mind as it raced across all the carnage of the collision and all the possibilities of this new planet. The lack of any sounds outside only made things worse. Was there no animal life on this planet? Or had they all gone extinct, leaving only weird fleshy vegetation behind? Maybe I should head for the green space out east, trees are good… they supply oxygen, and maybe food. I don’t know if crubs are edible and I don’t want to be the first to find out.

I woke to the sun shining through the small port hole in the side wall. The entire horizon was an explosion of red, reflected by the pink crystalline crubs surrounding the pod. I watched for a few minutes as the sun rose, and I noticed something unusual: the crubs seemed to be vibrating slightly. Can plants vibrate? I opened the hatch to get a better look at the spectacle and was nearly deafened by the humming and buzzing that filled the morning air. I punched the button to close the hatch while holding my ears with my hands, though it did precious little to reduce the pain.

I watched the vibrating landscape for a long time, hearing only the ringing in my ears, until the sun rose high in the sky and the crubs sat still. I opened the hatch tentatively, keeping my hand on the door controls to shut it back down rapidly at the first sound, but much to my delight I was met with all-encompassing silence, as I had been the previous day. What a relief.

I made a mental note to myself: crubs are crepuscular and vibrate loudly at sunrise. Best not to be nearby or exposed to their sound at that time.

I walked towards a rocky ledge and sat down to have my first meal on this new world. I had to stretch my rations as much as I could. Not knowing when or even if a rescue team would come meant I’d have to survive on my own for a time, and now that the adrenaline from the previous day’s excitement had finally worn off, my stomach had decided that it was breakfast time.

I dug in my bag and pulled out a tube of rations. I pressed on the sides and a beige slurry came out. I did my best to imagine the paste was a steak with potatoes and gravy, but my imagination was no match for the power of emergency nourishment. On the plus side, it would be easy to put off meals for a longer time. The rations may be gross but dying of starvation would be worse.

I was just forcing down the last drops down my throat when I heard some crackling from inside my backpack. I grabbed my radio and adjusted the frequency until I could hear words forming over the static.

“… there? Hello? Can anyone hear me? This is Hank Simmons of HM-2306. Hello?” Went on the voice on the radio.

I recognized that annoying nasal voice immediately. Hank was one of the refinery workers on the HM-2306. He and I had worked together on two other crews before, each time having to be separated into different assignments as our personalities were deemed ‘incompatible’ by our superiors. Hank delighted in teasing me, and I have a short fuse. Still, in a situation like this, even bad company was better than total isolation. I just hoped getting in touch with Hank wouldn’t result in an argument, as I had precious little energy to waste on pointless chatter, though I knew Hank enough to know it ws as inevitable as the sunrise. What goes better together than a bad meal and terrible conversation anyways?

“This is Steven Thompson. Do you copy?” I asked into the radio.

“Stevie boy! You finally made it off a crash in one piece! How the hell are ya?” Taunted the blowhard. I rolled my eyes, sighed deeply, and responded with as much patience and tact as I could manage.

“It’s Steven, you Neptunian slug-wart. I’d like to say lucky me, but how can I do that now that I’m hearing your whining exhaust pipe over the comm, pal?” Hm. Maybe I did have some energy for arguing after all. I heard laughter from that parasitic flapworm’s side. “So, where did you land?”

“I’m in some kind of forest, there’s trees everywhere here.” Answered Hank.

“Yeah… trees sure do grow in a forest, Hank” I chiseled out sarcastically.

“Haha, funny man. You wouldn’t be so cavalier if you could see these trees, mate. This ain’t your regular forest from the history books. These suckers are the size of the sky-streamers on Io, maybe bigger. It’s dark here, barely any light is getting through that web of a canopy – the light that does get in doesn’t reach the floor. I’ve been walking for ages and it’s nothing but these dumb trees! Where did you land? Is it the same for you?” Hank asked, sounding desperate.

“I landed in a sort of… desert-like environment. I can see some green off in the distance, maybe that’s the forest you landed in.” I sat and tried to think of anything that would help identify my location, then it hit me. “The plants here made sounds when the sun rose, did you hear that?”

“I heard some sort of chirping a few minutes ago. To the west of me, I think,” he bellowed as leaves ruffled under his shifting boots. He must be on the move again.

Looking back through the binoculars towards the patch of green in the distance, I realized with a sinking feeling in my gut that the distance was just…a little further than I initially thought. The exhaustion must have affected me more than I realized. Between me, the crubs, and the trees lay an extensive section of rolling hills that became indistinguishable into the horizon. The trees seemed to pop up over that line… those must be extremely trees. Hank was telling the truth without exaggeration, for once.

I knew the range on these cheap radios was approximately fifteen kilometers, without interference. So hopefully, that meant Hank was somewhere inside what appeared to be the largest forest of alien trees I’ve ever seen.

“Stevie? Are you still there?” The radio broke me out of my stunned realization.

“Yes, still there,” I answered, making sure to sound annoyed. He knew I hated being called Stevie. It sounds like a child’s nickname, yet he insists on calling me that. “I see the forest you’re in. It’s much further away than I thought. Did you hear from anyone else?”

“Not yet. I saw others retreating into pods, but I don’t know where they landed. I think some got caught by asteroid debris, so I don’t think we’ll be seeing them again until reanimation, if they’re lucky. I left my pod behind, and I’ve been calling out since yesterday. You’re the first person I’ve been able to connect with, Stevie,” explained Hank. “Listen, I know you don’t like me much, but if we’re gonna survive out here, we’d better team up. Our rations are only gonna last so long, and we’re way more vulnerable out here on our own. What do you think Stevi – Steven?”

That last sentence came out with some difficulty, but I felt he was trying not to aggravate me for once. Besides, I knew he was right about being safer in numbers. “Alright Hank, I guess I can stand you for a little longer. There’s nothing that looks like food over here, though, so it’s better if I come to you. It’s getting really hot as well, so I’ll go hang in my pod until nightfall and start heading over then.”

“Haha! Sounds good, buddy! Let’s leave our radios open in case we need to get in touch. I found a stream that looks good to set a camp at not far from where I am. If you find it, you should get to where I’ll be sooner or later.”

“Alright. Be on the lookout for other organic life – I know you said you haven’t seen anything yet, but I’d bet my left arm there’s something out there.

“The scanners did pick up some organic, non-vegetative life, but nothing bigger than a possum it seems. I’ve been avoiding touching anything because…well remember Ol’ Silas? Anyway, the plants I scanned won’t do more than give a rash as far as I can tell from my readings,” he explained as branches rustled and the whirring of his scanner came over the feed.”

“Good. Keep being cautious and maybe I’ll see you alive tomorrow,” I answered before getting up from my ledge and bringing my things back to my pod.

“Sure thing. Have a good nap, Stevi – Steven,” he answered as more beeps filled the background behind his voice. He was scanning plants to determine what was safe and what wasn’t. Maybe he would be good for something after all.

Falling asleep was easier than I had expected. I hadn’t slept very well last night, and as the sun set outside my porthole, the darkness crept in quickly and silently as a shadow. I woke up a few hours later and the landscape was cloaked in twilight.

I grabbed my things and left my pod, making sure to close the hatch behind me. I wouldn’t want to risk having anything happen to the only safe space I knew I had.

I turned to face the distant trees and sighed. I hated walking, and this would be a long one. Still, what other option did I have? I took my first step towards the forest and weaved my way around the crubs, making sure not to touch them in case it would trigger some sort of reaction or vibration event. I hoped I would be far enough not to be caught by their strange morning ritual by then.

Hours passed and one step after the next, the forest got closer. I had just passed the last of the crubs with less than a few hundred feet of barren rocky ground between myself and the forest when my radio came on.

“Steven? Can you hear me?” Asked Hank, his voice barely more than a whisper.

“Yes Hank, I’m here. I’m near the edge of the forest now. I should be – ”

Hank cut me off. “I think there’s something here. I can’t see it, but it sounds big. I’m… I’m scared, man,” his voice quivered.

“Don’t be a baby, Hank. Just… shut up and stay still,” I said, growing suddenly nervous.

We both stopped talking for a moment. Hank had the button on his radio pressed, either he didn’t realize he was pressing it, or he was hoping to stop it from screeching and revealing his position. Whatever the reason, I could hear what he was hearing: the rustling of branches that seemed high, the crushing of a lot of old leaves on the ground, and the deep, soft impact of a heavy mass advancing.

Suddenly, the advancing steps came to a halt and sniffing loud enough to be a gust of wind was the only thing I could hear. Then, a deep shrieking roar.

“It saw me! It saw me!” Screamed Hank as he scrambled to get to his feet.

What I heard next sounded like a chase. It lasted mere seconds, but in the moment, it might as well have been hours. I heard the rapidly approaching steps of the creature, the desperate attempt at flight from Hank, then… crunching… and at last, an uneasy silence from the now inert radio.

This whole time I was stuck, standing still in shocked silence. I dropped my radio on the rocky ground and stared wide eyed into the mass of forest looming in front of me. “Hank?” I rasped out at last. “Hank! Hank!” I called into the thickness of the trees knowing it was pointless, but I just couldn’t help it.

Staring silently at the trees, I felt my mind start to flicker back on. Something dangerous is in that forest. The forest that contains the most likely sources of food and water. The forest that just killed my … friend?

The sun started to crest the horizon and I could hear the cacophony of crubs light up like a siren in the depths of space. I grabbed my radio, slung my supplies over my shoulder, pressed my fingers into my ears and reluctantly, nervously, I stalked into the trees.