Chapter 2: Mission Critical

Once Peter stopped, he know how confused everyone was. No one except for him and Sarah would know the context behind it, so he had a pretty good understanding of how confusing it would be without context. The interviewer had the expression Peter predicted would happen; an expression of "Is this guy mad?". "Just as I thought, you and everyone watching are so confused when I said that, people are probably thinking I'm a madman for mentioning something as unexpected at that. But no, it's true, and once I finish talking about how it happened, I'll give you proof. Any other questions you'd like to ask?" Peter smiled, returning the same question that was said to him made an advantage for him.

"Now, lets be serious here. There's probably a logical explanation for how it happened, correct?"

"You ask me, I've experienced enough to ask - at what point does logic make sense. You said that other people you interviewed talked about another world through a portal, I can gladly say they are correct, and not mad. Though how and why it happened goes much further back, I've already said that. It started about 2-3 months ago, in the middle of December."

Friday, December 15th 2028...

It was 10 in the morning, and NEASA center was at it's busiest in the day. Peter was studying the monitor, the same rotating Earth being on the screen, along with a rotating Mars with the same features. Around him were other people, doing their own thing on the tectonics. The NEASA division was dedicated to studying the geology of Earth and other planets.

"Any sign of station 12x Peter?" A friend of Peter's asked. Station 12x was one of the portable earthquake monitors, it was designed to go to Mars and monitor any activity. However it was lost almost a year ago when it mysteriously disappeared. No one had found any sign of it since, but would always keep watch just in case a signal did come through.

"Negative, you know we're not going to get anything from that. Besides, we already have 11 stations on Mars. Anyways, heard anything from NASA?" Peter asked, his friend worked at both places in alternating weeks. Peter started drinking a hot coffee before his friend replied.

"You'll never guess what's happened. There was some issue with something on Mars, so they've been thinking about sending you." At the very instant he finished, Peter spat some of the coffee out in disbelief. "Are you serious? You're not pulling one on me right? You know I'm not even trained to go to outer space."

His friend smiled "Don't worry, they've already thought about that. You're not going to actually fly the ship, the ALMAT can do that for you. The flight deck has dampers between it and the outer plating, so don't worry about the G-forces either. I do recommend learning the controls in case something does require more than the ALMAT can take. You better hurry though, they plan on launching you at 3pm tonight!" Peter spat the rest of the coffee after his friend announced the very-soon-deadline. Only five hours to prepare, he started thinking whether this was actually going to end well.

Walking out of the room he was in, he soon realised another problem, the launch site was in Florida, across the US. It would take about four hours to actually get there. Mars sounded good, but this was just torture to do. However, he soon realised he didn't need to worry about travel. Pressing a button on his watch, a holographic screen appeared in front, covering his entire view.

"Call Sarah." Peter asked, the screen displayed large text saying "CALLING...", eventually someone picked up. "Who is this?"

"Hey Sarah, I need a favor from you."

"If it's about the driver-less car forget it, you already have your own so why need mine?"

"My one's charging, and besides, this is urgent."

"Last time you said that it wasn't, what makes this one 'urgent'?"

"How's a trip to Mars sound like to you?" Peter asked, knowing what she'd say next.

"You're joking, right?"

"No, NASA has called me up to go there as there's been a problem with the lack of scientists there. And the 'ALMAT' is flying it, not sure what they mean by that though."

"Wait, you get to go with the ALMAT? Okay I'll be right there. The ALMAT is one of those AI-like robots that can go on all terrain, that's what gave it it's name: the Automatic Logistics Machine All Terrain-class. Yes I know the name should be ALMATC but they went for ALMAT instead, sounds nicer." Sarah explained, Peter felt much better knowing what it was.

"I'll be waiting." Peter finished the call, waiting about 10 minutes before Sarah's car stopped by him - the door opening automatically. "Cape Canaveral, Florida" Sarah said, the dashboard at the front displayed a map showing where they'll be going.

"So then, Mars huh? Guess you'll be glad I'm not coming with you." Sarah said jokingly, Peter laughed before replying "Nah, I'll be fine. Won't be as much fun but, in my defense, I get to be with the ALMAT for however long this mission is." Peter opened the manual, about 50 pages due to how automatic the spacecraft was. "You get to go on the Shuttle X1? Lucky you get to be on a very advanced craft, experimental though. Hasn't been tested yet."

Peter sighed heavily "Thanks, I really needed to hear that. To be honest though, Mars isn't the best place to go. Now the Grand Teton mountains in Wyoming - they're so beautiful. Went there for the eclipse in 2017, very ominous." Sarah only nodded to what he said, before he looked back at the manual. It only took around 1 hour to memorize everything, but there were still 3 more hours left.

"Any plans while I'm away?" He asked out of the blue.

"No, unless you come back early. I wonder what's on the radio..." Sarah asked, triggering the dashboard to select a random radio station. Nothing much was on at the time, only thing mildly interesting was the drama over the latest election, and even that was boring as hell. After two more hours, they finally made it to Cape Canaveral.

Only 30 minutes left until they launch, and it was already stressful. The trip to Mars was simple, after launch, Peter would arrive at the ISS fuel up. After that, Peter would then go to Mars for a year. Not liking the length of the mission, Peter was at first reluctant to go. However it had to be done, besides, a year isn't as bad as a lifetime mission that some had to do.

And stood before him was the Shuttle X1: A 113 meter (371 feet) high space craft, with a fuel tank attached to it, along with 4 boosters - 2 on each side. Peter noticed the strange engines on the craft that was not shown in the manual, and when he asked about it no one took noticed. Slightly worried about what they were, he continued to the elevator. His watch indicated only 5 minutes until launch.

It was when he got into the elevator that he first saw the ALMAT. It's shape was weird, as it was on four legs, though it had wheels instead of feet. It also had a long arm on it's back, with a claw instead of a head.

"Uh, I guess you're ALMAT, right?" Peter asked, he watched in awe as it stood up, retracting it's arm and front two legs. Out came two arms on the sides, both with hands. It's knees adjusted so that instead of pointing back they were pointing forward, and only then did a head emerge from what was now the top. At this point, it was higher than him, which made it more unnerving as it wasn't as big before.

"You are right. And you're Peter I presume." It spoke, surprising Peter by how human it sounded, then again technology had advanced enough to which robots could generate human-like speech. It's voice was smooth and feminine, it wasn't perfectly human, but it was enough to convince one otherwise. "You looking forward to go to Mars?"

"Not exactly, a year is a pretty long time. Besides, I'm more worried about those engines on the shuttle, they weren't on the manual. Ah never-mind, probably nothing but extra boost. The manual must be of a prototype... great."Peter sighed once more, the elevator stopped with the doors opening, revealing the entrance to the shuttle down a not-too-long corridor. Peter looked to his left to see the surprising view, along the horizon lay a storm, possibly a hurricane. It became apparent why they did it at this time and not any later.

"Hurricane. Category four. Time until land fall: ten minutes."

"Can you not ALMA, I mean ALMAT. Saying that makes me nervous." Peter said worryingly as they made it to the shuttle entrance.

"Sorry, just something I do at random. Also, might as well call me Alma, I sort of prefer that now that you said it." Peter stopped just before he got to his seat, never had he heard a robot say anything so... human. "How AI are you? You sound like you'd pass the Turing test."

As Peter and Alma got into their seats, she... it... what ever, replied "You know I did pass that test, apparently I'm very intelligent. Not as intelligent as you imaginatively or emotionally, but I can outsmart a billion of you logically."

"One more thing, how do you feel about death?" Peter asked, fascinated to know it's response as he fastened his seat belt. "No idea, never experienced it before. I probably wouldn't care."

There wasn't enough time for Peter to respond before the engines immediately started up. Turns out the hurricane had picked up in speed, and was now making landfall. They decided to launch as soon as possible. Peter readied himself, and prepared for the sudden speed. No voice counting down made it worse, but he could make out just when it would take off the sound of things detaching was terrifying at first, but he knew it was just the pipes connecting the spacecraft to the launchpad. Suddenly it took off, and accelerated with immense force. Even with dampers, the G-forces quickly went to 4.5 for a couple of seconds. Peter looked out of the tiny side-window, seeing that they were already above the clouds, and out of the hurricanes influence. After a minute, a 'thump' sound was heard; the solid boosters had come off at the right time, and soon after the fuel tank detached. Things were going very smoothly.

"Okay now, we made it. It's going to be great from here on out." Alma said in reassurance. The lights flickered slightly, but that was expected. Peter looked as the shuttle was slowly rotating, as expected, but it wasn't pointing right. Watching very closely, Peter noticed how the Earths horizon soon rose from the bottom of the front window.

"Alma, what are you doing?"

"Not now, I'm trying to stop it from doing that!" Alma said in a frustrating manner. He knew at that point something was wrong.

"Warning, fusion engines will result in dangerous overheating. Do you wish to continue?" A voice from the spacecraft, not Alma, announced. It was then it was clear to Peter just what those weird engines were.

"It's locked me from the controls. I can't do anything from here on out." Alma said, shuttle had now tilted so that it was pointing back down. "Initiating fusion engine start in thirty seconds." The shuttle announced. Things were out of control, and there was no way to stop it. Alma and Peter just watched, hoping that the controls would come back to normal and stop it. It was then they started.

"Shuttle, what's on the news right now?" Peter asked, looking at Alma as she have him a questionable look. The dashboard showed what was on, and sure enough it was about the shuttle that they were on, with people wondering what was going wrong. The shuttle kept moving towards Earth, and it wasn't going to some random place. No, looking from the front window, Peter and Alma soon realised it was nose-diving toward the eye of the Hurricane that nearly took them out earlier.

Randomly, Alma blurted out "Time until impact: one minute, thirty seconds!"

"Can you stop that please. Ugh, I wish there was a setting to make you stop doing that." Peter said aloud. Flashes of lightning could be seen from above, and the hurricane got perspectively bigger and bigger each second. Peter braced for the sound of the craft hitting ground, not that it would be heard. But, surprisingly, it never came. He opened his eyes to find that they didn't hit the ground. Instead, it was something weird. To describe it at it's best, it was like a tunnel made of clouds, though they looked more... reflective, and metal looking. It had an ominous vibe to it.

The lights went out, everything went out, even Alma shut down. "It was most likely a power surge, I hope." Peter thought to himself as the shuttle was still moving through this tunnel. Out of nowhere it vanished, the controls immediately came back, but Alma didn't. Peter took the controls and stopped the shuttle before it hit... something dark. It was moving away at some speed.

"Shuttle, analyze the object in front." Peter ordered, a scanning tool from the front of the nose extended, rotating to near vertical both ways, before retracting again.

"Object analyzed. Diameter: 6 miles. Speed: 20 miles a second. Warning, collision immanent." The shuttle announced. At first, Peter couldn't see what was in front - it covered the view. But once it moved far enough, he could make out what was in front...

Earth.

This was no ordinary object, it was an asteroid capable of ending humanity. "Shuttle, rotate fusion engines to vertical." Peter said, moving the shuttle around the asteroid. Landing it, it was now or never. "Shuttle, start fusion engines immediately!" A jolt of movement was felt as the engines started again. Peter looked as he could see Earth getting closer and closer... before going further, and further. He had done it, moving the asteroid away from impact.

"Shuttle, shut down engines." The shuttle immediately stopped, detaching itself from the asteroid.

"What happened?" Alma asked, rebooting from earlier.

"Nothing much, apart from stopping an asteroid from hitting the planet." The lights went out again, along with the controls, however it took much longer for them to start heading back to Earth.

"What are the chances of going through two hurricanes" Peter thought, seeing the incoming storm - this time he didn't prepare for a crash landing. However, this tunnel had something on the other end. Alma remained awake to see it this time.

"What is this?"

"This is what we went through the first time through that hurricane, don't ask how that can happen your guess is as good as mine." The something at the end of the tunnel grew bigger, until it was big enough to know what it was: the exit.

Suddenly, the tunnel closed, and a strong down draft pushed the shuttle down faster. A mountain range was alarmingly close when Peter raised the shuttle, however he wasn't quick enough, and grazed the face of the tallest mountain. The engines immediately shut down, a sign that they were damaged. They could now only glide down, the storm and rain made it hard to see clearly. Lowering the landing gear too late, they crash landed onto the rough terrain.

A/N: So, any guesses as to where they are right now? Nah, you know where they are. Anyways, the next chapter will be uploaded on the 18th. Hope you enjoyed the chapter - and more importantly the story so far, there's much more to come. Let me know what you think so far, and as always... see you, in the next chapter. Bye for now!

Next Chapter: Another World, Another Species