31 – Kepler-87c
The Commander fully intended to learn everything he could about Virmire. Intel had been lacking recently, and no matter what they'd find there, he wanted to avoid another room-by-room, deck-by-deck Siren of Lusia situation. Hopefully the up to date star-charts Blanc bought last time at Polaris would come in handy to find the place itself. Once that crucial hurdle was overcome, the plan at present was to scope it out and evaluate the odds. The last thing he wanted to see was a geth army a million strong waiting for them as soon as they arrived. Assuming they arrived at all, of course. Virmire could be in the deepest, darkest reaches of space, and the second last thing he wanted was a detour.
Phase one of the new masterplan went as smoothly as it should. The bright lights and glitzy docking lounge of Polaris Station were briefly seen again, and ten happy asari hopped off and waved goodbye. Tara exchanged some key words with her daughter, and gave the Shackleton the blessings of the Goddess on its journey. True to their word, none of the crew took the moment to join them and depart for good.
Phase two was off to a good start as a stroke of fortune favored the helmsman. Somewhere out there, thousands of light-years away, was a set of twinkling stars like any other. This cluster, however, denoted the loose interstellar border between the Terminus Systems and the Attican Traverse. The very threshold between anarchy and civilization. The aptly named Sentry Omega. The stars themselves sparkled on, knowing no boundaries, and one in particular, Hoc, hosted five planets. One of those planets, the third from Hoc, was lucky enough to barely fall within the incredibly thin sweet-spot, fairly hot but not too cold. It developed an atmosphere, it developed liquid water, and eventually, it developed life. Its name was Virmire.
Information about the planet on the Commander's extranet browser was sparse. Despite all the right conditions to host a colony, there was no indication that anything that wasn't a native, unintelligent species had ever set foot on its archipelagos nor dove into its immense oceans. There were only two photos he could find – one being a blue marble from high orbit and the other a lush green jungle from lower orbit. There were no connections he could make between it and all the other clues. Zero geth influence, zero prothean ruins, zero infrastructure of any kind. An inkling of an idea crossed his mind. Was he leading his crew into a ruse?
That was on his mind as he sat at the table, expression blank and deep in thought. He was barely paying any attention to the floating orb that was the camera, nor the hairy smiling man that was his interviewer.
"…Commander?" Bodewell asked.
Gorman snapped out of his thoughts and tried desperately to remember the question. Every second with dead air is a million viewers down the drain, or at least that's what the Don Bodewell Phenomenon's host told him a few minutes ago.
"Uh…no, Don, I've never learned jiu-jitsu. Our policy with hand-to-hand fights, frankly, was to avoid hand-to-hand fights at all costs."
"Woah," the vidcaster shook his head in awe, despite the unconvincing answer. If only he was witness to some of the tricks Gorman tried to pull off on the last mission. "It's such a shame that martial arts have lost their value, with turians claiming superiority and biotics taking the physical factor out, don't you think?" Bodewell didn't even give Gorman a second to respond to this one. "So, let's talk Earth. You were born in Boston?"
"That's right. Southie, to be exact."
"You can't say that, Commander!" Bodewell's voice turned to a loud whisper, and his head swiveled around from left to right. "You have any idea what that word means in the salarian language?"
What little color Gorman had was draining from his face. Beyond the camera's unyielding glow, who knew how many untold masses were watching? He went to damage control.
"Uh…I would like to apologize. I was…um…unaware that -"
"Calm down, Commander!" Bodewell could hold his laughter no longer. "I'm just yanking your chain, man! You think there's only one salarian language?" Gorman slumped back in his seat, humiliation turning to irritation. "Seriously, though," the vidcaster continued, although at this rate Gorman was struggling to believe he could take anything seriously, "What our viewers don't realize is what an ass-kicking legend this guy is. He singlehandedly saved a hundred asari from cosmosocialist pirates, for Pete's sake! I'd like to see some turian, or even Antonín Novak try to pull that off! To think people these days know that Sergeant but not this Commander, it's a joke! A real joke. Boggles the noggin."
"Well, that's very kind -" the Commander once again mistook the pauses between sentences for full stops. When the Phenomenon was in full swing, he couldn't get a word in, much less correct Don about the number of evacuees.
"You've gotta be pissed off though, man," Bodewell leaned in, clasping his hands on the table's surface. Out behind him, Gorman could see some of the other crewmates watching from afar. Most of them had to be asking why they had been kicked out of the crew quarters for this. Chief among them, of course, was the bodyguard. Bodewell continued. "When you woke up from your 170-year long nap, you probably expected we'd be past the point of piracy, and beyond the need for those tired ways of thinking. I can't imagine the pain you feel when you see that after all that time, humanity's barely solved its own problems, our own condition. And some people think we're ready to take on all the Council's woes? Please…"
"You bring up a good point…somewhere in there…" Gorman saw an opportunity and was able to eke out a response. "Humanity itself hasn't changed much, but it doesn't piss me off. In fact, it's a comfort to know that we were able to overcome so much while staying so similar. Problems like faster-than-light travel, meeting and working with other species, running an interplanetary government like the Alliance somewhat smoothly…back in 2013 some people might have derided what we've accomplished as completely unrealistic. That's been the hard part for me to adapt to…but I've managed."
"You're nothing if not adaptable, it seems," Bodewell's flattery continued, "Like a vorcha."
"Like what? A voucher?"
"A vorcha."
"Hah?"
Bodewell motioned to his hovering orb. It was more than just a simple camera, as Gorman had learned. Within its plastic surface sat more processing power than the sum of all smartphones back in '13, as well as a VI subroutine affectionately named 'Dano'.
"Hey Dano, pull up some pics of vorcha," Bodewell commanded the orb.
Without delay a large screen was projected from its lens, a holographic display showing Gorman and Bodewell a pixelated mess that was slowly unravelling into coherent images. Somehow the vidcaster verbally picked out the best from the blurry bunch, although to the Commander it sounded more like an argument than direction.
"No, down, down, no, you've gone too far, you passed it again…yeah, there! The very left. No, left."
When the picture eventually cleared up, Gorman wished it hadn't. He was staring at a creature straight from the abyss. A thousand sharp, pointy teeth, two hideous, bloodshot, bulging eyes, a jagged, pointy face covered in burns, scratches and sickening colors. Skin folds, wrinkles and glands where they should never be. The torso was covered by protruding veins to the extent that it looked like the whole body was being held together by nothing but blood vessels and evil intentions. He'd seen more charming interpretations of beasts from hell before – and therefore his initial thoughts were biblical.
"…Jesus Christ."
If Bodewell started speaking again, the Commander's brain had no intention to listen. He stared at the 'vorcha' with primeval, wild-eyed fear, sucked down by a sea of panic. The very notion that something like that actually existed, and that he was unlucky enough to share a galaxy with it and others like it, shook him in a way that only his direct, face-to-face encounters with other species had done. His rattled mind was considering whether there was a shuttle he could, and should, catch out of the Milky Way altogether.
The projected image disappeared, leaving only Dano. The tension he was under started to ease.
"O-K, let's move on to some questions from our Phenomenal viewers," Gorman could hear Don again. He had flicked out an omni-tool, displaying a live feed of incoming messages. They were whizzing by with such speed that there was no way Bodewell would ever have time to read even a percent of them. "Phenomenal viewer 'gch_carter80' from Watson writes: Here's a question for Gorman…"
The Commander perked up. Finally, a chance to hear from the great galactic public.
"…Who's the better biotiball player, Wout van der Struijk or Andrea D'Ambrosio?"
The Commander put a palm to his forehead.
Luckily, the rest of his 'interview' wouldn't go on much longer, especially once he had given his non-existent opinion on twenty-second century sports teams, video games, music genres and psychedelic drugs. As each question passed, there was a new, dreadful anxiety that he'd accidentally find out about another hideously frightening alien species. Don Bodewell, after taking a moment to have Gorman sit there while he extolled the benefits of the day's sponsor (use code BODE for 25% off), wrapped things up with a signature signoff salute. He hardly had a chance to thank the Commander for his time before Gorman rose from the table and hightailed it out of the crew quarters as fast as his legs could carry him.
The bridge was, by contrast, a very welcoming sight. Nice and quiet, with both things and people he recognized. The pilot was at the helm, Zaz and Kalu were having a chat by the captain's chair, and T'Lore was overlooking the front viewport and the void beyond. As Gorman entered, however, the atmosphere shifted. Everyone gave him a look, raising their brows – tattooed or otherwise – and went from casual to formal, straightening their backs and stopping their conversations to give a nod. The Commander only half-smiled in response. It was one thing to instill professionalism in the team, as his earlier speeches tried to do, but he didn't want the crew to treat him always as such a superior. Sure, he technically outranked them, and most would agree that he called the shots onboard the Shackleton, but he hadn't paid anyone nearly enough for that level of reverence. He was depending on the crew way more than they needed him. What the Phenomenon's interviewing 'skills' failed to find was that at his core, Commander Gorman was nothing more than a lost man. The fact that any of them were willingly following him at all was a miracle.
With all that considered, he needed, or at least wanted, to make himself useful. He breezed through the bridge until he hit the front. Blanc swiveled around to greet him.
"So…how'd it go?" the Lieutenant eagerly asked. It was clear that he already knew the answer – one of his monitors at the helm was frozen on a frame of DB's smiling face.
"Does every episode of that show end with the guest feeling genuinely uncomfortable?" Gorman scoffed in response.
"Only the best ones," Blanc laughed.
"You look very stressed, Commander," T'Lore turned and noticed. She would know stress when she saw it, Gorman thought. Conversely, she was looking much more at ease than when she first came aboard the ship, he could plainly tell that how the Siren situation was resolved gave her overwhelming relief. Since then, she hadn't brought up doomsday once. In fact, they were overdue a chat – something she then hinted at. "Have you had your coffee today? I could make some with your machine."
"I'm fine, thanks. Maybe later," Gorman stretched his arms out and around, "Lieutenant, how long until we hit Virmire?"
"Long enough," the pilot answered, "My best guess puts us there in about a week."
"A week?" If Gorman did have his coffee, he would have spat it out, potentially frying crucial helm systems. "What happened to our good friend Mister Mass Relay? Can't we just point one of those big tuning forks towards the planet and get there in a day?"
"Exactly the problem, Commander – we can't point them to anywhere they're not already pointing."
Gorman understood not only the pilot's point but the asari's too. He was stressed enough from the interview that he'd forgotten about primary and secondary mass relays, something the asari had taught him about during her little lecture about the fundamentals of knowledge. About how the mass relays are segregated into important chokepoints and paired duos, funneling space travel into predetermined paths. He recalled how nobody knows why the protheans designed them that way, and, more terrifyingly, that there are some relays with intentionally unexplored destinations.
"I got it, the primaries and secondaries, right, right," Gorman remembered. "Well, anything I can do to help?"
"I can handle it, Commander," Blanc laughed again, although there was some indignation at the thought of anyone besides himself tapping away at his precious controls. Gorman wasn't satisfied. There had to be something he could do. Maybe finding a shortcut?
"So…what does our route look like?"
Blanc hopped out of his seat, leading the Commander and the asari to the pedestal by the captain's chair. Zaz and Kalu stood aside as it booted up. Its three-dimensional holograms had shown planets and stations, but now it projected a remarkably broad section of the galaxy at large. The scale must have been ludicrous – at some point the numbers and distances get so big that your mind cannot hope to process them. They were looking at one of the spiral arms of the Milky Way, and a zig-zag line stretched from one end to the other. About halfway through this cosmic string was a blinking dot. The Lieutenant pointed to the start, and then to the dot.
"There's where we started, Polaris…and here's where we are right now."
"And here is…" Gorman couldn't hope to guess. He could count the number of stars he knew the names of on one hand.
"Actually, we've crossed into no man's land, unclaimed territory," said Blanc, leaning closer to the map and squinting at the hovering text. "This system doesn't even have a proper name – 'Kepler-87'. Charming." There was a tinge of discomfort in the Commander from venturing away from the Alliance safety net so soon, but he trusted the pilot's navigation as the rest of the journey was explained. "Computer plotted the shortest path. Through here it's a three-day jaunt on impulse thrusters to the next relay, which should shoot us over here. Similar thing again, and then we'll hit Hoc. Only one problem, however."
"A problem?" Kalu was surprised. Gorman was not.
"We'll need to make a stop somewhere along the way," Blanc explained, "Preferably somewhere with an magnetic field. Need to discharge the ship's core. Standard stuff, shouldn't take long."
"The sooner the better," Zaz gave her thoughts, "I don't like the idea of this ship becoming an electrical timebomb just outside the Terminus systems."
"I'm with Zaz," Gorman agreed, "Anything in this system?"
"Euh…I don't think so…" Blanc disagreed, but there was enough uncertainty that he reached towards the hologram and made a pinching gesture with his fingers. The display zoomed in, and in, and in, until the star chart loaded a bright star not dissimilar to the biggest one out the window. There were several circular bands around it, buckling down as if under the weight of the virtual sun and its two spheres in orbit. The closest planet was undeniably a great big gas giant, complete with a shiny ring. The farther planet was smaller, but not by too much. Neither planet had any discernable color nor surface features, shrouding them in enough mystery to pique the crew's interest. "Usually any old gas giant would do," Blanc continued, "But to be honest, I think our discharge rod's a bit damaged. Don't want to risk anywhere with hurricane-strength wind." If it was too risky for someone like him, it was completely out of the question for the Commander. "The other planet, though…still too big, probably another giant. We're out of luck."
"Couldn't hurt to check," remarked Kalu.
"You wanted to do something helpful, Commander?" reminded Blanc. "I'll show you how to use the ship's new scanner."
It wasn't long before Gorman plunged into one of the embedded seats right next to the helm itself. Facing forward, he was welcomed by screens galore and a keypad that glowed. A system like this likely took months of Alliance training to use, so for the Commander to have a crash course with half his crew looking over his shoulder was far from ideal.
"Okay, we're in!" Blanc congratulated him for accessing the main menu by rocking the seat back and forth. "Now switch it to planetary scan."
Carefully, with slow, methodical keystrokes, the planetary scanner was located and opened.
"You're a natural, Commander!" Kalu joked.
"First the omni-tool, now this?" Zaz followed up, "You'll be flying this ship better than Pierre in no time!" The Lieutenant was not amused.
"Laugh it up," Gorman snapped back, "I bet none of you know how to use a cell phone."
"I don't know what that is, but I bet Sally could crack it in five seconds," teased Blanc. This time, nobody laughed.
"Too soon, Pierre," Kalu shook his head.
"Focus, please," the Commander resumed the lesson, "What's the next step?"
The pilot went over to his main console and pulled a couple advanced technical maneuvers – rotating knobs. Out the window, it became clear that the whole ship was rotating. Once it reached a position that pleased Blanc, he arrived back at Gorman's side.
"You have to manually rotate the ship?" T'Lore was confused, but stopped short of any accusations of human inferiority. "That's…inefficient."
"This is a transport ship, not a surveyor," Blanc sighed. "Seventy-five credits the scanner cost me back at Polaris, and if that wasn't bad enough, it could only fit on the main gun…which also can't move independently."
"Didn't Sally lend you two hundred credits to buy parts?" Zaz asked.
"She did, but do you know how expensive cigarettes are these days?"
"For the love of…" Gorman had stared at the screen long enough to take an educated guess at how to proceed. He pointed at a big glowing icon. "Look, it says 'Ready to Scan', so I just press the 'Scan' here, right?"
Blanc nodded, and the scan began. A progress bar filled up at the bottom of the screen, while piece by piece, 3D mesh by 3D mesh, something resembling a planet was being constructed in its center.
The first thing he noticed was that it was as blue as the woman standing next to him. The orb was smothered in blue from pole to pole, but with horizontal bands of varying darkness and lightness. One jet stream, around the equator, was much whiter. The way the bands swirled gave it a mesmerizing, marbled look. This atmosphere was undeniably thick, but even in the little virtual rendition tiny cracks could be seen. Hints of a surface, or missed spots from the very, very faraway scan? Hovering above was its automatically designated name – Kepler-87c. About the right level of creativity you'd expect from something that cost 75 credits. Gorman looked left and right, expecting to see his crew equally awed by the beauty and curiosity of the planet's shrouded appearance. Instead, they were focusing on the other screen above, where a stream of data was returning all the juicy details. The numbers meant little on their own, but they massively mattered once the team put them together.
"Orbit's circular, inclination edge-on, just barely in the habitable zone," discerned T'Lore.
"Six times bigger than Earth," Blanc expanded, using units Gorman could hopefully comprehend. "About six times heavier, too."
"Lots of hydrogen, lots of helium, traces of nitrogen…" Kalu read, "And lots of water."
"So there's a surface?" Gorman guessed.
"Depends on your definition," T'Lore pointed at some more numbers, "There's liquid beneath the atmosphere, but the only differences between a world like this and a gas giant are size and mass. It doesn't have the mass to be a gas giant."
"Are you sure?" Blanc wasn't just skeptical…he was surprised. "Look at that density. Pitifully low. Abnormally low. Put it in a bathtub and it'll float – low."
"Low density? Might explain the low gravity," Gorman at last recognized something on the screen, and impressively recalled some of his high school physics. "About 2 meters per second, per second? That's like the Moon."
"Which moon?" said T'Lore.
"Doesn't matter," Zaz was ready for conclusions, "Is it safe for a discharge?"
"Might even be safe to go swimming," Blanc went back to the main controls and pitched the Shackleton up and down ever so slightly, keeping an eye on one specific reading. "Temperatures are blistering at the equator, hence the band of boiling steam clouds at the middle, but towards the poles it's downright tropical."
Spirits were raised. Maybe they wouldn't need to wait for Virmire for blue skies and beach breaks. Gorman envisioned himself getting a nice tan…or reenacting Robinson Crusoe.
"What about atmospheric pressure?" Kalu was only being practical, but it caused the smiles all around to fade, especially the relevant information was found on screen.
"Suffocating," revealed Blanc, rattling his fingers across a number in the thousands. "Like sitting at the bottom of the ocean." A disappointed silence lingered in the bridge for a moment. "To answer your question, mademoiselle," he pointed at Zaz, and in return she cocked her head back, "It should be safe to discharge the core there. Magnetic field's good enough, and there's bound to be some little island to land on. Shall I plot a course, Commander?"
"Let's check it out," Gorman nodded.
The Shackleton steamed ahead, but now with a slight change in direction. Kalu and Zaz resumed their earlier conversation and T'Lore retreated to the crew quarters, leaving the Commander and the Lieutenant alone at the helm. The ship's scanner was only one of many tools now at Gorman's disposal, and with Blanc as overseer he tried his hand at some of the other functions. Ship diagnostics were first and foremost – life support, electric charge, element zero core efficiency. All systems nominal. Then came communications: radios, radars, whatever 'ladars' were, but despite Gorman's queries, no morse code. Then further planetary scans, more useful for up close than far away. Finally, the fun part came, as the side controls took command of the main gun from the pilot's seat. Gorman hadn't had this caliber of stopping power in his hands before – unless you count that one hour he drove an Abrams tank in agency training – and despite certain rotational gripes, without anything in space to slow its projectile down it could likely punch a hole through a target the next star system over. With a bit of luck, he'd never need to find out.
Kepler-87's second planet eventually came into view, just as blue as expected. It was one thing to see it holographically, but out the front viewport it was even more majestic – and definitely six times bigger than Earth.
The atmosphere was fast approaching, but Gorman was surprised at how quickly the Shackleton breached it. One second there was a massive marbled sphere surrounded by a black void, and the next there was only blue, cerulean blue, swishing, waving, parting out the window. He thought T'Lore would want to see this and presumably be reminded of home, but she was content to miss the entry dive. The Lieutenant was hard at work on the main controls, pushing and pulling levers both physical and digital. Gorman was too busy gawking at colors to remember whether Blanc was relying on him to read the altitude meter so they don't hit any unforeseen mountaintops.
The view shifted, not in terms of color but rather fogging up with something new – moisture. The ship had pierced the hydrogen and helium layer and was greeted with water vapor. Blanc cranked back a dial and the ship started to shake. Hot wisps of steam belted past…and then it cleared up. Once the last raindrops were swept away by the ship's sheer speed, out the viewport was a vast ocean. Nothing but calm blue seas for as far as the eye could see. A sailor's paradise…but the pilot was not a happy landlubber.
"Give me some readings, Commander. I've got nowhere to set her down."
Gorman turned back to his own console and switched to up-close scanning, trying his best to base his findings on how the others had once described them. The ability of the scanner to pick out planetary features was naturally enhanced below the cloud layer.
"Pressure's not as bad down here as we thought, but still lethal," reported Gorman. "Temperatures are more agreeable, about 330K and dropping. Are we near the pole?"
"Approaching it now. What're the odds it gets cold enough for ice?"
Suddenly, the topography spiked ahead. He called it out.
"Hey, we've got -"
"Land!" Blanc exclaimed.
Gorman poked his head out to his side, and felt the need to check his readings again. There was land alright, a big green landmass jutting out from the waves that stretched to the expanding horizon. However, it wasn't the friendly, subdued green of Earthlike grass, but a blindingly bright, almost neon lime that covered every inch of exposed turf. He returned to the console. Turns out he really did need to check those readings – they were all over the place.
"There's a clearing up ahead at the shoreline," called out Blanc, "I'm going for it."
"Alright, just…never mind," Gorman couldn't hope to make sense of the rapidly changing data before the ship pitched up and the scanner left its mark, snapping the data back to normal.
The roar of the ship's thrusters meant that it was time for a controlled descent. Out the window were cloudy blue skies, followed by bright green stalks in the thousands crowding up and around the craft, barely bending back from the thrusters' blast. They were much taller up close, and all that could be seen once the Shackleton hit the dirt with a loud thump.
"What the hell are these things?" Blanc muttered. "Can't say I've seen plants like that before, have you?"
The last alien plant Gorman saw impaled some poor fellow – he kept his mouth shut and vision wary. The gaps between lime poles looked just wide enough for someone…or something…to fit through. Good thing nobody needed to go out there.
"Okay, let's set the ship to discharge mode," Blanc instructed, "Lower the rod and get it started."
The Commander flicked on the right settings, but not before wincing at how the scanner's data was back to being erratic. With a few taps on the holographic keypad the rod was set to lower. A progress bar filled up, and beneath his feet a long metal stake was being planted into the planet, a charmless parody of heroically planting a flag like Gorman should be doing on an uncharted world. With a flick of the wrist, he tapped the button to begin the discharge…and again…and a third time.
"Okay, Houston, we've had a problem here," he said, Apollo on his mind.
Blanc popped out of his seat and came to Gorman's. He gave a sigh and pointed to the above display. It showed a crude outline of the Shackleton, a thin line protruding from its underside, and an unmistakable X at the very bottom.
"Warned you the rod might be damaged," he lamented. "Good thing we didn't risk a gas giant – much easier to fix it manually on a planet with a surface."
"Wait, are you saying that someone needs to go out there? What about the crushing air pressure?"
"Relax, Commander, that's what armor's for. All we need now is someone with the technical skills to get it done."
Suddenly the pilot's attention switched to who had coincidentally entered the bridge right then and there. His face lit up.
"Sally! Ma petite paonne, care for some fresh air?"
"Huh?" the quarian skipped to the helm and took in the sight of the strange wilderness outside. "This isn't Virmire already, is it?"
"I wish," Gorman turned to greet her and folded his arms. "We've made a stop on this planet to discharge the ship's core…but the rod's busted. Can you help us fix it?"
"Your suit is pressurized, right?" Blanc looked for reassurance in his plan.
Saal'Inor glanced at the Commander, then the Lieutenant, then back at the Commander.
"Of course I can fix it!" she laughed. "I'll have it working again in no time."
"Glad to hear it," Gorman breathed out a sigh, "I'll put on my armor and go with you."
"With respect, Commander, I think she can handle it," Blanc gave him a nudge.
"What happened to your sense of adventure, Lieutenant?" Gorman snickered, "It's a new planet. If you say my armor can also manage the pressure, it would be a shame not to at least walk around out there."
"Suit yourself," said Blanc.
And so he did, starting with the jet black Onyx boots. Next came the legs, then the torso piece, then the gauntlets, and lastly the captured red helmet. There was one more thing to consider. Which weapon should he bring?
He was only half-honest with the pilot. His odyssey through the stars would be boring without putting his feet on exotic new worlds, and it had been a while since he had a nice chat with Sally, but as the good old M16 snapped onto his back he had a gut feeling that he'd only experienced a handful of times since his awakening in this new time. This feeling didn't come out of nowhere, it started the minute he saw the scanner's readings flicker into unusual readings. As the ship briefly banked to face the field of lime green stalks, for less than a second up flashed something strange on Gorman's monitors. It could have been nothing…but it looked like a heat signature.
The gut feeling told him to arm himself. It was seldom wrong so far.