CONRAD’S P.O.V.

  The adastra, as old and beat up as it was, still held true in its orbit around the planet we found ourselves floating by. After a couple orbits, it was made apparent that Aureon wasn't the planet outside our windows.

  The rough shapes of land looked similar to those on Aureon, but the coastlines were completely different. There was a particularly large gulf within one of the landmasses, with its opening blocked by a large thin island.

  The weirdest difference Kyle and I have noticed is whenever we passed over the dark side of the planet. The dark land was illuminated, almost completely. Aureon didn't have such widespread city lighting at night, there just weren't that many protogens. Its population was only slightly above 100,000. The planet we were orbiting looked like it could have had a population of millions, If not billions.

  Besides mapping the planet, Kyle and I were busy with locating the EX-5, although with little success.

  “Is the receiver set to the distress frequency?” Kyle asked me, “It shouldn't be too hard to pick up their transponder.”

  I continued to mess around with the radio, “The emergency transponders weren't designed to be heard from orbit.” I said, “And I don't think descending down into the atmosphere is a great idea.”

  “I see your point,” Kyle said, folding his arms. “We risk alerting whoever lives down there of our presence.”

  And we couldn't possibly know if the planet's inhabitants would take kindly to our arrival. They might try to kill us, or they might try to be our friends. Maybe even both.

  Who knows what might have happened to the EX-5. What if they were taken prisoner? Or worse, killed.

  This concern was heavy in my mind as I searched endlessly scanning the planet for the lost spacecraft.

  “What if they didn't land?” Asked Kyle, who had now taken off the top of his flight suit and was wearing Michael's hoodie instead.

  “Maybe..? I doubt they would have lasted a week in orbit without hearing from anybody.” I replied.

  “It's worth a shot.” Kyle said, pointing at the computer console in front of me.

  “I guess so.” I said. The chances of us finding something in our orbit wasn't very high, but at least trying wouldn't have been the worst idea.

  I pressed a couple buttons on my console, which began scanning our orbit path. Initially, garbled static was all I heard. This process of changing the radio frequency, scanning, and changing the frequency again continued for well over 20 minutes without anything notable happening.

  As I turned the radio dial for what felt like the 500th time, the radio static turned into intelligible speech.

  “kshhhhhhhh–ton this is the ISS, We are beginning the power cycle of the node 3 thermal system as planned.”

  I froze. Kyle, who had been listening, stopped moving as well.

  “Did you just… find something?” He asked carefully. Before I could respond, the radio answered for me.

  “Copy, ISS. Continue with the power cycle. Update us on any irregularities.”

  “Understood Houston, cycling node 3, standby.”

  Kyle and I watched on in silent confusion. “That's not the EX-5! Where is this coming from!”

  Frantically, I checked to find its origin. According to the computer, the broadcast was coming from below us, on a nearly perpendicular orbit.

  As we neared closer to the signal’s origin, it became clear where it was from. Scans showed a large structure, over 100 meters in length. Thankfully we were well out of the way, and didn't risk any collision with it. (300ft)

  It could be a space station… Aureon didn't have anything that large in orbit. Pruitt had considered building a station, but nothing had been launched, and certainly nothing of that scale.

  I turned to Kyle, “Do we talk to them?” I said quietly, “What would we say?”

  “I don't know… they could've done something to the EX-5, who knows what they'd do to us.” He said.

  I nodded, “But if they haven't noticed us, then they likely never noticed the EX-5. If this is the case, then we have a chance of talking with them.”

  Kyle looked out the window as if deep in thought. He sighed, “Do it. Make contact, I would like to get closer.”

  He floated back to the pilot seat, and strapped back into it. “If the scans are correct, we will be able to get within 2,000 meters before our orbits overlap. With how big the structure is, we'll be able to see it.” (1.2 miles)

  I shot him a quick thumbs up, even though getting close to their space station was the last thing on my mind. Speaking to them is one thing, seeing them is another.

  With my harness on tight, Kyle began to “shrink” our orbit. We would slow down, allowing the planet's gravity to pull us closer. Slow down too much and you hit the atmosphere, something we weren't quite ready to do.

  With the adastra facing backwards relative to the direction it was going, so when Kyle fired the maneuvering thrusters to their maximum, we were both sent back into our seats.

  The maneuver took roughly 20 seconds. By the time the thrusters went silent, Kyle was already out of his seat before I could even unbuckle my harness.

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  His head was smashed against the windshield in a feeble attempt to get an early glimpse of the station.

  “We still have a minute before we will be close enough to see them,” I reminded, “which is also not enough time to figure out what to say to these people.”

  He pushed back from the window, “Just say hello, our names, and our objective. If they think we are joking, they'll be able to look out their windows, if they have any, and see us.”

  Seems simple enough. Giving them basic information shouldn't be too hard, shouldn't it?

  As I tapped the mic button with my finger, I still wasn't sure on what to say. The only thing I knew was that we wouldn't be going back after this.

  Kyle was moving his hand, encouraging me as I said the first word. “H-Hello… This is the Carlin spacecraft Adastra. My name is Conrad, and I am joined by my friend Kyle. Do you hear us?”

  The radio went silent for a couple seconds as Kyle and I exchanged concerned glances.

  The radio crackled to life once more, a soft yet firm voice began speaking. “Get off of this frequency. There are consequences against using a government frequency without authorization.”

  “We aren't joking. One of our spacecraft was stranded here a week ago. We believe they have crashed onto your planet's surface. We only want to find them.”

  Meanwhile outside of the windshield, the station was finally visible. It was a small white speck, but it was growing rapidly.

  Kyle grabbed a hold of his headset mic, “You have a reason to believe us. We are within visual range of your space station.”

  We both kept our focus glued outside of the window. As we got closer, it was easier to spot the details of their station. A thin, circular main body. Each end was stopped by 2 huge sets of solar panels. Different modules branched off the main body, kind of like a tree.

  I stared in awe, “it's giant…” I whispered to myself, “These people don't mess around.” Kyle added.

  The person on the radio began to speak once more. “We see you.” They said, “Where did you guys come from?”

  As Kyle opened his mouth to respond, a loud, shrieking zipping noise pierced my head. “THE LESS THEY KNOW.” thundered forcefully through my mind. We both thrashed our heads side to side to stop the uncomfortable presence.

  I tried desperately to say something, anything, but nothing came out of my mouth.

  My own couscous spoke again, “THE LESS THEY KNOW.” it repeated, loudly and forcefully.

  It was such an odd feeling. And before we could make any sense of what was happening, the buzzing noise faded away.

  “WHAT THE FUCK-” Kyle yelped out as he tried desperately to breathe. “Who- Who said that!”

  “It couldn't have their uh, station, could it?” I managed to say, “It's like someone spoke into my mind telepathically…”

  Kyle looked like he finally got himself under control, “NOBODY- no one… can do that- and those who could… we killed them all!” He said, “This isn't possible!”

  It was hard to listen. My mind still felt as if it was attached to a pair of strings, like I didn't own it.

  I glanced back at the window towards the now shrinking space station. We had gotten as close as we could to them. Now we were going back towards emptiness.

  My heart still felt like it was in my throat, and I doubted the feeling would go away for some time.

  “Shouldn't we say something before they are out of comms range?” I asked. Kyle didn't move at all to my question, “No. Don't say anything else.” was the cold reply.

  “Then what are we supposed to do? They can still help us.” I said, “They could have known the EX-5’s position!”

  Kyle snapped back, “Did you NOT understand what we just heard! We weren't supposed to tell them.”

  I was silent. His point was not exactly wrong. Something, or someone, didn't want us to tell the space station anything else… or at least, I think that was the message. And as Kyle had said earlier, nobody should have been able to communicate through telepathic means, only the primagens could. We killed them all. Every last one.

  Did one of them survive? Are they trying to tell us something?

  No… It's not possible.

  “Conrad! Hello?” Kyle asked, waving his hand in front of my visor.

  “Huh?” I said surprised.

  “We have a better chance of finding them with our lower orbit. Perhaps we are within the range of the EX-5's transponder.” He said. “The quicker we get this over with, the less likely …Whatever we heard… could happen to us.

  “Ma- maybe…” I replied, trying not to choke on my words. “But we really do have to get this done quickly.”

  Kyle grabbed the top half of his flight suit, which had been idly bumping around the cockpit. He pulled it over his hoodie and locked it into place.

  He took his seat at the copilots station, “We have 1 more orbit to find them, otherwise we will land anyway.”

  “What?” I asked, “Shouldn't we return to Aureon? With this much information, who knows what we could do?”

  Kyle sighed, “Returning was never planned. Getting here and finding them was as far as I had aimed for… we never did talk about what we'd do if we found them, did we? Plus, we didn'tZac x have enough power to return.”

  “No we did not…” I said.

  He replied, “It's not your fault. You weren't wrong when you said I didn't plan this very well, it's because I didn't.”

  “Well what is stopping us from returning to Aureon anyway? It shouldn't be hard.” I questioned.

  “We wouldn't survive returning. We just about got ourselves ripped apart during the hyperspace jump.” He answered.

  I frowned, I wasn't to take that for an answer. Or at least I did not want to. After all, we did risk so much to get here. The thought of doing all of this, only to not be able to return, left a feeling of hopelessness in its wake.

  As Kyle said, we will just have to find the EX-5. Once we do that, or if we do, that is, we can get our bearings. Then we could learn more about this planet’s inhabitants…

  “You think you can shrink our orbit any more?” I asked Kyle, “You are right that we might be able to pick up a transponder signal if we are lower.”

  He glanced back at one of the instrument panels for a moment, “If we get any closer, we'd start skimming the atmosphere.”

  “Oh…” I replied. “What if we-”

  I was cut off by the sound of our main thruster turbopumps spooling up.

  “Did you just arm the engines?” I was confused, didn't he just say we couldn't get any lower?

  Kyle looked at the controls, “N-no I didn't” He replied, “And I can't disarm them.” He said as he desperately hit different buttons.

  “Conrad, cut the fuel!” He hollered through the intercom.

  After scanning the engineering panel, I pulled the breakers for our engine fuel pumps. The turbopumps only spun faster and faster, louder and louder until…

  FWOOM!

  The adastra's main engines fired to life, dead set on stopping us in our tracks. Kyle and I held onto our seat harnesses as we braced for the forces of deceleration.

  “WE'RE GONNA BE DE-ORBITING IF WE CAN'T STOP THIS!”

  No matter what we tried to do, the engines continued to roar at full power. I knew this wasn't going to end in our favor.

  And if we don't get ourselves facing the other way, we'd be hitting the atmosphere backwards. The effects of doing this, well, it could be catastrophic.

  Some seconds later, both engines shut down simultaneously. It wasn't me or Kyle who did it, and I wasn't sure the engines starved of fuel either. It was just as magical of an action as when they started.

  Kyle went about the process of turning the adastra around to face the other direction, but none of the controls responded. We were stuck in the situation and unable to get out.

  The familiar licks of plasma began to creep their way around the windows of the Adastra. The plasma was accompanied by vibrations. The vibrations turned severe, until it turned into full shutters and jolts.

  Our re entry would be a bit smoother had we entered the atmosphere facing forwards, but the luxury of something as simple as that was out of our reach.

  The shaking became so severe, I lost focus of anything in front of me. I was fairly certain the craft began to enter a violent roll to the left, as I was thrown into the right side of my harness.

  My head was pinned to my chest as the roll went steeply downwards. Kyle, as much of him as I could see, was still fighting the control yoke with both hands. The windows were now fully covered by plasma, a bluish yellow color that was slowly melting away at the windows.

  “WHAT'S OUR ALTITUDE!” I hoarsely yelled, unable to move my head much.

  “I CAN'T TELL!” Kyle frantically replied, “I'VE LOST IT!”

  As we continued to tumble, losing speed and altitude, the plasma slowly let up, revealing smudged and burnt over windows. The chaotic descent continued for some time, making It impossible to figure out what was happening.

  “CAN WE EJECT?” Kyle yelled, “IF WERE LOW ENOUGH!” I replied back.

  But when was it low enough? 40,000 meters? 30,000?

  It made little difference until we really started hitting a denser atmosphere. The Adastra's air frame, weekend and warped from the hyperspace jump and the reentry plasma, stood little chance against the lower atmosphere.

  A muffled crackling noise, followed by a sensible jolt, the adastra began to twist and roll much more violently than it had before. One of the wings had likely just separated due to the enormous stresses.

  My arms became pinned to my chest, and my head unable to move. As my blood rushed to my legs, things began to dim.

  Kyle had already lost his fight for consciousness, and he was left limp in his seat with his arms being pulled towards the floor.

  I was ready to surrender to the blackness, and a black blanket slowly slid over everything.

  The last thing I registered in my mind was someone standing over me, as if a protector. Their presence didn't seem alarming, I did question it, until…

  BANG!

  °°°

  My vision came back around as I was thrown around by the wind. The Adastra, and Kyle, was nowhere to be found. There wasn't much around me, only a parachute above and some dark storm clouds below that were illuminated by the setting sun.

  A dull orange flash followed by a thump shone through the clouds as the adastra inevitably hit the ground.

  End of chapter 15.

  Author's note: IM BACK, BABY! I sincerely apologize for the lack of updates in the last 2 months. To explain this simply, writing isn't my main hobby and I've struggled to find any fun in writing. Sorry if the writing in the start of the chapter isn't great, as I was still trying to power through writer's block.

  But as they say, there is a time and place for everything. And currently it's time to get this story back on track with updating.

  Among other things I've also begun work on some other projects. This includes an upcoming book I plan to start publishing chapters for around May. It is titled Westbound Calico and will follow the story of a mechanic joining a pilot on her journey to the west coast.

  And to end off this Author's note like always, if you have questions about characters or the story, feel free to comment, I'll happily respond. See you guys in chapter 16!