DECLASSIFIED: 04/23/2795 22:49
OCCURRENCE: 11/08/2791 01:42
ANOMALY: Ecotonic
THREAT: Benign
PLANE: 3rd
< – BEGIN – PLAYBACK – >
God, I can only hope this mission ends soon.
We’ve been exploring exoplanets for almost a decade now. So far, we’re 0 for… 45? 46? It’s hard to keep track at this point. At least we don’t have to sleep…that would make this routine even more unbearable.
The boss-man said that today’s planet is our “most likely candidate”. I trust that man about as far as I can throw him, and believe me, those MRE’s vanish really quickly when he’s eating, so that’s not very far. Regardless, I have to get suited up and ready to go. We drop in about 5 minutes.
I see my colleague ██, one of the only people I feel I can trust on this metal hunk. Lucky me – we’re dropping together.
“Good to see you, █████,” she says with a nod. “You as well, ██. The boss said today’s supposed to be a good one.” She laughs. “That’ll be the day. And…that’s also what he said the last 10 times.”
The cold drop-pod feels warm. We share a smile that lingers for a couple seconds too long.
Moments later we’re hurtling toward a planet. The jolt of the atmosphere hits the pod like a truck. “I’m reading… almost 80% nitrogen, 22% oxygen…carbon dioxide nonexistent. Maybe he wasn-“
With a loud crash, the pod comes to a halt. We’ve landed. “…lying.”
We sync our atmosphere suits together, and check our beacons. “All looks good over here,” I say, pulling the impact bolts off my arms and legs. “Same here,” she says. She’s clearly excited. “Shall we get moving?”
The door of the pod swings open. It’s dark outside the pod. “Ooh, spooky,” I quip. “Floodlights on!” The floodlights on the exterior of the pod flick on, revealing what appears to be giant, wooden roots. As soon as the light hits the wood, it begins to glow a dull orange.
“Shall we?” ██ takes a step on to the ladder, sliding down on to the terrain below. Orange waves radiate outward from her feet when they contact the wood. “It’s beautiful. Bioluminescence, or something else? What does your scanner say?”
“Cool your jets.” I haven’t even descended the ladder yet.
“Hey, █████? This might be a problem.” I look down, and see her leg encased in roots. I quickly scurry back in the pod. “How did that even happen?” I ask as I dig through my equipment box. “I don’t know,” she says, her breath shaky. “Just help me get out of it. Toss me a torch o-or a plasma cutter, just – just give me something!”
She’s panicking. I know that voice well. I’ve heard it hundreds of times on the ship. When she can’t find her datapad, when she receives some bad holomail, late at night, when she’s been up for too long…it’s not a good sign. I toss her a plasma cutter. “This work?”
She starts cutting at the roots. As she does, they react – as if they’re a sentient organism. I would love to stay and study this lifeform, but I’m not sure I’ll have time. “This isn’t working! I need something stronger. Maybe something chemical.” Bad idea. “If you used a chemical agent, you could lose your leg, ██.” She yelps in pain. “I don’t care! Give me the petra-acid. It’s starting to really hurt.”
This is sounding more and more like a bad fucking idea.
“Fine.” The petra-acid is kept in the emergency locker, for getting out of sticky situations just like this. It just has a tendency to eat through a bit more than whatever you’re stuck in. “Here.” Her situation does not look good. I toss her the canister.
She winces as she leans to pick up the canister. “Once I’m free, get us off the ground. I’m scared it’ll spread to the pod.” She takes a few deep breaths, then stares me dead in the eyes. “Promise me something ████. Don’t leave me behind.”
“I promi-“
Before I can get the words out, she’s poured the petra-acid on her leg. She’s screaming. It’s the worst sound I’ve ever heard in my life. I cover my ears and wait for her to stop. She doesn’t.
I wait for her to grab the ladder. She doesn’t.
I force myself to look down at her. She’s staring back at me, screaming, her body detached from her leg. There’s a bright orange circle surrounding her, vibrating along her outline. I move to react, but the roots seem to shake in response. There’s a sound, like an awful, grating, screaming noise emanating from below her, and roots snake their way around her remaining leg.
I meet her eyes.
She doesn’t look scared. She stops screaming.
She speaks with words that are not her own. “We are sorry. We can’t fix this one. But we can fix the other.”
Her eyes blank, and her body sinks into the roots. The planet shudders, and a screeching noise fills the pod. I can’t tell if I’m screaming, or the planet.
I can’t move – it’s like every cell in my body is shaking in fear. I don’t know what else to do but cry. I just watched my friend, my only friend, get sucked into a planet, and there was nothing I could do.
I sit alone, on the floor of the pod, for what seems like an eternity. The sounds of the planet surround me – the sound of wind through leaves…and something else. A crackling, twisting sound, like wood shifting under its own weight. It’s source seems to be right under the pod. I hope, hope to all hopes, that this awful planet will take me too.
The pod jolts down. Maybe this is it. I force myself, no, drag myself to look down outside the pod.
The roots we landed on have parted aside, revealing a large stone slab. The roots form a perfect circle just a few meters away. Inside the circle is a bright, orange fruit, surrounded by bright, leafy foliage. A single ray of light shines down upon the stone and our pod from through the canopy above, and for the first time since landing, I can see the sky.
The fruit calls to me. It’s like it knows I’ve been starving. There’s no food on the pod, as we’re only supposed to be on land for a few hours, and a fruit sounds delicious right now. Just looking at it makes me feel like I can taste it.
I blink, and I’ve left the pod. I’m climbing down the ladder.
I blink, and I’m holding the fruit in my hands.
I blink, and I’ve eaten the fruit.
I hear a voice in my mind. It stretches and pulls at the corners of my existence.
“We are sorry. We will fix you. Do not be afraid.”
All I can do is run.
Back to the pod, back to the ship, as far away from this planet as I can get, out of this galaxy, hell, out of this plane.
< – ENDE – ENDE – >
ANOMALY DESIGNATION: ADS-███ | “Yggdrasil”
POST-DREAM RECOVERY & REPORT: Subject ADS-███ was designated a Boundary-1 planet, and fully quarantined using plasma-ray shield buoys. Despite the orbital nature of the satellites, attempts to destroy or otherwise damage the buoys has occurred ███ times, all of which originate from the planet’s dense canopy.
DREAM SUBJECT REPORT: █████ ███████, PhD in Exobiology, was recovered from the HRV Thalamus upon berthing at Research Outpost DuFrane for a routine repair and restock. Medical examinations revealed that her cellular regeneration rate increased to nearly ~247%, allowing her to regrow large sections of her body within seconds (after a brief delay). Further investigations in to potential civilian applications are ongoing have proven inconclusive.
NOTES: As of declassification, subject ███████ is at large. Any citizen who provides information to CIPHER (leading to an arrest) will be provided a 30,000 H¢ reward.