Planet Mina

When the ship landed on the surface of the planet they knew that that was when real work began. It hadn’t been too long of a journey from the Celesta, the ship they called home, but the knowledge that they couldn’t contact the last people who had been sent to the planet didn’t do anything to assuage their fears of what they might find either.

Taylor opened communications once again to try and contact the other ship. “Crew of the Spirit, this is Captain Taylor of the Thunder, can you read me?” Static was the only response she received. “Crew of the Spirit, I repeat, this is Captain Jennifer Taylor of the Thunder, can you read me?” Once again, nothing.

“Maybe they’re out of service? The line’s dead?” It wasn’t clear whether Hooper was joking when he said it, but Taylor certainly didn’t find it funny.

“Of course, now that we’re closer to them by actually being on the same planet, now they would be out of service. Not when we were on the Celesta, of course, how could I not see it before Hooper?” She rolled her eyes at the technical officer and turned to her science officer. “Do you have all your equipment ready, Rose?”

Rose straightened up, checking the various pockets on her suit. Each pocket was specifically designed to hold a different piece of scientific equipment, making it much easier than trying to carry around a bag that could float off in low-gravity situations. “I think so.”

“Good. Hooper? Done making jokes and ready to go?”

Hooper didn’t bother checking. “Totally.”

Taylor raised an eyebrow. “You sure?”

“Look Captain, they were all in the right spot when we started the trip out here. If they’ve moved, that’s not my fault. You were the one flying. I’m not saying you can’t fly, but the trip was kinda bum-” he narrowly dodged a hand coming up to smack him before he could finish the end of the sentence.

“Alright smartass.” She checked her gun again to make sure that it was loaded before pulling her helmet on. “You know the drill, don’t take your helmets off and stay together. We don’t know what happened to the Spirit’s comms but we’re going to find them and figure out what we can do to help them. Rose, you’re going to take a look at these trees, see if they’re the reason we couldn’t reach the Spirit. Hooper, you’re going to give Rose a scientific hand but also figure out the problem with the Spirit. If something funky, happens we come back to the ship and get the hell out of here. If you decide to stay behind, I’ll say you were an idiot who didn’t listen to your commander and risked your life for scientific inquiry.” Rose and Hooper both nodded, Hooper also rolling his eyes while he did so. “Alright let’s go.”

The surface of the planet, one they had been calling Mina so far, was covered in a light purple substance that was almost spongy in texture, nothing like anything any of the crew had ever seen. Sure, they had heard stories about what Earth was like and how that went wrong, but they knew that this squishy and slightly sticky surface was nothing like it was back on Earth. Their suits regulated the temperature so that they wouldn’t overheat or freeze, but it seemed that depending on what was around them, the temperature would change drastically. The things that they had been referring to as trees more or less fit the definition of them based on what research they could pull on Earth climates from the scientists working in the greenhouse sector, but the leaves were a bright pink color that seemed to be glowing, and the trunks were a dull orange, almost like a pumpkin, with cracks and folds all along going in any direction they wanted. As far as branches were concerned, they didn’t really have them, more just leaves sticking out of the trunks with leaves extending off of other leaves in chains.

There were clouds that they had seen on the way in as a sort of lavender haze that they could see now from the surface as almost light blue, clumps of them in stagnant spots in the sky. At one point Rose pulled out a small device with a small fan on it, the kind that you would blow on during a party, and was perplexed when it didn’t move. She spun around in a circle, which caused the piece to move ever so slightly, but that was only from her own personal movement. “There’s no wind at all,” she muttered, forgetting that her helmet was connected to the others.

“Should there be some kind of wind?” The captain didn’t stop her own forward movement, moving slowly from the grip the ground had on her feet.

“Well, yeah, in theory. Currents, yadda ya. Scans show there should be some sort of liquid substance in the air, but the chemical makeup is taking longer to figure out than it should. I don’t think it’s anything that a standard comms signal wouldn’t be able to make it through though.” Hooper was standing in front of one of the massive tree-like plants, a device in one hand that looked sort of like an open box while he was reaching towards it with his other hand. Captain Taylor wheeled around when he spoke, surprised more than anything that he actually sounded like he knew what he was talking about.

“Wow Hooper, actually providing useful information for once without even a single joke. I’m impressed,” she said.

“Hey Captain, you might want to see this,” Rose commented into her helmet as she knelt down, picking something up off the ground. Taylor walked over towards her, each step feeling harder and harder than the last. Rose held her hand out, and in it was a piece of cloth. Taylor took it from Rose’s hand, looking at it more closely. It nearly blended into the gloves of her suit. On the ripped piece of fabric there was a rose with three green dots surrounding half of an image of the Celesta. They only needed to look down at their own chests to see the other half of the logo.

Taylor looked up at Rose, and from what she could see through their face shields, her captain looked terrified. “I think… It might be time to-”

Rose looked over at where Hooper was about to pluck a leaf off the plant. “Hooper, hold on. You don’t-” She stopped mid sentence as he pulled the leaf off and they all watched as the whole plant seemed to shudder. The leaves that were previously bright pink became more muted, color leaching out into the air around them, a pink cloud forming around Hooper until Rose and Taylor couldn’t see him.

“Hooper? What’s going on, what did you do?” Taylor had her hand on her gun, finger inching towards the trigger even though she couldn’t even be certain what she would be shooting at. The leaves turned black once all the color had seeped out of them, and the orange trunk began the same process, adding to the fog surrounding the other member of the crew.

“Hooper? Hooper can you hear us?” Rose was scared out of her mind, panic quickly creeping into her voice.

The static that came over their comms only sank their hearts. Taylor put her hand on Rose’s shoulder, causing her to tear her vision away from the cloud that had stolen their other crew member. “Rose, I think we need to get back to the ship. Now.” Rose nodded, and Taylor turned her in the direction of the ship.

Or, the direction she thought the ship was in.

They had walked maybe a mile through the muck before they had stopped where they had, and they had only stopped where they were for a few minutes to catch their breath and take some measurements, but somehow the trees had managed to surround where they were standing. “Those trees moved didn’t they? I don’t think they’re supposed to do that, are they?” Taylor had the gun out of its holster at this point when she asked the question. She wasn’t the scientist on the mission, she was the commanding officer there to make sure everything went smoothly, and she couldn’t help but feel she would be getting a demotion after this.

“I’m… I don’t think they’re trees, Captain.” Rose stayed where she stood despite Taylor’s somewhat insistent shove towards where they assumed the ship was.

“Well even so, let’s get a move on so we don’t end up like Hooper over there.” The hurry in her voice was evident, trying her best to keep control of an otherwise completely out of control situation.

Rose looked down at her feet and saw a whole new problem rising. “I’d love to, Captain. But there’s a, um, slight issue.” The boots of her suit were quickly becoming covered in the purple goop that surrounded them, and all around them it looked like there was something writhing underneath the surface. Taylor looked down at her own boots and noticed that the same thing was beginning to happen to her as well. She picked up her own feet, making sure to move them a bit to the side before grabbing Rose around the waist and hoisting her out of the quickmud and pulling her along. Taylor turned her head as she started to leave, taking one last look at Hooper.

Where he had been standing there was nothing except for the box that had started this whole situation. The pink and orange cloud was beginning to dissipate, sinking down towards the ground like toxic raindrops, soaking into the mud and creating small colorful puddles. If one of the two of them was able to reach the box and close it, it would automatically transmit any data back to the Celesta.

Before she was able to turn back around and forget about the box, knowing that it wasn’t worth dying for, Rose was sloshing past her as quickly as she could, sinking more and more with each passing step. “Rose, stop! What are you doing?”

She could hear Rose’s panting as she was running. “Because… We have… To let the Celesta… They have to know… Otherwise… They’ll keep… Sending crews… And more people will die…” At this point each step came halfway up to her knees, the purple becoming pinker with each step, a little more clinging to her suit after each time.

“Rose no you’re going to die there’s no point in sacrificing yourself! Turn around and we’ll tell them ourselves once we get back!” Taylor had noticed the sinking growing worse again around her own feet, up to her ankles in the purple muck.

“You tell… You tell them… The data… Is…” Each step Rose was taking was now coming up to her knees and the ground around her was beginning to stir, droplets of brightly colored liquid rising up out of the ground. She was struggling with each step but she was so close to the box. Her comms was beginning to break up, more and more static coming across, but Taylor could hear Rose scream as she took as much of a leap as she could towards the box. It looked as though she was able to grab it, but Taylor couldn’t tell before Rose was swallowed up by the swarm.

Taylor didn’t bother waiting to see if something different was going to happen this time and began running as best she could. It reminded her of a training session where they had filled the room with sand and water, just enough to come up to the mid-calf. The personal trainers said that it was something people would do for fun when they still lived on Earth, spending time in the star’s light and running around in the watery sand. In addition to that, there was terrible nutritional supplements that did nothing but make her feel worse. It was the worst day of training she ever had to experience. But that run made that awful session worth it.

She saw the ship through some of the tree-things and it fueled her legs to run even faster so she could get the hell out of there, but she also noticed that as she was running, the plants looked like they were getting closer. She stared at one as it ran and noticed the squirming underneath the surface acted like it was radiating out from the base of the thing, pulling itself towards her. She kept her eyes on the ship she was running towards, but her breath was beginning to fog up the glass face shield, which meant something in her suit wasn’t regulating properly and she was almost somewhere that she could fix it, so she simply kept running.

The aggressive buzzing that came from the door panel as she looked to see how long she had til the trees attacked caused her head to whip around and realize that she had made a terrible discovery and mistake.

She took a step back, reading the letters along the side.

SPIRIT.

Taylor tried her code again in desperation, only to be met with the same horrible buzz. Again. Buzz. Again. Buzz. Again. Buzz. Again. ERROR.

She screamed and slammed a fist against the panel, causing it to fritz but causing an almost inaudible click. Taylor pushed at the door and it slid open. As she slid through the crack in the hull, she looked around once again and a chill ran down her spine. All of the trees that had been chasing after her were now all completely still, not a single of their leaves even moving. She watched as the same process from before began, the color oozing out of first the leaves and then the trunks, pouring into the ground, leaving only blackened shells behind them.

Her new problem arose. The ship may have appeared to more or less function, but she had just broken her way into the ship, had forced the door open, and now it wasn’t going to close. After desperately trying to slam it shut she gave up, hoping that the airlock would at least still work.

Again she simply tried slamming on the button and it opened. This time alarms began blaring, warnings about depressurization and oxygen levels depleting. The depressurization didn’t necessarily seem to be all that much of a problem as she walked through. Once on the other side, she tried slamming the airlock button again. And again. And again.

Suddenly the alarms stopped. Taylor looked around, but the airlock hadn’t closed, so it didn’t make sense that the alarms had quit their blaring.

And then her vision began to blur, the color coating the outside of her suit becoming a pinkish-orange. “No no no no no!” She kept moving through the ship, trying to find her way to the helm where she could send a message to the Celesta, but this wasn’t her ship and her vision became more and more blurry by the moment. Walls kept appearing seemingly out of nowhere, at one point she tumbled down some steps. When she finally ran into something that felt like a chair, she couldn’t see anything at all. There was a noise, something like a fly buzzing in her ear, but coating her entire body, filling every ounce of silence that coated the damn planet.

She fell onto the control panel. She didn’t know where the communications array was so she could only hope that she had hit the right button somewhere. “Celesta, Celesta.” Her voice sounded distant, so far away that she couldn’t be sure anyone would be able to hear her if she had hit the right button anyways. There was a crack in the glass on her face shield and the buzzing grew louder. “Celesta, this is Captain Jennifer Taylor of the Thunder.” A numb feeling began to sink in all over her body, interspersed with furious, flaming pain. “Celesta, the planet Mina is not safe for humans. Do not send any others after us.” The helmet of her suit gave way and her mouth felt full of cotton. “Celesta…” The pink in her vision faded to black as she closed her eyes, consciousness slipping away from her like the color had seeped out of the trees earlier.

“Captain Taylor, can you hear us? This is the Celesta.”