Quick - Planetfall Origins

PLANETFALL

ORIGINS

Christopher George Quick

For my wife, Melanie.

Individual science fiction stories may seem as trivial as ever to the blinder critics and philosophers of today - but the core of science fiction, its essence has become crucial to our salvation if we are to be saved at all.

--Isaac Asimov

Preface

In this new age where bombs are so powerful they are meaningless, where biological weapons are so advanced they leave no victors, where every conceivable method of self-destruction has been mastered and weaponized, we find ourselves unable and unwilling to fight each other. War and inhumanity have backed our species into a corner, our lesser demons have forced the hand of our saving graces. We must now accept peace, because there is no alternative. We must unlearn our savagery and lay behind our ancient faults. To escape this past, we must welcome the overwhelming onset of the future. The Millennial Accord binds us to this commitment, solidifies the nature of our oaths, and swears to the Celestials that we are prepared to move onto the next era of humanity. Technology beyond our understanding has been gifted to our control. Means and methods we did not earn, we have been given. Let us not allow our salvation to rot nor our resolve to spoil. Let us instead endeavor to branch out from our native womb of mother earth and seek our final destiny among the stars.

--

Grand Chancellor Markhul

Excerpt from the signing of the Millennial Accord

Chapter I

In-processing and Indoctrination

1,476 Days Until Planetfall

Shepard, wake the fuck up.

A voice pulled me from the ether of a dream. As I broke the surface and entered the world of conscious thought, I regretted signing my name on the enlistment papers. It had only been a few weeks since I had left the hearth of my home world for the cold embrace of the Mining Corps, but there was a singular theme I noticed regarding sleep: There was never enough of it, and waking from it was all too like wading through the toils of purgatory, just to end up in hell.

Youre going to be late for physical training.

The voice belonged to my assigned bunkmate, Sheldon. I could see his face towering above me. His glassy eyes told the story of a young man who also had come to despise his mornings. I groaned and squinted to read the time display. Hes right. Fuck. No time to shave.

You definitely need to shave too. Theres no way youre going to get away with that, he said, motioning to my face.

I groaned in disapproval. When the first sixty seconds of your day is an immediate stress-dump, you dont hold much hope for the rest of it. I hit a button and the glass encasing around my sleep pod opened. I looked at the display on the side panel. It indicated that no alarm was active, affirming my suspicions that I had disabled the goddamn thing. I was probably stabbing mindlessly at it when it first went off.

I gathered my uniform up piecemeal, quietly cursing that I had been issued the wrong size shirt. After tucking the hateful amount of excess shirttail into my shorts, I left my room and made my way to the latrine. A dull razor blade sat on the edge of the sink as I splashed fistfuls of water into my face. I stared briefly into my own eyes in the mirror as I calculated my reality. I sighed as I realized I would be better off braving the dangers of shaving en route than suffer the punishment that being late was known to bring. I ran out the door to the 26th floors main hall, I pressed the button for the elevator. There was a funny inverse rule regarding the elevator. If you happen to be on time in the morning, your ability to use the elevator for its intended purpose (to reduce time and effort it would take to change floors) would be diminished because of the sheer quantity of people also attempting to use the elevator at that particular time. If you were late however, you were almost guaranteed a speedy retrieval and delivery from the highly-coveted mode of transportation. I had, on many occasions, seen the elevator make the people that were on-time arrive late. I had yet to see the elevator make the late person on-time, but today, that precise premise was going to be put to the test.

I pulled my solar goggles over my head, letting them hang across my neck as the elevator deposited me on the ground floor. I strode out its doors as soon as it would permit me to do so. I made my way around a large desk in the center of the lobby. It had the same shape and structure as a reception counter, except instead of housing a warm and smiling host or hostess, it contained two miners who were in charge of the quarters. What that boiled down to was that when something happened in the barracks, there would always be at least two people that could take the lions-share of the blame for the incident, regardless of their involvement. The two miners at the desk watched me as I ran past them. A loud blast of a trumpets tune boomed from the buildings speaker system.

Thats the 5-minute warning, one of the miners said to me, pointing upward. You best hurry the fuck up.

That was as close to a good morning as you got in the Mining Corps. I thudded down the steps that connected the barracks with the main road. I began my early morning dash toward the company area where I was expected to be standing, already in formation, blending in seamlessly to rank and file. The coveted grey man, thats what they advised us we should be. Dont stand out, dont be singled out, dont be alone. A miner is never alone. That was drilled into our heads since Day One. Here I was however, on my own, running down the main road apparently late for formation. Sheldon would usually fill the role of my prescribed mining buddy, which was a cutesy euphemism for a fellow miner that satisfied the rule of A miner is never alone. On this particular morning though, he took the calculated gamble of getting to formation solo. The odds of avoiding punishment for that offense was much greater than being late. Looking ahead I could see the corner of the building that represented my final turn before I had reached my morning objective

Hey there, miner! Wheres your physical fitness reflective belt? a voice demanded from behind me. My eyes widened as I increased my speed. Panic and the rush of risk fueled my steps as I resisted the urge to look back. Goddamn it. I forgot it. In my mad scrambling I had forgotten probably the most noticeable part of my uniform besides shorts.

HEY GUY! The same voice echoed loudly up the empty early morning road. WHERE THE FUCK IS YOUR MINING BUDDY?

No reflective belt, no mining buddy, and late. The sheer weight of potential punishment that hovered inches over my head was so severe, it was comparable to being chased towards a cliff by a murderer. You know you probably wont survive the jump, but you know for sure youll die if you dont take the leap.

Why the fuck do I need a reflective belt in the middle of summer on a planet with two suns? Im wearing solar goggles for the Overlords sake. Its bright as shit out. That brand of reasoning would be worthless against the man that was calling to me. The only chance I had of surviving this predicament was to round this corner and disappear from my assailants sight and interest.

I rounded the corner at the company. Everyone was already in formation, standing statuesque in their discipline and desire to achieve invisibility through perfect uniformity. I snuck into my squads row and my squad leader looked at me with a mixture of relief and anger at my just-in-time arrival. Then he noticed I didnt have that stupid reflective belt and his eyes became wide with what can only be described as genuine, animal fear. Why was he so afraid when it was I who was carrying the mark of three inexcusable transgressions? Because that is how they do it in the Corps. Circumstances seemingly outside of your control are regularly assigned to your charge. They call it leadership and it seemed to be a term without bounds or regulation.