Lost Ark Ch. 01

Author's note:

This story takes place in the same world as Lost Colony (previously published), but may be read as a standalone story. The characters and setting are new, with only the Lost Colony backstory tying them together. It is also more science-fictiony than most of Lost Colony.

All characters are over the age of eighteen. Thank you for reading!

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-Kyle-

Why did it have to be the woman who said he fucked like an under-powered mining drone?

Kyle Danton clicked off his communicator, stood, and brushed away the leaf debris from his uniform. He should have been left alone to relax in the grove for another hour or two, reading a book or just closing his eyes and letting the sound of Kaybe birdsong swirl around him like a melody. Instead, Commander Sanz had called him into a meeting about a new mission. One which, regrettably, would involve Lissa. He grumbled a curse.

A month ago Danton would have welcomed a chance to spend time with his girlfriend. At least, she had been his girlfriend at the time. Now, as he walked back to the Odysseus camp, his thoughts were swamped with how wretched the experience might be. What had been an exciting and pleasurable distraction from camp life had ended in a messy breakup, culminating with the demeaning comments about his performance in bed. Weeks later he was still hurting. It hadn't been until Danton had found himself suddenly alone that he realized how much emotional stake he had put into their relationship.

Danton paused at the edge of the camp. The Odysseus had brought Danton, Lissa, and their shipmates on a mission to investigate the fate of a colonization attempt on Kaybe. What they had discovered were survivors who had reverted back to a desperate society without technology or written language. Eighteen months later the mission was still struggling to steer the planet's inhabitants toward a more civil society. Although the Odysseus itself had departed for Earth months earlier, the name was still used when referring to the camp. Danton checked his uniform for stray leaves, fussed with his hair, and strode into camp.

"Specialist Danton." Commander Sanz didn't look up from her datapad when he stepped into the briefing room. He could never tell when the commander was irritated, and when she was simply distracted. "Take a seat."

He did, choosing a spot at the corner of the table. With luck, Lissa would choose one at the opposite corner, as far away as possible. Since their breakup, the two had made an art out of staying out of each other's way. The confined briefing room would test that unspoken agreement. While waiting, his mind tortured itself with fresh questions about what had happened between the two. Had Lissa already found someone else? Had the two been fucking somewhere when Sanz sent her summons?

Lissa's appearance, when she did arrive, did little to soothe Danton's worries. Almost as tall as he was, Lissa was wearing a snug-fitting field uniform. She wasn't a voluptuous woman, but with the front closure open perhaps a bit farther than necessary, her fit body was easy to appreciate. Her spiked, platinum blonde hair was arranged even more carelessly than usual. She didn't even bother to look Danton in the eye.

Sanz paid no more attention to Lissa than she had to Danton. "Alright," she said as the former took a seat, "let's get started." She tapped the table. "Carpenter, are you still there?"

The display table lit up, revealing a somewhat pixelated view of Melissa Carpenter, head of anthropology. The scene behind her, a patch of scrubby woodland, had been partially cleared and marked off into a grid. "I apologize for the poor signal quality. We're in a bit of a ravine here, and I think it messes with the satellite reception." As if to emphasize her point, the display flickered momentarily before snapping back.

"It's fine for now," Sanz assured her. "I have Danton and Sloane here. Can you share with them what you've found?"

"Yes, of course. And if the signal holds up I can show them as well. Oh, hi, Lissa and Kyle." Carpenter was a well-liked woman who treated everyone as a friend.

"Hi," the pair replied in unison. The moment might have been humorous if not for the weight that hung between the two.

Carpenter turned her communicator toward the dig site and began narrating as she walked the perimeter. "Mapping Operations discovered the wreckage two weeks ago. From the ground, it looks like nothing, but pattern recognition picked it out as a likely crash site. They sent a drone, which confirmed the hypothesis."

"One of the colonist air cars?" Kyle asked. Four hundred years earlier, as the colonist society began to collapse, scores of air cars, and in some cases larger craft, had been abandoned or fallen from the sky.

"That's what we thought at first," Carpenter said, "but those dropped straight from the sky at low speeds. This site represents a high-speed impact. It tore a pretty good gouge through the ravine before it came to a halt." She panned left, revealing a scar in the soil.

"Did you find Alain Sparr's escape pod?" Lissa asked. Sparr's perilous first year on the planet, starting with his unceremonious ejection from the Odysseus in an escape pod, was ingrained in camp lore.

"It is an escape pod," Carpenter confirmed, "but no one, not even Alain, could have survived this crash." She panned again to reveal the scraps of dull metal and glass which littered the dig site. Few were larger than a dinner plate.

"Perhaps you can spare us further guesswork from our eager specialists," Sanz said, her voice flat. "Show them the fin."

"Yes. Yes, of course." The video feed bounced erratically as Carpenter circled to the far side. Once there, she knelt, providing a clear view of two pieces of scrap which had been pieced together to form an angular shape. A name spanned the two pieces.

"Ark I - Pod 3"

"Son of a bitch!" Kyle gasped.

"Language, Mr. Danton, but yes, it's quite unexpected." Commander Sanz was finally eyeing him, the faintest trace of a smile visible on her lips.

It took Lissa a moment longer to process the clue. "Ark... wasn't that the original colonist ship?"

"Yes. Well, sort of." Carpenter was treating the question as if it had been directed to her. "There were two. Ark I was an uncrewed ship that was sent first, arriving packed with supplies the colonists would need to get started on Kaybe. It arrived approximately three months ahead of Ark II, which carried the colonists themselves."

Kyle chewed on the morsel of information. He and everyone else in the camp had arrived aboard the Odysseus, the Alliance craft sent centuries later to investigate the fate of the colonists. The efforts that had gone into looking for Ark I and Ark II hadn't been successful, and in any event, the crew had other priorities. To find a clue after so long presented an enticing mystery.

"I'm sorry to bring it up, but did you find any bodies?"

"Yes," Carpenter said softly. "The pod appears to have carried four souls, all of whom were killed on impact. A blessing, I suppose."

"I don't get it," Lissa said. "Why have escape pods on an uncrewed ship?"

"I'm not sure 'uncrewed' really applies here," Kyle muttered.

Lissa glared at him, ready to unleash a retort, but Sanz stepped in. "The why of the escape pods we know." Again she tapped at the table, bringing up an image that occupied the entire surface. "This is the best image we have of Ark I. It dates from just before her launch, over four hundred years ago."

The ship was enormous. To Kyle, it looked like a scaffolding floating in space, bulky containers of various sizes clinging to its utilitarian frame. He shook his head. "It certainly doesn't look like there were any habitats."

"Look closer," Sanz said, zooming in to the aft section of the ship. Just forward of the engine cluster was a disc-shaped structure, like an enormous coin, hundreds of meters in diameter and perhaps one-tenth as wide. "The design was modular. The frame used for Ark I was the largest built by the Shell-Bauer shipyard. It could support bulk cargo pods, smaller craft like shuttles, and habitat rings. We're pretty sure that's what is pictured in the last section."

Kyle had long ago read the history of the Ark expedition. "It is well documented that Ark I was supposedly uncrewed-"

"Thank youuuu," Lissa said, cutting him off.

Kyle ignored her. "I get that they would have been required to equip any habitats with escape pods, but why build the habitats to begin with? Ark I could have been smaller, and far less expensive."

Sanz once again met Kyle's eyes, her smile now more pronounced. "That's what I want you to find out."

"Mmmm what?" Lissa asked.

The Commander's self-satisfied grin now took them both in. "We found Ark I."

"Fuck. Me!"

This time Sanz didn't caution Kyle on his language. "Here," she said. The table's display shifted once more, bringing up a chart depicting a wide view of Kaybe before zooming in on a glint of light barely visible against the consuming emptiness of space. "We picked it up two days ago, incoming on a stellar orbit."

Kyle could just stare, but Lissa had questions. "So Ark I, the ship which was supposed to be uncrewed but which apparently wasn't, has been in orbit around Kaybe for four hundred years?"

"More or less," Sanz said, "except it's in orbit around our star K2-136, not Kaybe itself."

"And we're just now seeing it?"

"It's a function of the orbit," Sanz explained. Somehow Ark I ended up in a slow stellar orbit. We don't know why, but it explains why we never spotted it before."

"And you want us to figure out what happened?" This came from Danton. "Pardon me Commander, but neither Ms. Sloane nor I work in Orbital Operations."

"I can explain that," Carpenter broke in. Her video feed was once again fuzzy, but her voice came through clearly. "We think there's a human story here. My team salvaged several memory chips from the passengers' communicators. We're still patching them together, but we can confirm that those who died aboard that escape pod did come from Ark I. Their story is part of the larger Kaybe narrative."

"Specialist Sloane," Sanz said, taking over from Carpenter, "you're a historian, are you not?"

Lissa drew back. "I'm an archivist. I've been helping several teams catalog and organize their-"

"I mean your graduate degree," Sanz said, breaking in. "It's in history."

Danton knew the detail, but was just as surprised as Lissa that Sanz was familiar with the former's academic background. The Commander was impossible to read.

"Yes," Lissa acknowledged. "History, with a specialization in Early Recovery." Recovery was the term applied to the centuries-long climb from the chaos that Earth was still in.

"Right. So you two are perfect for this assignment. Someone with a systems background needed to get around the ship," Sanz said, nodding toward Danton, "and someone to figure out what the hell happened."

"You're sending us up there?"

"Yes, Lissa," Carpenter replied, once again taking the question as her own. "We don't have anyone else right now. My team is here at the dig, half a world away."

"And Danton, you're the best with older tech," Sanz said. "I know it's been sort of a hobby for you, interfacing with vintage systems, and this mission calls for just that expertise. The launch window is tomorrow morning. That doesn't give us much time to prepare, but Carpenter's team is transmitting over everything they're recovering from the dig. It isn't much, but-"

"Wait," Danton broke in. "What's the hurry?" Frustration rose in his voice. "Why not wait until the dig is complete, until we know as much as possible about Ark I? About what we can expect to find."

Sanz narrowed her dark eyes at him, displeased with the interruption. "If you'd let me finish, Specialist, you'd already know. Ark I's orbit around K2-136 is on the same plane as Kaybe, but at half the velocity. We've been drawing closer for a year, but her time within range of our shuttle will be just four days. This will be our only opportunity for two years. Now, Mr. Danton, I've selected you for this mission. But if you think you aren't fit..."

Not fit. The words rattled, jagged, in his skull. He'd been in a fog since the breakup with Lissa, letting his systems run on autopilot, postponing routine duties, and spending too much time daydreaming. Sanz and the others in command had been tolerant, but the message was clear. He would either take this assignment or carry a blemish on his record.

"No, no, I'm good," Danton said hastily. "That is, if Ms. Sloane is ready."

"Oh hell yeah!" Lissa said. Her hazel eyes caught the light of the table, reflecting back an energy Danton hadn't seen for months. "Specialist Danton can open the doors, and I'll solve the mysteries."

"You mean I'll do all the skilled work and you'll blog about it."

"Well, I can already tell you two will make a great team," Sanz groaned.

***

-Lissa-

Everyone's bitch.

It had become exhausting for Lissa Sloane to pretend her role on Kaybe amounted to anything more than a personal assistant. Others were doing important work developing a written language for the original colonists, exploring and mapping the planet's surface, setting up clinics, and establishing commerce. Even Kyle got to fly to different corners of the planet, troubleshooting or decommissioning systems.

She got to take notes.

At least that's how it felt most days. As an archivist, she advised teams on how to organize their research material and findings for efficient retrieval and updating. But most of the team leads simply saw her as someone they could dump work on, never appreciating how critical it was, sometimes urging her to cut corners to meet deadlines. I should have stood my ground the first time, forced them to see the value of my work.

"No, fuck!" Lissa said. She shook off the self-pity, stood, and checked her kit for the hundredth time. The chance to explore Ark I was a gem, a singular opportunity to get recognition for her own work. After this, the other teams wouldn't just want to work with her, they'd want her in the field with them. And Sanz had recognized her potential as a historian. Her name would be foremost on any article about Ark I.

"Fifteen minutes," Viv Sheen announced over the intercom. The pilot was already on board, completing the pre-check. "Our launch window is almost here."

Hefting her pack, Sloane stepped from the compact alcove that had been her home for the fourteen hours since the briefing. Both she and Kyle had been fed a trickle of information literally dug up and pieced together by Carpenter's team at the dig site. They had a few scraps of logs, video clips, and documents. Most were little more than fragments, just enough to tease her with the possibility of a good story, but no clue which direction it would take. Her real work wouldn't begin until they reached Ark I.

"Hey." Kyle emerged from his own alcove, lugging a wheeled case in addition to his pack. "Guess we're doing this, huh?"

"I know I am," Sloane replied. Having to share the mission with Kyle was the only thing dulling her excitement. It wasn't that she no longer cared for the man, but being forced to spend several days with him seemed unlikely to heal their friendship. "See you on board," she said, lengthening her stride to escape him.

The pleasure was fleeting. Before she could even take her seat on the shuttle, Kyle was already dragging his case on board. A mission specialist helped him secure it, then went over a perfunctory inventory on what had already been loaded.

"Vacuum environment survival kits," the specialist began. "Includes your pressure suit and helmet, oxygen scrubber replacement cartridge, magnetic boots, and emergency feeding tube and pouches if you need them. You were both recertified last year. Any questions?"

Neither spoke. Their visit to Ark I would be quite short if the atmosphere couldn't be restored on the habitat ring. Spending long enough in a pressure suit to require replacement oxygen scrubbers wasn't part of the plan any more than was subsisting on the bland paste that passed for food.

"'Kay," the man said, his eyes lingering on Lissa longer than necessary. "Have fun up there you two," he added, with a wink at Kyle.

Didn't the word get around? It was hopeless. Even men who leered at her couldn't figure out that she and Kyle were no longer a couple. Not that she was eager to begin a new relationship. Although Sloane hadn't shared it with Kyle, calling it quits with him had been more about her inner confusion than it had been diminishing interest. What did she even want anymore?

"Hello, lovelies," Sheen called from the cockpit, excitement and humor in her voice. No one, thought Sloane, enjoyed flying more than Sheen, and no one looked less like a pilot. Well into her fifties, and with a head of undisciplined grey hair, the petite woman flew like a bat on espresso. "Please buckle up. Today's journey well beyond Kaybe orbit will be the longest flight, and the most fun, that your pilot has had since they thawed her out of space freeze."

"You're welcome, Viv!" Sloane said, some of Sheen's enthusiasm finding her. "Next time we need a lift to a derelict spaceship at the limit of the shuttle's range I'll insist you fly that mission, too."

The shuttle came alive around them as cabin lights dimmed, the aft door hissed shut, and the engines powered up. Recycled air blew through the cabin, eliminating their last dependency on the outside world. While Sheen chattered through final clearances and checks, Sloane took the opportunity to sneak a look at Kyle. He was several inches taller than her, which, when you're a 5'9" woman, isn't a given. With blue eyes and messy brown hair he exuded a sort of boyish charm which, somehow, he was able to pull off without being easily dismissed. And while no one would call him muscular, he did stay fit. She had enjoyed his hands on her body. No, it wasn't a lack of physical magnetism that had soured her on their relationship. But what had it been?

The ship lurched underneath Sloane, disrupting her introspection. In typical Sheen fashion, the pilot had received final clearance to launch and began an immediate, vertigo-inducing climb. Even Kyle, who had been on more than his share of shuttle flights, clutched for a handhold.

"Sanz wants to talk to you," Sheen announced cheerfully. "Patching her in."

"Danton, Sloane," Sanz began, no recognition in her voice of the discomfort she and Kyle might be experiencing. "We're sending you one final update from Carpenter's team at the dig. Also, as a reminder, you'll only have an hour or so at Ark I to get inside and confirm life support. Sheen can't stick around any longer than that. Once you're dropped off, the next window won't open up for another two days. If you don't make that one, you'll have at most two more days before Ark I will be out of range."

Both she and Kyle echoed their understanding, but as soon as Sanz signed off the latter spoke up. "This is bullshit."

Sloane smiled. "I'm sorry you aren't enjoying yourself. Personally, I'm looking forward to exploring an ancient spaceship packed with juicy mysteries."

"It isn't that," Kyle said. "It's the hurry. We didn't even have a day to prepare, and the evidence on the ground isn't fully analyzed yet. It's dumb luck the one shuttle we have capable of making this trip happened already to be at the camp."

"You heard Sanz. It will be another two years before this opportunity comes up again."

"So what?" Kyle lifted his arms in as dramatic a gesture as the g-forces induced by their climb would allow. "That hulk has been out there for over four hundred years. What will another two matter?"

Sloane had no ready response. Had she been so eager to make a name for herself that she had ignored the possible dangers?