The Earth Chronicles

Chapter One

Chapter One

Lifting his duffle bag onto his shoulder, Carl Lingiari took a final look at his cabin before preparing to disembark the Galathea. He wasn’t usually so sentimental, but the prospecting mission he’d just finished had been eventful. Hostile aliens called Shadows had killed the ship’s officers and appeared as perfect copies of their victims, and Carl had fought alongside Harrington, the chief security officer, to save the ship. The menace of the Shadows had followed them to the colony planet, Dawn, which was supposed to have been free of the hostile aliens. It had turned out to be anything but.

The original pilot of the Galathea had been among the fatal casualties of the alien attack. For Carl, this meant that he’d gained precious flight hours piloting a starship, though it was the worst way for the opportunity to occur. He intended to put the experience to good use. He would pay his folks at home in Australia a brief visit, then he would apply for a full pilot’s position and go touring the stars again.

“You all right in there, mate?” He directed the question to his duffle bag. A pair of bright eyes peeked through the half-open zip.

“Yeah, but get a move on,” Carl’s friend, Flux, replied. “It’s stuffy in here. And your socks smell. Have you washed them?” An alien resembling a cross between a sugar glider and a bat, Flux was hiding, ready for the disembarkation inspection. Pets were banned aboard ship—not that Flux considered himself a pet—and prospecting crews weren’t allowed to bring anything back that they hadn’t taken with them when they departed Earth territory, especially not any alien life forms.

Strictly speaking, this meant Flux should have been safe from confiscation because Carl had smuggled him aboard when they’d set off, but the higher-ups in Deep Space Customs wouldn’t see it that way. Flux would have to hide, and Carl would employ a special signal an old girlfriend who worked in Customs had taught him. The signal would guarantee that his bag wouldn’t be inspected.

His door chime sounded. Harrington was waiting outside, looking stormy.

“What’s up?” asked Carl as he left his cabin and closed the door for the final time.

“Haven’t you received Haggardy’s message yet?” Harrington replied. “Check your interface.”

Carl unzipped his bag, lifted a disgruntled Flux off of his screen, and pulled it out. The alert light was flashing, indicating a message had arrived. Flux must have been sitting on the speaker when it beeped.

Haggardy had taken over as the Galathea’s master when Akabe Loba had died, and had avoided as much responsibility as was possible in his new position. Carl wondered what the man had to say now that was suddenly so important.

Harrington supplied the answer before he could even open the message.

“He wants us to lie about what happened,” she said. “He’s sent us a ‛report’ to repeat to the investigators so he doesn’t get into trouble for not helping to save the officers from the Shadows. Kratting misborn. I’m damned well not lying for him.”

“Crew to departure hatch,” came a voice over the comm system. “Prepare to disembark.”

Carl and Harrington set off, joining the crowds of shipmates heading in the same direction.

Carl wasn’t surprised that Haggardy wanted to cover up his role in the events of the last few weeks. If Polestar or the Global Government found out the extent of his inaction, he would be dismissed and his pension withdrawn at the very least. At worst, he could be charged with criminal negligence and involuntary manslaughter.

“Does he really think he can brush everything under the carpet that easily?” Carl asked. “There’s gotta be security vids of it all, and he can’t expect the whole crew to lie for him.”

“He doesn’t need everyone to lie. The rest of the crew don’t know what actually happened. All they saw was a bunch of officers fighting. They only had our word for it that the officers were alien imposters, and I’m sure some of them didn’t believe us.

If we told the investigators Haggardy’s side of the story, they’d buy it, I think. But there’s no way in hell I’m lying for him.”

“We don’t have to lie,” said Carl. He thumbed the interface screen. “If he’s telling us we have to stick to his report, we’ve got the evidence right here.” The screen brightened with the acting master’s message.

“He isn’t that dumb, Lingiari.”

Carl scanned the writing for a moment. “Yeah, I see what you mean.” Haggardy’s report on the incident on K. 67092d was addressed to Carl, Harrington, and Sayen Lee. Navigator Lee had been seriously injured when the Galathea had crash-landed. Carl had heard she was at that moment being transferred from the ship’s stasis room to the nearest genetic hospital, where doctors could assess the extent of her brain damage and grow her a clone if necessary.

The subject line of the message simply read FYI. Only the people addressed in Haggardy’s message would understand its true meaning: that was the story, and they were expected to stick to it, or else...what?

“You aren’t considering covering up for him, are you?” asked Harrington.

“No, ’course not,” replied Carl, but he wondered what Haggardy would do when they didn’t. The man had decades of service under his belt, and he probably had stacks of influential friends.

“Do you think they’re going to use the same tests for Shadows that they had on Dawn?” asked Harrington. “Krat, I hope not. I mean, they say the testing’s foolproof, and that a Shadow must have got onto Dawn another way, but I don’t see how they can be so sure. I’d swear we brought one with us.”

“What I don’t get is, if they could test us here on Earth, why did they send us all the way to Dawn?” Carl said. “Unless the problem’s bigger than we thought and they can’t process everyone who arrives here? Anyway, we’ll have to go along with it. They seem to think they know what they’re doing, and it’s out of our hands now. The only alternatives are to refuse us permission to disembark or to go right ahead and destroy the ship. That’d reduce the risk all right.”

“Urgh, don’t say that,” said Harrington.

“Anyway, let’s collect Makey on our way out. We can show him where to go and vouch for him while he claims refugee status.”

“Good idea,” Harrington replied.

“By the way, what’s happening with the Paths?”

“They’ve been transferred to a quarantine ship. None of the xenobiologists seem to have heard of them. It’ll be a while before they’re cleared to go planetside. And Karrev and the others were taken down by police transport this morning. They’ve all been charged with mutiny.”

When they reached Makey’s cabin, they found the Dawn native cleaning the shower room, which was already spotless.

“Hey, mate, you don’t need to do that,” said Carl. “They’re gonna go through this ship and sterilize it top to bottom once everyone’s off. Come on, we’ve got to disembark. We’ve got heaps of testing to get through once we’re planetside.”

The skinny young man straightened up and put down a face cloth he’d been using to wipe the surfaces. “If you’re sure. I don’t want to seem ungrateful for the cabin and free passage to Earth.”

“No one thinks you’re ungrateful for the chance to come with us,” said Harrington. “I just wish Haggardy had agreed to bring some of Dawn’s inhabitants.”

“Me too,” said Makey. “I’ll get my stuff.”

As the kid quickly packed his bag, Carl wondered what he would think of Earth. It was very different from the poor farming community he’d left behind. The kid would see luxuries and lifestyles that he’d probably never dreamed of, and a big gap between those who could and couldn’t afford them.

The three joined the stragglers leaving the ship to board the shuttle that would take them to a spaceport in London, UK. From there, they could catch shuttles that would take them to the other side of the planet within a few hours, or airplanes that would get them to their destination much slower, but much cheaper.

At the departure hatch, a ginger-haired woman—the engineer-in-training MacAdam—was waiting for them. She was smiling like all her birthdays had come at once.

“You haven’t disembarked yet?” asked Harrington.

“No, not yet,” MacAdam replied. “I wanted to take this last chance to thank you. I might not see you again once we all go our separate ways.”

“How come? You hanging up your wrench?” Carl asked. Prospecting crews often encountered old shipmates in the course of their work.

“I might be.” The engineer grinned. “I sent a request to visit my kids, and I just heard that I’ve got an appointment. If I manage to stay clean for another six months, they said I stand a good chance of getting them back.”

“Great news,” said Carl. He had a feeling that Harrington’s mail to the relevant authorities about MacAdam turning over a new leaf might have had something to do with the favorable response to her request.

“Yeah, great news,” Harrington said, followed by, “Krat.”

Haggardy was striding towards them. They’d nearly made it onto the shuttle without meeting the brown-noser.

“Lingiari, Harrington, just the people I wanted to see. MacAdam, and...” The acting master’s eyebrows rose. “I remember you,” he spluttered as he recognized Makey. “I gave instructions that you were not to board the ship.”

“Not a lot you can do about it now, is there?” said Carl. “Makey, wait for us when you’re through the testing. We’ll point you to the refugee office.”

As the kid went away, Haggardy followed him with his gaze, then turned his narrowed eyes to Carl and Harrington. MacAdam made herself scarce, mouthing ‛goodbye’.

Haggardy said, “I gave explicit instructions—”

“What’s done is done,” said Harrington. “The kid’s here now, and he can claim refugee status. It’s going to be a long afternoon, so we’ll be on our way.”

“No you don’t,” Haggardy said. “Until you leave the ship, you two are still under my command, and I order you to remain. I have something to tell you.”

Folding his arms over his chest, Carl waited with the grim-faced Harrington.

After checking that the rest of the crew were out of hearing range, Haggardy said, “I sent you both a report detailing what happened when we first encountered the Shadows. You are to memorize and repeat the facts as I stated them. There is to be no mention of your versions of the events, no interpretations, twisting, or embellishments of the truth as I have laid it out. Is that clear?”

“No way, Haggardy,” Harrington said through her teeth. “No way am I lying for you. Forget it.”

“Yeah,” said Carl, “that’s not happening, mate. You didn’t do your job. That’s the truth, and that’s what I’m telling anyone who asks. Let’s go,” he added to Harrington.

The two walked away, and Haggardy shouted after them, “If you know what’s good for you, you’ll tell my truth. Or I’ll make things very difficult for you. Very difficult indeed.”

As they went through the exit hatch and boarded the shuttle, Carl wondered what Haggardy meant.