Authors: Ryan Frieda
“Let's go check it out anyway. If there is something, mankind may need the information you recover,” Jamie said.
“Then they can come here themselves,” Captain Steele replied.
Jamie paused for a second.
“We are several decades into mission at faster than light speeds. They probably won't come here for ages, if at all. It could be too late then,” Jamie said.
Captain Steele thought about it for a while. He didn't want to do any more of these secondary missions. The only thing he wanted was to do the primary mission. These secondary missions are the ones going to get him killed. He was torn because as a soldier he knew he needed to do both if possible, and both are possible right now. However, he knew that if he went down there the mission as a whole could fail. If that happens everything fails. Only he could build the Instant Teleportation Device well enough for it to last a long time. They weren't cheap, and they were hard to build. An unstable one would have catastrophic problems and could only be used a few times before it collapsed. Last time that happened, a nearby planet was destroyed. If this one wasn't built properly its anyone's guess as to how many ships will get through, if any. He knew he needed to go down there, but he just couldn't.
“Are you afraid John?” Jamie asked.
“No Jamie I-”
“It's perfectly okay.”
“I'm not afraid Jamie.”
“Then what is it?”
“It's just the whole device building thing.”
“It's never stopped you before John.”
“Yeah but... after last time I just think it's too dangerous.”
“When have you ever been afraid of dangerous? You have always done it anyway, despite even my wishes,” Jamie asked.
Captain Steele didn't have an answer to that.
“It's the fear of dying, isn't it John?” Jamie asked.
“No it's...” Captain Steele started to say. He paused for a minutes before continuing, “Yes...” he whispered.
“It's perfectly okay John.”
“No it's not! I'm the best the galaxy has. I can't be paralyzed in fear of death.”
“John, after a life and death encounter its perfectly natural to-”
“I'm a soldier, it doesn't happen! I'm better than that. I have survived thousands of life and death encounters.”
“John...”
“I've been in so many close to death situations before. Why now?” Captain Steele asked.
“Your body has a natural reaction to such things after a life and death encounter happens.”
“But why now?”
Jamie paused a minute before speaking.
“John, you practically died on that last planet. No one should have survived that. You took more abuse than the DSSM suit was designed to sustain. You survived the death of a planet and all that went along with it. Somehow you survived. The creature you killed that is hanging up in your room did less damage to you than the planet did. No one survives what you have. I have run the odds based off of what you told me and what your suit's damage interface said. Your chance of survival was 0%. Your suit took so much damage that the neutron star fiber and carbon nano aggravated diamond parts of the suit were completely gone in most areas of the suit. Such trauma was considered extremely deadly.
“Some how, I was able to bring you back in this med bay. This med bay isn't the most standard one. This one was designed for combat injuries, not complete human reconstruction. I had to reconstruct most of your body, which is beyond the capabilities of this med bay. I had to do some very clever things to do that. However you should not have been able to survive. I saw the images saved in your DSSM's data hard banks. You should have been paralyzed if you survived yet here you stand. I am not sure who, or what, you really are John. You are very strong John; physically, mentally, and emotionally. You are so strong in all three of those categories that one could conclude that you are not human, yet you clearly are. What I know is that you appear to be human, the exact same human that I started this mission with, and that human has a complete history of life as a human and nothing to state otherwise.
“What I mean John, is that you are a human, have always been one, and always will be. You do what others can not do through sheer determination. You are so successful because of that determination, and that determination has kept you alive and fighting this entire time. You are human John, an incredible human who defies the odds and makes his own. You have been a complete statistical oddity to me this entire time, and today, for the first time in your life have you succumbed to the weak part of human nature. No matter what the odds, you never broke down in fear. You never gave up and pushed on, weak human nature or not. All of this just means that your determination has allowed you to bypass all the other times that you should have been paralyzed in fear. Last time was just too great for your determination. Even you know you should have died and that should have been the end of you. You were stuck frozen in rock hard mercury for well over a decade. You know that you should have died and you believe that with all that you are. You finally met your match and you know and believe it. Your human nature is finally showing.”
Jamie paused for a minute before continuing.
“I'm really really glad. It was bound to happen sometime,” Jamie said.
Captain Steele sat down on the floor of his ship. He broke down and cried. He knew he has better than this, and yet he knew Jamie was right.
“I'm better than this,” he said.
“Much better,” Jamie replied.
Captain Steele continued to cry for several minutes. He knew that she was right. That's one thing he's seen soldiers go through time and time again, yet he never experienced it until now.
“Thank you Jamie,” he whispered.
“Your welcome.”
Captain Steele knew that he had a mission to do, and that no matter the odds he was going to press forward. He had never once been so afraid he refused to complete a part of the mission. No matter how dangerous, he wasn't going to start now. He grabbed a DSSM suit, suited up, and prepared for the decent into the clouds.
Jamie brought the ship into the atmosphere and when she did the ship was hit with winds with speeds of close to 90,000 miles per hour. At sea level on Earth the speeds of the wind would be equal to mach 118 but because the speed of sound changes at different heights and due to the ambient temperature of the air, this causes the speed of sound to be different at different locations. The mach number was much more. Because of this the real mach speed was equivalent to 156 on Earth, or close to 118,476 miles per hour. This would cause many problems with the ship and Captain Steele's DSSM.
“I'm not so sure this is a good idea Jamie. I'm picking up some serious problems with my suit. It wasn't designed for this. How do you know you will be able to pick me up?” Captain Steele said.
“I can land on the landmass because the air goes around it. I will pick you up and drop you off there. Stand by in the portside airlock, I'll be upwind of the blowing wind and move in from there,” Jamie said.
Captain Steele grabbed a rifle, some extra supplies and stepped into the portside air lock as he let Jamie know he was good to leave the ship. Considering the portside airlock was facing away from the storm he opened the outer airlock door where he could get a view of the landing zone while being shielded by the ship from the wind. He opened the outer airlock door and looked at the island floating in the clouds. He could see that there wasn't anything that initially appeared dangerous. He kept view of the landing zone when a strong burst of wind hit the ship tilting it and throwing him off spiraling toward the ground. He was falling 2 miles toward the ground while being shoved by winds at 118,476 miles per hour.
Captain Steele used the DSSM suit's zero g's stabilizer to try and correct his path and slow his decent but the wind was causing significant problems. The air was propelling him around and causing him pain as well.
“Jamie, give me cover!” Captain Steele yelled.
Jamie threw the ship between Captain Steele and the winds giving him time to correct his path and slow his decent. He was still having trouble keeping his path orientated and Jamie flew the ship in closer to try and get him back on board. Just as he was close to the ship the winds suddenly stopped around him and he knew he was in the atmosphere of the island.
“That could have been really really bad. I probably should have strapped myself into the ship,” Captain Steele said.
“You really think so? You should have thought that one through a little better John,” Jamie said.
“Your right,” Captain Steele replied
Captain Steele landed on the island. He immediately scanned to see if the air is breathable and found out it was. He had his helmet break down into his suit and took a deep breath of fresh air. It was so wonderful and it reminded him of Earth. It smelt like summer. He also noticed the area was very similar to Earth. He looked up and saw stars and colorful nebula over head yet it was as bright as the middle of a summer day. There was green grass and trees, some with a yellow tint as if they were dying like they would in summer. The air was warm, probably 82 degrees Fahrenheit, with humidity at about 15 percent. The were sounds that even sounded like summer, with a gentle breeze running through the trees and grass and birds chirping.
“Incredible! Jamie, there are birds here!”
“Amazing,” Jamie replied.
Captain Steele looked around and found a small stream. He looked down into it and saw it was as clear as crystal. He scanned it for anything abnormal or poisonous. The scan came back completely clear. He stuck both hands into the stream and drank from it. He felt a rush as he tasted clean water that wasn't recycled for the first time in decades. It was clear the island had its own atmosphere that was different from the planet it was on.
“Jamie this is the best water I have ever tasted!” Captain Steele said.
Captain Steele quickly filled up a canister and ran to his ship that was on the ground not too far from him and grabbed several drums to fill them up. He knew that it was going to be impossible to get new water after leaving this island. He also knew that filling up the drums with the water and keeping it in storage would make the recycled water taste very bland. The clean water would make the recycled water taste as different as the difference between soda and water, but deep down he knew it was worth it.
Captain Steele then went looking for the birds. He had wanted to see something so simple for such a long time. He moved closer to the trees and he heard and saw them fly off. He stood there staring at them, knowing he would never see such a sight again. He went back to the water to look for fish and he found some. He stared at them swimming and he followed the stream uphill. As he came up the hill he could see a mountain in the background with a bit white snow on top of it. He also came across a much bigger peaceful flowing river. He looked into it and saw bigger fish. He knew what he had come across was amazing and a miracle of science. Living creatures on a floating island that was inside a gas giant, that was in a solar system that was out in intergalactic space.
“Jamie are you seeing what I am?” Captain Steele asked.
“I am and I can't believe it,” He heard Jamie say.
Captain Steele wondering if there were any animals wondering around on the ground and asked Jamie to do a scan. He kept walking around the island in awe of what he was seeing and hearing.
“This place is incredible. It's so pristine and beautiful. It's so diverse and alive. How?” Captain Steele asked.
“I am not sure John.”
Captain Steele continued his journey across the island's surface. He had had his fun and needed to start working again. He started moving to try to find the edge of the island so he can get some closer readings of the change in atmosphere. He went up a hill and toward the west. After going up he noticed a desert just on the other side of the hill. It was an incredible transition of environments. Off in the distance he could see the brownish orange storm of the planet. He looked overhead and could still see the stars as plentiful as if on Earth at night and color nebula overhead as well. It was an incredibly beautiful view, unlike anything he had ever seen. So much so that he knew it had to be some kind of portal. But who made it? Whoever it was, he didn't really care as he found it was far too awesome to really care about who made it.
As Captain Steele moved through the desert and over the sand dunes and away from the center of the island he noticed the sky slowly change back to the planets brownish orange storm. He came to the edge of the island and could hear the wind blowing. He allowed his helmet to cover his head again. He started to approach the edge to get some readings. He stood right on the edge and looked down and he could see nothing but the storm. He set up a scanner right there to get some readings and sat down. He checked the time and noticed he had been on the island for only three hours. He wished he could just stay forever.