Primal Dawn Read online

  Kindra smiled. She couldn’t say why she felt this way, but she was certain they were going to discover something amazing down on this planet. She couldn’t wait.

  Their first day on the planet passed too quickly for Kindra, or at least, the sunlight soon fled. The planet had a day/night cycle that lasted about twenty hours, and even in space Fleet observed a strict twenty-four hour day. Humans may have left their home planet a long time ago, but traditions died hard. They had landed in the later part of the planet’s evening, and dawn had soon been upon them. Derreck had confined them to the ship for the first day, and the only one who seemed disappointed was Kindra.

  Kindra felt an attraction to this planet that defied rationality. It had started out as something subtle, an anxiousness she couldn’t explain, but it was rapidly morphing into a physical desire. She wanted to be on the planet, wanted to run her hands through the soil and feel it slip through her hand. She wanted to feel the scratch of the bark of the trees against her skin. But instead she was trapped inside the dropship, its smooth and functional lines and surfaces everywhere she went. She considered asking others if they were feeling anything similar, but she was too embarrassed.

  There were moments when she lost time. She would pull up all the external cameras on the dropship, and she would just sit in her chair and take in the view, limited as it was by the tall trees that surrounded them.

  It was days like today that reminded her why she had become a biologist in the first place. Like most humans, she had grown up in a hab on a planet in the midst of terraforming. For as long as she could remember, she had been different. Growing up, none of her friends had ever questioned life in the hab. They accepted their day-to-day existence as the only one possible. But she never had.

  Perhaps it was all the reading and viewing she had done as a child. She had always been curious, and her favorite study was that of the past. She had read all about Earth and what it had been like. There were entire libraries of film and text, and she had worked her way through as many of them as she could. The history courses on her tablet were all bland, just short descriptions of what life had been like. But with access to her parents’ account, she discovered a trove of information.

  What fascinated her more than anything else was the idea that humans had lived outdoors, with nothing between them and space but atmosphere. Some humans still did. There were planets that had been almost completely terraformed, planets where humans could go outside, but not too many, and they were prohibitively expensive to live on. Everyone wanted to get there, so it was difficult to do so. But on Earth, it had been normal to be outside. Kindra’s imagination filled with thoughts of what it must have been like.

  Her favorite childhood memories were her trips to the gardens. Her parents had always supported her curiosity and were always trying to find ways to give her new experiences she’d enjoy, and the gardens were always a sure bet. She was fascinated by plants, and if her parents could find a gardener willing to endure her questions, she’d pester them until she ran out of air. Her parents always joked that she was good for the plants because of the excess carbon dioxide she expelled.

  As soon as she was able, Kindra had applied for a work permit in the gardens. Her dad, who had been high-ranking in the hab, had helped push her application through, and Kindra had spent every moment she could working there. It wasn’t just that she’d enjoyed the place, she’d loved the work. She loved planting and the physical work it took to bring life from sterile ground. Through her work in the gardens she began to learn about the incredible amount of work it took to coax life to take root on a new planet.

  The Rebellion conflicts changed everything. Kindra’s hab had been spared, so she had been fortunate in that regard. But many of the positions off-world she’d dreamed of no longer existed. She wanted to study life in all its variety, and the only way to do that was to join Fleet. Her parents didn’t want her joining. The organization was too new and unknown, but it was the only place that could give Kindra the opportunity to study life around the galaxy.

  Kindra’s reverie was interrupted by a beep from the computer. She came out of her trance and realized she had been staring at the outside screens for almost a half-hour. It was past mealtime with the crew, and the computer was still processing most of the data. She stood up and stretched, her joints creaking from long hours of disuse.

  Night was falling, but Kindra wasn’t tired yet, and her scheduled bunk time wasn’t for a few hours. She decided she wanted to take a look at the stars, so she grabbed a meal pack and climbed the ladder to the upper level of the dropship. She figured she’d be able to use the viewing room.

  Kindra was surprised when she found Derreck there. They sometimes called the room the observation deck, even if that wasn’t accurate. There were no windows on the dropship. But each of the walls of the room, including the ceiling, was covered in viewscreens. They could be set to anything, and were sometimes used for more important work, but tradition demanded the viewscreens be set to the view of the outside world surrounding the dropship. It was where they all came to find some peace and to soak in the atmosphere of whatever new planet they were on.

  Kindra didn’t normally bother too much with the room. Most of the planets they landed on were barren, and unless there was something of interest happening outside, there was little reason to be there.

  But as soon as she stepped onto the observation deck, she knew she would experience something new here today. They were high in the trees, and from the vantage point of the cameras that fed into the viewscreens, the view seemed to go on forever. Evening was just setting, but the two moons of the planet reflected more than enough light for Kindra to see for kilometers. She had never seen a natural forest before, and Derreck was promptly forgotten as she watched the tops of the trees sway in the wind.

  Derreck broke the silence, but when he did, he was quiet, as though he also felt the magic of the sight they were given. To speak too loudly would break the spell. “It’s hard to believe, isn’t it?”

  Kindra nodded. Everything she could have said in response seemed inadequate. The feelings rushing through her were contradictory and powerful, and words failed her. She cycled through responses to Derreck’ simple comment, finally settling on one. “Yes.”

  Their eyes met, and Derreck seemed to understand. Sometimes words just weren’t sufficient. They were both explorers to the bone, and they understood at least a good part of what the other was feeling.

  They stood in silence, taking in the view being provided to them of the outside. Kindra watched the trees and wondered if her ancestors had ever seen views like these, and if they had, how they had felt about them. Had they been awed every day, or had they taken it for granted?

  Derreck’s head moved, and Kindra knew he had gotten a notification on his neurodisplay. She felt a pang of sadness for him. The moment she had come up here she had turned hers off. She didn’t want the view spoiled by anything humans had made. She wanted an uninterrupted experience. It wasn’t hard for her to do, but Derreck wouldn’t have the opportunity, no matter how much he might wish for it.

  “The probe is going to be passing overhead in just a minute or two.”

  Kindra turned her eyes towards the sky. Despite an adult life lived in the void between the stars, she was still awed by the universe. Humans were just crawling their way across the Milky Way, and there was so much more to discover. Their ships, powerful as they were, could still only jump about a hundred light years with any reliability, and at that speed, the galaxy was still enormous.

  Looking into space, whether she was landside or on a ship, always made her feel small and insignificant. Most people she knew were the same. For some, thoughts of the enormity of space made them uncomfortable, but most found space comforting. After all, in such a big place, any problems you worried about were essentially meaningless. It gave Kindra a proper perspective when she took things too seriously.

  Derreck’s voice broke her train of thought. He too, was
staring at the stars, and Kindra imagined he was thinking the same as her. “Any constellations out there?”

  Kindra smiled and shook her head. No matter how far they traveled, he would always be the same. There was something beautiful about Derreck. He was a veteran explorer and had been on more planets than most people even knew existed. He was a veteran of the Rebellion conflict too, and had the scars, both physical and emotional, to prove it. But despite a lifetime in space, he still maintained a sense of childhood wonder. Kindra wasn’t sure she’d be able to do the same if she was as experienced as him.

  Kindra’s gaze took in the stars, looking for patterns. It was a practice as old as humanity, and a game Derreck always enjoyed playing. Everywhere they went, they saw mostly the same stars, but always in new arrangements. Derreck loved finding constellations and making up stories to go with them.

  After a few seconds of searching, she thought she found one. She traced the image with her finger, trying to point out the right stars to Derreck. “It’s an explorer. There are the legs, and there are the stars for the torso. You can see she’s holding a telescope.”

  Derreck laughed softly. “So it is. Look, there’s our probe.”

  Kindra didn’t need to follow his finger. Their probe was crossing across the sky, a bright, quick-moving star from their vantage point. Kindra let her imagination run wild just for a moment and wondered what it would be like to live on this planet and see a star moving the wrong direction. They’d probably think it was a sign of some kind. They’d be disappointed to learn it was just a simple probe, also meaningless in the grand scheme of the universe.

  Without warning, the space where the probe had been flared brightly. The viewscreens automatically adjusted the brightness after a second’s delay, dimming the stars to nothingness. Kindra was shocked, but Derreck never lost his wits. He was already on his comm. “Kenan, what the hell just happened out there?”

  The channel Derreck used was an open one to the entire crew, so Kindra could hear Kenan’s response. “We lost the probe, sir.”

  Anger crept into Derreck’ voice. “I can see that. I want to know why.”

  “Give me a few minutes, sir. Diagnostics were reading green across the board, so whatever happened wasn’t internal.”

  Kindra was stunned. Losing one probe was could be anything. Losing two probes was beyond the realm of coincidence.

  Derreck shook his head and stormed out of the observation deck. Kindra looked back at the screens and saw the fading image of the nuclear explosion that had just happened, a perfect sphere of fire in the sky, and she wondered, just for a moment, if they were as safe on this planet as they thought they were.

  A few days later, Tev was getting ready to join another hunt when Neera found him. There was a look of confusion on her face, but she spoke her mind before Tev could even ask.

  “You’re needed. There is someone from another clan here, and they come seeking aid.”

  Tev frowned. Visitors from other clans weren’t all that unusual, even though they didn’t come frequently. A clan asking for aid was something different though. Most clans Tev encountered would sooner die alone than ask for help from others.

  Neera answered his unasked question. “He speaks about fire coming from the sky. They have already sent out a hunting party, but they seek aid from the surrounding clans.”

  Tev’s mind flashed back to the star that had gone across the sky the wrong way. It seemed improbable that the incidents would be related, but he couldn’t shake the idea that they were. He had never heard of fire from the sky. It seemed impossible, like a story told to children.

  He grabbed his spear and followed Neera to where the clan was gathering. A small circle had formed around the foreign hunter, and Tev judged him immediately. He looked more like a messenger than a hunter, built more for running than fighting an animal.

  The messenger was just beginning to tell his story.

  “. . . Two days ago we saw fire descend from the sky. I saw it with my own eyes, which is why I’m here today, so that you might believe me.”

  Tev interrupted the speaker. It was a rude action, but Tev didn’t care. His story felt wrong.

  “Tell us more about this fire from the sky. Are you sure you weren’t taken with drink?”

  The messenger glared at Tev but answered the question. “I was on watch that night and had nothing to drink. At first I thought it was a bright star, but it was going the wrong way, and as I watched, it got brighter and brighter. I was sure it was a star in the sky, but then it came lower and lower, and I saw it wasn’t a star at all. It was some object descending on fire.”

  Tev didn’t believe the messenger, but his interest was piqued. A star moving against the sky? Perhaps his own experience was connected.

  The messenger continued. “What was most strange was that the column of fire slowed until it reached the ground. It landed softly, like a giant bird without wings. It landed about three days away from our home. We sent out a hunting party, led by the great Xan, the strongest of our hunters. Meanwhile, we have sought help from our neighbors. It was decreed by our elders.”

  Tev was uncomfortable. It sounded as though the messenger was honest, and Tev had heard of Xan. The man was something of a legend among hunters, and if he had been sent out, the clan the man came from was indeed serious about what they had seen. He would be foolish to ignore them.

  But he was also foolish if he believed the story. Nothing descended on flames, and nothing slowed down as it fell. But precisely because these facts were so outlandish, Tev could almost believe the man. If it was a trap, wouldn’t the man be able to make up a better story?

  Tev turned to the elders, who were busy conversing in a group. Tev wondered which side of the argument they would take. The elders were a conservative bunch, so he didn’t rank the messenger’s odds too highly.

  The elders turned around and faced the crowd. “We have decided to send some of our best hunters to help the clan.”

  Tev took half a step back. That wasn’t what he had expected from the elders.

  The camp moved into action. Once a decision was made, all that was left to do was to act. There was no debating the wisdom of the elders.

  At least not publicly. Tev found Shet and took him aside. “Do you actually believe this man?”

  Shet shrugged. “It is not about me believing him or not. It is more that we cannot afford not to believe him.”

  Tev frowned. “What do you mean?”

  “There are stories about people from the sky. All of them urge caution.”

  Tev shook his head, unable to believe what he was hearing. “What do you mean, stories about people from the sky? I’ve never heard such stories. People don’t come from the sky.”

  Shet shrugged again. “There are stories shared only among the elders. I do not understand them either, but we must be cautious. And so we will be. You will be among the hunters, of course.”

  Tev wanted to argue, but there was no point. Not with Shet. “What would you have of me?”

  “Use your senses and your wisdom, Tev. I can feel the winds changing. Be ready for them.”

  One aspect of life in Fleet was that shit happened. Sometimes it was type of event rookies had nightmares about: hull collapses or radiation shielding failing. Ships were safe, but there were thousands of them in space at any time, and bad things happened. There had never been a system of transportation in human history that was perfectly safe, and the same was true of space travel.

  Space could be dangerous for anyone, but it was more so for the explorers of Fleet. Other segments of Fleet stuck to well-traveled, well-populated sections of the galaxy. But explorers were beyond support, out on their own in the blackness. There were plenty of stories to go around about ships that had just disappeared. No one had the slightest clue what had happened to them. It was as if they and their crews had never existed.

  When the probe exploded, the ship fell into chaos. Almost everyone had experiments running on the prob
e, and everyone had a responsibility to make sure they hadn’t caused the malfunction. Without being asked, Kindra ran a full diagnostic on all her systems. She breathed a sigh of relief when she wasn’t able to discover any problems.

  Losing the probe was a blow to the team, and no one felt it more keenly than Kindra. Without the probe, they were essentially blind. The Vigilance had a full suite of sensors, but on land their distance was far too limited for Kindra’s tastes. Without the survey probe they would have to settle for a detailed view of a smaller area instead of a more complete picture of the entire planet.

  For Kindra, who had been excited to study and map out entire ecosystems, the loss of the probe was devastating. Without it, she was confined to a small area to study. She wouldn’t be able to examine the connections between different systems on the planet with the detail she’d hoped for.

  Although life on the ship returned to normal, the loss of the probe created a tension that hadn’t been there before. Losing one probe could easily be explained away. Losing two probes around a planet without any meaningful orbital debris was another problem entirely. It could be that both probes had been unfortunate, but the odds of it were astronomical. It was much more likely something else was at play.

  Even though everyone acknowledged that truth, there was no evidence either way. All the systems on the probe had checked out across the board. The probe had been communicating with the dropship constantly, and up to the last few milliseconds of its existence, it hadn’t registered any problems. Most likely, the probe had impacted something. Due to the S-band radar being turned down towards the planet, there was no way of knowing for sure. Had it been hit by a piece of random debris, or had it been brought down intentionally? There weren’t any answers.

  With nothing else to go on, Derreck ordered the team back about their work. He told them he was rethinking on-world expeditions, but that was as far as his measures went.