Chapter Text
Six-hundred and forty-two days. That is how long Captain Alex Manes had been on mission.
And he wasn't even halfway through.
He had nothing to lose when he signed on to a project set to last just shy of four years where he would be isolated and travelling as far out as he could get from the space station in search of a planet with viable conditions for what was left of human-kind.
It's not that the earth was completely fried, but its capacity to sustain the amount of human life that remained was severely diminished. And there was only so much farming you could do on a giant floating city.
It was a four-person crew that was due to embark on one of three intelligence missions out past the solar system in search of other planets that had breathable air, manageable soil and bodies of fresh or salvageable water. Four days before Alex and his team were due to embark, their engineer became sick and a series of tests determined him to be unfit to travel. With the mission deemed critical, they were approved to travel in a team of three as Alex had an adequate knowledge of the ship and technical ability which would suffice.
Alex adjusted the camera on his dock and tapped the button for the log.
“This is Captain Alex Manes with log number… five-eighty-nine,” he said, raising his hand to the back of his head and rubbing his fingers against the base of his skull. “We are just about halfway so we’re on the loop back to the space station. It’s at least a few days before we make our next stop, hoping for more success than the last one. I think I’m still feeling the heatstroke.”
He chuckled to himself a little and dropped his hand to rest his forearm on the desk.
“I’m running on three hours sleep, auto-pilot has us covered but we’re about to pass through another system so I’d rather be up to keep an eye on things.”
There was a bang against one of the walls and a laugh that carried down the hall. Alex looked into the camera with a wry smile.
“You know right about now I wish I had that fourth person here, not so we can engage in the kind of carnal wall-thumping that those two are, but so we can wallow in the loneliness that is an off-base assignment and silently judge the two of them.
“But it’s not all doom and gloom for me, I mean look at this,” he said, moving the screen around to face the window.
“Nothing but stars and space and empty, endless worlds. It’s terrifying and beautiful, in that order.”
He hesitated a moment before sighing and pressing the delete button on the log.
He stood up and grabbed his sweater off the back of the chair and pulled it over his head, walking out through the bridge and into the main control room. The window across the front was a wide expanse of more stars and space and Alex sat down in the captain’s chair and checked the coordinates and trajectory was still on track.
It wasn’t long before Liz came walking out and sat down in her seat by Alex and started tying up her hair.
“Early doctor’s appointment this morning Ortecho,” he said with a grin.
“Well he had an opening in his schedule,” she said.
Alex hummed with a quick not of his head. “Tell me, are they still taking temperatures by-“
“You know what? If you want an appointment with the doctor, make one Manes,” she said with a laugh.
“I don’t think he’s that kind of doctor,” he said, and they both chuckled as Kyle came walking in.
“You talking about me?” he said. “I’m a pretty all-around doctor, you got a problem Manes?”
Liz and Alex laughed again, and Kyle looked at them both with a furrowed brow.
“What?” he said.
“Just stick to what you know Valenti,” Alex said.
“How’s it looking out there?” Kyle said with a yawn.
“Same as yesterday,” he said. “Space, space and I don’t know if you’re going to believe this but more space.”
“I’m getting tired of hearing that joke every day,” Kyle said.
“Not a joke,” Alex said. “There’s a lot of space out here. But we’re coming up to the next system, probably be a couple of hours and maybe you’ll see a planet. Or you could you know, stop asking that question.”
“When’s the next stop?” Liz asked, opening some files from the last planet in her database.
“Computer says if we stick to this course, we’ll be there in about four days. Give or take,” Alex said.
“Am I going to get a sunburn from just sitting inside the ship from this one?” Kyle said.
At the last planet they visited the temperature fluctuation had been a lot greater than they had anticipated. They had landed in what turned out to be the early hours of the morning and the heat was already bordering on uncomfortable. By lunchtime it was nearly unbearable.
The air was breathable, but it was heavy, thick air. By the time they gave up looking for soil and water samples they were drenched in sweat and Kyle was sitting in his chair in the bridge wearing just his boxers and a singlet.
“I hope not,” Alex said.
“Most likely this one will be lower average temperatures than Earth,” Liz said as she flicked through her slides. “Atmosphere is thinner, so odds are we aren’t going to have to wring the sweat out of our uniforms.”
“Well, if no-one needs me, I’ll be in my cabin,” Kyle said.
“Nobody needs you Valenti,” Liz quipped, and he gave her a face before heading back into the ship.
“Well, that was mean,” Alex grinned.
“Can’t let him get too sure of himself, we have to live with him for another two years I mean can you imagine.” She said and he laughed.
They sat mostly in silence for the next few hours as Liz worked on her research and Alex kept an eye on the autopilot. The closer they got to new systems or objects in space the more he needed to monitor and guide the ship.
Most of the time the Roswell was able to find its way through the course that Alex plotted with ease, but he always felt better being in the bridge to keep an eye on all the instruments and dials.
Of course, it meant his sleep cycle was terrible, but he was the one in charge of running the ship, keeping them going and keeping the team safe on their mission. Neither of the others were trained in flying the ship beyond plugging a destination into the autopilot.
Up ahead Alex could see a planet coming into view. It was small at a distance, but Alex didn’t remember this system having a planet at that location. He pulled up the schematics and input their location, pinpointing the system closest and running through the known information.
“All good over there?” Liz asked, turning in her chair to look over at him.
“Yeah,” he said. “Just didn’t know there was a planet here.”
“Want to plug it?” she said.
‘Plug it’ was the way they described adding new data to the computer system. It could be anything from updating the database with details of known planets including the research Liz was doing from her ground samples, to adding a new planet or moon.
“Yeah, I guess I should,” he said.
“How about ‘Manes-town’,” she grinned, and he looked over at her.
“I don’t think I’ll ever want to name anything ‘Manes-town’,” he said.
“Okay,” she shrugged. “How about ‘Ortecho-town’ then?”
“It’s a planet, this is serious business,” he said, and she just laughed.
He had just finished shaking his head at her when there was a beeping sound coming from one of the switchboards. He spun around to look at it and Liz leaned over further.
“What is it?” she asked.
“Bit of a pressure build up,” he said quietly, his brow furrowed.
As he set up the computer to run the diagnostic an orange light went on above their heads, causing them both to look up.
“What the hell?” Alex said.
“What?”
“Just hold on,” he said, typing quickly into the computer.
Everything seemed to start happening faster. In addition to the beeping switchboard and flashing light there was now another set of lights flashing and a slow ‘whoop’ sound coming from the control panel.
“Oh no,” Alex said almost involuntarily, hoping Liz would hear him.
“What’s happening?” Kyle came walking in quickly, looking at all the lights.
“Working on it,” Alex said. “I think we have a problem with one of the valves. We’re building pressure, the auto-release is… jammed maybe.”
“Maybe? What do you mean maybe?” Kyle said.
“I mean maybe damn it,” Alex said, and Liz and Kyle exchanged a worried look.
“What can we do to help?” Liz said.
Alex was silent a moment as he thought. If the progression of errors was what he thought it could be, then they were in trouble if they didn’t get to ground.
“Manes?” Kyle said.
“I’m thinking!” he snapped.
The ship gave a shudder causing both Liz and Kyle to grab hold of the console for support.
“Put your exo-suits on,” he said, trying not to look to closely at the fear in Liz’s eyes. “Then Liz, I need you to run a surface analysis on that planet.”
He pointed to the new planet that he hadn’t yet logged in the system.
“You want to land there?” Kyle said.
“At this point I want to land anywhere,” he said, followed by a creak and another more violent shudder. “We need to go, fast!”
Liz quickly entered the diagnostic information and hit ‘execute’ before running back to grab her suit. She grabbed Alex’s from the holder and brought it over to him while he tried to minimise the pressure build up and start guiding them towards the planet in preparation for a possible forced landing.
“How’s that analysis looking Ortecho?” he said as he pulled the suit on over his jeans.
There was another shudder followed by a thud as Kyle tripped over the suit-leg trying to get it on.
“Jesus!” he said.
“Valenti I need you to watch this gauge and let me know if it moves into the yellow zone,” Alex said.
“Okay planet looks solid, might even be big bodies of liquid, atmosphere looks okay, but I can’t get a full atmospheric breakdown until we’re in it,” she said.
“Well, we’re almost there,” Alex said. “Strap in, I don’t know how smoothly this is going to go. I need crew masks on and secured.”
The three of them grabbed their full suit helmets and secured them in place. They jumped into their seats and strapped in tightly as Alex shifted the main controls to full override, taking out the manual steering column.
“Commencing descent towards unknown planet,” he said.
“We’re in yellow,” Kyle said. “Switching on Bridge Log.”
The Bridge log was a recording of the main control desk, consisting of four cameras (one for each seat) and a fifth overview of the whole area from the top left side of the room. Providing nothing cut out the communications, a bridge log recording would transmit back to the space station as soon as the transmission ended.
“Remind me again why we’re not just cutting the engine until we can fix this?!” Kyle yelled over the beeping and through the glass of his suit.
“Because that won’t release the pressure and to make sure it’s fixed, I’m going to need to turn the engines back on,” Alex yelled back. “And I don’t really want to risk blowing a hole in the ship!”
“That couldn’t still happen?” Liz yelled.
“It could,” he said. “But if it happens while we’re landed, we’re not going to be floating through space confined to this room until we starve, run out of oxygen-”
“Okay just… get us down there!” Liz said.
It wasn’t long before they were about to breach the atmosphere of the planet. Alex told them to brace back against the seat as they did.
They experienced a dropping sensation and then they were in, but they weren’t slowing down enough as they descended.
“Alex…” Liz said nervously.
“I know!” he said. “I need to seal off the back of the ship. Just in case we need to disengage.”
“What? My research is back there!” Liz said.
“That’s what you’re most concerned about?” Kyle said in a much higher pitch than usual.
Without much warning, Liz unbuckled her clips and went lunging to the back of the ship towards the bunks. Both Alex and Kyle yelled out after her, but she was determined.
Alex managed to get a little more control but the speed they were travelling was making the needle spike on the dial Kyle had been watching. He yelled to Alex that they were bordering on red but at this point it didn’t matter too much because they were coming in dangerously regardless of the pressure gauge.
“I have an idea but it’s going to get rough,” Alex said. “Ortecho!”
“I’m here!” she opened the storage container by the console and placed a bag inside it.
“Are you kidding?” Kyle yelled as she slammed it shut and ran back to her chair.
“Liz, strap yourself-” Alex didn’t have time to finish his sentence.
This time the shudder was like hitting a bump in the road at full speed. They couldn’t see anything outside the window as they were descending through clouds.
Liz was lifted off her feet as though she weighed nothing, her body slamming into the roof of the ship before she came to land on the floor. Alex and Kyle yelled for her again, but she got to her knees and grabbed the arm of the chair tightly as she tried to get to her feet.
As they cleared the clouds the surface of the planet came into view. There were mountain ranges directly in their travel line and Alex called to Liz to hold on as he found a way to rapidly decelerate. The inertia of the movement lifted Liz’s body again and she held on as tightly as she could to the chair, but her hands slipped and she was flung back into the wall behind them, narrowly missing the hall to the back of the ship which would have been far worse.
This time when she landed on the ground with a thud her body slid back towards the front, and she didn’t get up.
“I can’t leave the controls,” Alex said, giving a shaky look to Kyle. “We are going to make a very rough landing, soon. I’m going to bring us in slow but-”
“But she can’t stay there,” Kyle said, finishing Alex’s thought.
Kyle released the chair-lock on his seat and turned it to the side, trying to reach out to Liz to pull her into him.
“I can’t… reach,” he said, straining as he braced against the chair straps.
Alex navigated the ship down past the tip of the mountain range. There was a ravine up ahead with a large flat surface and he knew that would be the best place to glide them in for a landing to avoid any more serious physical damage to the ship.
“Approaching landing location,” Alex said through gritted teeth, hands shaking as he held the steering column steady.
“Fuck it,” Kyle said, slipping his arms over the top chair straps so he could lean forward and grab hold of Liz.
He pulled her towards him by one of her arms and she rolled onto her back. He could see through her glass of her mask that she was bleeding through her nose and unconscious.
“Valenti we are incoming fast!” Alex said. “Is she-”
“Not conscious,” he replied. “I can’t quite… reach!”
He was struggling to keep hold of her so he slid his hand into her sleeve and gripped tightly to her wrist. As he started to pull her in there was some loud clanging noises from underneath them.
“Oh god what is that?” Kyle said.
“Trees,” Alex said. “They’ll slow us just enough. I need you to brace Valenti!”
Kyle reached out to try and grab Liz’s other arm as the ship hit a thicker tree trunk, making it jolt before the bottom of the ship was skidding along the ground. Liz’s body moved quickly with the force of it and Alex knew the popping noise he heard was the sound of Kyle’s shoulder dislocating.
He pulled up on the controls, slowing the ship further but it was still sliding across the soft brown dirt. Alex heard Kyle scream out in pain, but he didn’t let go. Liz had somehow landed over his lap and he used his good arm to hold onto her as tightly as they slowed further.
Alex relaxed his grip on the steering column since it had stopped shuddering and they were almost to a stop. He was breathing heavily, and his hands felt numb from how tightly he had been holding on. There was a loud thud under them and the ship came to an abrupt stop which caused Alex’s head to flick back quickly, giving him whiplash.
He hissed in pain and reached up to hold the back of his head.
For a moment after he leant back, chest heaving, and tried to lower his heart rate. They were on the ground, and they were alive.
At that thought he quickly turned back, grappling to take of his belt and straps.
“Valenti?” he said getting to his feet and nearly falling, clutching at the console for support.
“Yeah,” Kyle said through gritted teeth. “I need you to grab her.”
Alex rushed over and lifted her up so he could lower her down onto her back on the floor. He struggled with the release on her mask but eventually got it, pulling it off and putting two fingers to her throat and his ear by her mouth.
He let out a sigh of relief.
“She’s breathing, pulse is strong,” he said. “Are you okay?”
He turned back to Kyle, knowing that as hurt as Kyle might be, he would be the one best equipped to help Liz.
“My arm is dislocated at the shoulder,” he said. “My wrist might be broken too. I’m going to need you to pop this back in so I can check on her. Can you do that?”
“Yeah, I’ve done it before,” Alex said.
He wasn’t new to broken bones and dislocations. He spent some time in the military on assignment on Earth and witnessed a lot of pain there.
“Just do it quick,” Kyle said.
Alex lined him up, feeling his gut tighten at the sound it made as he forced it back into place. Kyle grunted in pain and exhaled heavily, using his good hand to attempt to roll up his sleeve.
He bit down hard on his lip and huffed out again.
“Yeah, that’s broken,” he said. “I need my kit. It’s down by the hall entrance. I need to set and sling this so I can check on Liz.”
Alex quickly walked over to the inbuilt storage units by the hall to get the medical kit. As he typed in the code he heard a sound by the top hatch, like someone was standing on it. There was a creaking sound like contorting metal and he realised that something was trying to open it.
The one big rule; never open the hatch on the ground until everyone is fully suited or sealed or the air is proven to be breathable. They barely ever used that entry, they had an isolation chamber at the back of the ship they used to disembark so they didn’t disrupt the air composition in the ship.
Alex walked over and looked up, seeing the lever moving to the left and he took a step up onto the rungs on the wall to grab it but before he could reach up the hatch was swinging down and open into his face.
The force of it broke the glass of his mask and sent him falling back to the ground where he landed flat on his back, the air knocked out of his lungs and the back of his head colliding with the floor.
His ears were ringing and he thought he heard Kyle’s voice calling his name. He looked up at the light flooding in from the open hatch and saw a blurry figure appear. He heard Kyle’s voice again but felt himself getting lighter.
“Help…” he said through shallow breaths trying to get air back into his lungs. “Help… them…”
And then things went dark.