Respite - Part 10

Doctor DeSelle was shaking his head when Commander Stone entered the the doctor's private office. It seemed to him these days, whenever he saw the doctor he would looked confounded and stressed out. Stone realized that no amount of medical training could really prepare you for space. Even for a well-trained tactical officer like himself, Stone has had to find other ways to accomplish his mission. Flying by the seat of his pants is not a philosophy or a discipline that Stone was comfortable with. But out here amidst the stars, he just had to adapt. Stone nodded to the other men in the room, Captain Hunt and H'loor.

“Have you ever seen anything like this H'loor?” DeSelle said barely acknowledging Stone's presence. He stared impatiently at the T'aal reading the medical report on a holoscreen.

“Not like this, but it is not unheard of,” said the H'loor. “Some species of plants on our home planet have been known to crossbreed to form a new species.”

“Is this what is happening to Marcus Landrey?” asked Stone who took his place next to the doctor.

“This is the scan Lieutenant Nostir took of Landrey before taking his helmet off,” DeSelle pulled up a new projection, then he tapped on the controls and overlaid it with another scan. “This one he took an hour later before you left the planet. Look at how rapidly his body has been altered.”

“Into what?” asked Hunt.

“If H'loor's right, somehow, whatever that was introduced into his system is changing him. Oddly for now, only certain biological functions of his body seems to be affected.”

“They are morphing into some sort of hybrid?” Stone moved the medical projections around trying to understand them.

“I can't tell from these scans but the worst case scenario is that he may be completely and irrecoverably transformed to live and thrive down there on the planet.”

“Can't anything be done? Maybe there's a way to filter out the invading organisms and save him?” Stone wondered out loud.

“Perhaps, but we would need to study the plants that stung him to get a better picture, when the second landing team returns we could -”

DeSelle was interrupted by a knock on the door. Stone answered it and the rest of the men looked on as he talked to a cadet in hushed tones. From the expressions on the young cadet's face, the men had a sickening feeling that the news was not good. At last Stone nodded and closed the door.

“We have a problem,” Stone sighed heavily when he spoke. “The second landing party was supposed to have returned an hour ago, and they are not answering our hails.”

…

“They are calling for me,” said Marcus Landrey, his mouth agape and his eyes wide and wild. He turned in every direction as if trying to determine the direction of a voice.

“What? Who is calling for you?” Lieutenant Harrow frowned and tried to hear what the trooper was hearing.

Landrey jumped off the rock and Harrow noticed how easily he did that, almost like he knew these rocks and moving around them was second nature to him. His nimble nude form landed on the ground below in seconds and he took a few moments to look around. Landrey then took off towards the horizon. Harrow ran after him but soon he found that he couldn't keep up, his environmental suit weighed heavily down on him and restricted his movements. After a while, he found himself bent over trying to catch his breath. When he looked up again he realized that it was too dark to see clearly. And Landrey was gone.

…

“We have remotely accessed the landing barge's onboard computer, and this is what we know,” Commander Stone stood in front of a group of his tactical officers and Ground Command troopers. “The barge left the planet at 14.35, ship's time, and was on route back to Starlight. Half an hour later it returned to the surface and the landing party left the craft with its systems running. As far as we know, the barge is still operational.”

Stone paced the briefing room with his hands behind his back. “We now know that there are living organisms on the planet that has the ability to change and or modify our bodies. The first sign of infection is when our respiratory system is compromised. This could explain why the landing party left the barge before they could shut down the engines.”

Stone called up a holoscreen which laid out their mission. “The plan now is to find a way to return to the planet, save our crew members, or if they have been compromised, find a way to help to them. We also need to bring back samples of the plants so that we can study them. We have to do all this, without being infected ourselves.” Stone paused. “Questions?”

“Sir, not really a question sir, but...” Private Nick Nelson's voice softened when he realized everyone in the room had turned to look at him.

“Continue private.”

“Perhaps we can utilize the drones we've deployed around the planet. Set it to scan specifically for the plants.”

“Good thinking private, but you must know that during our previous encounter with the plants, our scans are useless in picking them up.”

“Maybe we just need to pick a really barren place to land. Set the drones to map out and search the terrain for wide open plains. We'd have tactical advantage when we have time to react should something approach us.”

Stone nodded. He was impressed.

“Nelson, draw up a plan, we'll talk in an hour.”

…