CASE [GL]

A couple of days later after Ellie’s bot reveal, we finally reached the gaia planet we had left behind a couple of months ago. There, mostly for show than anything else, we radioed down to the planet to tell them we had returned and to ask if their ‘disease’ had run its course. We quickly got an affirmative, yet surprised, message back from one of the human crewmembers that we had sent down. Aside from that they also sent up a general status report about the life down on the planet. Thanks in a large part to the efforts of the Dokazuuk they didn’t just survive down there, they thrived. 

“Is Jacky nearby?” I asked Sergeant Jesse Robinson, the radio operator on duty. 

“Right now he is on a prospecting mission with a couple of others.” She replied. “They have been busy trying to set up a manufactury down here to supplement the emergency synthesizers that we got sent down with.”

“Commander, if you want to go down there to check on them you can. But maybe you should let Ellie send a medscanner down first to make sure the disease is well and truly gone.” Lieutenant Zu looked at me, giving me a wink as she mentioned the word ‘disease’. 

“I suppose we can take a short break here. It would be useful to do some more research and maybe set up some orbital defenses as well now that we are busy anyway…” I nodded with a sly smile. “What do you think, Lieutenant-Commander?” 

Luna nodded. “That wouldn’t be a bad idea.” Luna then looked at the command console. “Ellie, you heard Lieutenant Zu, could you please send down a medscanner.” 

“Will do, Lieutenant-Commander.” A soft clunk sounded throughout the ship as a small pod flew down to the surface of the planet like a little bright light. 

“Scanner is on it’s way, Sergeant.” I notified our ground personnel. 

“Understood.” The Sergeant stayed quiet for a couple of seconds before she spoke up again. “Commander, am I allowed to ask something?” 

“Go ahead.” 

“How did the trip back to Earth go? You returned a lot sooner than we had even dared to anticipate, considering the circumstances.” 

“I’ll brief the people when I get down there myself, Sergeant. It’s not really that long of a story but it would be better for you all to be present at the same time so everyone hears the news out of the horse’s mouth.”

“Understood, Commander. Then I do hope those scans will turn out clear.” 

“I’m pretty sure they will, Sergeant. Let’s call that a hunch feeling.” 

Luna looked at me and rolled her eyes. I shrugged back. We had to at least keep up appearances somewhat.   

“Alright Commander. See you soon then.”

The line went silent and it left the bridge crew in rather high spirits. It was definitely good and reassuring to hear that everyone on the planet was doing well. Especially since we somewhat hastily had to leave them behind last time. I bet many people were also really looking forward to reconnecting with friends who had stayed here too, myself included concerning our Dokazuuk buddy.  

 

That’s why I was sitting on hot coals all the way to the locker room and then the armory when Ellie had given the go-ahead that there were no longer any illnesses present in the population down below, and this time she didn’t even need to fake the results to give us the ones we needed. We were going down to the planet's surface with a squad of marines and a couple of scientists and engineers on top of that, mostly to look around and to get a good view on what life was like down below. It was the first real inhabited colony outside of the solar system after all, sure we had done some smaller scale outposts already but this was something on an entirely different scale. It was going to give us some invaluable data, even though it wasn’t really planned to work out like that in the beginning. 

I took my trusty P900-R out of the gun locker and almost sprinted towards the hangar bay where the shuttle had already begun spinning up. I was almost disappointed that I needed to wait on the others to get into the shuttle too. 

Luna, who decided to stay on board the ship for now, met me in the hangar bay just after I had arrived. She’d be giving some pointers to the scientists on some extra metrics she wanted them to check up on. But as they hadn’t arrived yet, she had to wait together with me. I did notice that her eyes were locked on my gun which I was holding in front of me. 

“Doesn’t it feel weird to go down to meet our own people with a loaded gun?” She asked skeptically. 

“Hmmm.” I thought about it for a moment and shrugged. “You are not easily going to catch a marine without a gun, no matter where we are going. This is still the frontier and I don’t want anything to happen down there and then getting caught without a gun to defend ourselves. Besides, there’s a reason why we sent a box of guns and ammo down too before we left the planet in the first place. We are definitely not going to be the only ones who are going to be armed.” 

Luna nodded. “That’s fair. Although it still feels a bit weird to me.” 

“That’s just because you are a very kind person, babe.” I winked. 

Luna started blushing. “Shush, before anyone hears.” 

“I definitely heard.” Warrant Officer Itami spoke out from inside of the shuttle. He was the pilot for the day. “Don’t worry, I won’t say a thing, Lieutenant-Commander.” 

“You probably shouldn’t have spoken up, Itami, she might want to throw you out of the air-lock just to save her some embarrassment.” 

“There’s a lot more embarrassing things I can say about you, Commander Davis. Don’t you forget that.” Luna threatened back. She generally didn’t talk to me using my last name so that reply sent literal chills down my spine. “Almost making yourself collapse again by disobeying the doctor’s direct orders being one of those things. And that’s not even including the punishment I gave you…” 

I gulped. In the meantime Warrant Officer Itami was just losing his shit, not being able to contain his laughter at the brandishing I was receiving now from my girlfriend. 

Luckily for me, the entrance of the scientists allowed me to get a bit of breathing room as Luna walked over to them to give the aforementioned briefing. While she was doing that, Itami took a break from laughing at me to ask me a question. “What did she do to you, Commander?” 

“If I tell you that, I think I will throw you out of the airlock myself afterwards, just so I can keep a fragment of my shattered authority safe…” 

“That bad, huh?” 

“I have made a mistake and I had to pay for it, dearly.” I looked back at the pilot. 

He looked back at me, lips pressed hard on top of each other, nodding along with me. “Oh well.” The moment of sympathy was brief as he put on his aviator sunglasses followed by his helmet. “Hope you brought your sunscreen, Commander. I heard from Ellie that it’s rather sunny planetside.” 

“Is it?” I looked back in front of me. 

“You are arriving in the middle of the location's meteorological summer, Commander. Right now it is a nice 27 degrees celsius. The sun has almost reached its highest point of the day with a maximum of 29 degrees celsius being predicted in two hours. Thanks to the ample shade and cooling that the local vegetation provides, the perceived temperature is slightly lower.” 

“Pfff. Am I glad that this suit at least has a bit of climate control built into it…” I tapped my chest. 

As Luna was done with the scientists they split up and boarded the shuttle I was in and the other readied shuttle next to ours. And the marines as well didn’t make us wait that much longer either so we were all ready to head to the planet surface. 

“Are we ready to go, Commander?” Itami asked. 

I looked at Luna and saluted her. “The ship is yours, don’t scratch the paint.” 

“I won’t promise anything, Commander.” Luna saluted back. “Have a safe trip and tell Jacky I said hi.” 

“Will do.” I then looked back at Itami and gave him the non-verbal go-ahead. Holding steady against one of the handlebars in the shuttle. 

The engines revved and swiftly afterwards we were on our way down to the planet. The ride through atmosphere was calm and pleasant and soon the blue skies could be seen through the shuttle’s cockpit window. Sunlight shining brightly into the hold we were seated at. 

“Want to do a quick flyover, Commander? To get a birds eye view of the settlement?” Itami asked. 

“Not a bad idea, Warrant Officer. Bay doors open?” 

“Bay doors open, Commander.” Itami nodded and flicked a switch. The side doors opened once the system had checked the internal and external pressures, revealing the very green outside world to us. While Felix Invenire was similar in many ways to this yet unnamed Gaia-world we had settled. This felt a lot friendlier. A potential second home we shouldn’t take for granted.