He had enough cybernetics to allow him to connect with the shuttle in a manner that enhanced his human responses, assisted by Veirn. His connection was still somewhat slower than previously, but again, could be ignored. What was it, this bit of Veirn, he wondered. What should he call it?
Trac sat at navigation and was fully connected to the shuttle systems. Lt. Dish sat behind Riina, not connected to anything. Her controls weren’t live, just in case she forgot and touched something.
Tim was aware that Trac was feeding data to her screen, however. Perhaps he didn’t want her to feel left out. Did humans need data as much as he and his crewmates did? He had not been human long enough to know if he’d brought this need with him to his body, or if it was also a human quality.
“Will we try to make radio contact with Dr. Walker?” Lt. Dish finally asked, breaking what had been a long silence.
Riina glanced back at her. “As near as we can tell, the planet was hit with an electro-magnetic pulse. This would have taken down all comms.”
“Oh, right.”
Another silence formed. Tim didn’t remember being bothered by silence before, but could he call what he’d experienced “silence,” when his flow of data had never been interrupted?
“So, what’s the plan?” Again it was Lt Dish who spoke.
“We will proceed to our original rendezvous point,” Tim said. “It is possible Dr. Walker will still be there, since the pulse would have also disabled his flyer.”
“If he has changed location, perhaps attempted to hike out,” Rinna spoke this time, to Tim’s satisfaction, “then his next logical action would be to return to the habitation where he and Harold were staying.”
“Hike out?” Lt. Dish sounded puzzled.
“We, of necessity, had them chose a remote location, so as to avoid locals,” Riina explained.
Tim liked the sound of her voice, and it was a bonus that she sounded less constrained than she’d been since his reintegration.
“But he made contact,” Lt. Dish said.
“With two locals, yes, but hopefully that is all his interaction has been,” Riina said. “First contact is tricky and dangerous. We can, fortunately, speak the language, so that shouldn’t be a problem, but we’d like to avoid a wider interaction until we have more data on the Vorthari problem.”
“It seems like that would build some goodwill with the locals,” Lt. Dish said. “It sounds like they headed off a bad situation.”
“It’s not that simple,” Riina said. “From their perspective, it might look like Dr. Walker blew something up. We do have the video of his interactions, but will they believe it? A lot depends on their sophistication and their level of video abilities.”
“They could think we faked it,” Lt. Dish said, her tone thoughtful. “I hadn’t thought of that. But we do have deep fakes back on Earth.”
The shuttle alerted Tim to his next course correction. They were traveling around the furthest edge of the entity now. He watched both scanning and the actual view from the shuttle’s forward windows.
The entity looked even more unsettling than it had appeared from what was the top or overhead.
No light penetrated into it or from out of it, but he sensed shape and form. It was particularly eerie hanging as it did over the dark planet, lit only by the furtive light of its two moons.
“We do have life signs from the planet.”
Riina sounded relieved. Whatever it was the entity had done, it hadn’t killed the inhabitants of Arroxan Prime.
Yet.
And if they were here to kill everyone? They might be able to get to Dr. Walker, but how did they stand by and watch a world’s worth of people die?
“Preparing to leave orbit,” Tim said.
Riina checked the systems, feeling an unfamiliar worry. They wouldn’t just be leaving orbit. They’d be entering atmosphere and having their first look underneath the entity.
She felt the shuttle shift as Tim adjusted their trajectory. Then the slight resistance as they slid into upper atmosphere.
“I’m going to fly parallel at first, so we can take some readings.”
Outside the ship, fire flared as the atmosphere resisted their entry.
