From the Stars
By
Teal
Chapter 1
The UNV Ramon Magsaysay cruised out of warp speed as it entered a foreign and unexplored system. The vessel was one of the fleet’s modern corvettes, tasked to explore distant stars and conduct special operations for the United Nation’s Space Fleet. But ever since the ‘Great Interstellar War’ begun, its task changed. Now its job was to scout planets and clear it of enemy bases, while conducting hit and run raids to annoy the enemy. Its once clean and strong hull was riddled with scars. Large dents to burnt marks, every single sign of battle covered the vessel’s hull, showing its scars of war. Now, as they entered the system, the ships headed towards a rather interesting planet. Its scanners searched the system, trying to map it out. While its powerful engines propelled it through the darkness as the vessel’s computers calculated its trajectory, compensating for the planets which tried to pull it with their gravity, as it headed the planet. What made this planet interesting was, instead of having the planet revolve the sun, the sun and the moon revolved around the planet.
The system wasn’t very big compared to the other ones nearby. In fact, aside from the sun, moon and one planet, there were no other celestial bodies in sight.
After navigating through the system, the vessel soon started to reduce it speed as it was tugged by the planets gravity. The engines soon went to neutral as the Magsaysay orbited the planet, with nothing but gravity propelling them.
Inside the ship, within its belly, was a group of sixty men and women who were sited inside a large room. The room was filled with different maps of the galaxy and various planets, while random objects, from books to plain junk, littered the tables, giving it a homey look.
Of to the side, just above the main door that led to their sleeping quarters, was a battle worn flag. The flag was bright blue and had bullet holes and scratched in many places, but the symbol upon it was still visible. Imprinted on the flag was a black bird swooping from the skies, with its beak open as if to show it shrieking. Written above that, with black text was: “73rd Interstellar Infantry Company” While the text below of that said: “Ravens”
The men of this company now sat down, wearing their blue military uniforms and caps, as they chatted to one another. They joked around and told stories to pass the time.
“So I grabbed his head with both hands and squeezed his head till it popped.” Danny Morgan said proudly. Danny was a tall American from a small town in Pennsylvania who had the reputation of bragging about his accomplishments, even if they weren’t true.
“You didn’t really do that.” Harry Featherson, an English man who had always doubted Danny’s exploits said.
Danny glared at him with an agitated look. “What are you trying to say? Do you think I’m not strong enough to squash one of those Lizard’s head?”
“No, Danny?” Jenny Alvarez, a Puerto Rican who always gets annoyed with Danny’s bragging, said. “I think what Harry is trying to say is that the Lizards would be able to smell that terrible ego of yours miles away. Making it highly unlikely for you to sneak up on them.”
“Hey!” Danny said. “What does that supposed to mean.”
Jenny was about to give a retort, since she loved seeing him annoyed, but stop when the door on the side opened to reveal their commander. As soon as their commander entered, they room fell silent as soldiers stood up in attention. Their eyes were now focused on the officer standing right in front of them.
1st Lieutenant Antonio Blanco, a Spaniard who has been a veteran of many combat operations, stood tall in front of them. His blood line made him a high class aristocrat from a rich family. But unlike the other upper class people, who choose to avoid military service, he chose to get down and dirty by joining the Interstellar Infantry. He rose through the ranks until he made officer, in which he did an excellent job.
Besides, if he didn’t do a good job at it, then he wouldn’t be alive and standing today.
Scrutinizing his men one by one, he made sure that all of them were present for the briefing.
“At ease and take your seats, gentlemen.” He said and soon everybody did as told.
Turning around to point to an image, which was projected on the screen behind him, of the planet that they were now orbiting. It was surrounded by a fair amount of land and had many bodies of water around it. In fact it looked like a perfect copy of earth, aside from differences in the positioning of its land masses.
“The image behind me is the picture of Planet X201489.” He began. “As you can see, from the scans conducted by the scouting drones, it looks exactly the same as Earth. Now, after the vessel did some scanning, the ships computers have concluded that its atmosphere is actually the same as the one we have back home. So that means it has oxygen, which if you haven’t notice, is one of the things you need to for survival.”
“Well if it’s an Earth like environment, then it looks like we’re going to fight those Lizards in a familiar looking environment, unlike those dessert planets they have most of their outpost on.” A soldier from the back said.
“I’m sorry to burst your bubble kid, but we’re not going to fight the Lizards here. At least not yet.” Lt. Blanco pressed something on the monitor to show an animation of the planet as its star and moon orbited it. Most of the troops were amazed as they saw it and their eyes watched to see the weird phenomena.
“As you can see…” Lt. Blanco said as he looked away from the monitor. “…the star and the moon are revolving around the planet. Now let me remind you, since I doubt most of you listened to your science teacher back then, that this isn’t supposed to work this way. It should be the planet revolving around the sun, not the sun revolving around the planet.”
“We also see high levels of energy emitting from the planet. Whether this is the source and cause of the weird phenomena, the scientist don’t know. That’s why their sending us down to check.”
Lt. Blanco then motioned to a man, sitting on the far side to, towards him. “This is Professor William Johnson. He will be the one accompany us on this mission, so that we could fully understand this phenomena.”
As the Lieutenant continued to explain the mission, Danny, who found briefings really boring, started examining the Professor from a distance. He could easily tell that the Professor spent most his time in the laboratory, since his skin complexion was still light and has barely been under the sun’s rays.
“Looks like we have another liability.” He whispered to Harry.
“Another liability?” Harry asked confused as he looked at him. “What do you mean by ‘another’?”
“Well we got him for starters…” He said motioning to the professor. “…and then we got you.”
“Hey!” Harry exclaimed, as quietly as possible, as he slapped his friend on the back of the head.
The Lieutenant continued to brief his troops about the mission, marking out drop zones and objectives for each platoon. He also reminded them of the possibility of the sudden arrival of the Lizards, since Lizard vessels have been spotted near the area. So once they landed, the Lieutenant planned to build a small base of operations to fend off any enemy attack.
But half way through the briefing, an officer from the Magsaysay came in, stating that the Magsaysay’s Captain wanted to talk to him, immediately. So Lt. Blanco put his second-in-command, Platoon Sergeant Jeremy Gilmore, in charge of the briefing as he went out to see what was so important that the captain had to talk to him immediately.
***
Walking into the bridge of the Magsaysay, Lt. Blanco noticed Captain George, an old German ship commander, staring at the monitors as he analyzed its readings. As the Lieutenant approached, his footsteps echoing in the bridge, the Captain turned around to greet him. Standing up from his seat, he walked up towards the Infantry officer, with a hand extended.
“Lt. Blanco…” He said in fluent English, making you almost forget that he was German. “…I am glad that you can join me here.”
“No problem Captain.” He said, returning the greeting. “…now what was so important that you needed me here for?”
“Well Lieutenant…” The Captain said as he sat back on his chair and pressed a button that activated a hologram in front of them. The image showed the planet below, mapped by the ships high powered sensors. “…as you know, it is standard procedure for us to scan the planet, before dropping you guys in. Well…what we found is rather intriguing.”
The Captain then changed the image to white dots on a black screen, showing the images captured by the infrared scanners. “Our infrared scanners discovered moving heat signatures below us. At first we thought they were Lizards, but then we realized that they weren’t. Their heat signatures are lower than a normal Lizard’s body heat. In fact, the heat signatures our similar to ours.”
“Wait a minute, Captain.” The Lieutenant said as he started at the screen before turning back to the Captain. “Are you trying to tell me that…”
“Yes, Lieutenant…” The Captain said, confirming the Lieutenants suspicions. “…there are undiscovered life forms on that planet.”