Touchdown

“Strap in, everyone. Touchdown in T-minus 20.”

The expedition leader, (what is her name?), floating just below the cockpit’s hatch, spins and surveys the mismatched group of researchers and mercenaries. “Alrightee, you heard the pilot, if any of you’s go flying, you’ve only got yourselves to blame!” Her gaze sweeps around the pod, pausing on you just long enough to wink at your flustered visage, before she swings herself into the remaining seat and straps in.

You double-double check your harness, rolling your eyes as Jia smirks at you from her seat on the opposite side of the pod. “So, you did learn something from training.”

Her words inspire those mercenaries sat closest to you to giggle, covering their mouths with their limbs to avoid our leader’s gaze.

Heat flushes through you at the summoned memory of your mistake, yes, the one that caused you to retake basic training, to earn your place on this mission, and the retort that hisses past your teeth wipes the smirk from Jia’s face and rips the mercenaries’ protection away, pulling their laughter out to fill the space and - drag down your spine.

Embarrassment chases the heat across your face, and you retreat inwards while your gaze turns outwards. Cataloguing the colours of the harnesses versus the uniforms of the pod’s occupants, matching names to faces from the crew manifest, marking the locations of the emergency escape hatches, God, anything…to overwhelm your senses and drown out the laughter.

Our leader says something, cutting through the sound and dragging the mercenaries’ gazes down, mumbled apologies just covering their hastily crushed chuckles.

“Entering final stage of descent, People.”

As the craft nears the surface, it shakes violently to-and-fro; the vibrations turn your limbs to jelly, loosening your grip on the harness as it digs into your skin.

“This is normal,” our leader reassures everyone from their seat, while running a hand over the clasps of their harness.

Your mind is immediately filled with images of the briefing documents, remembering the graphs showing the measurements the drones took of increasing substance density proportionate to the distance to the planet’s surface.

“We’re hitting some turbulence.”

Suddenly, the pod is plunged into darkness; your breath catches against your teeth, heart jumping against your ribs. As the vibrating increases, you chant under your breath the estimated density of the landing site at the predicted time and temperature of touch-down – 1.2041 kg/mᶾ - focusing on your breath and the shapes your tongue and teeth make, begging your heart to slow.

It doesn’t.

Running away from you as the emergency lights switch on, their piercing glow bounces from the corners and settles on your skin, raking down your skin with invisible claws.

Think! Think! Light, isn’t tangible - it is an energy wave, that makes things visible by stimulating the optical nerves and has wavelengths in the range of 400–700 nanometres (nm). Your rational mind speaks louder than your panicked breaths, chanting in-and-out until your heart is forced to follow the rhythm and slows enough, for logical reasoning to take over. So, it’s not the light, it’s something else, something unseen that permeates the air of this planet. A wave or beam? Did you fly past an energy construct?

“We’re going to crash!” Someone cries…

You force your eyes shut as the world starts to whirl.

Your head knocks the wall, and your brain shakes in your skull, colossal sounds pressing in from all sides.

You’re thrown forward until the harness cuts in and jerks you back against your seat.

Silence.

Something has taken a hold of you. The oppressive weight hangs on your limbs and drags them down.

You hear a thud and fight to open sticky eyes. The front of the pod has caved in, red hangs in the air. You can’t see the leader, or the three who sat beside her, just jagged panels, and loose straps.

Undoing the clasps of your harness becomes a fight against this pressure…a fight you win. As the harness comes undone, the weight yanks you down until your body hits the metal, limbs splayed out haphazardly and digits clawing for purchase.

A soft touch ghosts over you and you turn to see Jia lying beside you, eyes open and watery. Her voice strains against the pull, words falling from her only to be pinned to the ground by the same pressure coating your skin.

“How could it…go…so wrong?”

You have no answer for her, instead reaching out to touch her shoulder.

A scraping noise makes you turn away.

One of the surviving mercenaries has crawled to an emergency exit hatch. Dragging themselves against the pull to grasp the handle halfway up the pod’s wall, they dangle from the metal of the slowly turning handle only to drop just as it reaches the nadir of its rotation, the seal’s release, causes the air to pop and flow out through the gap, the roar of its escape, thunderous, in the small space of the pod. The mercenary was sucked out with it.

You find yourself rolling closer to the hatch, pulled by the air. The pressure on your limbs suddenly increases and finds itself accompanied by a new sensation, settling in, and scratching at the insides of your lungs.

The sides of the pod buckle further in, pressing down on all sides.

As silence descends, your lungs scream.

It takes a herculean effort for you to raise yourself even an inch of the floor, throwing yourself forward and falling once more. Light waits beyond the hatch.

The outside is foreign to you. Coloured strands tower over the pod, leaking a twisted black substance that inexplicably floats upwards against the pressure. The hatch has fallen on a grainy substance and as you drag yourself down towards it, your limbs sink into it before meeting resistance.

A substance like air but thicker stretches out towards the horizon. A whispering seems to come from all sides, floating around you and growing louder with every push of that strange substance creeping closer.

You hear, rather than see, Jia and another follow you. Too occupied with the burning in your lungs and search for safety to think of turning to help.

Sounds pierce the atmosphere, the creatures you came to research, come to investigate the noise and fire, gesture and wail at the destructive path the landing pod has carved into their planet.

The inhabitants of this planet stand on two limbs; clinging to the ground with flat pads they dart and glide around you easily, completely unhindered by the crushing weight crushing the team. Their shape is both familiar and foreign, the organs of emotion and speech hidden under a flat leather that wrinkles and stretches when they move.

They surround you, pummelling the senses with their chattering whistles, wails, and screeches. Your vision wavers, their shapes hover above you, waving thin rods that emit beams of light and others that don’t.

Wat ih t.

Wah sh ood wee doo.

Sum won cahl t la poh leese.

Their vocalisations are too defined and rhythmic to be random, your mind searches for meaning in their language, trying, and failing to translate their intent.

First contact was not supposed to occur on this mission. Observe and document, then return home with your findings. The briefing document comes to mind again, providing you with a name for these creatures, the name adopted from that which they call themselves.

Human.

The substance has crept closer, soft waves reaching out and tapping your limbs questioningly. Brushing against your mouth and relieving the pain in your lungs.

The ground liquidates, breaking and reforming as you shift to drag yourself away from the humans. As you get closer, the substance reaches under and lifts you, alleviating the pressure momentarily. The whispering calls out, promising safety, both familiar and alien.

The calls of the humans grow faint as the substance sucks you in.

You fall.