Environmental Effects
Commander's Log, 5th Tuven
I really don't like this place. No surprise, since we'd never intended to end up here, but any port in storm – or in this case, a dual-engine thruster fail. It was Sigma Seti 19 or nothing, and the crew and I decided we'd rather live than drift aimlessly among the stars until our food supplies ran out.
We had another discipline problem today in camp; something that's becoming increasingly common as the months roll by. Sure, what passes for food here is terrible, the atmosphere is too thin and all of the animals are hostile as hell, but my men were well-trained. Our emergency beacon will reach someone in the Confederacy soon enough and we'll get off this rock. Trouble is, I wonder if it will be soon enough.
Commader's Log, 11th Wren
It finally happened – we had our first murder in camp, and over a damn toothbrush! Sergeant Gamon accused one of the LTs, saying they'd taken it in the night when he wasn't looking. Lennox, the LT, wasn't pleased to hear his honor being questioned and gave Gamon one hell of a beating before I could even get through the throng to see what was going on.
By the time I'd arrived the fight had moved to the men's commons where Gamon found the light-cursed toothbrush jammed under a chair. I pulled the two apart, gave them a talking to and turned to leave, assuming they'd both go back to work and forget the whole thing happened.
It was the sound of plastic through skin that whipped me back around and gave me a front-row seat as Gamon's toothbrush took Lennox full in the neck. We called Doc, but he was dead before he hit the ground.
Now I've got an improvised brig set up in the old Officer's Mess and I'm not really sure what to do next. We need every hand on deck just to make it through the weeks, but I can't have a killer running loose. That Confed ship had better show up soon.
Commader's Log, 2nd Valleth
Things are getting odd around camp, and not just because two others have joined Gamon in the brig. The other day I found two of my best men sitting outside the Commons, clothing stained and hanging in tatters around their bodies. I asked just what the hell they thought they were doing and all they looked up at me, faces confused like I'd asked them to calculate Pi to fifteen digits or something. Finally, one of the two – Malek, I think his name is – grunted out that they were tired. Tired!
We're all tired, but those two just decided to take a break on their own time and leave the rest of us to suffer. I made sure they got the rough side of it and put them back to work but even then they seemed...slow.
Commander's Log, 19th Mardz
We lost another one today. Lincoln, this time – a solid junior officer and someone I thought I knew pretty well – he just went screaming off into the darkness, stripped to the waist and blathering some nonsense none of us understood. That makes five this month and twelve in total; I've only got fifty men left and with anything less than thirty I doubt we'll make it through two weeks. I've started checking the beacon only every second day to give myself just that much more hope, but even I'm finding it difficult to keep my chin up.
Commader's Log – 2nd Tuven
It's been almost a year we've been...stuck...here. The losses are getting worse, the men are getting. Odd. Even I'm noticing that I can't seem to.
Wait.
It's probably lack of food; that and not sleeping for more than two hours a night. And the noises.
There's something out there. Dark. In the dark. It's not friendly, but not...bad. It's calling. I hear it and I think the men do to. I think we know.
What we have to.
Do.
Comders Log – 1 Today
I get out. Go.
Beacon. Smashed. Too many sounds, voices screaming. Men are...weak.
West calling to mountains. Finding path but feared, so, feared. Find this and go. Don't come.
Don't stay.
C Lg – 2
G. g. g. gone.
Third Division Platoon Leader – Recording 1. Landfall.
So far as well can tell, this planet has never been scouted by our vessels but we're detecting a very faint power source down here. From what my science officer tells me, it's at least two hundred years old, maybe more.
The planet's not in bad shape – not one I'd want to live on but good enough for a port in a storm. We've picked up a few life form readings, humanoid but not anything to high on the scale. I'll have Johnny and his crew check them out while we take a look at this power source.
Third Division Platoon Leader – Recording 2. Observations.
Well, the power source was mostly a bust. Looks like it might be an old transponder of some kind, likely from an unmanned probe or scout ship. Rems tells me its consistent with Confederacy tech, but I never made much of a study of that stuff – they weren't really around long enough to make that big of an impact.
Johnny's team came back with interesting results, at least. The met the natives – big brutish fellas that seemed very interested in the tech we were carrying. They didn't speak a civilized tongue and from what Asher told me, they might not even have the capacity.
For now, I'm marking the planet as uninhabited and letting it go at that. If Command wants to come back and colonize or sterilize some other time, that's up to them but I'll be just as glad to be gone. Some of our boys have been acting spooked down there, good men that know how to handle themselves. They tell me their hearing things outside the base camp at night, and few seem hell-bent on going off exploring on their own.
It's time to go.
- D
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