Trainer

Chapter 1: Contact

"There it is." Engineer Eddy McCane pointed out on radar. He typed in a few commands and sent a copy of his readings to each of the crew members on their computer screens. Medical Officer Joan Trainer looked closely at the footage the ship's recon drone was sending back to them in real time. She saw a bird's eye view of what looked like the blackened skeletal structure of a cruiser class space ship impaled like the Leaning Tower of Pisa in the desert sand. Surrounding the main structure were bits and pieces of the hull all scattered about like confetti paper. Some pieces were freshly fallen onto the dunes, others were buried up to the very tips of the jagged pieces of metal. Whatever ship that once was had been there for a long time.

"So much for survivors," Second Lieutenant Nathan Dyke said, as if he were to say tough shit to all the crewmen who probably perished upon their crash landing. The thought of those poor souls dying a billion lightyears from home made Joan's blood boil at Nathan's insensitivity.

"Survivors or not, we need to get to the bottom of that beacon," Captain Haldane stated dully. All eyes from the small crew of four fell upon their Captain.

"If the beacon and a power source survived that crash, you can bet that someone also survived," Joan stated.

"Maybe, but they more than likely died off and the beacon kept going," Ed said matter-of-factly.

Joan shot him a glare that he didn't notice.

"Without further data, I cannot make any probable assumptions on the survival rate of any organic lifeforms," Sam stated emotionlessly. "If I were to give a hypothesis, I would say that the survival rate is unlikely..."

"Thank you Sam," Haldane stated as he typed in a few commands for the ship to make tiny adjustments to its trajectory. The last thing they needed was to start falling through the atmosphere of the alien planet they were orbiting and end up like the wreckage below.

The crew grew silent as the captain muddled over their options. No one dared to interrupt his thoughts.

"Trainer, play back the message one more time," Haldane requested.

"Um...Aye, Captain..." Joan said warily as she typed the command into her console. She didn't understand why her captain was bothering though. There was nothing to hear.

The ship's intercom system crackled to life with blaring static like some eerie electronic ghost with only the faintest blips in pitch to break up the monotony, blips that team had spent all morning obsessing over to try and make sense of to no avail. By lunch, all they had learned was that the signal was within the human spectrum of frequency, one not used by any known UCN space ship.

Joan herself was ready to wave it off as solar radiation from the nearby star when Sam triangulated the signal to the desert region on a habitable planet. Eddy sent out a recon drone and here they were now. Waiting on their captain's decision to wait for the ship to finish scanning the planet for lifeforms or to dive in head first to attempt a rescue mission on a human crash site of unknown origins.

"Sam, prep the ship for landing. Officer Trainer, prep the med bay. Engineer McCane and Lieutenant Dyke, suit up. We are going on a rescue mission," Haldane declared. Nate and Eddy both whooped with joy at the thought of getting out of their shoebox of a scout ship for a mission. While Joan groaned in silence at not being picked.

As one, the crew stood up to return to their private quarters. For 2nd Lieutenant Nathan and Engineer Edward, that meant returning to their shared room with their bunk beds and their exosuits. Where Joan could hear Eddy try to engage Nate in conversation, but the fresh from the Academy rookie wouldn't budge an inch as always. Nate was a higher-up's favorite and on the fast track to becoming an Admiral. He would not associate with a 40-year old, experienced grease monkey.