And just where did you leave your colony?
#4 of WritingGroupChallenge
Writinggroupchallenge, for April 4th. A story of a planet that was to be colonized.
WritingGroupChallenge -- 04/14/2020
This Week's Writing Challenge is least 1000 words on:
"And then, as if the very earth it self rose up in defiance: it happened."
Our mission: Establish a functioning base on the planet, Lacaille 9387- delta, called "New Eden."++
Everyone on our mission was a seasoned veteran; the orders were clear, establish a foot hold in this system. All we had to do was build a town, and plant a couple of farms to supply the outpost, then change out with the new teams of settlers as they arrived.
A perfect earth-like planet had been found, a veritable Eden. They promised us the planet had no hurricanes, no insects, no earthquakes, no fuzzy animals, no tornadoes! "It's Perfect," they promised us that. Every day the survey team had questioned what features could be found, the next day they would discover some new geologic wonder to check off their list, running water, 18% oxygen atmosphere, non-toxic plants. So they put that into their report; that at one time or another they had found every earth feature that they had sought. It was the perfect planet, only without insects and animals. Sure the colors of the plants were off, ivories and magentas and oranges in competition with the green plants, but it had green plants, too.
They'd had very earth-like temblors, but all about one or one point five Richter ... barely enough to feel even if you knew it was there. But, again, it was younger star system, this New Eden was not as old as earth, so some seismic activity should be expected. The original Survey Team had given us their notes, they had done tests, and showed surprisingly stable continents, "Nothing more than vibrations." And I am here quoting from their Survey notes, "Hey it's a younger planet. It has everything you could want." (Italics mine).
Even before we had all the building matériel brought down from orbit, we had puffed-up our inflatable habitats, just like we were camping out. "Safety in numbers" is always tempered by the other side of this which is; "familiarity breeds contempt," we spread further out across the table land as more spacers came down.
The first wrinkle discovered was that NOT everyone was as seasoned a veteran as my assistant, Second Class Adjutant Winger. Some were just veterans, like Mess Sargent Nutley. Those like Medic Rossee, were not veterans, just very seasoned. Still others were not seasoned, but merely spicy. It was a solid mix of furrsons who knew what they were doing within their silos, some may have had a weakness in maybe not knowing the whole picture of planetary explorations. It is a big picture. I was one of the those lifelong veterans both seasoned and spicy.
It made very good sense to pair medium experienced troops with their like, and to pair green troops with very experienced troops, to ripen them - you know- without them dying first. I was paired with a fox; 4th Class Deputy Surveyor Sidnae -- on his first trip out of the solar system. Sure he'd been to Luna and to Mars, so he had some exo-experience, just not the experience he needed. When I caught him the first time eating some of native the vegetation, I warned him off doing stuff like that until we had had a chance to check it for compatibility. Sure we knew that nothing growing here was toxic, -- but 'not toxic' is not the same as 'food-safe.' He also was caught by others -- there were three reports on my desk about him.
Our team started assembling the buildings. Then the first shipments of construction equipment and materials arrived. We started pouring flat slab foundations, and mixing mortar as they laid out block and started putting up hard walls, building on a solid outcropping atop a bluff, easily defensible with cliffs on two sides. The shaking was so mild that at first we were more concerned with a sudden strong gusty wind that blew two tents over the cliff. They were retrieved, with no injuries, and all were staked down to the rock itself. We planned to add two small escape tunnels bored into the solid rock below the "fort". Well, we were going to build a fort, that was the plan. There were more mishaps, every time we tried to get to any closer to digging a foundation there'd be another snag. There was a string sustained vibration in the table rock that lasted about an hour. A backhoe vibrated itself over the cliff, that did not survive.
The table land seemed to be the best location and I considered changing the location, but was advised that the best thing to move construction along was to get the explosives and blast some holes for foundations.
About this time, fourth class Deputy Surveyor and first class idiot, Sidnae, decided to sample some of the greens that looked like parsley. He got very sick and as I was going up to the ship to bring the explosives back down, I thought I'd accompany the MedCorps Nurse bringing 4-cl Dep-Surv Sidnae to the ship's sickbay. During our trip to the ship, I got an emergency report that there had been a large quake that took off part of our cliff-face. They were heating a tunnel-borer to melt the escape tunnels through the rock to the bottom of the cliff, when the real trouble began with temblors. We had just got him situated in sickbay when the ships comm. announced what was happening. There was a plume of volcanic ash coming from the rift. A fissure was opening along the bottom of the cliff.
And then, as if the very earth itself rose up in defiance: it happened.
We saw it on the Bridge's screens and on the displays throughout the ship. We watched in horror as the cliff subsided into a chasm. Everything we had done -- and everyone there, vanished.
++ Gliese 887, Lacaille Delta, 'New Eden'