[h3] Mark A. Lopez[/h3]

Mark kept quiet through most of it as he stood off to the side of the bridge, arms crossed, eyes moving between Velia’s console and the planet hanging beyond the forward view. Green, blue, white clouds. It looked almost too clean after everything they had run from.

Food was the part that stayed in his head.

They had enough for a few months if everybody behaved, if nothing spoiled, if nobody started stealing, if the hydroponics bay got its act together before the ration stores started looking thin. Too many ifs. People liked to talk about hydroponics like you just poured water into a box and got food out the other end. In reality, it was pumps, nutrient lines, grow beds, filters, lighting grids, temperature regulators and one bad valve away from dead plants.

And they had two engineers. [i]Only two for fucks sake...[/i]

Everyone wanted the ship to keep running, the air to stay breathable, the drive to keep jumping, the vents to keep clean, lights to stay on, and now the hydro bay to feed a population it had barely been given time to start feeding.

Mark rubbed at the bridge of his nose.

[i]Sure. Why not.[/i] He’d just pull a field of corn out of his ass while he was at it.

Velia’s voice drew his attention back.

“The atmosphere looks... flammable. No wait, let me check the manual.”

Mark’s eyes widened slightly.

He turned his head toward her with the slow, careful expression of a man deciding whether he had actually heard that right.

“Flammable,” he repeated under his breath.

Then she corrected herself.

Habitable.

He stared at her for another second, then looked back at the planet.

“Right,” he muttered. “Much better.”

The rest of the readings were stranger. Humans. Heavy industry. No transmissions. No satellites. One spaceport. That didn’t sit right. A few million people with industry but no orbital infrastructure? No comm traffic? No automated beacon screaming at any ship that wandered too close?

Either they were hiding, dead, or something down there had gone wrong in a way that hadn’t reached orbit.

None of those were comforting.

Velia hailed them anyway.

“Hello Aliens. We come in peace. This is the Edenite Colony ship…”

Mark closed his eyes for a moment. He didn’t say anything at first.

The silence from the planet stretched and Velia tried again. Then again and nothing came back again.

When Velia finally suggested going down anyway, Mark pushed off the console he had been leaning against.

“First off,” he said, “maybe we don’t introduce ourselves as a colony ship.”

He looked toward Velia.

“Could be nothing. Could be they don’t care. But if a giant ship shows up over your planet and announces the word ‘colony,’ some folks might hear ‘invasion’ before they hear ‘help.’ Especially if they already have a spaceport and heavy industry.”

He glanced back at the planet.

“We should say refugee vessel next time or humanitarian contact. Something that doesn’t sound like we’re here to plant a flag and start measuring their farmland.”

His gaze returned to the scan readouts.

“But yeah, I say we go down. We need food badly. Hydroponics isn’t going to save us fast enough, not unless somebody here knows how to turn half-grown seedlings into dinner. We also need hands. Engineers, medics, security, anyone who knows which end of a wrench to hold.”

He looked around the bridge.

“And if there are people down there, they need to know about the bugs. If Eden got hit then hiding in the dirt isn’t a long-term plan.”

Mark folded his arms again, “We can send a shuttle down and find out why nobody’s answering. Then we decide how stupid this is.”