Chapter 18: Chapter 17: First Encounters

The growling continued outside the door of the escape pod for several minutes. Due to the angle of the door, it was almost impossible for Alex to get a view from the outside cameras on what was out there.

He cursed at the designers of the pod once more, since no one thought it would be necessary to see outside the door before coming out of the pod—a glaring oversight to say the least.

Even without the view, he knew that whatever it was, it was big, especially whenever it managed to batter against the pod, shaking it in the process.

Alex kept his pistol trained on the door, wondering if it was enough to stop such a creature if it managed to break through. He knew these pistols were designed to bring down people, not large creatures, and he doubted whether or not it had enough stopping power.

It was hardly a comforting thought, especially as Jenna gripped his arm tighter.

However, just as quickly as the beast appeared, it left the pod soon after. The sounds of growling and the clawing outside the door evaporated, and there were several tense minutes of quiet shortly after.

“Is it gone?” whispered Jenna, her mouth tantalizingly close to Alex’s ear.

“Not sure. It could still be out there waiting. We should stay quiet just in case it can hear movements inside the pod.”

Jenna nodded and didn’t say another word. They both kept silent for another twenty minutes, hearing nothing else in the way of movement. When it became obvious that the coast was clear, Alex reluctantly approached the door.

He released the latch on the door and started to crank the wheel in order for it to open. The closing apparatus was surprisingly quiet for the amount of metal that was used to open it.

“Wait, Alex!”

He turned to look at Jenna, who was now digging through their supplies. She soon produced one of the breathers, the small device that attached directly to the skin to provide enough oxygen to survive the Vestan atmosphere.

“Take this,” she said, offering it over. “No telling how we’ll react once you open that door. I know Vesta is a lot like Earth but still.”

Alex took the breather and put it on, while she did the same with a second one. Instantly, it was like he was attached to an oxygen machine, and he felt the refreshing sensation of breathable air against his nose.

Now that he was ready, Alex crossed back over to the door and finished cranking the wheel. He pulled it back slightly, looking out on the Vestan environment as he held his pistol in the other hand.

The first real sight of the planet beat any camera feed that he’d seen. He looked out on the arid environment, finding so many similarities to Earth that he could scarcely name them all. It was almost like being in Arizona again.

And more importantly, he couldn’t see any sign of a threat.

“Do you see anything?” whispered Jenna from behind him.

Alex shook his head. “I’m going to check around the perimeter.” He stepped out onto the planet, letting his feet hit firm ground for once. He was surprised by the pull of gravity upon him. It truly felt like he was going for a stroll back on Earth.

“Keep this door closed while I check,” he told her.

She gave him an apprehensive nod as he shut the door behind him.

Looking out on the Vestan environment, Alex’s trained eyes scanned for threats. There was almost nothing he could see in the way of wildlife. He knew from his training modules that Vesta had a limited range of creatures that filled the planet, and most of them were small in size.

The only real exception to that list were the bears, but at this point in his journey, Alex still had no idea what a bear looked like. They were not the same creatures that had lived on Earth for thousands of years. The alien species was only named bears after the colonists of Vesta found them to have some similar features to the creatures on Earth. Even still, all Alex had was that description but after hearing about how deadly they were, he suspected that was what was growling at the pod.

Holding onto his pistol, Alex took several steps around the outside of the circular pod, feeling his feet crunch along the Vestan soil. The breather was doing its job at keeping him supplied with oxygen as he moved, clearing the immediate vicinity.

It was partway around the pod that he spotted the first form of life, something that looked like a basic field mouse. It quickly scurried away once it saw him approaching but that was the only thing he saw on the entire circuit.

All too soon, he was back to the door.

Jenna’s eyes were relieved as soon as she saw him opening the pod. Judging by the way she was standing, she’d been watching his entire circuit on the camera.

“I couldn’t see anything threatening out there,” he said, closing the door. “There was something small out there, something that looked like a mouse you would find back on Earth, but that’s it.”

“I didn’t see anything when you were out there,” she said, pointing to the screen and confirming his suspicions. “While you made your lap, I watched the feed. Nothing else moved.”

“Whatever was out there before, it looks to be gone now,” said Alex, sitting down on one of the seating rows.

“Alex, do you think it could have been a bear?”

He looked up to see fear in her beautiful eyes.

“I don’t know,” he answered honestly. “But with what I’ve heard, that’s my guess. Whatever it was, it sounded big and aggressive. And that seems to be all we know about the bears.”

She started to look around the escape pod. “Do you think we’re safe here? At least in the interim? I know we don’t have any way to contact any of the other colonists but I have to wonder if that door would hold off a bear attack?”

Alex inspected the door a little further. His first inclination was that if the door to the pod was meant to hold off the harsh vacuum of space, there should be no reason it couldn’t withstand an attack by a bear. However, the more that he looked at the door, the more that he realized the metal wasn’t that thick. It worked by using several layers of thin metal to protect the opening, and that was when Alex realized the awful truth.

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“I don’t think it could hold up to an attack, especially if these bears are as big as we’ve been hearing. All it would need to do is put its weight against the metal to get it to bend, or use its claws to slash it apart. If it really wanted to get in here, I think it could.”

Predictably, the answer put her on edge. Jenna once again sat down on the floor and hugged her legs with her arms. “So I guess we have a decision to make? Do we stay here in the pod and hope we don’t get another visitor? Or do we leave the pod and try to find the rest of the colonists?”

Her question was one that had already been circulating Alex’s mind. Every training manual he’d ever read about getting lost had always told him it was better off to stay put rather than venturing out in the wilderness, however, that was assuming they could operate from the safety of a base, in this case the pod.

There was the factor that the pod offered relative safety by putting an obstacle between them and any other predator being out there. Surely, the pod was better off than being out there on their own, right?

However, the more Alex thought about it, the less he liked the idea of staying put. They had a limited amount of food available in the pod, which would eventually run out. From what they could see of the landscape, there were no other people nearby, either the newly-arriving colonists or the native Vestans.

That also wasn’t including the fact that danger had already found them here. Were they better off putting some distance between them and the pod, as a way of getting away from that danger?

Ultimately, one last question stood out in his mind. And it was that question that sparked an idea.

Alex went over to the control panel of the escape pod and turned it on. He opened up the navigation module and started to investigate, finding what he was looking for after several minutes of work.

“Okay, I think I’ve found something,” said Alex, gesturing for Jenna to join him.

She pushed off the ground and stopped next to him, her shoulder brushing against his.

“I know my P-com isn’t working so we need to find another way to get to Vesta,” said Alex, using his finger to point at the screen. “Luckily, the navigation of the pod is still working, so I was able to plot a course to the Vestan city. Judging by this path, we’ve actually landed very close to the city, only a little more than a week’s walk away from it according to this navigation.”

Jenna lowered her face to squint at the screen. “How lucky is that? Of all the places to land, we make it close enough to actually make the journey.”

“Pretty damn lucky it seems. My thoughts are that if we follow the course of this valley, traveling on a northeasterly course, we’ll eventually run into this river here. Once we reach the river, we can simply follow it north until we reach the Vestan city,” explained Alex. “We have more than enough food to last us the way, as well as packs to store it. I think it might be better than staying here. Without the ability to communicate with the Vestans, who knows if they’d ever find us?”

Jenna looked from the screen to the camera feed of the outside environment. “I’m really not thrilled about leaving the safety of the pod, especially with night starting to fall.”

She was completely right about that. The star that gave life to the entire system, 51 Pegasi, was now starting to get very low on the western horizon, casting the entire valley in long shadows.

“I think we should hunker down here tonight,” agreed Alex. “We can start off first thing in the morning, when we have clear visibility. And hopefully we don’t have any other visitors from now until then.”

Jenna turned to look at him. “Do you really think this is the best course? That we should leave the pod?”

“I’m not sure,” said Alex after a moment before a smile appeared on his face. “I’ve never been stranded on an alien planet before either.”

His words actually broke her scared exterior. She smiled back at him and then took a deep breath.

“You haven’t steered me wrong yet,” she said, wrapping her arms around her body. “Perhaps we should get some sleep and then we can get started in the morning like you suggested?”

“Sounds good to me,” said Alex, keeping his tone lighthearted. “I don’t know about you but I never imagined my first day on Vesta quite like this. This is a little more somber than I imagined.”

Jenna actually laughed, which was a rich, magical sound that kept a smile on his face. “No, I can see why you say that. On the other hand, I wasn’t too thrilled about what the first day would look like here. I figured all of you men would go crazy once you were surrounded by the women of an alien city that had been suffering from a lack of men. I figured it would be like some kind of bacchanalian orgy or something like that.”

Alex shrugged. “Guess that orgy will have to wait until we get there.”

“I guess so.”

They made themselves comfortable as the sun continued to set. Alex took out two of the freeze-dried food packages and made them using the stored water on the pod, and they sat there enjoying a pasta dinner that was way too crunchy to be totally authentic.

Jenna was quiet as they ate, and more than once it seemed like she was preoccupied with other thoughts. Alex was grateful that she seemed decidedly less hostile than when she was on the Racine but it was still a far cry from what normal behavior was like between a man and his companion. Alex wondered if she would ever get to that level.

Though Jenna certainly didn’t hate him, he just didn’t see a future where they might ever be . . . intimate.

That was an odd thought to dwell on, but when Alex pictured what Jenna might be like in the throes of passion, he found that he ultimately liked it. The last time he’d had any sexual pleasure was with his I-Mate, Kristina, before she was destroyed. Looking at Jenna now, he pictured what it would be like to strip the clothes from her body, to see her feminine curves revealed in the flesh.

It was no surprise that he started to harden at the thought, even as he tried to mentally will it back down by thinking of unpleasant topics.

Unfortunately for him, Alex had to use one of the blankets in the pod to cover himself lest he give it away to Jenna. It took him a long time to finally fall asleep once the sun was down but he eventually managed to put away thoughts of Jenna.

That was until he felt her grabbing for his arm in the middle of the night, stirring him awake.

“What . . . what’s wrong?” he asked groggily, barely moving.

“Alex!” she whispered. “The bear is back! It’s outside again!”

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