3

Oranna was going over the atmospheric data to confirm the air on Earth was still breathable when I got to the cockpit. Of course it was, and the ships internal life support systems could now be disabled in favor of the local atmosphere pumped through the ventilation. It was my job to keep those systems running, so naturally they were at peak efficiency.

Oranna looked up and smiled at me. I smiled back, not quite sure of how to proceed.

“What’s up?” The pilot asked, going over the various monitors and scanning the channels for incoming messages.

“I had a thought, Or.” I said, and Oranna stopped and looked at me. Oranna and I had come to take each other seriously whenever either of us ‘had a thought’ about something.

“Spit it out, Ri.” Fingers steepled under chin, elbows resting on knees, Oranna was hunching forward.

“What if the technology they use for communications isn’t compatible with ours?” I posed my theory. “We started with Earth compatible tech when our colonies were founded, yes, but its been centuries. Whatever they have now might not work with what we’ve managed tech-wise. We don’t know anything about how Earth has changed in those centuries, we can’t risk waiting forever because of incompatible technologies.”

“Ah! That would suck, wouldn’t it?” They looked to the instruments and monitors on the dash. “If they can’t get through to us, maybe we’d better send up a signal flare? Lets give it a couple hours, anyhow. We don’t know how long it takes the people of Earth to look into things breaking through their atmosphere. Still... They could and should have messaged us upon approach or descent. Something’s off here.”

“You get that feeling too, huh?” I put a hand on their shoulder and squeezed reassuringly. “I’m sure its nothing serious.” I told Oranna, though I was lying through my teeth. Every nerve in my body was screaming the opposite. I wonder if they could tell? It’s not for me to know.

“Like I said, we’ll give it a couple hours and then take action.” Oranna repeated. “If we don’t hear from any people of Earth within four hours, we’ll go looking.”

I nodded, taking the seat beside Oranna and leaning back. They made a brief announcement over the intercoms and that was that. We waited. We waited for four very quiet, boring, uneventful hours of radio silence and nothing on the scanners bigger than fish in our proximity. Not even a rowboat or a fishing vessel on the horizon. Nothing but organic objects in the skies, birds. The more time passed, the more Oranna and I felt like something was very, very wrong.

There was a knock at the cockpit door, which I hadn’t realized I’d closed behind me when I came in. I motioned Oranna to stay seated and got up to let the knocker in. The door split in the center and the two halves slid sideways to reveal Shia and Robin waiting.

“Shia, Robin,” I said, nodding. “Come in. What’s up?”

Shia spoke for both of them, shooting sidelong glances to Robin. “Well, the thing is, it’s been almost four hours and there’s been nothing. We’ve been looking out off the roof of the ship and literally nothing but birds and fish. It’s eerie, it shouldn’t be that way. Not a helicopter, not a jet plane, not a watercraft of any kind despite the calm tides. I don’t even think I can see any real movement on the closest coast to the west there.”

“That’s the weirdest part,” Robin cut in. “There’s supposed to be people living in the big metropolis on the edge of this lake, but its like its completely dead there. No vehicles, no pedestrians on the lakefront, nothing.”

“So we were thinking, we should probably scoot in closer, see if maybe its just because we’re so far that we can’t see anyone?” Shia continued. “Right now, there are no visible signs of life. But that is wrong. Based on the data for Earth when the colonists all went on their missions, the population for any city that size would have been in the six to ten million range. Given the length of time that’s passed, it should be rapidly approaching the billions mark by this point. Yet its completely silent.”

“We can move a bit closer. I’ll tell you what I’ll do when we move closer, Shia.” Oranna started. “I’ll run the lifeform scanner over the city in a quick pass and we’ll grab some images from the ships outer security cameras. Sound good, my friends?”

“Thank you, Oranna.” Robin replied.

“Yeah, definitely.” Shia agreed. The two of them left the cockpit, and Oranna and I exchanged glances.

“Something is much worse here than incompatible technologies.” I said, quietly, when I was sure they were gone.

“Certainly is beginning to seem that way. Aren’t there old horror movies that start out similarly to this?”

I laughed, but it was a strained laugh, like I was holding something else back. “I hope we aren’t in danger.”

“From an empty city? I highly doubt it.” Oranna waved a hand, flippantly. “If anything, the planets gone dead and the mission was a waste from the start.”

“I hope it’s only that and the journey home waiting for us.” I said, looking out the shielded glass to the flat water surrounding us. “I’ve got this really bad feeling, and I hope it’s just my mind playing tricks on me. But it might not be, and I’m getting kind of scared. I don’t think we should be here, Or.”

“Chill, Ri. This is a peace mission, and if there’s no one here, we’ll check some other places. Worse comes to worse, the planet is void of human life and we go home.”

“But what if it isn’t?” I asked, my voice almost breaking. “What if it isn’t void of human life, but they’re not like us anymore? What if they don’t want us here, they don’t like us? What if they’re... Wrong, somehow? What if they kill us? Every part of me is screaming to turn tail now.”

“We can’t do that, Ri.” Now I was the one getting the comforting shoulder squeeze. “Go down to the lounge, inhale some cannabis vapor and calm yourself. Things will be okay.”

I shouldn’t have listened, I should have insisted we leave then and there, but Oranna was right. We had to at least ascertain if there was still human life on this world. So I went and I got myself together and I watched an Ancient Earth “comic adaption” movie, called Deadpool, and laughed my ass off for a bit. I let myself believe Oranna was right, that things would be alright, and we would all leave this place just fine. What a beautiful lie that was. I should have rejected it. I should have caused a scene. So many things, I should have done differently. So many regrets, starting with that one. So I waited.