The Claim
A science fiction short story about a man on the edge of space.
The alarm was coming from everywhere, its piercing cry echoing through Declan’s sleep filled head. Disoriented, he couldn’t make sense of the noise intruding on his sleep.
His eyelids were heavy as he fought to wake, wanting to silence the annoying sound. With an effort, he managed to open his eyes, and the room spun before him. The motion was sickening, and he felt an uneasiness rise in his numbed body. He was going to vomit.
Struggling to move, he rolled on his side and heaved. Pink liquid poured from his mouth in a suffocating stream that left him chocking as he emptied his stomach first, and then his lungs. He took deep, gasping breaths when it stopped, sucking in stale air and coughing.
With one final cough, he spat out the last of the fluid and wiped his mouth, finding it easier to move now. Everything had stopped spinning too. He could see more clearly, and the world came into focus. He was in his sleep pod, but it was already open.
Something wasn’t right. He should have been eased out of his long sleep. The liquid-O should have been pumped from his body while he still slept, and the drugs should have been given more time to revive him. This wasn’t a scheduled waking.
Fumbling overhead, Declan found the alarm control and silenced it. Laying back, he took a moment in the quietness to gather himself, then cleared his throat and spoke. “Ship, what’s going on? Why am I awake?”
-A Unified Systems Conglomerate vessel has exited light jump and entered orbit around LX-4.-
Moving stiffly, Declan sat up in his pod. Another ship, this far out? “Have they attempted contact?”
-Negative. No signals detected. Would you like to open transmissions?-
“No, not yet.” If some USC ship was trying to steal his claim, Declan needed to play this right. This was his planet, after all. He had spent over four hundred solar units in orbit to stake a claim on LX. His contract from the Paxis Enterprise was worth a lifetime of credits for that kind of time if he could make good on it.
There wouldn’t be any credits if someone else claimed first contact rights, though.
Declan slid off his sleep pod and tested his footing. A little wobbly but good enough to shuffle towards the bridge. On the way, he retrieved a flight suit from a locker and struggled into it. By the time he sat down at the helm, his body was fully awake, and he could move normally.
With a rapid flipping of switches, he powered on his ship’s controls. He needed to know more about his visitor. “Where’s the other ship now?”
-Current readings are unavailable. The ship has moved behind the planet.-
The displays showed Declan’s ship in orbit around LX-4. A smooth arcing line showed the path of the other ship’s arrival and movement into the planet’s shadow. “Were they landing?”
-The ship approached low orbit before readings were lost. Its intended course can not be determined.-
Declan leaned in closer to the display, studying the last known position of the other ship. He didn’t like this, he needed to know what they were doing. “Tell me more about the other ship.”
-Karlik Class. A military-style vessel used by the USC for deep space operations.-
The displays began to show various schematics and manufacturing data for the other ship. None of it was useful. It only raised more questions about why they were here.
The LX system wasn’t just out there, it was tens of thousands of light-years beyond the fringe colonies. Even with light jumps, it took at least a dozen solar units to reach from the inner sectors. Corporations never sent their own ships this far to an unclaimed system, there was too much risk.
That’s why they paid sleepers to do it. Declan, and others like him, searched the emptiness of the galaxy for systems to claim so that the corporations could harvest their resources or establish colonies.
But LX wasn’t claimable yet, so why was a corporation ship orbiting his planet? They knew as well as he did that a system was off-limits until any existing civilizations were capable of interplanetary travel. Only then was contact permitted, allowing for an offer be made against a people’s natural claim to their system’s resources. The Galactic Treaty of Systems was very clear on the subject.
It didn’t add up. Clearing the displays, Declan set a course to take his ship around the planet. He had to see what they were doing if he was going to figure out why they were here. In the meantime, he needed to play catch up.
From the date on his controls, he’d been asleep for just over a hundred solar units. Well short of his next scheduled check-in. “Has Lex had an unanticipated breakthrough in space travel?”
-There are no records of any escape events from LX-4’s surface. Would you like to review all planetary records since your last waking?-
“No time for all of that.” It was unlikely his ship had missed anything, but he did a quick scan of the records related to orbital events anyways. There was nothing, not even suborbital flights. Not surprising. LX-4 wasn’t expected to cross the threshold for at least another five hundred units.
Desperation for an explination, Declan called up his contract. Authorization and permit updates had arrived from Paxis through a subspace signal shortly after he last entered sleep. Still valid and in effect, there was no help there. And no other transmissions had been received since. He had been forgotten on the edge of the galaxy. Until now.
-USC vessel on scanners. The ship is in orbit and descending.-
Declan looked closer at the displays. It still wasn’t clear if they intended to land, but they were almost to the cloud layer.
There wasn’t much time for a decision. Once the ship entered the argon rich clouds that perpetually swirled around the planet, Declan would lose them on sensors again. He’d have no way to know what they were doing then.
If they were landing, they already had a head start to the planet. And if they knew something he didn’t and landed first, they’d have first negotiation rights on the entire system. He couldn’t let that happen. “Ship, take us down to the surface. Now!”
-Landing on LX-4 is a violation of the Galactic Treaty of Systems. Contact criteria have not been met for this system.-
“I know the regulations.” Declan was already inputting the overrides. “I’m not losing my contract to these USC jerks.”
Declan’s ship began to descend towards the planet, his path taking him past the other ship. As he approached, they began scanning him, but it was too late, he was going to drop right past them before they could do anything.
Below, the clouds of the atmosphere swirled, purple flashes from lightning strikes indicated a growing storm. Lex was a harsh planet, it was surprising that a civilization existed below the violent atmosphere. The thick clouds had limited any real assessments of the planet’s inhabitants, and Declan wondered, not for the first time, what he would find when he landed.
-The other ship is transmitting.-
Declan had just entered into the cloud layers, they couldn’t stop him now, and there was no way they could reach the surface before him. “Put it through.”
“Unknown vessel … USC control … further attempts to land …” The signal cut off as he dove through the clouds, too much interference inside the storms.
-Warning. Incoming missiles.-
On his display, Declan saw two missiles were rapidly closing on his ship. His small ranging vessel wasn’t equipped for this, it had no defenses at all.
Doing the only thing he could, Declan dove faster for the surface of the planet, seeking shelter in the storms. Storm debris pummeled his ship, and purple lightning flashed everywhere. The electricity was playing havoc on his sensors. At least the missiles should be affected too, he hoped.
Hurtling downward blindly, Declan was praying for an end to the storms when his ship was rocked violently. One of the missiles had exploded behind him, pelting his ship with shrapnel. Ignoring it, he pushed on, there was still another missile out there.
Moments later, he broke through the clouds and was free of the storms.
-Missile warning.-
The second missile had survived the storm clouds and found its target. Declan tried to maneuver, but it was too late, it exploded into his ship, sending him into a spin.
-Ground impact imminent. Reduce speed.-
Declan didn’t need the computer for that. The ground was rising rapidly, but his controls were dead, the monitors dark. His hull must have been breached because his flight suit had sealed a helmet around his head. Then with a jarring impact, everything went black.
Declan awoke to the sound of hissing air escaping from a crack in his helmet. There was pain everywhere, and his left arm was bent at an unnatural angle, but otherwise, he was in one piece. He couldn’t say the same for his ship. “Ship, what’s our status?”
There was no response, only a few lights on the instrument panel still flashed. Everything else was dark.
Unbuckling himself, Declan fell out of his chair and landed painfully. His legs were weak as he stood up, unaccustomed to natural gravity. Cradling his injured arm, he made his way through the ship and inspected the damage. Only emergency lighting seemed to be functioning, everything else was dead. Soon, he understood why.
The back half of the ship had been completely torn off, the engine core with it. Standing in the gaping hole that should be a cargo space, Declan looked out over the field of debris stretching along the giant rut the ship had carved in the terrain. In the distance, he could see the rest of his ship, and the lights on the exterior gave him hope that there might be functional systems. Tentatively, he stepped out on the planet’s surface, getting his first look at Lex.
It was not what he had expected. Instead of a world thriving with civilization, he found a barren wasteland. There were no signs of structures or life. Only rocks and sand in every direction.
By the time Declan reached the back half of his ship, his arm was throbbing with pain, but it was the least of his worries. The crack in his helmet had let most of his oxygen escape. His suit was also registering high amounts of radiation, and he feared the core might not have survived after all.
Finding an access hatch on the hull, he used his good arm to pull the manual release. Prying the hatch open, he climbed inside quickly and closed it behind him.
The core had survived the crash after all and was still powering this section of his ship. Declan pressurized the room and pulled his helmet off, then moved into the medical bay and began to cut his suit away from his body. Bursts of hot fire shot up his damaged arm as he worked it from the sleeve. Once free, he climbed inside his sleep pod, grimacing at the awful discoloration in his misshapen arm.
With power in this part of the ship, the pod was also still functional. A little good news. “Ship. Medical scan.”
-Segmental fracture of the ulna. Recommend extended sleep while administering treatment.-
“Do it.” The pod closed around him, sealing him in. He could feel it administering rounds of pain killers, and sleep began to take hold while Liquid-O started to fill his pod in preparation for his hibernation.
With his injury taken care of, Declan’s thoughts moved back to the planet’s surface. “Ship, what happened to Lex? Where is everything?”
-Fifty solar units ago a global nuclear war destroyed most of the planet.-
“What?” Declan couldn’t believe what he was hearing. “Why didn’t you tell me that earlier?”
-You declined to review reports unrelated to orbital travel.-
Declan was at a loss, but the drugs were already taking hold, and he was drifting off. Just before sleep overtook him, one last thought played through his head. What about the claim?