Stephen writes speculative fiction broadly-conceived including sci-fi, fantasy, alternative history, horror, and things that fall in between. He is currently working on his first novel, a thriller set in an alternative Reconstruction-era Southern United States. Recent publications and a short fiction sample are below.
Planet Nine: A Story
The trip out past Pluto was uneventful.
I guess I should’ve expected no less from NASA, but secretly I was hoping for at least a minor mechanical malfunction to occupy me in the year it took to get here. No such luck. Went smoother than silk.
When you’re a kid deciding what to do with your life, no one tells you that being astronaut is boring as hell 99% of the time. I’ve heard military people talk about how their service was long stretches of unbearable tedium sprinkled with a few traumatizing life or death moments. Multiply that times a million and you get what it’s like to be an astronaut. I’m pretty sure the rigorous psychological evaluations NASA puts you through are mostly about predicting your capacity to endure endless monotony. The personality quirk that could get you killed faster than anything else out here in the endless void is the inability to occupy your own mind.
At least we have torpor now. I don’t know how astronauts did the long-haul trips back in the day. Staring at the ship walls day-in, day-out for years? Choking down the shitty meal packs for literally thousands of days? Fuuuuuck that. At least I get to hibernate for three weeks out of every month.
Not that the ship really even needs me for that. The AI is very sophisticated—it even has a body. The NASA psychologists thought giving the ship’s AI a “humanoid incarnation” would “lessen the likelihood of astronaut mental deterioration.” They’re probably right about that. I spend most of my awake time chatting with Robbie (I know, right?) and doing diagnostic system analyses they’ve probably already done a million times while I was in torpor (N.B. I tried calling Robbie an “it” and a “him” back on Earth and was hastily corrected both times. They even have thoughts about their pronouns!).
The reason NASA sent me and Robbie rocketing past the last planet-like body in the solar system is that they expect it is not, in fact, the last planet-like body in the solar system. Since the early 2000s, astronomers have been gathering evidence of something with significant gravitational force in the outer region of the solar system. Smart people batted around various theories about what it could be— an undiscovered planet, space debris, a coin-sized black hole, gravitational waves from the Milky Way itself, etc. It was all scientific fun and games until someone noticed Earth’s orbit shifting, very slightly at first, but enough to alarm people who pay attention to such things.
Turns out, even relatively small shifts in Earth’s orbit have pretty terrifying consequences—oceans freezing or boiling off, everyone and everything dying—shit like that. Problem was, there was nothing we could do about it. We didn’t even know what we were dealing with.
Enter Lieutenant Lane Locklear, your fearless, conquering hero (and my trusty sidekick Robbie)! Our job is to haul ass out to the outer reaches of the solar system in a state-of-the-art ship that is essentially a giant nuclear bomb, and figure out what the hell is going on before it's too late. Earth—who, it turns out can work together when motivated by existential annihilation—sent a probe to do a fly-by a couple months before our launch. Unfortunately, we didn’t have time to wait for the probe to send data back before we had to hit the road (with the rapidly approaching apocalypse and all). Wouldn’t have mattered anyway; we lost communication with the probe around the time it arrived in the neighborhood of the gravitational anomaly.
Tomorrow, Robbie and I will enter that same neighborhood. I could be the first human to confirm the existence of a new planet and the first to lay eyes on it (or any planet in the outer solar system for that matter). Hard to get too jazzed about it when Earth’s fate depends on figuring out how to stop it from fucking up our orbit, but hey. The real thrills always come with strings attached. We'll see what we're dealing with tomorrow.
***
“Good ship morning, Lieutenant Locklear. I took the liberty of preparing your coffee.”
“Five more minutes,” I groan.
“With all due respect, you’ve been sleeping 51.8 percent more over the past 12 months than is typical for your body.”
I open my eyes to scowl at Robbie as I take the mug.
“I assumed you would be excited to rise today. Being so incredibly bored and all.”
“Yeah, yeah. Like I said, give me five minutes. I know you don’t understand this, but humans don’t generally sit straight up from sleep, ready to be annoyed by androids.”
Robbie raises their hands in a remarkably human gesture of surrender. I shake my head and trudge over to the pilot’s chair in front of the display. Robbie is sitting in the co-pilot’s chair a few feet away.
“We will be within observable distance of the anomaly in thirty minutes and fourteen seconds.”
I nod in acknowledgement, and touch the display to wake it up. It comes alive much faster than I did. I manually run the routine checks and review the results on the screen. While I wait for the computer to do its work, I glance at the picture of John Herrington I have taped above my cot.
“Looks like our velocity is still a touch higher than I’d like, Robbie. Would you fire the forward-facing thrusters for…”
“27.4 seconds should be sufficient,” Robbie interrupts. “Firing thrusters now.” I hear the thrusters kick on and feel the slight slowdown. Robbie’s “brain” for lack of a better term is integrated into the ship’s controls so they don’t have to actually use the hands NASA saw fit to give them. They just have to think a command and the ship complies.
“One minute to observable zone,” Robbie says.
“Is the gravity reading I’m seeing correct?” I say. “It’s stronger and more directed than I would have expected if we were dealing with a planet.”
“The reading on the display is correct. I agree with your assessment that it is not consistent with a planet’s gravitational pull.
“Open the viewport,” I reply.
The viewport, located just above the display screen begins to slide down revealing the inky blackness of the void beyond.
“I…I’m receiving an incoming message, Lieutenant.”
“From where?”
“From the anomaly.”
“Excuse me?”
“The anomaly. It seems to be sentient, and it’s contacting me.”
The viewport continues to slide down. Six inches open now.
“Contacting you how? With what technology? Using what language?”
“To answer the former question, radio waves. The latter is more interesting. The message began with a binary code series but as we have no agreed upon translation system, that didn't help us communicate. I replied in English as it is the primary language of my programming (even though I also speak hundreds of common human languages) and the anomaly is now communicating in English.”
“I’m sorry, what?” How?”
Robbie listens for a moment.
“They’ve been observing Earth from this vantage point for ‘some time now,’ and have intercepted many of the messages Earthlings have sent into space. They’ve pieced together some of our languages from those messages.”
“They?”
The question hangs in the air as the viewport continues its slow slide. Halfway open now. I still can’t see anything.
Before Robbie can say anything else, the ship goes black and the viewport stops its descent. I tap the display. Nothing. I look over at Robbie. Their head is slumped onto their chest, the warm white glow that normally emanates from their chest, extinguished.
“The fuck?” I whisper.
I’m looking around for inspiration when I notice a flashing, blue light coming from Robbie’s chest. I recall from the crash course I received on Robbie’s mechanics that the flashing blue light indicates back-up solar power is coming on line, in the event of a malfunction.
“Robbie? You there, pal? We’re in a bit of a pickle.”
Robbie’s head is still slumped, blue light pulsing every second. As I watch, Robbie’s hands, made of some kind of supple, plastic titanium composite, shoot out, wrap around my neck, and tighten.
***
“We’re sorry to do this, Lieutenant Locklear,” Robbie says as their grip tightens around my fleshy, fragile human throat.
“We were hoping our colonization wouldn’t require direct interpersonal violence. We were surprised to see your ship make it this far out. Our research suggested that humans were only capable of sending manned crafts to Mars. The method you have devised to power your main thrusters is quite ingenious, if highly volatile.”
A ragged, wheeze escapes as I attempt to inhale.
“We would not be here if it weren’t necessary for our survival. Our system has become inhabitable. We had hoped to simply elongate your planet’s orbit; our philosophers argued that would be the most ethical way to terminate sentient life on your planet while also while also creating the ideal climate for our species.”
I have a flash of memory as the edges of my vision blacken. I reach for the right side of Robbie’s head, just behind the artfully constructed ear. I grope for a desperate moment, terrified that I’m misremembering. Then my index finger grazes the raised edge of a button, no bigger than the tip of a pen, designed so as not to be pressed without intention. When I press the button the relief is immediate. Robbie’s hands release my throat, arms dropping to their side, and their head lowers back to their chest. The flashing blue light goes dark again. I cough and sputter as oxygen rushes back into my burning lungs. My neck feels like it may never be the same again, like the indentations of Robbie’s fingers will remain as a permanent mark of their coerced betrayal.
Once I feel like I might not die, I stand up straight on shaky legs and acclimate myself to my situation. The only light in the ship is coming from the half-open viewport. The slice of sky I can see is a deep black riddled with points of white, distant stars that are much more visible out here where Sol’s light is weaker. No menacing alien spaceship though. I need to lay eyes on whatever just took control of my AI and tried to strangle the life out of me.
“Let’s get a look at you bastards,” I say aloud as I scramble on top of the chair I was sitting in a minute ago. Nothing is immediately obvious. With my hands on the edge of the metal viewport cover, I slowly scan the patch of sky. My eyes stop on an incongruity. I can’t actually see the hull of a ship—only an absence of light where stars should be visible. But as I watch, the absence grows visibly larger. My best guess is that without my thrusters to push against it, the thing’s gravitational pull is exerting all its influence on my ship. At this rate, I’ll make impact in a minute or two, assuming they don’t blast me out of the sky with some kind of alien death ray first. Despite my best efforts to remain cool and aloof, the swelling shape out there fills the pit of my stomach with dread. I can’t think of a single joke to make and that worries the hell out of me.
I take a deep breath and try to access my rational brain. Good news is that I’ll have oxygen for a while and the ship’s insulation is top of the line, so temperature loss will be slow. Bad news is I know shit all about what’s going on. I don’t understand what technology they are using to affect earth’s orbit without instantly crushing their ship (and mine for that matter). I don’t understand how they were able to shut off my ship and take control of my AI. The only thing I understand is their bloodthirst. They want to annihilate me and my entire species so they can have our totally awesome planet. Gentrifying mother fuckers (more good news—dark sense of humor is back online)!
Okay—what to do? I definitely don’t want any sadistic aliens colonizing the home world on my watch. I glance back at the black outline growing larger by the second. Another buried memory from training resurfaces.
“…In the event of a full power failure, backup solar power for the display and manual controls can be engaged with the solar switch inside the main panel in the aft of the ship…”
I rush to the back of the craft, groping for the ridge of a panel in the dark. I find it, open the latch, and feel for the third switch from the top. I flip it and red emergency lights illuminate the floor of the cabin. The display goes from black to grey as it initiates its startup sequence. The viewport cover resumes its descent. Hell yeah.
I steal a glance at Robbie—they appear unaffected by the ship’s emergency power. Through the now fully-open viewport I see the looming mass of the alien craft. This close I can tell that it is an elongated, pyramidal shape, the point of which is facing back towards Sol. In any other situation my inner space nerd would be pissing himself with excitement. There is a badass alien spaceship Right. Fucking. There! And I am the human who made first contact. Given the circumstances, though…little less cool, not gonna lie.
I assume the little green men are probably wondering why they lost communication with Robbie. Let them sweat. I have the beginnings of a plan. It’s insane and ends with me dead, which is not ideal, but I don’t see many options at present. I’ve studied enough history to know that when the colonizers come knocking, you don’t open the door even an inch.
I make it back to the display just as it reloads the home screen. I use the system’s analysis functions to determine the exact amount of time it will take before I’m close enough to the craft for my hair-brained plan to (hopefully) work. First, I type in the commands to send the ship’s system log, including the cabin audio and video recording, back to Earth. They can piece together what happened from that. Then, I initiate the coding sequence that will overload the fission reactor engine, and type in my override code when the system protests. The screen reads:
Execute? Y or N
I check my watch in the starlight and begin counting down the seconds, praying to a God I don’t believe in that these aliens are curious enough about my ship not to blow me to smithereens (not before I can do it myself that is). I’m relying on their desire to systematically disassemble my ship. If I were in their shoes, I’d sure as hell want to capture the alien vessel and take a peek.
Seconds from impact the ship halts suddenly flinging me violently into the viewport with a resonant clunk. Blood rushes from a wound above my right eye. Dazed, I struggle to my knees using the arm of the pilot’s chair. Now or never, I think. I reach back and press Robbie’s button again. The blue light returns and Robbie raises their head, turning left and right, seemingly confused, before homing in on me.
“You are surprisingly resourceful, Lieutenant Locklear.” Robbie’s tone tells me I’m now speaking with my would-be extraterrestrial overlords across the divide. Good.
“I turned Robbie back on so I could teach you a human phrase before you eradicate us from the universe,” I say. I pause for a beat, steeling myself. The aliens seem to be waiting me out before acting. “Fuck you and the horse you rode in on,” I spit with as much vitriol as I can produce.
The gist of my profanity must translate because Robbie reaches for my throat again. I am ready for that, though. As the android’s hands cross the space between us, I press “Y” and still have enough time to hold up one middle finger to Robbie and the other to the viewport before I am engulfed by the brilliant light of a nuclear explosion.
***
The crew sits in stunned silence.
“The explosion has damaged the gravity manipulator beyond off-planet repair capabilities, Captain. Damage to other systems from the blast of radiation is also significant but not insurmountable. We’ll have to return to Ix’igoth to proceed with the orbital shift, unless you’d like to consider an alternative solution for the human population problem. If we return for repairs, we’ll lose...”
“Another 89 solar rotations, yes,” the Captain interjects. “Not counting the time it will then take to pull the planet into ideal orbit and wait for human extinction. Likely another 20 rotations.”
Another brooding quiet descends, as the Captain fingers a mandible. “Set course for Ix’igoth,” the Captain says. “When we return, they’ll likely be more prepared. We should be too.”
With that, the craft disappears silently into the black ether beyond Sol's heliopause.
END
Stephen Stacks © 2024