Daughters of a Coral Dawn by Katherine v. Forrest

Author:Katherine v. Forrest [Forrest, Katherine V.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: General, Science Fiction, Lesbians, Life on other planets, Fiction, Lesbian
ISBN: 9781555836627
Publisher: Alyson Books
Published: 2002-08-31T23:00:00+00:00

II

Journal of Lt. Laurel Meredith, SSA 2214.2.12

Perhaps the events of the past day are a preposterous dream—a delirium. Perhaps after six weeks of floating in death-like sensory deprivation my mind has also gone. But could even a broken mind devise events so improbable, so inconceivable?

I had risen from my vigil to stretch my legs. As usual we were all occupied with our individual obsessions: Ross and Hanigan tinkering With our life support computers—a shattered multi-thousand piece puzzle with no schematic from which to reassemble it; Coulter prowling the hydro-ponic room brandishing an instaweld gun, looking like a brawny thief, knowing full well that soon our precious atmosphere would leak out around his welds, and rasping curses as he welded the ominously hissing microscopic cracks. But then all of our compulsive tasks were hopeless, including mine—searching with the pitiful manual instrumentation left to us for a cloud-covered planet to give us shelter before our fatally damaged survival systems totally collapsed ... It was hopeless, hopeless . .. as futile as our pulsing distress beam out here beyond the Einsteinian Curve, out here in this cold, achingly empty universe . . .

I had returned to my post and settled in again to monitor the EV scope when I saw it—misty, indistinct, vaguely coral. I narrowed scope and focused—and soon shouted for Ross.

Cruiser of the Americas 991, blind, deaf, partially paralyzed, retained enough navigational capability for Coulter to maneuver us into the star system—an optical binary, I noted—and then he muscled and cursed us into tumbling orbit around the coral planet, Hanigan and Ross punching at unresponsive stabilizer keys until Coulter said in his raspy voice, "Forget it. The gyros won't fire except in random pattern."

"I can't make consistent readings tumbling like this," I said, strapped into my module and concentrating on my gauges, on the rapidly shifting elements of surface data, the tantalizing glimpses of blurred landscape on the screen. "But there's no obvious indication of intelligent life."

"Who cares? What choice do we have?" Hanigan's red moustache was quivering as it always did when he was agitated. "We make it here or we don't make it."

"Let's go," Ross ordered, removing his restraint straps.

"Wait," I said. "What's coming over the IFC?"

The Interplanetary Frequency Channel was flaring with static that seemed—to me—rhythmic, repetitive.

"Must be something we reconnected wrong," Hanigan said impatiently. "Let's go."

We donned our EV suits and boarded the tiny craft poised in the launch pod—our final hope. I had taken all my exobiology instrumentation to quickly ascertain when we landed—if it was not already apparent—whether we would die in this alien environment, and if so how soon and in what manner, and whether I would die in that manner or in my own.

We had just taken off when our EV's short range radio crackled to life. ". .. acknowledge . .. Attention unknown craft, acknowledge , . . Attention—"

As we gaped at each other in astonishment, Ross managed to utter, "Cruiser of the Americas niner-niner-one. Who the hell are you?"

"There is little time and more pressing concerns.

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