I wrote a short sci-fi story about an expedition sent to explore a distant planet that seemed perfect for life… but something about it feels off.
It starts as a fairly grounded exploration story, but slowly shifts into something more psychological and unsettling.
I recently turned it into an audio story with a cinematic atmosphere. If anyone feels like listening, I’d really appreciate any thoughts or feedback:
Poquvqa – By Dan Pettersson
It had been three weeks since the expedition left the mothership to explore the nearby solar system Y-M-992. The goal was to map its planets, which were considered to offer the best conditions for intelligent life within a range of 170 light-years. They had been drowsy days, devoted to repetitive exercises of the pioneers’ various muscle groups. This was necessary to overcome the devastating effects of weightlessness. Weightlessness quickly caused a deterioration in the form of atrophy of both strength and bone density. Before one knew it, the damage could have made a space traveler completely fragile, powerless, and unacceptably incapable of serving the mission. All forms of training equipment consisting of weights floated around without the effect of gravity and could not be used. Thus, training equipment consisting of various forms of metallic springs, harnesses, and levers with different mechanical resistance was used.
There was, however, plenty of time between the exercises, where nothing else existed to do except check the ship’s engines and instruments. Beyond that, one could only rest and await the arrival.
Nyathera stood by a large observation window, watching space rush past at a terrifying speed. Distant stars seemed frozen. But closer to the ship, countless asteroids drifted in chaotic motion—part of the vast belt encircling the gas giant TW-114. A gas giant rarely received any imaginative names from the space pilots. There was no point if one could not set foot on the planet anyway. The temperature on its surface—if one can say that a planet consisting of compact gases has a surface—varied as much as 1000 degrees Celsius between night and day. The nights on TW-114 corresponded to five days on Earth.
Its neighbor, however, was something else entirely. Smaller. And far more beautiful. It lay within the habitable zone. All available data pointed to the presence of water. An atmosphere. Breathable air. A warm climate, but manageable. The temperature having only small differences between night and day.
The planet in question had been given the name Bahamas after a beautiful island that had once existed on Earth before the decimation of the polar ice caps. The new Bahamas promised something more, something far better, for a humanity that had been scattered across all too many barren worlds. At last, the planet drifted into view. Nyathera felt something stir within her. There it was. The most sought-after color. Green!
From orbit, Bahamas resembled a vast green apple.
Most of its surface was covered in dense rainforest. A single great continent stretched across the planet, embracing several inland seas. Some extended in long bands across half the globe. Others appeared as near-perfect circles—likely remnants of ancient asteroid impacts.
Half a day later, the view beyond the window had turned entirely green as the ship settled into orbit.
Nyathera checked the equipment for the three-person landing crew. Captain Derek Smith wore the gold-colored helmet with a silver visor. Second in command was Ursula Dolphin, with a silver helmet and an amber-tinted visor. Lowest in rank was Nyathera. She wore a matte beige helmet with a transparent visor. In strong sunlight, such a visor could be rather impractical as it did not provide any dampening of the sun’s rays. To avoid being blinded, most pioneers of lower rank tended to walk with their heads lowered and look down at the ground. But Nyathera was not like most. She wore her beige helmet with her head held high and defied the sun’s rays. She too felt the discomfort in her eyes, but she preferred to walk half-blinded rather than let the privileged see her in the submissive posture expected of those born into servitude.
The mothership was the only society she had ever known. There, everyone had a place. And every place had its color —or the absence of one. It made one visible or invisible in a hierarchy that was all about standing out from the crowd. Few of the colorless could dream of changing their lot in life. They wore the same simple textile that they had once been wrapped in when they were cultivated in the incubator. It was rare that a different material was what they were later buried in when their bodies were composted.
The mothership had traveled in search of a new home environment for fourteen generations. Few still carried the longing their ancestors once had—for a world to settle on.
For most, the ship was all there was. Many expeditions had been sent out. But during all fourteen generations aboard the mothership, no expedition had returned with positive results. More and more ships were lost in failed landings and breakdowns of the ion generator when the ship was to return. Of the original 300 ships, 49 now remained. Of these, five were in worse condition and were thus the ones primarily used. Nyathera tried to push aside the thought that they could have come all the way here only to become stranded on the way home in a broken ship. There was plenty of food. But air—only for three weeks. After that, no one would be able to survive if the engines could not be repaired. The mothership never sent a rescue for those marooned in space.
When the ship had made its way through the atmosphere, Captain Derek made the decision to land at the western tip of one of the elongated, band-like seas that cut through the endless rainforest. The ground was firm when they landed. Hard and gleaming like polished dark marble. Hundreds of years of waves and tides had smoothed its surface.
As custom demanded, the crew set out in a line. Captain Derek walked first, carrying a flag bearing a globe of Earth on a white field. Behind him walked Ursula with a photon rifle. Nyathera walked last, carrying the large beige pack that held their food, water, and a compressed shelter. It was forbidden to address the captain or anyone of higher rank until permission had been given. Captain Derek proved to observe tradition strictly. Nyathera had never served under him before. They had not spoken since the ship departed three weeks earlier. Everyone knew their role. Captain Derek owned the mission. He made sure to be seen. To be heard.
His steps carried them into the jungle in a western direction away from the water. Nyathera thought he was heading for one of the elevations they had seen from orbit. Even though the load was heavy, she could enjoy feeling how her body was pulled toward the ground for the first time in three weeks. She had never adapted well to weightlessness.
Their march proceeded in the same way for half an hour. Ahead, she could see the flag bobbing up and down while Captain Derek walked proudly with high knees and chest thrust forward, the sun glinting in the gold helmet with its silvery visor.
Ursula looked around alternately to the right and left. Sometimes she cast a glance back to see how far they had come. It was no longer possible to see the shore because of all the vegetation. Thus, it was hardly more than a wild guess that they had made it half a mile through the jungle when Derek suddenly stopped. Ursula stopped and corrected her distance so as not to violate the rule of the superior’s free zone during march. Nyathera did the same. The rules were clear: as colorless, she must keep twice the distance to the nearest superior.
Captain Derek looked up into the treetops swaying in the wind. A rustling sound. Somewhere to his right, a stone struck the ground. He let go of the flagpole with one hand. Picked up the stone. Smooth. Round. He turned it. A hole ran through it, wide as a thumb.
Not natural.
Someone had made it.
Someone had thrown it.
That meant—
A hail of stones fell.
One struck his helmet at the forehead. It drove him backward. Another hit his chest. Another shattered his silvery visor. Another shattered his kneecap. Another broke his left arm. The flag fell into the dirt. Then Captain Derek fell. Everything was broken. Everything was crushed. Covered all over in crimson blood.
Ursula had no time to think before the stones came for her. She raised the photon rifle and fired wildly in all directions—more to quiet her panic than to strike a target.
Nyathera screamed. She had never heard a photon rifle before. The blasts were deafening and swallowing her shrill voice. Ursula saw movement. Gray shapes in the treetops. She aimed. One leaned forward. Sunlight struck its face. A man—almost. No hair on the face. Bald head. Where ears should be, only narrow openings. A wide mouth filled with small, sharp teeth. Large red eyes. Some dark as embers. Others pale, almost pink.
Ursula fired.
The figure fell. Its neck snapped. A hole the size of a fist gaped through its stomach. A stone struck the rifle and Ursula dropped it. She bent down to pick it up when several stones struck her silver helmet at the back of the neck. She fell forward.
More stones followed.
They broke her shoulders. Her legs. Her back. Her whimpering quickly dwindled.
Nyathera was frozen. In front of her lay the only ones who knew how to pilot the ship. A stone hit the ground a few steps in front of her.
She cried out. Turned. Ran.
She stumbled on a root and fell down flat.
The stones came down on her. She lay on her stomach. The backpack took the blows. When she tried to rise, another stone drove into it, forcing her down.
She curled up.
Drew in her arms.
Made herself as small as possible.
A memory came to her—an animal from Earth. A turtle.
She had become like one.
A beige turtle with its head drawn in.
The stones now fell more densely and bounced off the backpack. One managed to scrape the top of the helmet and another scraped open her right arm. After a while, however, the stones stopped falling. Nyathera could hear her pulse beating very loudly and quickly. Despite that, she could also distinguish another sound. A sound of footsteps and whispers. She realized they came from all directions and were approaching. Would she dare to look up?
She stuck out her head with the beige helmet and the clear glass visor. In front of her crouched about ten men. Their red eyes stared at her with a surprised expression. Their mouths were closed and bore a serious look. Their arms were crossed.
Nyathera crawled out from the backpack, which had been her fortress, and she lifted herself first onto her knees and then standing in front of the ten gray men. Her visor had gotten cracks and was dirty. She removed her helmet. The gray men gaped with large mouths in surprise. They clasped their hands as in prayer and began to chant one and the same word. “Poquvqa! Poquvqa! Poquvqa!”
In front of the gray men stood a vibrant and colorful lady. She was what the village elders had spoken of. A woman with long red hair and skin like limestone. Her eyes were as if made of amber. Her name was Poquvqa. The one who would return from exile and whose return would bring with it a renewed power for the gray people.
Nyathera stood as if petrified as the gray men surrounded her and lifted her up, so she sat on the shoulders of two men. Without interruption, the chanting continued: “Poquvqa! Poquvqa! Poquvqa!”
The congregation marched past Ursula and her crushed silver helmet and it also paraded past the proud Captain Derek in his fine gold helmet. A bit ahead, the vegetation gave way to a large clearing. Houses of stone with thatched roofs spread out. A crowd of gray men, gray women, and short gray children formed a sea around Nyathera, and the chanting was now deafening: “Poquvqa! Poquvqa! Poquvqa!”
At last, the chanting died out and Nyathera was now set down on the ground. Around her she was now given distance in a wide ring. Through the sea of people, a passage now opened and forward came the village elder of the gray men. He walked with a long staff and took some time to reach all the way forward to Nyathera at his slow pace. The village elder had the staff in his left hand. In his right hand he carried a dagger of lava stone, that which on Earth used to be called obsidian. Nyathera saw the dagger and thought that she should be afraid, but the face of the village elder was anything but threatening. He appeared as a person who beheld an old friend.
The elder came forward and handed the staff to the care of a villager. He grasped her hand and with a quick motion cut open a large gash in her palm. He then cut open his own palm and then pressed the bleeding hands together. His blood was of a lighter shade of red.
Nyathera felt a warmth in the hand where the blood met. It spread through the veins in her arm up through her chest and neck and then the warmth was in her head. She had spasms and shook through her whole body, but the village elder held her hand tightly in his and let the blood flow. She had closed eyes, but in her mind, she could now see visions. Again the chanting arose: “Poquvqa! Poquvqa! Poquvqa!”
Her heart raced and she breathed lightly and strained. She saw visions of a people’s history, its village, its thousand-year unbroken line of rulers from the same dynasty. She felt and knew and understood a language. Her spasms increased in strength now. She felt that she understood and knew every word and phrase. Every idea and memory she knew and was convinced of. She also saw and understood something entirely new: herself. She was Nyathera – but she was now also something more, something entirely different. She was not a stranger. She was the one who had returned. The one who would bring a golden age back to her people. She was Poquvqa!