Surveyor Sigma

When the Rendall Corporation asked me to survey Castion 9, I jumped at the chance. Having colonized the first habitable exoplanet in the 2550s they immediately began funneling massive amounts of money into finding more. Now almost three hundred years later Rendall has holdings in at least twelve systems with various warring factions fighting over the ones Rendall deemed “unprofitable”.

Being a surveyor was where the money was at, and I had the qualifications. Two degrees in xenobiology, four years with a Rendall Special Security Force as their medic and a Doctorate in Mechanical Engineering. But, Surveyor was a coveted position, with openings usually only popping up when a current Surveyor died or retired, the former happening much more often than the latter. Which is how I got my turn.

You see, I would be the second Surveyor to Castion 9. I was replacing the one before me. All I was told was that “Surveyor Sigma suffered a catastrophic ship wide system failure upon entry to Castion 9’s atmosphere” and “Congratulations, you have been chosen as the new Surveyor Sigma.”

“Not how I wanted it to go but it's to be expected.” I said to myself as I read the notification. “I'd really hate to be the ass end of one of these letters”

I shook the thought from my head and immediately started packing.

24 hours later I was on the planet Kirn, home of the Surveyors. It was like nothing I'd seen before. I fully expected it to be like every other Rendall owned planet, globe covering mega cities choking out every last ounce of profit that it could. Kirn had grass. I had never seen grass in person, not real grass. I must have looked like a child as I stepped out of the back of the surface transport and on to the tarmac. My head and body spun wildly, trying to take in everything. Outside of the shield-dome, about a hundred meters to the west I could see massive mega fauna at least 50 meters tall. They resembled Sauropods from Earth's ancient history but they had evolved MUCH larger in Kirn’s lighter gravity. They seemed docile enough and kept a healthy distance from the shield-dome.

“Are you going to twirl around like an idiot all day rookie?” The gruff voice caught me by surprise and I snapped to attention. Standing in front of me was a dark skinned man, maybe in his fifties. Clinging to his body was the unmistakable blue and chrome Surveyor ESX exoskeleton. “You'll get to see plenty of this.” He gestured around loosely. “When you start going off-world.”

“Sorry sir! I-” He cut me off.

“Do NOT call me sir. We are equals here. I'm Atlas. There are 15 of us, including you. You'll meet the rest of the crew in time. There's never too many of us in one place. And you're the new Sigma.” We were only supposed to use our designations, no real names.

“Yes si-. Yes, I'm the new Sigma.” I held out my hand. He gave a firm handshake; had the grip of someone twenty years younger.

“Welcome aboard.”

The next few weeks were a flash. I got a quick onboarding. I learned that Rendall basically left Kirn and the Surveyors alone, as long as we kept feeding them credible data. That's when I also learned, we didn't just survey planets, we looked for them. The Bunker-our base on Kirn-was equipped with state-of-the-art system scanning tech. Pick a start out of the night sky and in seconds you'd know about everything within that star's heliosphere. Planets, moons, their compositions, the presence of liquid water, everything. If you found a prospect you would send the data to Rendall and they would either approve or deny a ground mission. We got naming rights, within reason.

First though, I had to finish the last Sigma’s mission.

“Why'd she call it Castion 9?” I remember asking Atlas.

“Christine was married to another Surveyor, Castion, designation Omicron.”

“You used their names?”

“When one of us goes down we use their given name so they won't be forgotten.”

“So she named 9 planets after her dead husband?”

“No, that would be insane. They were together for 9 years before he didn't come back from a survey. Hopefully they're together now.”

A few more weeks of refresher courses and I was ready to head out. My mission was clear; finish the survey, get out alive. If I happened upon any Rendall property that may have survived the incident I was to tag it for retrieval. Atlas was there to see me off.

“I've got faith in you kid.” He told me. “I'll see you around.” He wasn't big on speeches.

Two weeks in hyperspace and I was on approach to Castion 9.

“Surveyor Sigma entering the Castion 9 system”. I had to make audio logs for posterity. “I'll be within the L1 point of the planet in 8 hours.” I pressed a button on the console to end the log and kicked back for an uneventful 8 hours.

Upon reaching Lagrange Point 1 I set the ship in orbit and started a detailed surface scan. From my vantage point at the helm, it was the most beautiful thing I'd ever seen. It was mostly an ocean planet, some unknown source made the water pink and there was one lonely continent, seemingly adrift in it. A rainbow of colors swimming in a sea of pink.

The scan took a couple more hours but it came up clear. Breathable atmosphere, multiple biomes, but there was no clear cause for what might have brought down Christine's ship. I pressed the button to make another log.

“Surveyor Sigma, detailed surface scan complete. No apparent geomagnetic anomalies, survivability is green across the board. Lifeform scans indicate no megafauna, thank The Creator, and in fact there doesn't seem to be much of anything down there much bigger than a person and those that are will be avoided. I'm going to prepare and get some sleep. I have a feeling I won't be getting much more come tomorrow.”

The next morning arrived quickly. I made sure everything was stowed and locked away for atmospheric entry, things were going to get bumpy and I didn't need any liabilities. Soon I was dropping through the exosphere, the ship's phase shields kept the internal and external temperatures at safe levels, everything was fine. Until it wasn't.

Right as I entered the mesosphere my ship’s radio screeched to life

“Surveyor Sigma! Come in! This is Christine! Do you copy?!”

I stared at the intercom, unsure how to process what I had just heard. “What the fuck?” Is how I managed.

“You need to begin evasive maneuvers! It already knows you're here!”

“Evasive maneuvers? What am I evading?”

And that's when I saw it. A massive…tentacle had exploded from the forest canopy below and was headed right at me, faster than I'd seen anything that big move.

“Holy shit!” I shoved the yoke to the floor barely diving under it, mere feet away from you learning my real name from some other poor bastard.

The tentacle loomed above me and through the pentaplastic canopy I could make out what it was. An intricate weave of truly massive brown and red vines, some of them thicker than the ship.

“It's a plant? It's a plant! That's how you dodged our scans, you sneaky bastard! Well that was a neat trick but I bet your turn radius is shit.”

As I anticipated, the enormous mass of vines couldn't turn and it began retreating back to the surface as quickly as it had sprang forth. What I hadn't anticipated was a second and third right behind it.

“Oh hell.” I mumbled.

My radio again. “Head to the mountains! It can't survive the cold but you won't be able to for very long either so I hope you're ready! Good luck Surveyor! Hopefully I find you well and not a frozen corpse!”

“Thanks for the words of encouragement Christine!” I screamed and dodged the second and third vines.

Two more sphincter clenching screams. Two more vines narrowly avoided. The forest below began to give away to green desert sands; the mountains in the distance seemed serene amid the current chaos.

“I'd wager a bet that you're not too fond of this place either” I mused to the creature that just tried to kill me. “Hopefully Christine has some answers. “

I set a course for the mountains, unaware of the planet sized rabbit hole I had nearly just pancaked into.