Genesis of Meteors

By Stephen C Norton

Jodi begins her hunt for the Queens, intent on destroying them. Fate intervenes when the space station she's exploring is destroyed by alien nuclear missiles. Now she's adrift in space and time, hundreds of light years and thousands of years away from help. Badly hurt, her memory near-obliterated, she no longer remembers who she is, let alone what her goal was. And the Queens must still be stopped, before they destroy any more civilizations.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Stephen C Norton
• Release date: Jul 23, 2023
• ISBN: 9781927343869

Stephen C Norton

Stephen started his career as a marine biologist, later switched to managing computer support and development teams, and is now a full time author and artist. He lives on the West Coast of Canada with his wife and one crazy cat. He has sixteen books currently available in both paperback and e-book formats, including four novels, two guides on Soapstone Carving, one on Stained Glass Art, and multiple guides to various self-publishing topics. While currently working on a forth novel he has at least five other books planned for the next few years. An artist for most of his life, he's worked in many mediums, from oil painting to blown glass. For the last 20 years he's focused on carving soapstone sculptures and writing.He can be reached via his web site at www.stephencnorton.comTo purchase any of his books please go to his author pages atwww.amazon.com/author/stephencnorton on Amazon and www.smashwords.com/profile/view/northwind on Smashwords. His books are also available on Apple iBooks, Barnes & Noble, Kobo and other resellers.

Book preview

Prologue

Light blossomed behind her. Thank God I'm in space, she thought, no shockwave.

And then something solid smashed into her back, snapping her neck and shattering her spine in a dozen places. She was already dead when her body smashed into the curved wall of the space station and bounced off at an oblique angle. That impact pulverized the rest of her skeleton and turned her internal organs to pulped jelly. Her shattered carcass headed off into deep space at high velocity.

Two more nuclear -tipped missiles hammered into what little remained of SB1. By the time the multiple balls of nuclear hell had dissipated into space, nothing remained of SB1 except a billowing cloud of radioactive dust.

Part I

Survival Memories

Entering the system

If anyone had happened to have a telescope aimed at that spot in space, far beyond this systems equivalent of the Terran Kuiper Belt, they would have seen a very odd spatial anomaly. Against the star-studded black of interstellar space, something akin to a soap bubble faded into view. While it would have appeared small to the observer, especially when measured against the immensity of space, in human terms it was quite large. Ellipsoid in shape, but nearly four kilometers long and one point five kilometers wide, all the colors of the rainbow rippled faintly across its surface as it appeared. Then, having appeared, it promptly vanished, as if someone had flipped a switch. But where the bubble had been, was now a ship, slightly more than two kilometers long and more than a half kilometer wide. Where the bubble had been multicolored, the ship at first appeared to be a rather muted, silvery metallic black. Then, like the bubble appearing, the ship faded from view. Perhaps a very observant viewer would have noticed the occasional star being occluded as the ship passed between the observer and the star. Perhaps not.

However, there was no one there observing, and so the intruder quietly slipped into the solar system and headed towards the sun. No one saw. No one knew.

In Petra, refueling

Catherine watched the monitors as the two huge refueling drones dropped away from the ship's belly. Plunging down towards the monstrous gas giant below, they hit the wisps of upper atmosphere and began deploying the gas collection vortex funnels. Trailing behind the drones on cables made of nanotubes, the vortex funnels dropped another two hundred kilometers into the thicker atmosphere below. Once they reached an atmosphere dense enough to make the effort worthwhile, the vortex funnels spread open like many-petaled flowers. The flower petals energized, deploying a huge electromagnetic field, much like a Bussard ramjet field. The field, acting like an enormous, three hundred kilometer wide funnel, channeled the gases back to a pinch-point. There, instead of igniting the gases as a ramjet would, it filtered them, passing the collected hydrogen back up the pipes attached to the cables to the massive drone now several hundred kilometers above. Within the drone the gas flowed into a device which converted the gaseous hydrogen into a unique crystallized form and stored it in high density crystalline hydrogen units, or HDCHs. They had been invented over a hundred years earlier, by the Catherine Rhys from Jodi's original dimension. Once the cargo bay of the vortex drone was full of HDCH units, the drone would disconnect from the funnel and return to the main ship, disgorging the HDCH units into Petra's massive fuel storage bays. Simultaneously, the second drone would sweep into the atmosphere and connect to the slowly falling funnel to repeat the cycle.

Too bad you couldn't do all this yourself Petra. It would certainly save a lot of time. Catherine commented, bored with the repetition as the now empty drone dropped back down to the gas giant to repeat the cycle and harvest another load of hydrogen. You could just skim down into the atmosphere and collect the gases directly. None of this messing around with drones.

You know why I don't, Catherine. Petra replied rather tartly. She'd had this conversation before and was tired of it. I'm two kilometers long. If I dove into the planet's atmosphere the gravitational forces would, at the very least, warp my entire structure. At the worst, it could tear me apart and then where would you be? Drifting around in space all by your lonesome little self. Anyway, the speed of skimming through the atmosphere like that would rip all the projecting antennae and sensors away from my hull. Then we’d both be blind and deaf. Be patient. We'll be here for no more than a week. That will give us enough fuel to last a year, if not longer. And once we're full of hydrogen for me to eat, I'll reconfigure the drones to collect hydrocarbons, so you and Jodi will have something to eat for that year or so. Unless of course, you'd prefer to skip that phase and hare off sight-seeing?

There was a pause, a silence that Catherine refused to acknowledge.

You lost the coin toss to Jodi, not me. Now just accept the fact that you're here watching me re-fuel, while Jodi is running around the system in SB1, having fun poking her nose into things and exploring. Next time we need to resupply, I suggest you take SB1 and avoid indulging in games of chance with Jodi. You know she usually wins. I still don't know how she does it so consistently, but I do know she doesn't cheat. I guess she's just lucky.

Yeah, Catherine replied, slightly annoyed. She's always been damn lucky."

Nuking SB1

Jodi floated sedately out of SB1's airlock and aimed herself towards the alien space station she’d discovered. She'd only gone a few meters when the first missile exploded on the far side of SB1. The glare of light behind her reflected on the edges of her helmet. From the corner of her eye she caught a momentary glimpse of SB1 silhouetted against the expanding sphere of a nuclear detonation in the vacuum of space. The missile must have hit SB1 squarely amidships, she thought, as her spaceplane disappeared in the ball of blinding light. The electromagnetic pulse hit her as she tried to flee. Tried to use the thrusters to flee from the blast. She knew it was a completely wasted effort. She simply couldn't move fast enough with just her backpack thrusters. But she tried anyway.

She spun slowly away from the blast.

Thank God I'm in space, she thought. No shockwave.

A creeping numbness caused by the EMP was already removing all feeling from her body. Probably just as well, she thought, as a second blast erupted behind her, the blinding light filling her helmet. That was her last thought.

A piece of debris from SB1's destruction smashed into her back, ripping her helmet from her head, shattering four vertebrae, severing her spinal column and sending her spinning. For Jodi, the world went black. Her inner suit hood automatically deployed, rolling down over her face, sealing her off from the vacuum. Attempting to protect her from the loss of the helmet. The force of the blow imparted a tremendous momentum to both her helmet and her now lifeless body. The helmet smashed into the wall of the space station and embedded itself in the metal structure. Her body hit the space station at more of an angle. Her neck already broken, the impact with the space station did even more damage. She hit with a bone breaking force which shattered most of the rest of her bones and pulverized her internal organs. What was left of her body bounced off the station wall at an oblique angle, heading away from both the ruined alien space station and the nuclear ball of fire that had been her beloved SB1 spaceplane only moments earlier. Broken and battered, her lifeless body careened away, heading into the empty space between the planets. Shattered ribs and vertebrae, crushed hipbones, cracked and splintered arms and legs, pulverized internals. A ruined, lifeless ragdoll.

The expanding cloud of energy, gas and superheated debris from SB1 swept over her, changing her trajectory once more and driving her body further out into the darkness of space. Behind her, a third missile exploded where SB1 had once been, vaporizing any particles which may have survived the first two blasts. The multiple blast waves smashed into the shell of the space station, melting much of the surface, including Jodi's shattered spacesuit helmet where it had come to rest embedded in the station wall. Now it instantly became a melted nub of foreign material, solidly fused into the virtually obliterated station structure. By then Jodi's body was already far way, racing away on the momentum imparted by the three closely spaced blast waves and the collision with the space station. Jodi was dead. Of SB1, nothing remained but radioactive dust and a few miniscule pieces of shattered hull.

After the blast

I swam up out of the dark. Looked around. Nothing made sense. Surrounded by darkness. Were my eyes still closed? No, I could see small specks of light, like stars in a night sky.

They are stars, Jodi, a voice said in my head. Take it easy now, we’ve just experienced a profound physical shock. We’re in space, in your spacesuit. You will probably have trouble understanding this, or even remembering how we got here, as I’m almost certain that your memory has been affected. But don’t worry. We will survive this.

We’re in space? I grabbed on to the one thing I partially understood. But how are we going to survive? You say I'm having trouble with my memory right now, but I still know I need food, oxygen, water, to survive.

Actually Jodi, you don't. Yes, you eat, and yes, you breathe air and utilize oxygen, but your body is made of nanites, not human cells. You don't really need food or air any more. All you need is a source of power. On a planet, or on the ship, you’d eat food and breathe air. The food and air would be broken down to provide that power. Here in space, well, sunlight will provide all the power we need for survival. If we were a lot further out from the sun then yes, we’d be in a bit more trouble, but we’re not, so we're okay. Especially if we spend most of our time in sleep mode.

Sleep mode. You mean like my computer goes into sleep mode instead of shutting down?

"Er, yes, I suppose. Functionally equivalent while being totally different, but yes, like your computer.

I’ve already adapted your suit to utilize solar radiation to provide power. I've also adapted your bodily nanite functions to make use of that power directly, rather than having to break down food and air to produce that energy. Your structure is made of nanites, just as my AIC structure is, and we can survive for a very long time on very little energy. Don't worry, we'll be fine."

So if we’re both made of these nanites, how come I’m badly damaged but you’re not?

My systems are hardened against radiation damage, the voice continued quietly in my head, "so I survived the nuclear blast and electro-magnetic pulse it produced relatively unscathed. After all, I am designed to exist for long periods of time in deep space. My core design incorporates multiple error-checking and redundancy.

You on the other hand... Well, I never expected you to end up in the middle of a nuclear blast. Nor did the Creators when they envisioned a body made entirely of nanites. I'm quite sure we have all your memories, but they're fragmented and scattered throughout your body and brain, so we will have to spend some time rebuilding them, reconnecting the broken pieces. You will recover them all in time, I'm quite certain of that, but it is going to take a while. In the meantime, I am going to harden all the nanites in your body against any such re-occurrence of nuclear attack or EMP radiation. Then, once your memories are properly recovered, I believe we will add some multiple redundancy to you as well, along with advanced error-checking and some backup storage. I do not want this to happen to you again."

No, I muttered, deeply confused and still struggling to take in both my possible death, my survival, and a complete lack of memory. It didn’t help at all that I was having a conversation with a voice in my head. I wasn’t sure if the voice was someone else, or just a random piece of my own broken mind. I'd prefer not go through another nuclear blast myself. It felt distinctly like dying.

Oh well, the voice replied, rather casually, you've actually done that at least twice before. A third time, well, you should be getting used to the experience by now.

What? I've died before?

Yes. Twice now. Once when I converted you, a second time when the Queen rammed her main tentacle through your heart. Actually three times, if you want to count your doppelgänger and the bear. Oh, don't worry. Those memories will definitely come back to you. It's utterly impossible for this body to forget enduring that much pain. The cells remember quite vividly. It will come back to you. All your memories, pain and all. Now go back to sleep.

And before I had the chance to demand to know who or what the hell he was, as if he’d turned a light switch, the universe went away.

~~~~~

An endless age later I regained consciousness. Found myself floating in space. Cold, dark, alone. I struggled to move, flailing around at the emptiness that surrounded me.

Voice?

What an idiot, I thought. I realized I was actually casting around in empty space, looking for Voice, the artificial intelligence component, the AIC, who lives inside my head.

Here Jodi, he answered me. Glad to see you're finally awake again. I've been working on addressing your physical injuries and re-initializing the nanites. A large number of them were shut down by the EMP pulse.

EMP?

Suddenly it came back to me. Hanging in space between SB1 and the alien space station. Seeing a flash of light out of the corner of my eye as the first missile streaked towards us. I remembered it hitting SB1 amidships, remembered the huge ball of light and fire, strangely silent in the vacuum of space. Watching my spaceship shatter into a million broken pieces. Pieces thrown violently in all directions, black shards against the growing fireball. Felt something impact on my arm, setting me spinning. Then a second explosion, outlining the broken remains of SB1 like a crucifix. Felt another impact as something smashing into the back of my helmet. Experienced again the eerie feeling of hearing my own neck snap, watching as my vison tunneled in from the sides and then the darkness descending on me.

My neck broke, didn't it, Voice? I asked.

Yes. And then you hit the space station, which literally broke every bone in your body and pulverized every organ too. I've been working on physical repairs since I came back online.

How long?

A few months so far, Voice replied with a sigh. After I made initial repairs to you, enough so you’d live, I shut down myself for a while, making my own repairs.

I struggled to move then, to look around.

Voice, suddenly scared, I can't move my legs.

No, you can't. Your hips and legs were utterly shattered when you hit the space station. I've been working on your head, neck and chest as the priority areas. I figured it would be a while before you needed legs to move around with, so I left them until last. Don't struggle. Just relax. I'll keep working, but it is going to take time. The nanites themselves were damaged quite severely by the blasts and radiation, so it’s taking longer than I’d anticipated to get them into self-repair mode. But don’t worry, things will get better.

I forced myself to stop struggling, tried to force myself to relax. Thought about what had happened.

The three nuclear explosions must've vaporized SB1 entirely. There is no atmosphere in space of course, so no damaging pressure wave from the blast, but the cloud of gas and debris, expanding out from the center of the blast would have acted very much like one. It must've picked me up and thrown me around like a cork in the middle of a hurricane. Thrown me towards the space station I'd been heading for, but obviously I'd only hit it a glancing blow. Just as well I thought. Hitting it straight on would definitely have killed me. I looked around again. I was rotating slowly. There was nothing in sight in any direction. No ship, no station, no debris, no planets. The immensity of open space hit me like another blast wave. I was floating free in deep space. Totally alone. Derelict. Dead woman drifting, I thought. Just hasn’t realized she's dead yet.

Don't be so melodramatic, Voice chided. You are composed of nanites. That makes you extremely hard to kill. A direct hit from another nuclear tipped missile might do it of course, but otherwise you'll be okay. Now, this will tingle a bit. I'm going to restructure your eye into a telescope so we can take a better look around.

We tumbled gently through space. My left eye twitched, then began to itch maddeningly, followed by a sharp pain, like someone sticking a needle into my tear duct. Then everything returned to normal. I closed my right eye, focused on my left. It was just like looking through a high-resolution telescope. I studied the view as I rotated. Empty space. A background of distant stars. Empty, empty, empty. A faint light flared briefly in my view, and I finally remembered I could use the thrusters in my backpack to stop the tumble. Focused on the minute shard of distant light.

I think that might be the space station said Voice. Hmm, no, probably not. It looks to be at least several hundred thousand kilometers away, which probably makes it more likely that’s a planet. Either we're moving like a bullet train or we've been off-line for a bit longer than I thought. Keep looking around. See if there's anything else.

So, can we head back towards the station, if we can find it? That's obviously where Cat will start looking for us.

If we're going as fast as I now suspect, then no. We would exhaust all the thruster fuel long before we slowed down. Never mind about getting back.

He projected a rough map onto my right eye. It was the system as Petra had surveyed it when we'd first arrived.

The station was near the orbit of the fourth planet, though the planet itself is currently on the far side of the Sun. I think we're heading in towards the orbit of the third planet. It might be our best bet to continue on. Quite possibly that’s our only workable option. We should be able to align ourselves with the planet and possibly achieve orbit. Figure out our next steps from there.

I'm in a spacesuit, Voice. A fancy leotard with some outer body armor. I've got four HDCOs of oxygen for me and four HDCHs of hydrogen for the thrusters. You're suggesting we make an interplanetary trip in a spacesuit?

Yes. Voice didn't sound at all perturbed at the concept. "We'll implement a modified Hohmann transfer orbit. Use the thrusters to adjust our heading towards the orbit of the third planet, and then we'll shut down again for however long the trip takes. Conserve energy and resources. Once there, we’ll match the planet’s orbit and wait for it to catch up to us.

I've modified the surface of the armor. It now acts as a solar energy collector panel and storage cell. I've modified your body nanites to use that for energy in place of food. I've also modified some of your cells to convert carbon dioxide back into oxygen. In shutdown mode that should be all we will need to survive however many months this trip is going to take."

Months? I'm going to be spending months in my spacesuit, drifting through space?

Yes. Voice replied, we've already been in space for several months, so there'll be no issue with going a few more. But you'll be off-line, so you won't really have a chance to go get bored. Say good night now. I'll wake you again when we arrive.

And then the bastard turned me off! Again! My world went dark. I dreamed. Or at least I think I dreamed. I remember dreaming but have no clue as to what I was dreaming. The next thing I knew I was waking up to see Mars hanging overhead.

~~~~~

An annoying voice penetrated the darkness of my mind.

Jodi, are you awake?

What? Who? Jodi? Oh, yes, that's right, I'm Jodi. Yes, yes, I'm awake.

I thought I was awake, but my mind was very blurry and confused. Who is Jodi indeed, and where have I been all this time. I suppose I could ask.

Voice, how long have we been in transit? Since the space station explosion, I mean.

Approximately thirty-seven and a half months, Voice replied.

What? I almost screamed. In near panic I curled up into a ball, and found I couldn't.

Please don't try to move Jodi. We need to hold this posture.

What? I said again, totally confused now, and getting really tired of the feeling. We're in open space. What possible difference can it make what posture I hold as we tumble blindly through space. Blindly, endlessly… Hey, why aren't I dead already?

I focused on questions. Questions were much better than the panic I could feel threatening to overwhelm me.

You're composed entirely of nanites, Jodi. Voice almost sighed. Remember I told you how very difficult it is for a nanite being to die. And to answer your other question, I need you to maintain your current posture so I can take continuous readings on the planet we are approaching. I'm hoping we can nudge ourselves into a re-entry orbit. And as you probably noticed by now, we are neither tumbling, nor are we blind. And as the planet is approaching quite quickly, it will definitely not be an endless journey. One way or the other.

I looked around, or, again, tried to. My eyes moved, but my head didn't. I felt my body, trying to discern exactly what my posture was. Arms, spread-eagled. Legs, also spread-eagled. Da Vinci's Vitruvian Man posture.

Voice, why am I spread out like this? My curiosity was replacing the panic.

I created some optical sensors in your hands and feet, Voice replied, rather nonchalantly. I need data on the approaching planet, and by spreading your body out like this I can get much better parallax measurements than by using just your eyes.

You put optical sensors in my hands and feet, I echoed. I thought about that statement for a bit. You put eyes in my hands and feet? Stunned, outraged, amused. I wasn't quite sure how I felt. Voice had used the nanite capability and built eyes, optical sensors indeed, into my hands and feet.

Why didn't you just sling them further out on the end of very long poles while you were at it? You'd get even better parallax that way.

Well, I did have them that way for much of our journey, Voice replied quite calmly. But I thought you would find having thirty foot arms and legs just a little bit too weird when you woke, so I brought them back to their normal length. Most of the really delicate measurements have already been made anyway. We should be fine with what we've got now.

I opened my mouth to snarl something vile at him, then closed it without saying anything. After all, I thought, what can I say? We needed the measurements.

Exactly what planet are we approaching? I thought I managed to make my tone of voice sound quite reasonable and composed.

The third planet, Voice answered. The blast threw us away from the station. I managed to adjust our velocity and direction so we fell towards the third planet's solar orbit, rather than away into deep space. We are currently in that orbit around the sun, and the third planet is slowly catching up to us from behind. If all goes well, I think I'll be able to guide us into a relatively clean orbit for a controlled reentry. We'll know for sure in another couple of months.

More than thirty-seven months. Oh God, have you seen any sign of Petra? Oh, scratch that. I guess we wouldn't still be here if Cat and Petra had found us.

On the positive side, Voice said, You’ve just remembered Catherine and Petra, which is excellent. But to answer your question, I haven't seen any sign of other nuclear explosions, so I'd guess they managed to avoid our fate, which means they're probably okay. Sadly, on the negative side, I would also guess that they've given us up for dead, destroyed in that series of nuclear blasts. In which case they have most likely moved on with the original mission to backtrack the Queens."

Well, I responded, trying to suppress the anguish that statement generated, in that case I guess we'll just have to catch up to them again, somewhere along the way.

Ah Jodi, Voice replied rather dryly. I do love your boundless optimism. Now, we're about to begin our approach to the planet. Do you feel up to handling the thrusters or would you rather I dealt with them?

I fumbled through my mind and body, trying to perform a serious assessment of my current capabilities.

No, I replied at last, I think you'd better deal with it. The way my mind is fading in and out I'm not sure I'm reliable enough. And we're only going to get one chance at this, aren't we.

Yes. I'm afraid so. Okay. You relax. I have control.

I relaxed, let my muscles go slack. I felt Voice slip through my mind. Felt my hands flex on the backpack thruster controls as Voice took possession of my muscles. I forced myself not to fight against him.

Excellent, Voice commented. I have control. Beginning orbital insertion burn now.

The thrusters whispered softly in my ears, half sound and half vibration through my body. I felt my body re-orient, lining up on the edge of the planetary sphere we were approaching. It did resemble Mars to a remarkable degree. Patterned dusty brown, red and darker red, with small white patches at the poles. Oh good, I thought, we’re heading for a dead planet.

The plan was simple. Enter orbit. Slow down, enter atmosphere. Hope to God Voice could do it precisely enough that we didn't burn up on re-entry. The odds of surviving atmospheric re-entry in only a space suit were slim to none. The odds of survival if we didn't actually try this, well, we'd be hanging in orbit for the next few centuries.

Entering orbit, Voice spoke.

I felt my head turn from side to side. Felt my eyes focusing, refocusing. It felt extremely odd and I fought against reacting against Voice’s actions.

Jodi. Voice's tone was urgent. That looks like a satellite in orbit. I'm going to try and intercept it.

I heard / felt the thrusters whisper again, then blare, whisper, blare, whisper. Felt myself spinning into a new trajectory, knew that Voice had just committed us both to an irrevocable do or die action. Whisper, blare, whisper, blare, blare, blare, blare, then silence. I felt my boots smack into something, hard. Felt the mag-locks kick in. We bounced, and I felt my legs stretch out as we tried to rebound away from the satellite. The mag-locks on my boots held us in place, though I’m sure my legs stretched a bit. The thrusters blared again for a second, countering the bounce. The boots held. Silence again.

Huh. Voice muttered. We're down. We made it.

You sound surprised, I commented dryly.

Yes. Well. I have to admit, I am a little surprised. I wasn't really sure I could do that.

Well, I'm sure glad you kept that fact to yourself. But we're here, so congratulations. Now what?

Now we investigate our new home. See what we can use.

Half an hour passed as we moved carefully around the satellite. Voice had given me back control of my body and I was enjoying stretching my muscles.

Jodi, please place your hand on that oblong box there. Stand here, but don't move your hand. I'm going to send out some nanite exploratory units.

Time passed. I studied what I could see of the planet below. It still bore a very strong resemblance to Mars. Reddish, dune colored. A possible fleck of blue reflecting sunlight. Water perhaps. Well, that sounded a bit more hopeful. Mars hadn’t had any free standing water until after Taylor had started his terraforming operation, back on Earth Prime. But I could only see one or two flecks of blue across the entire half of the sphere that I could see. If that was indeed water down there, there wasn't a hell of a lot of it.

Well, that's interesting, Voice said. It appears this is one of a myriad of satellites orbiting this planet. It's fairly primitive. It has a line of sight laser communications array. Very basic command language structure, nothing that I can use to access any of the other satellites. Not nearly enough bandwidth. I was hoping to send a sub-program over to a few of the other satellites, get them to cluster up on us, give us more resources. There's just not enough of a command language to allow that. Guess we’ll just have to work with what we have here.

~~~~~

The more Voice’s work on our re-entry module advanced, the less and less I liked it. It was beginning to bear a very strong resemblance to an ancient Egyptian sarcophagus. Very coffin shaped.

Where's the heatshield? I asked.

It's coming, Voice replied, just a little testily. You do remember I'm coming with you, don't you. It's not like I'm building this thing just for you while I'm planning on staying up here.

Yes, I do remember that. It's just it looks a lot like a coffin, which isn't doing wonders for my peace of mind, I retorted.

Hmm. Now that you mention it, it does rather, doesn't it? Ah, well, don't worry. Once the heatshield is in place it will look more like an egg.

A week later I climbed into my ‘egg’, sealed the access ports and lay back in the inner ‘sarcophagus’. Felt Voice initiate the de-orbit burn using our thrusters, now attached to the outside of the egg. Felt the egg begin its long fall towards the planet.

Soon after, I began to hear a faint whistle, as we began entering the upper atmosphere. The whistle slowly increased in pitch, rose to a scream and then descended in tone to a deep throated rumble. The whole assembly began to vibrate.

Is it getting warmer in here?

No, Jody, it's not getting warmer. Voice responded tartly.

I guess I had asked the question a little more adamantly than I'd intended. In fact, I’d thought I had simply thought it to myself, rather than asked it.

It's just your overly active imagination. The heatshield is working perfectly. The temperature in here is exactly the same as when we started.

Well, excuse me for my concern. I've never experienced atmospheric re-entry before, at least not without a ship around me. At least, not as far as I remember, and I think I’d remember that.

You haven’t. I have. So it should ease your concern to know that the shell encasing us right now uses exactly the same technology as the shell that surrounded me when I first entered Earth atmosphere and landed at your campsite.

It melted. I pointed out.

Only the outermost layer, exactly as it was designed to do. Now, please, just relax. Nothing is going to go wrong.

Long moments passed. The vibration turned to a shuddering, then slowly faded away.

Re-entry speed is dropping, Voice reported after a few minutes. I'm deploying the ‘chute now.

There was a mild thump, followed shortly by a second, much larger thump. I assumed that was the main ‘chute deploying. The egg began swaying from side to side.

Main ‘chute deployed successfully, Voice confirmed my thought. We are at ten thousand meters and descending, well within expected parameters.

More very long minutes past.

Approaching touchdown. Brace for impact.

That warning was followed almost immediately by yet another horrendous thump. The egg abruptly stopped falling, and instead rolled over on its side and settled. It came to rest at a slight angle, which left me lying almost comfortably on my back.

We’re down, Voice said. The shell is still extremely hot from the re-entry friction, so you might as well relax. We're not going to be going anywhere for a while.

Surprisingly, I promptly fell asleep

~~~~~

I woke some unknown time later, crawled out of the egg and staggered to my feet to stand under an open sky an odd shade of blue. Blue, but with a purplish tinge to it. Not a single cloud in the sky. Endless sand dunes stretching out