Class 0 Planetarium: The Rock
“We have a rock, inbound,” Trank yells. His tinnitus must be kicking it. It’s from his soldiering days.
“A rock?” Dr. Bella Gunderson asks after several moments when no one else seems to care.
“A rock,” Trank replies with a nod of finality.
“You’re sure it isn’t a Placa?” Dr. Bella Gunderson asks playfully. Trank gives an irritated scowl in response.
Placa is a military term for the enemy. No different than the Hajji or Charlie. Placa. In the twisted vein of military humor though, Placa derived from the Andromedans’ (self-identifying as Slethcs) term for humans. Human tongues cannot quite form the true word of Placa, a mix of “Plaka”, “Plasha”, and “Plucka”. A mumbled garble that Trank says brings a variety of pronunciations across different combat units. It’s one of the reasons military personnel like the term. Though the Placa may not be the humans nor the Slethcs (another trilogy of sounds), they are the enemy. Different only in pronunciation. Trank has killed many a Placa, by any definition.
It was the way Dr. Bella Gunderson has yet to be anything less than pleased, that has bothered him.
As the crew’s psychiatrist, anthropologist, linguist, and archaeologist, Dr. Bella Gunderson is often odd to the rest of them, some even consider her the least of them, yet, still.
Dr. Bella Gunderson stands tall and lithe, hair in the changing colors of sandy-blond to red-dwarf red in the current fashion of the day. She is a well respected author of philosophy with a PhD in AI cultural studies and the long term effects of birth without a soul. Her crew specialties are in AI, software, and Quantum Mechanics. She is also the primary pilot of the crew.
Dr. Bella Gunderson is on this mission to gather data on the initial probes that were sent out to inspect the planet they stand on. She’s constructing a PeD thesis on AI and the Long Term Effects of Birth Without a Soul with Unilaterally Assigned Purpose Preceding Death Post Operation and how that is impacted by termination shortly after meeting other AI for the first time. This mission provided a rare circumstance to converse with three AI with unilateral purposes who were alone in the dead of space for five decades who all came to inconclusive readings and uncertain conclusions. Certainly fifty years alone with one mission in life and an inability to comprehend anything pertaining to that mission would prove interesting to The Board.
“Time to impact, ten minutes. We need to leave.” Trank stands, his white suit stained with purple-red cubic specks of sand.
“But my readings!” Sharon cries out, “They’re still coming in and they contrast my initial findings, some are better than I could have hoped while others spell disaster to my hypothesis!”
“I’ll warm the engines,” Trank yells and stands, but he hesitates. The most imperceptible of whimpers is released from his lips as his body comes to an ache with painful needles stab along his spine. It’s from his soldiering days. He boards the SALEEM.
His next words are furious rage.
Class 0 Planetarium: The Rock Pt. 3
Class 0 Planetarium: Landfall Pt. 2
https://theprose.com/post/798520/class-zero-planetarium-landfall
Class 0 Planetarium: Pt. 1