This is a long story about how four teenagers found their lives changed forever on the East Texas coast. I will update frequently.
Powers from the People 1
The crew of four awoke automatically as their ship dropped out of hyperspace. Still groggy from their suspended sleep - good, thought the captain, no emergency then - they watched as their sleeping quarters became the bridge from which they could view their target.
It was an eight-planet system, one in the Goldilocks zone, plenty of water, tectonically active. One satellite, producing helpful tidal effects. Plenty of life, but nothing intelligent - or even nearly intelligent. The planet was in an evolutionary dead-end. The targeting computer selected a landing site just to the north of the planet's equator, at the tip of one of the four or five substantial landmasses, and began to take readings for the restructuring device.
The ship's medic was pleased to see that there would not need to be too great a change. The low oxygen content of the atmosphere - 26% - posed the biggest challenge, along with the 4* gravity - this world was big - but all that it meant was that they'd need more efficient muscles to cope down there. The big predators looked like they had pretty sharp teeth, but it was standard enough procedure to toughen up their skin in that situation. Everywhere had something with pretty sharp teeth.
In their quest for new worlds the people had long ago discovered the three major rules of exploration and settlement. The first was simple: avoid contact with any intelligent alien species unless you have overwhelming numerical superiority. Even if the other species was basically trustworthy, all it took was a couple of nut jobs with weapons and you could start an interplanetary war. The second rule was also simple: alter your explorers first, and then use them to alter the environment. Terraforming was big, energy-consuming and slow. So you alter your explorers, adapting their bodies to the conditions which they found.
The third rule was the most complicated.
Don't take chances, and always have a plan b. Make sure that your explorers really are the top life-forms on the planet.
So the restructuring device gathered information, ready to do its job. The medic monitored, but did not change anything.
The pilot settled down to monitor what he hoped would be a very smooth automatic landing. He selected a flat site just to the north of a peninsula which looked like a fine location for an early city. He pointed this out to the engineer, who would have to build it, and who agreed.
The landing was flawless - all systems functioning normally. The medic set the restructuring device's transformation matrix to build - they had plenty of time - and the crew set out to explore after cloaking the ship. The cloak was on its lowest setting. All it would need to deactivate would be a thought, and there were only four life forms on the planet capable of thinking. All standard protocol. The matrix required about a day to familiarise itself with the local environment and to reconfigure the inside of the ship - make that about a quarter-day. New planet.
<Where to, skipper?> asked the pilot, knowing full well that it didn't matter. They were just scouting to see if anything was going to attack them. You could never be too sure - maybe there was some remnant of an old and bloody-minded civilisation here somewhere. Their previous mission had nearly ended in disaster after they had awakened the passive defensive network of a long-dead race. They had been thankful for the pilot's skill that day. They would not have survived an onslaught from multiple fusion missiles, had they been properly aimed.
<Over there. It's beautiful.> The engineer gestured on their map display towards a smaller peninsula jutting out of the peninsula they had already seen. That, he thought, would be their home. They set off across the sea.
<No signals, no detection, no technology. Nothing,> thought the captain to the others.
It's funny how planning doesn't always work out. You can plan for every eventuality involving any other species. You can plan for them lying. You can plan for their being utterly malevolent in every situation. You can plan for them being so easy to dominate that your conscience won't even let you trade with them. You can plan for them having sharp teeth.
But if you aren't looking for a rock which would later be measured by this planet's inhabitants at around a thousand cubic miles in volume, and the rock is moving very, very fast - and because you haven't yet worked out how effectively this planet's ozone layer shields you from its star's UV output you've turned off the windows so you aren't even looking outside.
Then you're fucked.
And so the end stage of the mission failed almost as soon as it had begun, in a reconnaissance ship whose inhabitants had correctly deduced that there was not now, and never had been, any other intelligent life on this planet, and which nevertheless was smeared across the bottom of an asteroid as it plunged into the sea, and then vaporised.
YEARS LATER
Tom was, to say the least, not very happy, but he realised that he'd brought it on himself. He had a hot girlfriend, with a rich daddy, and she'd suggested coming to the Gulf coast for vacation. The girlfriend was, he had come to realise, a complete bitch, but given that he was about to start as a freshman at Harvard and she at Western New England College, on the other side of their home state, he could cope with playing nice for a couple months. Besides, she wasn't a complete bitch when they fucked. And rich was rich.
He shoulda checked the small print. Surfside Beach sounded like a pretty promising vacation spot, but there wasn't a whole lot to do there apart from surfing, and even that got old after a month when there was nobody to surf with. And while she'd mentioned that her daddy knew the congressman, he hadn't realised that she was going to be working full-time on yet another doomed Ron Paul presidential campaign.
Or that the GOP was going to put them up in separate houses on the other side of town. And in a town of only 800 people, there's no way that the damn Yankee boy who's going to vote for Obama was going to get away with sneaking around for a fuck with a girl who's staying with the congressman.
So he'd taken to exploring. Texas was Texas and he'd never been here before, and he was determined to wring every last bit of culture out of it that he could.
Today he was looking for a shipwreck. The Gen C B Comstock, he'd heard, was wrecked somewhere around the coast here, but nobody wanted to talk about it - probably because it was named for another Yankee, a Sheldonville boy like Tom who'd fought in the civil war. He'd not got very far, instead wandering up and down the inland waterways just up from the coast. After a couple miles' walking, he found a secluded spot by a large lake and stopped for a drink.
He realised that there was absolutely nobody around and thought about jerking off. He pulled down his pants, but then decided that to jerk off now would be admitting defeat, conceding that the constant chaperones had won. No reason to put more clothes on, though. He liked his body, liked being nude. He considered his semi-naked state and the hot summer sun. 'Fifteen minutes,' he thought. He tanned pretty well for a redhead, more than just his freckles merging (though that happened too) but his cock and ass were still pretty white and those are two places you don't want sunburn. He shucked his T - and then folded all his clothes and put them neatly on top of his backpack to appease his mild OCD - and waded into the lake for a swim. He loved swimming, loved the feel of the water as it moved across his back, a real water-baby. He could feel himself relaxing, his sweat being carried away - he made a mental note to drink from a different part of the lake later - and set off to do a couple of widths, letting his thoughts wander. When'd he dried off and trekked back he was going to grab a soda, call his mom. And he still had to find that damn ship.
He found himself suddenly in a shallow area in the middle of the lake. Tom was nowhere near being a geology major, but he did know that this was a bit strange. It was also strange that, when he kicked down, his foot hit metal. Unable to swim, he carefully stood up and found himself not even knee deep. He crouched down, and looked through the clear water at what looked for all the world like a large metallic cylinder which he hadn't spotted before, easily thirty feet in diameter and just as long.
Deciding that this was definitely cool, he dived down to look at it. There were no Robings and no obvious openings. Surfacing, he walked over it and dived down on the other side. Still nothing. 'I wish I could see what's inside you,' he thought as he surfaced again. He noticed a large-ish opening on the top of the cylinder, which he hadn't seen before, took a breath and stuck his head into it to see if he could see anything inside.
It was when he realised that he had stuck his head down through the water and into air that it became clear that something a bit strange was going on, and in his confusion he over-balanced and fell into the cylinder. He broke his fall, which was definitely though air, with his arm, reasoning that a broken wrist was better than a broken back, and was surprised to receive a soft landing.
Then three things happened which surprised him even more. He realised that he was now dry, and that the hole in the ceiling had been sealed.
And the lights came on.