moment they touched down, the ship’s engines immediately spun down to a low whine.
The ship rolled off the landing pad onto the tarmac, winding its way between rows of parking stalls. Most were open stalls, with nothing more than service buildings separating them on either side, while others had roofs over them. On approach, he had seen rows of hangars, but the area they were in did not appear to have any such buildings.
Nathan peered out the window as they rolled past dozens of spacecraft, many of which didn’t look like they could make it to orbit. Some of the spacecraft were being made ready for departure, others were being serviced, while a few appeared to have been out of commission for some time. There were even a few that had temporary fences locked around them, presumably to prevent access to them for whatever reason. In light of what Tobin had said about the family that controlled Haven, Nathan wondered if the owners of the locked-down spacecraft had failed to pay tribute and lost access to their vessels as a result.
Several minutes later, the ship turned sharply and rolled in between two long service buildings. Nathan could see a couple of men in dirty coveralls peering out the window of one of the buildings, watching them as they rolled to a stop and shut down their engines. Moments later, Tobin removed his headset and began to climb out of his seat. “Welcome to Haven,” he announced as he left the cockpit.
Tobin pushed past them as he made his way to the rear of the cabin. He punched in a code on the keypad next to the door on the back bulkhead, and it slid open to reveal a small corridor that led to another hatch farther back, with storage racks on either side. Nathan and the others watched as Tobin reached for a group of light-brown cloaks hung on the wall.
“Whoa!” Jessica yelled, as she jumped from her seat, drawing her sidearm and taking aim at Tobin. “Hands where I can see them!” she added, her weapon now fully trained on Tobin. Enrique was only a step behind her, his weapon also drawn, with Sergeant Weatherly right behind him.
“What the hell?” Nathan exclaimed. It appeared that every member of his team, including Vladimir, had their weapons drawn. Nathan seemed to be the only one of them that did not. “Something I should know, guys?”
“Step back!” Jessica ordered. “Hands high!” Tobin, with his hands held in plain sight, stepped back from the cloaks, turning to face Jessica as he slowly raised his open hands.
“I was only reaching for the cloaks,” Tobin insisted in his most charming and innocent tone. “I assure you.”
Jessica peeked over her shoulder to verify that the rest of her team were prepared to back her up. She stepped forward, grabbing Tobin by the collar and spinning him around before shoving him up against the wall. Enrique shifted to his left, getting a better angle from which to keep his weapon trained on Tobin without Jessica being in his line of fire.
“What is it?” Nathan inquired, standing to try and get a better view.
Jessica turned around, pushing the cloaks to one side to reveal a gun rack containing dozens of hand guns, assault rifles, grenades, and what looked like shoulder-fired rocket launchers. “I thought you said you weren’t armed?” Jessica challenged Tobin.
“I said I wasn’t armed, when we first met in your hangar bay,” Tobin defended. “I did not claim that I owned no weapons.”
“Uh huh,” Jessica mumbled as she inspected his hidden arsenal. “Do a lot of hunting, I suppose?”
“Nathan,” Jalea protested. “If your security personnel are going to react so violently at the slightest possible threat, we are all in for a very difficult time here on Haven. I assure you, most of Haven’s residents are far less tolerant of such behavior.”
“I apologize,” Nathan responded. “But in the interests of all our safety, you might want to tell us now if there are any other weapons you might have hidden on board?”
Jessica gestured to the others to stand down, as she too holstered her weapon. Tobin turned to face Nathan, his hand slowly coming back down to his sides as he spoke. “This is my entire stock,” he promised. “They are only for defensive purposes.”
“Defensive purposes?” Jessica questioned. “Against what? A battalion?” Jessica handed him the pile of cloaks he had originally been after, gesturing for him to exit the compartment before her.
“You would be surprised at how much defensive armament can be required on Haven,” Jalea said.
Tobin began handing out cloaks to each of them. “I would suggest that you wear these cloaks at all times during your visit. They are common here, and will serve to protect you from the environment. They will also help you to hide your weapons from view, as well as to help you to blend in amongst the crowds.”
Nathan accepted the last cloak as Tobin stepped past him. The cloak was made of a thick yet light-weight fabric that had obviously not been washed in sometime and smelled rather unpleasant.
Tobin cracked open the hatch, which swung downward toward the tarmac. Small steps extruded from the hatch itself as it neared the deck, stopping about fifty centimeters from the dull gray surface outside.
The cabin quickly filled with the heavy, humid air of Haven. An unusual smell, a mixture of mechanical fluids and a pungent, musky odor immediately hit Nathan. The aroma was almost overpowering at first but soon subsided. After nearly a month living in the scrubbed, temperature-controlled air of their ship, the natural atmosphere, no matter how aromatic, was a welcome change.
Tobin was the first one out, moving gingerly down the boarding ramp and dropping the last step down. Being nearest the hatch, Nathan was next to exit the ship. He stepped out onto the ramp, standing tall in the open air. The sky was a pale, unnatural-looking amber. He realized why their entry into the atmosphere had been so turbulent, as he could feel the increased air pressure of this moon. It was somewhat warm, and quite humid, as if it would begin to rain at any moment.
Nathan looked around briefly. They were parked between two long metal-clad service buildings. The buildings themselves were obviously cheap and easy to construct, with a few doors and windows, and a single roll-up cargo door. Looking forward and aft, he could see they were at least several rows back from either side of the berthing yard. He could see plenty of activity, with people moving about their various ships, and service vehicles cruising between the rows of stalls.
He looked up at the sky. Its subdued amber was almost like the sky on Earth just after the sun had dropped below the horizon. But this world’s sun was still sitting low in her sky. It was small and pale compared to their sun back on Earth, and provided considerably less light than he had expected. Nathan could even look directly at it for several seconds without hurting his eyes. In the opposite direction of the sun, the gas giant around which the moon of Haven orbited filled the bottom half of the sky from the ground upwards. The light reflecting off the gas giant provided a secondary light source, casting fainter shadows in the opposite direction of the ones cast by Haven’s sun. The effect was wholly unnatural, and it gave the entire scene an eerie cast.
Nathan made his way down the ramp, dropping the last step onto the tarmac. His landing felt light, as if he had jumped down only a fraction of the actual distance. The gravity here was only half that of his home world, and a quarter less than the Aurora’s standard gravity. He jumped up and down a few times, finding himself coming considerably farther off the ground than he would have expected under normal circumstances. It was an unusual sensation-both frightening and exhilarating at the same time-which brought a boyish grin to his face.
“You know, Nathan, you are probably the first person from Earth to set foot on another world in over a millennia,” Vladimir told him as he dropped to the tarmac next to him.
“Guess I should’ve said something profound, huh?”
“What the hell is that smell?” Jessica asked as she stepped off the ramp.
“Not exactly profound,” Nathan mumbled, “but accurate.” Vladimir chuckled as he bounced up and down, bounding a few steps away from the ship as he too experimented with the reduced gravity.
“This area is covered with an edible fungus,” Tobin explained. “It is everywhere there is dirt, and it can be rather pungent. It is, however, very flavorful and nutritious. It has in fact made civilization possible on this moon, as it grows with almost no effort and is quite a profitable commodity. Although it is not as appreciated on other worlds as much as those that grow it would’ve hoped.”
“What time of day is it here?” Nathan asked Tobin.
“It is midday.”
“Really? It looks more like sunset.”
“We are late in our light cycle.”
“Light cycle?”
“While Haven is passing between the star and the planet, there are fifty-two days of normal day and night.
