May 5351: The Treehouse
Expedition Team Alpha
Seeing the jungle from the safety of the base—sarcastically and officially named the Treehouse by those stationed there, partially because of the large trees growing in the dome’s center, and because they were living on a rainforest planet—was one thing. Being out in the dense jungle was another. One earned a new respect for the landscape once they had been to the jungle on expeditions. From the biodome, the jungle was welcoming, full of life and color. Upon entering the jungle, the canopy of trees reached high into the sky, blocking out most of the sunlight. The light that filtered through the leaves was a deep green color. The air was heavy, humid, and smelled slightly of sulfur. The ground was covered in dead leaves and undergrowth. Smaller trees and plants fought for space in any available sunlight. Even still, that undergrowth was dense and hard to cut through. Vines hung from branches, and plants with leaves larger than an average wingspan grew close to the ground in the shadows. Roots of some of the trees formed walls three to four meters high and snaked their way through the jungle. Other trees stood on blood-red stilt roots. Beautiful flowers dotted the ground and sat on tree branches high in the air, brilliant oranges and reds and purples and blues.
A team of five cut their way through the dense jungle. They wore active camouflage suits to prevent any unknown predators from seeing them. Their faces covered by a clear face shield that acted as a camera, headset and tracker. They were five kilometers out from their campsite, and another five kilometers from the Treehouse. On an average day in the jungle, teams would travel up to ten kilometers, depending on the terrain. They trekked slowly, surveying all the plants and animals they could see. Expedition Team Alpha was made up of Intergalactic Exploration Force specialists trained to collect samples and complete experiments. They were on a recovery mission, searching for the lost Sigma Team, which had gone missing three days prior, usually recovery specialists were sent out, however Alpha team was closer to the distress beacons coordinates.
AJ led the team. She was a tall woman, with broad muscular shoulders and brown hair in a short pixie cut below her helmet. Sweat glistened and dripped off her brow as she looked back and forth, scanning the canopy. She held a machete in her right hand and a tracker in her left. The tracker beeped slowly and quietly. On her waist was a holstered gun. Their scientific mission had been urgently turned into a recovery mission to find any sign of Team Sigma, who had been sent to investigate an anomaly on sonar images. AJ was an Intergalactic Exploration Force sergeant and one of the Expedition Team leaders at the Treehouse, her fifth base since leaving the academy, where she had specialized in alien behavior. That was almost ten years ago, and she had climbed the ranks quickly. Thankfully, this was Team Alpha’s first rescue mission in the jungle. For the most part the expeditions had gone smoothly, and no teams had needed rescuing. AJ cut through the underbrush, and they headed east from the Treehouse into a denser part of the jungle that satellites had a difficult time imaging.
“They look like orchids,” Farris said excitedly as she looked around the jungle, stopping to admire some of the flowers growing in the branches above them. Insects the size of hummingbirds flew from flower to flower. “This place is amazing,” she gasped. As the expedition’s biologist, she was excitedly documenting everything. Her curly black hair was not taking well to the humidity, even under the helmet her curls were wild. Farris was short, with a slender yet strong build, and one of the bubbliest, up-beat people in the Treehouse. She had a side pack and a backpack full of specimens and slides to examine back in the lab. The teams collected samples on every expedition out of the Treehouse to maximize the sample size of their tests.
In front of Farris, gun in hand, was Nor, second in command of Team Alpha, weapons expert and survivalist. Nor was even taller than AJ. He was lean with a runner’s body, and his arms were covered in tattoos of various mythologies he had learned about across the galaxy while studying at the Academy. Nor was always clean-shaven, mainly because he couldn't grow a decent beard. Even after two full days in the jungle, only small patches of hair grew on his cheeks and chin. His short blond hair was dripping with sweat in the heavy humidity.
Above them in the canopy, they heard the crashing of branches. “What was that?” Nor said, looking back and forth, his blue eyes cautiously searching for the cause of the sound. He carried a backpack filled with camp equipment, weapons, food, and rations for the other four. Nor had worked with AJ on three other bases and had jumped at the opportunity to join her team on Shrendder-X9. He was excited to explore the unexplored region east of the Treehouse.
Farris looked around excitedly for the cause of the noise. She pushed a button on the outside of her helmet to magnify the view and strained her eyes, hoping to see some new creature bounding through the canopy above.
A skinny man with shaggy brown hair stood behind Farris. SP was the cartographer, and he was incredibly average-looking. He carried a tablet and was jotting down every detail of the terrain and any memorable landmarks. He paused and looked up from his notes to scan the canopy. There was an air of nervousness within the group. The jungle did that to even the most seasoned Intergalactic Exploration Force members.
Taking up the rear was Tairn, a big bald man who looked like he could bench press a small ship. Some thought he was intimidating, but once you got to know him, he was a big teddy bear. He was the team chemist and medic. His pack was full of bandages, medicines, soil samples, plant matter, sap, and anything else he could think of collecting to test back at the Treehouse’s science lab. He and Farris worked closely together, sharing samples and findings with each other. He was the last to look up to the canopy. Scanning it slowly and methodically, he heard Farris gasp.
“They’re amazing!” she exclaimed. “It’s a pack of howler monkey-like creatures!” She pointed up above them. “So big though…and they have FOUR ARMS AND TWO TAILS!” Farris was jumping with excitement. The others looked to where she was pointing and saw a pod of five or six large, multi-colored monkey-like creatures swinging and jumping from branch to branch.
“I’m going to be the extraterrestrial Darwin!” Farris squealed, not taking her eyes off the pack until the last one vanished from sight. “This place is so cool. I can’t wait to go through these images!” The air of tension around the group relaxed as Farris started to talk about howler monkeys, a species she learned about in her comparative zoology class in the Academy that compared alien creatures to those that are found on Earth, the planet in the Milky Way galaxy that humans came from. She talked about how she was able to see images of animals from earth because researchers there wanted the Exploration Force to have the best images to compare to. Farris was excitedly talking about the Amazon rainforest. “Howler monkeys in the Amazon only get to be about a meter tall; the ones we just saw must have been twice that size.”
The group started moving at a slow pace through the thick undergrowth, with AJ cutting a path through the towering ferns and tangles of vines that blocked their way. She looked at the tracker. Its beeping began to increase in frequency and became louder. “We’re headed the right way,” she called back to the group. “Be on your guard.”
Nor tightened his grip on his weapon. He felt uneasy. Expedition Team Sigma had been one hell of a team, young and talented, and the sense around the Treehouse was that if Sigma did not return, something had gone horribly wrong. The group reached a small rectangular clearing, about two and a half meters wide and four meters deep. The far end was blocked by a wall of thick vines with purple flowers.
“This must be where their tracker was last,” AJ said, her tracker beeping rapidly now.
“Strange that nothing is growing in this spot,” Farris said. “The soil looks so fertile everywhere, it is strange that nothing is growing.” Tairn bent down and scooped up a soil sample in a vial.
AJ told the team to search the area as she looked around cautiously. She didn’t want a repeat of Wrellio. She saw Farris approach the wall of vines and carefully remove a leaf. AJ watched Farris stumble back from the wall and saw thick yellow sap pouring out of the vine where the leaf had been. The overwhelming smell of rotting meat made its way to her nose. “Farris, are you okay?” AJ called over the headset.
“Oh man, that’s awful. But I’m okay,” Farris said as she put the leaf in a vial and backed away. Tairn rushed over to the vines.
“Farris, was that you?” he joked as he removed an empty vial from his pack and carefully put some sap into it.
“Very funny, Tairn. It wasn’t me,” she shot back at him.
AJ saw a glint of something flash in a tree just outside the clearing, it was waving in the gentle breeze. She carefully made her way through the undergrowth and looked up. There in the branches of a sapling was a piece of cloth that matched that of the Intergalactic Exploration Force suits, the piece of the suit had returned to its standard white. She reached up and used all her six-foot-four frame to grab it from the branches. She examined it as she turned it over in her hands; there were flecks of red splattered over the white fabric. “Everyone, gather up,” she shouted. “I found something.” Nor was the first to get to her, followed by SP, Farris, and Tairn.
“What have you got, AJ?” Nor asked, keeping his eyes on the surroundings.
“We got a piece of an Intergalactic Exploration Force uniform,” she said as she held it up to her own uniform, she set her uniform to the standard white; the colors and fabric matched. AJ passed it around. As the team examined the torn fabric, the constant buzz of the jungle disappeared. For the first time since they arrived, it was silent, the quiet was deafening. AJ examined the piece of fabric and saw a faint sigma design.
Nor noticed the silence first, he had been on high alert and the silence signaled to him that the team was in danger. “Everyone turn around,” he said quietly. “We need to go. We found what we needed.” The others looked around and noticed the eerie silence that surrounded them. Chills ran down Farris’ spine, and SP’s head darted around, looking for an invisible predator.