Trajectory

CHAPTER 7: SEARCH

Cover Image for CHAPTER 7: SEARCH

The conference room aboard Odyssey-4 was silent except for the hum of the ship’s life support systems. The overhead lights were dimmed, casting long shadows over the faces gathered around the central table. The holo-display flickered with grainy data—telemetry logs, atmospheric readings, and one jagged trajectory line plunging straight into the planet below.

Lina stood with her arms crossed, jaw clenched, eyes locked on the screen.

“No beacon. No comms. No signal.” Dr. Vaughn, the ship’s lead astrophysicist, exhaled heavily. He swiped at the display, magnifying the last known coordinates. “All we have is an approximation of where he went down. And even that’s… generous.”

Commander Nguyen, the mission’s operations lead, leaned forward, fingers steepled. “We need to be realistic. Given the impact velocity, the atmospheric conditions, and the fact that this planet is still in the recon phase—” he let the silence hang. “—Elias is likely dead.”

Lina’s eyes snapped to him. “You don’t know that.”

Nguyen sighed. “We lost his signal almost immediately after entry. You saw the models. The odds of his ship holding together were—”

“I don’t care about the odds.”

The room tensed.

Lina placed her hands on the table and leaned in. “We’re not just leaving him down there.”

Dr. Sorenson, the ship’s exobiologist, ran a hand through her hair. “Lina, I get it, I do. But we don’t even know where to start. Even if he somehow survived, we have no way of pinpointing his location. He could be anywhere in a two-hundred-mile radius.”

“Then we look,” Lina shot back. “We have survey drones. Atmospheric landers. Equipment specifically designed for—”

“For reconnaissance,” Nguyen interrupted. “Not rescue.”

The table fell silent again.

Sorenson hesitated before speaking. “If we sent a manned mission down, the risk would be enormous. We barely have enough data to model stable entry. The turbulence alone—”

“I volunteer.” Lina said it without hesitation.

A few heads turned in shock.

Nguyen sighed. “That’s not going to happen.”

“Why not?”

“Because if Elias didn’t make it, we’re not losing anyone else.”

Lina’s jaw tightened. She stared at the holo-display again, at the dead telemetry, at the last flicker of his ship before it vanished. No. He wasn’t gone. He couldn’t be.

“We’re sending down a drone,” Nguyen said. “That’s as far as this goes.”

Lina’s fingers curled against the table, but she said nothing.

Sorenson glanced at her, then back at Nguyen. “And if it finds something?”

Nguyen exhaled. “Then we’ll talk.”

Lina nodded, but inside, she already knew the truth.

If the drone found nothing, she wasn’t going to stop there.

She would find him.

One way or another.