Date: Sun, 14 Aug 2011 22:05:30 +0000
From: Eddie Foster <lifechanger@gmx.com>
Subject: Powers from the People 1

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. <This planet is ours.>

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.