The Lotus Eaters by pleasantlybad

Erstwhile expeditions aside, the planet was solitary and completely disregarded by all others in its section of the galaxy. Wispy clouds curled around its smooth green surface, as it spun against the backdrop of a generous smattering of stars; completely, utterly silent.


It was this silence that worried the few chosen members of the crew of STS Olavia, separated from their mothership, as their small shuttle orbited the planet. The distress signal they picked up had been fleeting and died away fast. Not wanting to risk the lives of close to one hundred crew members, the captain had assembled a small, six-person landing party to take a shuttle down to the planet's surface and investigate.


"Cohen, stats."


Dilara Cohen, a rather mediocre woman, snapped to attention and tapped at the glowing screens in front of her. "Zeta Volantis III, a panarbor planet with few bodies of water. There's... not much recorded. Uninhabited, as far as records say. Our position is roughly 25 lat, 133 long."


The planet hung ominously behind Yazmin Lang as she turned her back to the window. She felt an invisible pressure from behind her, unseen eyes penetrating through her stiff grey uniform and burning holes into her skin. As the leader of the group, she felt the burden of responsibility weigh down her shoulders more than her fellow crew - the planet's presence loomed over her even when it was banished from her sight.


"You know the rules," she began, "so I won't go over them all again. Everyone strapped in?"


Thumbs went up. Lang took a breath, sat down, nodded to the helmsman.


The shuttle descended.



They landed in an isolated clearing, a small round break in the sea of leaves. The shuttle drew to a shuddering halt, sitting inert amongst the whirling forest debris kicked up by its arrival. Inside, the crew hung in their seats, heads spinning like they always did during descent.


Lang was the first one to rouse herself from the daze. "Is everyone okay? Hughes?"


The perpetually raggard-looking helmsman, Drew Hughes, forced a smile. He shakily undid his harness and leant forward, dark hair falling in sweaty clumps over his eyes. "I think we're right, Yaz. Shuttle's fine - used up more fuel than I initially thought, though."


"Is it-"


"It's enough to get us back," Hughes reassured. He pressed a fist against his eyes. The on-board medic flipped him a pill. Hughes popped it, dry swallowing. "Thanks Joe."


Lang gratefully accepted her own anti-vertigo pill. She stood. "We're about a kilometre from the signal, if Hughes landed us properly. With the forest it might take thirty or forty minutes to walk there, so we should start as soon as possible."


She could sense a simmering reluctance in the crew as they unbuckled and took their pills - there was always some hesitancy during rescue missions. With the unknown out there, there was always a sense of preservation that followed the crew sent down to investigate, an urge to turn tails on the danger and flee back to the safety of Olavia.


Especially with this one, with the added confusion surrounding the distress signal; was it real? Was it just bait for some heinous trap? If they turned around now, were they leaving someone behind who they could have saved? It was terrifying, the possibilities and questions. The thought of failure scared Lang, and she knew it scared her crew too.


"Oxygen level 30%," Cohen announced, "almost 50% higher than Earth."


"Is that a problem?"


"Shouldn't be," Joe grunted.


Lang took a breath and turned to address the small crew. "Okay. Be with another person at all times, we'll approach in pairs from different angles. Cohen, Hughes, you go that way and up. Owens, Price, you go the opposite way. Joe and I'll go directly towards it. If you encounter any problems, radio someone immediately. Preferably me." She paused and swept her eyes across the five other people. "We want to make this as quick as possible. If someone's hurt or in trouble they won't want their rescuers to dawdle around smelling the flowers. Clear?"


Nods and mumbles answered her.


"Okay, let's go."


Their boots sunk into a thick mud as they each stepped out of the shuttle. The boggy ground was hidden by a layer of tall, sickly green-yellow grass, punctuated every now and then by a large red flower held aloft on a knee-high stem. Lang watched the dark uniformed backs of her crew quickly disperse in the directions assigned to them, struggling through the muddy clearing to the trees.


Joe shot a faint frown at her. "Hey, you coming?"


"Yeah," Lang smiled, heaving a foot up with a wet schlup. She stumbled through the mud towards the edge of the clearing, Joe close behind her.


Gnarled roots protruding from the ground provided platforms to walk on as they reached the trees. Lang heaved herself onto the roots, stomping to shake off globs of mud from her boots.


"This whole place is wallowing in death," Joe grumbled.


"I think it's beautiful," Lang retaliated, taking care not to squash a delicate looking plant as she stepped past it.


"Disease is around every corner," Joe told her, probably squashing the plant anyway. "Just because it looks pretty doesn't mean it's not dangerous. That tree could grow teeth and eat us. Anything can happen on an alien planet."


"You're a regular old Bones McCoy, hey? You were never like this before," Lang sighed. "Just because it's dangerous doesn't mean you can't appreciate its beauty."


"I'm trained to see death and disease," Joe grunted. "It's part of being a medic."


"What happened to cute little Joey West from the Academy?"


"He grew up. He was smashed by training and flung out onto the field before he was ready," Joe lectured, "Space happened to Joey West."


Lang was silent. She knew how tough it had been for Joe - they'd put him into an intergalactic battlefield before he'd graduated. He'd come back with a bionic eye, a scar crossing his chin and an impenetrable mind. She and Joe had been close friends before he'd gone, but when he returned she felt as if the universe lay stretched between them.


"You've changed too," Joe mumbled behind her. "What've you been doing since the Academy?"


"Got a girlfriend. Got a shitty apartment. Got a decent-paying job. I'm neutral, I guess. Too old to stand up to the government like the youth are doing and too young to argue about trivial matters like the elderly do."


"You make it sound horrible."


"It's not that bad. I'm living with the girl I love, doing a job I like. There's people who would give anything to be in the position I am."


"Tripping through a wet, muddy jungle, chasing a signal that's probably fake?"


"Shut up, stop making my life seem worse than it is," Lang snorted. Her foot snared on a small root and she caught herself on a tree trunk.


"It's cold," Joe grunted.


"You're a pessimist," Lang shot back.



"I don't understand," Lang growled impatiently.


"I do," Joe told her, "we've been scammed. Set up. It was fake. I want to say 'I told you so', but I don't feel like having my balls broken right now."


The hike had brought them to a small clearing, not unlike the one their shuttle had landed in. It was completely empty, save from a carpet of colourless saplings decking the muddy ground. Lang and Joe hovered around the edge, clambering over the roots to scour the whole clearing without plunging themselves into the mud.


"There's absolutely no sign of any disturbance," Lang continued. "If it was fake there would at least be crushed plants or muddy footprints leading out of the clearing. It's undisturbed."


"Yaz, this is an uninhabited, unexplored planet. Whatever sent out that signal didn't have to leave signs of their presence. God, they could have flown in, for all we know. Leave it. Let's just wait for the others, return to the shuttle and go back. Captain'll understand."


Lang didn't respond, sighing and flopping against a tree. Joe touched her arm. "Look, I know you were excited, but life's life. There's nothing here, and you shouldn't dwell on that."


"But what if there was someone, Joe? What if they, I dunno, flew like you said, or teleported or something? What if they're hurt and they dragged themselves deeper into the jungle? What if we leave them, injured and dying?"


"What if you're overthinking this? Bloody hell, Lang. The signal was stationary until it faded, you know that. There's nothing here. It was fake. Calm it."


There was a rustle from the other side of the clearing, and the two swung around. Cohen's lanky form scrambled from between two trunks. Lang's shoulders, tense with the sudden anticipation, slumped.


"Where's Drew?" Joe called across the clearing.


"Peeing."


Cohen lightly stepped across the roots, skipping over to the other two. Joe raised an eyebrow. "Impressive."


"Used to do ballet. Is this the right place?"


Lang raked a hand through her hair. "If that idiot landed us wrong I'm going to wring his neck."


"Yaz's pissed she didn't get to save a dying alien," Joe explained. Cohen nodded her head in a silent 'ohhhh', her woody hair bobbing around her cheeks.


"Where the hell is Hughes?" Lang snapped brusquely.


Someone on the far side of the clearing tripped over a root and toppled forward, hitting the mud with a dulled, wet thwump. He swore and wiped soil from his face.


"Are you sure this is the right place?" Lang called. "There's nothing here!"


"Of course it's the right place!" Hughes cried back, struggling to pull his legs out of the goop. Joe edged over the roots, extending a hand to him.


"Have you seen Price 'n Owens yet?" Cohen asked. Lang shook her head.


"Radio them to turn around and head back to the shuttle. It's fruitless," she grumbled.


"Thank you, finally," Joe grunted, tugging on Hughes' arm. The helmsman scrambled onto the root platform, breathing heavily. He kicked his leg out, splattering globs of mud over the rough bark of the trees. Joe absentmindedly ran a hand through his hair, smearing brown over his forehead.


"They're not responding," said Cohen.



"Radetzky March," Joe said eventually. They'd been sitting in the same clearing for half an hour now, trying to contact the two missing crew members. The only response they'd received was faint music drifting through the radios.


"Sorry?"


"That's the music. Bloody Radetzky March. We used to have it playing in our ship so the injured soldiers we picked up would have something to focus on other than their pain." He seemed more anxious than usual - his hands twisted in his pockets.


"This isn't a battlefield, not a registered one. I sure as hell don't remember human troops being sent to this section of the galaxy," Hughes said.


"Even if they had, why would our crew be playing their music?"


"Could they have been taken? Kidnapped?" Joe suggested, voice trembling. Hughes touched his arm gently, sending him a reassuring look.


"By who?" Lang said, "there's no one here."


"Maybe they went back to the shuttle already," suggested Cohen. Joe's breathing deepened, and Hughes whispered something in his ear. Lang knew the extent of his mental trauma, knew about his paranoia and anxiety. Despite Hughes knowing how to help him through a panic attack, it was an unpleasant experience for everyone and she hoped it wouldn't happen.


"Do we have any sort of music player on the shuttle?" Lang asked, trying find an explanation to take Joe's mind off it.


"I don't think so," Cohen replied.


They fell silent again. The music swelled, fell, repeated.


They were all looking at Lang - Joe, Cohen, Hughes, all of them. All waiting for her to make a decision.


How big was space, anyway? Infinite? There were a million and one possibilities of what might have happened to Price and Owens, and Lang had no way of knowing which one was right.


"Let's head back to the shuttle the way the others were going," she said. "We might run into them."


No one spoke as they stepped out of the clearing.


Lang's imagination must have gotten the better of her. She swore that whenever she moved her head humanoid shadows dancing in her peripheral vision scattered into the trees. The music from the radios curled itself around her head like a bandage. She picked up her pace a little.


Her breath quickened when the familiar smooth hull of the shuttle peeked from the trees. The music faded, and there was a suspended moment of silence before it began to play from the start again. Joe punched a number into the keypad by the door, and it slid open.


There was no one inside.


"Ah, crap," Lang swore.


"Maybe they got lost?" Hughes suggested.


"But what's the music? Did they just happen to drop both of their radios on an open channel, next to something playing Rad-... Radieski Marching or whatever?"


"Radetzky March," Joe corrected.


"Yeah, whatever." Lang crossed her arms and surveyed the thick forest around the shuttle. "Great, so we've lost two people and we can't communicate with them. What about the ship, has anyone tried radioing up?"


"I'll do that now." Cohen stepped up into the shuttle, disappearing inside. Lang scanned the forest again, tapping her fingers against her arm impatiently.


"Are you using the right channel to contact them? Could be picking up some sort of intergalactic music station or something," Hughes suggested.


"No, it's definitely the right channel," Lang confirmed.


Cohen called from inside the shuttle, "I'm getting a lot of interference, static. Haven't been able to send or receive an intelligible sentence yet."


"Keep trying. They might be able to do a thermal scan or send a signal to pinpoint Price and Owen's whereabouts."


Joe held up a finger. "Wait, shh, shh."


"Huh? Wha-"


"Shhhhhh! Just be quiet!"


The clearing fell silent, save from the dull noise of Cohen trying to contact the Olavia inside the shuttle. Lang tilted her head towards Joe, keeping her eyes trained on the forest. "What are we listening for?" she whispered.


"I swore I heard-... there it is again!" he exclaimed, prodding his finger toward a section of the jungle, "Owens, maybe, definitely male."


"What are you talking about?"


"Someone's calling out," Joe hissed, "can't you hear it? Over there!" Lang knew that Joe suffered from trauma and PTSD - an auditory flashback, perhaps?


"Joe, I don't thi-"


Hughes' breath audibly caught in his throat. "I hear it too," he interrupted.


Lang frowned, straining her ears. A faint sound echoed from the trees, vaguely resembling a man's shout. She took a step closer to the edge of the root platform, listening harder. Once more, a shout, but this time there was no doubt in her mind; a human voice, distinctly calling 'Hey'.


"Hello?" Lang called into the trees, "Owens? Are you okay?"


"Yaz!" was the reply, "Yazmin Lang! Get over here! I found something!" The voice got stronger with every word.


"He sounds like he's laughing," Joe mumbled to Hughes.


"Come back to the shuttle!" Lang shouted. "Just follow my voice!"


"I found something! Come look!" Owens cried happily. Lang shot a look at the two behind her.


"Joe, come with me. Gonna go see what the hell he's doing. Hughes, stay back with Cohen. Keep trying to contact the ship. We have our radios if you need to talk to us."


Hughes nodded wordlessly.


"If we're gone longer than seems necessary, assume the worst. Stay with the shuttle at all times and don't stop radioing until you've contacted the ship or us. I'm sure this is just some stupid prank or something, but just in case."


The shout came again. "Yaz! Joe! Come check it out!"


Joe was visibly shaken as they once again scrambled in between tree trunks. Lang felt a pang of guilt in her chest - maybe she should have brought Hughes instead.


"Hey, it's fine. They're probably pulling a prank," she reassured.


Joe was quiet . He ran a hand through his hair. For a few minutes they scrambled over the roots in silence. Eventually, Joe muttered, "When someone went missing it meant they were dead."


Words fled from Lang's mind. She resolved to reach out and touch Joe's shoulder, trying to show him her support.


"They can't be dead, they keep calling out," she said. Right on cue, there was another shout of 'Lang, come see this!'


"Only Owens," Joe mumbled, "Haven't heard anything from Price yet."


Lang's brain raced to come up with an explanation. She found a small detail and hooked onto it, blurting out, "He's laughing. He wouldn't be laughing if Price was dead."


Joe seemed to take this answer, falling into an uneasy silence once more. He breathed in deeply, pointing into the trees. "Veer off that way, the sound is coming from there."


Lang hummed a reply, pushing through a few stringy branches hanging in the way. There was another yell, louder. The air seemed to thicken around them, and Lang tasted honey in every breath she drew in. Joe stopped abruptly in front of her.


"Music," he murmured.


It was true - parading through the trees was the same music as had been issuing from the radios. Lang knew it hadn't been playing before, but as the music filled her head, memory started to slip from her and it felt like she'd been standing there, listening to the music, for forever.


Lang squeezed past the inert figure of Joe, drawing closer to the music. The taste of honey in the air grew stronger, and a sudden sense of euphoria washed over her in a crashing wave with no explanation. She felt a smile creeping onto her face. Shadowy figures swung around the trees in pairs, waltzing through the trees. Her heart slowed to a dull ambient pulse in her ears, happiness replacing rational thought in her mind.


Joe was beside her - she couldn't remember him ever walking up to her, but here he was - a smile stretched his lips. His face expressed a happiness so raw, so genuine; a happiness Lang hadn't seen Joe experience since the Academy. He took a deep breath of the honey air, a tear breaking free from the confinement of his good eye and rolling down his cheek. He made no move to wipe it away.


The shadows whirled around them - their words whispered in Lang's mind.


[join us]


In front of them stood Price and Owens, each wearing that happy grin. Owen's arm was around Price's shoulders - he lifted his other arm to wave. "Lang! Joe! Come join us!"


The world flickered, the colour and joyfulness dying for just a second before lighting back up. The scent and taste of honey was overwhelming - Lang's step faulted. Another flash of reality stopped her in her tracks. The smiling figures of the missing crew members dissolved into limp bodies slumped on the ground, twisted smiles decorating their faces. Teeth teemed in the shadows' mouths. They hissed -


[join us, yazmin lang, join us]


- in menace-laced voices. Lang took a step back, the world flooding into light again. The bodies straightened and the shadows waltzed around in dizzying circles. Joe was two steps in front of her. Lang's arm shot out and grasped his arm. "Joe, stop. It's n-"


"Shhh," Joe breathed, his warm fingers encasing Lang's own. "I know, I saw it as well."


"We have to go," Lang whispered urgently.


Joe stayed where he was, his deep eyes reaching into Lang's. "You go. I have to stay here."


"What?!" Lang hissed.


"Look at this, Yaz! I'm happy. I'd forgotten what it felt like. If I go back with you I'm just going to be miserable and traumatised until I die," Joe told her, gently prising her fingers from his arm. "I want this, Lang, don't take it away from me."


"No, Joey, you're coming back. You're coming back with us to the ship," Lang insisted, her throat tightening. Joe squeezed her hand, then let it fall from his grip. He smiled and nodded to her, raising his hand in a military salute.


The shadows grew teeth again, and descended upon him.


Lang screamed and ran.


She blindly pelted through the forest, tears tracking down her cheeks, the now-ominous music reaching for her with groping hands. She could feel the shadows chasing her, hear their pleas for her to join them grating in her mind. She stumbled over the tree roots, praying she was going in the right direction.


There was a glimmer through the trees, and Lang could have sung in relief. She tripped into the clearing, throwing herself toward the shuttle. Her body landed with a dull slap against the mud, and she clawed at the step of the shuttle to pull herself out. "Hughes! Cohen! Help!" she screamed, half mad with terror.


Only silence came from the shuttle. Lang howled their names again, managing to haul herself from the suction of the mud and onto the shiny platform of the shuttle. She fell inside and pound the button to close it with the heel of her hand. The door, painfully slowly, began to whir down. Lang could see the shadows oozing from the trees, falling backwards as the door closed fully with a muffled thunk. Joe's voice whispered in her head -


[join us, yazmin lang, join us]


He was laughing. Lang fought off the happiness they tried to conjure up in her mind. She told herself Joe wasn't there - it was only the creatures using his voice to lure her out.


She just kept breathing, didn't she? She had to. In, out, in, out, rise, fall, repeat.


"Yazmin Lang," someone said, and she started. Her head fell silent. She was alone in the shuttle. Had she been dreaming?


"Yazmin Lang," the voice repeated. Lang pressed her fingers against her knees and scoured the shuttle.


There was no one there.


The radio was on. It crackled.


"Yazmin Lang," the voice said.


"Who are you?" Lang finally managed to say.


"You wouldn't be able to comprehend."


"Who the hell are you?!?"


"Gloriously indescribable," they laughed. "Call us the Lotus Eaters."


"What are you?"


"We are the Lotus Eaters."


Yang felt frustration pierce through the cloud of happiness. She clung to it.


"What have you done?"


"We have done nothing, Yazmin Lang. It was your colleagues' choice to join us. They chose to be happy - why don't you?"


"Are they dead?"


"Do you think so?"


Once again the overwhelming euphoria splashed into her mind. Lang fought it, trying to keep the smile off her face.


"This is a federation vessel," Lang said, raising her voice to an angry yell. "Whoever you are, you'll be caught and held responsible for hijacking a federation vessel and attacking its crew!"


The voices in her head giggled her thoughts -


[in, out, in, out, rise, fall, repeat]


"Will you join us too, Yazmin Lang?" they asked through the radio, laughter playing in their voice. "Let go of your stress - free yourself of negative emotion."


"Never," Lang hissed, and her mind exploded into sound - dozens of whispers layered on top of each other, maniacal laughter, howling sobs. Lang cried out, clutching her head. She crawled to the radio, hammering her fist against the frequency button. Numb joy flooded her mind.


Was Joe right? Would it be better to succumb and be happy, than to hurt herself trying to break free? The taste of honey in the air became more bearable as her mind crumbled at the edges.


"...come in..." - there was a burst of static, and her captain's voice crackled through the radio. Lang jammed her finger against the talk button, unwanted laughter bubbling in her voice.


"Get the hell out of here, get the ship as far away as you possibly can and don't let anyone ever come down to this planet ever," she gasped into the microphone, "Please, god, get out of here and don't look back."


Static sputtered. Lang sunk to the floor with a defeated giggle, clutching her pounding head. It would be so easy to be happy....


[join us be us join us be us dance with us yazmin lang dance with us]


With a howl of fury, Lang threw herself across the room. Her fingernails tore skin from her scalp as she clawed in desperation to free her dissolving mind. She couldn't lose it all, she couldn't.


Blood trickled down her forehead from her ripped scalp. Her mind melted into the elation the Lotus Eaters gave her, chuckling as she fumbled for the button to raise the door. Their voice became her thoughts.


You want this.


With a wide grin stretched across her face, Lang opened the door.


The End


~~~


pleasantlybad is full of mysteries as are the stories you find on their profile.

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