The Outer Moon (A Sapphic Sci Fi Adventure)

Chapter 27

According to Emily's latest calculations, the Greek planet had originally been within the habitable zone of the Cancri star system based on what was seen on the original computer from the Antuhsas colony ship. However, sometime after that was recorded, something had shunted the planet out of the habitable zone and removed the moon. Emma wanted to know what that was, because there may still be technology to salvage on the surface of that planet. Technology that would help them live better and safer.

Right now, most of the effort was being spent on exploring every stray Antuhsas ship that was anywhere in the system to find more of the memory sticks and turn them over to their little furred neighbors. There was a chance that they might be overwhelmed with the information, but Pepper didn't want to hold anything back. Aubree and Lexi were with the Antuhsas all the time, helping them work through things, while many others were working with them to help with learning the basics. There was no rush to get them technologically advanced, but now that they knew they could do it, they were eager to try. As a part of that, Lena and Miles were planning on bringing several of the foxes up into orbit over the next few days to get them used to being in space, and then they were going to spacewalk a few times before they went into the wreckage of the original colony ship.

Emma didn't envy them that.

But with all that going on, Emma was trying something different. The old human planet was currently on the far side of the sun, though once every 16 months or so it would be much closer to the gas giant that their moon orbited. For now, though, Emma wanted to go see it and see what was left. Thankfully, with the speed of her little ship, it didn't take long.

It wasn't pretty. The planet looked oddly off center but was still rotating. It didn't take her long to realize that the moon hadn't disappeared at all, but had crashed into the planet which made what appeared to be a big hump on the surface. But what could have caused that?

"Lena, are you around?" she called out in her comm gear.

There was a moment of silence before Miles came on sounding a little out of breath. "Umm... Lena is a little busy." Emma could hear moaning in the background, and she knew very well what her sister was busy doing.

She had to laugh though, because while her sister had always had a high sex drive, she was even worse now that she was pregnant, and it seemed like every hour that they were going at it. "Miles, when you and Lily are done with her, can you have her get a hold of me? I need a favor."

"Yep. Just give us an hour," He replied before she heard Lena' muffled protest. "Or two."

Yeah, she was on her own. With a sigh, she started circling the planet, trying to identify anything that might be useful. It still had an atmosphere, though the temperature readings were much lower than most life would survive with. All of the water remaining on the planet had frozen, and there were deep seas of ice on the side away from where the moon had impacted it. Could anything have lived on the surface if the moon had crashed into the planet? It seemed unlikely, but that was the kind of science that she'd have to take to someone else.

The bigger questions were, how did the foxes move the planet? And why? And what would happen if it was moved back? Hell, for that matter, was it even possible to do that? In theory, the planet once supported life, so if it could be moved back, then maybe it could again, though with the odd shape it could be unstable and have an odd orbit. Emma idly wondered if there was any information on terraforming in the databases that they had information on. If so, maybe they could make the planet inhabitable again. Not to mention, they could probably reintroduce animals from Earth that were endangered, since there would no longer be any native wildlife. Perhaps that could work?