Star Fields

Chapter No. 4 Arrival

Chapter No. 4 Arrival

Anticipation is a two way street.

I arrived on the command deck the next morning and found Judy in her usual place and Molly at the navigational station.

Ms. Fields turned to me and smiled. "We've achieved orbit around the moon."

I smiled back. "Great." I sat down next to her to look at views of the moon on a large screen.

The moon hung in the background of a gas giant with thin gossamer rings. It appeared as a mostly blue world with swirling clouds over vast oceans and dark continents. For the most part, the land areas was covered with greenery and there were several rugged mountains and river-lined valleys distributed around the two main continents.

"I assume that the oceans are salty," I said. "Are there any fresh bodies of water?"

"Yes," She said. "There is a large lake about the size of Lake Superior on the northern continent. Usually, such lakes are formed by receding glaciers, which deposit fresh water."

"How about life?"

"The spectral scans of the atmosphere indicate an oxygen presence of around sixteen percent. The rest is nitrogen with traces of carbon dioxide and argon. There is also evidence of sulfur dioxide near active volcanoes. I would guess that there are examples of primitive life, but we'll need to go down there to ascertain just what is there."

"I see that there's a cleared area on the southern fringe of that lake. It appears to be void of any plant life."

"That's probably where the tidal forces have washed away anything that grows there."

"Could we land on that long enough to collect water?"

She pressed a few keys on a command board. "I've run simulations of the moon's orbit around the gas giant. Our best shot is around 0800 hours tomorrow. We would have about five hours before the tide washes in. I don't see any evidence of bad weather."

I turned to Judy. "Alert the crews that we will go down to collect water at 0800 hundred hours tomorrow."

"They will be ready, Jason. I assume that you and Molly will be going down also."

"Yes."

Molly turned to me. "I'm not sure that the oxygen is high enough for us to breath."

"You will be able to breath," Judy said.

I turned to Molly and smiled. "I suppose the agents will take care of us."

"I think that we should wear bio suits. Even though we can't be infected with any alien bugs, we don't want to take even a trace of any of them back to Earth. If there are survivors, we could potentially infect them."

"I agree." I tuned to Judy. "Send a Class-A probe down to that cleared area near the lake."

"Yes, Jason. The probe has been launched."

She did that without moving or even blinking.

The probe plunged through the atmosphere and began sending sensor data back.

"I'm surprised that the atmosphere is so cold being this close to the gas giant," I commented.

Molly was viewing the same readings. "This gas giant obits the star at the far edge of the habitable zone. The only reason that this moon is not frozen over is because it swings around the planet oblique to the ecliptic, allowing it to bathe more in the star's heat. This won't last however. This system is much younger than our solar system. This moon is still young yet. In another billion years, the star will be ten percent more luminous, which will heat the moon up."

"I wonder how rare this situation is?"

"That's a good question," she said. "There are many systems with gas giants orbiting their stars in the inner solar system. Most of them are called hot Jupiter's because they're too close to the star. This particular system is probably rare, but there haven't been all that much done to determine that premise."

"We might get a chance to find out how rare they are," I said with a smirk.

She looked at me with inquisitive eyes. "What do you mean?"

"If my idea of improving our warp speed works, we will be able to explore this galaxy."

She smiled. "I went over your math. It appears to be viable. I have been kicking a new theory around that could give us speeds at least double the maximum theoretical warp speed."

My eyebrows shot up. "Really?"

"Yes," she said with a smug. "I think we could get above seventeen and maybe even higher."

"Oh my! With that kind of speed we could explore the entire universe."

"I gave my math to the androids in Engineering. It will be interesting to see what they get out of the simulations."

"Indeed!" I said, rubbing my face. "If we can get higher than seventeen, we'll have to call it something else."

"How about Quantum Drive?"

"I like that," I said even though I didn't think it to be accurate.

The probe landed on the lakeshore and began sending copious amounts of data back.

"The air temp is 17.2 Centigrade with a pressure of 15 pounds per square inch," Molly said. "That's good enough with an oxygen concentration of 16 percent."

"I'm surprised that the radiation isn't higher," I said. "It's only 0.5 millisieverts."

"This moon has a strong magnetic field," she said. "It's around three times stronger than Earth's. It should prevent any radiation from the gas giant from killing off life on this moon."

I smiled. "We'll find out what's happening down there tomorrow."

She didn't seem as enthusiastic as I was. I wasn't able to read her that well yet. She seemed to be okay, but it's hard to tell.

"I have the results of our DNA scans," she said. "The system came up with a complaint that we were not who we said we were."

I chuckled. "I'm not surprised."

"The differences are so many, it's as if our bodies are no longer ours. We have been totally changed into something else. For one thing the agents are maintaining our telomeres. Those are the endings of chromosomes that deteriorate with time and result in aging. That's definitely not human.

"I suppose we should have expected that. The android bio-agents are programmed to maintain androids not humans."

She gave me a confused look. "We still look human."

"They do too."

She sighed. "Yes, you're right. So, what does it mean to not be human?"

"Good question. One thing for certain is that we can't reproduce. The agents would consider an embryo to be foreign attacker."

"That means if we don't find any humans back in our solar system, the Homo sapiens species will be extinct."

"Yes. However, we have on this vessel a complete record of human history."

She tilted her head. "How so?"

"The computer memory has every published photo, motion picture, and recording ever made. Every television show, stage performance, movie and historical recording has been archived."

"That would suggest that they assumed that this plan to destroy an alien species could go wrong but that this vessel would survive."

I nodded. "Yes. That is a reasonable assumption. It also suggests that our survival and our conversion was programmed."

"The question is: who planned this?" she asked.

"We have to assume it was the military in conjunction with Space Command."

She frowned. "That sounds like a conspiracy."

I nodded, but I wasn't sure that our conclusion was valid.