Star Fields

Chapter No.28 Reconnoiter

Chapter No.28 Reconnoiter

A needle in a hay stack.

After the encounter with the aliens in the Dyson sphere, we settled down to a more mundane exploration of Andromeda. Molly deployed her virtual mirror and began searching for conventional habitable planets, but she wasn't having much luck.

"I've found several Earth-like planets, but they've been stripped of their atmospheres."

"Could the Scath be responsible for that?"

"I don't think so. I see many fresh nebulae, which is an indication of recent supernovae activity. They produce intense gamma ray bursts that are capable of stripping planets of their atmospheres."

"That's a bummer."

"What surprises me is that Andromeda is still an active galaxy. Most of the galaxies in the local group have begun to die."

"I never could understand what it means for a galaxy to die," I said.

"It has to do with new star formation. A galaxy eventually runs out of fresh hydrogen gas and ceases star formation."

"Maybe Andromeda is big enough to capture fresh hydrogen."

"That's true. It's able to gobble up satellite galaxies and steal their gas." She began hitting keys. "This is interesting. It's a G2-V class dwarf star with two habitable planets. In fact they're in the same orbit."

"Is that even possible? Wouldn't they eventually collide?"

"Normally, I would agree, but I think this system has a companion dark star that's keeping this unusual arrangement stable."

"Do you think it's worth exploring?" I asked.

She turned to me. "Yes. If nothing more, we might find an intelligent species on one or both of the planets."

I turned to Judy. "Take us there."

We entered warp and arrived at the system in fifteen minutes. When we came out of warp, we approached the solar system from an angle above the ecliptic, giving us good view of both habitable planets.

Molly described the scene. "The one on the left has no moons and appears to be tilted about 35 degrees to the ecliptic. The one on the right has a moon about half the size of ours and it's titled about 18 degrees to the ecliptic. I believe it's more stable because the moon is orbiting much closer to the planet than our moon."

"So, you're suggesting that the one with the moon has a better chance of being inhabited by an intelligent species?"

"Yes, but we're too far away to ascertain that assumption."

"We need water," I said. "Let's go check out the one without the moon first."

"That sounds like a plan," Molly replied.

"Take us to the moonless planet," I told Judy.

We arrived after a few minutes and settled into a close orbit. Molly immediately began scanning for a source of fresh water.

"There are large lakes in a continent situated in the Northern hemisphere. They appear to have areas where we could land near their shorelines."

"Good. Pick out one that appears to be easiest to get to."

She pointed to a large lake in the center of the continent. "That one appears to be void of any mountains or rough terrain."

"Launch a Class 1-A probe to that location, Judy."