Star Fields

Chapter No.43 Survey

Chapter No.43 Survey

There are lots of stars.

We decided that it was time to explore the other side of our galaxy. Molly had a good suggestion to expedite that.

"Why don't we move up out of the galaxy so that we're right over the top of it. That way, I could deploy my virtual mirror and see all of the other side.

"Good idea," I said. "Tell Judy how far you want to go above the galaxy."

She turned to Judy. "I believe that somewhere around a thousand light years should be sufficient."

"Okay, Molly," Judy replied.

Our vessel moved out of Earth orbit and shot up off the ecliptic. Soon, we were moving about a quarter the speed of light before going to a short warp session. When we came out of warp we were above our galaxy, a typical spiral galaxy enveloped in plenty of gas and dust.

I looked up at the screen displaying the Milky Way Galaxy and smiled. "What an amazing sight. It's hard to believe that we came from a tiny little spec in one of the arms of this galaxy."

"It would be very difficult to find that tiny spec," Molly said.

The ship soon came to a stop relative to the galaxy, which was traveling approximately 2.1 million kilometers per hour through the universe. Molly activated her virtual telescopic mirror and began surveying the far side of the galaxy that is mostly invisible from Earth.

I went down to engineering where Queen and her staff were showing a few redheaded and black-haired androids some new technical procedures.

Queen immediately diverted their attention to me. "This is Jason, our only male."

Melisa, a redheaded android came over to me along with Jessi, a black-haired android and looked me over.

"We have never seen a male before," Melisa said. "Do you like us, Jason?"

"Sure," I said. "I like all of you."

They smiled.

"Do you like being the only male, Jason?" Jessi asked.

"Not really, but I've grown accustomed to it."

"We are fully functional, Jason," Melisa informed me. "Do you want to enjoy us?"

I held a hand up. "Ah . . . I would rather discuss some new upgrades to the antimatter storage pods."

They laughed.

I realized that these female androids were based on a sex-bot model, but I didn't think that that programming had been retained in Molly's reboot. I suspected that she retained that code just to tease me.

When I got back up to the command deck, I found Molly immersed in her study of the hidden part of the galaxy.

"There isn't all that many habitable systems on the far arm of the galaxy. I did find a very interesting system that consists of gas giants. One of them orbits a G5 dwarf in the habitable zone. I believe that it has a habitable moon."

"That would be like the first one we explored."

"Yes, but I think this one may have two habitable moons, but it's just a hunch."

"Do you want to go there?"

"Yes."

I turned to Judy. "Take us there."

"Yes, Jason."

We arrived there in less than an hour. Molly's hunch was right. A Jupiter-sized gas giant in the habitable zone has several moons and two of them appeared to be Earth-like.