Star Fields

Chapter No.76 Virgo

Chapter No.76 Virgo

There's a lot of stars out there.

The next day, we gathered on the command deck to begin our exploration of the Virgo Cluster of galaxies. We had no idea what we would encounter.

The journey only took two seconds. When we dropped into existence out of empty space, we were about ten thousand light years above a beautiful classic spiral galaxy that is over 49 million light years away from our solar system.

Molly wasted no time in deploying her virtual mirror so that Margaret, Alexa and she could begin looking for candidate habitable planets. Marie and I went down to engineering to see how improvements to the bio-synthesizer unit was coming along.

"We're able to synthesize a wide variety of foods, Jason," Queen informed me. "This improvement is capable of duplicating the taste and structure of almost anything."

"That's excellent. It will give us a more balanced diet."

"I thought that they grew food stocks on the agricultural deck," Marie said.

"They do. They produce wheat, corn, rice, barley, hops, fruits like grapes, oranges and apples, and vegetables like tomatoes, carrots, and lettuce as well as some spices, but the available area and the soil conditions limit what they can do."

"It's hard to imagine that we are on a spaceship," she said. "The agricultural deck also includes the recreation areas that have park-like settings. The swimming pool is actually more like a water park with all of the slides and tubes it has."

"I know what you mean. This vessel provides us with a place to comfortably live without relying on a planet."

"Too bad we're not actually living," she said.

"It doesn't suck," I retorted. "I feel as if I'm alive and I don't have to put up with any aging problems. I can run like a deer, jump like a jackrabbit and swim underwater for hours without an air source. In a way, this is better than biological life."

"Yes, I agree, but there is always that realization that we are no longer like we were."

We both sighed.

We headed back up to the command deck to see what the others had come up with.

"We've located five possible habitable star systems in M-99," Molly said. "They are grouped along a more prominent arm of the galaxy."

"Choose one," I said.

"Take us to system one, Judy," Molly ordered.

The ship immediately accelerated to near light speed and then transitioned over to warp. Twenty minutes later we dropped out of warp around a billion kilometers away from an Earth-like planet orbiting a G-5 dwarf star.

"There's definitely someone home there," Molly said. "I'm detecting orbiting satellites and what appears to be a spaceport."

I turned to our helmsperson. "Put us in stealth mode, Judy. Go to Yellow Alert status."

The command deck lights dimmed slightly, and a blinking yellow light reminded us that we were on alert. Madison activated the weapons systems just in case. The Scath and Myst vessels did the same.

We approached the planet and assumed an orbit that was out enough to avoid any satellites. Molly, Margaret and Alexa began scans of the planet's surface.

"This is wild," Molly said after several minutes. "The planet is pristine, with vast areas of untouched forests, but there are concentrations of very high skyscrapers. This configuration seems to be everywhere there is land."