Life on Mark II

Contact Home Base

Chapter 9

Commander Fiona

Seeing the new arrival going with the two Commanders was at first shocking. Once the shock was over though, she called the other three commanders to go all go to the shuttle. 

"Let's go meet this new person. They could give us information on this planet that could help us. We will want to have all the commanders there."

They ran off to go follow their new guest.

They met at the hatch to the shuttle and step inside. The other commanders are bursting to ask questions but before they can Dasya' and Raven start talking. 

"This is the commander from the Earth two expedition: Meena Khan." 

The commanders exchanged formalities and then got down to business. 

"First of all I need to use the communications array to contact Mark I and get some new instructions from base. I was told you would come but it looks like they haven't given you the information that was to be sent. Secondly I want to make sure that they know we are still alive and thriving and awaiting further instruction."

By the time she was finished they were already done setting up the signal. Commander Meena sat at the console, put on the headphones and started up the com screen. 

The face of the home base operative was that of pure shock and surprise. It was quite frankly, priceless.

"How did you get back on!?" the operative fairly shouted. He turned to the side and called for Director Nioman. A few seconds later the director sped into the screen and stared in the same shock and disbelief as the operative. "How did YOU get back on!?" He inquired. Then almost as if he was in a trance he said "I thought we cut of-," then he seemed to realize what he was saying and said "I mean lost your signal, years ago." 

The commander was too busy trying to get her message across to notice. "Yes we are still here and we have learned many new things about this planet and have ongoing research. There is a compound here not found on earth that shows signs of killing cancerous growths." 

"Wonderful Commander, we will log that in our notes."

"Another thing, I need to know why these new candidates haven't been given the information you were telling us about." 

The director looked nervous and he looked to the side. "Sorry Commander there's an emergency in B-sector we will have to talk later." With that he hurried off and the com screen went black.

"Well that was very strange. It must have been a big emergency." Meena said to herself. To the others she asked:"Would you like to meet my expedition group?"

"Of course! Should we bring all of our groups?" Commander Dasya' asked. 

"Yes, that would be ideal for our expedition groups to become familiar with each other." Commander Meena replied.

With that they set off to the south, in the direction of the first Mark II inhabitants.