Chapter No.5 Exploration

The unknown represents mystery to the curious.

The next morning, Molly and I arrived on the flight deck attired in white bio suits. Our faces were covered with a transparent shield mask that had narrow high efficiency filters on the sides.

We boarded a shuttle craft and found Marcia and Betty in the command seats. Molly and I were passengers, sitting directly behind them. Two other larger shuttles with tanks were manned by two pairs of androids.

The flight deck door slid up after the deck was evacuated. Our shuttle went out first and fired breaking rockets to descend into the moon's atmosphere. The two tank shuttles followed us down through the atmosphere to the cleared beach next to the large fresh water lake.

The ride down was bumpy because of strong stratosphere winds that buffeted our shuttle. However, our androids handled the task of getting us down safely and landing as if they had been doing it for a long time.

We exited the shuttle through an airlock and stepped on a pebble strewn surface. The sky was a dark blue with a few high clouds. Since the star was a G-class, the light from it was much the same as what our Sun puts out.

Molly picked up some of the pebbles. "These are perfectly smooth, which means that tides have been washing up on shore here for a very long time."

"I'm surprised there isn't very much sand."

"That's another indication that this moon is relatively young."

We watched the two other shuttles sit down much nearer the water than ours did. The androids immediately began moving flexible pipes out into the lake to begin pumping water into twin tanks on each shuttle.

Molly and I walked toward the wooded area away from the beach. Our two androids followed us holding their BFG weapons at ready; although, I couldn't imagine what they were concerned about.

We noticed a few insects flying around and strange looking long legged creatures crawling around on the beach.

"You were right about the primitive life," I said. "I don't see any larger lifeforms."

"I doubt we'll find any, but there could be some hiding in the wooded area."

I instinctively reached down to touch the handle of my hand weapon, which was capable of shooting very hot plasma balls at distances up to a hundred meters.

We entered the wooded area. The trees were more like giant ferns with long narrow serrated yellow leaves. There was little in the way of ground cover, which seemed odd to me.

What I saw next disturbed me. "I don't believe this!"

Her eyes large with excitement, Molly came up next to me. "What is that?"

"That is a biosphere habitat."

She gave me a confused look. "Is it alien?"

"No! See that logo in the side. It's manufactured by ATOM, a prime contractor for Space Command."

"I don't get it," she said in a squeaky tone. "I thought that our ship is the first to travel interstellar space."

I blew out a disgusted breath. "Obviously, that's not the case. They must have sent a mission here to set this up for our crew."

"Is anyone in there?"

"I doubt it. They would be at least 175 years old by now." I pointed. "Scan it."

She activated a handheld scanning unit that had been attached to her utility belt and pointed it at the biosphere. After a few minutes she turned to me. "There are no life signs. All that I'm getting is readings of food stocks and water. Can we enter it?"

"We could, but we won't. It's probably booby-trapped. We'd have to know the proper passcode or bio scan to get in without getting blown to kingdom come."

"Maybe the codes were sent with our ship."

I turned to the two androids. "Do you know the codes?"

"The lock requires a bio scan," Marcia replied. "Only Captain Stevens could activate it."

"So much for that idea." I sighed. "Oh well, we don't need to get in, but this certainly indicates that this project was planned long before our mission was launched."

"I'm surprised that the enemy alien species hasn't located this," she said.

"Maybe they have but left it here so that they could surprise attack our crew."

"That means that we could be in danger."

"You're right," I said. "As soon as we take on water, we're getting the hell out of here. Engineering has created enough antimatter for us to return to Earth. The sooner we get going the less chance that we'll be attacked."

Our androids escorted us back to our shuttle. We looked on the horizon of the lake and saw the gas giant peeking up with its thin transparent rings tilted.

"Wow!" Molly exclaimed. "That's a spectacular sight."

"Yes it is! I often wondered what it would be like to live on a moon orbiting a gas giant. I suppose such spectacular sights would become mundane with time."

"I don't know. It's so majestic."

We stood and watched the scenic splendor for a few minutes before boarding our Shuttle for a return to the ship. The tanker shuttles soon followed us, but they would return for another load of water before we had a full load on our ship.

We went through decontamination upon arriving on the shuttle bay. This involved repeated air and water blasts before we were able to enter the ship.

I immediately went to Engineering to determine if the warp drive engine was ready to function.

"Yes, Jason," Queen said. "The warp system is operational."

"We won't activate it until we've cleared this solar system."

She nodded.

I went back up to the command deck to check on our status. I sat down at the Engineering station and brought up the ship status report. Everything was functioning.

I turned to Judy. "Go to Yellow Alert. Scan for vessels."

"Yes, Jason."

There was nothing wrong with being cautious.