The weeks since the incident that brought them to this world had dragged on slowly. Sure, the appearance of three moons was exciting and all, but only for a day or two. Devan somehow found himself wishing for a little more work to do.

That was, however, the catalyst for serious discussions of their new situation, and all evidence pointed to them no longer being on Earth. First, they could not link to any communications networks, satellite or otherwise, despite trying everything they could. Second, there was, again, the fact that there were three moons in the sky. Third, after seeing the three moons, a handful of people (he would say nerds) also noticed that the stars in the sky did not match those visible from anywhere on Earth.

This information was, of course, all suppressed as much as possible among the crew and passengers due to its potential for causing panic and lowering morale; however, the new temporary senior management team that was put together a few days after the event was having a difficult time doing so.

This temporary senior management team had a lot to deal with, actually. Devan was glad he had managed to not be roped into it. He was also glad that InterCons' overall President and CEO was on this ship when the fleet was transported here. Otherwise, there would probably have been a lot of confusion over who would be in charge at best, and at worst, given his position, he would have found himself in the middle of a power struggle.

Devan had been told several things that would be done if they do not somehow return to Earth before they find land here.

First, the fleet and all the InterCons assets on it would be reorganized into a new version of InterCons. The shareholder records they did have on file somewhere would be used to determine the ownership of this new company. Everyone on board the ships in the fleet who owned shares of the original InterCons would be allowed to exchange their shares for shares of the new InterCons. This will make the CEO by far the majority shareholder; he was the largest shareholder on Earth and owns far more than anyone in this fleet. This new InterCons will directly own all assets and operate them until it is deemed necessary to create subsidiaries again.

Second, a new board of directors will be elected, and that board will appoint a new senior management team to replace the temporary one. Granted, most individuals on the temporary one will probably be appointed to its replacement.

Third, all the fleet's cargo would be inventoried, including cargo not owned by InterCons. Devan assumed this was mainly targeted at the cargo being transported for the CIA. They had recently been contracted to carry cargo by the CIA's Directorate of Science and Technology, which is strange because they usually only contracted for the Directorate of Operations. There were a few more CIA liaisons on board than usual too, and they had required access to their cargo at all times. InterCons had not been informed of what the cargo was, or at least Devan hadn't. It was all very suspicious, but he figured they would get answers soon enough.

He didn't bother thinking about that too hard though. That was all out of his control and not his responsibility. What was within the realm of his responsibility, however, was their food supply. The fleet's vessels normally carried between 30 and 60 days of food, mostly non-perishable, plus more in several ISO containers that will last the fleet's current population of approximately 4000 at least another 30 days, possibly more.

It had already been 15 days. At worst, that meant that they only had 45 days of food remaining.

With that in mind, Devan decided to go get himself lunch. If he only has 45 left, he's certainly going to try to enjoy all of them.

The hallways were relatively empty, which he was thankful for. He'd lost track of how many questions people had asked him about their current situation days ago. He knew avoiding anyone asking questions in the cafeteria, however, would be more difficult.

Just as he arrived at the cafeteria, he realized that he could've probably just had someone bring a meal to his quarters.

Son of a bitch.

Well, it's too late now; he's already here. At least he could do that for dinner tonight--that is if he remembered.

He was able to make his way over to the buffet undisturbed. Perhaps he wouldn't have to dance around answering any questions this time. He got his food, turned to leave, and almost walked straight into a cook carrying a fresh pan of burger patties.

"Oh, hello sir," the cook said, "How has your day been?"

Fuck. Devan was so close to avoiding this. "Boring. How's your been?" he responded.

"The usual. I still just make food. Anyway, uhm, you know what, I've been meaning to ask someone..."

Love this novel? Read it on Royal Road to ensure the author gets credit.

Here we go. Devan released an inaudible sigh.

"...it's been, oh, I can't even remember how long now--"

"15 days."

"Yeah, it's been 15 days since whatever happened and we lost our internet and everything. Do you know what happened? I heard about the whole, uhh, three moons thing and went out on deck the other day, and it's true! What's that mean? Where are we? Does that--"

"Look, I'm sorry, but I don't have answers to all that. There'll be a memo or announcement or something when management can accurately provide information on the subject. Until then, just calm down and try to keep things up like normal."

"Uhh, yes sir."

"Have a good rest of your day."

"You too, sir."

With that out of the way, Devan finally was able to make his way back to his quarters with his meal, thankfully without further interruption. He sat down and opened the cheap but washable and reusable (though, as he knew, not infinitely by any means) plastic container. He was able to take one bite out of his burger before the phone on his wall rang.

"Oh, for fuck's sake! What could possibly, in this God forsaken shitty place, be so fucking important to these sons of bitches that it can't wait for another 30 fucking minutes before I get back up there?"

He picked up the phone and somewhat more aggressively than intended asked, "What?"

"Land ho!"

"... What? Is this Larry?"

"Yeah, it's me, and I said land ho. Y'know, when you spot land, that's what you shout. I know we don't use it anymore with GPS and--"

"I know what it is! Do you actually see land, or are you just fucking with me?"

"We can see land now!"

"Larry, I swear if I go all the way up there, and there's no land..."

"I promise we can see land, sir."

"Do you see any signs of civilization?"

"No, not that we can identify from here."

"I'll be up there after I... finalize a report real quick."

"Yes sir."

Devan hung up the phone and looked back over to his lunch.

"You see, this report is critical for our operations to continue running smoothly," he said to himself.

Approximately 15 minutes later...

"So, what do we have here?" Devan asked as he entered the ship's bridge. He was handed a pair of binoculars.

"Look one o'clock."

"Oh, I see." Using the binoculars, Devan could tell he was looking at a beach that transitioned into a dense rainforest not too far inland. "Hmm. Did you call the executives about this too?"

"We did."

"Did they tell you anything?"

"The CEO and some of the others are going to meet us up here after we navigate as close to the land as we can."

"Have you seen any animal life over there yet?"

"None of us have noticed anything."

"Alright, we'll check the area for hazards first. I don't want to end up hitting a sand bar... or worse. Call the patrol unit and have them send one of their helicopters over there first with a radar, then have them send over some of their small motorboats. Make sure they're armed, too; we've got no idea where here is, let alone what's here."

"Absolutely."

=== Elsewhere on the ship ===

"Damn it!"

He had gotten them. He had evidence of everything. All he had left to do was send his findings back to his department.

Oh, but no. This bullshit just had to happen, and now he can't send any more encrypted messages outside the fleet. He was isolated and surrounded by enemies.

He just had to keep this up for a while longer. He'd done it for over a month now. There's no reason to worry about being caught.

His mission was critical. This fleet posed a threat to his homeland.

=== Back to Devan ===

Devan was lying on the bed in his quarters trying to sleep. His mind was racing with the possibilities of what would happen tomorrow. For the first time in 15 days, something was actually going to happen. He couldn't wait.

Why couldn't he just go to sleep already?

After the fleet had safely navigated to a point approximately one mile from the shore, several executives and other officers, including Devan himself, discussed their plan going forward. They knew they should explore the surrounding area; however, they were all equally sure they didn't want to send anyone into an unknown rainforest, at least not without scouting it out some.

Luckily for them, they had a few long-range commercial drones available that would allow them to explore miles inland from the air. There was one problem, though, other than the fact that they wouldn't be able to see the ground through the trees.

One of the officers more familiar with the drones reminded us that without GPS satellite connection, we would not be able to send the drones on pre-programmed paths or use the return to home mode. That means the drone operators would have to manually fly the drones from the ground stations, which isn't a problem itself, but if they stray too far away or lose connection to the drones some other way, they'll just crash.

What would usually happen with GPS is that, upon losing connection to the ground station, the drone's return to home mode would be automatically activated, and it would do just that. The drone would safely fly itself back to its launch point. They don't have that feature now.

Another useful mode they wouldn't have is the loiter mode. All their drones are fixed-wing. That means that they fly in a circle to stay over one spot. Loiter mode would have been able to do that automatically; however, now that's something else the operator will have to do manually.

Because of this increased difficulty, they decided to only fly one drone at a time. They couldn't risk losing too many of them.

This exploration would start tomorrow.

One thing Devan hoped they could get from this rainforest was some sort of food. Maybe it has some sort of edible fruits they could collect. He knew they probably couldn't collect enough for everyone, but he hoped it would at least supplement their food supply enough that they'd last a bit longer before they ran into trouble.

Pretty much everyone learned that they had found land pretty quickly, which was bound to happen since, you know, everyone can see it. Many passengers and crew members already wanted to go on shore already--probably because of the boredom everyone had been feeling at this point.

They were, of course, not allowed to go ashore yet due to the potential danger. He hoped he wouldn't be woken up tonight because someone decided to try to escape to shore.

Knowing his luck, though, he decided not to get his hopes up as he finally drifted to sleep.