Earth-like Moon
Unknown System
The shuttle came in through the thin atmosphere of the moon. It was currently clear skies with a bluish colour, although it was something more of a turquoise than an Earth summer’s day. The green fields reminded Grace of the time she had spent on Earth.
“It looks something like Montana.”
They had headed to the desert world’s second moon after Wokoma had found evidence of trading with humans. The shuttle buffeted as it hit a patch of turbulence, and Wokoma was quick to compensate. Grace felt pleased with how her restraints held her in place, and she noted some amusement at Dryden. He had taken a more casual approach and almost got thrown clear of his seat. If he hadn’t grabbed on at the last second, he would have been fumbling with a sickbag now.
“There’s some sort of remains of the settlement up ahead,” Wokoma reported, as the ship’s instruments read signs of, if not civilization, then certainly the remains of one.
Grace sat in the cockpit’s rear and strained her neck to get a better view of the system’s readout with little luck as it tried to generate a two-dimensional view of the surface based on the ship’s sensors, the screen became pixelated.
“And there is some sort of settlement,” she added. “Metallic materials,”
“Metallic?” asked Chase from the co-pilot’s seat.
Grace could see shapes on the horizon resembling almost those towns you saw in those old Western movies—rows of buildings on opposite sides of the street. But in this case they weren’t houses.
“Those are cargo containers,” said Dryden, pointing out the front view.
The shuttle slowed as Wokoma worked to slow their speed as they flew in towards the settlement. Grace could see clearly that the makeshift houses had definitely been constructed from cargo containers. She could even make out 1805, a ship’s registration number on the side of several of them. They were placed along in what looked like a street going up a slight hill.
“I think we can say we’ve found where our crew went,” said Chase. “Set us down just outside the main town square there,” he said, pointing at a cleared area away from most of the shipping containers.
“That looks like the village green, almost,” said Wokoma.
“I was thinking the same thing,” agreed Chase.
Wokoma took the shuttle around the township to give them another chance at seeing the place from above before setting down in a grassy field near what looked like a piece of concrete. Grace released the buckles on her seat and waited for the others to disembark. The ramp at the rear of the shuttle worked its way to unfolding down with the mechanical whirring of its servos. A moment later, the cold breeze of the moon’s atmosphere hit her. It felt autumnal. It also smelled, of course. Every planet had its own smell. If you were unlucky, you ended up on one of the methane-rich ones. This wasn’t anything like that, but certainly something that would take a while to get used to.
Chase disembarked first, and Grace waited, not wanting to appear in a rush. Of course, with the significant findings, most archaeologists waited their entire careers to find a fraction of what they had seen on this expedition, and here she was, first time at the gate, finding all of this. She would much rather have done it on her own and been able to claim the credit. But given how close she came to ending up dying alone in an escape pod on the other side of Trafalgar’s airlock, she wasn’t about to get too hung up on it.
They walked across the field, while Wokoma ran her scanner over the concrete structure. It was half a meter high and four meters across. Grace was throwing out several explanations about what it might be.
“Perhaps if there had been alien natives on the other planet, they had used this as some sort of customs house,” said Grace, “or,” she added, “the humans built it as a bandstand.” The other three stopped and looked at her.
It seems patently obvious. Sure, there was no roof to the thing, but it was identical to the kind that Grace had seen in her historical research on old Earth where the nineteenth and twentieth centuries would have musical entertainment in public play parks. It made sense that the crew of Trafalgar may have done the same, and they had the resources to build concrete.
“Yes,” said Wokoma patiently, “that is certainly a possibility. The comment was noncommittal, clearly avoiding starting an argument or showing conviction.
“Let’s keep moving,” said Chase, an expectation in his tone. Dryden fell into step beside him with Wokoma holding up the rear, trying to take in scans of absolutely everything. She seemed even more taken by this settlement than she had on the last planet that now hung in the sky above them.
Grace however, was looking for anything she might find that would help her pay off the debts she had racked up. Someone like Wokoma wouldn’t be on board with selling anything they found, so if there was anything that had the potential to be valuable, Grace needed to grab it quickly and unnoticed.
A structure emerged from the dust. It was large, and as soon as they fully made the turning, Grace recognised it as one of the shuttles missing from the Trafalgar’s Bay. It had 1805, the registry number matching that of the cargo containers.
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“I think we can safely say this is where the crew ended up,” said Chase.
‘No argument from me,’ agreed Wokoma.
“Or me,” Grace added, not wanting to be left out.
Dryden approached the shuttle and attempted to access the entrance ramp. It was much larger than the ship they had just descended in—a more rudimentary craft from a simpler time. There were fewer touchscreens and far more in the way of dials and knobs. They could run touchscreens, but it had still been considered a better idea to have the full-on systems as a backup until most of the onboard systems had been automated by the ship’s AI fifty years ago.
The shuttle was not granting access. Grace tried to get into the historic records on her slate, as she had done back on the Nomadic, but they were far too far out from the cluster to get a strong enough signal. The idea had also occurred to Wokoma, who was working through backups on her official, navy rated slate, giving her a similar period. Dryden was now simply typing in random digits into the shuttle’s rear access keypad.
“Hold off,” said Chase, “they might have a lockout for too many failed attempts.” Dryden nodded and stepped back, muttering that the ship was currently unobtainable.
“Aha,” said Wokoma, “try this,” and held up a code for Dryden to see. He started tapping away. It wasn’t a traditional entry code from the period Wokoma claiming it was but some sort of fleet override that all ships would have been programmed with. The shuttles on board lights flashed on, and the rear access door slid open to one side. Dryden immediately rushed in and grimaced at the stale air that hadn’t been exchanged in decades.
Grace was content to wait outside, but Wokoma asked her to accompany her in.
“What’s your take on this?” she asked. Grace was taken aback; these Navy types weren’t usually the sort to value someone’s opinion such as hers.
“I mean, if we can get the computer working, it will give us a much better idea than anything else in this one-horse town,” replied Grace. Wokoma looked blankly at the reference.
“This feels like the old West,” said Grace. The other historian still didn’t follow but, realising it was a missed reference, moved on.
She sat in the cockpit and began analysing how much she could do. The cockpit had several sets of dials and a steering column. Grace thought it looked like an historic aeroplane rather than a ship that had flown in space. There were several screens along the front console, which were flickering back to life—either with distorted images or slightly faded; both were pixelated. The screens had significantly lower resolution than anything manufactured within Grace’s lifetime.
“Can you access any logs?” Chase called from the outside, and Wokoma got to work seeing which systems would play ball.
“I think I can, you know,” she replied, looking up. “I’ve got the flight recorder! Wow!”
“What is it?” asked Grace,
“Only getting top-level records—none of the personal logs or any secondary systems. But I’ve got a date on the last flight,” said Wokoma.
“Of the Trafalgar?” asked Grace.
“No, the shuttle. It landed here One hundred and ninety-one years, four months and fourteen days ago.” Grace tried to do the maths in her head. That would put it about nineteen years after the Trafalgar went missing.
“That means…” said Grace,
“We weren’t dealing with the survivors of the Trafalgar or, if we were…” said Wokoma,
“They would have been geriatric. They must have descendants,” said Grace.
“That’s speculation,” replied Wokoma, transferring as much data as she could to her slate, “but it’s a likely assumption. If the Trafalgar ended up in this system, and they were able to settle down on this moon, then it makes sense some of them would have started families. The real question is actually, where are the descendants now?”
Grace thought on that for a moment. The Mary Rose had sent probes around the system and ran deep-level scans. As far as I could tell, from my pod, everything in the system was a dead world. Why wasn’t this detected?
“I’ve backed up as much as I can,” Wokoma called out to Chase. “We should check out the rest of the town.”
Grace stood up to get out of the shuttle and headed back to the field. Chase and Dryden were already walking back to the township.
Wokoma was checked the logs had backed up to her slate before stepping out.
The main street was lined on each side with the cargo containers. Chase and Dryden were running scans on the exterior, Waiting for the results before entering.
Grace followed with Wokoma behind. She walked up to the first container she found. There was a metallic door. There was a handle carved into it, while it had been a cargo pod. The actual base had been changed to resemble almost a rustic home.
The doors had been manufactured by craftsmen with metal locks and traditional handles to make them resemble as much of a tactile homely feel as possible.
Grace waited for a moment in the doorway, and then she heard something behind her. She turned, and nothing was there. She slowed her breathing to calm herself. It was a ghost town; it made sense that she would be on edge. She reached up and slowly opened the door.