Lucky 13 (NaNoWriMo 2017)

Chapter 13: Culture Shock...

We drop from warp with a two months of fuel left. Xolotl, a blue star, fills our view screen. Xolotl is the brightest star around, not just because it's the sun, but it is one of the hottest and thus brightest stars this side of Terra. Just to sweeten the deal, the innermost planet is tidally locked with the star, leaving one side of it red hot year round. Multiple solar farms have been constructed on this bright side, taking advantage of the abundant and consistent energy.

The variable conductors in our radiators maximise their insulation as we start our descent on the planet. Landing on the brightly lit side requires specially equipped landing crafts, one that have landing gear that isn't melted to slag when it touches down.

Luckily the planet is laced with a subterranean rail network that transports crew and fuel between the farms and to the landing strips on the backside of the planet. We pass into the planet's shadow, our only light being the planets moon.

The landing station comes into view. A crater quite a bit smaller than the one the Loony Bin is built in is lit brightly with flood lights. Unlike the other side of the planet where everything needs several feet of concrete and a constant flow of liquid nitrogen to remain inhabitable, the buildings here require little more than a thin layer of meteorite protection. Where's on the other side of the planet the only thing visible from the surface are the solar arrays, here the surface is brimming with building.

Large silos of antimatter dot the landscape next to the refineries and the bottling facilities. Several storage sheds filled with antimatter canisters sit next to garages filled with the robots that load the material substance into the transports. Several hangars are dug into the ridge of the crater just below a massive glass observation dome. Over the lip of the crater is forest of massive radiator panels protrude from the surface and reach for the stars.

Our VTOL thrusters throttle up and silently set us down on the surface, right between two sheds of the most volatile substance know. The stations robots get to work right away. They strip out our depleted fuel cells and cart them off for reclamation. Another gets busy plugging in new antimatter pods.

Coolant hoses are attached and the nitrogen is pumped throughout our system, eliminating our excessive heat. The robots finish installing our tone of frozen antimatter, that's fifty-fifty matter antimatter. Our systems cool and Lexi gives me the thumbs up, our warpdrive has fully recovered from our super-superluminal stint.

I duck off the bridge and into my quarters. I activate the recording system.

"Arianna, this is captain May of the Lucky 13. The mission proved no legitimate intel on the subject you were looking into. We tracked down the anomaly and determined the source."

"This is where it gets interesting. We found an alien starship in ruins. We rescued one of its crew, and this is where it goes from interesting to creepy, they know English. They spun a sob story about being attacked by an unknown alien. They also claim that their FTL event horizon surrounds ours on this side of space, indicating that said aliens are either us, their own ships, or a race that has sent scouting parties through or around our bubble."

"Without being destroyed by their own horizon," I add.

"I'm not actually clear on what I'm suppose to do. John declared this a level seven first contact, they are most probably the superior race, tech wise. But we happen to have all the power in this situation, so how does that affect it."

"Additionally they seem to be in violation of their own non-interference directive. They outright admit that they were spying on us, albeit it was to assess our potential to be part of their alliance."