CANAISIS ∞ Chronicle One: The Last Living Ship ∞ 1: A New Mission

7 ∞ Replay

Day 00001 Mission Nilex

His monitor lit up to show Hangar 2 as he took another bite from the bar. Canaisis was correct—the people of the Nilex Corporation had been industrious. The locker room was filled with people lining up into the cryo room as they waited to enter. The line flowed as people stepped into the cryo beds to lie down, and couples took a moment to hug each other and say their goodbyes before they too lay down. The glass covers slid into place and the cold sleep process took over.

Outside in the hangar, many others worked quickly to arrange the cargo into groupings, placing strap nets over them and magnetic anchors to hold them tight against the floor. Gareth spotted Ahmid and a woman standing to one side. Ahmid appeared to be giving instructions to a group pushing a large piece of equipment levitating just off the floor with Canaisis' help.

A nuclear generator, Gareth realized. «Canaisis, is there fuel in that reactor?»

«No, Captain,» she responded with indignation in her voice, «the fuel is sealed pellets, which are secured in storage containers. It's quite safe.»

«Sorry, Canaisis. I had to ask.»

«It's quite alright, Captain. You're doing your job. It's also my job to remind you that you're overtired and need to rest.» Her voice sounded concerned.

«I know, I know. I'll go to sleep in a few hours. Throw the monitor image up to the wall and let's have a look at these seed pods again.»

A large picture of a past era's sailing ship cutting across the ocean waves with a storm behind it disappeared, and the hangar bay appeared. On his desk, the seed pod specs lit up his monitor. "Canaisis, let's have the recordings of the one that launched from the lunar surface."

"Aye, Captain."

The image appeared as it had when they were still a distance from Luna. It zoomed in to show the seed pod in a crater, sitting upon what was clearly a launch pad. Structures and buildings surrounded it.

"Fast forward, please."

One of the structures next to the seed pod was a crane, Gareth realized. It moved containers from the surface, up to the mid-section of the pod. Suddenly its movements zipped back and forth as the replay sped up. As he watched, the angle of his view changed as Canaisis came into orbit around the moon. His view returned to normal as the seed pod was lost to the edge of the crater. The dark side of the moon rotated past with dots of light sprinkled in clusters across the surface. More so than from his days before launch... much more so.

The day-side rotated into view as Canaisis orbited. When the crater containing the seed pod rose up over the horizon, Canaisis zoomed in to show the whole crater. The seed pod sat there, but there wasn't much to see, so he focused on the surrounding buildings. Nothing seemed out of the ordinary. Land vehicles zipped out to the pod and back again in fast forward. He couldn't see anything that looked military or like weapons.

As the view rotated out of view again, Gareth sat back. Day-side and night-side took turns several times, but nothing changed. Then the pod launched upwards, its attitude jets overcoming Luna's one-sixth gravity. He could see the pod clearly, zoomed-in as he was. The hull appeared smooth, with nothing resembling a weapon port on its surface.

«Okay, Canaisis, that's enough,» he thought. «I assume the ones in place look similar in outward appearance?»

«Yes, Captain. They appear all to be identical,» she answered in his mind.

«Alright. Let's go over the design specs. Let's look at the areas where it would be most convenient to place an explosive large enough to do us harm. Then let's look over the seed pods in orbit using the X-ray spectrum. Is there enough background radiation for us to get a good look passively?»