AWAKEN - HUMANITY: Book One

Chapter 5: Nuovo Mondo: Orbit

The blue and green planet of Nuovo Mondo was similar in size to Earth as the sphere silently and very slowly spun on its axis rotating around its huge distant sun, Half the planet bathed in light and half in darkness. The main difference was it had two moons both of equal size orbited opposite each other so one rested in the sky in the day and one in the night.

Snow caps of deep ice were evident as was water, but rich in salt and acidity, and the oceans were on a much larger scale in length and depth with much less rugged landscapes. The rocky landscape reached far above the yellow tinted clouds of the light orange sky. A huge deep crack in the planet surface ran half way around the globe, across a barren land, visible from whoever fell into the planets orbit, looking like it had been carved into the earth by a large instrument, a battle scar from a huge forgotten war.

Life on the planet was not as diverse as Earth, the lands mainly barren, the soil of sand lacking in nutrients, only small dense pockets of growth had been found, like miniature islands scattered around the globe. They all were around the size of a small city, with huge trees the height of small skyscrapers, dark green almost black grass as tough as steel but still managed to sway in the harsh breezes of the morning winds that swept across the lands. Flowers were equally large and colourful, reds mixing with burnt orange and rustic browns, yellows and whites swirling into a mass of egg white blue.

Animals did not exist or at least none had been found in the one year the team had been there nut still the planet was huge and the expeditions long and tiring. They found the oceans were silent, no fish just bacterial organisms that fed off the rays of the sun that penetrated the top layers of the salty dead water. There were small flying birds but few and far between, all looking the same, a cross between a bat and a swallow, dangerous too as they would attack in small clusters and would take feed off anything that moved.

The small forests were active with few insects, just small flying dragon fly types and colourful butterflies with wingspans the size of the palm of your hand. There were tree hugging creatures that looked like long snakes but with small clawed feet at the front, middle and rear of their long four foot bodies, allowing them to crawl up the tall trees and rest on branches.

Life was sparse but what life there was seemed to be localised to the small pockets of growth, nothing survived beyond them, the huge sands between were either too hot in the day, burning even the soles of shoes or cold in the night to the point of your breadth freezing in the air.

In orbit of the planet was the star ship Galaxy One the first ship to arrive at the planet, designed to change form from a simple propulsion ship to small scale version of the original International Planetary Observation Station. IPOS, built over a hundred years prior back at Earth, with living quarters housing up to fifty personnel.

Galaxy One, stationed between the planet an its moon, was now a large white cylinder over half a mile long, a beautiful structure of webbed metals and other more exotic strengthening materials, at its centre a large wheel turning slowly to provide the gravity needed for all the handful of personnel on board to experience a minimal degree of normality.

Orbiting the moon was a Helix telescope, the size of a large house, positioned to monitor the vast expanse of the new solar system they found themselves in, looking out not just short range to the nearest planets and moons, but also long range, further into the darkness.

Part of the Helix project were six small satellites evenly distributed around the globe providing visual data on ground formations, weather patterns, communication and navigational pathways for the ground teams fed through the Helix system.

All this data was managed in a small box sized office aboard Galaxy One, a small bank of computers the size of a shoe box managing the visuals, data streams and advanced photographic studies for all the satellites, Helix and communications back to JFK Two. Senior Officer Shelly Kirby, dressed in simple grey one suit, her small slim frame fitting perfectly at the slightly oversized laptop desk, was speaking out to the computer commands. Her Australian accent evident as she pulled a loose strand of blue dyed hair out of her eyes and tucked it back under her baseball cap. The computer interrupted her speech, softly in the form of a female voice.

"Officer Kirby, we have received transmission from Ground Team Section 5A...there is a delay in transmission...adjusting settings."

"Visual please."

A 3D screen appeared before her slightly raised in the air and distant enough away that she didn't have to strain her eyes to see the coloured picture. It was the Captain, her dark skinned face took up the whole screen, a face clearly I distress, her brown eyes seemed to be staring directly into her, she shuddered.

"This is Captain Carmichael, request urgent intervention..." the picture flickered, she turned away looking at something to her side, she mouthed something but the microphone just played static. She quickly turned back to the camera. "...its powered up, we don't know how...but everything is going crazy..." the picture flickered to blackness then returned with the Captain shouting to someone, "...get the fuck away from there, I said keep clear..."

Officer Kirby spoke. "Captain Carmichael..." she pressed a couple of buttons on her virtual keypad laid out as outlines on the desk. No reply. "Computer is communication live?"

"Negative, signal lost..." silence filled the room for a heartbeat, "rebooting...signal still lost."

"Shit!" she said aloud.

The computer spoke breaking the silence that seemed to last forever but was only seconds. "Daily report sent."

"What...No!" she screamed into the air. "Cancel send."

"File sent unable to retrieve signal."

She slammed her hands down onto the table, the report was sent daily, automatically uploaded from Ground Team by the Captain and automatically sent via encrypted file to JFK Base Two who then stored it and sent it weekly through the gateway aboard a drone to Pluto for transport to Earth Central for further analysis.

Now questions would be asked, she quietly cursed, she needed to act fast and establish what was happening down there on the ground. "Computer show satellite six grid reference twelve, thirty- two and enhance."

The 3D monitor flashed to life and a top level schematic of the immediate area the ground team were at came to life. It jumped and magnification increased to show more details of the tops of the tall trees, the top of a rock formation directly at the centre of the island, it flickered and flashed then went blank.

The computer spoke. "Satellite signal lost."

"Damn it!" she touched her earpiece, a small white Bluetooth ear pod. "Contact Christian." A voice sounded in her ear.

"Contacting Christian..." then a simple ringing tone followed by an American voice.

"Hi Shelly." Christian answered.

"Hi Chris, I need you to suit up, we may have a problem at ground base."

"What? Now?" he paused, "I have my team in delivery bays setting up for the cargo ship."

"Oh hell of course we have that cargo ship...what is it called...Starlight One, incoming..." she shook her head in despair, totally forgot about the incoming cargo ship, this was a big delivery, enough equipment and supplies to allow the project to run for another three years or until the end of the project whichever came first.

"Listen Chris, more the reason to suit up, I need eyes on the ground all communication has closed down, satellites, the lot, something has happened and I need to know what."

"Send a drone."

"Can't risk any more signal failures." She responded quickly.

A sigh came over the ear pod. "Okay, okay, I will suit up, take one of the guys with me and drop down. Give me half an hour and I will drop down."

"You have ten minutes Chris...ten minutes."