Chapter 50: The trip starts with a couple of discoveries.
The next morning, Harry and Hermione get up at their usual time and train in the training room with their energy swords. The students join them soon after they get started by using the training swords provided by the Potters. The swords are basically metal rods that gives a light electric shock if you get hit by one. This is so the students will instinctively learn to avoid touching one, even by accident. After all, an accidental touch by a real energy sword could take an arm off. Once the morning training is completed, the house members get cleaned up and march by twos into the Great Hall for breakfast. They are joined by Madame Maxime and Professor Karkaroff. The three other champions have been staying in Phoenix House because they have private quarters there. Fleur liked the idea that none of the house members are affected by her veela allure and Krum likes the privacy he gets from fans. Cedric just likes having a room to himself. They are soon joined by Professor Sinistra and everyone is engaged in conversation about the trip.
"Has everyone got what they need for our journey," Harry asks?
"Yes," Professor Karkaroff answers," You said we will be gone for a week, yes?"
"Yes," Hermione answers," Each stateroom on the ship has a clothing fresher if you need your clothes cleaned while we are gone. Kind of like house elf service for cleaning your clothes."
The purebloods nod their understanding of the reference.
Harry turns to Neville and says," Neville, you will be the leader of our house while we are gone. The rest of you refer to him if you need assistance. We can still return to Hogwarts quickly if an emergency comes up that you all can't handle. While I don't think that will happen, you can still contact us on your watches for advice if needed."
"Very good sire," Neville says," You can count on me to be your champion from now on."
"Thank you Neville," Hermione says," We will make it official when we get back."
"Thank you sire," Neville says with a bow of his head.
"What do we have to do to board your ship Harry," Cedric asks?
"Just a minute," Harry answers," and we will find out. I need to talk to the Headmaster for a minute."
Harry walks up the center table where the Headmaster and Professor McGonagall are eating.
"Have you seen Professor Moody this morning?" Harry asks," I'd like to bring the Phoenix down so everyone can see her. Everyone in the school knows we are Elders, except for him. So far, even the Slytherins are keeping quiet about our activities."
"I think that has to do with Hermione being a Slytherin by birth, even if not by house," Dumbledore says," Professor Moody is off to London on an errand for me and won't be back until tonight. I anticipated you might not want him to know about the Phoenix. As far as he knows, Lord Potter is treating the champions and their heads to an extra week of vacation for the holidays and will be back in time for the ball on the twenty third."
"Thank you," Harry says," I'm glad you did that so you can see the ship as well. We will land it on the road to Hogsmead as it needs a bit of room to land. If you want to students to watch the landing, have them outside in thirty minutes."
"Very well Harry," he says and walks to the lectern to make the announcement.
"Attention students," Dumbledore says," You are in for a treat this morning. If everyone will gather on the front lawn, you will get to see a real live space ship in just a few minutes."
Harry nods at him and instructs his traveling group to meet at the front gates for a short walk to board the ship. Harry and Hermione take each others hand and phase to the ship hovering above the castle. They sit in their command chairs and move the ship out to sea a bit to make an entrance. After waiting a few minutes to allow the students to gather, Harry flies the ship slowly over Hogsmead and disengages the cloak, allowing the ship to fade into view. The residents of Hogsmead are startled at first but recognize the bird painted on the bottom of the ship.
"Must be the Elders," someone exclaims as they all rush out to watch it fly over.
The students watch, as the ship comes to a stop about a hundred feet in the air while the landing struts are lowered, after which it settles gently on the ground. The lights around the rim of the ship slow down to a pace where they can be seen as individual lights moving around the edge. A door opens at the top of the landing strut nearest the school and two people walk down the stairs to greet them. The students are all in awe of the ship and respect for the Potters rise exponentially, along with pride in their school to have them as leaders. The couple walks up to the traveling group.
"Is everyone ready," Harry asks?
"Yes," Professor Karkaroff says," I'm impressed with your ship Master Potter. It's bigger than I expected."
"It looks big when it's on the ground," Harry says as they walk towards the ship," It is on the small to medium size range for an average space ship. We landed this in a docking bay of a spherical ship that is one hundred sixty kilometers in diameter. You know the one I mean if you've seen Star Wars."
"You really landed on the Death Star Harry," Fleur asks?
"Yes we did," Hermione answers for him," We converted it into a place for commerce and trade. It became a very popular place to work before we left."
By this time the group has reached the ship and ascended the stairs. Harry leads them all to a stateroom and shows them how to work the fresher for the cloths and how to order food from the food stations. Then everyone makes their way to the bridge where Harry and Hermione assumes their seats in the command chairs. A group of chairs rise out of the floor for the rest to sit in with a touch of a pad on Hermione's control panel and everyone gets comfortable for the flight up to the space station. The students and people of Hogsmead watched as the lights around the rim speed up to become a blur as the ship rises off the ground and retracts the landing struts. Then the ship takes off so fast, it looks like it just disappeared. The group inside look out the windows of the bridge to watch the horizon take on its rounded shape as the curvature of the Earth becomes obvious.
"This is like our carriage," Madame Maxime comments," No sensation of movement even though we are traveling at great speed."
"The ship has very good inertial dampeners," Hermione explains," We will be stopping at the International Space Station to pick up our crew of astronauts. They are a combination of Americans and Russians under the command of Commander Chernov. They are muggles, but know of the magical world due to us being Elders and they know about the make-up of the Intergalactic Community of Planets, which is a mixture of magical and non-magical peoples."
Just then the station comes into view.
"Wow," Professor Sinistra says," It doesn't look that big in my telescope."
"Yea," Harry answers," It's hard to tell scale without a point of reference. We are docking now. Just keep your seats as we get set up for the first leg of the trip."
Harry brings the Phoenix alongside the station and extends the umbilical to the airlock. As the docking is proceeding the magical passengers observe more seats coming out of the floor around the bridge with panels rising up and activating. The crew from the station enters the bridge and the airlock closes with the umbilical retracting.
"Stations everyone," Harry commands.
The crew walks to their assigned station and after seating themselves, log in.
"Comm." Hermione orders," Contact Earth Command and let them know we are ready for departure. Tell them they will receive the first data packet in thirty minutes."
"Aye, Aye ma'am," Comm. officer Ensign Sato acknowledges the order.
"Navigator please request and put in the coordinates for Mercury," Harry says," We will start there and work our way outwards."
"Aye sir," Navigator Vaslovich says and busies herself on the computer.
Hermione turns back to the passengers," It will take a couple of minutes for Lieutenant Vaslovich to get the computer set up. If you need to use the loo, there is a fresher at the back of the bridge. We won't leave until you are ready."
Everyone takes a turn at the fresher before returning to their seat in anticipation of the next event. Once everyone is settled from their visit Chenka touches a pad on her console and the magicals and crew watch as the portal forms outside the ship.
"Take us though navigator," Harry orders.
"Aye sir, here we go," Chenka responds.
The background hum increases as the ship gracefully enters the portal to be translated to the exit point in orbit around Mercury. Upon full translation the portal collapses and the Phoenix is now in orbit.
"Ops, if you will scan the planet for a suitable insertion point for our package and give the coordinates to the navigator, we can get started," Harry orders.
"Aye sir," Lieutenant Commander Sheffield answers.
"Science officer Chernov," Hermione says," "Please scan the planet for any samples you want to bring back to Earth. Get with Engineer Rhodes to see if there are any elements the replicators could use to manufacture parts for a ship like this. They will be flagged on your screens if your scans pick any up. The sooner we can get another ship like this built, the sooner we can start mining the asteroids and other planets for materials to build additional ships and even bases on other moons and planets."
"Aye Ma'am," Chernov says," I like the way you think. Always analyzing and making the best of our situation."
"That's my Hermione," Harry says proudly," We all have tasks to do. Let's get on it."
With that said the couple approaches the observers watching all of the activity in amazement.
"Well," Harry asks them," What do you think about all this?"
"I'm amazed at how well they follow your orders," Karkaroff says," You run a fine ship."
"Hermione and I are co-Captains of the Phoenix and we know her like you know your ship," Harry says," These people are all military officers and know how to work as a team. We have people here from three countries just like in the tournament. We want to show you how well non magical people work together when needed. They know this ship works on a combination of magic and mundane technologies and are okay with it. This will happen all over the Earth in the next few years and it won't be long till the Statute of Secrecy will no longer be needed."
"Professor Sinistra?" Hermione asks," What do you think of Mercury so far?"
"It looks like the moon," She answers," Though, I didn't expect much with it being this close to the sun."
"You are correct in that it wouldn't look like much," Hermione states," It has very little atmosphere or inclination. Only seven degrees and because of its closeness to the sun it is either way too hot at eight hundred degrees on the day side or too cold at minus two hundred eighty on the night side."
"I wasn't aware of those details," Professor Sinistra says," They don't teach that to Astronomy apprentices. Only where the planets are located and how they move across the skies."
"Follow me," Harry instructs.
Harry leads the group over to the back of the bridge where the backup auxiliary stations are and touches a few pads on a control panel. Six panels swing up with chairs rising from the floor. With another touch of a pad, all the consoles come to life. He types a few commands into the computer and menus appear on each screen.
"These screens will give you access to our library," Hermione says," Just spell out the words you want to look up on the touch pads and you can get information on just about anything. If you want to know the details about fish, spell the word fish and you will get all kinds of information about different fish. My suggestion is to start out by reading a short history about the Intergalactic Community of Planets so you can understand us better. This is where Earth is headed so you might want to teach your students Professors, or tell your fellow students about us. This will help keep you from getting bored since you can't actually participate in the work being done so far. That might change as we progress through the solar system. If we find elements the replicators can use, you can help in sorting them in the cargo bay after parts have been replicated. This is standard practice in the Community when a new solar system is discovered."
"Don't worry," Harry adds," We will get your attention before any major happenings so you can watch."
The group nods and turns to their screens to start reading. The ship starts to descend toward the planet's surface and everyone watches as they approach the ground. The ship settles in the chosen place for the package insertion point and the ops officer activates the command to insert the package. A port opens up on the bottom of the ship and a beam of light drills a hole in the ground to anchor the sensor package, which is then placed into the hole by a tractor beam, leaving one third of the package above the surface where it starts to transmit its data back to Earth.
"That, gentlemen and ladies, is also how you mine an element if you find one," Harry states," If the scanners find an element on the list, use the cutting beam to cut around the ore and the extractor beam will pull it out of the ground. It will automatically be placed into the replicators, which will then use the raw material to replicate the parts we need."
Everyone enthusiastically gets back to work as they scan the planet and start pulling various ores from the ground. After about six hours of this and lunch, Harry calls a halt to the operation.
"Okay," Harry says," It looks like Mercury is a rich planet in the elements we need to make more ships like this one. We can come back later after exploring the rest of the system if we still have time. Let's prep for our next stop at Venus. Everyone knows what to do."
ooOOoo
After a few minutes of wait time the portal appears and Chenka moves the ship through. They arrive in orbit about a mostly greyish white planet fully covered in clouds.
"I'm getting some strange readings here Captain," Science officer Chernov says without thinking while looking at his screen.
"I concur," Ops officer Sheffield agrees," It looks like there is life on this planet. Our earlier probes never showed anything like this. It should be way too hot due to runaway greenhouse effect because of the clouds."
Harry and Hermione look at each other and separate to check the reading on each screen; Harry at Chernov's, Hermione at Sheffield's station.
"Cloak the ship," Hermione orders," We are going in to investigate."
"Aye Ma'am," Sheffield responds as he picks up on her tone of voice and types in the command.
The Potters return to their command chairs and puts their hands into the control slots. Shields snap into place around the ship as Harry directs the Phoenix into the cloud bank. Harry and Hermione's fingers are moving rapidly as they compensate for the high wind speeds inside the cloud cover. They break though at ten thousand feet above the surface of the planet into a rain storm. The wind is blowing hard and causing the shields to shimmer as they fly the ship through the storm. After a few minutes the Phoenix flies out of the storm into a dim atmosphere due to the little bit of light getting through the clouds. They descend to a thousand feet and observe what appears to be vegetation and short trees. Everything is all a sickly yellowish color. They fly along looking for a place to implant the sensor package when they run across a clearing in the vegetation. Inside the clearing looks like rows of purplish orange looking plants. There is even a dwelling of some sort in one corner of the clearing.
"Is that a farm," Cedric asks?
"Sure looks like one," Chenka says.
"That looks like a road or a trail," Madame Maxime points out the window to a straight line headed off towards the north.
"Readings," Harry asks?
"The atmosphere is made up of ninety nine percent carbon dioxide, with traces of nitrogen and oxygen." Chernov says," That coincides with findings from our earlier probes, as does the pressure. I don't see how life could survive here? It is the exact opposite of Earth."
"This is proof that not all life is like us," Harry says," Let's follow the road to see where it goes."
Harry guides the ship along the road and the fields become more numerous as they approach what looks to be a city. There is traffic on the roads that looks like some form of cars, but without wheels.
"Looks like they are fairly advanced," Harry comments," Hermione, see if you can find a data center such as a library or something."
"Scanning," she says," found one. Hold on a minute. These beings are native to this world and evolved from the oceans. Their history shows no myths or legends about space or anything beyond the clouds. The general population believes there is nothing beyond the clouds as they have never seen anything to indicate otherwise. With no moon or stars to be seen and all of the sun's light diffused by the clouds, no one ever looks up at the sky and wonders what's out there. The atmosphere and pressure is deadly to humans outside a ship like this and I don't think they could survive in any other environment either without similar protection. There is no threat here; these people deserve to live their lives without our interference. This planet is off limits to all others by order of the Elders of the Universe. If they venture into space someday, we will be there to greet our brothers and sisters from our sister planet. We're leaving."
The Phoenix lifts into the cloud bank on its journey back to orbit. Back on the ground in the government center the leaders are gathered around their version of a monitor with shows the Phoenix above the city, despite the cloak making it invisible to the populace. They listen in as they hear the Elders declaration.
"This planet is off limits to all others by order of the Elders of the Universe. If they venture into space someday, we will be there to greet our brothers and sisters from our sister planet. We're leaving."
"This is good news," one of the leaders warbles," No more unnatural things falling from the clouds."
"It sounded sincere in its declaration," The main leader warbles," We have no need to find out where it came from, but I think it would help us if a natural disaster struck, such as a large rock falling from the clouds, like in the past. We could point the transmitter to the clouds and send a request if necessary."
"If that happens we would just return to the oceans until the disaster passes and rebuild again," another leader warbles.
"True. Life goes on," the leader warbles," The crisis is over, let's return to our homes."
Up in orbit the crew gathers for a quick meeting.
"Place one of the sensor packages in synchronous orbit around the planet to warn us if anyone disobeys our edict," Harry commands.
"This is for their protection as well as ours," Hermione states," They were monitoring us as we were scanning them. Their technology is very advanced and even with their technology, they still think we came from the clouds and have no understanding about space or the stars."
"You probably noticed," Harry adds," There were no airplanes or anything that flew. No birds or flying animals. They are probably afraid to approach the clouds and the unknown. Let's head to our next destination, the moon."
"The back side of the moon is towards the sun at this point in its orbit and will be all lit up for us to explore," Hermione says to get everyone back on track.
Navigator Vaslovich sets the coordinates for the portal and the Phoenix gracefully moves through. They come out on the other end above the backside of the moon. As they are scanning the moon for a place to put one of the sensor packages a flash catches Harry's eye. He looks out the window and sees the flash again.
"James," Harry says while looking out the window," Please direct your scans towards that large crater near the North Pole. I saw a flash like a reflection."
"Aye sir," he says and redirects as ordered," There's something metallic down there. You think it could be an old probe?"
"I don't know," Harry answers," You may be right, but send the coordinates to Chenka and we will check it out."
She receives the coordinates and directs the ship to that spot and brings her down gently. Everyone, including the magical observers head to the landing deck where Harry alters a space suit to fit Madame Maxime, where Hermione instructs her how to put it on. Harry and Hermione don suites so they can communicate over the radios to the others.
"Remember everyone," Harry instructs," the gravity here is only one sixth of Earths, so you will bounce a little more than normal. Just don't kick too hard or you might go further than you want. The suites won't tear so don't worry about that. If you get too uncomfortable, you can return to the ship. No will think less of you for it. Not everyone is cut out for this type of thing."
Once everyone is suited up and in the airlock Harry cycles the air out and opens the outer door.
"Slow and easy," Hermione says over the suit radios as they make their way down the stairs.
When they get to the bottom Harry spots the reflection again and leads the group over to it. He discovers a flat, shiny piece of metal has been uncovered and is embedded into the side of the crater. He waves his hand over it to clear away the dust and discovers a door with a touch pad next to it with blinking lights. Not having the code to open the door he puts his hand on the pad and concentrates. His hand glows momentarily inside his glove and he feels the door click as it opens. The door slides sideways into the wall on the right and as he enters the area behind the door lights come on revealing a hundred meter long by fifty meter radius tube with doors at the other end.
"This is an airlock," Hermione declares as she enters behind him," The door is for personnel and the tube a ship, possibly a shuttle as its too small for anything larger."
As soon as the outer door closes they hear air flowing into the tube. The group makes their way to the other end of the tunnel to the doors there. Harry repeats the procedure and the door opens. He leads the way into a cavernous room with a single ship birthed there. It is about forty meters long and could be described as a flattened cigar with pointed ends and a ring around it about three fourths of the way from the front end.
"There's your shuttle Hermione," Harry says as he takes his helmet off and sniffs.
He nods to the others and they remove their helmets and clip them to their belts.
"Yea," she says," I wonder who it belongs to and why it was left behind when they abandoned the base?"
"Let's see if we can find a control room or something," Harry suggests.
The group splits up to search the base and after a few minutes Victor calls out," I've found something."
They all converge on his position and Harry does his hand thing again to open the door. They follow him into what looks like the control center for the base where he sits down at one of the terminals and looks over the keyboard.
"Looks a little like galactic basic," Hermione comments.
"Yes it does," Harry says," Let's try a basic command and see if it works."
He types in a command on the keyboard and all of the status lights come on and the monitors around the room light up. They show various sections of Earth, as if the planet was surrounded by cameras.
"I've found the final log entry," Hermione declares from the terminal she had turned on," It might clear up what was going on here and why they were monitoring our planet."
She hits the play button and a voice comes out of the speakers. Hermione translates for the others as it speaks.
"Earth Base commanders last log entry. We have to abandon this installation as the Humans have developed a primitive form of space flight. We detected the launch of one of their rockets towards the moon. While they are no danger to us, they are too primitive and aggressive to be allowed to discover this facility. It would be detrimental to their natural development to discover they are not alone in the galaxy at this point. One of our shuttles has a non-functioning warp drive so we will have to leave it behind. I refuse to self-destruct the facility as it would create more questions for the humans if they found a large hole in the surface of their moon obviously caused by an explosion. We will cover it sufficiently so that when they do discover the base they will be sufficiently advanced enough to know what to do with it. This will be our gift to the humans to welcome them to a wider galaxy. On a more personal note; I know it is illogical to make this statement, but I hope they don't blow themselves up with their bombs. They show so much promise and will be a welcome addition to the galaxy as a whole. Commander Soren out."
"He was right," Hermione confirms," If it weren't for us, you might not have discovered this base for another couple of hundred years, if at all, assuming there is no world war three. You would have had no reason to even look. Even Harry found it by accident. Let's find out where they came from and see if we can return their shuttle to them. The moon missions were only thirty years ago so this Commander Soren might still be alive."
Everyone agrees this is more important than planting sensors on planets in the solar system. They have some true aliens to find and they sound like they would be beneficial to mankind to get to know.
Since only Harry and Hermione could read the data, they search through the data base and find the alien's home star to be 40 Eridani, only sixteen light years away in the opposite direction from the penal colony planet that they set up. After finding the location on the star charts the pair observe that clues were left behind, but no names other than the Commander's log. No pictures of what they looked like or the name of their species. It is assumed they aren't human or they wouldn't have referred to Earth peoples as humans in a clinical sense. After reading the data base all of the data is stored in the couple's Nano-Probes, so they proceed out into the hanger to check out the shuttle.
After gaining entry Harry looks over the star drive and smirks.
"And they called us primitive," Harry says.
"Harry you have to see it from their perspective," Hermione says while looking over at the group," sorry guys but to the aliens, you will still be considered primitive until you develop faster than light travel on your own. That has always been the key to when a planet is admitted into the Community. It looks like they have the same rule. The trouble is, to Harry and me, these aliens are primitive. Their form of FTL would take years to cross a galaxy, something we can do either instantly with our portals or in about two days with the hyper-drive in the Phoenix. When you are ready to explore this galaxy in earnest, you will be ahead of them thanks to us, if we don't help them out as well. Colonies are already starting to form on the outer reaches of this galaxy and will spread inward as time goes by. Earth is about half way between the outer arm and the center of this galaxy so we have a few hundred years to get established on our own if that is what we want. The community will allow that, so here is our chance to get started."
"Okay," Harry says," I say we install a Hyper-Drive into this shuttle as a gift to them for the base and allow them to continue to use the base if they will help us as needed. Once we get more of our own ships built, we can join with them and form our own community."
"That sounds like a good plan Harry," Hermione agrees," The Creator gave us free rein with our ship and he will still get full credit as we are his creations. And we will be here to keep the peace for a very long time to come."
"I love you so much Hermione," Harry says as he kisses her passionately. They break off from the kiss and look over at the group, who are all on their knees with their heads bowed.
"What's going on," Harry asks quietly?
"You were glowing when you kissed," Chernov says," You truly are God's children."
"No need for that now," Harry says passionately," We are all children of the Creator of All Things. Hermione and I are his messengers and his tools. We live to serve his will in all things. And his will is for the human race to survive and we will make sure that happens. That is why we are worried about some terrorist group getting hold of a nuclear weapon and smuggling into a large city and setting it off. We are hoping by showing our hand that they will realize the Earth is not alone in the galaxy and these aliens might be able to help out a bit in that regard. We are hoping they will realize their petty squabbles are just that; petty. The universe is a very large place and if they don't like the way other people live, then they can colonize their own planet and live the way they want. Let's get to work on this shuttle and none of this kneeling nonsense."
Harry and Hermione phase to the Phoenix to get a spare Hyper-Drive unit to install in the shuttle. After installation, the couple split up with Harry taking the shuttle and Hermione leading the group back to the Phoenix. Harry inputs the coordinates for 40 Eridani and lifts the shuttle. With a push if a button on the control panel in the shuttle the inner airlock doors open and he guides the shuttle into the airlock where the inner doors close and the outer ones open.
On the Phoenix Hermione takes her seat and inserts her hands into the slots on the arms of her seat.
"Comm, open a channel to command on Earth," Hermione orders.