Hermes was again at warp heading for it's next destination.
Joe was manning the helm, alone on the bridge for a change. She valued these serene moments as they gave her time to reflect on her latest ordeal with a conscious tree-entity dumping all it's memories into her brain. It had taken her more than a week to more or less assimilate the knowledge, mostly through group therapy with the rest of the team that had shared her ordeal.
Due to their minds being merely human the memories had started to fade away after the first week so they met daily for several hours sorting through and documenting what they could still grasp of the imparted knowledge.
She had mixed feelings about this. On one hand the fading memories made things easier for her, leaving more room for herself. On the other hand there was so much knowledge! Knowledge humans couldn't even dream of existed and it was being lost.
For now she was content to watch over the controls, keeping an eye out for any changes in the ship's status or anything on long range scanners, letting her mind wander.
Rick was busy. Extremely busy.
He had not left his quarters for the last two days other than to meet with the others from the team. He was busy dictating everything he remembered of the knowledge the tree had imparted on him.
His experience had been different from the others. While they where kept in a holding area, drugged into complacency, busy going about it like rabbits, he had shared his mind with another entity.
The tree was old, his mind vast. Rick was convinced that the human mind was unable to even grasp the notion of how vast it was. The tree had learned a lot from Rick and Rick a lot from it. Not only was the tree a live form completely alien to humans, the opposite was true as well.
The notion of intelligent animals was as foreign to the tree as the idea of an intelligent tree was to Rick. The tree used it's connection to Rick's mind to learn and understand how something like this was possible. Rick did his best to guide and explain things to the tree.
To state that this was an exchange of equals would be ludicrous at best. The tree was a mind spanning a continent that was old before humans discovered fire. In comparison a human mind was little more than an ant. Rick's mind had almost been destroyed by the unexpected contact with the tree as it had not noticed the humans arrival. It pulled back in the last instant and managed to temper down it's probing of the humans' mind.
It was still completely unclear how the tree had managed a direct connection to the humans' mind at all, theories where running wild with notions of telepathy and much wilder ones.
Luckily the tree had realized in time that it would destroy the humans by accident if it didn't slow down. So it focused on Rick, repairing the damage it had already done and initiating a dialog of sorts. The others it relocated to a recreational chamber while it focused on the mind of Rick.
Rick was barely ware of most of what had transpired down on the planet. The interaction with the rest of the team and the way back up he spent in a trance-like state.
He snapped out of it and started dictating again. A lot of this would need to be edited later, right now he had to dictate all he could while he was still able to grasp the fading knowledge in his mind.
"Commander, I have identified a potential problem. Could you please have a look?"
Sunblast's concentration was broken by Henry. The task of diagnosing a minor maladjustment in one of the subsystems of the deflector assembly was complicated due to the complex nature of the system devised by Sunblast. Add to the the annoyance that it should not be there at all and Sunblast was not in the best mood.
"Can it wait? I'm kind a busy here." He answered, sitting hunched down over his console in his small 'Office'.
"I'm afraid not. If my diagnosis is correct it could mean catastrophic failure of the warp engine within the next 48 hours."
That jolted Sunblast back from his screen.
"Show me." he commanded. He leaned out of his cabinet and waved over to the engineer on watch to come over.
"How serious is this problem?" The captain asked.
"I'm not sure yet. On first glance I didn't think it would be a problem at all. The injector operation is marginally out of specification but still within limits. By itself this should not be a problem. It can be a problem if several interdependent components are out of spec just enough for the effects to add up. This is what Henry has discovered." Sunblast reported.
"Henry, can you please summarize your findings?"
"Certainly." Henry answered. The view screen came to live to show a diagram of the warp drive.
"I have created a detailed simulation of the Hermes including all systems and subsystems using the specifications and sensor scans gather with the internal scanners.
Using data gathered from the diagnostic screens and handheld devices I was able to verify the real machinery against the simulated model.
Over time these two diverged, as is expected as components get worn in as they are being used. With this information I was able to extrapolate wear and tear to the point where general failure is immanent. This extrapolation showed that a catastrophic failure will occur before scheduled maintenance is scheduled to be performed.
Recommendation is to perform immediate maintenance on the affected components."
"Thank you Henry." the captain said.
"Commander, is the situation really that dire?"
"We're unsure Captain. The main problem is that we're missing experience with the engine. We are currently the ship with the largest mileage in the fleet by quite a margin. Personally I'm impressed that nothing broke down so far."
The evoked shocked murmurs and looks from the assembled people.
"Don't get me wrong. I have full confidence in every system on board. It is still a new design, a few hiccups are to be expected."
"Right. Henry, how long do we have until the engine will break down if we keep the ship at the current velocity?" the Captain asked.
"At the current stress level to the systems the engine will break down within the next 46 hours at. There is a margin of error as sensor data is incomplete however. I'm unable to specify that margin of error any further."
"How long till we reach the target system at current speed?"
"We're currently cruising at Warp 4.4, we should arrive at the next system in 32 hours." Joe answered.
"What is necessary to perform the required maintenance?"
"We'd need to shut down the engine and partially disassemble it. We're looking at a downtime for the engine of at least 12 hours if nothing pops up. I have the spare parts fabricated as we speak. They include improvements and fine-tunings by Henry and us."
"What is implied by catastrophic failure?"
"That varies on which component fails. Ideally monitoring systems will spot the situation developing and shut down the engine in time. That would drop us out of warp where we are at the moment it occurs with no to minimal damage to the engine.
If the monitoring systems fail to spot it in time we're talking damage to the engine that leads to an automatic shutdown. We'd be thrown out of warp quite violently but nothing the ship is not designed to handle. This would increase repair time substantially, leaving us effectively stranded in deep space while we affect repairs."
"Got it, we should try and avoid that if we can."
"Agreed."
Everybody in the room nodded their agreement. Nobody wanted to be stuck on a ship without a functioning warp engine in the vast gulf between stars.
"Can we risk continuing to our destination or should we drop out of warp now and continue after you're done with maintenance?" the Captain asked.
"In my opinion we should be good to continue as we are. We're taking extra care in monitoring the engine and spar parts are being fabricated. Until they're done we can't do anything anyway. My team and I are confident that we can spot an imminent failure together with Henry in time." Sunblast stated with confidence.
"Captain, if I may?" Henry asked politely.
"Go on."
"I should be able to identify a developing a critical situation in time to shut the engine down safely. My concern is the human factor. I have to pass on the information and it will be checked by Cmdr. Sunblast or someone from his team. By this time it could already be too late. I recommend giving me direct access to the engine so I can shut it down directly if necessary."
The captain looked at Sunblast.
"As much as I don't like the idea I have to agree. We wouldn't have even spotted this if it weren't for Henry in the first place. If we wait until we can verify this it could be too late."
"Understood. I have to agree with that. Install the necessary link for Henry to shut down the warp engine if needed."
She stood up, followed by all the others in the room.
"Thank you for bringing this to my attention. Exceptional work by everyone involved, especially you, Henry."
"You're welcome, Captain."
A frantic two hours later the engineering crew was set up to monitor the engine carefully for any sign of trouble. Henry was given permission to control the engine, this included a link to the engineering main computer that was necessary for this very purpose.
Joe was back at the helm, overseeing the flight of the ship through the void again. Once the frantic activity had died down the situation calmed down again. Joe was still slightly anxiously monitoring the data feed from the engine as well.
So far everything was looking as it should with no problem visible to her.
After a tense day and a half Hermes dropped out of warp, not as planned outside the system but at the edge of it.
"Ship is secure from warp." Joe reported.
"All system read normal, we're good." Smyke reported from his station.
"Status of the warp engine?"
"So far so good. Scans are not reading anything critical."
"Excellent. What about the system?"
"So far all is quite, no artificial emissions detected so far. There is a planet in the goldilocks zone, first look is good from what I can tell so far." Smyke reported.
"Alright, Ms. 9, take us in."
"Understood, igniting sub-light engines."
The subtle background noise of the ship was soon drone out by the low noise that indicated the sub-light engines running on full power as the ship accelerated deeper into the system.
While the engineers where working on the main engine the rest of the ship's crew where performing a now well-trained routine of scanning planets from orbit and evaluating their resources for exploitation. Until they entered orbit of the habitable planet nothing was sticking out as out-of-the-ordinary.
"Atmospheric conditions are within range, the temperature is moderate. About half the surface is covered in water. There are major continents on both hemispheres. The planet's diameter is twice as big as earth's but it's gravity is slightly lower. It is not very dense. Our scans confirm that it is relatively poor on resources. It appears to be perfectly fine for colonization though.
Scanners indicate a rich flora and fauna on the continents. The ocean carry less life than we'd expect but it's still teeming with life.
There is something odd though."
The view screen behind Dr. Schmitz shifted from the empiric data of the planet to a high-altitude image of some vague-defined structures.
"We have found what we believe are structures on some of the continents. We're not detecting any signs of higher life forms, these structures appear to be abandoned. However, there is no way to tell from orbit."
"Alright. I want a thorough survey of these sites before we send anyone down there. Any other sings of habitations?"
"None so far, no. We found Structures on every continent, they appear to be identical."
"Any sign of activity?"
"Again, not that we can tell from up here, the structures appear to be deserted."
"Alright. As we can't learn anything else from orbit I'll authorize an overflight scan over the sights you see fit. After that we can decide on any further actions. Anything else?"
"Not from my side, no." Dr. Schmitz answered.
"Thank you Doctor." the Captain excused the Scientist.
"Commander, what is the status of the engine?" the Captain asked.
"Right. We've shut down the engine and are currently disassembling the main components for inspection. The first parts of the plasma assembly show signs of wear that even outstrip Henry's model. We might have dodged a bullet here."
"How are we on power with the engine shut down?"
"The engine produces the vast majority of our power, which in turn is used to move the ship at speeds greater than light. Currently we're running on the secondary fission drive which is perfectly adequate for our current consumption. Moving at sub-light speed is not an issue."
"How long will the secondary generator last?"
"At the current power level the fuel should be enough for several months, I'd say at least six. If we really need to use it this long we'd need to use the Pods to refuel at one of the gas giants."
"I see. Well, I'll leave you to your repairs then. Dismissed."
The Pod breached the upper layers of the atmosphere surrounded by a bubble of red-hot plasma. As it cleared the cockpit showed the glorious image of an unspoiled landscape surrounded by a dark blue ocean. The land was brown and green, with rivers snaking to the coast barely visible from the high altitude.
The continent quickly past the cockpit as the Pod overflew it. Soon the vast ocean stretched beneath the Pod as it sped along, bleeding speed and altitude. Next to her Pet'l was watching the scanner output. At this altitude it did not return any more detailed data than the scanners on the Hermes did from orbit but that was about to change soon.
Each flight around the planet further reduced altitude and speed of the Pod. This took a lot longer than it would have on earth due to the large size of the planet. This continued until the Pod's altitude dropped below one kilometer.
Joe arched the Pod into a grid pattern over the first continent that contained one of the structures they wanted to investigate.
Under Pet'l's watchful eyes the scanners gathered data about the planet below. Everything from the mineral, biological and chemical makeup to the flora and fauna was scanned and recorded to be analyzed and interpreted later back on the Hermes.
"Coming up on the first structure." Joe announced.
"Acknowledged." Pet'l responded showing no reaction otherwise.
Joe arched the Pod into a holding pattern above the structure a kilometer below it that was optimized to maximize scanner coverage. As there was no further comment from Pet'l Joe just kept the Pod circling above the structure. A side glance to the scanner output showed a large pyramid-shaped structure that was surrounded by several smaller structures. She could not make out much else and focused on flying again.
"Scan complete, we can proceed to the next target." Pet'l announced
"Understood."
Joe waited until the Pod was pointing in the right direction to change course and headed for the next target.
As the structures where spaced out pretty evenly and the Pod's speed was now quite low it took them four more hours to scan all of them and finally return back to the ship.
Joe changed quickly and headed to the Gym. A nice hard, long workout was exactly the thing needed after spending hours sitting in front of a Pod's controls without moving at all.
Entering the Gym she quickly checked and headed for an unoccupied treadmill. Setting it up she started a slow jog to warm up.
After the first kilometer Joe was warmed up enough and slowly increased speed to a jog which she held for half an hour.
During that time she'd heard the door open and close several times with people coming and going but hadn't bothered to check on them.
After she was done with jogging she went for the free weights.
She had just settled for some weights and started a set when she noticed someone next to her looking over the rack.
"Can I help you?" she asked Pet'l.
"I hope so. I have never exercised in this way. How do I start?"
Looking him over in tight fitting workout clothes that showed of his well defined muscles she highly doubted that.
"You want to start light and do multiple sets to start. From that you can move on to heavier weights with less sets."
"Ok. What are you training with?"
"I'm still warming up with ten kilos and two sets. After that I'll shift to twenty for another two sets."
"I'll start with twenty then." he stated.
He picked up the weight and sat down opposite to Joe.
He started curling his arm with seemingly no effort at all.
"Am I doing this correct?" he asked.
"Yes, it appears so." Joe answered after a moment of hesitation.
Joe slowly finished her own warm-up and exchanged her weights for another set of twenty kilo ones.
She started curling next to Pet'l. Joe resisted the temptation to match him and stuck to her own regiment.
She was in the middle of her second set when Pet'l put down the weights and selected another set, a much heavier one.
Joe couldn't help but stop and stare as Pet'l started to lift the heavy fifty kilos with one hand seemingly without any effort.
She put down her own weights. "That looks heavy, how are you doing this?" She asked.
He lifted an eyebrow at her. "I don't understand. Am I doing it wrong?" He asked.
By this time a small crowd had formed around the workout bench the two where occupying.
Shouts where heard coming from the small crowd.
"Is this for real?"
"Somebody messed with the gravity setting?"
Pet'l put down the weight and stood up.
"I'm not involved in any deception that I'm aware of. I did not want to cause any disruption." he said.
"Wait." Joe said and grabbed the weight.
She tried to lift it with one arm just like Pet'l had before. She managed to slowly lift it from the floor but not very high. Doing curls was completely out of the question.
"This is legit." She said after putting it back down. "How do you do it?"
"You do understand that I'm not human?"
The group stood in stunned silence.
"Right. They tell you not to assume anything when dealing with aliens. You look so much like us that we just forgot." Joe answered.
"How much can you lift one-handed?" a crewmen asked.
"I've never tried." Pet'l answered.
"Let's find out." Joe said.
The heaviest weight Pet'l managed to easily curl was just short of 90 kilos. There simply was no more place left where any more weight could be added to a free weight, usually there was no need for that.
"Ok, how are you so strong? You don't look even remotely bulky enough."
"That is simple. My muscles and tendons are a lot denser than that of humans. That, among other differences makes me quite a bit stronger and more powerful than the average human."
With the demonstration over the crowd had dispersed, leaving Joe alone with Pet'l.