System HX-271B

Joe woke up quite relaxed and calm. The look on Ricks face managed to make her smile. She might have gone a bit far, so she'd apologize later. Hopefully he got the hint.

But that completely paled with one thought. Today they would reach the point at which they are the civilian ship that has traveled the farthest from Earth. And they'd push that marker with every LY that they'd travel further. Joe quickly showered and got dressed. She headed for the galley for a cup of coffee, today was a fasting day, so no breakfast or lunch. Ready to tackle any challenge Joe headed for the bridge.

Joe managed to be at her station one hour before reaching the second system. She took her station going over the current status and started checking the sensors. Sensors so far where clear, nothing unusual so far. Still, she was very exited. No human has ever visited this system before. Would they find anything?

After some minutes the Captain took her station.

"Report."

"Approaching the system, Captain." Joe answered

"Sensors are clear, Captain." Smyke added from Ops.

"All right, Ms. 9. Drop us out of Warp, right at the edge of the system."

"Aye. Dropping out of Warp in 5, 4, 3, 2, 1."

The Ship shook slightly returning to Sub-light.

Joe checked my controls, all good.

"We're secured from Warp. Position is within tolerances." Joe reported to the Captain.

"Very good, begin scans."

"Short range sensors are clear, starting long range scans." Smyke reported right as Dr. Schmitz and Pet'l arrived at the bridge and settled down at their consoles.

"Scans are coming in. Vicinity is clear. No FTL communications. Scanning radio bands. Nothing so far." Smyke reported.

"So, do we enter the system or skip right ahead, Dr.?"

"Captain, we are analyzing the data. It should take about 2h before we should be able to decide."

"Any sign of our whale?" Joe asked.

"Nothing so far, we are scanning for its signature, but taking into account how close we had to get to spot it in the first place it is highly unlikely that we'd spot it from this far out." Pet'l answered.

With that they went on with their business analyzing the sensor data. For more than one hour the bridge was quite with only the normal noises from the computers.

"Captain, we'd like to take a closer look on the second planet from the sun. It is not capable of sustaining life, but the atmosphere is quite interesting."

"All right, Ms. 9, take us in."

"Aye, Captain."

Joe plotted a course and brought the ship up to full sub-light, entering the system.

"ETA: 40 minutes." She reported after setting the autopilot.

The closer they got the clearer the image from the sensors became.

"Interesting, there is a radiation signature coming from the moon orbiting the second planet." Smyke said.

"I'd like to take a closer look, Captain." Dr. Schmitz added.

"Ms. 9, adjust our heading. Aim for the radiation signature. Put us into Orbit right above it." The Captain ordered.

"Adjusting course." Joe recalculated the course and switched off the autopilot. "Time to Orbit: 25 Minutes."

Joe parked the ship neatly in Orbit directly above the radiation signature.

"So, what can you tell us, Dr.?" The Captain asked.

"So far our scans are inconclusive, it could be a natural phenomenon or artificial." Schmitz answered.

"The radiation is coming from a large crater on the surface. The level is high enough to prevent us from scanning more details." Pet'l added.

"I'd like to stay in Orbit for a while Captain and study this phenomenon. The crater is ideally placed to monitor the planet. It would be a suitable place for an observation station."

"All right, lets stay and see what we find out. What is so special about the planet?"

"It is very similar to Venus in the Sol System. The Atmosphere consists mainly of nitrogen and carbon dioxide. The temperature is about 480°C on the surface. There are also trace amounts of water in the atmosphere. Contrary to Venus it seems to have a rotation that is fast enough to make terraforming feasible. But we need to study it more closely."

"All right, we're already here."

The rest of Joes shift was uneventful. There is only so much need for a pilot when the ship is sitting in a stable orbit. Especially when space is clear of anything that could pose a potential danger to the ship.

After Joe handed her station over she changed and went for a workout. Hoping to find Rick she was a bit disappointed having the Gym for herself. Joe was halfway through her routine when Sarah entered the gym, obviously looking for her as she does not work out.

She instantly spotted Joe and walked over. Judging from the way she was walking she was pissed. Oh boy!

"Did you find that funny?"

"Actually, yes. I did. Still do."

"You're lucky I found and freed him. He was pretty humiliated."

"Listen, he made a move, he failed. Happens. He had it coming."

"He is pretty full of himself, but that could have gone very wrong. Remember the time when I walked in on one of your dates and almost called security?"

"Oh, yeah. That was kind of embarrassing. Ok, I might have gone a little bit too far."

"A little bit?"

"Yeah, just a little bit. He was so full of himself! Hopefully he learned a lesson"

"Yeah, he really is that. For now it seems he did."

"Should I apologize?"

"That might be something you should do."

"Gee, thanks!"

"Good, see you later for dinner?"

"Sure, meet me in 30, I'll just finish this up here."

"Ok, see ya."

Joe was finishing her last set when the door opened and Rick walked in. He spotted her and froze. Then he composed himself and went to the treadmill. Joe finished her set and tidied up. Then she walked over to him.

"Hi."

"Here to humiliate me more?"

"Actually I wanted to apologize, shoving you outside like this might have been a bit much."

"A bit? You think so?" He stopped the treadmill and stepped down.

"Sarah had to free me before anyone else could see me! A bit too far you think?" He was yelling in Joes face, getting her pissed off.

"Actually no. Not a bit too far, sorry."

"At least something."

"It seems it was not far enough. You wanted a shot at me. I gave you that. You bit off more than you could chew, suits you right. Bested by a girl half your size. Cute." With that Joe turned around and left, barely able to stop herself from laughing.

The night ended very good with Sarah and Joe trash-talking about Rick. Both felt much better after that.

The next morning started with a briefing. Again the meeting room hosted ships crew listening to a report from Dr. Schmitz. This time Pet'l was attending as well.

"We finished our analysis, at least what of it can be done right now. To gather more details we'd have to spend a significant amount of time here. That is not what we came here for." Dr. Schmitz opened.

"However, this planet is of quite some significance. It can be terraformed relatively easy. The needed materials are all present in the system. There are small moons orbiting this gas giant that has a significant amount of ice. One or two could be easily de-orbited and made to crash into the planet."

That remark did produce shocked expressions all around.

"It would have to be broken up first, of course. That would provide the necessary water. First the planet would have to be cooled down. That can easily be achieved." Schmitz continued.

"If that is so easy, why isn't Venus being terraformed?" Smyke asked

"There is a problem that is quite unique to Venus. It does rotate very slowly, one day on Venus is 117 days on Earth. During that time pretty much all water on the day side would evaporate, leading to extreme weather that is well beyond current technology to be handled. This planet does not have this problem."

"Ok, what is the timescale for terraforming this panet?" The Captain asked.

"That depends very much on the scale of the operation and the amount of resources being committed to it. Terraforming is not a project that can be achieved in short-term. It would take several years for the first results to be seen. Just de-orbiting and breaking up one moon would take 3-5 years. Converting the carbon dioxide in the atmosphere would need engineering on a scale that is several orders of magnitudes larger than what is currently done on earth." Schmitz concluded.

"Easy, yeah?" Smyke remarked.

"So, in the short term there is nothing we can do, correct?" The Captain asked.

"Quite the contrary, Captain." Tep'l interjected.

"Go on."

"We could construct a series of simple engines and install them on one of the moons around the gas giant to de-orbit it. We could also plant a small floating factory in the upper atmosphere of the planet to create a solar shield. That would cool the planet down to a level where biological processing of the carbon dioxide is feasible." Tep'l added.

"How long would it take us to build the engines and the factory?"

"The engines should take only 3-4 weeks to assemble as we can use some available spare parts, installing them about another week. The shield-factory would take about 2-3 month to build as we can't use any available parts. So we should be able to do this in 3-4 months time." Tep'l concluded.

Silence answered him for quite some time.

"Ok, I don't think this is a very good use of our time. Make sure you include that in your report back to the Commodore, he might be inclined to initiate such a mission." The Captain answered.

"Is there anything else you want to look at in the system or can we head straight to the next on the list?"

"We would like to take a look at the rest of the planets on our way out of the system. If our course could be adjusted accordingly, that would be much appreciated." Schmitz closed.

"All right. Ms. 9."

Joe just nodded back, easy enough to do.

"Did you find out anything about the radiation signature on this moon?"

"Scans are still inconclusive. It could be a natural phenomenon, an asteroid crashing. We found some asteroids with a matching radiation signature. The center of the radiation is however not centered in middle of the crater but just below the ridge. Which is very much where we put our first bases on Luna. That could still be a coincidence."

"Is there any way we can be sure?"

"We could go down to the surface. But with this amount of radiation the risk is too high and simply not worth it."

"Ok Dr., Pet'l, I think we are done here. Lets head out to our next destination." The Captain closed the meeting and got up.

"Sure, Captain. Thanks."

Joe returned to the bridge and took her station. Plotting a course did not take very long and soon the ship was underway again. When they got near the star all eyes where on the sensors. Everybody hoped to find a space whale again, or even the same as last time. They passed the sun, revealing what was in its sensor shadow. Nothing. It would have been very close to a miracle if they would have happened to come across one of them just right now. Still, Joe couldn't help feeling a bt disappointed. On the way out of the system they passed the gas giant allowing for a closer look at its moons. That did spark some noise at OPS.

"You have something interesting?" The Captain asked.

"Possibly, yes. At least two of the moons are made up largely of ice. They would be perfect for terraforming the planet. What is even more interesting is that both sport the same radiation signature. Judging from the data all three of them are virtually identical." Dr. Schmitz answered.

"So much for some natural phenomenon, right?"

"That would be highly unlikely." Pet'l added.

"Should we take a closer look then?"

"It can't hurt to try, Captain. Although I doubt that we'll find something."

"All right. Ms. 9? Change the course for the closest moon with the radiation signature."

"Aye, changing course." Joe accelerated the ship towards the gas giant. "Time to orbit: 1h, 25 min."

"What can you tell us about the gas giant?"

"It is pretty close to Saturn in size, mass and makeup, it boast 23 moons that we have spotted so far. It does not have a ring-system though. At least 2 of the moons contain huge quantities of frozen water."

Joe only paid partially attention to the explanation as she was seeing the data on her console as well. She was focused on the moons and their trajectory. Entering orbit of the moon Joe matched rotation speed and placed them in a stationary orbit directly above the radiation signature.

"We've arrived in a stationary orbit directly above the radiation signature." Joe interrupted the discussion.

"Excellent! See what you can find, gentlemen." The Captain ordered.

"Performing scans now." Smyke declared.

"Interesting. There appears to be some kind of structure on the surface. Let me show you." Dr. Schmitz displayed a picture of the surface on the Vidscreen.

"This is the source of the radiation." A dot appeared in the middle of the screen.

"On the moon we could not do that as there was no ambient light that we could use, but here the surface consists mainly of ice, so we can scan different wavelengths and how they're reflected." The image changed revealing a large crater in the middle with tendrils snaking out from it.

"These are canyons in the ice, they appear to be natural. This however, is not." The image zoomed in on the end of one of the tendrils. The dark tendril was surrounded by light gray ice. It ended in a dark square.

"What is it?"

"We don't now. But we can go down there and check. There should be enough room for the shuttle-pod. The radiation at this spot is negligible." Dr. Schmitz said.

"Ms. 9?"

Joe studied the screen, noting the scales and radiation readouts.

"That should be no problem. The pods can handle this amount of radiation easily, same goes for the suits. There should be enough room for landing and takeoff, we could also play it safe and land on top of the ridge and rappel down."