"As impressive as this is, why did you come here?" Joe asked.
Pet'l regarded her for a moment before he answered.
"I wanted to try and socialize more."
"With the crew?"
He hesitated for a moment. "Yes."
"Anyone specific."
"Yes."
"Do you even need to exercise to maintain your physical health as we do?"
"Not necessarily, my physiology is less adapting as human physiology. I don't loos muscle mass from lack of exercise. But it does contribute to overall health, just not as much as for humans."
"Cool. Care to spot me?"
"Spot you?"
Joe walked over to a lifting bench.
"Yes. I want to do some lifting. For safety it is recommended to use a spotter. In case I can no longer lift the weight the spotter steps in and helps lift it and prevents it from crushing my chest."
"That sounds reasonable. What should I do?"
"Stand behind the bench, yes right there." Joe instructed while she put on the weights she wanted. Once she was satisfied she got down on the bench and secured her grip on the handlebar.
She started lifting and soon settled into a slow, steady rhythm of lifting and lowering the fifty kilos she had put on as a weight.
She set the bar back onto the holders.
"Would you mind adding another ten kilos per side?" She asked.
"Certainly."
After Pet'l had added and secured the weights he resumed his position overlooking Joe as she exercised. Both where spending the whole time in close proximity to each other which was starting to get to Joe. Finally she put down the handlebar way earlier than she normally would.
Together they put away the weights, carefully removing them simultaneously from both side to prevent the bar from tilting. They left the gym together chatting.
"Thank you for this inside into human culture. It was – enlightening." Pet'l stated.
"You're welcome. I'm happy to help with any questions you have regarding human culture and customs." Joe said stopping in front of her quarters.
"I have many such questions. Your culture is fascinating."
"Sure, anything specific?" Joe asked with a smirk.
He leaned in closer to her. Joe was painfully aware of how sweaty she was in her tight-fitting workout clothes. She was also very aware of how close he was. The tight muscles under his snug fitting workout clothes. His scent was interesting. Different to what she was used to from men she had interacted with before.
"There is a lot that I plan to investigate in great detail."
"Maybe I can help you with that a bit."
"That would be preferable."
Joe had reached behind her and unlocked the door to her quarters.
She grabbed Pet'l by the arm and pulled him into the room.
The next hours where a blur of flesh and lust. Both where eager with an almost animalistic hunger Joe would have never expected from Pet'l.
When Joe woke up she was alone in her bed. She basked in the warm afterglow of the night, relaxing in the comfort of her bed. After a short while she became more awake and started to notice her body and the signs of last night more. Slight bruises at the exactly right places brought a smile to her face. She carefully checked and was pleased that nothing was hurting much.
Joe was a tiny bit disappointed that she woke up alone, but that would be something to think about later.
Just as she decided that it was time to get out of bed her door opened and Pet'l stepped in.
Closing the door behind him he looked at her and smiled faintly.
"Good morning." both said at the same time.
"What do you have there?" Joe asked, pointing at the container in Pet'l's hand.
"I'm unfamiliar with human customs in this situation but I believe breakfast in bed is customary?" he answered, showing several containers he'd carried into Joe's quarters.
"You're a fast learner." She said smiling. Pulling back the blanket she revealed more of her. "Care for a snack?"
Breakfast had to wait for later.
"Initial survey of the structured showed some very interesting results. They're spaced equidistantly around the equator if you account for the oceans. They're all located close to sources of fresh water, two of them no longer are." Dr. Schmitz paused to zoom in the screen on one that sat in the middle of a desert.
"There is evidence of a former river right next to it. Most likely it dried out over time, the bed of it is still clearly visible." The former river was highlighted a short distance off from the pyramid.
"The interesting part lies around and below the pyramids though." The screen shifted to the wireframes of a simple CGI.
"Around the pyramid we find several small buildings housing what appears to by machinery. They are connected with each other and the pyramid with a series of pipes.
Below the whole complex appears to be an even more extensive network of machinery that is interconnect to each other and a series of large storage tanks. This appears to be virtually identical for all the sites we have analyzed so far."
"Any guesses as to their purpose?" Sunblast asked.
"Without the ability to analyze the machinery and the contents of the tanks further it is impossible to say with any certainty. It could be any kind of basic chemicals needed to start a colony or some sort of terraforming project and anything in between. They could also be refueling stations for all we can tell."
"As we can't get any more information without going down to the planet is it safe to do so?" The Captain asked.
"As far as we can tell, yes. Scanners have not picked up anything harmful so far. I don't see any reason not to go down to the planet."
"It looks habitable so far, any information on that?" The Captain asked further.
"Yes, I was coming to that. The planet makeup is pretty on point for the goldilocks zone.
The atmosphere has seventy percent nitrogen and twenty five percent oxygen with a mix of carbon dioxide and other trace elements making up the rest. Perfectly safe to breath for us, although we'd advise to use rebreathers in the lowlands as the air pressure is about twenty percent above Earth-normal, combined with the higher oxygen rate that could be problematic.
Gravity is eight percent above one g, that should barely be noticeable.
The land-to-water ratio is higher than Earth with about sixty percent of the surface covered in land and only forty percent water. This makes overall for a more arid climate and a much broader desert zone around the equator than earth. The rest of the planet appears to have a mixture of flora and fauna that appears to be a close analog to Earth's with trees, ferns and other plants.
Animal life appears to be abundant and on the larger side, thanks to the higher oxygen levels. We have identified several distinct species of herbi- and carnivores so far. Caution is advised." The screen changed to display one of the animals. It was vaguely reminding the audience of a dinosaur.
"These beasts could prove to be quite dangerous. We have observed them being fast and vicious. Notice the teeth and claws, they are big and sharp enough to easily tear a grown man to shreds. Extreme caution is advised."
"All right, let's play this one safe. Select sites with no presence of this dinosaurs for the first exploration. I take it the structures are in areas with little to no presence?"
"We have not detected any activity around any of the sites, yes."
"Good. Focus on the structures first, after that we can still decide how to approach the rest of the planet. Thank you, Doctor."
"Thanks, Captain. I'll put together a list of people to send down."
"Thank you. You're dismissed."
While Dr. Schmitz left with Pet'l in tow the Captain focused on Sunblast.
"Commander, what's the status of the repairs?"
"We're making progress. Problem is, the more we disassemble the injectors the more damage we find. It's not bad by itself. I think we could reassemble everything that we have already rebuilt and be fine for now. The real problem is the damage we don't know about."
"What do you mean?"
"According to all our projections the engine should be fine to run for almost two years without needing any maintenance. The parts are designed to not wear out that fast. All the components are supposed to be deliberately overbuilt. The reason is simple, a failure this far out would strand a crew far out in space with little to no hope of rescue."
"Alright, why did it fail then if it is so overbuilt?" The Captain asked in a sharp voice.
"It did not fail." Sunblast answered slowly. "The components we have repaired and overhauled are not up to the original specs. Either they have been changed to create a cheaper version of the engine without my knowledge or the fabrication process needs some excessive calibration."
"None of these options is a very happy one. Do you think it can still take us home?"
"I don't think that is a problem. Thanks to Henry we spotted the problem in time. We have everything on board to fabricate new parts that are more than up to spec. We're using the opportunity to include some improvements of our own and of Henry's design. When we're done it will be much better than new."
"That sounds promising. How long will that take?"
"Depends on how extensive our overhaul needs to be. There are parts we can't fabricate with the facilities we have at our disposal. The reactor chamber for instance is too big and complex for the fabricator. We'd have to make it in parts and assemble it. But that would not be as strong as the original one that was cast in a forge. That's not something we can easily replicate. I mean, we can replicate it, but we're talking about months of work not days or weeks."
"Let's hope then that it won't come to this. Is that all?"
"No. We also have to check the external components of the engine."
"I don't like the sound of that at all."
Joe carefully worked the controls. On her display the manipulator slowly pulled back a panel covering a plasma junction. She nudged the worker bee carefully backwards to give the engineers space to inspect it closely. With another nudge she arrested the bee's momentum and relaxed as far as was possible in the cramped interior of the bee.
Unlike the pods the worker bees where not real spacecraft, much less capable of landing on a planet. Worker bees where designed to perform work in zero-gee environments. They where little more than overbuilt spacesuits. The cockpit was large enough to squeeze in a normal-sized human, for Joe it was more than a tight fit.
The small control board in front of her controlled all aspects of the tiny craft, from the little engine to the articulated robotic arms that where used to manipulate components outside of the bee's mothership. It was connected to the Hermes with a thick umbilical providing power and air. It's internal life support was good for several hours and considered more of an emergency reserve.
The front of the craft was dominated by a large transparent canopy that offered excellent visibility. Due to the nature of lighting in space several powerful lights where scattered around it to help with the work. The transparent display overlayed on the canopy showed different generated images of the work that was done in the near vicinity as well as the other work parties busy all over the ship.
Satisfied that there was nothing else she could do right now she listened in to the chatter of the work teams, monitoring for any sign of distress that would need intervention on her part.
Due to the work being done on the ship's engines all planetary expeditions had been halted which had made the scientists on the ship quite unhappy.
Dr. Schmitz had argued with the Captain for quite a bit but the Captain had simply overruled him on the basis that the personal needed for expeditions to the planet where busy around the ship. If they really ended up stranded in this system they would have all the time they wanted on the planet.
The laboratories and the cargo bay where swarming with busy scientists preparing for the oncoming expeditions to the planet and working on other projects.
The majority of the scientists where busy analyzing the artifacts and theories they had developed based on them.
In the cargo bay a small group of scientists where gathered around the partly disassembled gunship, studying it in detail with portable scanners.
After spending several minutes scanning a certain object they retrieved purpose made tools to disassemble further parts of the ship.
It took them almost half an hour of hard work and heavy lifting to get the part out of the ship that they where interested in. Carefully they lifted the heavy chunk of metal up to a workbench to study it further.
"Alright, let's see if that really is what I think it is." George said.
He activated the overhead scanner of the workbench and stepped back. The scanner sprang to life, casting a bright light onto the object covering the workbench. It slowly made it's way from one end to the other. Once it reached the end of the workbench it quickly moved back, the color of the light changed slightly and the scanner began another pass.
Next to the workbench a view screen showed a first outline of the details and inner workings of the object. The four of them gathered around the screen watching with keen interest as the details where filled in bit by bit.
"Now we're getting somewhere." George said.
The scanner had just finished it's fifths pass and added a very distinctive detail to the schematics.
"This." George outlined the shape. "looks like an amplification chamber if I'm not completely wrong." The others made supportive noises.
George turned back to the ship, looking over the schematics on his scanner.
"Ok, I think I got it. Let's check this out." he moved over to the other side of the ship and grabbed a tool from his belt.
After several hours of hard work they had the little ship stripped down to the basic frame with a number of smaller components still attached and a lot of components, small and large scattered about.
The next week where a constant rhythm of hard work for twelve hours which Joe spent mostly in the cockpit of the worker bee. When she wasn't working or sleeping she spent the little free time that she had with Pet'l. At first they'd tried to stay discreet. But on a ship the size of the Hermes keeping a secret like that was next to impossible. They tried to alternate spending the night in each others quarters but ended up in Joe's more often then not. It had the distinctive advantage of it's own bathroom however small it was.
Over the days their frantic lovemaking had tempered down to long, extended sessions where Joe taught Pet'l the fine art of making love to her the way she liked it.
"I don't understand. I don't see the need to restrain you. You don't want me to be intimate with you?" Pet'l asked.
"I do. This is just the way I like it." Joe answered.
"I still don't understand, please explain."
"There is not much I can explain. This is not a question of logic or understanding. Do you have a favorite color?" Joe asked.
"I don't see the relevance in this direction of inquiry." he answered, obviously puzzled.
"Humor me."
He sat back for a moment. "I can't say that I have a favorite color as you would state it."
Joe tilted her head.
"I do find dark brown pleasing to the eyes, as you would say."
"Good. Can you explain to me why you like dark brown more that, let's say yellow?"
"Interesting. I never thought about that. I assume there are biological factors that are currently beyond my understanding that would explain my preference."
"That is a fancy way to say that you don't know."
She waited for a moment for him to answer.
"For me this is the same. I just like it a lot when I'm restrained properly and can't free myself. Nothing more to it."
"That you can explain for now." He said. He leaned over and grabber her wrist with one arm and the rope with the other. "We shall find out together."