The Eleusian Effect
Chapter 16 The Arrival

September 22, 0947 Hours

I had a surprisingly restful day off. I didn’t want to call home so I could just focus on the mission. I was on my way back to sick bay from breakfast when the Bosun’s Call was sounded. Tanner’s voice was clear over ship wide comms. “Ladies and Gentlemen. We have arrived in the Alpha Centauri system. As I will not announce every port of call we enter, this one is historic. We are the first human beings to make it this far out into space, the first humans to leave our galaxy and enter a new one. As we discover the fantastic, we are pretty much on our own. We will be traveling to the first planet that we suspect can support human life and explore it. From now on, the established exploration and landing protocols are in effect.” I decided to go to the bridge and get a full glimpse of the system. I entered the lift and Tracy was coming up from engineering.

“Pretty exciting, isn’t it?”

“Sure is.”

“Think we’ll replace anything on Centauri?

“Anything is possible. I just hope we are not disappointed.” I’m not sure why I said that. I had no reason to think we’d be disappointed since we had no idea what we were facing. We stepped onto the bridge and took our respective seats. “Good morning, Doctor.” “Morning, Captain. How goes it?”

“Doctor, in ten minutes we will enter orbit around Centauri B. I am so nervous. In a good way.”

“I feel the same way. Anything on long range?”

“Not sure yet. Centauri seems to have some debris in orbit. Probably space rock dust caught in the outer atmosphere.”

“That’s amazing.”

“There’s another scan report coming in in a few minutes. Lieutenant Harrison, do we have any new data.”

“Not yet, Ma’am. Should be here in a few minutes.”

“Okay, thank you. Doctor, can you scan for organic material, vegetation of any kind? Microbes and such.”

“Aye, Captain.” We smiled at each other as I moved over to my medical console. I entered the parameters and started scanning. We were minutes away from orbit so I stayed at the console. What I saw next was nothing short of historic. I watched the console screen and couldn’t believe my eyes. The scan not only found vegetation, but life forms. Human life forms. I ran a full diagnostic and the scanned a second time. Then a third. After the tenth scan with the same results, I told the Captain. “Commander, you need to see this.” “What is it?” She walked over to my console and her jaw dropped. “Is this for real?”

“I scanned ten times adjusting the parameters and tweaking everything I could.”

“There can’t be people down there. Nobody has been out here.”

“We need to go down there to investigate.”

Tanner turned to the bridge crew. “Ms. Harrison, prepare an away team!” She turned to me and smiled with excitement. “I have been waiting all my life to say that!” We both smiled. I got up and pulled my landing pack from under the console. Tanner grabbed her landing pack and we moved toward the lift. “Harrison, you have the bridge. Keep scanning the planet and stay in radio contact.” “Aye, Captain. Be careful.”

Tanner nodded and smiled. We met the rest of the party in the shuttle bay. Tanner asked me to give a quick briefing before we departed. There were eight crew members on the team. I was a little nervous. “Long range scanners have detected an atmosphere and organic, human life. We have no idea what we’re walking into so standard protocols are in place until further notice. The most important thing is to stay in groups, pairs at a bare minimum and only if absolutely necessary. We will lose no one, is that understood?” The group responded and we boarded the shuttle. I punched in the coordinates of the scanning reference point, which would have been the last location of the life form we detected. Jennings, a young ensign from xeno-biology seemed on edge. “Doctor, how is it possible that there’s human life here?” “I honestly don’t know, Ensign. That’s what we’re going to replace out.”

“Is there any possibility of someone making it out here this far? I thought we were the first.”

“As far as I know we are. I mean there were urban legends of the earlier GASA missions sending probes and ships out here but officially nothing manned.” “You’re talking about the Argos missions?”

“Yes. As far as we know it was totally automated. No humans were sent beyond Mars. It was deemed too dangerous.”

“My father was a mission control specialist with GASA 40 years ago. He was never able to confirm it but he said GASA used to do suicide missions. People with nothing to lose, terminally ill, the lost and forgotten were asked to do those types of missions. They were to send back as much information as they could.” His voice trailed off. He seemed sad about it. “Don’t worry Ensign, I’m sure that those are just old wives’ tales. They get more fantastic as time goes on. We’ll replace out the truth soon enough.” The shuttle trip was only a few minutes but as we descended below the cloud we were astonished. We saw lush vegetation and a grand wide river. It was incredible. As we were in awe of seeing a new planet, Harrison spoke to us over comms. “Commander, we have new information.” “We copy. What’s the latest?”

“You aren’t going to believe this but there are metal structures about 6 kilometers from your current position.”

“Metal structures? What kind of metal?”

“It’s actually a Titanium Tungsten alloy, and there’s chromium.”

“Chromium? No one’s used chromium in 40 years! At least on earth. Is it possible that this is an earth vessel of some sort?”

“Too early to tell, Captain. We are still trying to isolate other material data.”

“Send me the coordinates and keep me posted.”

“Aye, sending the coordinates now.”

We flew another couple of minutes until we saw several metal structures. I moved up into the co-pilot’s seat next to Tanner. A thought occurred to me. “It’s possible it’s just old space junk that we lost in space. It could have floated through space and fell here.” “But if that’s true, we would have still beaten it here. The junk would have to have spent a couple of hundred years in space to get here, or it would have to travel at sublight speeds.” “What about a wormhole? They were postulating them over a hundred years ago.”

“I suppose but the odds of a wormhole stable enough to bring that much debris are beyond calculation. Most wormholes are extreme fleeting. Unpredictable, even now.” We found the metal structures. They were cylindrical and spaced out over about 100 yards. We found a clearing by the river and landed the shuttle. Everyone donned protective suits and we exited the shuttle. Tanner spoke first. “So make sure you orientate your GPS to the Kennedy and we’ll use the river as a reference point. We will start with two teams. Maintain radio contact and turn on your emergency beacons. Tanner to Kennedy,” Harrison responded, “Kennedy here.”

“Ms. Harrison, are you receiving the away team’s beacons?”

“Yes, Ma’am. We have everyone.”

“Excellent. Okay folks. Turn on cameras and recorders and let’s see what out there.”

“Doctor, you and I are senior staff so I will take A team towards the south and you take B team to the east. Let us know if you cross the river. Way points set and we’re off.” “Be careful, Commander.”

“You too, Doctor.”