Flight Of The Anasazi - Chapter 14

 Flight Of The Anasazi

By David Billiot

Copyright 2026: All rights reserved

Chapter 14: The Moon At Last

The Anasazi reached the plasma extractor and again it looked abandoned just like the one in the Meica system. Al brought the ship to the docking port but it did not match the Anasazi, nor did anyone expect it to. The LCP was functioning so Al used what was learned in the Meica system to take over the plasma extractor’s systems and instruct it to start fusing the special fuel the FTLs needed as well as construct the correct kind of docking port so the Anasazi could collect it. 

All of this would take time so the Anasazi was parked behind the heat shield of the extractor.  

Instead of having dinner in his quarters Mark actually took the time to prepare a meal and set one of the tables in the mess hall. Lalia had been busy and Mark appreciated how she gave him space when she knew he needed to handle things. Mark could only imagine what it would be like to be trapped on a ship with pushy overbearing Amanda Roma.  No, thank you. 

Mark summoned Lalia to the mess hall and surprised her with all the lights out and only two dim table lights for illumination. 

“I’m not supposed to burn candles in space so these will have to do.” he told her. 

He brought her to the table and pulled her chair for her. She sat down and was so surprised. 

“This is such a big meal.” she said almost sounding like a complaint. 

“We’re working hard. Travel can be taxing. The meat was from your king. The corn was from Wood Meadow. The peas are from my stock from Florida. The potatoes were grown in Ares City. Enjoy.”

They ate and talked.  Mark taught her a few words of his language and she taught him a few words of hers. Then after eating he took her and pulled her to her feet so they could dance together. Al played a version of the music that was played during the festival.  Lalia seemed to really appreciate this gesture.  Just like at the festival, she cried. 

… 

The lights came on and Mark put a hand over his eyes. Lalia pulled the covers to hide her face. 

“Good morning, Captain.” Al said. “We have completed refueling, established a higher orbit, and are ready to depart.”

“Al, come on. Five more minutes.”

“If you insist but the longer we wait, the longer it will take to get home. I would also like to point out that you are nearly an hour over schedule for ending your sleep cycle.”

“Well excuse us if we didn’t fall asleep the second we laid down.” Mark said as he sat up and reached for his uniform. Yawn. 

Mark got dressed and he watched as Lalia got dressed. She was getting used to wearing a uniform instead of a dress. The two of them went to the conn to get buckled in and Mark took a moment to look at the extractor in the distance. 

“It’s too bad these things don’t have a star map for us.” Mark wondered. 

“Based on the number of times they likely have been replacing themselves, if they did have one it would be thousands of years out of date.” Al said. 

The Anasazi went boom and entered FTL.  The initial shake was over and that meant Mark was free to move about the ship until it was time to exit FTL. This flight would be thirty one minutes so Mark went back to his quarters to make coffee. 

Lalia also left the conn and was on a mission of her own that she’d secretly given to herself. She disliked not knowing what each room was for so she was making a map.  She knew the conn and the Captain’s quarters. She knew medbay. She went up to deck three, started at one end of the corridor and went room by room all the way to the other asking Al what was there so she could try to understand what to call it in her own language. Al saw this as a positive step for her to integrate into the ship. Al put in a work order for new signs to be made showing the names of the rooms in the original and also in Lalia’s language. 

… 

“We have touchdown, Captain.” Al said. 

Mark was fully aware of this already from the motion of the ship. He undid his restraints and walked to the viewport. 

“Al, you still running gravity?”

“The gravity of this moon is only one sixth G.  It will be more comfortable in the ship if I continue to run the gravity experiment. If you still insist on going outside and exploring you will need to be careful.” Al said. 

Lalia joined Mark by the viewport and she looked out at the grey expanse. 

“There’s no air out there.” Mark told her. 

Mark had chosen to land on the moon that was found in orbit around the planet in the habitable zone because the planet itself was toxic.  Initial scans showed that there was no oxygen in the atmosphere and it had been replaced by carbon dioxide and sulfur dioxide. The oceans, if they had ever been there, were long gone.  The planet had the right tilt and the right spin but the year was too long and the radiation from the star was just too much. 

The moon of the planet happened to be waning so it just seemed to make more sense to Mark to land on the moon instead of subjecting the Anasazi to reentry again.  By landing on the night side of the moon the body of the object protected the Anasazi from the radiation of the star while the guidance computer did the calculations for the next jump. This landing sight also afforded the ship a view of the planet that was so clearly artificial and also so clearly had failed. 

While all of the previous facts were important in selecting this place as a landing site, the thing that had really cinched it was the buildings not far away. The Anasazi’s systems had seen them from orbit and Mark wanted to take a look. 

“If there is no air, why don’t the rocks float away?” Lalia asked. 

Mark was going to laugh but stopped himself. She had asked what for her was a serious question. 

“Well, the air isn’t what stops that. The ground pulls down. And actually, ok, that’s not true. It’s a shortcut way of saying it. Gravity is complicated. There’s an invisible net and that net is always moving. Like, imagine yourself swimming in a river and the river has a current. In some places the current is slow and in others it is fast.  Gravity is how the land can touch the flow of the water. It makes the flow faster and then water is what pulls you down to the land. So in a way the land is pulling you down but the land isn’t actually pulling you, it’s pulling the water and the water just forces you down to the land. Does that make sense?”

“But it is invisible water I can not see.” she said. 

“Yes. We know it’s there but we can’t see it. There are many things in the universe we know are there but we can’t see. There are invisible things from the star of this system that are coming at us right now. Dangerous things. So we are taking shelter. If you look up at the planet, there’s junk. The people here were trying to make a shield but they weren’t fast enough.”

“Captain, it will take longer than usual to determine the age of this moon.” Al announced. 

“I’m not really worried about it.” Mark said. “I’ll just take a wild guess that it’s about ten thousand years.”

“Possibly. I have a test I can run but it will take slightly longer. Also, our probe has located a possible candidate for a plasma extractor. There appear to be about one hundred objects in a cluster near the star.  I predict that the extractors must be rapidly degrading so if they are still functional, they are replacing themselves quickly.”

“Well, maybe, instead of us going all the way out there you can send a probe to go check it out.”

“I could, but such a probe would take years to decelerate enough.”

“How are we doing on fuel?”

“If you are perhaps suggesting that we skip refueling here, I would concur with your judgment on this.”

Mark waggled his head as he thought. “This is the third stop and the third planet moon set we’ve found. It’s like someone just decided to mindlessly send out colonies to every star.  I can’t imagine where they got the people.  But that’s besides the point. From now on let’s aim to stop at stars that are smaller. That way if they happen to have a plasma extractor where we can refuel, we won’t have any problems.”

“Understood. Also I’d like to inform you that our satellite has made another pass and gotten a better look at the structure thirteen kilometers to the northeast.”

“What kind of structure is it?”

“A building. Possibly a base. The landing pad is covered in debris but the new data shows a possible safe landing area on the other side. Would you like to relocate the ship closer so you can take a look?”

“Thirteen kilometers? Well I’m not going to walk that. However …”

“Yes?” Al asked. 

“That sample collection rover you built. I wonder if we can put some seats on it.”

“Captain, traveling that distance, by protocol, will require a rescue plan.”

“It’s just right here. Relax.”

“I will make a design and print the necessary parts to modify the rover to carry a passenger. But Captain, I need to say it again. Thirteen kilometers, while not a long distance, is very far for a spacewalk. I realize this is not a spacewalk but our original mission plan did not call for the Anasazi to land on a body with gravity. Mission procedure indicates that leaving the ship to go such a distance requires a rescue plan.”

“Ok, fine. Then make one.”

Mark naturally wanted to check maintenance.  He was at it for over an hour and so far everything was fine.  Then Al informed Mark that Lalia was washing clothes by hand. 

Mark raised an eyebrow and found that Lalia was intending to use the crew bathtub as a wash tub for dirty laundry. 

“That’s ok. That’s ok.” he told her as he reached to take her hand. 

“The clothes need a wash.” she protested. 

“There’s a better way that doesn’t use so much water. There’s no water outside so every drop in the ship has to be recycled. Come, we have a machine for this.”

Lalia followed him and he showed her the laundry system. He helped her get the dirty clothes into it and informed her that it would be washed and dried and waiting for them later. Lalia didn’t believe it. She wanted to but couldn’t pull herself away. The machine started and Lalia leaned against the wall and had to watch it. Mark got her a chair and thought it was cute.

… 

The ship was getting cold. The internal systems were keeping crew occupied areas warm enough but ice was forming on the viewports. The morning was chilly as Mark got out of bed.  Today was the big day.  Well, not the big day but it was going to be a big day. Every day was a big day on this mission. 

Mark silently ate breakfast while he let Lalia sleep. She had been busy the day before and had earned a rest. 

Mark thought about why people would have built a base at this spot on the moon. It was relatively flat and since the moon was tidally locked to the planet it meant landing here gave them uninterrupted direct line of sight to the planet. 

Another thing that suddenly Mark realized was that for a moon of this size to tidal lock to a planet it would take millions of years. But this moon and that planet were not millions of years old. They were just over ten thousand years old. The moon had been made with tidal locking in mind. 

“Al, if I bring back something from the structure, can you date it?”

“Possibly.” Al said. 

“I wonder if the people were here since the beginning or if they came after the planet was made.”

Mark didn’t get dressed in his uniform. Instead he left his quarters and went to the spacesuit rack.  He got into the heavy version of the environmental underlay and added several heat generators.  Then he donned the spacesuit. 

Mark was still getting dressed when Lalia came out of the captain’s quarters.  She wished him to be safe and he told her to keep the lights on for him. 

“I’ll be gone maybe four hours. Be back in time for lunch.”

Lalia kissed him on the cheek and then Mark put on his helmet. He gave her a thumbs up and then went to the pressurized door that led to the ramp. Lalia was watching him from the window as the ramp lowered.  

Mark went down the ramp and then when he tried to walk without the full 1 G of the Anasazi’s artificial gravity he fell and face planted in the regolith. 

“Are you ok?” he heard Lalia ask him. Mark was a bit stunned. That was Lalia’s voice but instead of saying it in her own language and then hearing Al translate it was just her voice speaking Mark’s language. 

“I’m fine.” he said. “Let me just get up.”

“Mark you are learning. That’s very good.” Lalia said. 

“Learning what?” he asked. 

“I apologize.” Al’s voice interrupted as Mark got to his feet. “I have created a voice filter for both of you so that you will hear the translation directly in each other’s voice.”

“Is that necessary?” Mark asked. 

“Perhaps not. However, it is my hope that this will make communication more efficient and seems to make sense considering two way radio.”

“Well, ok.”

“So it is not Mark’s actual voice?” Lalia asked. 

“It is and it isn’t.” Al explained. 

“I want to hear his voice for real.” she protested. 

“I understand. I will adjust the system so that you can hear Mark in real time and then the translation will be provided in his voice afterwards.”

“Thank you.” Lalia said. 

Mark walked over to the vehicle bay and found the rover.  He walked up and patted the wheel. “Sorry little buddy. We had to make some changes. I hope you don’t mind.”

“Captain, I advise entering the cab soon due to the temperature.” Al said. 

The wheeled sample collection rover had been remodeled to have a small one seat cab.  Al added significant battery storage but even with that Bruce was cautious about the distance and the time needed to reach the destination. Therefore, one of the redundant RTG units was added to the rover for both heat and power generation. 

When Al had first told Mark of using the RTG for heat in a rover Mark had asked if it was safe but Al said it was a long held tradition for rovers going back to the founding of Ares city. Mark wouldn’t know. He was a test pilot, not a test driver. But then again, on this day he was both. 

The rover was rated to have a top speed of twenty kilometers per hour but that was with optimal conditions. The dusty regolith of the surface did not give optimal conditions.  The rover was moving along at seven kilometers per hour, which Al insisted was still very good. It was going to take two hours to get to the destination. 

While he was driving along he commented on the things he saw but knew there wasn’t really a need since the cameras were recording everything.  Mostly Mark just settled in and listened as he heard Lalia asking questions of Al while learning about ship tasks. 

When Mark got close to the structures he saw that most of the regolith had been flattened out. There was evidence of a lot of activity that was not frozen in time.  There were footprints and tire tracks and evidence of large objects being dragged across the ground. The rover avoided the various obstacles like tools and crates that were sprawled about and brought Mark right up to the door.  

“Ok. Ready to get out. I get the feeling whoever was here left in a hurry.” Mark said. 

“I see evidence of a possible explosion at what appears to be a landing pad.” Al said. “Also, the hill to the south seems to have a small structure extending from it. I believe this is a door leading to an underground area.”

“One thing at a time.” Mark said. “There’s a vehicle there. I’m going to take a look at that first.”

The vehicle was large, much bigger than Mark’s little rover. It had a ladder the driver needed to climb up in order to get to the cab. Before doing that Mark walked around it to just get a sense of the scale. It was as big as a combine. Mark looked for markings or paint but if there had been any it had faded. 

“Who put you here?” 

Mark got down on his knees and crawled under the vehicle and tried to look up to see some of the chassis construction but this was not working out for him. He backed himself out and then instinctively wanted to dust himself off.  He went back to the ladder and started to climb up. He got to the door and looked inside. There were four seats. Each seat had some kind of unit with connection points next to it. 

“Well, there’s no airlock on this so … I’m guessing it was meant to be used with a spacesuit in mind.” Mark noticed. 

“Perhaps for long duration missions the operators would connect their suits to those ports for energy and life support.” Al concurred. 

“I’m not really seeing adequate radiation shielding. They must have had some good spacesuits.” Mark climbed down and went back to the rover, not of any particular reason but just to ground himself as he looked around. He went to a tool that was on the ground and picked it up. “This was made for a human hand.”

“What is it?” Lalia asked. 

Mark turned the tool around and examined it. “I really don’t know.”

“If you collect it, perhaps we can examine it and discover its purpose. In any case, it would be valuable to bring back with us.” Al said. 

“True enough.” Mark agreed. 

Mark put the tool into the cab for the rover and then turned his attention to the building. He went up to the airlock but did not expect it to work.  The years of expansion and contraction that had happened to the metal had taken a toll on the structure.  Mark found what seemed to be obviously the manual release and he pulled it to unlock the door. 

“Rule number one, no locked doors.” Mark said. 

“I was not aware of this rule.” Al said. 

“I did training in the arctic when I first joined the military. Entire military base with no locked doors. Cause if a man gets locked outside he freezes to death. And you do not entrust enlisted men with keeping track of where keys are.” 

Mark entered the small structure and went to the next door in the airlock system.  It was more difficult to open but eventually Mark found a way. The doorframe had contracted enough to clamp down on the actual door.  The door itself had not contracted as much because it was made of a different material, likely to prevent vacuum welding. Luckily the door was made with rounded corners and a beveled edge.  If the building were operating normally the air pressure inside and the lack of it outside would keep the door closed until the air pressure in the airlock equalized. Due to this design, now that there seemed to be no air in the building, the doorframe could not hold the door with full force and Mark was able to push it and get it to give way. 

Once Mark was inside he saw an area for spacesuits with shelves and helmets. One helmet had the faceplate shattered. He looked on the floor but there was nothing. He went further in and found another room. This one had a table in the center and along the walls there were cabinets. He examined the cabinets and found that they likely contained electronics.  This was some kind of equipment.  For what, Mark could not say. There was no power and likely no way to give it power to test anything. On the table Mark saw rectangular pieces of paper.  He took a closer look but if anything had been written it was gone. Also on the table was an object that looked like a decoration. 

“Yep, this place was made by humans.” Mark said as he looked at the small statue of a woman. “I’m going to guess it was men who worked here.”

“Why is that?” Lalia said. 

“Because men like women.”

Lalia laughed. “The Radfe say men hate women.”

“Who’s that?”

“They come, travel from village to village preaching.  It is faith for only women. They want to fight men but only fight with words. They say men are really women who were cursed for their sins to be deformed. They reject marriage and children so sometimes when a girl can’t get a husband she goes to them.”

Mark laughed. “That’s one reaction.” Mark picked up the small statue and put it into his sample bag. “It’s weird but I halfway feel like a thief just taking stuff like this.”

Mark continued to explore the base but there wasn’t much more to it. There weren’t any bunks or barracks. There wasn’t a mess hall. This building was for work. But what was the work? 

In the next room he found some fabric that was still intact that had been fastened to a wall. The colors were faded but the fabric was sewn in a way that reminded Mark of Mr Wilson’s farm back in the day. The long strips of fabric that had been sown together to make one larger piece had the same low and high of farmland at planting season.  

Mark left the building and bunny hopped over to the landing pad.  He took a look around and wondered what had happened.  Did all of this chaos happen at one time or did each little thing represent a separate day and that incident was then recorded in the unchanging regolith? 

Finally, Mark went to the door by the hill.  It resisted entry.  That’s ok, Mark thought. He pulled out the crowbar from the sample collection bag and pried it open. 

Inside this new area the first thing that Mark noticed was the person leaning against the wall. It actually startled Mark and he fell backwards.  

“Al, did you see that?”

“I did, Captain.”

Mark was scrambling to get back to his feet. He looked back inside and the person was just standing wide eyed leaning against the wall. 

“We got a body.” Mark said.  Mark approached the person that appeared to be a man.  “There wasn’t any air that escaped when I opened that door.” Mark said. 

“Perhaps see if the individual has any identifying information, such as a military dogtag.” Al suggested. 

“Alright, buddy. I’m just going to check your pockets.” Mark said. 

“If the man is dead he deserves a burial.” Lalia added. 

Mark was feeling the body in order to discover where the pockets were on the person’s clothing and he made a discovery.  Mark had grabbed the person’s arm to move it out of the way and something about the way the arm moved bothered Mark. He touched the face and move the jaw.  The body wasn’t stiff or frozen at all. It had the feel of gears moving.  

“It’s not a person.” Mark announced. 

“What is it?” Lalia asked. 

“It’s like a robot or something that’s been made to look like a person.” 

As much as Mark wanted to learn more about the robot he decided to press on into the building and see what else was in there. He found a non operational elevator and some stairs that went down. Mark descended and below he found various rooms which could have been anything but more than that he found the barracks and the mess hall. So people were here. It seemed they lived underground and worked on the surface.  

Mark went floor by floor to have a look and made it all the way to the bottom of the stairs. He found several more robots along the way.  At the very bottom Mark was surprised by a soft red glow.  He let his suit’s instruments scan it.  

“Hey Al, it looks like the power is still on.”

“It doesn’t appear to be outputting very much.” Al responded. 

“What kind of power is it? Fission?”

“Possibly. But I am unsure.”