Flight Of The Anasazi - Chapter 17

 Flight Of The Anasazi

By David Billiot

Copyright 2026: All rights reserved

Chapter 17: How Big Is A Star Really?

Stormer looked at the order. He was confused. He wasn’t a captain, just a commander. Roma was the captain of the Roanoke. Stormer served under Roma’s command. The order issued to Stormer by Admiral Black was to begin preparations to rescue Mark Adakai. The Anasazi was now 89 days overdue. The order mentioned commandeering the Roanoke if necessary. 

The commander went to Captain Roma to ask about this order. She was in her quarters on the Roanoke. 

“What do your orders say, Commander?” she asked him. 

“Have you been removed from command?” he asked. 

“The paperwork on it is a little complicated. You are no longer under my direct command temporarily.”

“What does that mean?”

“It means you should follow your orders.”

“I’m confused. I don’t know what to do.”

“Commander, follow your orders to the letter.”

“Why didn’t they come from you?”

Roma nodded. She stood up and asked the commander to hand her his orders. He gave them to her and she read them. “These look clear to me. Commander, I am ordering you to follow these orders.”

“Aye, Captain.” Stormer said as he received his orders back. “I am informing you, Captain, that by the authority of the president I am to take the Roanoke to HC03 in order to rescue Captain Mark Adakai aboard the Anasazi.”

Roma nodded. “Understood. I was ordered to remain behind at Scorpion Station. However, I don’t believe there is enough time for me to get off of the ship. Unless you can tolerate the delay.”

Stormer thought for a moment. “I’m sorry, Captain. A man’s life is at risk. We need to get underway immediately.”

“I understand, Commander. It can not be helped. Make the announcement and I’ll meet you in the conn.”

… 

The Anasazi came out of FTL smoothly after a flight of over an hour and thirty minutes. It was Al’s most ambitious FTL jump yet.  They had arrived in orbit around a G type star and Al immediately dropped a probe. 

Mark did not get out of his seat or even unbuckle. He expected only a few minutes before the ship would calculate a transfer to a tighter orbit in order to have a rendezvous with the local plasma extractor. 

Mark looked over at Lalia. She was comfortable in her chair and was looking at her phone. She seemed so interested in it. 

He couldn’t take it anymore. “What are you looking at all the time?” he asked her. 

She seemed surprised. “Oh, the town.” she answered. 

“What town?”

She seemed surprised that Mark did not know. She came to him and showed him. Mark wasn’t sure what he was looking at. It seemed to be a video of a low tech frontier settlement complete with cattle ranches and saloons. 

“Did Al download video from somewhere?” Mark asked, assuming it was from a world they had passed. 

“No.” Lalia answered. She turned her phone to herself and tapped the screen. Then she turned it back to him. “There’s Al there.” 

Mark recognized Al’s avatar walking while leading a horse by the reins. 

“What?”

“The people in the ship. They made a town for themselves. I can watch what they do. They are very funny.” 

Mark watched with Lalia as Al was having a conversation with a female avatar. The text on Lalia’s screen was in her language so Mark got out his own phone. Lalia sent him a link to access the town and he had to take a moment to understand the controls. He found Al and discovered he was talking with Peggy. There was no voice to hear even though Mark could hear simulated sounds of the environment. 

“Well, I do declare, you are just so helpful.” Peggy said. 

“I aim to be so, ma’am.” Al responded. “And I hope it is no trouble to hear but the sight of a woman like you can sure inspire a man to want to help.”

Mark thought it sounded corny but then he heard Lalia laugh. Mark watched for a bit more but this was actually kind of boring. It was just a sleepy little town with the AI systems pretending to live lives of manufactured drama. Mark took his eyes away from his phone and turned to look at a tactical display. 

“Have you found that plasma extractor yet?” he asked. 

“I am sorry, Captain.” Al’s voice said. “Perhaps we have finally found a system that does not have one. However, it is also possible that the extractor in this system is in a higher orbit and will take longer to come around from the other side of the star. That is assuming we happened to come into the system on the opposite side.”

“What about a planet at least?”

“The data I am getting does not match the previous systems. The habitable zone has a large number of objects in orbit there.”

“So, no good for placing a planet, huh?”

“Perhaps not.”

Mark got up and went to relieve himself. He washed his hands and then went to where the robot was stored. The light came on and it was just sitting there with its fake eyes open. 

“That really creeps me out.”

The robot looked at Mark. “My eyelids do not work yet.”

“You still don’t remember anything?” Mark asked. 

The robot did not respond which was typical of most questions Mark posed to it. Kathy had gotten the system up and running a bit, but it was clear something inside of the robot was damaged. It had some rudimentary intelligence, enough to walk.  

Lalia came up to Mark and showed him her phone. In the town the sun was setting and Lalia explained that the town and the ship were set to the same day and night cycle. She zoomed in and saw the avatar of Al and the avatar of Peggy sitting and kissing on a sofa in a home. Mark did not know if this was Al’s or Peggy’s or if perhaps they shared one. He guessed it didn’t really matter but maybe to Al it did.

Before Mark could get an answer to that Lalia pulled on Mark’s uniform to get his attention. She wanted him to go with her and she guided him to their quarters. 

… 

The mood on the Roanoke was actually pretty good. The crew was finally getting on with the mission that they had trained for over and over. Karen announced that the ship had left the system and was now further from the sun than any other ship in history except the Anasazi itself. 

Roma walked the corridors to stop at each station and talk with the men.  They had been surprised that the mission had started and the ship had left on such short notice.  A few men had frantically sent messages to their families letting them know the mission had finally started. It would be two months to get to HC03 and two months to get back home. So the mission would see them separated for at least four months plus however long it took to find the Anasazi and save Mark Adakai. 

Roma went to the conn and found Stormer in command there. 

“Anything to report?” she asked him. 

“Not at the moment, Captain.”

“You have command. I’ll take the night shift.”

“Rest well, Captain.”

… 

It was morning, as much as it can be said to be morning onboard an advanced interstellar spaceship lost in space in orbit around a star.  Al had reported that this system didn’t have a plasm extractor but had debris in the typical orbit where they might find one. The habitable zone was clustered with objects but there was one that was significantly larger than the rest. Al theorized that it might be a protoplanet. 

The guidance computer had calculated their next jump if Mark wanted to depart right away but instead Mark wanted to get a look at the protoplanet to see what a more natural system would look like. They always had the opportunity to go back to a previous star to refuel if there were no more plasma extractors on the way back home.  

Al agreed it was a sound plan. If they had reached the end of the inhabited bubble and there were no more plasma extractors to be found between this area and home then Al could make a plan to do a series of jumps to see how far they could go until half of their FTL fuel was expended. They could gather data along the way and then reverse to refuel. With the additional data and time to calculate the next series of jumps could each be longer than the series before, pushing the engines even harder to get more distance out of them. 

Mark wanted to get his morning routine done before jumping to the habitable zone. That meant breakfast, ship checks, exercise, and he even scheduled time for himself and Lalia to communicate.  After that they had lunch and Mark was happy.  That large object in the habitable zone was going to be a new kind of thing to discover and it might consume all of his time so he wanted to have a sense of accomplishment for achieving something first. 

Once lunch was over and all of Mark’s tasks were completed they made the jump above the plane of the system in order to avoid debris. Al took a few moments to scan the area and the picture was looking different than what anyone would have expected. 

There was a lot of gas and rocky chunks in the habitable zone orbit but more than that there were many inoperable tug ships. There was a deteriorated space station and several very large ships as well. Some were large enough to be a space station on their own. 

“There were people here.” Mark said. 

“Where are they?” Lalia asked. 

“This area has obviously suffered some catastrophe. If we continue to scan the system we may find some people are still alive in some safe haven.” Al suggested. 

“Or they’re all just dead. What are the other planets like in this system?”

“None of them show any markers of life yet but I will keep scanning.” Al said. “My analysis of the debris near the star suggests it could be the remains of a plasma extractor that has broken apart.”

“You said there was a large object. Larger than everything else. Let’s take a look.”

“It has enough mass for hydrostatic equilibrium but it is not nearly enough to classified as a planet by the IAENA.”

“I was at the vote.” Mark said. “Not that they let me vote.”

The Anasazi got close to the object and it was clear that it was not just any old object. It was still hot. The top layer had begun to cool but underneath it was still hot. There were many long needle structures coming out of it. Those were clearly artificial. 

“Have you ever seen something like this?” Lalia asked. 

“No.” Mark answered. 

“It is odd indeed.” Al said. 

“What am I looking at? What could this possibly be?” Mark asked. 

“This is only speculation, Captain, but if we take into consideration that each of the previous planets we found were only tens of thousands of years old instead of millions or billions, that would suggest heavily that the planets were created artificially and not naturally. The same could have been happening here.”

“But interrupted. Everything’s dead. Stopped.” Mark said. 

“Stopped in the middle of making a planet?” Lalia asked. “What could do such a thing?”

“I don’t know.” Mark said. “And besides that, if they’re making a planet, from what?”

“I believe I may finally have the answer, Captain.” Al said. 

“Alright.”

“The only solution that matches the current data is that the planet was constructed from material taken from the star.”

“An entire planet’s worth?” Mark asked incredulously. 

“It would be a monumental effort and the resulting planet would not be capable of hosting life right away. However, the evidence is right in front of us. The tug ships clear the habitable zone of objects. The plasma extractors produce the materials needed. The tug ships transport the materials.”

“And whatever that thing is creates the planet. A custom built world ready to be terraformed.” Mark deduced. 

“So, why isn’t it?” Lalia asked. 

“Good question. Al, any ideas?”

“It appears a nearby star went supernova several thousand years ago.  I will need more evidence to be able to say for sure but at this moment it is the most likely explanation.” 

Mark felt a dark mood come over him as he looked out and saw the wreckage and destruction. 

… 

“Full stop.” Roma had ordered. 

Everything had been going well. They were in the second day of travel and Jameson reported that there was a higher amount of hydrogen interacting with the hull than there should be. Roma asked Karen about it and the AI confirmed this to be the case. 

“Perhaps the interstellar medium is denser than originally theorized.” Karen speculated. 

Roma wasn’t even considering what Karen had said. She ordered the full stop on the theory that extra hydrogen in the area might mean it was a sign the Anasazi was venting. She gave the order for the full stop. Karen carried it out.  

Unbeknownst to Roma, Stormer, or Karen; the Roanoke was already starting to dip into the same exponential spacial contraction that had launched the Anasazi to the other side of the galaxy. It was going too fast to leave FTL. The breaking FTL hadn’t been given enough power to slow down the ship and Karen was not able to realize there was a problem yet because the gravitational data still showed their target star ahead of them. 

The shockwave ripped through the ship and the humans on board. The ship lost power while Roma herself was thrown from the captain’s chair.  She was injured and the conn went black.