Flight Of The Anasazi
By David Billiot
Copyright 2026: All rights reserved
Chapter 9: Spacewalk
The actual travel time was about twenty hours but that included a comprehensive check of the ship to make sure it still had access to six directions of motion in space as well as rotation axes for all six. Life support had to be checked as well as power generation and all the other critical systems. The Anasazi again showed how well it was put together. Mark kept looking and expecting to find a flaw but again and again he wasn’t finding one. He almost felt it would be better to actually find something that broke so he could fix it. The fact that he found no issues made him feel like he might be overlooking something that might break later.
Once the Anasazi was in orbit closer to the star Mark took the opportunity to rest before their orbit brought them closer to whatever technology their sensors had picked up. The ship was getting hot this close to the star and started to feel close to the same temperature Mark remembered from before the launch of the mission.
Mark got into his spacesuit just in case and then made his way to the conn.
“I suggest you have breakfast, Captain.” Al said.
“Good morning to you too Al. Show me the thing.”
The ship’s external cameras zoomed in on the object and Mark brought the screen close to his face.
“Hey Al, you know what’s easier to build, cheaper, and more reliable than a dyson sphere?”
“I imagine many things.” Al replied.
Mark smiled as he started to think he was unlocking what this mystery was about. “A plasma extractor.”
“You could be correct, Captain.” Al said. “However, plasma extractor technology is highly classified. What would it be doing here?”
“What is any of this doing here? We’re a thousand lightyears from home but we found a planet with people on it. I want to know why but more importantly how.” Mark looked at the screen a bit longer. “It looks like four of them. They’re replicating.”
Over the next two hours the Anasazi got close enough to the objects to confirm that they definitely were plasma extractors. They were pulling material from the star, fusing elements, and building replacement extractors while the older ones slowly drifted down to be consumed by the star.
Al attempted to radio the station but there was initially no response.
“Is nobody home or are they ignoring us?” Mark asked.
“My analysis suggests no one is home.” Al said.
“Evidence.” Mark said.
“Certainly, Captain. There does not seem to be any food production or habitat with artificial gravity. Also, in a higher orbit, now that we are closer, I was able to detect several high density ships. They are unmanned and just drifting in an orbit.”
“You think they’re transports?”
“They would be inefficient as transports.” Al clarified.
“They have a plasma extractor. They have all the energy they want.” Mark reasoned.
“It seems the ships act as a kind of gravity sink to prevent objects colliding with the plasma extractors.”
The Anasazi got closer and Mark manually started to check radio signals to see if anything was coming from the extractors at all. It was a bit difficult because the star was right here. Mark remembered back to training and being surprised to find out that stars produce radio waves since as a kid he thought they only made light.
“Wait. Al. A laser. Back home we communicate with the plasma extractor by laser. Look for something like that.”
“Understood.” Al said. “I should however point out that while this clearly is a plasma extractor, the design is nothing like our own.”
“Yeah, but they had the same problems to solve, didn’t they.” Mark reasoned.
The ship got closer and was able to fall behind the heat shield of the plasma extractor. Mark was able to see up close the one extractor slowly building the next one.
“Captain, I believe I have found a docking port.” Al informed Mark.
“No communications yet?”
“Not yet but docking would likely be better to be carried out with some kind of communications established so that area has a higher likelihood of success.”
“Well, take us in.”
The ship did some maneuvers and Mark held on to a wall handle.
“Just throwing this out there, would we actually be able to dock or are the ports not compatible?” Mark asked.
“I will have better data in a few moments.” Al replied.
The Anasazi got closer to the docking port and indeed there was some sort of communications unit there and it did use light. Al began to analyze what the extractor was saying but eventually had to inform Mark that it was not understood.
“It will take time to decipher.” Al stated.
“Ok. But look there. Fifteen meters. I do believe I have found the airlock.” Mark said.
“Are you suggesting that you go out in your spacesuit, Captain?”
“I can already see the ports don’t match. That airlock might be our only way in.”
“We do not know the internal state of the station. There might not be air in there.” Al cautioned.
“I don’t care. We came for information.”
Mark went to the airlock and took a moment to check his suit. “Clark, if only you knew I was doing this.” Mark said.
“Captain, I have heard you reference a person named Clark several times. I did not bring this up before but there was no one with that name attached to our mission.” Al said.
“My friend. He got me interested in space. Don’t worry about it. It’s a … it’s a human thing.”
“I see. I have positioned the Anasazi to maximize safety as well as giving you the shortest travel distance. Peggy would like to remind you to return to the ship if there are any troubles.”
“You and Peggy getting along?” Mark asked.
“Oh, she is wonderful.”
“Maybe I will tell you who Clark is. But first, let’s get this done. I’m opening the airlock.”
Mark took his time as he slowly floated out of the airlock and then away from the ship. He’d done much longer spacesuit missions before but that was with his entire civilization’s tech and people all around him. Now he was all alone some untold number of lightyears away with only himself. It was up to him to keep himself alive. No room for errors.
He reached the extractor’s airlock and Mark used the suit’s RCS to come to a stop. He got hold of the handle and used his line to anchor himself to it. Then he handled the mechanism to get the door opened. The door operated as it should but Mark could see that even on this older of the plasma extractors, the airlock had that brand new, first time feel to it. It had never been used before.
The door was open and Mark went in. He anchored himself to the inside and then untethered himself from the handle outside.
“I’m inside.”
“Acknowledged. Monitoring.” Al said.
Mark went to the controls to get the airlock to cycle and some text came up on a screen.
“Al, can you see that?” Mark asked.
“It is coming in on camera feed, Captain.”
“Translation?”
“I do not recognize it.”
“Great.”
“Not great, Captain. If it is an error message, that could be critical information.”
“If it was an error message it would be more annoying.” Mark reasoned.
“The section of the station connected to the airlock is pressurizing.” Al said.
“How can you tell?”
“It appears to also be leaking.”
“Well, good thing I don’t actually need it.”
The interior door opened and Mark went into the station. The first room was constructed like a spacesuit fitting room that existed on older stations. Mark moved in further and then the internal lights of the station came on for a moment and then popped. The station was dark again so Mark’s suit was the only thing illuminating the area.
Mark floated further in and found a hallway. Down at one end of the hallway he saw a computer terminal. That seemed like the best place to start. He floated down to it and it was black. Mark examined it for a bit and found a switch. Nothing happened. He found another switch. Nothing happened. He found a button. Upon pressing the button the screen of the computer lit up. It cycled through some colors and then a logo appeared and under the logo there was a half circle that was going around and around.
“Oh.” Mark groaned. “It’s booting.”
Mark waited and wondered if this would even be successful. He checked his suits systems just in case there was anything wrong. The suit indicated that there was mostly nitrogen being pumped into the section with about ten percent oxygen. It seemed the nitrogen was quickly dumped into the area and after that the oxygen was vented in more slowly. It was a curiosity but not a concern as Mark had zero intention of taking off his helmet.
The computer finally provided Mark with a UI to work with and Mark looked around.
“Any idea what any of this is?” he asked.
“I do have examples of similar UI language. This model is a touch screen.”
“What do I do? Can we take control of the station?”
“Captain, I believe if you lift up that covering next to the screen we may find a communications port.”
Mark was looking on the right side of the screen but saw nothing.
“The other side, Captain.”
Mark turned his focus and saw something. His gloves made dealing with the much smaller covering difficult but not impossible. He tried to get a light angled to look in and give Al a good look.
“Well?”
“We are making progress. I have a design that matches this port in archives. I will print the required device. Meanwhile, I would also like to inform you that I am making progress in understanding the data stream from the LCP. The data from the laser is encrypted but it will not be long before I can generate a key.”
“So what do I do? Wait or come back.”
“You could take this opportunity to explore the rest of the station but it would be safer for you to return. It will be several hours for me to complete my work and you might want to check the ship for heat damage.”
“Alright. On my way.”
“The airlock is still open for you.”
…
“We have successfully replaced the operating system of the station.” Al said.
“And we’re still no closer to getting back home.” Mark said.
“That is not true, Captain. We have calculated the first jump. We have the ability to restock and increase our food reserves. And in a few days we will be able to refuel the FTL.”
“Even once this thing is set up to make the fuel we need it’s going to take time to actually make the fuel.”
“This is true.”
“Well, I’m not sitting here waiting the whole time. We promised Buba we’d be back to meet the king. It’s important we keep our word.”
“I would like to point out that now that the plasma extractor is under our control we could assign it to create useful materials for our new allies and have them dropped.”
“Could be nice but we don’t actually know what they need. Plot a course. Let’s go back.”
The Anasazi slowly got distance from the massive structure of the plasma extractor. Mark as usual got into his seat and Al initiated the FTL to bring the ship back to the planet in the habitable zone. With each new use of the FTL Al was gaining more experience with using it and so this time the ship dropped out of light speed and arrived at the planet without losing power. Mark was surprised and already had the power reboot set up to hit and get things going again.
“Nice.” Mark complimented.
“Thank you, Captain. I used a new power regulation algorithm. With this success I hope I will be able to replicate this for future jumps.”
“It’s a definite improvement over everything going dark every time.”
“I will bring the ship into an orbit. Then I will wait for a window to bring us down to land.”
“Or, since we have a bit of time, I want to take a look at that island.”
“I thought you might take an interest in the southern hemisphere.”
Mark looked out the viewport at the fourth continent which was unlike the others. It seemed like just a black desert devoid of life.
The Anasazi again decelerated and again it began to fall through the atmosphere at such great speed that it built up plasma on the leading face. And again the ship handled this almost effortlessly. Mark’s appreciation for the ship was growing and growing. If he was going to be lost in space thousands of lightyears from home, he was glad it was in this ship. Weird mariachi bands and all.
The ship came down for a landing but instead Mark wanted to fly a bit high and take a detailed scan.
“Let’s try to get an idea of why life is everywhere else but just not here.”
“If we land I can do a soil sample.” Al said.
“That’s not soil.” Mark said.
“There is a smaller island to the north that I can detect has birds nesting there.” Al pointed out.
“Ok, but why isn’t life here? I mean, look. It never was here. It’s like the biology of the planet got started somewhere else and just didn’t make it this far yet.”
“That is one possible explanation, Captain. Again, a sample of the local material might prove useful.”
“I know. But let’s not just land anywhere. Let’s look around. There’s got to be something interesting.”
The Anasazi continued to fly and Mark went over what he knew.
“We’ve got a planet that is one g. A moon that is … I mean, sure it looks different but it’s the moon. We’re in orbit around a G type star. On the planet we find cows and chickens and horses and grass and grasshoppers.”
“And humans.” Al added.
“And preindustrial farmers who don’t know that in orbit around the star they call the sun is a plasma extractor that can fuse hydrogen into whatever they could ever want. The question is how. I gotta know. I gotta know how this happened. I mean, this is going out there but I guess aliens kidnapped some people.”
“I should point out that the plasma extractor was clearly created with human operators in mind.”
“That brings us back to time dilation. These people have been here for a long time. So hundreds of years ago at the dawn of space flight somehow these people got out here with a plasma extractor no less. It doesn’t make sense.”
“I believe we will find a logical explanation.” Al hoped.
“If we land do you have a way to figure out how old this planet is?”
“I could use several tests. I could test for iridium, neon, and also hydration rinds as we have seen this planet does have rain.”
“And ice.” Mark added as he thought about the polar regions.
“Would you like to play a game to pass the time while we scan?”
“Are you just going to beat me again?” Mark asked.
“Captain, that is not fair. You were the one who selected for me to always play at my full ability. I remind you that there is a difficulty slider.”
“Ugh. You do not understand gamers.”
“Perhaps there is a game we could find that you would have a unique advantage in. I take full responsibility for selecting board games. It is obvious to me now that I would have an unfair advantage. Instead, how about a video game. Perhaps a racing game.”
“The good thing about board games is they’re turn based. We are doing serious stuff here.”
“Understood, Captain. But I will keep an eye out for a game we can play that would be a fair competition between us.”
“Or you can go play chess with Bruce again. Have you been able to add to your two earlier wins?”
“Unfortunately not. I fail to see how he can defeat me so often. He must have developed an algorithm he is keeping to himself.”
Mark laughed.
“Hey, Al. Put Bruce on the comm.” Mark said.
Al complied and the high pitched squeaky voice of the medical AI came on.
“Captain Adakai. How can I help you?”
“When I have time, you’re going to teach me how to play chess.”
The Anasazi continued on for a bit more and then Al alerted Mark that there was potentially a man made structure several hundred kilometers away. Mark gave the command to bring them to it and the ship came in for a landing.
The black regolith crunched under the weight of the ship. A drone was sent out to take some more detailed scans. While Mark was waiting for those Al took the opportunity to get a sample for study.
Mark watched the monitor as the scans came in. The structure was large, as big as a city. It was roughly circular with a thick outer wall. The ruins of what used to be buildings were really just the floor plans after the weather had worn away at everything.
“What do you think Al?”
“It is an odd design for a city.” Al said. “The thick outer wall suggests defense. But from who? Maybe with the development of monarchy there was a considerable history of war.”
“You don’t build defensive walls in a circle.” Mark said informed by his military training. “A star is better. It looks like we’ve got a greenhouse.” Mark pointed at the screen. “That could be some kind of pool for something.”
“Scans indicate there is a lot of broken glass in the area and polymers.”
“Any dead bodies?”
Al did not respond right away but eventually said, “Not in the scans we have so far, Captain.”
“Hey, I think I see a road. A road means vehicles or at least foot traffic. Have the drone follow it and see where it goes.”
“Understood. Implementing now.”
“There were people here. What were they doing? Now they’re not here. Why not?”
“Unfortunately, unlike the plasma extractor, this place has no surviving technology to interact with. In other news I have determined how old the planet is.”
“You don’t say. Ok, let’s hear it.”
“This planet is between ten and twelve thousand years old.”
“That’s longer than all of recorded history.” Mark pointed out. “This whole place is wrong. The planet is too young to look the way it does. But it’s too old. If humans built this place then it is too old. The only explanation is time dilation again.”
“And again I have checked and no time has passed.” Al said.
“If not, that means some group of people we have no records of invented not only space flight but the ability to get out here and build not only plasma extractors but also create a planet. How do you build a planet? That is what you’re saying, right. This place was not just found like this and terraformed. This planet was made.”
“At least ten thousand years ago, yes, Captain.”
Mark took a moment to think. He decided just looking at the monitor wasn’t enough so he got ready and set out to see this city with his own eyes.
He exited the ship from the ramp and the first thing he noticed was the smell. Gone were the earthy smells created by life. Humans had tried to bring life here and it had not taken root. Mark walked up to the weathered and decaying outer wall and he examined it. The shape of the metal, concrete, and other materials gave Mark an access port kind of feeling. He entered and looked around from the other side. Yeah. This area here was like an airlock. Big enough for vehicles. Mark started to imagine it in his mind. He turned and looked around. Yeah. Here was the road and there was the guard house. Someone was in charge of opening and closing. Mark walked around a bit more and tried to imagine what each building would have been for. Then he decided to look up at the blue sky. Maybe it wasn’t always blue. Think about that.
“Hey Al.” Mark said.
“Yes, Captain.”
“Let’s just suppose this place had a dome on it.”
“I will create a render.”
“Yeah. Set up a charging station for our drone. I want it to hang out here and periodically take more detailed scans.”
“We will need to produce a few parts.”
“Get on it. And do we have data on the rest of the planets in the system yet?”
“There are three rocky planets in the system and two gas giants. There are also numerous smaller objects without enough mass for hydrostatic equilibrium.”
“Anything interesting or notable?”
“It is currently inconclusive but one of the planets seems to have undergone rapid temperature change. Scans show it has a subsurface ocean, potentially of liquid water. However, the water is trapped under ten to fifteen meters of frozen nitrogen ice.”
“Any chance of being able to test the rocks there to see how old the planet is?”
“There are already indications in scans to suggest the planet, like the star, is at least three point five billion years old.”
“What about the other one? The other rocky planet?”
“It is small and also cold. There is no indication of water and the surface is mostly iron oxide. If you intend to visit one of the planets, this one would be much safer, as the nitrogen ice of the other would make a safe landing difficult.”
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