Chapter 14

Theta Coronae Australis System GNS Neil Armstrong 02/06/42 NR 0930 Hours

Gandalf’s limb filled the shuttle’s viewport, and Luisa leaned forward to gaze at the expanse of blue. Arwen wasn’t even the largest of the gas giant’s moons, and the Genevan outpost was located closer in-system. It had taken some effort to convince Armstrong’s captain to bring her here, but a conference with Adam, Perla and the transport group’s commander had done the trick.

Unlike Zene, Arwen was completely airless, and the shuttle had extra fuel cells to allow the craft to make propulsive landings and departures. The features outside the viewport slewed as the shuttle oriented itself for the descent to the moon’s surface. The belly thrusters flared to life, and Luisa was pressed into her seat as the craft slowed.

Adam had also arranged for three of his colleagues who had happened to be aboard Foster to accompany Luisa. They did not know about the map, but they were eager to explore a new place, and Luisa had explained she would brief them more fully once they were safely on the moon’s surface.

Passing through 10 Ceti had been risky, but the unmanned probes the Genevans had emplaced reported that the Terrans had not come back through the wormhole. Luisa was nearly certain they had deployed probes of their own, which meant their own passage had betrayed the location of two wormholes. If she couldn’t find the hidden wormhole in this system, then she and the Genevans were finished, anyway.

A few minutes later, the shuttle touched down on the lip of a wide crater in a cloud of gray dust that settled slowly in the moon’s point three three gee gravity. Luisa stood and turned to the other occupants of the cabin. Most of the shuttle’s seats had been removed and a bulkhead installed to make room for an exploration rover. It, and an attached trailer, took up the remainder of the shuttle’s cargo area.

“Okay, people, here we go. Once we board the rover, I’ll give you the full briefing. Sorry for the secrecy, but this is strictly need-to-know.” Her teammates nodded and began gathering their gear.

Luisa checked her hostile environment suit carefully and donned her helmet and gloves. Once everyone was ready, she stepped up to the airlock and opened the inner hatch. Unlike normal docking, the shuttle crew was cycling everyone through the airlock one at a time to maintain cabin pressure. Luisa’s suit puffed up and stiffened as the air was pumped out of the chamber. Finally, the outer door opened, and she walked carefully down the boarding stairs and stepped onto the moon’s surface.

The experience reminded her so much of home, that she had to blink away tears. Of course, the ground was gray, not red, and the sky was black, and she took a deep breath and turned toward the shuttle’s tail. The crew had lowered the ramp, and the rover was already moving slowly down the ramp under remote control. The vehicle halted once it and its attached trailer were clear of the shuttle’s ramp, and Luisa loped toward it in long, bounding strides.

Reaching the vehicle, she pressed the large, square panel just to the right of the main hatch, and it obediently opened to reveal the vehicle’s airlock. She climbed in and waited for the air pressure to equalize. Once inside, she verified the cabin was at the correct pressure, and unsealed her helmet. Luisa set her equipment aside and settled into the seat next to the driver’s station.

The rest of the exploration team arrived and found their seats in the rover. Luisa waited until everyone had sat down, and then raised her hand for attention. “I’m sorry that all of this has been such a cloak and dagger affair.” She half turned and brought up the rover’s internal holo display. An image of the map sprang to life in the space between the seats. “This is a map that Adam’s team found on Zene just after the invasion from Earth.”

There was a collective intake of breath, and the team members stared at the map, too stunned to even comment. Luisa smiled and nodded. “That was my reaction, too. Now, Adam hasn’t been able to decode most of the map, but he’s managed to figure out that it’s a starmap of the wormhole networks from both Earth and New Geneva. He was able to decode this part,” she highlighted a section of the lower right corner of the map, “and determine that it referred to a location about five kilometers from where we are sitting.” Everyone’s eyes met hers, and the Martian nodded. “Adam is fairly certain that there is another outpost close by, and we are going to find it.”