Chapter 12: The Age of Discovery

One week later.

Time: Friday, June 4, 2049 10:30 AM, 30 km due east of Santa Cruz de la Palma

Discovery left its home port of Funchal just before midnight and spent the next ten hours cruising southward at a leisurely pace of twenty-six knots, four knots below its rated speed and almost twenty knots below its true maximum speed. Discovery represented Madeira's very first attempt to explore outside of Golem's bubble radius. The ship was maintaining radio silence, and after ten hours of sailing had come to a dead stop thirty km from the eastern shore of the capital of the Canary Islands. The ship was running clean, using just a small fraction of its 1 GW dark generator to drive the ship's propellers.

Estevao stared quietly out the front windows on the ship's bridge. The capital of the Canary Islands was still below the horizon, but the high mountains of Tenerife were clearly visible to the north of the city. Estevao wore two hats on Discovery. He was a lead scientist with the Department of Energy, and thus was in charge of the ship's dark energy drive. He was also a lieutenant in the Madeiran Navy and third in command aboard the Discovery. Estevao was also one of Captain Mendez's closest friends.

The captain turned away from the displays the ship's high precision optical scanners were feeding to the bridge. "Fine day for some fishing, don't you think Estevao?"

"Beautiful day captain." Estevao gestured to the south. "Some of the dolphins are still with us. And the whales this morning! Who would have thought it possible? The ocean is bursting with life."

The captain nodded her head. "Yes, a fine day for fishing. And yet the good citizens of Santa Cruz seem to disagree with us lieutenant."

"Yes captain. It appears they do."

The ocean around them was devoid of any type of human craft save their own. Their orders for this scenario were to hold their position for one hour and then proceed west with Discovery to Santa Cruz at sixteen knots, which would have them sail directly into their neighbor's number-one harbor just after noon time.

It was a new experience for them all, sailing without GPS. Discovery did have its own internal sets of gyroscopes for navigation, but they could not compete with the sub-meter precision of the military GPS signals the U.S. military had secretly given Madeira access to. Estevao gazed westward and wondered what could have happened to the Canary Islands, Madeira's closest ally. Could pirates have overrun the islands? It didn't seem possible that the Canary Islands would have maintained radio silence in a war of annihilation. And yet the ocean around them was completely free of another human presence, and the entire RF spectrum remained filled with simple white noise.

At 11:03 AM, Discovery powered up its dark engines and began sailing due east at 16 knots. Estevao knew the struggle Captain Mendes was facing. She was sailing a highly deadly warship right up to her neighbor's front door without announcing her intentions. No, Estevao thought, an even better analogy would be not ringing the front doorbell of a neighbor and just walking into their child's bedroom with a gun.

A deep frown formed on Estevao's face as they closed to within 20 km of the capital. The city could now be devastated by Discovery's numerous short-range surface-to-surface missiles, and was coming into range of the ship's 57 mm Bofor's gun which could fire 220 high explosives or armor piercing rounds per minute. How could the Canary Islands' military let Discovery do this unchallenged?!

Forty minutes later...

The frigate was at dead stop a mere 400 meters from the coastline, holding its position rock steady with a slight touch of dark force. Except for a few terse statements commanding the ship, no words had been spoken on the bridge for the last few minutes. Discovery had a crew complement of 225, and almost all the men and women by now had had a chance to gaze at the island and contemplate the meaning of what they were seeing.

Captain Mendes finally broke the silence, talking to sensor operations deep below the bridge. "Ensign Faria, launch bluebirds, one flock, standard scan, cover everything within ten kilometers, as much as you can. Be sure to cover the airport location."

"Acknowledged Captain," replied a woman's voice, who repeated the order and a moment later added, "Twelve bluebirds away. Visual telemetry is available on channels 50 through 61, infrared on channels 86 through 97. Full recording in progress."

Estevao walked to the captain's side and together they stared at the shoreline. "Laurissilva," Estevao whispered in Portuguese.

He spoke the word for Laurel forest, a unique subtropical humid forest dating back to the Tertiary Period. The forests once occupied vast areas of southern Europe and the Mediterranean basin before advancing glaciers caused their almost total extinction. Until this morning, Estevao thought the Madeira had the most extensive and well conserved Laurel forest of the world.

But no longer. Before him lay a vast Laurel forest, lush and pristine, and its size dwarfed what was preserved at Madeira. The forest was stunning in its beauty, and through his binoculars and the displays from the bluebirds, Estevao could see a great predominance of trees belonging to the Laurel family, vast stands of Bay, Fetid, and Canary Laurel. The displays were also showing trees that looked exactly like Madeira Mahogany, and there were other delights, Lily-of-the-valley trees and rare Madeira Cheesewoods and Holly. Rare on the Madeira preserve perhaps, but here they were present in abundance.

And in addition to the trees, the displays were also showing great varieties of bushes, ferns, mosses, lichens and liverworts. As the bluebirds flew in low for detailed examination, Estevao's heart began to ache from the beauty.

Captain Mendes pointed to a screen and commented, "That particular display is where the airport was... or should I say will be?"

Estevao nodded slowly and whispered, "What a privilege to see the Earth like this. So stunning, it's difficult to talk..."