Chapter 21: The Arrival at Jewel

Finally, the day that we arrived on Jewel came to pass. Jewel was an absolutely stunning planet. The tenth-tier ladies and I were invited to watch the approach to Jewel from the observation deck. We approached Jewel on the same basic course that the original settlers approached on. The planet has an atmosphere almost identical to Earth’s and other than the differences in land masses you could not tell the differences.

One could easily imagine how the initial settlers would have felt when they arrived. The settlers would have traveled for almost a decade to get to Jewel. They most likely had a picture and scientific readings of the planet from a probe that declared the system habitable. The settlers had no guarantee, that when they arrived, they would not find something devastating different. They, almost certainly, were running out of supplies and were doomed if something unexpected was discovered. There were many examples of this occurring in early exploration. I could imagine the glee in their faces when they first saw Jewel with their own eyes. It was absolutely breathtaking.

The ladies were mesmerized. They had never seen Jewel though an observation deck. This seemed odd to me, but then I was told there was no observation deck on the Beverly.

As we entered orbit around Jewel, I discovered I had a surprise coming. We passed the remains of the Annabelle Hudson, the original colony ship. She was showing her age, almost 1900 years old in orbit. She was maintained by the government of Jewel as a museum. I found this an emotional experience. I had known the ships namesake, Annabelle Hudson. She was a hero of WW3, who had been responsible for saving a considerable portion of the human race during the final days of the war when the losing side had launched a sizable final offensive. Her actions had saved my life and 50 million+ others. She died several days after returning from her tasks due to radiation poisoning. I had hopes to marry her after the war. I was at her bedside when she died. I still after all these years grieve the loss.

Paula noticed the tears in my eyes and asked me if there was something wrong. I said that seeing the Annabelle Hudson was bringing back some painful memories. I told her I’d tell her about it some time. Paula accepted that and held me around the waist.

Once we were in orbit, Captain Gonzales asked the ladies and me to come to the egress module for transportation to the surface. Captain Gonzales and I said our good byes and wished each other luck. There were four one hundred passenger shuttles waiting to take us to the surface. The ladies and I each entered a shuttle. I insisted that the ladies of each order split themselves into four groups to travel down. I was not going to lose everyone in one of the orders if I could help it.

I always hate riding in shuttles to and from the surface of a planet. This is because it is the single most dangerous part of space travel. If some bad is going to occur in space travel it usually occurs during these two portions of travel. There is a huge amount of energy expended getting the shuttle from the surface of the planet to orbit. There is a huge amount of danger during reentry into a planet’s atmosphere. There are literally millions of things that can go wrong during either of those processes. Those things have not changed much since the original space shuttle disasters of the Challenger and Columbia millennium ago. I was one of the few humans still around who lived at the time of those incidents.

My fears, as usual, proved to be unfounded and we arrived on the surface of Jewel about an hour after leaving the Lee.

Life it good!!