Moon Fall
Chapter 12 - Libation

After a while authorities of all kinds both legal and scientific came to try to find claims. There were no residual energy readings or gravitational anomalies, nothing to even suggest there had been a planet or planets here.

Over fifty thousand people were reported missing in the final reporting, and some blamed the administration for blundering but a United Earth Federation panel of inquiry determined that no one could have known what could have happened, at least not in it’s totality. The President elect of White Home was however found negligent in regards to facts brought to the committee by the local scientific community in regards to several packets of data that had streamed live five hours before the catastrophe. In the packets it was determined that this data had been seen by the president but that it was not considered a possible threat. Judicial reviews and legal proceedings would continue on until the UEF determined the entire event a sad but also momentous day as scientifically whatever happened on Whitehome, or in it’s solar system, that we were not alone.

It was determined that Whitehome was indeed a Monstrous Machine of Alien Origin. That by it’s mere existence, it proved that we are not the only sentient beings to exist in this universe, but also not the most technologically advanced as well.

The solar system that Whitehome had existed had many abnormalities. Where the planet and it’s two moons resided there should have been an asteroid belt. Studies also showed that asteroids impacts and meteor strikes in the area were almost nil. In fact in the Oort Cloud the amount of stray material had been found to be 1/100th of that of the Sol system. It was as if something had been gobbling up matter for hundreds if not hundreds of thousands of years. It was determined that Whitehome not only converted physical matter into whitewater, or the white stone upon it’s surface, but also fed off the solar energy of the sun in the system itself.

People would later call it the Green Monster after the concept of Green energy or natural energy touted heavily in the 21st century in Earths culture.

Whether the planet itself was a living creature or a machine didn’t matter, and wild theories abound for years on end. A memorial station was built and maintained by the UEF and some original families who had survived the tragic events and TC also had an official laboratory and training facility built onto the station called Remembrance Station.

It took five years for Dr. Peiter Hollman to return to Remembrance Station.

Stepping onto the promenade he rubbed his neck and took a short breath as he made his way to the Monolith in the Central Garden park. A central hub of the upper Commerce Ring, the Central Park held the Monolith. A twenty foot tall stone of original White Home Coral Rock cut from a large cruiser that had been damaged in the events at White Home. It had originally been an engine part, what type no one seemed to remember as most of the ship had been assembled in such a short time. Several parts of the ship were recent Whitewater builds and upon quickly evacuating Whitehome, the parts reverted. This particular piece was cut and shaped and the names of all those recorded dead were etched into it’s surface. It was housed behind a huge glass case and holographic images of the planet and the domes that had once been upon it would appear as short flashes upon the surface of the glass.

At the base was a memorial plaque that glinted in the light as he walked.

He stared up at the well lit white monolith and felt a welling of sadness but he held it in. He’d spent the last five years working with UEF and Terra Corperation scientists to determine if his findings were correct. Peiter couldn’t complain to much.

He used his thumb to spin the wedding ring on his finger.

Grace Hollman was back at the TC Europa school teaching, and in a few months he’d be holding his first baby boy in his arms.

He found a bench nearby and plopped down on it, staring up at the monolith as an image of White Home slowly sat digitally plastered on the ceiling above surrounded by stars.

“Dr. Hollman?” A voice said beside him.

Standing nearby was a woman, a female mimetic dressed in white and beige dress with silver cups. She inclined her shiny silver hairless head.

“Hello.” He inclined his head and sat up straight, mimetics had been less common outside of Whitehome and larger civilized areas, after his experience with the the ones at the capital he’d retained a uneasy feeling around them ever since.

“It is time for your appointment, if you are free.”

“Yes, of course.” He stood up and followed the robot through the station and to a commerce building overlooking the larger port entrance to Remembrance Station.

Walking through security he was taken back to a small room with a round sleek black table and another door at the far end. After the female robot left Peiter stood near the chair and tapped his finger on the table top in anticipation. The door on the opposite side opened and Alexi entered dressed in a white lab coat carrying a PDA.

Alexi, looking older than the five years that had passed, set the pad down and came around the table. The two hugged and they sat down.

“Hows the wife? I received the packet she sent, the natvid is adorable. He’ll be a beautiful boy Peiter.” Alexi smiled.

“Grace is good, didn’t want to travel considering how close she was.”

“No, that’s fine. Neither of you had to come, I’m the only one legally bound here.”

“That’s not what I meant...”

“Sorry, I didn’t mean anything by that.” Alexi waved a hand, his face a bit crestfallen. “When they offered this position instead of some of the other places I could have been sent, I knew this was the right thing to do.”

“Alex, you... are you being mistreated? You don’t look well.” Peiter reached a hand across the table.

Alexi took it and gripped it warmly. “No, my condition is my own fashioning. I don’t sleep as well as I used to, and I spend most of my time working. I have... vivid dreams, mostly guilt related. Therapy is helping though.”

Peiter squeezed his hand and released it. “Sounds like someone we know.”

“Used to know. I think we switched places. As I remember you didn’t get therapy.” Alexi chuckled. “I don’t have the opportunity to drop thirty years and find me a hot red head, that and save a world from destruction.”

Peiter forced a pained smile at that. “You had opportunities, I had wondered why you never settled.”

“Too busy being in control, not enough time contemplating the... possibilities.”

“I don’t blame you, you know that right?”

“After more than five hundred messages over the past five years, I think I believe that at least ‘you’ don’t blame me.” Alexi sat back in his seat. “The others, I think I’ve received over a hundred million messages, and some of them... most of them, I could never face.”

“Surely that’s not all you get to do?”

“Oh no, I advise the Station Rings, I’m a member of the Board of Safety. For some strange reason I’m actually well liked ‘here’. I get to stroll the Commerce Ring with very limited security, though I’m not allowed in the Engineering or Port sections till my time is served.”

They talked for almost an hour about things that had passed. They talked about Peiter’s dreams, if he’d thought that Sheila had been still alive. Alexi had wondered about the dreams Peiter had before Sheila had passed, the ones she’d mentioned about in Gillespie’s conversation. Peiter had barely remembered them until shortly after and he’d been thinking about what the old man had said since then.

“Honestly I remember having dreams about some really dark stuff. I mean whitewater transforming people into monsters or domes bursting, I even had dreams about the storm. Most people did though so I passed it off as normal, but it did keep me from using whitewater on myself. It wasn’t just the medicines, but I did have a biased against it. I don’t think the dreams before all that happened were linked but, I still think about it.”

“Do you really believe you spoke with... whatever it was?”

Peiter nodded.

“And this whole battery thing, you know I was a skeptic, still am, but...”

“I think that our presence, like footprints, left markers. When the planet took a human body into the storm or under ground and it could never be found, I think it absorbed the matter. I think that if our DNA has memory as well as instruction as to what we are, then there’s no telling what that thing could know about us. Sheila wasn’t the only scientist to die on White Home and not leave a body.”

“Where do you think all that energy went?” Alexi asked finally, putting his PDA in his pocket.

Peiter had thought about this for some time, five years in fact. He’d talked with scientists and even a few philosophers regarding the entire White Home Incident.

“I think that perhaps the energy had reached it’s peak, fully charged the battery, and it went home. Far beyond our galaxy. It told me that we were the first sentient beings to come across it, and that there were many of these batteries scattered throughout the universe. I don’t know how old it is, if the aliens who built it even exist still. If they do, we might find out sooner or later that we’re not alone.”

“They’ll have a heads up on us if your theory is correct.” Alexi pointed out. “We’ll know nothing about them but they’ll have some pretty good data on us. Do you think they’ll try to make contact?”

“Who knows. They could be long dead, they could be here any minute.”

Alexi smiled. “How should we prepare?”

Peiter stood up and gave his old friend a small smile. “What can we do? If they have Sheila’s memories of who and what we are, I don’t think they’ll come with ill intent. I think the worst thing that could happen is they do nothing at all. Leave us to our own devices.”

“We didn’t really show ourselves at our best. We turned... I turned White Home into a galactic theme park.” Alexi stood and came around to give Peiter another hug.

Peiter turned to the door only to look back at his friend, still standing next to the table, the silver bands around his neck and wrists. “I’ll come more often, next time I’ll bring Charles.”

Alexi grinned. “So decided on a name huh?”

“Charles Alexander Hollman.”

Alexi’s face seemed to melt, his face reddened and a tear fell though he tried to stop it. “Peiter, you... didn’t have to.”

“No, I wanted to. Just five more years, you lost everything, but we’re still family. Grace agrees with me.”

Alexi couldn’t speak for a moment, Peiter had never seen him make that kind of face. Tears welled up in his eyes, it was the first tears he had seen since Shiela’s death. Even then, there was underlying anger at her loss driving the tears away, now... the tears flowed till he choked them off. “Thank you.”

“It’s nothing, really. Just finish up here.” He smiled warmly. “I’ve started up a shipping business with some friends in the Republic. I’ve been saving up for a long time, I’ve got a place on Europa Prime. You’re welcome to stay once you are released if you want.”

“I had noticed a few trading companies had requested additional space on the Docking Ring, this place is always getting bigger and bigger. Like White Home.”

“Keep doing what you can, visit again soon?”

“I think I’d like that.” The two men turned and left the room.

Peiter walked out of the UEF security station and took a small three wheeled taxi scooter to the Loading docks. He found the trading office that had been set up a few months ago and smiled as Dennis came from the back of the office rubbing his hands free of grease.

“Problems?”

Dennis smiled and came around to give Peiter a hug.

“So, you go check on the President?” Dennis asked as they made their way back into the docking bay where one of the shuttles was being loaded and another was being worked on.

Most of the workers were from Han Republic, the dark hair and olive skin gave away their ancestry. There were several others here, all working hard, most likely from outer colonies or from the UEF. One woman stood with a larger PDA checking off items as they went into the shuttle, she turned and nodded to them as they passed.

“He hasn’t been called the President in some time Dennis.” Peiter pointed out as Dennis lingered a smile to the young woman, who returned his smile and went back to work.

“Hey, I know. But I don’t feel right calling him Alexi or Mr. Koba.”

Peiter smiled. “Yes, I spoke with him. He’s doing well, as best as can be expected. From what I hear he’s a bit of big news around here.”

“I’ve only been back a week, local Han boys have been through, meticulously checking over my engineering staff. They like me though. I haven’t wanted to space any of them yet, and I haven’t found strange things in my meals so...”

“So I noticed.” Peiter looked back to see the young woman shouting at someone off in the distance.

“I can expect two for our next get together?” Peiter asked curiously seeing Dennis watching the woman chastise a loader who’d done something wrong.

“Who? Kali? Heh, am I being that obvious?”

Peiter gave him a look. “She doesn’t work for us does she?”

“Oh no! She’s Han, I mean she works for us, but she’s working for our partners, I don’t have any control over what she does. You know...”

Peiter raised a hand. “I’m just messing with you. If you want, bring her, we’re having a get together on Europa in two months, I’ll send you an invitation.”

Dennis nodded and rounded a corner and came to a large door leaning to a separate bay. In it was a small ship the size of a small UEF transport. Along one side it had standard UEF tags along with Republic authorized registration tallies. Most of the ship was shaped like rounded cylinder but diamond shaped from the front down to the two side engines. The entire outer shell was a silverish colored plating allowing for absorption of cosmic rays and solar wind energy.

“We’re still working on the kinetic charging stations, and mirror shift plating is taking longer to produce, but so far this is what we’re looking at for the repair shuttles you were working talking about building.” Dennis and Peiter went along to the back and the back hatch opened extending down a walkway into the back storage hold.

“Seems a bit long. How maneuverable will she be?”

“There are several mock-up for the repair shuttle, Dr. Hollman.” A familiar voice said from inside t he ship.

“Phil?”

“Correct, it is good to see you again, Dr. Hollman.”

“Good to hear you Phil, are you operating the shuttles systems?”

“Affirmative, albeit temporarily. Terra Corporation has several designs for their maintenance and emergency escape vessels, I’ve received reports that your idea to combine the two has gained some favor. Congratulations on your patent, I’ve been informed that it is hard to get a patent on technical systems in regards to TC guidelines.”

“It’s taken five years but a self sustaining escape pod that can double as a maintenance ship and rechargeable emergency power source seems to be up my ally. I’ve a little to well known for them to try and take the idea away from me. Would make for bad press.” Peiter grinned. “That and I’m hearing they are planning to use the shuttle idea for a plan for deep space power stations and colony ships, but that’s still in RND.”

“That would be something, deep space colonization’s been stagnant since the Confed War.” Dennis nodded as they entered into the shuttles habitation quarter.

“Well I think we’re doing the right thing, we might not see any real push for colonization for another twenty years or so but White Home returned a bit of exploratory spirit to the human race. The Eden’s Light Tragedy and the last war kind of put a dent in our exploratory spirit. We’re not alone, or at least we hope we’re not. I think that’s a good thing.”

“Having hope?”

Peiter nodded as he patted the metal wall of the shuttle. “Indeed.” He went to the forward control console and tapped away at a few monitors then looked to Dennis who had removed a kinetic charge panel. “Ever think about having kids Dennis?”

Dennis smiled as he gripped the black handle and pushed it down, up, and down again. A green light bar growing with each pull and push of the handle. “Yeah actually. Mom always wanted grand kids, she’s an engineer you know. Wants me to have a daughter first so she can spoil her. Only had boys, two brothers.”

“A daughter huh?”

“You keep your just born son away from my unborn daughter. You Hollman’s are trouble, I knew it from the moment I saw you.” Dennis grinned.

“Well if you do have a kid, she’ll have a fast track open for TC if she’s inclined. I can probably see to that.”

“If your boy likes motors instead of physics and botany, I can give him a wrench to start off.”

“Hey, Dennis?”

“Yeah?”

“I’ve been curious, what’s the S stand for.”

“S?”

“The middle name.”

“OH!” Dennis laughed. “You ask me now?”

“Just curious, the thought suddenly popped into my head.”

“Stryker. It’s a family name, on my mom’s side several generations back.”

“Huh. Dennis Stryker Shaw?”

“Hey, I almost changed it to Dennis Stryker. I was pretty good at wrestling in school, almost took it up if my mom hadn’t put her foot down.” He said striking a pose.

“Yeah, no.” Peiter shook his head. “I don’t see it.”

Dennis slumped his shoulders and stood up straight.

“Hey, it’s a good name.” Peiter slapped his friend on the back.

Dennis and Peiter grinned as they set about their work, each man chipping away at a path to a new way, and hope for the future with the spirit of adventure in their hearts.

A promise of hope, for the future.

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