What Will You Discover?

Daniel K. Dearing

It was the tallest mountain on the planet, dominating the continent it had no doubt played a part in making, a dormant volcano just a few miles taller than Everest. Perhaps it had been the target of many a climber. From experienced mountaineers to novice climbers, perhaps all had scrambled and clambered across snow and rock to reach its peak and marvel at the astounding views before making their way back down again.

And now…here she was: Alexandria Dyne, engineer and reluctant captain of the Federation Starship USS Dauntless. One of the first Humans to stand atop the tallest peak of this alien world. As close as she could get to her Walker-class vessel without taking her feet off the Earth-like ground.

The view before her however, probably took her breath away for completely different reasons to those natives that had preceded her.

There was no wind. Not a cloud in the sky. Only the sun to beat down relentlessly against her environmental suit.

And before her, lay a sea.

An ocean of pale orange liquid for as far as the eye could see, the watery substance lapping gently at the edges of the peak and the archipelago that had once been its surrounding companions. What had once been the tallest mountain was now the largest of a small cluster of islands in an endless ocean.

“What the hell happened here?”

“I wish I could tell you,” Ian Kwon sighed as he lumbered up beside her, the sun shining off his suit’s large visor. “It’s all gone, Captain. Every being, every animal, every insect, tree and flu bug. It’s just…gone. All that’s left is this,” he indicated to the sea with a wave of her hand, “Dauntless still analyzing a sample of it, but from what we can tell, it’s just basic molecules and amino acids. Like primordial soup.”

Carefully, Alexandria let the motors in her suit’s joints slowly ease her down to the rocky ground as she dipped a hand into the viscous fluid that pooled around the peak. Her eyes squinted against the sunlight as she watched it ooze off her fingers.

“The distress call said there was over twelve billion people on this planet,” the engineer shook her head in disbelief. “Animals and insects of all kinds, tress, flowers, grass…and this is all that’s left? What the hell were these people doing?”

“We don’t know, but a hacked video feeds from orbital satellites confirms that the point of origin appeared to be a science center of some kind.” Kwon turned his gaze eastward, to the various away teams milling around the little islands, performing tests on the earth, sea and sky. “We still don’t have all the pieces yet. Radio chatter indicated whoever these people were scheduled to conduct a complicated experiment at 1300 hours yesterday, local time, and we know they insisted this time it would work. Then again, we might never really know what happened. This stuff just gets denser the deeper we go. The oceans are vaporized, the best Dauntless can tell, most buildings and structures have been crushed by the pressure down there …this is all that’s left, sir.” He turned his gaze back to the sea, “It’s all gone. Condensed into a planet-wide gunk.”

“The waters rose and covered the mountains. Every living thing that moved on the Earth perished; birds, livestock, wild animals, all the creatures that swarm over the Earth, and all mankind,”

“Captain?”

“Genesis, chapter Seven, Verses twenty and twenty one,” Alexandria smiled wearily as she stood up again. “The great flood that wiped out all life on Earth, save for one man, his family, and huge boat load of animals. When you think about it, the events aren’t that dissimilar.”

“No boat this time, sir. They barely had time to send the distress call before they were torn apart.”

Alexandria nodded, her face becoming solemn as she cast her eyes back across the endless sea.

“I want all enquiries made, but I want the sea to be left as uncontaminated possible. Collect samples, whatever data you can, and have Dauntless deploy probes to monitor activity and keep others away.”

“What are you planning to do?”

“Twenty-seven hours ago, all life on this world ceased to exist,” Dyne flexed her hand within the suit, watching the last drops of liquid slip from her fingers to splash back into the ocean, “but maybe…maybe life can start again here.” She looked to Kwon out of the side of her visor. “I want to see…no…I want to make sure that happens.”

“What are you suggesting?”

“We can’t change what happened. We may never know who these people were, or what they might have been. But it’s as you said: this ocean made of the building blocks of life. My suggestion to Starfleet is that we watch over this world, and wait to see if history repeats. To see those amino acids come together to form proteins again, and stand guard over this planet until they do.”

“Do you think Starfleet will approve?” Ian smiled slightly with disbelief, “Protecting our pool of sludge until something happens? Then what? We show them where we went wrong? Captain, it took almost four billion years for life to develop on Earth. I don’t think any of us will live that long,”

“Then we’ll simply have to teach our children, and their children,” Alexandria smirked, “We’ll teach them to stand watch over this world, watching and waiting. Hoping and praying that whatever guides us through this universe sees fit to give this planet another chance.”

Kwon continued to smile as he shook her head. “With respect sir, do you really think it’s going to be that simple?”

“No,” Alexandria laughed as she patted the science officer on the shoulder, “but that’s what’s going to make it interesting.”