Relics of the Past - Chapter One

Mark sat on a bench and stared out into space. The stars looked amazing and his mind started to drift a little. He was waiting for clearance to board a transport to satellite B9746FD. The waiting area was fairly large and extended all the way up to the clear dome that surrounded the colony. He had been living on colony H8745DS for about three years. The dome gave an excellent view of space and it was one of the things that he enjoyed about living there.

The colony had been constructed on a moon that orbited a gas giant. It was fairly distant from the planet’s sun so there was little to no light most of the time. All the light was artificial. The colony maintained a population of around 3 million and anything you could possibly think of doing you could do there. The colony was self-sustaining. Nothing was imported and nothing was exported. Everything that the colony needed to survive existed on the moon. People did come and go however and transports arrived and departed on a regular schedule.

Mark had been interested in cryptography. Ever since he was a small child he had shown an aptitude for solving puzzles and mathematical problems. It was a specialized line of work and it gave Mark a lot of free time between jobs to explore his other interests. He was an avid reader of history and the events of the past fascinated him to no end.

There had been an exciting discovery. An artificial structure had been found on a moon. It was the first time anyone had ever discovered something non man made. There had been markings on the object that had been sent to Mark for analysis. Mark had analyzed the markings and decided that he needed to see the object for himself before coming to a firm conclusion as to what the markings meant. It was an exciting event. Man had been colonizing space for two hundred years and had never come into contact with alien life. It was a huge deal.

So Mark sat waiting for the transport. He had been on transports before and it really was no big deal. He didn’t have any belongings to take because no one had any belongings. He did have clothes that only he himself wore so in a way those items belonged to him but he had no other possessions to concern himself with.

While he was waiting a young woman sat down beside him. He engaged her in conversation. He asked her where she was going and what her interests were. She spoke to him like they had known each other forever but the truth was they had never seen each other before today. Mark explained the exciting news about the alien structure. The woman was fascinated by the discovery. She knew that it was only a matter of time before something like that turned up.

There was an announcement that the transport was ready for boarding. Mark and the young woman both got up and walked toward the boarding area. Once inside the transport, Mark fastened himself in. Once everyone had boarded, they released a gas into the cabin which caused everyone to fall asleep. Once the transport had cleared the moons orbit, it engaged its propulsion system which caused the ship to increase its speed exponentially.