Drax nodded. “It would have taken us hours normally, but since we were all just in there, working to fix Mother’s other issues, the boys knew where to look. And Serene is exceptional.” The way he said it, was glad Brian wasn’t nearby. He wasn’t as jealous as Jeff—who was?—but he could get a good jealousy snit going, and Drax was clearly a little more enamored of Serene than any other woman he spoke about.
Dragged my mind off of that and back to the interesting matter at hand. There was a lot of interesting on this trip. Our Various Powers That Be really enjoyed working in mysterious ways.
We knew when Ravi and Serene were done, because what we all were seeing out the windshield changed. The gasps were audible, even from Team Tinman.
There weren’t a variety of planets and moons here. There was one planet, one very big gas giant. And it possessed a single good-sized moon. A moon that gleamed in this sun’s light.
Because it appeared to be pure metal.
CHAPTER 56
“THAT’S NO MOON FOR SURE,” Tim said. “Is that a Death Star?”
“No,” Drax said slowly as he stared at it. “We’ve heard rumors . . .”
“Rumors of what?” Jeff asked.
“Rumors that a world made entirely of metal existed. We’ve never found it.”
“I think we have now.” Looked more closely, as we were getting nearer every second. “It doesn’t look smooth.”
“It may not be,” Hughes said. “But I need to point out that we’re going to be trapped in the planet’s orbit soon—this wouldn’t be an issue for this ship normally, but we still don’t have control of it, so we can’t control our flight path. If we’re landing on the moon—and despite everyone’s desires to Star Wars it up, it’s a moon, clearly—we need to prepare for that and figure out if the ship will even let us land. If we’re leaving, we need to leave now.”
My line came back on. “You are cleared to land.”
“Super and possibly even duper. However, land where?”
“Land anywhere that’s not orange.”
We were all quiet for a moment. “Um, excuse me?”
“Orange. Avoid it.”
Looked at the gas giant. It looked a lot like Jupiter. “We weren’t actually planning to land on the planet. I mean, I’m not sure we’re equipped to land on or in a gas giant or however that works.” Had no idea, just knew that the only people we knew who could handle living on a gas giant were the Vrierst. We hadn’t colonized Jupiter for any of the humanoid races, only its moons. No, we’d colonized Jupiter for the Vrierst.
“No, not on Spehidon, which is the planet. That’s uninhabited. We are on Cradus, its moon. Surely you can see us.”
“Yes, yes, we can. And what we see is something that looks silvery or platinum or pewter, but we’re not seeing gold or copper. And definitely not orange.”
“Ah, of course. You’re on the dark side.”
“Of course we are,” Jeff muttered. Avoided sharing that now I wanted to hear Pink Floyd’s “Dark Side of the Moon” because I didn’t want to be told that this was an inappropriate time.
“We can allow you to land there,” most-likely-a-woman said, “but it will be easier if you come to the light side. But, again, avoid anything orange.”
“Gotcha. Right now, we’re not seeing landing strips and things like that.”
“Oh, I’m sorry. As you come to us, we’ll adjust and be able to assist. Just avoid the orange.”
“Roger that. Speaking of Roger, my name is Kitty. What’s your name?”
“Oh, apologies. I am Fathade. I look forward to meeting you.”
Figured. Had no idea if that was a male or female or gender nonbinary name. Also had no idea why he, she, or it was suddenly thrilled about meeting us when they’d been trying to get us to leave only a few minutes prior.
“Aliens are, in general, weird.”
“We’ve always found them so, yes,” Fathade agreed. So we had that in common.
Miraculously, Mother announced that she was once again in control of the ship, and she allowed us to actually fly the thing. My role was, thankfully, limited to ensuring that Fathade and the rest of Cradus’ Mission Control were talking us around and down properly, which was me figuring out how to get the button to stay pushed down so everyone was still on our version of speakerphone.
Team Tinman had disengaged from their group huddle around Tito and were backing each of us, just in case. Could tell that Joe and Randy desperately wanted to take a seat away from me, Tito, or Jeff, and had to figure that, wherever Jerry was, he would also like to take one of our seats. Knew without asking that Jeff and Tito would like to give their seats up, too.
They were on Mother’s approved alternates roster. No time like the present to try. “Mother, could Joe and Randy take over for Jeff and Tito at the controls?”
“Not at this time.”
“Why not? We’re trying to land on an alien world. I’d personally really love the guys who trained for this for well over a year to be at the controls, and I’m sure I’m speaking for everyone else on board.”
“I’ll stay at Weapons,” Jeff added.
“Fine. Doctor Hernandez can be relieved.” Randy was behind Tito so he scored taking that slot. Joe looked totally jealous.
Jeff demanded that Wruck, Chuckie, and Reader rejoin us, so they did, bringing Jerry along, mostly because he followed them. Really hoped that we were going to have a better landing than arrival, because we had a lot of people in here now and no way to strap most of them in.
Spehidon was much closer to its sun than Jupiter was to ours. Based on the size of the sun from where we were it seemed as close to this sun as Earth. “Think this system was originally trying to become binary?”
“Possibly,” Chuckie replied. “As we’re learning firsthand, every system is different.”
“We should ask those in the Eagle Nebula about that,” Wruck added.
“True dat.” Cradus gleamed, and the closer we got to the light side, the brighter the moon was. “Is it all metal, do you think?”
“It looks like it,” Chuckie said, “because that doesn’t look like ice. We need to be prepared—we may not be able to breathe on the moon, and, depending on which metals make up the moon, the gravitational force could be crushing. Plus, if this gas giant is anything like the ones in our system, it’ll be sending out radiation, and that puts all of us at risk.”
“Not so long as we remain inside the ship,” Drax said. “It’s protected.”
“But the gravitational force is a risk if we land on the moon,” Chuckie replied. “And the radiation is a risk if we step outside. I don’t know that the ship is equipped with enough spacesuits. Certainly not enough for the various sizes we have on board, and by that I mean the kids. Let alone the animals.”
“I can test,” Wruck said. “There is no planet or moon where I can’t go.”
“Excuse me,” Fathade said. “But what are your body constructions? I heard your concerns and they are not without merit.”
Decided I was done being the ship’s telephone operator and that asking Mother’s permission was also something I wasn’t doing right now. “Fathade, you’ll be speaking to Charles in a moment to get all those pertinent details. Enjoy yourselves.”