Chasing Legends

Part 2

Izara raised her eyes from the holotablet, everyone was looking at her, expecting… demanding an instruction, a command. She was this ship's Commissary after all, wasn't she?

"We could send a probe under the water surface. Test for any signs of life...", she said to the operator sitting at the drone console.

The operator looked back at the Captain, who simply nodded.

The following minutes were tense at the bridge of the Restrained Wind. Every operator looking at their own consoles as they waited, Captain Kisner looking out the window at the blue planet.

Izara was lost in her thoughts. Her mind going over all the books she remembered, all the tales. Could the Human be an aquatic species? The idea was tempting, but she knew it was far-fetched. Many in the Confederacy had theorized about aquatic civilizations, but they had never found any, so the prevailing thought nowadays was that underwater creatures couldn't naturally develop far enough to become sapient civilizations.

"Sir, we have an incoming stream from the drone", the operator said, "It appears there are some aquatic life forms living under the surface. We are picking different species of fishes, large warm-blooded creatures, a variety of vegetal life… no sign of civilization, though"

Izara sighed. "Perhaps we could send two more probes to each hemisphere and look for underwater ruins. If this is the world we are looking for, there might be some left overs..."

"No", Captain Kisner interrupted.

Izara looked at him, perplexed. "Pardon me? Our mission is to..."

"This mission is over. We are not a science vessel, we were not sent here to study the local fauna. We are at war, and this is a military ship. There is nothing here worth our time."

Izara clenched her jaw and glared at the Captain. "As far as I remember, I'm still the Commissary in charge of this ship, Captain"

The Captain quickly closed the space between the two, towering over her "Are you going to pull rank at me, Commissary?". When he said it, the word sounded like an insult.

"Sir! I'm picking up something!", another operator said.

The Captain turned to glare at him. "What?"

The operator looked down, his voice trembling. "T… there's an object... in a stable orbit around the planet.... I'm sorry, Sir, I thought it was an asteroid, but it doesn't match the profile."

Izara walked towards the Navigator. "Get us there", she ordered.

The Navigator looked back at Captain Kisner, who glared at Izara again. She met his gaze, forcing herself not to flinch. After a few long seconds, he finally turned to the Navigator.

"Set trajectory for rendezvous. Approach the object from a higher orbit".

"Yes, Sir"

Izara felt a deep relief, her muscles relaxing as everyone on the bridge concentrated again in their tasks rather than looking at her. She had never liked to work under pressure, much less be confronted by an angry tall man, but she felt she had handled it well so far.

She glanced again at her holotablet and took a look at the data coming from the object. It was a quite massive sphere, their own ship a diminute blip when compared to it. It was no wonder the operator took it for an asteroid or a small moon at first, but she could tell there was something strange about it.

All objects, no matter how big, created gravity. Even their own ship created a small depression in the space-time fabric that permeated the whole universe, a depression any scanner could easily detect.