Ryan Taylor awakens from hibernation to a mystery that he, along with his crew, must solve in order to continue their mission. How they solve it and what they find is astounding.
The next day we made our way to the hanger deck and got into full bio suits before boarding a shuttle. I was taking a chance in having all of us go down at the same time, but I felt we needed all of the expertise we could get in this situation.
The trip down was more exciting than the last time we did it. The stratospheric winds were stronger than on Earth and the lower winds buffeted our craft as if it were in a choppy sea. Despite that, I guided the shuttle to a landing in a clearing near the ruins.
We got into bio suits and locked down our helmets before we exited the shuttle. The weather was warm with a five-kilometer per hour wind. We walked up to what appeared to be a stone wall twenty-five meters high that encircled the ruins. Fortunately, there was an open entrance, which had intricately carved symbols on the arch stones.
Our helmets had radios so that we could communicate.
"Those symbols are definitely alien," Natale said. "It suggests that the builders were an intelligent species."
I was surprised that she could come up with that logic. It indicated that she wasn't a total airhead.
We walked through the entrance to a truly amazing sight. Impressive stone buildings lined a stone paved street that converged in the distance. This walled city was obviously something that required a lot of time and effort to build. The stones appeared to be perfectly aligned with very little evidence of gaps.
I decided to enter the open doorway of a large building that was a thousand meters high. What I saw inside was completely unexpected.
"Holy hell!" I exclaimed. "It's full of bones!"
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"They're complete skeletons," Janet said. "There must be thousands of them in here."
Bridget, the exo-biologist, was the right person to examine them. She went to work trying to determine what sort of species they belonged to by measuring the skulls and leg bones using a handheld LIDAR device.
"These creatures would stand over seven feet. They have curved skulls that peak at the back. I would say that they had two large, independently directed, eyes and their hearing was acute, Judging by the size of the auditory openings. They have three fingers and toes."
"They were obviously an intelligent species. Is this some sort of burial chamber?"
"I don't think it was. Everything about this indicates a catastrophe. They're just stacked up like fire-wood."
"I was afraid of that. What we need to determine is if this was the result of a natural event or a war."
"I'm not detecting any signs of trauma in the bones, but there is the possibility that it was some poison or gaseous cause."
"I don't like this," I said. "We had better check out some of the other buildings to see if there's more of them."
We exited the building and walked to another smaller building with a domed roof. There weren't any skeletons in it, but the walls were covered with mosaic art that depicted these creature's in various poses and situations.
