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.
We achieved orbit around Gliese 185-b without incident. Cursory observations didn't reveal much except for a strange object in what appeared to be a desert.
"It looks like a monument," Sharon said. "But I don't see signs of activity around it."
"This is definitely not the lizard alien's home world," I said. "But some intelligent species took the time to build a monument."
"I don't see any signs of cities or even settlements," Janet said. "If there is an intelligent species here, it must be extinct."
I blew out a disgusted breath. "We'll have to go down there and see what's going on, but we'll have to wear bio suits."
"Who are you taking with you?" Sharon asked.
"You and Bridget. Bridget is the exo-biologist and you're the planetary expert."
"Need a military specialist?" Kali asked.
"Yeah, you can lug the laser rifle."
She smiled.
The trip down was uneventful. I flew over the monument location and around the edges of the desert, but there was no indication of large animals or intelligent creatures, so I sat the shuttle down near the monument but not too close just in case we needed a quick escape.
After getting into our bio suits, we exited the shuttle and approached the monument.
Oops! This image does not follow our content guidelines. To continue publishing, please remove it or upload a different image.
"This thing is much larger than I expected," Sharon said. "It appears to be constructed from some unnatural substance, not indigenous stone."
"That's odd," I reacted. "Why wouldn't they use stone from the planet?"
"Maybe stone suitable for making a monument is many kilometers away."
"I hate to tell you guys, but this thing has English inscriptions on it," Kali said.
I walked over to her and what I saw blew my mind. "What in the hell is going on here! This thing says that there was a human settlement on this planet in 2078. That's completely ridiculous."
"If there was a settlement here, what happened to it?" Sharon asked.
"Good question. We didn't see any evidence of it."
"I think this monument is made from that instant cement shit that they came up with to build houses with," Kali said. "They must have hauled it here."
"This joy-cruising around the universe is putting us into the future big time," I said
"Yeah, all we're doing is picking up the pieces," Sharon said.
"The big question is: where did they go?" Kali asked.
"Maybe they gave up on this planet and went to another," I said. "But another possibility is that the lizard aliens took them away."
"If that's the case there would still be evidence of the settlement."
