Our Roots, our Destiny (Chapter 4)

"Captain Kerigh! You're awake!" Gilbe said. Kerigh wasn't so sure that she was, between the headache and the zero gravity.

"You passed out when you stood up so quickly," Dr. Jennica said. "It happens all the time to Mesomesbinties who visit the Southern Communes. But your reaction was worse than I expected, probably due to living under microgravity."

"What's this?" Kerigh said, pointing at the device clipped to her wrist.

"It's an IV-pump."

"What's it pumping?"

"A treatment for hypergravity sickness. It'll take a while for your muscles to adapt to the help, so they're gonna be a little sore for a while."

Kerigh was too exhausted to complain about being pumped full of alien drugs.

"Captain, Entreprize has a report from the surface," Gilbe said.

"Can we get some privacy?" Kerigh said.

"Do you want to have a heart attack?" Dr. Jennica said.

Kerigh sighed. "What is the report?"

Gilbe played the recording of Kegrel's transmission. "At the site of the old Kerbal Space Center, the buildings were decayed and seemingly covered in overgrowth. There are some nearly intact spaceship hulls in the hangar, and it looks like a rocket had fallen through the VAB's doors and collapsed the front of the building."

"I expected plant life went extinct," Dr. Jennica said under her breath.

"There are small, pitch-black crystals growing out of some of the metallic structures in the research and development facility. I tried to remove a sample but nothing I could do would break the crystals. I cut off an entire I-beam covered in the stuff and wrapped it up, we're going to cart it over to Entreprize with one of these equipment dollies using the buggy as a tow truck. End recording."

Kerigh shot forward off the wall, flailing a little bit, which shocked Jennica. "HAVE THEY ALREADY LOADED IT ONTO ENTREPRIZE?"

"No, they're going to do so on EVA 3," Gilbe said.

"Tell them not to load the sample," Kerigh said, "Entreprize isn't equipped to handle dangerous materials."

Gilbe nodded and left the room to relay the order.

"Get me your cap--oh that's right, you don't have one. Bring me your archaeologists and biologist," Kerigh said.

Thombles, Genefrod, and Debelyn climbed into the storage module-turned-medbay, and Kerigh explained what her exploration team knew.

At first, they thought Kerbin was completely sterilized, since it appeared dead from space. The first probes revealed that there was still life on the surface, though it was struggling in the cold, dark, smoggy conditions. The various satellites they inspected with probes had all been damaged by some kind of anomalous pulse which occurred throughout the Kerbin system. Kerigh explained that SLIPPIST-1 flares wouldn't even have caused this much damage. Without power, it seems that the inhabitants of most spaceships and space stations suffocated, though it seemed that a few installations had power recovered but were abandoned. The Roots dropped to low orbit to start exploration to figure out what happened to Kerbin and to try to contact survivors, and had done a couple of landing missions with Entreprize--though this third mission was the first to land near ruins of civilization--the former Kerbin Space Center.

Kerigh also described Kegrel's latest report.

"There shouldn't be many Kerbin plants which can survive such high levels of smog for long. Do you have any plant samples?" Debelyn said.

"The samples are classified," Kerigh said.

"We were planning to send a landing party to Kerbin before going to visit Laythe. Tell me, what do you records of Laythe show?"

"Laythe is an ocean world with volcanic islands," Kerigh said, "but I don't see how it's relevant."

"During our flyby, we observed Laythe to be frozen over," Thombles said.

"Then that means something drastic has changed," Kerigh said.

"Shall we do a joint mission? We can send a research mission to Laythe with one of your crew, and I can fly down with your Entreprize team. I have plenty of field experience as an archaeologist." Genefrod said.

"I shall consider it," Kerigh said.

"As a show of good faith, we will send the data we collected from the Jool flyby," Thombles said.

"All good then. Now please leave, so I can finish treating my patient," Dr. Jennica said.

After the doctor was done with her, Kerigh still felt sore, but more awake now, and was ready to return to her ship. She still wasn't sure about these aliens, but they had all the chance in the world to kill her while she was asleep. Before she left, she swiped one of the vials of the hypergravity treatment and put it in her space suit's sample pocket.

"Captain, what's that for?" Gilbe asked.

"I want Sigueem to analyze it, make sure they didn't poison me back there."

"They're very nice really, I don't think--"

"They're aliens from another star system. There's no telling what their real motives are."

"Captain, permission to speak freely?"

Kerigh paused. "Permission denied."

"Captain! They are our best shot--"

"I said permission denied, Lieutenant!"

Gilbe crossed her arms and looked away, out the window, at the brown globe below.