As I collect the equipment I’ll need, I think, ‘I can’t believe someone would be stupid enough to expose themselves on a strange pnet. Just how idiotic can you be?’

  Two Marines carry Jackson into the shelter, y him down on an exam bed, and hold him in pce. Picking up the scanner, I run it across him from head to toe, then look at the dispy to see the results.

  I’m thunderstruck when the scanner dispys that he has neurogenic chemicals in his bloodstream. I look for one specific case, pull out two injectors, and quickly give them to him. I administer an anti-parasympathetic and hexaoxime as I wonder, ‘What kind of pnts make neurogenic chemicals? Normally, the chemical would have to be extracted and processed.’

  I hastily switch my comm to the command channel and ask, “Captain Vale?” As I wait for his response my heart races.

  “What can I do for you, Ms. Mayes? And don’t tell me we need to go back to the Avalon because you're in bor or I’ll be a mite cross with you,” he says with a hint of an amused tone. I can just imagine him ughing at his joke.

  Even considering the situation, I smile and chuckle. “Nope. 5 more months before then.” My tone turns serious as I say, “Sir, I recommend you call everyone back to the ship. We seem to have a problem.”

  He sounds armed when he asks, “And that is?”

  “At least one pnt produces naturally occurring neurogenic chemicals. Dr. Jackson took off his gloves and touched one.”

  I can easily hear his disbelief and incredulousness as he replies, “That friggin moron… What are natural whatsits?”

  “Nerve agents, Sir. Quite a nasty version of one at that.”

  I realize he has to ask, but I feel insulted when he asks, “Are you sure?”

  “Unless my scanner is being wonky, I’m positive. Especially since my treatment is working. Hang on a second, I need to check on Dr. Jackson.”

  Thankfully, his seizures have stopped, but I run another scan, look at the results, then grab two more injectors and administer them.

  “Alright, Captain. I’m back.”

  A heavy, resigned sigh comes back over the channel. “So, you’re saying the pnet is unlivable?”

  “I don’t know for sure. At this point, all I know is that at least one pnt produces them. We’d have to run scans of all the pnts to know for sure.”

  “Well, that’s just friggin great. It looks like our new Eden has snakes.”

  Trying to forestall the entire crew from becoming depressed, I firmly state, “Captain, please, don’t jump to conclusions merely based on Jackson’s interaction with one pnt. Please, don’t make things out to be worse than they already are. Let’s wait and see what the scans turn up, okay?”

  He sighs again. “Roger that, Ms. Mayes.”

  Then another problem occurs to me. “Sir, we do have an issue, though. We only have two medical scanners. They are the only ones programmed to pick up these types of chemicals. So, we’d need to reprogram the bio scanners to pick them up.”

  He asks, “Can we do that?”

  I nod as I reply in a confident tone, “Easily. Bio and medical scanners have the same hardware, so it’s only the software. It’s simple enough to have the Avalon’s computer add the relevant code to the bio scanners’ software, send it down to us, and incorporate it.”

  “Alright, I’ll make the call to Avalon. Is that moron going to live?”

  “I’m pretty sure he will, but remember that I’m only a level 2 medic. Only time will tell if any sting damage has been done. Neurotoxins are nasty business.”

  “I know. Okay, thank you, Ms. Mayes.”

  It takes under an hour for the Avalon’s computer to update the software, then transmit it to us, and our engineer to update all the scanners.

  Just as I feared, all of the flora have neurogenic chemicals in them. It wouldn’t surprise me if whatever passes for fauna contains some concentration of them as well. How it wouldn’t kill them is beyond me since they are carbon-based life just like we are. Regardless, we can’t survive here unless we want to live in domes.

  Captain Vale calls everyone back to the Mohawk. Then we run everyone through decontamination and return the Avalon. The flight back has the most depressing atmosphere I’ve ever felt.

  [Captain Marks POV][Captain’s Ready Room]

  I’m sitting behind my desk when Dr. Audrey Chen, the lead astrogeologist, Dr. Earnest Jackson, the lead astrobiologist, Dr. Andrew Wills, our resident NanoTech expert, and Cpt. Vale enter my ready room and each sit in front of my desk.

  Gruffly I begin, “Okay, Dr. Jackson. You vioted a shit load of protocols when you took off your gloves. You’re lucky that Athena was there and knew how to treat you, or you’d be dead right now. That said, you are confined to your cabin until further notice. Is that understood?” He meekly nods his head. “Alright. Now, let’s get to the main issue of why you are all here. Start talking.”

  Jackson clears his throat, and then begins talking. After he finishes his report, Chen gives her report.

  “So, to sum up all of your reports: Dr. Chen’s team found several very rge deposits of ore, but the survey wasn’t complete. Terra’s atmosphere is perfect for human life, but the neurogenic chemicals in everything you scanned make it unlivable. Simply wonderful,” I say as I close my eyes, run my hand through my hair, and sigh.

  Dr. Wills holds up his hand, so I gesture for him to talk. “Sir, that’s not quite true. As it stands, yes, it’s unlivable, but we can destroy the biosphere and break down all of the neurogenic chemicals with Nanos. Once that’s done, we can seed Terra with Earth life.”

  Dr. Jackson jumps up and loudly states, “That’s immoral!”

  Dr. Wills arches an eyebrow at him and snorts derisively. “Immoral? Hardly. From all of our scans and surveys with drones, there’s nothing even resembling an intelligent species here. At most, life here is barely around the Archean period of Earth.

  “In my opinion, leaving here hoping that we’ll find a suitable pnet to colonize would be suicidal. The trip here cost us the majority of our people. Yet, somehow, you think leaving here and taking the chance of losing the remainder of humanity on a thin sliver of hope is the moral choice?”

  Jackson looks away, then down at the floor, and hotly says, “Don’t put words in my mouth! I didn’t say that!”

  I jump in to curtail their burgeoning argument. “Sit down, Dr. Jackson. We’re not here to argue morality… I’m more than willing to listen to your opinions and any alternatives you might offer, but ultimately, the decision is mine. Morality aside, my orders are to save what’s left of humanity, no matter the cost. Dr. Wills has a valid point. We do have other candidate pnets, although none of them are as good. My thinking is better the bird in hand rather than the two in the bush.

  “Now, Dr. Jackson, do you have a better idea? One that doesn’t pce what remains of humanity at even more risk?” His shoulders slump, and he merely shakes his head as he looks at the floor. “Dr. Chen?” She shakes her head. “Alright, Dr. Wills, how long would it take to geoform Terra?”

  He shrugs. “No one knows. It’s never been tried on anything more than a small scale.”

  “Doctor, are you positive that we can make Terra livable?”

  He sits straighter and nods firmly. “Yes, Sir. It’s just a matter of creating enough Nanos and programming them.”

  “But, you have no idea how long it’ll take once you have?”

  “That’s correct,” he replies, and I sigh as I lean back in my seat. Dr. Wills waits a moment, then says, “In my opinion, it’s our best… No, not best. It’s more like our only viable option at this point.”

  “Doctor, I’m inclined to agree, but you do realize that we have limited supplies? Supplies which we’ll need to set up and support the colony until we can grow food and raise livestock.”

  Dr. Chen cuts in and says, “Captain, I think you’re overlooking an easy solution. We can geoform Terra and save our supplies at the same time. We pce everyone back in Cryo while the Nanos geoform Terra, however long that might take. Periodically, we have the computer wake up a small group to check on their progress, and when ready, they wake up the bio-group, to begin seeding Earth life across Terra.”

  I smile since I hadn’t even considered that as an option and then reply, “That’s a sound suggestion, Dr. Chen.”

  We have two options here: one, we take the high-risk chance of leaving the system in hopes of finding another pnet that we can live on, or two, we geoform Terra regardless of opposition to the pn.

  They sit waiting while I think things over. When I’ve made my final decision, I lean forward and pce my arms on the desk. “Dr. Wills, begin the preparations to seed the pnet with Nanos. Let me know when you’re ready, or if you need anything. Thank you for your reports, opinions, and ideas. You’re dismissed.”

  The next day, I briefed the passengers, and many of them were upset by the news. Then I inform them of our pns, which relieves most of them. The next morning, we begin pcing all non-essential civilians back into Cryo.

  ◇ ◆ ◇ ◆ ◇ ◆ ◇

  It takes two months to produce the Nanos in enough quantity to seed the oceans and continents. Dr. Wills tells me that 80% of them are ‘eaters,’ as he calls them, and the other 20% are ‘replicators,’ to make more of them so that it will reduce the amount of time it’ll take for them to remove the biosphere and break down the neurogenic chemicals in the soil and water.

  Of course, he incorporated a kill command to turn them off when the Nanos’ job is completed. The Avalon’s computer estimates about a decade, plus or minus a year or two, to completely clear and clean Terra of all life. Look, pnets are big pces, and Terra is rger than Earth, so it’s just going to take time.

  I give the go-ahead to begin the operation, and when the pilots have seeded Terra with the Nanos, what few of us who are still awake enter Cryo. The automated defenses are set to destroy anything that doesn’t have a USSF IFF code that comes within 100k kilometers of the ship. Then the computer is ordered to wake Dr. Wills’ team and an engineering team to check out the ship once a year.

  It takes a bit more than 11 years for the Nanos to completely wipe all life from Terra, all while the passengers and crew sleep peacefully in Cryo.

  In the next phase, Dr. Jacksons’ team is woken up, along with the shuttle crews and pnetary engineering teams.

  They spend 3 months seeding Terra with Earth flora along with ‘good, helpful’ bacteria. The fauna will be introduced once the biosphere has recovered.

  The engineers continue to wake every year to maintain and make any needed repairs to the ship, but Dr. Jacksons’ team only wakes up once a decade to check on the progress.

  70 years ter, Dr. Jacksons’ team decres that the biosphere is established enough to support animal life. His team along with crew members from engineering set up a small outpost. The crew reenters Cryo as Jacksons’ team takes the fertilized animal embryos and pces them in the artificial wombs. The shuttle crew reenters Cryo, and Jackson’s team soon joins them, to be awakened again when they are ready to be born and to repeat the process.

  As an aside, artificial wombs work great for animals, but for some reason, whenever they tried to use them to reproduce human beings, the embryos would die every single time. The researchers were trying up until the day we left Earth, but they could never get them to work for human embryos no matter what they tried.

  When they’ve finished their tasks, they return to the Avalon, have the computer wake a couple of engineering teams, and head back into cryo.

  Their task is the final one before they can wake everyone from cryo: setting up the colony buildings. It’s simple enough. Seed Nanos over the various ore deposits, and let them mine them. After they’ve finished, transport the resources to the site for the colony. Divide up said resources for each building along the grid as pnned, introduce builder Nanos, and again, let them do their job. Nanos also tunnel down to an aquifer and build the waterworks, and construct the tidal power stations needed for the colony. Sewage and trash will be handled by Nanos as well, but that is done in each building.

  ◇ ◆ ◇ ◆ ◇ ◆ ◇

  [June 17, 2504, 0617 UTC][April’s POV]

  I open my eyes, but there isn’t much to see except the ceiling as I groggily fight to keep from vomiting because the nausea is almost overwhelming. Slowly, the feeling comes back into my limbs, my vision clears up, and my nausea lessens to something more tolerable. The gel drains away, and I remove my mask and take a deep breath of the cold, damp air.

  Soon, a woman walks up to my pod, presses a button, and the door whines open.

  She gives me a patented medical professional smile and asks, “Good morning. Can you tell me who and where you are?”

  “Second Lieutenant April Marks, and we’re aboard the Avalon, orbiting Terra.”

  “Perfect,” she says, then smiles brightly, and presses another button to raise the pod to its standing position. “When you feel up to it, you can go clean up and change.”

  She moves on to the next pod as I look around a bit, waiting to feel a bit more normal. I have no idea how long we’ve been in cryo this time, but it must have been quite a while for me to have this bad of a reaction.

  I see a med-tech walking down the aisle, and say, “Excuse me.”

  He stops beside my pod. “Are you feeling alright?”

  “I’ll be fine. Do you happen to know what the date is?”

  “June 17, 2504.” My eyes widen, and he continues, “Yeah, we’ve been out for 231 years. Is that all you needed?”

  “Yes, thank you.”

  He nods and moves off down the aisle again. A few minutes ter, the person I want to see most steps into view from behind my pod and smiles.

  I’ve never seen anything more beautiful than that smile of hers. “Good morning, my love. Are you feeling okay?”

  “I’m fine. Still a bit cryo-sick, but it’s going away fairly quickly. How long have you been up?”

  “Just since yesterday evening. You’re one of the st to be woken up, and I’m off-shift now, so what do you say we get you cleaned up and dressed so that we can go eat?” When she mentions food, my stomach growls loudly, which makes her giggle. “I’ll take that as a yes.”

  “Of course, it’s a yes. I’m starving. After all, I haven’t eaten in 231 years.”

  Her bell-like ugh makes me smile. Jesus, I love her. Reaching out, I caress her baby bump, then look up at her. “How is she?”

  “She’s great, just like her Mommies.” She reaches out, takes my arm, and says, “Come on, lover. Let’s blow this popsicle stand.”

  I find her penchant for using anachronistic sayings adorable, but it does get her some odd looks from some of the passengers. We make our way to the shower room, and then she strips down to help me clean up, along with giving me some kisses and a hug or two as the hot water runs down us both. To us, it was just a few hours since we st saw each other, but emotionally, it’s more about the relief that both of us, and our baby, survived the long Cryosleep, and we’re together again.

  A 0.01% per year chance of dying in cryosleep isn’t much, but when you take into account that the percentage is cumutive, long-term cryosleep does have its risks. Although, we didn’t have much choice considering the circumstances. Thankfully, no one died during our long sleep.

  After our shower, she helps me dry off, put my hair up in an updo, and don my uniform. Taking my hand, we walk out of the infirmary and make our way to the dining hall. After we get our food and sit down, she makes sure that we’re touching one way or another as we share a pte of fried eggs, hash browns, sausage, and biscuits with gravy.

  We’re soon interrupted by two balls of pure energy running over and glomping onto me. Laughing, I hug the two of them and say, “I’m happy to see you, too. Where’s Mom and Dad?”

  Kay grins knowingly. “In the cabin. They told us to go get something to eat,” she says, which tells me what they’re likely up to. Maybe this means that we’ll have another sibling soon. Something I definitely wouldn’t mind.