[snip]

On the bridge the XO would return to the center of the action just as shuttlepod 1 with the Captain and the rest of the landing party went planetside. On scans they could see it enter the planet’s atmosphere without problems and soon was hovering about 300 feet up in the air just south of the large plateau which was home to a moderate sized lake and the landing site of the shuttle craft Columbia with its strange jury rigged water wheel generator and jury rigged radio message for help. All of which showed matching to age and construction of being there since 2003 for just a hair over 148 years now. Again no signs of human life was evident, past or present but due to the local terrain interfering with scans and transporters it was impossible to be sure.

GM CockRoach

NL Reggie Green sat in the cramped area of the bridge designated for Engineering. At least it was cramped to him as he was not a small man. Big boned is what his Aunt Bernice used to say as his small bulk rampaged through the house like a tiny tank in his growing up years. He split his attention from the data screens before him and the main screen. As he watched the shuttlepod descend he both envied Serinde and didn’t. He would have enjoyed having had a look under the hood of a real shuttle that old, but ever felt claustrophobic in those cramped tiny shuttles, and longed for the day when they were more spacious and, perhaps even capable of days or weeks long travel in them. He tugged at his beard.

“Commander,” he said, his voice matching his hulk. “If they were about there for any time and had time to build that wheel and modify the shuttle there should be graves about. A graveyard of sorts. In those days that was a much bigger thing and a plot of land would be marked off or at least gravestones or markers. Someone built that up, so someone was there, so someone must have lived and died. Even overgrown I wonder if we could pick something up in the area.”

NL Green

NE Susan over by the science station spoke up after Green, “..We have been trying to get such scans, but the local interference makes it almost impossible. So far no signs of human life, living or dead, though the second would be even harder to pick up if it’s in the ground. However, we did find a small cave area about a quarter mile into the forests on that plateau, if someone did live and die on this planet from that shuttle and built that water wheel jury rig thing, then I would bet they holed up there..” She said.

NE Cornbuckle at the back of the bridge, who had the lowliest job of them all by monitoring the ship’s waste reclamation statuses from the bridge, spoke up. “..Just uh a thought? If that shuttle crashed here just under 150 years ago, forget how or why, but if it did, and obviously at least two people survived based on the earlier radio message we picked up. Then lived and died in that time frame, wouldn’t that meant the generator down there would show more visual decay then it does?” he said pointing to the screen, “..Seems to me it looks pretty well maintained, even the shuttle though rusty in spots from the weather shows little overgrowth of the local life and grass. So someone has to be regularly maintaining it even as of a few weeks ago no?” He proposed.

NE Susan considered this and turned back to her scans, turning back from the view hole she nodded, “..NE Cornbuckle is right sir, the overgrowth of the shuttle and generator is almost nothing. Even if those two survivors had a child that child would be dead by now. The only answer is that they had more than one child, and uh.....well those children had children..” she said with a nose wrinkle. “..as uncomfortable as that sounds in the implications its the only answer I can see to explain how the generator and such is still so well maintained..”

GM CockRoach