Day 400. Everyone is celebrating because we now have power and air in the alien ship. Also about half the controls have now been labeled. We now have more room than we need to expand our population.
The farm has drafted half a dozen personnel to help plant an extra garden in the alien ship. They discovered machinery to process rock meteoroids into base soil. By enriching it with organic material and bacteria they claim they can grow Earth crops from the seed packs that were discovered in the sealed cargo compartments on our ship.
There was equipment and supplies in those compartments that has no logical reason for a trip to Saturn and back. After some discussion with the Captain we can only come to the conclusion that someone knew that we would not be returning and tried to think of what we might need to survive.
The Captain informed us today that the alien ship is now ours due to salvage rights and has requested possible names for it.
Day 408. First shift christened the alien ship. Its new name is Buckler! The definition, a small round shield, doesn't make any sense.
While discussing this with one of the engineering crew he mentioned that this must be a warship because of all the high power lasers and other armament incorporated in the hull. Also the fact that it had several power and breeder reactors. If the Captain would allow them to transfer the fuel rods from one of our reactors we could generate enough fuel to power the Buckler for another thousand years.
Navigation has everyone that knows anything about electronics analyzing the radar and other navigation systems. There were two that are recognizable and two that are completely alien.
Day 411. Everyone was ordered to suit up. In half an hour the first test of the Bucklers propulsion system will commence. There are still several systems no one can figure out including the two alien navigation systems.
Seconds to go.
The whole ship lurched and then steadied. From what I could make out from my unauthorized feed from the bridge is that when they activated one hull gravity plate the two alien navigation systems came on. Then all the gravity plates activated in reverse and started pushing all the surrounding meteoroids in the L4 point away from the ship. Also three missiles were launched and half the lasers in the hull activated and were firing before the power drain knocked our reactor off line.
The Captain ordered a 100% inventory of all supplies, compartments, and equipment on our ship and the Buckler. Any damage found was to be immediately reported. That should only take a week or two.
Day 415. Well the whiz kids figured out how to activate the propulsion system without triggering the armament.
Harold, our geologist, has made a little headway translating some records found.
Navigation now claims that the ship can travel up to half the speed of light and that is what the two alien navigation systems control. One is linked to the armament and the other is the control that links the propulsion system, deck gravity plates, radar, and everything else that has anything to do with movement of the ship.
Day 417. Navigation has convinced the Captain that the gravity plates in our ship must be wired into the Bucklers control system and then aligned and calibrated. Otherwise when the Buckler does move the personnel in the our ship will be at risk. We all wondered why some connecting corridors in the Buckler curved in strange ways, yet we always were feet down on the deck. My favorite corridor is about 90 feet long and when you look back you are completely upside down from someone standing at the other end. Most of the flip corridors have bends in them so you cannot see from one end to the other.
Day 432. All the gravity plates in the our ship have been finally incorporated into the computers of Buckler. Last nights test confirmed all are working. I got permission last month to map the Buckler. One unusual thing we found was that over half the compartments are 180 degrees off from the compartments above and below them. Most of these seem to have been crew quarters, recreation rooms, and some storage rooms. Who ever designed the floor plan of the Buckler wasn't worried about anyone getting from one side of the ship to the other in a hurry.
Day 435. Tomorrow the Captain plans a test run back to Saturn. Our mission will be to gather another full load of ice. We are short on water again. We also need nitrogen.
Day 436 third shift. It took seven hours to return to the main Saturn system. The biggest problem was the storage shelves in the mess collapsed because no one thought of installing a gravity plate under the compartment. Also the water in one of the hydroponic tanks ended up on the ceiling of the compartment. We need to build quite a few more gravity plates and install them.
Day 447 second shift. On day 441, Michael our construction and repair expert submitted his teams report. They strongly recommended that Saturn One be disassembled and incorporated into Buckler using its original floor plan. This would restore the ship to its original configuration and it would increase its structural integrity. The team estimated that we could do this in approximately a year and still have materials left over. The shuttles could also be modified to fit in the existing shuttle bays of the Buckler. The modifications would allow them to land on planets having up to 1.5 G at surface level without needing a heat-shield. The whole solar system would then be open to us, not to mention the universe. The Captain explained the report and the ramifications it opened to us. If we returned to our home planet, the Earth, in the past we could change history. If we changed history in any way, we might not exist in the future that we came from. If we created a paradox, there would be no way for us to live with the results. This, he assumed was why there was a historian included in the scientific crew.
He also explained some of the strange files that came up at different times after our arrival in the Saturn system. Evidently one or both of the data dump missiles we sent back to Earth arrived sometime before our departure. Someone or a group kept the information out of the system, but must have maneuvered themselves into the planning structure to influence the planning. He then turned to Bill, our communications / security expert and bluntly asked, “How much did you know and who were you working for when we launched?”
Bill stuttered for a moment and then assumed the position of attention and stated, “I was part of the civilian group that intercepted your second data missile. My grandfather downloaded the original data before the missile burned up in the atmosphere. There are, I mean there will be about sixty members in the government that know. The president wasn't briefed until after the initial mission was planned and approved. Only four members of NASA even know bits and pieces of the original transmission. That is why the original mission ship was enlarged to twice its original size, and other seemingly strange requirements were instituted. It was determined that this mission must survive so that when it caught up with the future we would have 1747 years of space experience and hopefully new technology to draw on.
“There was another anomaly discovered by an archaeologist back 1988 that positively indicated that the Earth was visited in the past by someone or something from space. It was a partially crushed nuclear reactor found under a mile of ice in the Antarctic. It and the ruins were over 700 years old. I double checked the schematics of the reactor and discovered and they don't match what we found on the Buckler. The discovery of this spacecraft partially confirms the 1988 discovery. Our mission is now to survive and build new technology for the Earth. Captain, I'll bring my computer to the bridge after the meeting along with the documents I was told to deliver to you.”
The Captain called the meeting to a close and told us that he'd post on the news sheet the new orders and pertinent information.
Day 448. The new mission statement covered a lot of the questions we had, but raised more. It also stated that a second mission was to be launched to Saturn to rendezvous with us. It would have a minimum crew and maximum supplies. They hoped to duplicate the trajectories we followed and travel back in time. My link t