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Software Vault: The Sapphire Collection
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Software Vault (Sapphire Collection) (Digital Impact).ISO
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CHAPTER2.TXT
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1994-07-26
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CHAPTER 2: THE MISSION
The next day, after a refreshing rest the night before, the
seven scientists boarded the scout ship which was loaded with
provisions for their mission. The ship ascended vertically with
ease and sped through the thin martian atmosphere towards an as
yet unknown destination. In the passenger compartment the
passengers were watching the martian landscape rush by beneath
them on the viewer screen. Captain Freeman's voice came into the
compartment over the intercom from the bridge.
"Join me in the conference compartment," his voice crackled
over the receiver.
The party left their seats and headed for the next
compartment. Captain Freeman was waiting for them at a desk in
front of another wall of screens. The screens were showing the
martian landscape, like the screen in the passenger compartment,
as well as a number of maps and diagrams. Captain Freeman rose
as they entered and he motioned them to sit down in a row of
seats in front of him.
"Now," said Freeman, "your mission is never to be talked
about to anyone outside this ship, is that clear? No one."
The room was silent, except for Freeman slowly pacing back
and forth on the metal floor.
"It is of utmost importance that your mission remain
secret," he continued. "On the event of the first mars mission,
a satellite was deployed to map the surface of mars in detail.
Many high resolution photographs were taken of the surface
features, most astounding of all, a series of photographs taken
of the area called Cydonia showed amazingly clear pictures of
symmetrical features. The most striking being a face-like
structure one mile long, another a kilometer high, five sided
pyramid. These are situated near the north pole, about a two
hour flight from here."
"But they were passed off as just creations of erosion and
volcanic activity," said Vicki, "are you suggesting aliens are
responsible?"
"Exactly, Freeman said, "and its your job to find further
evidence such as markings, or even the aliens themselves."
"What you're saying is unbelievable," said Steven, "what if
there are no aliens or even evidence of aliens?"
"Take a look at this," Freeman said.
Captain Freeman ceased pacing and walked to the large
desk at the front of the room, sat on the edge and pressed a
button on a console beside him. One of the screens on the wall
lit up, first with an image of a hilly area of mars' surface,
then the Captain pushed some more buttons and the image zoomed in
to reveal a huge, remarkably detailed, stone face. Every one let
out a gasp of amazement.
"What do you think now, Mr. Flynn?" queried Captain Freeman.
"Its measurements are perfectly symmetrical, apart from a few
defects caused by meteorological conditions."
"This is fantastic!," Dan exclaimed, "If we find alien
remains or machinery down there this will be the greatest
discovery of all time! Imagine what they look like!"
"Calm down Dan," said Clara, "we still can't tell if there's
anything down there, whoever or whatever built that monument
could be long gone by now. It must have been built millennia
ago."
"There must be markings of some sort though," said Steven.
"There is definitely something there my friends," said
Freeman, "if there wasn't we wouldn't be here would we."
The craggy martian landscape was now replaced by smoother,
less cratered terrain distinctive to the northern hemisphere. A
faint dust storm raged in the distance, also a common occurrence
on the red planet.
Captain Freeman rose and pointed to another one of the
screens.
"This," he said, "is a map of the area we will be looking
at, starting with the face. The city, a group of symmetrical
structures, is here in the upper left. The D&M pyramid is
approximately ten miles to the south-southwest of the face. Over
here," he pointed to another screen, "is the type of surveillance
robot we will deploy to map the face and search for any markings
on the surface. There are ten of these robots, one shall be
remotely controlled from here and the rest have preset courses.
If they discover anything then you will be sent out to
investigate. The remotely controlled robot will accompany you
and you also have cameras built into your space suits."
He stood from where he was sitting and moved over to an
intercom on the wall.
"How long until we reach our destination?" he asked the
bridge.
"We will reach Cydonia in approximately one and a half
hours," came the reply.
He turned to the group waiting in the row of chairs before
him.
"To review the details of the mission you can use the
information access computer at the desk," he said.
With that out of the way he left the compartment for the
bridge, the rest of the team, left quite excited, moved over to
the desk and engaged in using the information access computer.
Some time later, the scout ship arrived at its destination,
Cydonia. The craft touched down softly on the martian soil not
far from the looming shape of the face. From a hatch on top of
the scout ship rose a number of small shining objects which
glistened in the unshielded sunlight. They hovered together
toward the face and soon separated to go their own ways. These
were the surveillance robots sent to scan the surface of the
face.
Inside the ship, the occupants were watching the progress
of the robots on the wall screens, each one showing the vision of
the robots' cameras. Sitting in a swivel chair equipped with a
control panel, was Grey Williams the pilot of the scout ship.
Beside him was the co pilot, Will Stack accompanied by Captain
Freeman. Both had their eyes concentrated on the center screen.
Grey was piloting the remote controlled surveillance robot, which
was now scanning the middle of the forehead of the huge stone
face. The robots had two cameras which could move in their
sockets, one looking ahead and one looking downward. They, like
the scout ship, had several louvered, downward facing fans which
kept them in the air. The screens were not as yet showing any
signs of foreign markings, except for the face's unnaturally
smooth surface. Accompanying the main picture of the surface of
the face, each screen had a smaller picture in the left hand
corner of the second camera's view of the direction the robot was
travelling. Also, coordinate information and statistics were
being displayed alongside the second image. The robots were
speedily scanning the face, soon something was bound to
appear.
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