Orion 1

The Return to Stellae Mysterium

De: Todd Fries

Narrado por: Virtual Voice

Major Brooks turned to Hannah and ordered her to look away while covering her eyes. Neither of them had vision protection, so as they turned from the window, they used their hands to cover their eyes while facing the rear of the command module. The light from a nuclear explosion could be blinding. A human required a full thirtieth of a second to register motion and within a tenth of a second, there was a flash so intense that Hannah could still perceive the light through her hands and eyelids before it slowly faded away. Then looking out the port hole she saw a large cloud rising from the lunar surface as the land below it roiled in waves of smoke and dust. Forty years had passed since the covert lunar landing by the crew of Apollo 19, and now a new generation had been sent to finish the work of understanding this alien lunar construction - at a place named ‘Stellae Mysterium.’ It was here that the original crew discovered wonders beyond imagination, but the diplomatic needs of the time prevented anyone from returning to the Moon for a period of fifty years. It would have remained that way except for a breach of security by a Chinese hacker who stole all the sensitive data regarding this alien excavation, and now China was determined to claim this site for themselves as a base of lunar operations. Whoever controlled the structure and the power it contained would control the entirety of space between the Earth and Moon. China was threatening US satellite technology by testing kinetic kill vehicles, launched as missiles into outer space. They were making aggressive moves in the South China Sea, buzzing US warships and manipulating their currency in an economic war. The US needed to respond militarily and technically, by studying the incredible strength of the materials used by the alien builders and to decode the meaning of their written language. If they could duplicate the incredible impact resistance of this substance, they could protect satellite technology from any natural or man-made threat. As tensions continue to rise in the South China Sea and on the Moon, will the explorers be put in a position of having to make the ultimate sacrifice? Follow their adventure as they explore the mysteries of this site while weighing the needs of 7 billion people on Earth.