Part 1.5: Intermission

 Pax'Del woke suddenly from a nightmare.  He was remembering his mate, and her painful death from an infection that used to be easily curable before the Hard Times.  Food was scarce, medicine was scarce, and economic ruin was slowly wrecking its havoc through The Empire.  His mate had succumbed to an infection while pregnant with his daughter, which caused her disability, and his secret shame.

Pax remembered his mates cries of pain through her final days, and a tear came to his eyes.

He missed his daughter terribly.

He checked the timepiece on the wall, and saw it was late in the night.  Nightwatch was still on duty on the ship.  He dressed himself quickly, and headed to the small chapel in the rear of the ship.

Del lit a small candle, and began the ritual.

"Ancestors, I prostrate myself before you, begging for insight" he began the prayer to himself.

"I have sworn myself to the service of the Empire, and yet, the Empire is allowing itself to fall into ruin.  The people are hungry and sick, and all the Emperor is interested in is war and conquest.  My Honor is at stake no matter what choices I make.  Please, for the love of my people, inspire me with the divine answers I seek.  In the name of my ancestors, Rei'Del, Jan'Del and all the others, I prostrate myself before those that came before me."

Del flattened himself before the altar, waiting for his Ancestors to speak to him.

He heard nothing.

"Not sure I was expecting anything from this old superstition!" he scolded himself, as he walked back to his stateroom.

---

"So what have we figured out about this thing?" Mack asked.

"Well, some parts of it are easy to figure out.  This part, here-" the tech pointed to a small chamber at the side of the spidery drone, "looks like a gas chromatograph. Now the internal electronics are strange.  This part here-" the tech pointed to a mass of glass and plastic, "looks like ancient 20th century vaccum tube technology, only vastly improved.  This part here looks like what you'd call, basically, an integrated circuit, but made from valves adn vaccum tubes.  Our general AI, Autry took a look and he was stumped.  I'll need some time with either Eastwood or Rogers, preferably Rogers, because he's under civilian authority."

Mack scratched his beard.  "I'll talk to the President, and see what he says, but it shouldn't be a problem.  Most importantly, have you figured out how it communicates?  At some point we'll need to talk who whomever sent this thing.  It'd be helpful if we were ready to do that."

"That's the problem!" the tech sighed.  "Your crackerjack shot managed to hit it directly in the power supply and, what I guess was the radio apparatus.  It's totally smoked.  I don't see anything like radio antennas or dishes, so I'm stumped.  If it's anything like the weather control stuff left here, we won't be figuring it out anytime soon, even if it wasn't smoked."

The weather control satellites in orbit around Bonum were a mystery.  The settlers had figured out what they were there for, only by examining the one that fell into the distant ocean on the other side of the moon.  The power supply was some kind of radioactive stone that had never been seen before, and released a type of energy they couldn't measure or detect.  The weather control satellites tamed the weather, and somehow shielded the small moon from the binary star, and the large Jovian planed they orbited.  

"We are going to have to convince the President to spend more time figuring out this mystery of a world we crash landed on.  Otherwise I'm afraid we'll be under the heel of whomever sent that drone, or worse." Mack said.

"Good luck with that!" the tech replied.  "The President is more interested in spending resources to give away trinkets to buy votes with, instead of solving real problems."

"Maybe with a crisis looming, he'll change his mind."