Chariot 3: Conception
Chapter 12 – At the bridge

As Cai Yiu`s head went through the hatch on the deck, he could only see the silhouette of the four beings in front of him with the moon shining through the portholes above their heads. As soon as the five were present, Chariot 3`s pleasant feminine voice – although still absent of any emotion – covertly provided the crew with the latest updates from Aryayek.

“Aryayek seems to have identified a minimal but not impossible indication of a connection between the name of the facility located at the coordinates specified in our mission`s objective and the name that the Nibirian Space Agency used to designate the black hole that led us here, known as DA-51.”

Captain Shon Shoffer was then informed about what he did not wish to hear.

“The designation DA-51 may possibly stand as an acronym for ’Destiny Area 51’. In this case, if the assumption is in fact, correct, and in addition to the odds observed in such an unusual singularity present in the black hole, it could point to the conclusion that the black hole…”

“… was artificially engineered. Perhaps by the Nibirian Space Agency, as part of a plan to make this mission conceivable.” Sadly, Captain Shoffer was sufficiently astute to finish Chariot 3`s phrase.

His expression had changed. There was a twist of concern and disappointment in his face, made evident by his nodding head.

After listening to those hoarse words, Flumen turned his large head to the side and looking down the deck, he pondered whether what he just heard was even imaginable. “Is it possible?”

“Things become possible at the precise moment they are thought by someone.” V-Nus replied to Flumen`s thoughts with a dispersed look on his face. His innocent thought brought a flashback to his mind.

“Am I ever going to travel to other planets?” V-Nus voice asked the Martian man who undeniably resembled an older version of himself, with a long and dark hair.

“V-Nus, things become possible at the precise moment they are thought by someone.” The man replied with a smile.

V-Nus was brought back from his thoughts with the vivid words Flumen had to say.

“Things make more sense now. They needed to send us to Earth but perhaps they were not sure on how to lead us to the correct time period, no one ever managed to perfect time travel. Perhaps they knew since the beginning that they could not send us to 1947. What if to complete this mission, all we need to do is to bury Chariot 3 at the site indicated by the coordinates?”

Flumen sounded reasonable for himself and almost made sense to the others as well.

“Our message precisely stated we needed to locate the government agency and personally hand them the technology.” For their sake or not, Cai Yiu was right. “They probably knew we would consider doing that.”

“Shoffer, I have finalized processing the readings collected by the spherical probes which brought me to the conclusion that although the planet has several natural resources of energy that could be utilized on this ship, the most feasible option had to be selected, having in consideration the limited power and time we have remaining in addition to the limited extraction and processing technology we are currently carrying onboard the ship.” Sissy interrupted their talk with a wave of information.

“Sissy, as of now we do not require so much explanation. Tell us where we are going and what we are looking for.” The others then realized that the Captain`s patience was as stable as the Chariot 3`s essential tube.

“Captain, the natural resource we are looking for is called sodium nitrate, a chemical compound commonly found in certain regions of Planet Earth.”

“I`m not surprised you reached this conclusion.” V-Nus sarcasm sounded subliminal to the others, a joke that only Chariot 3 would comprehend.

At the pace the words were being broadcast to the crewmates through their BCI`s, the molecular formula NaNO3 was being displayed on their E-Lenses along with several archive images and short videos of its extraction methods, processing, and usage.

The extensive knowledge the Nibirians were fortunate to have achieved after thousands of years of research and space travel, permitted Chariot 3 to provide them with a briefing containing considerably accurate details of the substance that now would potentially decide the survival of humanity.

The sodium nitrate was a white solid, very soluble in water, and found in mineral deposits called caliche. During Earth`s twenty first century it used to be useful in several reactions carried out on industrial scales for the production of various materials such as solid rocket propellant.

The caliche deposits were generally formed when minerals were leached from the upper layer of the soil and accumulate in the next layer as deep as ten feet under the surface.