Sera opened her tool box, retrieved the tools. For this journey, Tian packed the upgraded version of the planters tool box. This toolset comes in a dimensional bag, similar to Mecha pendant. Despite looking as small as an electrician's bag, the space inside is bigger, and the tools are the size a mecha could wield.
The tools are indeed big, but the problem is they are meant to couple with the conventional metal made heavy duty mecha, which do the terra farming.
Using it with her bio Mecha is like trying to use tool bits with fingers to assemble furniture. Can be done, but very very awkward.
In the end, she grew a tail out of her mecha, which held the plough, by twisting the tail around the base of the handle at the grip like the monkey's tail. She swung the tail hard in to the half eaten field of clover, letting the plough's weight break the soil.
' Gudong ! '
It's a testament to the plough's high quality that such a reverberating sound could still happen despite the thin air on the asteroid.
'slush .. grrr.. Slue.. scree .. '
The sounds entered the Sera's consciousness one after another. She walked the field in a straight line, feeling the burn in her bum similar to when she did squats.
' If this burn could really come to my body, I will have a bubble butt in no time. ' she thought, as she dragged a thousand pound plough behind her.
I need a distraction if I am to bear this sort of burn in my muscles … Sera thought desperately.
She opened her watch, to see if it's possible to connect to starnet. Only, she forgot she was inside the command chair in the mecha. Instead of a hologram showing up, the oval eye whirred to action, showing the information from the starnet.
Unfortunately, without her pod's signal amplifier, all she could do is receive, that too, generic announcements like amber alerts. There are plenty of alerts about star flares, nebula storms and out of the norm planetary movement, only, it all belonged to the other side of the junkyard.
There are no weather stations, interim space pods, not even a space transmit station which exist even within the sahara void.
She would rather review her own journey to and from the Bazinga rather than read these irrelevant news. The thought flashed in her mind, the next second, the main oval screen became opaque.
It started displaying her journey at the slowest speed possible.
Sera spotted a faint blue dot on a psychedelic vision with eagle eyes. Sera just had a haunch about this blue dot. She barely had that thought ! before she started commanding the mecha zoomed in on the spot.
She looked on excitedly. She was correct. That is indeed a blue dot, and more importantly, it looked like earth !
'Play all the footage zoomed in state. ' she thought strongly, and her mecha obeyed.
'Eureka ' Sera screamed, while her mecha raised both its front legs, cheering with both hands.
…
..
.
' No, I can not take anything for granted ! This is 'the' junkyard after all.' She calmed down.
'First, I need to check the footage from the return journey, and make sure this is indeed earth. " till now, she was looking at the footage from the journey towards Bazinga. It's a passive record made from the leviathan.
She needs to look at the active footage from her return journey. The pictures were far more clear, just as she predicted.
' Zoom in ' She ordered, and her mecha automatically zoomed in.
The blue color … swirling clouds … It's clear as day that this is indeed earth.
Doesn't this mean she could go back to earth to live ?
Her heart beat faster, and her eyes lit up in absolute hope … Only, to dim after a moment.
This … is indeed earth, but how is she to know it is her earth ? What if it is a different version of the earth ? What if there is no her, or her mother and grandmother on this planet ?
'No, I can't wait like this. I must verify this for myself. ' Sera thought anxiously.
Calvin is not here yet, so the only thing she could do is plough the fields. The only thing that could cure the anxiousness she's feeling in her heart was the physical work. So, she paced among the fields up and down, not noticing her pace and effectiveness increasing step after step. In no time at all, she had plowed all the fields.
Despite her mecha having a sky window, Sera did not even notice the shadows moving in the fields. Nor did she notice that the ring that is fixed in the sky is now moving gently to the right. All of her being is focused on the little LED that displayed the comms status of Moby.
Moby came into contact after what felt like eons. The moment the leviathan came into contact, Sera called Calvin.
" Calvin ! I sent you a video. Check those coordinates. " She sent a voice memo. .
Calvin was still a long distance from the asteroid.
" Copy that, over. "
Calvin's reply echoed in the mecha cabin.
Sera inadvertently smiled. A message arrived immediately after, sharing with her the video of the leviathan's flight path. Then, the colors started changing wildly in the picture, with one blue shaded picture showing a strange river shuttling through the space like a floating rubber band.
Calvin is heading straight for that shimmering blue space.
Sera immediately peeked into the sky to see if she could see that blue rubber band. However, she could not.
What's happening here ? She wondered for a moment. Is this some kind of energy she could only see if she is a leviathan ? Her mecha can't see it ?
Come to think of it, she had never tried to see heat distribution or night vision maps using her mecha, did she ?
' Show me the night vision map ' Sera commanded weakly.
Even if her command is weak, the mecha responded. A heat distribution map was shown on what she is going to call the main screen.
" What other screens can you show me ? " Sera asked curiously, wondering if her mecha would respond.
Next second, the main screen is bombarded with pictures with different colors, one in all blue, one in all red, another a mix of green and yellow… each with explanations about what sort of map it is but just looking at the quantity, Sera felt exhausted. Yet, she has formed an initial idea from the maps shown to her.
There is a magnetic river that flows around the junkyard and more in the shape of an infinity symbol. Perhaps, this river is why she was flung to this side of the junkyard that quickly.
Magnetic rivers, just like their name, are gigantic rivers of magnetic flow that flow in one direction. They are the ultimate 'Highways' of the interstellar era. The presence of the magnetic river meant the rescue team could reach her within a month, as opposed to a year and half.
Wait ! That's not all a magnetic river does. It means over time, every planetary body enclosed within the magnetic river imitates it's flow direction … and if the flow direction of magnetic field is considered, the earth she has seen in the photos is headed straight for destruction by being pound into thousand pieces !
She needs to go as soon as possible.
" Sera ! Come in. " Her comms rang.
" Coming in, over ! " Sera replied.
" The earth is confirmed to be true. However, it's an eliminated world, there are no living humans on the planet. A deadly virus is detected. It's thrown here for disposal, by the correct procedures. " Calvin informed her.
It's not their earth ? … Sera's hopes died down. She stayed silent for some time, thinking what to do.
" Sera ! " Calvin said after some time worriedly.
" Could you check if the Svalbard seed bank exists and whether it is contaminated with the virus ? " Sera asked slowly. If there are no humans, she should just let the planet go.
" Affirmative. No contamination detected within the seed bank. " Calvin answered her.
Sera knew Moby alone could not get the seed bank. From AI Sera's knowledge, Sera knew that, despite the fancy names and incredible characteristics of the crops in the galaxy, they are imperfect species mostly developed by gene splicing. They have long since lost their originals.
She needs to acquire the gene bank, otherwise, she will be living on hardtack tasting like cardboard despite being a billionaire.
Moby returned through a tricky angle. Sera watched in shock as instead of flying normally, Leviathan swung its tail at the pulsar ring like a boomerang, then let itself crash into the asteroid with the recoil.
" oh .. OH … OH.. WATCH IT ! " She automatically screamed as she saw the leviathan hurtling at her with top speed.