USS Lunar 15:24 SET 2196 “So what’s next on the agenda?” Commander Williams, the Lunar’s Executive Officer asked his commanding officer. Captain Shelby Withers, commander of the science vessel glanced over at her First Officer as she pulled up the Lunar’s schedule for the next few days.  “First off,” she began, “we’ve been assigned to map the next three star systems.  Somehow, this whole area was overlooked, and now it’s up to us to catalogue it all in the database.”  She smiled at Williams.  “Sounds exciting, doesn’t it?” “Oh sure.” “Captain,” called the Navigations officer.  “We’re approaching the edge of M8-B.” “M8-B?” echoed Williams.  “Don’t any of these systems have names?” “Of course not,” answered Captain Withers.  “They haven’t been charted yet.” “Do the people who discover the systems get to name them?” the Navigations officer asked, turning to face the Captain and the Commander. “Usually,” Withers responded.  “What do you say...the Withers System.  Got a nice ring to it, don’t you think, Commander?” “Not really, ma’am.” The Lunar was the premier science vessel, the first of its class.  Captain Withers, who had been the main Science officer on a number of astute vessels, won command of the ship a year ago.  Now, three other Lunar class science vessels had been commissioned: the Stellar, the Nova, and the Red Dwarf.  Between the four of them, they were knocking out uncharted territories faster than any science team in the UNSF.  Some of that might have been due to the fact that there had been no conflict between the UNSF and the Imperial Armada since early 2195.  It seemed that for the most part, the costly twenty-one year long war was either over or rapidly coming to an end. As the Lunar entered M8-B, the Science officer immediately began scans, both long range and short range, all the information being catalogued in the ship’s expansive library.  Occasionally, the Science officer would stop and scroll through the information that was being displayed on her three monitors.  She glanced from one monitor to the other in her routine glancing pattern.  Only by chance did she see a certain bit of information worth reporting. “Captain,” she said, addressing Withers as the Lunar’s commanding officer lounged in her seat, “there seems to be a star system close to us, the first few planets looking almost exactly like our own Milky Way Galaxy. This proved to be interesting news for both Captain Withers and Commander Williams as they rose out of their chairs of power and stood behind the Lieutenant, looking the information over for themselves. “Well I’ll be,” muttered Withers.  “It’s worth going and having a look at, wouldn’t you say Commander?” Williams nodded enthusiastically; any chance to catch a little bit of action, and Williams was all down for it.  “Aye, Captain,” he said, smoothing out the wrinkles in his uniform.  “It’ll occupy some time, if anything.” “Agreed.  Helm, bring us about to course...two-nine-oh, mark four.  250,000 knots.” “Two-nine-oh, 250,000, aye,” came the reply almost as enthusiastic as the Commander’s.  Finally, a little bit of excitement had come to the bridge of the Lunar. ??? 15:40 SET 2196 The Lunar came upon the first planet in the system.  When the Helmsman had notified her, Captain Withers commanded the view to be displayed on the forward viewscreen. “My God,” breathed Commander Williams, out of his seat and headed towards the viewport before anyone had a full grasp on what it was they were looking at.  He took a glance back as Withers came up behind him on his left side.  “What are we looking at?” William’s eyes didn’t deceive him.  The Lunar’s bridge crew was looking at what seemed to be an exact replica of both the Sun and Mercury.  It seemed that the only thing missing was the normal UNSF space traffic. “Lieutenant,” Captain Withers said, heading back for her chair, “I want a full scan of both that Sun and that other planet that appears to look like Mercury.” Two minutes later, the Science officer had enough information on the look alike planet to confirm that it was indeed another Mercury. “...35.98 million miles from that fake Sun, 3,030 miles in diameter, mass is .055, density 5.43, orbit angle 7.004 degrees...it’s all there.”  She looked up to the Captain and Commander, who were still standing over her chair.  “It’s another Mercury.” “That’s nonsense!” exclaimed Captain Withers.  “An exact duplicate of the Sun and Mercury.  That’s mathematically impossible.”

Chapter One 2 Earths?