"No, Mr. Felix, I disagree!"
A clear, cold voice cut through the despair. Jason turned to see his assistant, Lily, standing up.
He often forgot that before she was his administrative aide, she was a prodigious physicist. Her youth, she was barely twenty, sometimes masked her brilliance.
"Mr. Felix," Lily continued, facing the skeptical room. "Look at the telemetry from the impact site. Judging by the depth and blast pattern of the Bailly Crater, the Alien Ship cannot be as dense as you claim."
"If it truly weighed one hundred quintillion tons, it wouldn't have just made a crater. Even at low impact velocities, an object of that mass would have punched through the lunar crust like a bullet through wet paper."
Felix blinked. He processed her argument, and slowly, a look of realization dawned on his face. He overlooked something like this in panic.
"Furthermore," Lily pressed, "if the ship had that kind of mass, it would generate a gravitational anomaly detectable from orbit. We've been living on top of it for thirty years. Our gravity metric sensors are sensitive enough to detect ore deposits, yet we've never seen a spike consistent with a singularity."
"This proves the mass is not intrinsic. The gravity inside is generated by technology, not density. We cannot use human physics to constrain alien engineering and technology."
Her words were like a shot of adrenaline. The room buzzed with renewed energy.
If the ship was light, they could move it. If they could move it, they could escape.
The mass of the ship was the variable that would decide their fate.
"We need to weigh it," Jason said, cutting through the chatter. "We can't dismantle it, so we can't measure density. But we have other ways."
The scientists immediately began drafting proposals. Within an hour, twenty different experimental protocols were on Jason's desk.
The most promising was a large-scale Cavendish experiment, using a torsion balance to measure the gravitational attraction between the ship and a known mass. It was simple, elegant, and could be done quickly.
"Well then, this morning's meeting concludes here. Please measure the mass of the alien spaceship in 5 hours by this afternoon. Also, all production in the Moon Base will continue as usual. Everyone must keep this confidential in front of the public to avoid causing chaos. Thank you!"
As soon as Jason announced the end of the meeting, some eager Scientists had already rushed out. They were impatient to conduct the experiments.
He smiled bitterly to himself, never imagining that in the end, they would still have to rely on alien black technology. Although the feeling of not being able to control one's own destiny was not pleasant, Jason still quietly anticipated that it might bring humanity more surprises…
"Mr. Jason. Wake up." After a moment of daze, Jason felt someone tapping his shoulder. He turned his head and saw that it was Lily.
Jason blinked. Lily was tapping him on the shoulder waking him from the daze. Her expression hadn't changed; the fate of the species was in the balance, and she still looked like she was waiting for a bus.
"You have five site inspections and twenty-one documents to review. There are thirty urgent emails in your inbox," she listed calmly.
"Alright, alright," Jason sighed. He wondered how Dr. Roman had raised such a robot. Lily was objectively beautiful, but her personality was pure efficiency. No wonder she was single.
Jason shook his head and walked to the next inspection point. As he walked,he thought of something and his expression darkened. He pulled out his secure communication unit.
The Base was stabilizing, but there were still undercurrents of dissent. Former mid-level bureaucrats who had survived the purge were resentful of their demotions. They were whispering in the corners, sowing discord.
Jason decided it was time to clean house.
Beep... Beep...
"Jason here. Federation Special Forces."
"Austin here," the voice cracked back.
"Status report, Austin. Is the perimeter secure?"
"Reporting, Captain. All sectors green. The former garrison troops are integrating well. We control all military assets."
"Good."
"Captain," Austin hesitated. "We are stretched thin. We have less than a hundred reliable soldiers policing fifty thousand civilians. We're running double shifts. Should we recruit a police force?"
"Negative," Jason said. "Everyone is needed on the production lines. We can't spare the manpower."
"Understood."
Jason paused. He decided to trust his vice-captain. He briefed Austin on the orbital decay and the six-month deadline.
Silence stretched on the line.
Then, Austin laughed. It was a dry, grim sound.
"Captain, we've died a dozen times already. What's one more? Six months is a lifetime compared to what we had yesterday. I trust the eggheads to figure it out."
"That's right, Captain!" Marcus's voice boomed in the background. "Six months? That's plenty of time! When are you coming down to the range?"
"Shut up, Marcus!" Austin snapped.
Jason felt a lump in his throat. These were his brothers.
"When this is over, we'll have a live-fire drill on the ship," Jason promised. "You can try out the new railguns."
"Deal!" Marcus shouted.
"Captain, ignore him," Austin said. "Back to business."
"Business," Jason agreed, his voice turning cold. "We have malcontents spreading rumors. Former admin and bureaucrats. I want eyes on them. If they try to destabilize the workforce, arrest them immediately."
"Understood," Austin said. "We won't let the Base fall into chaos again."
---
After five hours, the council reconvened.
The atmosphere was cold. This was the moment of truth.