This was their first view of it.
If you don't look too close, you'd think it was Earth.
Breaking ground on the town hall.
Is that Captain Mitchell?
No, I think that's Mitchell.
Are we there yet?
Three hours, 17 minutes to go, sir.
Travis has been digging through the archives.
There's tons of data here:
Crew manifests,
survey photos,
weekly status reports.
I was hoping to find something,
a clue to what happened.
You'd be the first.
I've been fascinated by Terra Nova since I was a kid, sir.
I always thought lost colonies affected boomers more than anyone else.
Something about people who choose to live off-world.
Captain,
do you think anyone's still there?
I'll let you know...
...in about three hours and 17 minutes.
- Terra Nova? - I'm surprised you've never heard of it.
I'm not familiar with the early years
- of human space exploration. - Really?
Every schoolkid on Earth had to learn about the famous Vulcan expeditions.
Name one.
History was never my best subject.
It was called the Great Experiment.
Could humans colonise deep space?
They'd already built New Berlin on the Moon,
Utopia Planetia on Mars,
even a few asteroid colonies,
but all within our solar system.
When they found an Earth-like planet less than 20 light years away,
it was hard to resist.
It took them, what, nine years to get there?
Nine years there, nine years back, but they made it.
My grandfather remembered seeing their first transmissions
- when he was a kid. - What happened to them?
People have been trying to answer that question for a long time.
No one's heard from Terra Nova in over 70 years.
After the colony was built, relations with Earth became strained.
The Space Agency figured nothing succeeds like success,
so they decided to send another vessel.
The colonists protested.
They'd been there five years. This was their home.
They didn't want another 200 people arriving.
The folks back on Earth argued that there weren't any other
habitable planets within reach.
But the colonists dug their heels in.
There were a few angry messages sent back and forth, then one day...
...nobody heard from them again.
Why didn't you send a vessel to find out what happened?
Nine years there, nine years back.
It would have been a pretty long trip.
A Vulcan ship could have made the journey in far less time.
Why didn't you ask them?
Asking favours of the Vulcans usually ends up carrying too high a price.
My experience with humans is limited...
...but I've come to learn that they're quite resourceful.
Terra Nova may still be there, captain.
Two hundred thousand kilometres.
Let's see it.
I promised my dad I'd see this place someday.
Put us in orbit over the colony.
Terra Nova Colony,
this is Captain Jonathan Archer of the starship Enterprise.
We've come from Earth. Please respond.
No answer, sir.
Any bio-signs?
No. But the colony appears to be intact.
I'm also detecting low levels of surface radiation.
From what?
I can't tell.
Let's take a look.
Closer.
Looks like a ghost town.
Let's hope the ghosts can give us some answers.
- How bad is the radiation? - Less than 800 millirads.
A few hours of exposure shouldn't pose a risk.
Trip, take the bridge.
Travis.
A housing unit.
No sign of weapons fire.
Only rust.
Whatever happened, I've gotta believe they tried to let Earth know about it.
We've got the schematics for the communications tower.
Good. See if the data buffer's intact.
We might be able to access their last transmission logs.
Aye, sir.
Walk the perimeter. See what else you can find.
Judging by the isotope decay,
the radiation levels 70 years ago would have been lethal.
If that killed them, where are the bodies?
Maybe they left the planet before it could affect them.
That would have been difficult.
That's a bulkhead.
They designed their ship to be disassembled.
That's how they built the colony.
It was a one-way trip.
Hello?
We're not alone, sir. There's someone in the forest.
We're on our way.
- I believe he went in there. - You get a look at him?
Yeah, he appeared to be a couple of metres tall, biped, odd-looking scales.
This leads to a network of caverns
that extend for several hundred metres.
- Archer to Mayweather. - Go ahead, sir.
Get back to the shuttle, and grab a pair of flashlights.
- Make it quick. - Yes, sir.
It'd be best if I went first, sir.
After you.
Captain.
My name is Archer.
We're looking for some people.
I was hoping you could help us.
We're not going to hurt you.
We're just trying to find out what happened to them.
Which way?
T'Pol to Captain Archer.
Captain?
We're under attack.
And I think we just took a wrong turn.
We could use a little help navigating down here.
Just a moment.
In approximately three metres, a tunnel will branch off to your left. Take it.
I don't see a tunnel.
Correction. Ten metres.
I'm all right, sir.
Malcolm?
Malcolm?
Where's Malcolm?
Go.
Take us up.
If those aliens killed the colonists, they could kill Malcolm too.
Those weren't aliens.
They're human.
I don't get it. If they're human, why were they shooting at us?
Archer to the bridge. What have you found?
We've got a pretty good picture of those caverns.
And we've picked up 52 bio-signs so far.
- All human. - The only one I'm interested in
right now is Lt Reed. We've got to get him out of there.
- Have you found him? - Yes, sir.
He's about 90 metres below the surface.
He's not responding to hails, captain, but he's alive.
Have Dr Phlox join us in the Situation Room.
Aye, sir.
If these are the descendants of the original colonists,
they've never seen other humans before.
Maybe we looked as strange to them as they did to us.
12.6 kilometres worth of tunnels.
Looks like they even dug a few wells.
The geology's a little shaky.
Some of these passageways have collapsed.
They may have been driven underground by the radiation.
- Have you figured out what caused it? - Not yet.
- What do they do for food? - Many species feed
on underground fauna and flora. Tubers, fungi, insects.
They also hunt some kind of burrowing animal.
Where's Malcolm?
Right here, sir. There are two people with him.
- Can we use the transporter? - He's too deep.
A section of this tunnel is collapsed.
It's empty. If we could get into it, we could clear the obstruction
with phase pistols. We'd be less than 20 metres from Lieutenant Reed.
What about these two? We have to assume they're armed.
A stun grenade would solve that.
I don't want to risk any more casualties.
Despite how they look, they're still human.
We've got to find some way to talk to them.
They didn't seem eager to talk.
If I can't make first contact with other hu...
I don't have any business being out here.
Malcolm was shot.
Grab your medical kit and meet me at the launch bay.
- Right away, sir. - Captain.
Try to find out what irradiated the surface.
You and Hoshi get to work on that data buffer.
I want to know if they tried to send any messages to Earth.
Do you think they know we've returned?
Hard not to hear a shuttlepod landing on your roof.
I'm unarmed.
I just want to talk.
I'm concerned about my officer.
I'd like to see him.
- Fancy meeting you here. - How's the leg?
I've lost a bit of blood, sir, but I don't think it's too serious.
May I have my medical supplies, please?
- Human? - That's right.
- What's that? - My name is Phlox.
I am a Denobulan. I'm Captain Archer's physician.
You tracked from Earth...
...on a sky ship.
It's called Enterprise.
To what? Gut the rest of us?
No.
We're here to find out what happened to the colony.
We came to help you.
Novans have had enough help from you.
We're not so easy to hunt as diggers.
Go back to the overside or we'll seal your passage.
I told you, we're not here to hurt anybody.
Take that one, and don't track back.
All right.
But he won't be able to get through these tunnels on one leg.
My doctor needs to treat him.
What makes you think we're here to hurt you?
Humans hurt Novans.
Why do you think that?
They gutted us.
Our families. Our before-families.
I don't understand.
Poison rain.
I was no taller than a digger, but I can still see back.
We lived on the overside, then the humans dropped the poison,
We lived on the overside, then the humans dropped the poison,
burned our skin, gutted the grown ones.
There was no place to go but here...
To the underside.
I think I know what you're talking about.
The poison rain. It was some kind of radiation.
I don't know what caused it, but I'm sure it wasn't humans.
He can walk, more or less.
But I'll need to get him back to Sickbay to remove the projectile.
I know this'll be hard for you to accept...
...but you're the descendants of human beings.
Your ancestors colonised this planet over 70 years ago.
They came from Earth, just like I did.
I don't know what happened, but maybe
we could work together and find out.
He speaks in shale.
If that's your way of calling me a liar...
...give me a chance to prove what I'm saying.
My...
...sky ship...
...has tools that can help us find out what happened here.
- No. - Are you aware that your mother...
...is sick?
This is one of the tools the captain spoke of.
It can tell me all kinds of things about the inside of your body.
She has an illness that we call lung cancer,
but it's easily cured.
Dr Phlox can make her well.
But she'd have to come back to our ship.
This is shale.
They want to trap us on the overside to gut us.
How long of a day would it take?
- Not long. A few hours at the most. - Hours?
She'd be back before the sun rises on the overside.
Let us help you.
We track together.
- This one stays. - He needs to be treated as well.
He'll be fine for a few hours.
Don't worry about me, sir.
I was just getting used to the place.
Probably best if you lead the way.
That's Enterprise.
It's a lot like the ship that brought the colonists to this planet.
It was called the Conestoga.
Maybe you were born onboard.
Or were you born after your parents got here?
My parents were Novans.
They came from the overside.
- No more. Let me out. - Open the passage.
Just a few more seconds.
- Open it. - It's all right.
My apologies for any discomfort.
Is she healed?
Not quite. First we have to determine how far her sickness has spread.
That is you. The inside of you, anyway.
This picture will tell me what kind of treatment she'll require.
Interstitial tumours.
The malignancy has spread to her lymphatic system.
She'll need a series of cytolytic injections.
- Injections? - Medicine.
He's just going to give her some medicine.
I'll need a few minutes to synthesise it.
I've got some other pictures you might like to see.
One of my crewmen found these in our database.
They might help you remember what it was like living on the overside
before the poison rain.
It's human shale.
They're confusing our path. You'll lose your tracks in this.
I'm just trying to help you see how you got here.
All I see is digger filth.
Well, look again.
Because whether you want to believe it or not, we're both human.
Bury your drawings.
Doctor...
...keep me posted.
Captain's starlog, supplemental.
Sub-commander T'Pol has discovered the remnants
of an impact crater that could explain the radiation.
How far away is it?
About 500 kilometres north.
- How deep? - It's been partially filled in by erosion
over the years, but I'm reading impact fractures
down to nearly 2,000 metres.
- Comet or an asteroid? - An asteroid.
A large one.
The tectonic analysis puts the impact at approximately 70 years ago.
The poison rain.
The geology was comprised primarily of beresium ore.
The thermo-shock would have created a radioactive cloud
that probably covered the northern hemisphere for more than a year.
They spent all those years getting here...
...and for what?
That's an old MK-33, isn't it?
Or is it a 34?
Lmpressive body armour you're wearing.
Did you make it yourself?
Right.
I don't suppose there's a lavatory on the premises, is there?
I wouldn't mind freshening up a little.
No.
Didn't think so.
Is your belly hollow?
That all depends.
What's for dinner?
Digger meat.
Looks a little...
...undercooked.
Humans are like damp moss.
They rot on the underside.
Not bad.
Come in.
It's a transmission, sir.
It's the last one anyone made, as far as we can tell.
It was still in the buffer.
It's Captain Mitchell.
No matter how angry Logan's threats may have seemed,
there had to have been a way of dealing with this
other than attacking us.
Nearly half the adults are dead, including Dr Tracey,
and everyone else is getting sick, except for the younger children.
If they have any chance of surviving,
the least you could do is have the Vulcans send a ship for them.
But for all I know, they were the ones you talked into attacking us.
You wanted Terra Nova enough to do this?
Well, it's yours now, but I doubt you'll be very pleased
with what you find when you get here.
Mark Logan was the head of the opposition,
the ones who were against a second wave of settlers.
Supposedly, he threatened to fire at any ship that came into orbit.
The irony is that Captain Mitchell's message never reached Earth.
The debris in the atmosphere was too dense.
So for some reason, the young kids survive...
...and begin living underground.
Their last memories of their parents are hearing them blame humans
for destroying the colony.
The idea that humans are the enemy has been embedded in them
for more than two generations.
This isn't gonna be easy.
Sickbay to Archer.
- Go ahead. - Could you come see me, please?
Is everything all right?
Nadet's cancer has been eliminated.
- Nice work. - But I found something quite troubling.
Both she and her son are showing signs of microcellular decay
in their endocrine systems.
Their underground water supply has probably become contaminated.
I don't have any medication to treat this,
and it's only going to get worse.
Would bringing them to the surface help?
T'Pol says the soil and foliage is going to remain irradiated
for at least another decade.
- How's she doing? - She's as disagreeable as she was
before I treated her.
Bring them to the Situation Room.
We are not leaving.
It's not safe for you anymore.
When the asteroid hit, the fallout contained certain poisons.
Humans under the age of 4 or 5 can usually build an immunity to them.
That's why they survived.
For the last two or three generations, that immunity kept you all alive.
But now the poisons have gotten into your water supply.
As Captain Archer says, it is no longer safe.
You humans tried to gut our go-befores
when they lived on the overside.
Now you're trying to gut us.
Dr Phlox just saved your life.
Perhaps you should give him the benefit of the doubt.
After all, he's not human.
Neither am I.
Giant rocks falling from the sky... Shale, it's all shale!
Take us back.
I went through about two to 300 photographs before I found this.
Look familiar, Nadet?
It's the overside. Before the poison rain.
And what about the people?
Humans.
What were humans doing in your colony
before it was destroyed?
I think I can help answer that.
You're sure none of these people look familiar?
From the data we retrieved on this photograph,
we're pretty sure this woman's name was Vera Fuller.
Ring a bell?
It's the medicine they put in you.
They're confusing your path.
We need to leave.
Look closely.
Vera Fuller.
- What do you remember? - Shale!
They're trying to trap you.
Vera had a daughter named Bernadette.
She'd be about 75 now in Earth years.
Nadet?
Bernadette?
You say this is me?
They're trying to make us leave the underside.
If we're not back before day, your crewman will be gutted.
Take us back.
Is her treatment finished?
- I should take one more thoracic scan. - Fine.
As soon as you're done, bring them to the Launch Bay.
Sub-commander.
There are 58 human beings in those tunnels.
They'll all die if we don't get them out. What do they think?
They think we're a bunch of hostile aliens trying to take their colony over.
- Stun grenades. - What?
Commander Tucker's continued to enhance the sensor resolution
of their tunnels.
We could transport stun grenades to specific locations, detonate them,
and use both shuttlepods to bring them back to the ship.
And then what? Put them in chains?
I'm sure Mr Reed could devise appropriate restraints.
What the hell do you think this is, a slave ship?
We can't relocate them by force.
The alternative was made quite clear by Dr Phlox.
We have to convince them that returning to Earth is the right thing.
We can't take them by force.
- Are you certain it is the right thing? - What are you talking about?
When you get them back to Earth, what will you do?
Send them to school? Teach them to read and write?
Wear human clothing? Eat human food?
Teach them to live on the surface, enjoy the sunshine?
You're damn straight. They're human beings.
It's their birthright.
It might take a little while, but they'll adapt.
It's a hell of a lot better than dying down in those tunnels.
They've lived in those tunnels for three generations.
You can't just pluck them up and bring them to a strange world
and hope they'll learn to conform.
You'd be destroying their identity, destroying the Novan culture.
- Archer to Tucker. - Captain.
Get up here on the double, and bring your maps with you.
The debris cloud reached to about here,
10 or 12 degrees north of the equator.
- Southern hemisphere? - Unaffected by the asteroid.
Captain Archer.
- Go ahead, doc. - The two Novans
are in Shuttlepod One.
Will you be escorting them back to the surface?
I'll be there in a couple of minutes.
There's gotta be similar underground topography
on one of these southern continents.
Caves, caverns... Find them.
Put that on a PADD for me.
And it wouldn't hurt if they were crawling with those...
What do they call them? Diggers.
Your planet has three large islands to the south.
We call them continents.
The climate is nearly identical to your overside.
We don't know how similar the underside is,
but my people are working on that now.
The important thing is the poison rain never fell there.
You'd be safe.
Your children would be safe.
You could even spend time on the overside if you wanted to.
If our tunnels are infected...
...you wouldn't want them so badly.
We don't. We only want to help you. Make you healthy.
Was that photograph of Vera Fuller and her daughter shale?
Do you really believe that we created it to trick you?
You're human.
So am I.
Humans help each other.
When we track back to the underside...
...we'll return your crewman...
...only if you promise to leave.
I've got the landing site locked in, captain.
Would you at least...
...talk to your people, tell them what I proposed?
Our thrusters are down.
Fire them up again.
Pod One to Enterprise. We've got an emergency.
Is anyone hurt?
We're okay, but getting out of here is gonna be tricky.
Can you give us the coordinates...?
Captain?
I think we're done dropping.
How far have we gone?
You're down about 8 metres.
Looks like a couple of the abandoned tunnels gave way.
Open it.
- Open it. - Hold on.
Trip, if I open the port hatch, what am I gonna find?
Open it.
You're on the floor of a stable tunnel. You should be okay.
You're gonna have to build a rig to get this pod back on the surface.
Aye, sir.
We're in the downslope passage.
We need to pass the cut-through to get to your crewman.
Give me your pistol.
What are you talking about?
If you want to see your human alive, you'll give me your pistol.
Stay here with the shuttle. Keep your com open.
Help!
Hold on a second.
Do you hear that?
Help! Help me!
It's Akary.
Help!
Help!
Help!
He must have fallen when your sky ship quaked the tunnels.
- Are you hurt? - I'm leg-broke.
The wood has me sealed down.
Would you risk your bones to save a Novan?
I'll do what I can, but I doubt I can make it down there.
We'll track together...
...but you'll need to trust me.
The water's rising. We have to hurry.
I need you to give me my phase pistol.
- My gun. - Why?
- So you can go free your hostage? - So I can free this man.
It's your turn to trust me.
Give me a hand.
Ready.
- Captain. - How are you holding up?
Not badly, all things considered.
But I really wouldn't mind getting this bullet out of my leg.
Tell them.
Tell them what Archer said about the islands to the south.
They promised to leave. Let them go. We'll be fine here.
We're not fine. None of us is fine.
We're rotting, all of us.
They've promised to leave.
I've seen back.
Vera Fuller was my mother.
That girl in the picture was me.
A human girl.
Our go-befores shared the same path.
We should listen.
- Ever heard of Judge Crater? - Crater?
Disappeared in the early 20th century.
- How about Amelia Earhart? - No.
1937. Never found a trace of her.
A lot of people spent years, decades,
trying to figure out what happened to them.
But neither of those mysteries holds a candle to Terra Nova.
- And we solved it. - Did more than that.
Those people were a year or two away from extinction.
We didn't just find them. We saved their lives.
All these years wondering about that colony.
I never thought I'd become a part of their history.
Tell you what, Travis.
Why don't you put together the report for Starfleet.
If I'm not mistaken, it'll be headline news back home.
"The Terra Nova Puzzle, Solved at Last,"
as told by Ensign Travis Mayweather.
Thank you, sir.
 |
|
|
