'This is the medical log for the Echo Valley facility, Doctor Seris dictating. I just took over the leadership of the small medical team overseeing a small archeological dig about about three miles from the facility location. While most artifacts brought to the surface have been unremarkable there have been a few things worth taking note of since my arrival here three days ago. I was only getting used to the layout of the facility and the medical room which I'd be spending almost all of my waking hours when something was brought in. Some kind of box made of the same stone we've been seeing scattered about the surface of the Colony Planet, Alpharia.<br/><br/>What most people don't seem to realize is the damage that we did to our own planet wasn't the reason why we left. While it was something that would have posed a threat in the future we would have had another century before it would have caused us to find someplace else to live. It was our own doing that caused us to have to leave Earth. The Ferenzi Virus was responsible. A virus that left most of the world's population either comatose zombies or ruthless, cunning killers. Only a handful of the governmental staff who were responsible for the design of the virus escaped with their lives. Those who were able to make it out alive were those who I learned from, people who by all intents and purposes would have never created something like this if they knew what it could do to people. It took the worst traits out of those it infected and amplified them by about a thousand percent.<br/><br/>No one was safe. The virus was spreading too quickly for us to contain it. Even my team who was trying to find a cure came up empty handed by the time we were all forced to evacuate. By then the virus had been running rampant for a month, if you weren't dead you would be, if you weren't infected it was only a matter of time. My team was relocated to the Alpha Mountains, a military facility much like Echo Valley, but it was the first facility to be established upon our arrival on Alpharia. The planet had long ago been discovered, and our space travel capabilities took us longer than we would have liked to get to the planet. While light space travel had been developed it was no where good enough to get us here in a relatively short time. Years past, five to be exact, before we were able to get to the planet and another three years before the first facility was built. While there are numerous colonies scattered about the planet.<br/><br/>The military controls all human resources, all job creation, all land development and everything else necessary for our survival until some form of government can be properly established. As it is most of the world leaders died before our departure, there are only a few monarchs left and those we do have can't seem to decide on who is going to lead where. Right now there is a talk of having a coalition of leaders, almost like the village elders back when our own world had been getting onto its feet and the cradles of civilization were just being established. I think it would work, assuming each leader can put their differences aside and realize this is difficult for all of us, just not them.<br/><br/>I've work to do now. I'll be signing off this dictation for the time being. I'll leave more dictations once my work is finished, I'm sure I'll have a lot more to talk about at than I do right now.'<br/><br/><br/>Terra Seris pressed her thumb onto the small pad near the computer she had been reciting her logs into. A small voice played over the speaker next to the pad she still held her thumb onto. 'Please recite directive.'<br/><br/>"Save dictation log Seris one." the thirty year old spoke clearly, making sure to pronounce every word precisely. A small light flashed on the computer that had been built into the table top.<br/><br/>Green letters appeared on the screen one at a time, slowly forming words.<br/><br/>Directive: Save dictation log Seris one...<br/>Initiating directive..<br/>Please stand by...<br/><br/>Directive complete...<br/><br/>'Thank you Doctor Terra Seris.' the voice spoke again. The computer screen went dark as Terra removed her thumb from the pad and stood from the chair she had been seated in. Taking a slow breath she looked out the window at the landscape that had been replicated to look like Earth. Large oaks were present in the hologram presentation.<br/><br/>"Computer." she spoke as she walked through the lab, preparing for any sort of activity she might encounter.<br/><br/>'Yes Doctor Seris?' the calm female voice filtered through the air. She had hated the voice the first time she had heard it.<br/><br/>"Change voice simulation." she pulled out a few medical scanners and double checked them to ensure they were working properly.<br/><br/>'Voice change simulation complete. Is this more to your liking Doctor?' this time a male voice came from the computer.<br/><br/>"That works perfectly thank you." she smiled in spite of herself.<br/><br/>'You're welcome Doctor Seris. Is there anything else I can do for you?' the computer was often so obliging, it was like an assistant made out of a machine rather than flesh and blood. Sometimes she preferred it to human contact.<br/><br/>"Yes could you change the window hologram for me. Something other than trees.. Maybe a mountainside lake. Something from Alaska." a sigh came from her as she thought of her home in Juno. The one she had been forced to leave to head to D.C in order to work at the Pentagon and near the White House as she worked feverishly to formulate a cure for the Ferenzi Virus.<br/><br/>'Of course Doctor.' the male voice came again as the image screen flickered. A perfect replica of a landscape from Alaska came into view. It was something she was grateful for, at least the engineers were conscientious enough to keep records of what Earth had looked like before they had to leave. If they ever found a cure they could return, now that light speed technology had been perfected they could get there in days or months rather than years. She just hoped that things hadn't changed too dramatically from how they had been when they left.<br/><br/>"Thank you, that will be all for now, please turn the light on outside the door so people know they can come in." grabbing her lab coat from the hook on the wall she turned and pulled her long chocolate colored locks up into a bun before looking at herself in the mirror. Her green, almond shaped eyes tilted upward slightly at the corners, reminding her of her Asian heritage from her mother. Her mother had been among the first of the scientists who were killed when the virus broke past the containment walls, she'd been working as a geneticist while Terra was working as an assistant at a local clinic in Juno. When she got the call from D.C. about her mother and that her father had gone missing, it was then they called her to come pick up their work.<br/><br/>A lot of her features reminded her of her mother. The high cheekbones, the dark hair, the olive tone of her skin. There was little she saw in herself that made her think of her father. The curve of her bottom lip perhaps, or the way her cheeks dimpled a little when she truly smiled, but everything else was either a perfect mixture of her parents or the features of her mother. Turning her back to the mirror she draped her stethoscope over her shoulders, feeling the familiar weight of the tube against her skin she placed her hands into her pockets and waited for whatever the day was going to hold for her.