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Commander Jeffrey Noble was knocked unconscious. He'd prised open the massive weight of the shuttle door, which had been supposed to be pushed by powerful—now broken—motors.

His hand came to hover over his eyes automatically. Noble had peered into the void of space for so long that the avalanche of color and light that greeted him was totally overpowering. He got to his feet, stumbling. He caught sight of a tall thin building, widening out as it climbed higher, squinting through the spaces between his fingers. He'd only seen photos of trees up until that point. He was also confident that the flying procession rising far above the canopy in the distance was a flock of birds, although not knowing what type they were.

Aside from the aerobatics performance, the terrain was hauntingly calm and motionless. Row after row, the trees stood tall and robust, guarding whatever secrets were beyond their protection.

His peaceful moment of introspection was shattered.

'It's, it's... lovely.'

Officer Christopher Tate was the one. Engineer Emma Taylor and Medical Officer Dr. Lucy Jackson had staggered out of the shuttle after him. Noble and the other three coughed as their lungs adapted to the elevated oxygen content.

'Ahhhhhhhhhh.' Jackson sighed deeply and exhaled deeply. 'Clean air!' he says. 'Much better than the recycled garbage we've been consuming for the previous two weeks.'

Officer Taylor locked his gaze on her. 'You don't have to breathe my air if you don't like it.'

Dr. Jackson's turned to Commander Noble.

'Sir, I'd want to examine your arm.' It was subjected to the full force of the-'.

Noble nonchalantly lifted his arm to dismiss her fears.

'It's nothing,' she says. 'How did we get here?'

'Well, the pod's badly burned up,' Taylor said. All of the systems have gone kaput. Communication, navigation, and life support are all unavailable. Based on what I saw of the computer before we reached the atmosphere, we were destined for someplace in the Southern Hemisphere. However, only God knows where we ended up. 'And until I can make repairs, we won't be able to send a message to the station,' she added.

Tate took a small tablet gadget from his luggage that he and Taylor had hurriedly constructed for rudimentary data processing. As he scrolled across the screen to make a map, the date '01.05.2123' glowed at the top of the screen.

'Here.'

Tate handed the map to the Commander, pointing to a flashing red blip on the screen's lower left side.

Noble took a remnant of an inch thick diary from his own bag, an old leather contraption. He handled it with exceptional tenderness, scrolling through it until he reached about the halfway point—he knew every page. He took a hard look at the double spread, shifting his gaze from the paper to the sight in front of him. The description matched the actuality almost perfectly.

'It's just like he described it.'

'Sir?'

'This is my granddad. The Amazon Rainforest may be found here. It was mentioned in a letter sent by my grandfather. It's precisely what he said it would be.'

Noble handed the diary to Tate, his gaze riveted on the hypnotizing magnificence of the jungle.

Tate scanned the book with Taylor and Jackson gazing over his shoulders. They followed the Commander's lead and switched their gaze between it and the jungle. Noble's grandpa had noticed and jotted down in rich detail what they were now witnessing themselves, and they found it undeniable.

The startled hush was soon broken by Dr. Jackson.

'I assumed they had set fire to this place.'

'They?' Noble replied. His coworkers could practically hear his rage in his words. 'They. Us. They. Everything is the same. We're all the same to one other. Every single one of us is a human being. Time is the only thing that divides us. My grandfather's generation, and those before him, had far more time than they realized. And have a look at what they've done with it. 'This is the last bit.'

Noble's voice became quiet as he paused to observe the scenery again. His hatred for what he was convinced lay beyond it equaled his incredulity for its beauty.

'They turned it into a corpse, a landfill for hazardous materials and nuclear weapons.' 'And those birds are probably our only company,' he continued, pointing to the skies. You'll be lucky if you come across a microbe. And those trees are now the Earth's only lungs. And they'll come crashing down soon enough.'

Tate approached Noble's side and placed a kind hand on his shoulder.

'But we have that tiny area of jungle,' Tate told him. We've got a blueprint. We still have a ray of hope.'

Noble was on the verge of smiling. Tate turned around and gave a gentle nod to Taylor and Jackson, who returned the nod.

'Sir, we can do it.'

The Commander, encouraged, made a cautious initial step forward.

A first step in saving the planet.

A first step towards rebuilding home.