It was a dream come true, and not just for Sarah. For 40 years, the existence of intelligent extraterrestrial life was a known fact. However, it had also been 40 years since even a shred of evidence had been discovered. The entire scientific community throughout the galaxy was chomping at the bit as soon as the news broke. Had administration not kept the location a secret, the sites would have already been inundated with millions. Everybody from respected scientists, to journalists, to tourists, thrill-seekers, and conspiracy nutjobs. Everybody and their mother wanted to be part of this story.
Sarah was glad to be one of a handful of scientists to be trusted to head an expedition, but she was also starting to feel overwhelmed by the pressure that was suddenly on her shoulders. After the initial public briefing, Sarah was pulled into a smaller conference, where she was briefed on the atmospheric and environmental conditions.
The structure was one of several on the planet in a vast desert band that covered all land within 60 degrees of the equator. There was little trace of biological life within that band, but the poles were thick jungles of pitch-black flora. There were oceans as well, covering nearly 40 percent of the planet’s surface. The water appeared black as well, possibly due to a large quantity of algae or bacteria.
The atmosphere did contain a breathable level of oxygen, but all expeditions were still required to wear environment suits until an extensive microbial survey could be completed, and any necessary inoculations could be developed and administered.
Sarah paid extra attention to the safety briefing. All groups were going to be accompanied by a pair of highly trained, mechanically augmented personnel. It was standard fare for any planetside expeditions for years now, but there were still scattered grumbles from scientists that opposed the measure. Sarah had some reservations about including military on scientific expeditions, but she was also part of the reason why the measure was created in the first place.
Also assigned to her team were a xenobiologist and an exogeologist, neither of whom Sarah recognized, though she was happy to see that they were both young doctors with impressive CV’s, even if the geologist did have Persephone as their alma mater. After all of the briefings were completed and the itinerary written, Sarah still had a few hours left to gather anything she felt that she needed. Once she arrived at her domicile, she began pacing her home nervously. She grabbed a dusty travel bag from her closet and began packing things.
“I don’t think you’ll really need those.” Hugo said as Sarah grabbed a few pairs of pants. Sarah looked at him, then put the pants back in their drawer. She moved into the bathroom and started collecting toiletries. “I don’t believe you’ll be able to use those in your suit.” Hugo said. Sarah put the items back in a huff. She was starting to get annoyed. “To be honest, I don’t think you’ll need to bring anything more than your daily items.”
Sarah was restless but didn’t know what to do. She sat down on her bed and crossed her arms. Hugo knew the body language. He was designed to identify it and do what he could to help. He sat on the mattress next to her and placed a hand on her back.
“You still have a few hours before the transport leaves. Why don’t you lay back and relax for a little while?” Hugo’s words were followed by a tensioned sigh from Sarah. She followed his instruction and pulled herself to comfortably lay on the bed. Hugo laid next to her, wrapping an arm over her belly. “What’s got you so stressed? Isn’t this something you’ve been looking forward to?” Hugo asked.
“It is... I just... haven’t been on an expedition for a while.” Sarah weaved her fingers in with Hugo’s.
“It will be like riding a bike, for sure.”
“I’m not so sure...” Thoughts were running through Sarah’s head.
It didn’t seem like she was going to sleep, so Hugo decided to try another method of stress relief. Sarah felt his fingers pop and extend, then start to slither around and slip under her garments. Sarah, surprisingly, slapped his hand away and jumped out of bed away from him.
“No! Stop!” Sarah said. Hugo appeared shocked. He was no longer touching her, but he could tell that she was shaking.
“I don’t understand, what’s wrong?” Hugo said. “You’ve never pulled away from me like that before.”
Sarah paused, unsure of how to respond. She could barely even look at Hugo. She again began to pace, and she was now nervously biting her thumbnail. Hugo remained on the bed in silence, giving Sarah an opportunity to express herself in her own time.
“The last time I was on an expedition... well, you know what happened, right?” Sarah asked.
“I... well, Hugo, passed away during your last expedition, correct?”
“Yes... to put it mildly.” Sarah took a deep breath, leaning back against a wall and looking at her feet. “I uh... watched... as Hugo was torn apart by an alien creature.” Chills ran down Sarah’s spine as she recalled it.
“I’m... sorry to hear that. Though, I am surprised that those details aren’t available to me.”
“Yeah... After it happened, I found myself re-watching the video over and over until it was affecting my work, and my colleagues and psychiatrist insisted that I delete it, and everything related to it.”
“Ah, I understand. I think that was a good move.”
“I agree. I think I’ve been doing pretty good suppressing it, but unfortunately, it’s not possible to erase the event from my brain. Now, with a new expedition falling in my lap, I feel like it’s all coming back.” As Sarah spoke, Hugo slowly approached her and held her hand, gently guiding her back to sit on the bed.
“I don’t know if this will provide any solace, but I can assure you that it won’t happen again.” Hugo said. Sarah laughed.
“Yeah. With what we know about the planet, and with new safety procedures put in place since, every reasonable part of me says that this expedition will be safe. I just can’t shake the feeling.”
“That anxiety and fear that you are feeling is a fear of the unknown. It will give you a heightened awareness of your surroundings. If you go into that structure and don’t feel fear, then you might be suicidal, or have some other emotional disorder.”
“I suppose that helps.” Sarah gripped Hugo’s hand and smiled at him.
“I find it interesting that you developed a sexual attraction to alien forms.”
“Well, that... It’s not really new. And I imagine it’s pretty common too since first contact. Even before then, tentacles were a popular fetish. I think that ‘fear of the unknown’ that you mentioned can help to enhance the pleasure.”
“I see. I understand why you may not be interested in doing that right now. Perhaps after the first expedition, when we have determined the structures are as lifeless as they appear, you might be interested again?” Hugo said with a smile.
“Perhaps...” Sarah responded, mirroring his expression.
“Until then, maybe you’d like to relieve your stress the ‘old fashioned’ way?”
“Oh yeah?” Sarah said with a laugh. She wanted to argue with him that having sex with an AI driven digital simulation wasn’t exactly ‘old fashioned’, but she held her tongue. Instead, she leaned in and gave him a short kiss. “How about we just take a nice, comfortable nap?”
“Sure thing!” Hugo agreed without hesitation.
After cuddling up on the bed, Sarah relaxed and closed her eyes. Hugo’s grip on her was gentle. The slightly irregular pattern in his breathing drew Sarah’s focus whenever the fears and memories threatened to fill her mind. Hugo monitored her sleeping pattern closely, and after a full cycle, brought her back to consciousness.
Ultimately, Sarah didn’t pack anything except for a mystery lunch that Hugo whipped up while she was sleeping. They arrived at the station docks with time to spare before the jump. She was still nervous, and the feeling only continued to grow as the jump drew closer, but she did feel that the conversation and nap with Hugo helped ease her tension tremendously. Beyond that, there was an excitement growing. She wanted to be ready as soon as they arrived, so she was happy to see that the OTech transport was already docked and taking on passengers.
The transport was a specialty design, intended to double as a temporary expedition base while a more permanent one could be raised on-site. After stepping through the airlock, Sarah was guided to the locker room. She found a locker with her name on it and found an environment suit inside, just her size. She left her things in the locker and pulled on as much of the suit as she could before Hugo had to remind her that he couldn’t help button her up.
Sarah didn’t like that the suits couldn’t be fully closed by the user. She understood that it was by design, but the last time she wore one, her husband was there to help her into it. Now, she had to rely on a stranger. She took her helmet and walked to the ready room. It was already bustling with several teams of scientists bunched up in small groups, and a line of much larger personnel standing neatly near the airlocks. They were clearly not scientists. Sarah wasn’t sure they were even human, appearing much more like large bipedal combat drones.
She looked around the room to find her own team. Hugo pointed them out, though he didn’t need to as they were waving to get her attention. Sarah gave them a polite wave back and approached.
“Greetings, Dr. Donner!” The exogeologist said as he stepped up and presented his hand with nervous excitement. Sarah was thankful for his profile appearing in her vision.
“Dr. Valentine!” Sarah said, shaking his hand after shuffling her helmet in her arms. “It’s a pleasure to meet you!”
“Likewise! I’ve been following your work for a few years now. I’m excited to be working alongside you!”
“A few years, huh? I haven’t really done anything of note for a while.”
“You wrote a paper on the mega-insectoid colonies in Epsilon Cygni.”
“It was more of a blog post... But thank you!” Sarah said with a laugh. “I concluded that I didn’t really have the expertise necessary to say much about them.” Sarah then motioned to her helmet, and Dr. Valentine moved behind her to assist. After she slipped the helmet over her head, she looked at the xenobiologist, who was patiently waiting for the right moment to introduce herself. Sarah continued. “In fact, I think Dr. Matanzas here is much more qualified to speak on them than myself.”
“You flatter me.” The woman said with a flat tone and a gentle smile. She rose to her feet and shook Sarah’s hand. “We were actually just discussing that a moment ago. I’d be glad to discuss at length sometime, but honestly, I prefer to peek through the lens of non-biology fields such as yours.”
With the group’s assistance, Sarah was able to button up quickly, and surprisingly comfortably for being assisted by complete strangers. Sarah didn’t care that Matanzas was technically speaking Spanish, as they were all speaking Sarah’s first language, Science. Like children talking about their favorite cartoons, the three began discussing the mega-insectoids, completely forgetting about the expedition they were minutes from embarking on until an old, rugged man with heavy cybernetics and a deep scowl called out to the bustling crowd of scientists.
“Attention!” He yelled, as if he were speaking to a room full of soldiers. The scientists didn’t respond as quickly, but still turned to listen. “In a few minutes, we will arrive in orbit above our destination, then scout out a few locations before landing and setting up camp at the base of one of the structures. Each team will be assigned two security officers.” The man motioned toward the line of walking tanks standing along the side of the room. “For your safety, remain within contact range of security at all times.”
The man waved his hand, sending the security assignments to each of the team leaders, then walked away from the podium without another word. Sarah read off the names of the officers assigned to them.
“Lieutenants Christina ‘Jax’ Jackson and Geoffrey Horner.” As Sarah said it, she forwarded the info to her team. They were thankful to also have the two officers highlighted, as they would not have been able to identify and differentiate them otherwise. “At least they aren’t bots. I would have thought they’d just give us a couple of security drones.” After Sarah spoke, she saw Hugo roll his eyes at her.
“I dunno, there’s something to be said about a drone’s reaction time, accuracy, and target identification.” Valentine said. Hugo raised an eyebrow and pointed at him.
“I like this guy.” Hugo said, making Sarah laugh. Valentine noticed.
“I uh... wasn’t kidding. A computer’s reaction time is orders of magnitude faster than any humans.”
“I know, sorry. My digital companion just said something funny.” Sarah said. Both of her teammates gave her a blank look that made her begin to blush. “I... have a companion with me pretty much all the time. Sometimes I forget that I’m the only one that can see him. I hope you don’t mind...”
“Oh, of course not! I’ve been known to take advantage of a companion from time to time.” Matanzas said with a straight face, not immediately recognizing the sexual connotations of her own words.
“I wouldn’t mind if you wanted to share him.” Valentine said, but when he remembered how most people used their companions, he continued. “Just as long as he’s not a scantily clad himbo or something...”
“No! No, it’s nothing like that!” Sarah said with a nervous chuckle. “He’s mostly around to help with research and ease my anxiety.”
As soon as Sarah offered to share Hugo, it was accepted by both parties. He materialized in their vision and a sigh of relieve washed over them as they saw that he wasn’t a hypersexualized, mostly nude plaything. As they both accepted tactile feedback, Hugo offered his hand.
“Greetings, I am Hugo.” He said. He shook Valentine’s hand first, and when Matanzas followed suit, she paused while holding his grip.
“Hugo... Chanterelle?” She asked.
“I would say ‘the one and the same’ but that’s not exactly true...” Hugo said. Matanzas raised an eyebrow when she looked back at Sarah. Valentine began to recognize him as well.
“Your companion is based on...-” Matanzas started to speak, but Sarah finished her sentence.
“My late husband... yes.”
“Oh, that makes more sense.” Valentine said. “For a second I thought you were into...” He paused, reconsidering his thought process. “I’m sorry for your loss.” Valentine said with Matanzas mirroring his sentiment.
“It’s okay, I appreciate it.”
The conversation was interrupted by a countdown appearing on the main display at the front of the room. Sarah’s tension grew as the countdown grew closer to zero, but she was already feeling comforted by the presence of her new team. Even so, Sarah had to take a seat in the nearest chair, and gripped the arms with white knuckles.
The transport shut its’ apertures and cleared the dock. The screen displayed a beautiful view of the Milky Way behind the countdown. Once the timer reached zero, the view instantly changed to that of a bright red planet with black oceans from orbit. The room was speechless, even though it was virtually identical to the view they had received from the probe. In fact, there was nothing that indicated that they had even moved beyond the change in the display. Still, the silence in the room was palpable until a few scientists moved closer to the display and started discussing what they were seeing.
From orbit, through a digital display, the structures were already visible as conspicuous black spots against the deep red color of the land. The transport moved in towards one of the planet’s frozen poles and into the atmosphere without resistance. The room was already bustling with scientists already getting to work. A meteorologist shared live atmospheric readings to the group as he analyzed them. An oxygen rich atmosphere was met by a few excited cheers from some of the scientists who hadn’t seen a real sky in years. They knew it would still be a little while before they knew if they could safely exit their environment suits, but the microbiologists were already at work scanning for potentially hazardous airborne organics. A botanist also joined the fervor as they flew over thick, black forests. Dr. Matanzas eyes lit up with images of the exotic plant life.
Along with the virtual displays being shared by everyone, a real time map of the planet’s surface appeared in the center of the room and quickly began to fill with the pins of future expedition location requests. Soon, the forest below gave way to an expansive deep red desert. The room watched in awe as the black monolith over the horizon continued to grow as they approached. Before long, the structure was encompassing the entire view area of the display. Just as everyone was getting worried that they were about to collide with the object, the transport began to circle it, gradually decreasing in altitude.
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The structure was generally hexagonal in shape, but had many subdivisions, with the hexagonal shape and orientation remaining a primary feature down to minute details in a recursive design. There were apertures and separations in the structure all over the place, creating smaller structures jutting out or digging into the larger form. As the transport came around, the expedition map in the center of the room displayed the base of the structure with several points already marked as recommended primary base locations. The final location was put up to a vote, with Sarah’s team having a heavier weight, as they were the only team allowed inside the structure on the first expedition.
Naturally, Sarah’s team, and many of their colleagues, opted for the location that was closest to the largest ground accessible aperture, what the group decided was the ‘front’ of the building. Once a brief voting period ended, the votes were tallied, and the transport approached the selected location. All the scientists bunched up at the briefing room door and became immediately frustrated when they had to wait as the security team made their way out first in annoyingly ordinary fashion. Once out the door, security lined up at each of the airlocks, with the disorderly crowd of anxious scientists behind them.
The transport came to a stop, hovering less than a meter from the ground, then the smooth outer surface of the transport was broken by an opening aperture revealing the airlocks outer doors and extending ramps that smoothly sank into the soft sand of the alien world. After the groups finished the airlock exit procedure, the outer doors opened, and security exited with their weapons ready. The scientists were held back like a pack of hungry dogs ready to be released. Once security formed a perimeter around the landing site, the scientists were free to leave the transport.
As they dispersed onto the sand and rock, most were satisfied to sit directly on the ground and pull out their equipment to start working. Some paced the grounds, impatiently waiting for the technicians and automated machines to start setting up camp so they could do their own work. Sarah and her team approached the two security officers closest to the towering structure, the ones that were assigned to them.
“Dr. Donner.” Said a male voice coming from one of the large metal humanoids. Sarah wouldn’t have been able to tell them apart were it not for her interface giving him a nametag.
“Lieutenant Horner, it’s a pleasure to meet you.” Sarah said, holding out her hand. Horner just looked at it.
“We don’t shake hands with meat.” Said the other suit of armor, Jax. Her tone seemed hostile, but there was no facial expression or body language to compare it to. Sarah just put her hand down with a nervous laugh.
“Don’t mind her,” Horner said, “she’s just frustrated that there’s probably nothing to shoot at here. Though she’s not wrong; our arms aren’t really built to shake hands. We could easily crush your hand or pull your arm out of its socket. though I can offer you a finger...”
Horner extended his index finger toward Sarah. It was large enough that Sarah could barely fit her whole hand around it. She felt like a child as she shook it, then he offered it to Matanzas who felt much the same. Valentine wasn’t even interested, as he was already in the sand collecting samples and doing surface analysis. Still, Horner’s greeting was a generally nice gesture that Jax refused to follow.
“So, are you guys ready to go?” Horner said.
Sarah froze at the question. She looked up at the structure behind Horner. It was so tall that the planet’s atmosphere obscured the top edge. She nearly lost her balance as she looked up at it. She felt Hugo grip her shoulder, stopping her from shaking. She wasn’t ready.
“As ready as we’re going to be.” Matanzas said.
“Alright. Stay within 20 meters and line of sight of us at all times. Jax has permission to yell at you if you don’t.” Horner said, raising his voice to catch Valentine’s attention.
The three scientists fell in line quickly as they moved to the structure. From the briefing room, the landing site looked to be directly at the base of the structure, but once they were on the ground and no longer looking at a two-dimensional image, it seemed to be a lot further, and much, much bigger. Their trek was over a kilometer long and through soft sand. By the time they had reached the structure, the scientists were already winded.
They stopped at a corner next to the massive entrance into the structure. There was a long downward slope in the sand that descended into complete darkness. Sarah and Valentine pulled out their instruments. Valentine plunged a seismic imaging stake into the ground and activated it, while Sarah stepped over to the nearest wall. Already, she could tell that the base design was entirely planar with perfect angles down to the finest detail. She also noticed a modular design seemingly imprinted into the primary material, where other objects were embedded. The main structure, inside and out, looked as if it had been built yesterday. There was no weathering to be seen, but anything that wasn’t the same material as the walls was corroded, petrified, or otherwise broken down into dust.
Sarah was hesitant to touch it. She had seen too many movies where the supposedly highly intelligent scientist touches a seemingly innocuous alien object and something terrible happens. In fact, she had seen it before with her own two eyes. Now, she was facing the unknown again, and her fear was like a forcefield preventing her from touching the object. She looked around at the rest of the team. They were all working dutifully, including security, who were orbiting around the group constantly scanning for potential threats. The only one who was looking at Sarah was Hugo.
“What do you think will happen when you touch it?” He asked.
“I don’t know... Judging by the amount of sand that’s spilling into the structure and the weathering on these other materials, it looks like it’s been here for a very long time. My analytical mind says that nothing will happen, probably. And that ‘probably’ part is what’s hanging me up.”
“Okay. What do you think is the worst thing that can happen?”
“Hmmm...” Sarah thought for a moment. “Touching it will activate some weapon that wipes out all complex biological life in the universe.”
“That does sound pretty bad, but in that case, I think you’d all be dead and there wouldn’t be anything to worry about.” Hugo’s response made Sarah laugh. He continued. “The second worst thing I can think of would be that the structure comes to life and tries to kill you, but in that scenario, I’d say it’s better to be at the entrance than deep within it, am I right?”
The macabre conversation somehow brought comfort to Sarah. She pressed her hand against the black material, and when nothing appeared to happen after several seconds, Sarah let out a relieved sigh. She grabbed a device strapped to her hip, a spectroscopic analyzer, and pressed the end against the wall. After a few seconds, a readout of the molecular structure of the wall appeared on her interface. The results verified the theories from the initial drone footage. Aside from some minor differences in trace elements used, the molecular structure of the substance was nearly identical to that of the Plasteel gifted to humanity by the Observers.
Sarah was ecstatic with the information. Of course, it would be a while before someone would be able to gather a sample and do a proper analysis, but every bit of evidence that showed this structure is of intelligent alien origin made the butterflies flutter in Sarah’s stomach. She shared the findings with her team and the rest of the camp while they were still in radio contact. She received several thumbs up and smiling emojis as a response. She scanned a few other spots on the wall before she was ready to move on. She re-joined her team just as Valentine was also finishing with his own scans.
“Well, it’s definitely Plasteel, or really close to it.” Sarah said. “But it has some minor differences. It’s got some impurities, or maybe they strengthen the material, or have some other intended effect.”
“The structure seems to extend for miles into the ground,” Valentine chimed in, “and with the amount of sand that’s built up here at the entrance, I’d say it hasn’t been maintained for... maybe hundreds of thousands of years. It also looks like there’s some non-plasteel structures, and a lot of organic compounds deep below the sand. Base camp is confirming it too, looks like the planet experienced massive ecological devastation, if it wasn’t already clear from orbit.”
“Yeah...” Sarah chuckled. “I did already guess that part. How about you, Dr. Matanzas?”
“I haven’t seen anything yet. Some of Dr. Valentines scans show what might be fossilized, or mummified remains, but there isn’t enough detail to get a guess of their physiology. If we go further into the structure, depending on how well ventilated it is, we might find some more well-preserved remains.”
“So, you definitely haven’t seen anything... living...?” Sarah asked. Horner responded before Matanzas could.
“Not even a little bit, to Jax’s dismay, I’m sure.” Horner said. If Jax had facial muscles, she would have given Horner a look that could kill.
“Yeah. Not even any cellular life.” Matanzas said. “And I don’t think that’s going to change as we go inside.”
Sarah felt a moment of relief, but the pitch-black depths into the structure were still imposing. The team waited for direction.
“Alright, let’s go.” Sarah said.
The team moved forward and down the sloping sand. Gradually, the darkness grew. By the time they stepped off the sand and onto solid ground, they could barely see anything. The black color of the walls and floor meant that the lights from their suits were nearly useless. The team had to switch their vision to reflective imaging to make out the complexities of the internal structure. As they continued, Sarah watched her wireless connection strength with the expedition base drop to zero. She was completely cut off, and was now entirely reliant on escorts that she had only just met. It wasn’t a great feeling.
“Still nothing?” Sarah asked.
“Not really.” Matanzas replied. “I mean, there’s a few spots on the floor around us that look like they could be the long dead remains of something, but after 10,000 plus years of decay, there’s not a whole lot I can do to verify it. What about you? What can you tell us from the architecture of this place?”
Sarah paused to take in the sight. They were still in the large corridor that was the entry point of the structure. The corridor was over a kilometer wide, several km tall, and even deeper still. There were many ramps built into the walls of the corridor, each one leading to a substructure or another corridor branching off the main path.
“From what I can gather, it seems the society was very technically oriented. It doesn’t seem as though they built much decoration into the Plasteel, possibly suggesting that they were a very utilitarian society. Though, perhaps any decoration could be on tapestries or other materials that faded with time.”
“With the red star and black algae and flora we’ve seen,” Dr. Matanzas said, “it seems that most life on this planet is fond of the infra-red spectrum, which could also explain the black material, but even switching to IR, I don’t see any markings or decorations. The creatures may not have vision at all.”
“The presence of a flat ground with most apertures accessible by ramp suggests that they were primarily ground dwelling creatures, but there are some substructures up higher that look like they could have been docks for larger vehicles.”
The team continued to converse and discuss their findings as they found them, while heading deeper into the megastructure. Security didn’t chime in directly, but Sarah could tell they were having their own conversations by the subtle head bobs and body language they used between the two of them. The team spent hours walking further in until they found the end of the entry corridor and had to finally break off into one of the substructures. The space was much more confined, but still comfortably open, if dark. The smaller corridors and rooms fit together nicely, but also turned into a more mazelike path. Sarah kept feeling as though they were going to get lost, and just as the fear of being entombed in an alien environment started to rise in her, she was reminded by Hugo that their progress was being mapped in real-time, and finding their way out was as simple as following a proverbial exit sign.
The deeper they went, the less eroded objects they were able to find until they started finding non-plasteel artifacts that were mostly intact. The team refrained from touching any of the objects directly, opting instead for photogrammetric scans, and marking them for recovery later. They knew if they stopped moving and inspected each object they were interested in, it would effectively stop their progress into the structure.
They did their best to avoid looking at the rooms and objects with a homocentric mindset, but some of the locations were starting to look more and more like places they recognized. The physical cohesion of the objects and surfaces went up, while the presence of oxygen in the atmosphere decreased as they went further into the depths. After moving their way through what appeared to be a large mess hall, they moved down an adjoining corridor with dozens of individual rooms connected to it. The team checked a few of the rooms together, finding the layout near identical for each one. After becoming comfortable with the pattern they were seeing, the team split up so they could more quickly investigate and map the rooms. Soon afterward, the voice of Jax echoed through the corridor.
“Hey, Meat! I’ve got something for you!” She yelled.
The rest of the team followed Jax’s path into the room she was occupying. Against one of the walls, on top of a wide raised surface lay a pile of dust, only barely holding a shape. For the most part, it was desiccated so extensively that it was unrecognizable except for a small portion to one side that caused the scientists to gasp.
“Is that...?” Sarah began but decided to let the biologist make her assessment first. Dr. Matanzas chimed in.
“That’s bone structure! It could be a cranium!” She said with excitement in her voice. She reached out to grab it like an overzealous child, but her training kicked in, and she pulled her hand away. “Don’t touch it,” she said, mostly to herself, “it’ll probably just crumble to dust. Don’t even breathe on it.”
Even though the scientists were wearing full environment suits, and their escorts didn’t even have lungs, everyone still held their breath as Matanzas scanned the remains. Sarah and Valentine watched as a 3D representation of the remains formed in their vision. They both fervently looked around the scan, even though neither of them could make heads or tails of what looked like a heap of dust to them. When Matanzas was satisfied with the fidelity of her scan, she joined in.
“So, I feel pretty confident that this part here is bone.” As she spoke, the parts of the scan she touched were highlighted in Sarah and Valentine’s vision. “Maybe not a cranium, but it could be a beak. Other than that, there really doesn’t appear to be much in the way of bones at all. Most of the dust seems like it could have been from a fabric or organic tissue. What we have here, it seems, is an invertebrate, possibly something like a cephalopod back on Old Earth.”
All three of the scientists were nearly giggling at the information, each of them already thinking of ways they could attach their names to the discovery. If Jax had eyes, she would have rolled them before making her way back into the corridor and continuing onward. Horner stepped outside of the room as well to stand guard. He was also interested in the discovery but felt the room to be a little too cramped for his 3-meter stature.
“I don’t imagine you can determine a cause of death from this, can you?” Valentine asked.
“No, not with the equipment I have now, at least not without any kind of certainty, but I think we can guess.” Matanzas said.
“The layout of these rooms and the larger chamber before makes me think that this could be a dormitory, or a barracks.” Sarah pulled up a map of what they had seen so far.
“Or maybe it’s an infirmary?” Valentine asked.
“Yeah, I suppose that’s a sensible place to put someone who’s dying. If it is an infirmary, I think we’ll likely find more bodies if we press on.” Sarah said, and both Matanzas and Valentine gestured in agreement. They continued moving as they conversed.
“I already mentioned ecological destruction earlier... I’d say these structures could have been Arks that they were building in preparation for the change in the climate, but something else happened, preventing them from sealing the doors or leaving, if these things are massive ships like I suspect.” Valentine said.
The scientists’ conversation continued for several more minutes. There was obviously no carrier signal this far into the structure, but even their short range digital communication was hindered by the species insistence on using Plasteel for every single interior wall. Sarah, in particular, first thought that it was a rookie design mistake, but remained open to the possibility that the species wasn’t reliant on radio communication. Instead, the science team opted to yell their conversation as they split up to continue their search.
Before long, just as they had suspected, they were able to confirm increasingly more remains. Within an hour after the first discovery, they had already collectively scanned over two dozen bodies. The more data they had; the more accurate Hugo’s mock-up became. They were very reminiscent of cephalopods with 6 digits. ‘Hexapod’ was the word they grabbed onto to describe the creature. Hugo’s real scale representation had the tentacles holding its shapely head up to appear a bit taller than Sarah. It had large eyes as black as its skin. A recognizable feeling was growing inside Sarah as the reality of the creature started to sink in. It wasn’t a good feeling.
Sarah generally liked when her imagination got the better of her, especially with Hugo doing what he could to make those imaginings into relative reality. She would have preferred to have similar imaginings with the Hexapod, and knew Hugo was likely already working on something, but Sarah’s brain instead decided to focus on her fears.
She imagined the creature lurking in the darkness, a dark so black that her cybernetically enhanced vision could barely penetrate it. She decided to remove the Hexapods image from her vision, but just as she did, she started hearing a faint sound coming from down the hallway, in the direction they were coming from. The sound gradually grew louder. When both Matanzas and Horner turned toward the noise, Sarah knew she wasn’t hallucinating, to her chagrin.
“Possible Contact, 6 O’Clock!” Horner shouted, taking a defensive stance between the scientists and the sound. Sarah was shoved to the side as Jax rushed down the hallway to stand next to Horner.
There was something large and loud coming through the complex directly toward them. The entire group held their breath, and those that had eyelids were squinting as hard as they could in an effort to cut through the darkness. The clatter continued to rise as the blood drained from Sarah’s face. She was shaking uncontrollably. She wondered if she needed to run, whether her body would even respond. As the team watched with bated breath, a blinding light came from the direction of the sound as something stepped into the corridor.
“Don’t move!” Horner shouted, his speakers at full volume and focused on the point of light. The sound was loud enough to shake the dust off the walls and floor, but before the wave of sound could hit the source of the light, another authoritative voice came over the radio.
“First Expedition Science Team, stay where you are!” Said the male voice. His voice was accompanied by obnoxious flashing banners in the team’s vision that mirrored what the man was saying. “This is a policing action by Expedition Security on the orders of the Apollon Security Commission.”
Both Horner and Jax relaxed their weapon arms as they realized the light was just a security team coming in behind them, with Horner giving a relieved sigh. He continued speaking with the other security team over a private channel, while Matanzas and Valentine laughed nervously and shook their heads.
“God, that scared the living shit out of me!” Valentine said.
“Yeah, no kidding.” Matanzas responded, “I probably should have hooked up my waste disposal system. The walk back is going to be uncomfortable.”
After the two laughed, and then groaned at each other, they turned to Sarah, only to find her laying limp on the floor.
“Sarah?” Valentine shouted. He shuffled over to her when he didn’t get a response, then tried again. “Hey, Sarah!” He said, tapping the side of her helmet.
With Matanzas’s help, Valentine turned Sarah over to lay on her back. Her face was blank and completely unresponsive. The two other scientists feared she was dead until they looked at the hard display on her arm, showing all her vitals to be perfectly normal.
“Hugo?” Matanzas called out and looked around, but again there was no response. She moved over to Horner. Her agitation was starting to come out as anger as she slapped Horner’s large metal arm. “Hey! What the hell is going on?” She asked. Horner was silent, so Matanzas got louder. “Hello!?”
“Step away, Meat!” Jax said, effortlessly pushing Matanzas away, then doing the same to Valentine.
“Apologies, Doctor.” Horner said. “It appears we need to cut this expedition short.”
“What? Why?” Valentine said, and Matanzas mirrored the sentiment with some irritated noises of her own.
“It appears that Dr. Sarah Donner is wanted on Apollon. We are to bring her back to the Expedition Base.” As Horner spoke, Jax picked Sarah up by her suit like she was a toddler in overalls and slung her over her shoulder. The way her body dangled was alarming to the tiny, mostly human scientists.
“Apollon?” Valentine asked. “She hasn’t been on Apollon in years, what could she possibly have done to warrant this?”
“Yeah! And it looks to me like you’ve used her cybernetics to lock her out of her own body. That’s a massive violation of bodily autonomy!”
“I agree, but it was a worm sent as part of the message. There’s nothing that can be done about it aside from getting her safely to Apollon. The faster we can get back, the easier that is going to be.” Horner said. He motioned for the scientists to move back down the corridor, nonverbally imparting that he can’t leave until they do.
Valentine and Matanzas started moving in a huff, none too happy about the sudden change in their plans.