Amethyst Planet

Pulsar Sky System

Grace had been trying to make her way back to the surface for what felt like days, she hadn’t found another lead in her quest to escape these underground passages and had passed again through the captain’s tomb to continue through the brown clay-coloured corridors. Despair was kicking in.

“Hello,” she called out. “Mysterious historical figure man? I could really use your help roundabout now,” she shouted, hoping the strange figure would make himself appear and guide her back to the surface.

So far, it hadn’t been a success. There were no obvious markings on the walls, either for directions out of this place or to find one’s way around within it. Though she considered this a smart move, considering it was a military complex designed to resist enemy troops.

With only the light from her slate leading the way, with the digital breadcrumbs, the system she had programmed for tracing her steps, not appearing to show her a clear route, instead constantly overlapping and repeating on itself.

There were still illuminations powered by the generator, but apprehension rose in the pit of her stomach. She hoped that she could get out sooner rather than later, as it was feeling ever more like a confined space, one she would not like to experience in total darkness.

This had really not been her month. Between getting stranded on the SS Nomadic, the time spent in the escape pod, and now, underneath an alien world, life had been a turn-up for the books. Grace yearned for open fields, promising herself she’d hit some countryside as soon as the chance came.

She stopped for a moment, her back to the wall and slowly slid down, lowering herself to the floor. Her legs were feeling tired. She wasn’t sure how long she’d been doing this for. Days certainly. More maybe. It was starting to feel hopeless.

Trying to pull herself out of the growing malaise, she studied the map. It indicated, as it always did, that she was going the right way based on the last signals from her digital breadcrumbs. Frustration grew, however smart the digital breadcrumbs had been, now she their failure to get her out of here just added to her woes.

Remembering a passageway heading off in another direction five or ten minutes back. She pondered over whether to double back. Instead, she pressed on the way she was going, getting to her feet and continuing through the tunnels.

Eventually, the tunnel ahead had a newly formed blockage, and she realised she had indeed come back to the place where the path had caved in. At least she was not completely lost. Instead, she squeezed past the cave-in, and on down the corridor to a lower level, hoping it would lead her to some way of accessing the higher-level passages. The map on her tablet showed that the passage continued for some time, and she took a branching passage to her left.

“Really?” she shouted. “Can you not help me out of this one? You seem to think my help was important to you. How am I supposed to do that if I’m stuck down here?” she yelled. “We are mortal. If we don’t eat and drink, we are a limited resource,” she added, trying not to think just how hungry she had got. The planet did not seem to have much in the way to offer for food. She couldn't even remember seeing a vending machine on their way through the starport. “A Starport that doesn’t even have snacks?” she wondered aloud. Wondering what state the food in a vending machine would even be in after a hundred and fifty years, she chuckled to herself. “It couldn’t be any worse than the usual starport food.”

The path continued down, and she hoped that there would be some stairs around the next corner. As she had for thirty minutes straight now, She turned the next corner to find more corridors branching off. Stopping to consult her slate, she decided the middle one could be the best route.

Grace continued down the halls. She was still hoping there would be an obvious way to get higher to the surface. Her slate beeped, the battery indicator low as she searched for this would be a serious problem in a short amount of time.

She pressed on and out the murk, right in front of her, fixed to the cave wall, was a ladder and she could make it up to the floor above. It was fixed to the wall, with metal struts jutting out and a small hatch in the ceiling with just enough space for her to make her way through. Grace pushed reached out and pushed the hatch, using her hands to firmly pull herself up to the next level.

Grace quickly realised they came through this way on their way in, which meant she must be near the initial hatch they used. Pushing on, urgency spurred by the prospect of escaping the tunnels coupled with her slate’s low power, Grace was worried about how long the tablet would last. Checking the map, she saw she was heading in the right direction back towards the surface.

Relief washed through her, the digital breadcrumbs had worked perfectly, the next door she entered was familiar to her. It had the weapons interface she had seen previously and also offered a communications system. She looked over the control options. She wasn’t sure why they would be in English, but she wondered if their new friend hadn’t had some part to play in that. The compound still had power, it wasn’t likely but was there a way to recharge her slate?

Nothing presented itself, so she decided to push on through and head back to the surface. In the corridors, she made a point to stick close to the walls to avoid another cave in, knowing what had happened previously.

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Suddenly, daylight appeared up ahead. She had found the entrance hatch. The cool air was so welcome on her face as she found herself back under the sky in the ruins of the Amethyst city. Grace slumped to the ground and sat there. She pulled out her slate and threw it to the ground, its backup solar capacity kicking in and starting its recharge cycle.

She’d managed to get out of the tunnel complex. Now what? The Trafalgar had returned to the cluster and Mary Rose would have already left the system.

Grace needed a contingency plan. She had hoped whatever her grand discovery was to be; it was to be found in the tunnels. She was regretting her decision to stay here. She sat in the rubble and looked at the sky. There was a slight pink tint to it, pretty in its way and unlike any of the other worlds Grace had visited.

She was quite taken by the place. If it hadn’t been for all the needless destruction, it would have been quite picturesque, and she was sure that in the future, it could be again. She was ever the optimist. She wasn’t quite sure where that streak in her came from, but considering all she had been through recently and the fact she was still alive, it must be justified.

Grace kicked back and tried to make a plan for what to do next. She ran an analysis of everything in the immediate vicinity and had it saved to local storage for the mapping system so she could find her way in low-power mode. That was smart.

Grace decided that the best thing to do would be to signal Chase, and the way to do that would be in the communications room she had just passed through. The language phrase card she had previously scanned on her slate applied to the control readout, and she could more or less make out the various controls. She decided to send a transmission addressed to the Trafalgar in the direction of the cluster.

She powered up the controls and began the transmission, holding out for the chance it might get through.

“Battleship Trafalgar, this is Grace Dakota. I have made an urgent discovery that needs your immediate attention. I say again, this is Grace Dakota to the battleship Trafalgar. I have made an urgent discovery. Please respond.”

She clicked off the transmission and waited for any sign of acknowledgement. She let the channel play, the static crackling on the airwaves as she waited. The hope was they could make use of what she had found and therefore immediately return to pick her up. If she had any sense, she would have simply listed this on the open market, but sense was long gone. She was deep into whatever this was—whoever was attacking the cluster and whatever the mysterious stranger in the Napoleonic garb was. It was suddenly her problem to deal with, Unwanted but hers.

She sat back in the chair and hoped someone would be able to get a reply to her.

Suddenly, a voice came back. She could not make out exactly what it was saying through the static. She tried to tune the signal tighter but had no luck getting a clear response. Grace attempted to boost the power to the communication systems and then waited to see if it repeated. She looked across the other control desks. They were large units, about a metre long with several dozen dials on each. Grace was surprised that a technology-rich culture such as the Amethyst was still using physical dials rather than touchscreens, but considering this was an emergency war room, it was more than likely a redundancy to keep systems simple and functional.

They were in different positions, allowing multiple users access to the communications room, but studying the readouts with the help of her re-powered slate, she found one of the options had been to record any incoming transmissions.

Playing back the message again she could make out two words through the distortion. It said:

“Grace Dakota.” That didn’t help much. She couldn’t recognise the voice; whilst it could have been a member of the Trafalgar’s crew, it was just as likely to have been someone simply listening to the transmission. The fact that they were repeating the same words back didn’t even indicate if the message had been understood. They could, for all Grace knew, have been repeating what they had heard. That was quite frustrating.

She decided to give it one last try.

“Battleship Trafalgar,” she said, “this is Grace Dakota. Do you read? I require urgent assistance. I have matters that will aid you in your current mission.” She clicked the transmitter off and waited, hoping it would be enough to get her message out. They needed to know what she had found; she could hardly believed it herself. Hopefully, their team of archaeologists would have a better understanding of how to make it work.

The system was now empty of all human life apart from Grace Dakota, the most remote human being that ever lived. She had an entire world to herself, an entire solar system. Though there was still the Trafalgar’s shuttle in the starport; left centuries before by the original crew's descendants. Perhaps she could still get that working. She wasn’t sure—it had been in a terrible shape, but it was good to know it might be an option. The lights on the comm unit offered no indication of a reply to her transmission.

Then something lit up across the board.