When the planetoids of the Kuiper Belt clustered, as they were now and would be for the next two years or so, it was known as a “Kuiper Cluster Event”. During these times, the Belt felt more alive, as most of the interplanetary trading, seminars, and personnel repositioning took place during these times. NRT and especially RPT ships could easily buzz from planet to planet. It was an effective time for travel, and was part of the reason that Yu could get to Arrokoth so easily.

Her ship had set down in the hangar bay, near the observatory. She was thankful the walk would be short. Departing her ship, she pulled up her PDA and typed a message to Serena, saying: Just landed on Arrokoth. Headed to the observatory now.

A small bubble with dots in it appeared; Serena was typing. Her response then came through, saying, Be safe. Keep me informed on what you find.

I will, she said, returning the PDA to her breast pocket. Then, looking around, she spotted the substructure that led deeper into Arrokoth, and made her way to it. Here was a glass ringed reception area, with a door to the left of it, set into the stone. She approached the man working behind the glass, flashed her PDA and credentials, and without a word and with hardly a glance, the man pressed a button and opened the doors for her.

She grumbled, but left it at that, turning and heading for the doors. Once in the belly of the planetoid, she made her way through to the observatory, which was just a bit away from the hangar. Her PDA dinged again.

As she walked she pulled it out and read the message from Serena.

Commander Xiao just sent me a message.

Yu stopped in the hallway, stepping off to the side to let a pair of white-clad scientists past as she formulated a response. What did he want?

He wants a meeting, she said. Idk what for.

Some strange, etheric unease settled into Yu’s stomach. When?

Today.

Soon?

Yes, was her response.

Yu thought for a moment. She wasn’t sure what her father wanted with her assistant, but given the recent transmission from Sedna, and that Serena was one of the few who knew of it, she had a gut feeling this wasn’t good.

Be careful. Let me know when you’re going in to see him.

Serena typed out, I will.

Then, putting her PDA away, Yu continued down the corridor, until she reached the square room that led to the observatory. Off to the side was the Arrokoth Museum of Interstellar Sciences, filled to the brim with displays and diagrams of ships, sciences, and discoveries. There was even a planetarium here, rumored to be one of the most marvelous planetary displays in the Solar System. She stared at it for a moment, tempted to wander in. It wasn’t every day she got to come to Arrokoth, she thought, but she was here for a reason. Maybe she’d catch it on the way out.

She walked up to the doors that led to the observatory proper, where a soldier stood watch. She nodded to him and pressed her PDA to the scanner by the door, and with a small ding, it opened, allowing her inside.

And the inside was beautiful. A field of stars, masterfully painted to mimic the beauty of space, lined the walls, and the ceiling was a glass dome that offered an exquisite view of the real thing. And this was just the foyer. There was another dome just past this one, a metal dome with a large telescope jutting down from the ceiling, and the two were connected by a wide, open bay blast door. Here in the first room were multiple displays, a museum in its own right, of old space suits, and star maps, and photos of galaxies, quasars, and black holes that early scientists and astronomers could only dream of seeing.

Her PDA chimed again. She checked it.

He wants me there now, Serena said. I’m headed his way.

She paused. Be careful. I don’t think he’s well.

I will be.

She tucked the PDA away and headed to the observatory proper.

Here, several people, all in white jumpsuits, were scattered about at terminals and desks, taking readings from the telescope, making adjustments, and taking pictures. She looked around, and caught the eye of who appeared to be running the whole operation.

The man, older, with a gray beard and short salt-and-pepper hair, approached her, saying, “Hello miss, can I help you with something?”

She eyed him, and nodded. “I am Director Yu Solarum,” she said, flashing her PDA and the credentials on its screen to him. “I need to use your telescope.”

This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.

He seemed taken aback. “Director! What an unexpected surprise. What do you need the telescope for?”

“I just need to see something.”

“Well,” he said, directing her to a chair on a swivel at the base of the telescope, “you’re welcome to it. We’ve been taking readings of the Cosmic Microwave Background all day, but we’re in a lull right now, just processing data, so you can help yourself if you’d like. Just let me know what you’re looking for and I’ll train the telescope on it for you.”

“No need,” she said, waving a hand. “I’ve done my research, and I’ve been playing with telescopes all my life. I’ll handle it. But thank you.”

“Are you sure?” he asked, casting her an unsure glance. “It’s a complex machine.”

She nodded. “I’m sure.”

With a shrug, the man let her sit in the chair and walked away. Settling in, she pulled up the computer beside it, which was also attached to the telescope. There was a prompt bar, where she input coordinates, and waited as the whole telescope, dome and chair and computer and all, began to slowly turn to the left.

Then, it stopped, and tilted upwards by fourteen degrees, before making another micro adjustment or two. Satisfied, she leaned in and peered through the binocular scope before her, staring out into the vast reaches of space.

At first, she could only see stars, a massive field of them. She turned the telescope manually with the controls before her, making small adjustments as she searched. Cranking a little dial, she zoomed in lightly, before finding what she was looking for. It was a small black dot amongst a sea of lights. It was Sedna.

She zoomed in more, and more, pulling the planet closer into view. Biting her lip, she continued to magnify the telescope, trying to make the picture clearer. But just before she could get a good look at the planet, the telescope’s view went completely black, and the computer chirped beside her.

Leaning out, she looked at the terminal. A warning message flashed on the screen, saying, Warning: AI has determined you are enhancing a restricted region of TerraGov space. Shutdown protocols initiated.

Squinting, she turned to see that the man she’d spoken to before was now staring at her intently. He walked up to her and examined the computer, and then, turning to her, said, “Director. You were trying to see Sedna.”

She nodded intently. “I was. Why can’t I?”

The man shuffled uncomfortably. “The AI here has been reprogrammed to detect the planet’s location. Orders from high up the chain are to avoid looking at the planet,” he said, cracking his knuckles nervously. “I don’t know why, nor do any of us really. But the telescope shuts down if it detects us trying to view Sedna.”

“That won’t do,” she said, frowning. She took out her PDA and pulled on the linking cord built into its bottom right corner, plugging it into a port on the computer. Then, she went to the command prompt at the bottom, and input her PDN, as well as the universal system override command she’d received when she’d taken the position as Director.

The AI chimed again. Credentials rejected.

She blinked. It had rejected her. Frowning, she thought for a moment. The order to block any viewing of Sedna must’ve come from her father, then. She sat back and clasped her hands, chewing on that.

Something big was in the works.

Her PDA chimed again.

Going in now. Wish me luck, Serena texted.

Good luck, she texted back.

Then, turning to the foreman of the observatory, she said, “What is the last picture we have from Sedna?”

He frowned. “Hard to say. We came in one day to find that almost all of our pictures from Sedna had been wiped.”

Then, the man turned and walked over to a holoterminal and began to type at the keyboard. Yu stood and joined him, looking over his shoulder as he began to pull up directories and sift through them.

“I’m not sure we have many left in our main directories,” he said, looking at the keyboard, then the screen. “But, we do have local backups of files. These too were wiped, but… if I go here, in the manifold directory, I might be able to access some of our ‘hidden’ files.”

“Hidden?” Yu asked, looking down at him with a sharp, raised eyebrow.

He looked up at her and sunk a bit, saying, “Yes, hidden. But not in the sense that you might think. See, the AI takes snapshots of data points and sets based off of the images we receive through the telescope, storing technical information that can be rendered into a new image using said artificial intelligence. There’s just one problem.”

“And that is?”

Standing up straight now, he pressed the ‘enter’ key, bringing up a command prompt on the screen. Then, he turned and looked her in the eye, saying, “It requires accesses that we don’t have. Accesses like yours.”

Understanding illuminated her eyes with a spark. “I see,” she said, leaning in and typing in her PDN and password. Then, the terminal blinked, and a set of files appeared on the holoscreen. They were all numbers and letters, with dates attached to them. But… the more she looked, the more she recognized some of the numbers as coordinate sets, and as it so happened, some of them matched up perfectly with the coordinates she had just put into the telescope.

“How do I do this?” she asked.

The man looked over her shoulder. “Hold down the control key, and select the data points that are relevant. Then, all you have to do is push enter, and the computer will try and render an image based on the files.”

She did so, selecting five files that all matched her coordinate data, and then, pushed enter. A window appeared on the screen, and then, an image loaded. Before her was a vibrant crimson sphere, covered in a sea of red dust. The dust was sprinkled on top of segmented, man-made structures, and covered several ships on dusty landing pads. The whole place was blasted with the scarlet grain.

As she examined the photo, other astronomers began to peer over her shoulder, desperately curious. She turned to the foreman. “This is Sedna?”

“It… appears to be,” he said. “But the tholins, they’re everywhere.”

“Tholins?”

He nodded. “Organic compounds that become such through chemical processes involving solar radiation. They were thick on Sedna before, but this… is unprecedented. They’re on top of the structures, and ships. This suggests that they are higher in concentration than we had previously thought.”

Yu checked the date on the data. It was from 2234, around April. Old, but not useless. She stood up tall and thanked the foreman, before quietly walking out of the observatory, leaving behind a gaggle of curious, excited scientists, all eager for their chance to look at, for the first time in several years, the mysterious planet of Sedna.

As she stepped back out into the foyer, she checked her PDA again.

Serena hadn’t opened her message.

Is everything okay, she texted.

Then, a small checkmark appeared at the bottom, indicating that her message was read. She waited for a minute, expecting the little typing bubble to appear, but it did not. After a few minutes had passed, she began to realize that she would not be getting a response. Her stomach sank. Something was wrong.

Serena?

This time, no checkmark appeared. That was unlike her. Usually, Serena responded to Yu immediately, even if just to ask her to hold on for a moment. A weight setting down on her chest, Yu put her PDA away, and made for the hangar.

She needed to return to Dysnomia, and swiftly.

Something was very, very wrong.