The Expedition to Styx: Part 1

Dark gray clouds of ash swirled in chaotic patterns through the atmosphere of Styx, Coralende's volcanic moon, hiding its surface. Red lightning storms flashed through the swirling clouds. An immense field of stars against the void stood behind it, creating a background for the drama raging on the above the planet's surface. Unusually, a deep red glowing spot was forming on the southeast side of the moon, emanating from somewhere on the surface.

Out of the thousand stars in the background, a handful of them were moving. These tiny points of light were the task force of Foggistani starships that had been dispatched to investigate the moon's glowing red anomaly. There were thirteen of them, long and gray vessels whose metallic solidness stood in stark contrast to the emptiness around them. Together they represented some of humanity's best technology - not just in the form of the interstellar drives that powered them, but in the institutions and beliefs that had spurred a million people separated by light-year distances to work together to send them there. The three thousand people who crewed the ships believed, at least, that their work was an example of what man's powers of reasoning and cooperation could accomplish even in the worst of environments. The Commonwealth was leading humanity out of its self-inflicted dark age, and they were at the forefront of the march.

On the bridge of the starship Platinum, the assembled crew was busy making preparations. The bridge itself was a mass of monitors, lights, and computer consoles, and twenty or thirty crew members - the command staff - was reading information from the monitors, typing into keyboards, speaking into headsets, or discussing printouts with each other. They projected an air of competence and rapid precision; most of them had worked their entire lives for the opportunity to prove themselves on a military ship, and now, for the first time, they were going to see real action. It was the closest any Foggistani warship had come to real danger in hundreds of years. It should come as no surprise, then, that the surface of vigorous self-confidence was intermingled with an undercurrent of fear. They were investigating an anomaly... but who knew what was behind the red spot? Could the same power that had turned the inhabitants of the Green City into listless, passive zombies do the same to them? Why hadn't it already? Were they coming to investigate... or was something else investigating them?