The Expedition to Styx: Part 2

The bridge of the starship Platinum.

In part 1, the 12-ship Foggistani task force was moving into position around Corneria's moon of Styx, and the crew on the bridge of the starship Platinum was busy making preparations for the investigation of the moon's surface. Now, the ships are in position, but figuring out what is happening on the ground is more complicated than they had anticipated.

* * *

Cyril Zane, the commander of the Platinum, glanced at his watch. There were six minutes left until the first probe was due to reemerge from the atmosphere. It was an unconventional method of getting information on the surface of Styx, but very little was conventional about this expedition.

He replayed the conversation in his mind. "The ash clouds should be penetrable by close-range scans, but they just aren't getting through," the science officer had said. "The chemicals that could produce that effect shouldn't be in Styx's atmosphere."

Cyril had glanced at his Executive Officer, Ain Soll, before responding. "So it's definitely not a natural phenomenon?"

"No, it shouldn't be possible. Not based on our previous samples of the planet's composition."

"And how old is that data?"

"Nearly forty years. Not too long after we first came to this solar system. I suppose no one ever saw the need to go back to Styx."

"So do you think someone intentionally changed the atmosphere? To obscure what's happening on the moon?"

"I don't know what else it could be. What frightens me, though, is that the facilities and the energy you would need to produce that kind of effect can't be built overnight. Whoever is on that moon has been there for many, many years. Decades, even."

Everyone had paused for a moment, taking in the full significance of that idea. "So they'll be prepared for our arrival," said Ain. "The Admiral was right to insist on so many precautions." Admiral Jagesic was not one to intervene much in the responsibilities of his subordinates; he was reserved in the senior staff meetings, preferring to let others debate and guide the consensus, and tended to leave most of the decisions of running the fleet to other senior officers. For this operation, however, he had asserted his role as the commander of the fleet, being intensely concerned with the details, exhaustively questioning everyone and sometimes interrupting and taking control of meetings on strategy.

Admiral Jagesic is not relevant at the moment, Cyril thought, and refocused himself on the present. He had been chosen as one of the officers for the expeditionary fleet because of his experience as the manager of a dangerous mining operation--he understood people, he understood complex systems, and he knew how to react quickly to dangerous situations. At this moment, he felt the same sense of heightened awareness that he did when something was wrong in the mines, and he felt the same need to control the situation, ensure that everything that could go wrong was locked down. He pressed several buttons on the communicator interface on his sleeve, and after a few seconds, he heard a female voice in his ear. "Commander?"

This was Maia Dameon, the Platinum's chief psychic officer. She didn't work on the bridge; her "post" was floating inside a tank of water. It was supposed to minimize sensory input, so she could focus on stimuli outside the range of normal human perception. Cyril found that she often had something insightful to say in difficult situations--maybe all the time floating in the tank gave her time to think--and he wanted her opinion. "Hello, Maia. There's a lull in the action right now, and I wanted to hear your thoughts."

"My thoughts..." Maia was silent for a moment, and Cyril watched his surroundings. A communications officer across the bridge was speaking quickly with her counterpart on another ship. A nervous looking aide moved quickly with a set of computer printouts. Blue computer light bathed the metallic surfaces of the floors and consoles. "We still can't hear anything on the surface," Maia eventually said. "Not even faint traces of life. It's like a black hole, and it bothers me. I told you before that the people might just be too far away, too few, for us to feel them. Even with the psychic anchor." Maia was not the only psychic officer on the ship, merely the leader; with the psychic anchor, they could join their powers together to amplify them. "But now that we know someone is intentionally modifying the atmosphere, I feel more and more like the silence we hear is artificial."

"I thought obscuring psychic resonances was impossible."

"Well, no one has ever figured out how to do it. Theoretically, it might be possible... but it's far beyond our current level of knowledge."

Several links came together in Cyril's brain, and he didn't like what they implied.

"So not only are we dealing with people who have had a major operation on Styx for years before we got here, but they might even have technologies that are far ahead of Foggistani knowledge?"

"If they really are obscuring psychic resonances, then yes. That technology would be way beyond the reach of any of the known human civilizations. Now, I can't say anything for sure. Maybe our government has been conducting secret research and not telling anyone. Maybe the whole operation down there is robotic..."

But Maia didn't believe either of those things. Cyril could hear it in her voice. "Or maybe we're dealing with something we've never encountered before."

"Yes, maybe. Or maybe we just haven't met in a very, very long time."

At that moment, an aide came to command Cyril's attention. "Sir, you're requested at the communcations block--the probes are failing to respond properly."

"I have to go, Maia. Thanks for your assessment."

"Absolutely, sir."

"All right." Cyril clicked off the communicator link. "Thank you," he said to the aide, and moved over to the block of communications consoles. Ain Soll was looking over the shoulder of one of the comm officers, his brow furrowed and his expression concerned. "What's the situation?" asked Cyril.

"We're not seeing the probes on our screens," said Ain. "It's like they're coming back late. Don't know why. Thought you should know."

This new piece of information only added to Cyril's growing sense of danger.