“Squad two-two-seven arrived at destination. No resistance encountered. Waiting for go ahead.”

“Squad two-two-five heading to destination. No resistance. ETA two minutes.”

“Squad two-two-six heading to destination. No resistance encountered. ETA four minutes.”

Data feeds kept beaming up from the planet. Four hundred thirty-eight thousand troops split in a hundred and seven battalions were sending constant bursts of data every second: location coordinates, biological status, environment analysis, visual and audio feed, and everything else command considered vital.

“Still keeping track of things on the ground?” Captain Gibraltar asked from his quarters.

“Just about,” I replied, isolating the communications feed from the usual info dump.

The fighting had ended three hours ago in a decisive victory for humanity. The Cassandrian presence, as little as it was, had all but been eliminated, leaving the ground forces with the tedious task of securing whatever hotspots remained and preparing the planet for rapid colonization. The effort was vital for the war effort, bringing another contested star system under human control. It was also unimaginably unremarkable. I would much rather be off to the next battle than having to babysit communications like a redundant processing core.

“Have fun.” I heard him yawn. “I’m going to sleep. Handle things for me.”

“Dream safely,” I said, the usual joke, and reclassified my feeds.

The platoon I had been following had finished their task, rendering them strategically unimportant. From here on, they’d remain in their position until the shuttles arrived to pick them up. Another potential hotspot had been secured, reducing the total to a thousand and fifty-one. So far the casualties were slightly greater than expected, but within acceptable limits. The majority dead were new, fresh into the battlefield, although there were some that I’d transported before. I had one of my subroutines compose a few lines to be added to the official condolence letters, then sent out a new swarm of mini-sats to the planet.

Aurie had already flooded most of the atmosphere with her own, assuming monitoring of the significant parts of the planet. That annoyed me slightly. I never liked pushy ships, and the Aurora Borealis was just that. For someone her age, I’d have expected a little less zeal.

“Mika Straza, private, platoon forty-two-nine, life signs ended.”

“Juno Suda, private, platoon forty-two-nine, life signs ended.”

“Bion Azul, private, platoon forty-two-nine, life signs ended.”

“Michael Azul, private, platoon forty-two-nine, life signs ended.”

“Ray Monchy, corporal, platoon forty-two-nine, life signs ended.”

A burst of death notifications came through, each with the same time stamp. Immediately, I went through the video archive of the five. The squad had been sweeping a low risk zone without incident, when all of them had died for no apparent reason. No hostile forces were in the area, there was no explosion, radiation spike, or any other conventional attack.

“Captain, we’ve got five UADs,” I said in his quarters bypassing the privacy settings. Two of the mini-sats had reached the area and started a preliminary surface scan. Seconds later, two more squads of the same platoon blinked out. “Make that seventeen.”

“Send me the data feed,” Captain Gibraltar ordered. “Go to yellow and tell bridge I’ll be there.”

“Yellow alert engaged.” I sent a mass message to all quarters. As I did, the data archives of the entire platoon became locked with a fleet command level encryption. “And we’ve been locked out. Do you want me to send a permission request to command?”

“Go ahead.” My captain left his quarters. I could see him on my internal scanners rushing towards the bridge in his pajamas. “Monitor the area. I want to know if that thing spreads!”

“Already on it.” I redirected a quarter of my mini-sats. “Sending info to ground command to—”

Before I could finish, a priority transmission came from the surface marking the entire area as a quarantine zone. Someone down there had taken the initiative and acted. Most probably the ground force had brought a multi-core military system with them on the planet. That was all fine and good, even if their level of secrecy and paranoia annoyed me. They could have at least kept me in the loop.

“Did you give the quarantine order?” Captain Gibraltar sat in his command chair. Other members of the command crew were rushing in, catching up to the latest events.

“That’s a big negative.” I checked who had issued the order. There was no name on file, but the authority permission was marked as Black ICE Fleet Intelligence. “Looks like it’s on BICEFI’s orders.”

“Shit!”

I couldn’t agree more. If there was something that ships and humans could agree on, it was that no one liked when Black ICE got involved. From what I knew—based on my clearance level—they weren’t exactly part of fleet intelligence. In terms of authority, fleet intelligence reported to them, as did pretty much everyone else. They also had the authority to purge any file and memory. I couldn’t even be sure if I had worked with them in the past or not.

All feeds from the quarantine zone abruptly ceased. Shortly after, my mini-sats were given a control override, moving them out of the area. I guess that explains why there was a multi-core on the planet.

“It’s all you now, Captain,” I said. Since BICEFI was involved, only he had the authority to determine the course of action.

For thirty-seven seconds, no one said a word. Everyone turned to the captain for an order, but he wasn’t giving it. Data feeds kept beaming from the planet. So far, there weren’t any other quarantine zones or unexplained anomalous deaths.

“Create a ten mile buffer zone around the quarantined area,” the captain said at last. “If anyone enters, I want you to guide him away, overriding any current orders. If there are any issues, let them contact me using normal channels.”

“Okay.” I moved my mini-sats into position. “Can I end the yellow alert?”

“No.” The captain shook his head. “Not until we’re done with the mission.”

* * *

“I’m at the site. I can see the target marker,” I said, keeping my visor up with one hand. “ETA five minutes, give or take two.”

I hated being so unspecific, but everything considered this was a pretty good estimate. When I was first told I was going down on the surface, I was looking forward to it. That was before I found out the protection suit was older than Prometheus and a size and half too big. He had explained that my proper suit was in the process of being made, but due to the priority order and Prometheus devoting all his processing power to more important tasks, I had to use a stand-in.

The suit—for lack of a better word—was an old military issue adjusted to current fleet standards and protocols. Unfortunately, since no one had conceived a ship wearing it, it was completely incapable of handling my bio readings. And again, thanks to the priority order, the first time someone became aware of this was after the landing pod had launched.

“No changes in reading of the area,” Prometheus said. Thanks to the fleet’s bureaucratic requirements, he had been forced to use audio to converse with me for the sake of archive keeping. I welcomed the change. “What’s your status?”

“It would be a lot better if I didn’t have to keep holding my helmet,” I allowed myself a snarky remark.

“Your personalized suit will be ready for your next drop,” Prometheus grumbled. “Continue to the target marker and don’t forget to get soil samples every hundred meters.”

How could I forget? I said to myself. The gathering kit was so heavy it was hurting my shoulder, even in this gravity. Strictly speaking, I didn’t see any point in my gathering samples at this stage of the mission. Prometheus had enough machines and exos to take care of it himself. Not many satellites, though. When I was a ship, I would have had the entire sky covered in mini-sats streaming a constant feed to me. Maybe they weren’t as complex as the probes Prometheus was using, but for large areas, quantity was preferable to quality.

I paused for a moment and looked around. The landscape was as grayish-beige as the simulated reality had suggested. It was as if I was walking in a bucket of ash with half-burned plastic shards scattered about. At least I could feel it crunch under my feet. There was something magical experiencing this after so many weeks in a sterile environment; it made me feel calm, even though I was wearing two sets of shoes right now. And then there was the sky.

If there was an area that the simulated reality had gotten things completely wrong, it was sky colour. Based on the planet’s thin atmosphere and particle composition, it was supposed to be a dull rusty-beige. Instead, it was citrine orange, blending quite well with the darker landscape colours. Sev’s granddaughter would have appreciated it, and so would have Cass. Both of them should have found a vocation in art.

“I’m collecting the first sample.” I put the gathering kit on the ground.

As I took out one of the large metal cylinders, I went through the instructions in my head. The only times I’d seen someone use this was when checking for contaminants in a combat zone. Back then, the results were directly beamed to me to be analyzed. Here, things were different. Gently, I removed the outer casing of the cylinder and pushed it into the sand until the visual indicator on the side flashed green. Giving it a few seconds, I took it out.

Nice to know I’m not the oldest thing on this mission. I smiled and put it back in the kit.

“Prometheus.” I picked up the gathering kit, placing the strap on my unhurt shoulder. “What do I do when I get to the symbol?”

“Analyze it.” His reply didn’t delay. “But without physical contact. You don’t have the authority or the preparation.”

“No one had the preparation.” I walked on. “Or do I just sit and wait for the major’s exo to land?”

“What do you want me to say?” Prometheus almost growled at me. “This wasn’t exactly expected. You know the odds of finding third contact!”

“I do. That’s why I’d like to make a suggestion.”

“I’ll consider it,” the ship conceded. “After I discuss it with my captain.”

An answer I expected. I had hoped he’d be a bit more open to suggestions, considering his lack of experience. Then again, he was a science ship.

A few hundred meters later I stopped to take a second sample. Prometheus’ instructions had been for me to take one each time I halved the distance until I ran out of sample cylinders. Neither of us could be sure of the reason, most likely a safeguard in case something happened to me before I reached the symbol. The entire site had been thoroughly scanned and analyzed, yet one never knew when dealing with the unknown. Suffering a UAD wasn’t as uncommon as people tended to think. Back during the war, I had witnessed two thousand and eleven such cases, all sealed and unexplained till today. Technology might have improved in the last century, but so did the likelihood of things going wrong.

The crystal cluster was less than twenty meters from the spot I took the last soil sample. I finished quickly, then left the kit on the ground, taking only a wave-analyzer. After all, it was Prometheus’ own fault for telling me to “analyze” the symbol. Technically, I wasn’t going to touch it, just the crystal that enveloped it.

Old habits die hard, I guess. Not even a full cadet and I’m already getting myself in trouble. Sev was right. I really hadn’t changed that much.

The chunk of crystal was much more opaque than it seemed in Simulated Reality, to the point that the symbol wasn’t immediately visible. In all other aspects, the this site was comparable to the other two I’d been to: the shard, the sand, and the complete lack of anything else of interest. At this moment, I would very much appreciated having a weapon. As my first captain said, “there’s nothing more remarkable than the lack of remarkable features,” and right now I was looking at just that. A hidden temple—as was present in all fantasy series—would be far less conspicuous than the deliberate lack of anything artificial. Either this was the greatest coincidence ever seen, or I was missing something.

What aren’t you telling me? I rubbed my glove against the hard surface.

“How long before the next pod lands?” I asked, pointing the wave analyzer at the shard.

“There has been a minor setback,” Prometheus almost hissed. “Estimated arrival is two hours fifteen. Approximately.”

“What happened?” The mineral composure of the crystal was complete: quartz, as expected. The symbol within, however was completely different. “Mechanical issues?” I reset the device and took a new reading.

“Differences of opinion. It seems the number of volunteers to go down exceeds the amount of available exos.”

“Mhm.” I couldn’t care less about crew politics, not when I was staring at such improbable readings. “Prometheus, please check something for me. The mineral composition of the crystals is quartz, right?”

“Based on the readings that’s correct,” he confirmed.

“And there are traces of oxygen in the atmosphere?” I circled the crystal and took another reading.

“Faint. Enough to merit a 0.43 life-index. Why?”

“Potentially enough for quartz to form, then.” I mused. “I think I managed to analyze the symbols within the quartz. Any guesses?” Prometheus remained silent. “It’s cobalt. Very high purity if the readings are correct. I’d say that’s quite interesting. Hundreds of cobalt shapes locked in quartz. I bet your crew is going insane right now.”

No answer. Maybe I should have asked permission before scanning.

“Don’t worry, I just used a wave scanner. I didn’t harm the artifact in the quartz crystal.” Still nothing. For a science ship, Prometheus could be illogically stubborn. “Prometheus, you need to relax a bit. The mission is proceeding fine.”

Prometheus? I asked directly. No response. Either he was blocking me, or there was some interference. Hello? This is cadet Elcy, requesting further orders. I triggered the emergency signal sequence. Any ship capable of receiving this was obliged to respond. Yet Prometheus still didn’t.

I waited for a few seconds longer, then activated the emergency beacon in my suit. The crude binary signal pinged in my core. Thirty seconds passed. Then thirty more. I looked at the sky in the hopes to see any trace of the ship or his satellite probes. At this point, the only thing I could do was wait and hope that at some point someone would respond... before my oxygen supplies ran out.