Twenty years ago…

FSV Satoshi [Deep Space Explorer]

In a system, far, far away from Earth, the entry-burst of a Federation-ship bathed a small segment of the sky in radiation as it broke through the barrier between hyperspace and real-space. And then, silence, while the ship and its crew were busy listening, interpreting the light that started hitting their passive sensors, telling them about the past, a past that was the present when the light started its journey.

“Sir, we have spotted a planet in the habitable zone. No artificially modulated radiation detectable. Requesting permission to use active scanning.” the science officer, Lieutenant Robert, called out.

“Permission granted. Helmsman, hold our position, relative to primary.” The Captain granted the request, gathering information in the darkness of space was their job after all. Shortly afterwards, the ship sent out a strong pulse on multiple frequencies, announcing its presence to everyone who might have missed the entry-burst. But at the same time, the known characteristics of the pulse allow for accurate readings of their surrounding.

Again, tense silence ruled while everyone had to wait. Light, as fast as it is, was rather slow when considering the size of a star-system. Finally, the light returned from the object of interest and the computer started to analyse what the reflexion can tell them.

“Sir, my first guess is that it is a living world. But it is… strange. The readings are all over the place, they make little sense-” the scientific officer called out after looking at the readings displayed on his terminal.

“Lt. Robert, elaborate.” The Captain asked, his voice curious. Lt. Robert was an experienced officer, having worked his way up from enlisted man and his confusion suggested an extraordinary discovery.

“Yes, Sir. The gravimetric readings suggest that the planet has about one-point-one times the mass of earth and visual sensors give it roughly the same radius.That’s all I can say from here, other than that the planet seems to give off a radiation that I have never seen before and it interferes with our sensors.” Lt. Robert explained, still mostly focused on his console.

“Mr. Takei, take us closer. Let’s find out what this planet can offer the Federation.” the Captain ordered.

“Yes, Sir. Course set.” the helmsman answered as he set the course.

The engines engaged and the Satoshi accelerated towards the unknown world. Tense silence filled the bridge, apprehension towards the unknown warring with the excitement of discovery inherent to anyone enlisting in the Exploration-branch of the Federation-Navy. Only those who volunteered are posted on Exploration-ships and only those driven by relentless wanderlust and curiosity volunteer. Months upon months, seeing nothing but empty space and desolate rocks, having little to no contact to civilisation and little respect from the other branches, that is the live of an exploration-crewmember. And now, finally, the crew of the Satoshi might have found their motherlode, but who knows if that motherlode already belonged to someone that is getting ready to demonstrate to the Satoshi that they don’t take kindly to strangers showing up at their door?

As the ship approached the planet, the sensors gathered more and more information, or at least they tried. The radiation only grew more intense during their approach until finally, the Satoshi made it past the systems moons, keeping enough distance from either to allow for unforseen circumstances.

But even then, loitering between the planet and its two moons, the sensors only received fragmented information, forcing the computer into trying to extrapolate results from the fragments and there were far too few good data points to allow for such an extrapolation. .As such, the readings came in two variants, the actual data, some of it useable, most partially corrupted and some outright discarded as too unreliable, leaving blanks, and the other extrapolations made by the computer, but based on far too little hard data to be anything but guesswork.

“Sir, the only sensors giving us descent results are the visual sensors.” the science officer announced, confusion clear in his voice. Something that could essentially jam all the different types of scanners a deep space explorer had, except the simplest, visual scanners was unheard of. The whole point of deep space explorers was to gather information, so their sensors were state-of-the-art, second only to experimental crafts.

“On the screen.” the captain ordered, intrigued by the puzzle this unknown world presented. On the screen, a marble appears, looking very much like one of the dozens of known Gaia-type planets, coloured in some blues, some greens and browns and some white clouds covering the world below.

“Well, it looks very much as if we truly have discovered a new, living world. Mr. Takei, keep us in high orbit, maybe with some more time, our scanners can give us a better picture. Lt. Robert, gather as much information as you can. Commander Pyke, you have the bridge.” the captain ordered and retreated into his quarters, going over the readings by himself.

The various high.resolution cameras of the Satoshi started to capture images of the planet far below them, all the while the other sensors gathered more data in the hopes to get lucky enough to get some sort of useable information, despite the radiation.

The cameras of the Satoshi were easily able to gather as many images, all of them high-resolution images, as Lt. Robert wanted but that just meant that he had a lot of data but very little information. Most of the images showed similar a similar picture, undisturbed nature, relatively familiar to what one would expect on a Gaia-world. Some of the images could have been old images from Earth, or pictures of the few remaining Nature Conservatories, at least that was Lt. Robert’s opinion until he saw the first sign of fauna.

“Sir, I think you and the Captain will want to see that.” he called out to the First Officer as he displayed the image on the screen.

“Are you joking with me?” the First Officer asked in reflex, not believing what the screen was showing to him. On the screen, two apparently huge monsters were fighting, the computer generated scale telling that either was easily dozens of meters in length. But that was not what shocked him more, one of the two, looking eerily similar to the lizards found on many worlds, was breathing fire at its adversary.

“No, Sir.” the science-officer answered, his voice serious. Sometimes, people played pranks in the exploration-fleet, trying to break up the monotony of the endless dark but that was not one of those times.

“Captain on the bridge.” another crew member called out as the Captain entered, after the First Officer alerted him. By now, there were more images showing the strange fauna on the planet below them, animals that seemed to hail straight from works of fiction, or maybe from the realm of nightmares. And not just the fauna, there were things that seemed to be plants but as the cameras recorded, one of them started to move, like an animal, walking away on its roots.

“We wanted a discovery and I would say we just got one. Helmsman, can you take us closer?” the captain asked, looking at the images with undisguised awe.

“Respectfully, Sir, that is a bad idea.” the officer in charge of the ship’s defenses answered.

“Explain, Mr. Korf.” The captain ordered, curious why a planet without any apparent intelligent life would need to be avoided.

“Sir, ever since we got past the outer moon, the shields started to draw more power. It is still in easily safe levels, but approaching the planet will cause the shields to fail.” he explained,displaying the energy-draw curve. It seemed to be the beginning of an exponential curve and the energy draw was extrapolated to reach critical level long before the ship was close enough to gain more information.

“Interesting. There is no civilisation, so slingshotting a drone through the upper atmosphere should get us some samples and more information about that strange radiation. Lt. Robert, take care of that.” the captain decided, wondering what the drone would tell them.

Three hours later, they knew. The drone had been launched on such a course that it would work, even as a purely ballistic projectile and that had been a wise precaution. The entire system of the drone had shut down on planetary approach and once it was caught again after its trip through the atmosphere, analysis showed that the electronic was completely burned out. However, the simple, mechanical systems prepared for just such an eventuality had captured samples of the upper atmosphere and the damage the drone had taken told the crew more about the radiation. It was an interesting type, highly energetic and resonating with the metals used in wiring but probably completely harmless to humans, unless they had prosthetic parts.

But the real discovery came from the chemical laboratory, the atmosphere had traces of a previously unknown substance, a metallic crystal that had a highly interesting property. It was naturally multi-phasic, interacting with the higher spaces, mainly hyperspace, without any obvious effort. That property made it the maybe most important discovery of the last century. Multi-phasic materials were known but the amount of energy and effort needed to produce them and their high decay-rate were a bane of modern spaceflight, a natural material could change the Federation.

Knowing that, the Captain ordered to break orbit and head towards the heart of the Federation, knowing that no effort would be spared to bring the system under control.

Monsters be damned.