“This is it, Team Scarlet,” Nic announced to his squad. They were all gathered in the living room having just finished a game of Conk. “Finally. Whatever you need to do, I’d do it now. We’re going to be occupied for quite a few hours. Meet back here in 30 for landing prep.”

“Time for a lil’ snacky-snack,” said Jarek, padding over to the Corvette’s kitchen.

Maqsud headed to the lower floor of the ship. “I need to see a man about a dog.”

“Couldn’t hurt to hydrate,” Perri told Nic with a shrug, joining Jarek.

“[My plant,]” Shanti said with her thought-to-speech cranial link. She slinked away to her room.

They’d been traveling through the wormhole for 45 days now, their longest trip to date. They passed the time with card games, holos, movies, and generous helpings of sims, some solo and some group—including Wargame drills. But as RTIFIS had told them, their next assignment wasn’t a Wargame at all. It was something entirely new.

Something still just as mysterious as it had been 45 days ago.

“I think I remember everything,” Jarek said, plopping onto the couch next to Nic with a strip of lab-grown beef jerky. “But can you just recap it one more time?” Perri returned to listen in alongside him.

“Of course,” Nic replied. “Our mission is on Planet Nereus. Red Terraforming discovered it was probably habitable about 100 days ago, so they sent a probe a few days later to check out the planet and get some more up-close readings. The probe sent confirmation of atmospheric entry... and then nothing. Total silence. Nereus is an oceanic planet, very rare in the galaxy, and Red Terraforming is dead-set on staking a claim there. This could very well turn into a Wargame for us once Red Terraforming gets approval from WorldGov. But first they need to report their findings, and to do that, we need to see what happened with that probe.”

“RTIFIS, can you show us Nereus’s stats again?” Perri asked.

the AI replied.

PLANET NEREUS TEMP.: /?data missing/AV. GRAV.: /?data missing/% ATM.: /?data missing/ ROT.: /?data missing/ SURF. H2O: 77% REV.: 426 DAYS BIOMARKERS: /?data missing/ NAT. SAT.: 1 (102% LUNA)

“Watch,” Maqsud chuckled as he entered, “the biomarker readings are absent because this planet is actually a thriving alien ecosystem and we’ll be slaughtered as invaders.”

“Ha,” Jarek replied, “that’s...” He arched an eyebrow and shot a quick glance at Nic. “That’s not real, right?”

Max snorted. “No, I’m pulling your leg, Jarek. Trust me, if there was even a whiff of one alien microbe on this whole rock, we would not be the ones sent to investigate. No offense. That would be a job for WorldGov scientists—biologists, government officials, et cetera.”

“Yeah, we’re just here for technical support,” Nic joked. “Either that, or the cleanup crew. But this does seem like a strange assignment... Probes don’t often go completely AWOL like this. At least that’s what the mission briefing said.”

“You think this planet’s more dangerous than it looks?” Jarek asked. “Maybe the probe’s not just havin’ connection issues. Maybe it was damaged. Destroyed, even?”

“Could be. Too early to tell.”

“This planet certainly has more going on than most of the dry rocks that we visit,” Maqsud added. “Oceans, tides, probably at least a halfway-formed atmosphere... There are all sorts of natural disasters that could have obliterated the probe. It’s a good thing we’re only using proxybots out there.”

“Yeah.” Nic stared at the warping spacetime through the viewscreen, a little twist of worry in his gut. He swallowed. “Good thing.”

***

They all stood in the Simnasium with their suits on, helmets in their hands, awaiting Nic’s signal.

“I don’t know about the ground vehicles,” said Perri, “but the bird’s going to need some serious tweaks to fly out there. It’s built for much thinner air.”

RTIFIS assured her.

“I don’t suppose there are any submarines available?” Maqsud asked. Perri rolled her eyes at him. “What? It’s an oceanic world. The probe could be at the bottom of a trench somewhere for all we know.”

Max shrugged. “I suppose it was worth asking. Would anyone else care to request accommodations?”

Perri shook her head at Nic, who finally answered the AI. “We’re all set, RTIFIS,” he answered the AI. “Thank you. Team Scarlet, ready up.”

All five members of the squad donned their helmets. Nic watched his plain black POV switch suddenly to that of his proxybot. Ordinarily, he would have stepped out of a module placed strategically on a battlefield somewhere, far away from the actual ship where he was physically located. Now he was stepping out of the attached module onto the surface of a new alien planet, looking over his shoulder at the Corvette that contained his real body. It was disorienting at first. His attention was soon drawn elsewhere, though.

Planet Nereus was breathtaking.

The sky was not the usual tinted haze or canvas of stars like most other non-terraformed planets; he looked up to see a seamless blanket of thick white clouds from horizon to horizon, brightly lit with the glow of the local star about 200 million kilometers away. The landscape was composed of a variety of water-worked rocks, irregular slabs of black stone jutting out of the ground, and all of it dotted with erosion-rounded pebbles of many sizes and colors. The terrain was icy in some parts but the rest had a wet sheen to it; it reminded him of the gravelly yard outside the repair shop on Ducenti when it rained. Unlike his home world Ayrus, this planet was not dry and dusty, and the ground didn’t crunch beneath his feet—it was smooth, almost slippery.

The strangest thing of all was that he could hear sounds he’d never heard through a proxybot before: the subtle whirring and precise, mechanical footfalls of proxies in motion; a distant, whistling wind; he could even hear what sounded like waves crashing in the distance—just like in hyper-realistic sims—and the fact that he was hearing a genuine alien ocean, a natural one not constructed by human ice-seeding, gave him reverent pause.

The vehicle module sent ahead of them had already deposited the Centaur, a four-person ground vehicle, and the Harpy, the pseudo-copter. Perri took the pilot’s seat in the latter while Nic hopped into the Centaur’s driver seat. “Buckle up. We’re not in combat this time. Gotta be even more careful with our proxies than usual.” His three squadmates did as directed and attached their safety harnesses.

“RTIFIS, what are the pain settings at?” Jarek asked warily.

“Uh, I think I’m good,” Nic replied.

Nic tapped the accelerator and felt the vehicle lurch forward. So weird, he thought. I can hear the tires rolling on the ground, even at this low speed. “Okay, Perri, let’s move out. Give us a heads-up for any hazardous road conditions, if you would.”

“Aye-aye,” Perri answered, and with that, the Harpy activated and took to the sky. The sound made Nic flinch; like everything else, it was usually much quieter in their normal environment. But there was nothing normal about this mission.

Nic was convinced it would only get stranger from here.