THE MISSION

"Energy signatures are coming from here and here," Richardson said pointing to the holographic globe circling above the conference table. It’s soft blue light reflected off the tired faces of the crew. Truman squeezed his eyes and attempted to hold in a yawn but wasn’t very successful. Like a contagion it passed on to Kobayashi who made a huge display, stretching his arms upwards, as well as Roberson who’s head nodded weightlessly periodically collapsing backwards as she uncontrollably lost consciousness then awoke again. Eventually she gave up the fight, folding her arms on the table and placing her head down. Truman felt a little sorry for her. First time in space. He remembered it all to well.

The holographic model of Pluto featured two flashing orange lights positioned to scale about two miles apart.

"The smaller seems to be coming from a large flat plain, akin to a lunar ‘sea’ of dust and rock, or whatever Pluto’s surface is composed of," Richardson said. "Here," she pointed, "…is a small valley of some sort. A much larger source of energy is emanating from there."

"So let me guess," Henrickson said breaking in. The Captain sat relaxed yet aware, strapped into her sit at the head of the table. Henrickson seemed to know just when he could and couldn’t push the envelope of protocol and regulations. Either that or he had a way of charming the pants from the offended when he had done so. The Captain barely acknowledged him, even though Richardson stopped, as if to give the Captain a chance to chime in and rein in the ship’s co-pilot. No such luck. "You’re landing us down near the big one right?"

"Not exactly," Richardson replied. "Tina," she said deferring to her young assistant. If they hadn’t had different last names, and the crew hadn’t known any better, they would have the thought the two women were sisters. Both of African decent, both thin-framed, and both strikingly beautiful. Besides their age difference of nine years the only other major difference was the way they spoke. Richardson, having been born and raised in Edinburgh spoke with the rich, roll of a Scottish lowlander while Roberson had the distinctive accent of a native of Queens, New York.

Tina Roberson in a sleepy haze, began to speak, clearing her throat of the phlegm of inactivity.

"The smaller energy source is probably one of the Lady Grey’s away shuttles. Our reading are indication a power fluctuation differential of two point eight nine percent,"

"Meaning?" Brickstone said impatiently. He played the role of "bitter man" too well. Truman decided to definitely keep an eye on him.

"Meaning, that the energy signature is in line with the standard emissions from a shuttle of that size…the larger signature is off the scale. Radiation, the Lady Grey, whatever it is it’s not safe to approach until we secure the outer area. The shuttle landing site is the most logical pace to begin, given our mission."

"Which is?" Kobayashi said.

"To find my daughter," Truman said.

This crew was silent.

****

The away team sat aboard the shuttlecraft Thor, strapped in to metal harnesses and reinforced nano-manufactured frames. The impact upon the surface was much lighter than Truman had anticipated. Where he was expecting large explosions from erupting methane and concussion blasts as the craft should have rocked, instead there was a slight, almost silent roar from the thrusters until the vessel lightly landed upon Pluto’s surface.

Standard procedure was to wait while the pilot made a round of post-landing checklists, securing the landing site, gauging the vessels structural integrity, and assessing the performance of the landing struts. Henrickson gave the okay after two minutes. The checklist should have been longer but he received more than enough help from Truman, who anxiously monitored the readings.

He stood with his armored UNASA geo-suit on. It was specially designed for "gravity situations" as termed by the engineers. The boots were rigid—solid metal, yet very light due to the nano-steel used in their design. The rest of the suit consisted of a series of tubes and conduits covered in a shiny outer covering to protect the suit and it’s wearer from the harshest elements. They regulated the wearer’s temperature from the hottest hot environments to the coldest cold. Somehow, Truman looking outside, thought that one suit wouldn’t be enough to keep his rear from freezing.

"I want everyone to be ready to deploy in ten minutes he said." His legs quivered slightly, adjusting themselves to the renewed feeling of gravity, albeit it a very slight one, beneath him. His act of command was a surface exercise. He felt no authority inside. There was no confidence, or belief in the rightness of his post. He only knew he wanted to find his daughter and he needed these people to help him. As long as they never questioned him, it meant that they could not see though the façade of bravado he had created. They would not be able to see the scared middle-aged man whose heart raced faster than he knew it should.

The group consisted of Truman, Henrickson, Kobayashi’s assistant Teresa Russell, Kobayashi, Richardson, and a crewman Anthony Sebastian. They meticulously suited up, checking each other’s suit making sure they were fully sealed. Then one last time they each checked there own garments. Richardson went through a microphone check with each person, making sure they were all patched into the Thor, which fed directly to the Valkerie’s communications station, which was being manned by Roberson. After ascertaining that everyone was indeed squared away, Richardson turned and gave Truman the thumbs up.

Truman took a low deep sigh. He held it in for seven seconds then exhaled, counting out to ten.

"Alright people," he said. "Let’s get moving."

Henrickson reached to the forward flight panel and punched a series of keys in a combination so fast that even if someone was trying to look they wouldn’t have seen a thing. The ambient sounds of the ship’s interior grew lower and lower. The pings, and chirps and whirring of the equipment began to disappear as the air leak silently from the cabin. It continued until the air pressure matched the estimated pressure outside. Henrickson reached down and shot the sequence off.

Kobayashi then released the front rear walkway. It descended from the belly of the craft slowly and lazily. Truman heard the slight suction as Pluto’s atmospheric gases raced into the cabin. He took one step forward, tentatively bouncing on the ramp in order to see whether it was stable or not. After judging that the ramp would not budge, he settled all of his weight onto the metal walkway. Slowly he began to edge forward. He took a few steps. A soft crunch of dusty ice sounded beneath his feet. Truman was walking of the surface of Pluto. He couldn’t believe it.

"Too creepy," Henrickson said. He was looking toward the silent still Westminster from the Lady Grey, it running lights still flashing bright red, alternating with a flash of white light.

Truman struck out in that direction already, not waiting or caring if anyone else was coming along.

"Well," Richardson said. She held a large boxy machine—long antennae extending from it. She looked at Kobayashi, who in turn shrugged his large shoulders. She stuck out after him, followed by the rest of the straggling team.

Richardson had been fiddling with the communications device since they had arrived. At first it was a slight crackle, growing to a garbled, disembodied, voice. Truman heard the Captain’s voice grow stronger as Richardson homed in on the Valkerie’s signal.

"Everything all right down there?" Ramirez said. Truman could hear the genuine concern in her voice, but he would never mistake that concern for weakness.

"Green light’s all around," Henrickson said, speaking before anyone could get out a serious answer.

"We’re approaching the Westminster, Captain," Richardson said before Henrickson could begin one of his famous, hour-long comedy routines. "We’re approximately 1 kilometer away."

"Do ya think you could have parked us a little closer Lance?" Kobayashi asked Henrickson.

"He couldna help it," Richardson answered for him. "We don’t know what we’re up against. Until the area is secured we canna take the…"

"Risk. I know, I know," Kobayashi finished.

"What are you complaining about Eric," Henrickson said to the nanotechnician. "Gravity being what it is, you could damn near jump to the shuttle in two or three leaps."

"Cut the chatter," Truman said. His nerves were frayed thin already. He didn’t need all of the talking to make it anymore worse.

"Truman’s right," Ramirez said, sounding over the comm. Her voice was clear yet tinny and metallic through the helmets systems. "If anything goes wrong down there I want to know for sure it’s a crisis and not Lance opening his mouth."

"Which in my book is a bigger crisis than anything this planet can throw at us," Kobayashi said.

"Don’t make me make you eat those words kid…"

"All right!" Truman shouted. "Knock it off!"

There was silence followed by yessirs.

The away team continued on toward the shuttle, everyone careful to make sure they did not cross Truman Sanders’ ire.

***

The shuttle looked cold, it’s hull devoid of any form of activity except for the still flashing running lights. There were no signs of any sorts of battles or skirmishes anywhere. Just like the Lady Grey, it was as if they had disapperad leaving no clues or whereabouts of where they had gone.

Except for the footprints.

"Where do they head?" Ramirez asked.

Richardson held another strange device, this time holding it in the air, then glancing down at her wrist comm. "It appears to be heading in the direction of the larger power source," she said.

"Well that makes sense," Ramirez replied. "But did it happen before or after the Lady Grey disappeared?"

"Only one way to find out," Henrickson said. He walked over to the shuttle and slid his hand beneath the underside of the shuttle. Seconds later the ramp lowered. Henrickson stood to the side allowing Truman to enter first.

Truman aimed his shoulder-lamp upward. There were no lights coming from inside.

"Curiouser," Henrickson said.

Truman seemed to ignore him. He cautiously grabbed one of the ramp struts and began to ascend into the shuttle’s airlock. "Richardson and Kobayashi come with me. The rest of you stay outside and keep a look out."

"Yeah," Henrickson said. "Well keep an eye open for the killer snow."

***

The air began to fill the room quickly. Slowly the ambient noise usually heard on a ship of that size began to return. The random clicking and whirring of a ship of that type was fairly commonplace. It’s almost decrepit condition, even before it had seen the face of Pluto would have but the fear of God into anyone not familiar with the resourcefulness of those chosen few who resided in space for long periods of time. The command and pilot panels were a mix and match of various systems. Some new, some old, and some not even permitted aboard United Nation’s affiliated ships.

Richardson immediately slid into the command chair, assessing the status of the ship.

"Fully operational," she said. "At least the navigation, life-support and communications are."

Kobayashi shouted from the back. "Propulsion is running too…well it will be with a few nano-repairs. Five to ten minutes tops. If we wanted to we could fly her up to the Valkerie."

"Good" Truman said. "Get on it."

Kobayashi made his way to the back of the craft, removed the nano-instrument panel and looked inside. He made a heavy sigh as he examined it. He pulled a short metal rod from his metallic canister that was attached to his suit’s arm. Deliberately he placed thee rod into the panel then proceeded to work.

"Can you access the logs or transmissions? Video feeds or sensor logs?" Truman asked Richardson.

"Sure she said," then proceeded to punch in a series of commands. "Bloody," she said pausing for a moment. "These systems are patched together pretty randomly it would seem. It’s a wonder this craft can work at all." She punched in a few more commands. A large two meter screen slid down in front of the forward display. Truman recognized it from his days as a pilot in the First Lunar War. They were primarily used as navigation through any sort of light that was unseeable by the human eye, as well as any place that was too bright to see in. Somehow they had rigged it to serve as their video display.

Green blue static crackled across the screen as Richardson attempted to access whatever information she could find. Truman sat anxiously in the pilot’s chair next to her.

As the screen came to life, his heart sank.

He hadn’t seen her face in four or five years…he had lost count after the first. After then, everyday seemed like an eternity to him. Janelle said that she was too much like her father. Too stubborn with not enough common sense to admit she was wrong. And in this case she wasn’t. Truman was.

She looked slightly older, her face seeming to have filled out a bit from the skinny, bespeckled teenager that had roamed the seventy-fifth floor of the HiTown apartments. She was even more beautiful now than her growing body had promised to be. Even through the grime and sweat, her fresh faced visage shone through.

"Can you increase the audio?"

"Compensating," she said.

Suddenly he could hear her voice. He forgot what it had sounded like. Too often he had heard it shouting and screaming at him. She was the Sarah Sanders that Truman remembered--sweet yet confident and strong.

She was sitting in the chair Richardson sat in now. Her arms stretched out over the control panel. There was an intense look of distress on her face. Truman’s heart went out to her.

"It’s been three days," she said. Wearily she supported herself body against the instrument panel. "Denton is still in the structure…"

The Valkerie away team looked at each other puzzled.

"Structure?" Richardson said.

The data file continued.

"We haven’t heard anything from the Lady Grey in three days. Our sensors can’t locate anything nearby. This doesn’t look good."

Truman moved closer to the screen, squinting as though he could better make out the details of his daughter’s face. A parental instinct that had not faded with time. Even with the years that they has spent apart, the time when he knew that if she even heard his name she would feel disgusted or hurt, he cared and wanted to protect her.

"I don’t have the heart to tell Denton either. Poor guy wanted to go home more than me," she continued. "From the looks of our systems, we have about a two months worth of breathable air. I’ll see about converting whatever resources there are into extending the time we might have left. Emergency rations are enough for a month. We can create water if we have to…"

The file began breaking up.

"This sucks," she finished. Finally the picture went black.

Silence in the shuttle. Richardson looked at Truman followed by Kobayashi. Richardson them moved toward the control panel again punching keys. A log of shuttle activity came onscreen.

"Let’s see," she said. "The last activity on ship was…"

"Two days ago?" Kobayashi finished.

"Let me see that," Truman said. He pushed past Richardson who nonchalantly leaned off to the side.

"In fact," Richardson said. "All of the logs indicate that they headed toward that crevasse here," she said pointing at a map of the surrounding area. "Which just so happens to be the area that we picked up the larger energy signature. I canna believe that is a coincidence. Do you?"

"Not at all." Truman said.

"So what now?"

"We go there," Truman said. "What else?"

***

Henrickson piloted the Westminster toward the narrow crevasse. Truman had ordered Russell to stay behind at the Thor to maintain contact with the ship in case they’d need it. He decided that taking the Westminster was warranted, as he didn’t want to risk losing their own shuttle in the event something went amiss. Kobayashi gave it a clean bill of health. Enough to travel a few kilometers anyway. Soon they had been off. The Craft scuttling narrowly above the Plutonian surface.

The craft rested at the foot of what looked like a passageway into a canyon. Large hills rose gradually from the surface then sharply climbed forming to large jagged peaks. The away team disembarked from the craft and began walking toward the crevasse. Crewman Sebastian took the point position, walking in front with a large weapon in hand. Brickstone had insisted the captain send in as many big guns as possible. Ramirez though had decided against it—figuring that any threat they would find here would not be of the variety that could be solved by fired guns all over the place. Truman was of the same mind. There was something else going on here. But what he couldn’t even begin to figure out. Single-mindedly he concentrated on finding his daughter. Somewhere within that fast approaching canyon she was…hopefully alive.

They had been walking for only ten or so minutes when they finally reached the entrance to the crevasse. Truman stopped the group to make a transmission with the captain.

"Ramirez here she said. "What’s the story Sanders?"

"We’re at the site," he said. "Nothing to report yet."

"Then proceed," she said. "And with caution."

"Aye," he said. Then Richardson shut off the comm-link.

"Well lets get moving," Truman said. They walked toward the darkness.

All hearts privately had stopped beating.

Before then stood the entrance--to a temple.

"Tell me I’m not dreaming this," Kobayashi said.

"Either that or you ate the fish last night," Henrickson replied. "I warned you about the fish."

"Sanders to Russell. Are you getting this?"

"Yes," she replied. She sat attentive at the helm of the Thor. She occupied a small screen in the corner of Truman’s visor. I see it and I’m recording it."

"Good. Keep me informed if there’s anything that goes wrong."

"Aye," she said, as her picture disappeared.

Truman and Sebastian entered first, wading slowly into the darkness. Kobayshi was next followed by Richardson followed, her bulky sensor device taking readings as the entered. Finally Henrickson entered in. The away team was inside—the Plutonian winds howling as they blew within.

Truman heard the sound. Sounds he knew he shouldn’t be hearing. But heard them he did.

***

The structure was built into the rock of the cliff. A low, yellow light glowed dully from within. The ground here was less the wavy icy surface and more gravelly, small earthen pebbled that crunched beneath their feet, slightly louder than the frost itself did. At first the cliffs were indistinguishable from the structure, but as they moved further in the shape began to take form. Large pillars lined the entranceway like some ancient Earth temple. They were colored a rich reddish brown, shifting color schemes characterizing the natural formations while a standard color was evident in the crafted materials.

"This has got to be thousands of years old at least," Kobayashi said. "But there’s little if no erosion."

He was right Truman thought. The rusty colored rock looked as though it had just been erected only a few days before. The winds that blew terrifically through the entranceway should easily have smoother down its surface if it was indeed as old as the design made it appear.

"Richardson," Truman said. "Take a sample and give it to Kobayashi."

"I’m already on it, she said." From a small pack in her suits left arm she pulled a long gleaming pointed bar. She attempted to plunge it into the rock. "S’harder than ah thought," she said. She reached back for one more try. Her arm came down forcefully. The tip of the rod barely impacted the surface. She didn’t move. "That should be enough," she said. Reaching over with her right hand she depressed a button on the end of the rod. After a short bit of whirring and clicking noises she removed the rod, and handed it to Kobayashi.

"Take a look at that Eric," Truman said to the nanoengineer. "Look at it’s composition and tell me what you see."

The large man did as he was told. He placed the rod into a similar compartment on his suit as Richardson had. After it sealed his shook his arm violently, then looked at the panel on his suit.

A display appeared. Large geometrical shapes spinning wildly about the screen. He looked puzzled for a moment then looked up toward Truman.

"Well it’s not one hundred percent for sure," he began.

"But?"

"But I’ve seen this stuff to often to mistake it for anything else. The atoms have been arranged. The shapes are too organized to have occurred in a natural manner. It’s too efficient. Whoever built this thing…they used a nanotechnology similar to our own."

"Which means?" Henrickson said.

"I don’t know. Dammit I’m a nanoengineer, not a detective," he chuckled.

Truman wasn’t even about to let he, nor Henrickson degenerate the situation into some sophomoric episode as they usually did. "Enough," he said sharply. "Continue onward," she said. He wasn’t of a mind to be deterred at the moment. There was too much going on. First his daughter, the marauders in space, and now this.

They remained silent as they continued in.

Truman was the first to see it.

They had rounded a corner of the passageways that had began to form inside the structure. The low golden glow had been steadily growing brighter and brighter. Finally the red brown wall had given way to some other substance. Truman looked at it closely.

"It’s like gold," he said. "Look at this Kristal."

She came in closer, squinting as she ran her hand across the wall.

"It’s smooth…looks like gold," she said. "But it’s almost translucent. Too shiny."

She was right, Truman thought. It didn’t have that familiar deep rich yellow that seemed to burn coldly. It almost glistened and reflected the light emitted from the away teams’ shoulder lamps. The golden substance covered the entire wall and floor. It all seemed so familiar, like something he had seen or read somewhere in the years gone by.

"If it’s anything like the rock outside, it’s probably nano manufactured as well." Kobayashi said. He grabbed the rod from its compartment, emptied it’s contents on the floor, then trust it in the air toward the wall.

It clanked loudly against the surface.

"See," he said. "Not even a scratch. This stuff is probably gold all right. But it’s definitely something else too. A half-competent nanoengineer could combine too substances if they wanted. But gold that’s a toughie."

"Why’s that," Richardson asked.

"Gold is one of those metals that is not really like the rest. It doesn’t rust, and when it’s found, melting it easily purifies it. It’s very malleable. It will last a long time, but its molecular structure makes it hard to conform to any one man-made design. A nanoengineer could design a structure, but it wouldn’t do much good if the physical properties don’t allow it to take. There are only a few things this could be. I’m betting it’s combined with Carbon somehow."

"Carbon?" Henrickson asked.

"As in diamonds," Truman said.

"Exactly. Most of the materials that we use are manufactured from carbon. Its rigid structure makes it the perfect atom to use in making all the devices that have revolutionized the Earth in the last thirty-five years. Hence the media’s term, "the Diamond Age". But this…this is something else. It’s gold, with most of the properties of gold, but somehow carbon, the diamond, has been integrated making some kind of new substance. Between the two elements, gold’s resistance against oxidation and tarnishing, and carbon extremely hard, rigid properties, they, whoever "they" are, have created some kind of super metal. Stronger that even our nano-steel. Come to think of it I don’t know why I, or anybody else didn’t think of it sooner."

"The reason is that we’ve been fighting ever since the technique was perfected," Truman said. He was intrigued by the entire thing. "Imagine if nuclear power had been perfected in the early thirties or even the twenties. Instead of dropping bombs on the world it might have been used to solve the worlds problems in a more constructive way."

"I don’t mean to be rude to none of y’all," Henrickson spoke up using the thickest of his Texan accent in exaggeration. "Thanks for the history lesson and the philosophizen’, but what exactly does this mean to us?"

"Beats the hell outta me," crewman Sebastian said. He began to walk down the corridor a ways but stopped at the entrance to another long golden hallway.

"We’ll continue on but I want to make sure we document everything," Truman said. "Richardson, I want you to give a step by step log of what’s going on from right now until we get off of this snowball. Kobayashi, take as many samples as you can and relay them back to the Thor."

"Sir," crewman Sebastian said from down the hallway. He stood like a statue, his body halfway in the entrance. "You’d better com take a look at this."

Truman look around quickly then walked toward the crewman. As Truman neared the doorway, Sebastian stepped backward giving Truman room to move throught the door. Sanders’ heart raced. Somehow he had a feeling he wasn’t going to like what he was going to see.

"I can’t tell how long, but I’d say they were dead," Sebastian said as Truman walked through the entrance. On the floor in a hallway lay an armored flight suit, occupied no doubt by an unfortunate individual. It lay on the ground face downward. Truman slowly walked toward it. He reached down, swallowing a lump in his throat as he did so. Gently he placed a hand on the back of the suit and grasped it by the shoulder. He turned it over…almost afraid to open his eyes. The body plopped lightly on its back, the armor suit clicking softly against the golden floor.

The stencil on the helmet spelled DENTON.

A deep sigh.

"Let’s continue on," he said. He tried to sound, emotionless and professional. But everyone knew, and was happy for him, that his daughter was not dead. At least they hoped she wasn’t.

Suddenly Sebastian grabbed Truman’s attention again. "Tracks, sir." He pointed to the frost-covered floor. "There are tracks."

To be continued...

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