ESS Lore Volume 1: Eternal Winter
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The story so far: 500 years after the civilisation on Pollux is destroyed, the Droo Alliance ship New Frontiers is on a mission to investigate the outer Juno system. Crew member Xanadu encounters Lethe at the Cylero One base and he joins the crew after saving Hodiyah and Mitra’s lives. However, she has some suspicions that he may not be telling the truth about his origins or intentions...
Chapter 4, Juno Date 031.2167:
Two weeks later the DAC-29 New Frontiers was approaching Urados on a trajectory that would provide it with a gravity assist and course change for the final leg of its journey to Pollux. The ship was set to pass by several of the gas giant’s moons, and plans were afoot to make it a special occasion. It was now mid-afternoon by the New Frontiers’ clock and Hodiyah’s place on the bridge had been taken by Deimos for the second shift. The captain’s quarters were close to the bridge on the port side of the ship, and the first of her two rooms had an observation window offering incredible views. A large table was fitted in this observation room and she planned to hold a celebratory dinner with all her crew here to raise their spirits after the long voyage.
Hodiyah had always believed in a rigid, in-control leadership style. In her previous position as Fleet Coordinator at Herschel Bay this method worked wonders, but during training for the New Frontiers’ mission she had felt for the first time an emotional connection with her subordinates. She remembered how this took her by surprise, but it had proved to be so beneficial. On the New Frontiers the crew were like family, and she realised now that this close bond was essential for a mission like theirs. She noticed how quickly Lethe had fitted into this dynamic, and almost felt jealous of his winning character and the ease with which he could share his emotions. In contrast, expressing her own feelings to others was a great challenge despite the friendship which had sprung up between herself and the other crew members. Several times in the last few days she had considered discussing the matter with Lethe, but she had allowed herself to be distracted by other things and never mentioned it to him. Pushing this to the back of her mind she returned to the matter of the evening’s celebrations.
‘It will be the ideal way to bring them together and prepare for the next phase of our mission.’ she thought. ‘The ship can travel on autopilot so that all of the crew are present, and we can watch the Urados system pass!’
A few hours after, the crew were gathering in the observation room for the dinner. Xanadu was at the bridge checking their path through the Urados system and the captain was pouring drinks for everyone. Dr Ogmaz, Deimos, Columba, Mitra, Kalfr and Lethe were all standing at the window admiring the stars. Noticing that the nav and coms officer had returned from her task she tapped on the table for silence and smiled around at the crew.
“It seems appropriate to have a small celebration on this occasion,” she announced. “I am hoping that we will get good views of Urados and its moons as we pass through the system, and what better way to take in the view than with some good food, still fresh from the farms on Cylero!”
The crew cheered and took their seats around the table. After a short time, everyone was engaged in discussion about the ship and their mission. Kalfr, who was normally the quietest of the crew, was describing a recent archaeological discovery relating to their target.
“Until two years ago, stories about Pollux being the wandering planet were discredited as mere folklore,” he explained. “However, during an excavation of an old temple in the Central Mountains an almanac was discovered. It only survived due to being carved into baked clay tablets, but the drawings and calculations contained on these shards of pottery were enough to confirm that Pollux’s movement was more than just a story!”
“The accuracy of the calculations is remarkable, considering the basic instruments the observers must have been using.” Dr Ogmaz noted. “In fact, some theorists have even suggested that they must have had assistance from some extra-Droo intelligence despite the fact that such a thing has never been proven.”
“Indeed,” Kalfr replied. “Personally, I am convinced that there is other intelligent life in our galaxy, but the idea that these astronomers were somehow guided by such beings doesn’t fit the evidence. Excavations are continuing, so it is very likely that some further discoveries will be made that can shed light on that particular mystery.”
Dr Ogmaz nodded. “On the topic of mysteries and scientific debates, there are still several theories for the cause of Pollux’s orbital change. Some attribute it to a one in a million alignment of the other planets which catapulted it away from Jun. The main objection to this is that projections from the almanacs and modern-day calculations show this alignment will only occur once, far into the future, and will greatly affect every planetary body in our system.”
“What other theories attempt to explain this?” Lethe asked.
“The main contender is the Phoebe encounter hypothesis.” Dr Ogmaz replied. “I am a little biased as I worked on the first paper putting forth the theory, but for me it is the most believable explanation. It proposes that Phoebe, that is Pollux’s largest moon, had a close encounter with its parent planet in the past and caused a slingshot-like effect which threw both bodies outwards into larger orbits.”
“What work has been done to verify what best fits the facts?” Hodiyah queried.
Kalfr jumped back into the debate. “Unfortunately, due to the length of the pair’s year and their distance from any observatory, it is very difficult to confirm the details of either theory.”
“Precisely,” Dr Ogmaz stated. “This lack of information was brought to the attention of the Droo Alliance’s mission planning committee, and the result of that is our mission! The Pedroian Institute has worked with me to put together a set of detailed experiments and tests to ascertain which of the theories is correct, and at the same time generate a large body of knowledge about these distant bodies. Part of our task will be to land shuttles on both worlds and retrieve samples for further analysis by labs on Droo.”
At that moment, the limb of Urados appeared at the edge of the observation window and Mitra called everyone’s attention to the show which was about to begin. Kalfr brought his telescope to the room so that the crew members could take a closer look at the different natural satellites as they passed. Lethe was transfixed by the view, staring breathlessly out over the huge circling expanse of gleaming ice fragments.
“Only one other Droo Alliance vessel has ventured this far, so we are very lucky to be seeing this view!” Hodiyah observed.
A sober silence fell for a moment on the party at this reminder of the ill-fated DAC-15 Urados Dusk. Similar to the New Horizons, it was on an exploration mission. While returning from a highly successful voyage around the planet and its moons, contact was lost and the ship was later confirmed to have crashed into Arcos, one of Tydos’ moons with the loss of all hands. It was this tragedy which had influenced the Droo Alliance’s decision to pause all interplanetary exploration missions and concentrate on building the Cylero One colony.
However, the view was too beautiful to allow the crews minds to dwell on the past. Kalfr had now focused his telescope on distant Taurus, so the crew took turns to stare through the tube at its dull orange disk and blue upper atmosphere. Next into view was Boreas, with its colourful canyons, craters, and dazzlingly bright ice plains. The ship was passing a lot closer to this moon than the others, so the crew got a very clear view even without a telescope. Kalfr adjusted his instrument and announced that a cryovolcano could be seen, erupting at the edge of the moon. Everyone crowded again to the telescope to catch a glimpse of the plume shining in the weak sunlight. Finally, as the ship passed closest to the gleaming rings and hazy atmosphere of Urados, he turned the eyepiece to Jastrus.
“This is the smallest confirmed moon of Urados,” he announced. “But there have also been several unconfirmed observations of a fourth moon, nicknamed Hypatchion.”
As the huge blue disk of the planet faded from their view, the crew sat back down around the table and began to discuss the history of the Droo Alliance and the events that had led to their mission. Dr Ogmaz reminded the captain of their historical connection. “We both worked at the original extra-Droo base, although in somewhat different times.”
“That’s true” Hodiyah replied. “My days at the base were rather sad, decommissioning of such a historical site felt very wrong. Of course, there were many issues with systems and equipment by ‘65, and we were fighting a losing battle to keep the site operational. I remember one time when the base was almost destroyed due to a faulty meteor detection satellite!”
“I have heard of the incident before” Deimos prompted, “but never from somebody who was present.”
“Well,” Hodiyah leaned forward to begin her tale. “As some of you may be aware, the Herschel Bay Luna Colony was built into the bedrock, but it had weak roofing which left it open to breaching by meteorite impacts. Early in the base’s history, probably around the time that Ogmaz was staff, an early warning and deflection system was set up. It consisted of several mobile antennae for close range tracking and a single large dish for long range warning. The system worked perfectly until mid-2165, when the power grid for the aerial began to show serious signs of decay from long term radiation exposure. Somehow this issue was deemed to be an acceptable risk for the last six months of the base’s operation, and so we were relying on the mobile antennae alone. By unhappy coincidence, a half-metre meteor hit only a short distance from the base. It was completely undetected until the last minute and an EVA team were in the lava cavern entrance when the impact occurred. They narrowly escaped flying debris, which almost knocked the pit head building over. If a larger fragment had hit the building, it would have collapsed completely and trapped them underground!”
The rest of the crew looked shocked at this revelation. “There was no mention of this in the weekly incident reports of course.” Deimos remarked with a smile. “The stories I heard were quite varied in their accuracy!”
Hodiyah laughed. “Nobody was injured although it was very embarrassing to the Alliance directors. Lessons were learned that day which will hopefully not be forgotten.”
The room was silent for a moment, and then Lethe cleared his throat in the manner of all good storytellers. “I have a similar story, a legend handed down through the generations in my family.”
He paused dramatically and looked around at his hushed and expectant audience. In his two weeks on the New Frontiers Lethe had gained a reputation as the ship’s storyteller and the crew were eager to hear this new yarn. “There was once a planet named Earth, which orbited the northern star Sol. Its people were intelligent and capable, but they had one great weakness—their fear. Earth’s people, called humans, were infected with fear from the moment they were born to the day they died. This fear found outlet in many ways, and for millennia it caused them to live in groups which aggressively defended small patches of territory against any other tribe. However, after some time certain groups began to dominate others and develop technology. They used this in horrific ways to slaughter, torture and destroy their fellow humans and many other species of life on their planet. After many years of these awful happenings their speed of advancement rapidly increased and the humans developed electromagnetic communications and mechanical transportation. Some hailed this as the beginning of a new era of peace but the fear which had infected their ancestors was still present and these new tools were used to inflict indescribable agony on each other. Twice their entire planet was engulfed in a global conflict, and at the end of the second war came a façade of peace. Behind this sham the groups continued their battles using poorer humans as expendable tools for their ideological aims. Finally, the results of their evil began to destroy their entire planet, polluting the atmosphere and oceans, and choking the life out of their forests. Even when faced with this disaster the humans failed to put their fear aside and work with each other. They abused the technology which had been developed by their ancestors to spread lies and fear, dividing against each other further. Eventually, some of the richest decided to travel to other worlds to escape the problems they had willingly contributed to. It seemed for a time that this limitless evil would begin the ruin of even more worlds, but it was not to be. A large asteroid hit Earth shortly before their first interplanetary crewed mission, wiping out all life on its surface. Now all that remains of the once beautiful planet is a ring of debris surrounding Sol, and the lesson that fear will bring destruction unless it is defeated by love and truth.”
The rest of the crew were amazed by this tale and its deep message. They remained together for some time discussing the history of Droo and how it had almost fallen into such conflicts, then Hodiyah announced that the party should end so that the night shift could begin. The crew returned to their quarters, and Xanadu stayed in the corridor talking to Lethe for a short time.
“That was an incredible story!” she told him. “It seemed so real; I can hardly believe it is fictional.”
Lethe nodded slowly. “You are correct, it is not fiction.”
“But how can that be?” Xanadu asked in amazement.
“I cannot explain now, but you must realise that there are many things in the universe which you and I do not fully understand. The truth is a difficult thing to discover, and once found it must be guarded with care. And now you must excuse me, it is getting late.” Lethe shook her hand as was his customary manner and returned to his room.
@JastroOne1 Awesome, looking forward to it😊. Looking forward to the return of the humans and more. Enjoying your lore at every turn. Thanks.