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Damiko Matsubara looked over the other fourteen Athena officers, as they gathered in the huge hanger-like cavern at their uncertain location. She realized that she was the senior officer, the highest-ranking officer, and in the normal Starfleet way of doing things, that put her in charge. The other officers were obliged to follow her as if they were following the captain. As the commanding officer, she also had to come up with a strategy, a way to approach and solve their current dilemma. In addition to solving their problem, they also had to think of survival. Water was something they were going to have to search for, but quite a bit of vegetation, including a variety of vegetables and grains, some of which might have been ripe enough to eat, filled this chamber. Because of the utter silence of this place, they could also hear some of the small animals, like rats and mice, and even some of the household pets from the Adamsburg inhabitants, move among the vegetation. The red glow in the grids above and below had all but faded away, leaving the cavern completely dark except for the wrist-mounted lights that the fifteen men and women wore. Go to:
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Chapter 4
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The first thought that crossed Matsubara's mind was what would Captain Thorpe do in this situation. Even though she knew the man, and had known him for many years and had served under him for about two years now, she found that she could not easily answer that question. Overall, she knew that he would take the same basic approach she was thinking about. The group would have to worry about only two things, survival and finding a way to return home. She just wondered if the captain had any special skills or a command style that could bridge their current situation with what they needed to do. In short, she needed some kind of inspirational speech, but that was not exactly something she was good at.
"Listen up, people," Matsubara started. Her style of command, she decided on the spot, was going to be more informal. "We're here now, and our priority is to find the way back home. Unlike at Charamand, we're actually inside the alien structure, at least this end of it, so it might be possible to find some kind of control centre, some kind of power source, even the apparatus."
"And we can figure out how to work it?" Turokuot asked.
"That's your job," Matsubara replied quickly. "Actually, I don't know if we can figure out how to work it, but if we're going to get out of here, then we're going to have to at least try. Maybe it's simple, or maybe it's not. I don't know, but if we can't figure out how to work it here, then it seems impossible that the Athena and its officers could figure out how to work it from there, assuming that they can even get inside."
"Maybe the Odonans know something," Ninyear suggested.
"Perhaps they do, but nobody told them. They found out for themselves. Therefore, it is possible that we can learn. Maybe the control systems, and maybe the overall system, is simpler than we think. We can at least try."
"We have to think about survival too," Guerrero said.
"I know that. The food is in here, all the vegetation, fruits and vegetables and the like that came over with the Adamsburg people."
"Not to mention the rats," Stanislava mentioned.
"Yeah, that too. It kind of reminds me of survival training back in the Academy days." Those words got a slight laugh from the others. "This is why we went through that effort. We also have to determine where the Adamsburg people went."
Another of the fifteen, security officer Ensign Martaan Culins, said, "Isn't it strange that not a single one of the Adamsburg people is here? I could imagine that most of them might have moved to a different location, but they should have somebody keeping watch."
"Perhaps," Lieutenant Richard Gorwitz answered, "all the artificial light is gone, and the place is pitch black throughout. I doubt that all of those people asleep at the time were holding flashlights or other light sources, or even other technology."
"Yeah, that's possible," Matsubara continued. "We'll be splitting up. I'll be leading the group looking for the control centre and the technology behind this. Lieutenants Guerrero and Turokuot, you're with me. Lieutenant Stanislava, I'm putting you in charge of trying to find the Adamsburg people. Cubins and Gorwitz, your jobs are to remain here and try to salvage as much edible material as possible. I don't think we'll be finding replicators ready to work with food for the human xenotype here." As was usual when commanders were giving out assignments like this, Matsubara heard a certain amount of grumbling, and much of it was centered on how each person thought they were better equipped for a task other than the one that they were assigned. She just did what other more experienced commanders did and ignored those implied complaints while filling out the various teams with the remaining personnel. Waye was the fourth person in her group. "Okay, lets move out."
When ambient light had been present, they had seen at one end a rather large door, easily about the size and shape of the main space doors on Spacedock back at Earth. On the opposite side, they had seen a somewhat smaller door. At the base of the vast cavern were a number of doors placed for people to enter and leave, and which ran all the way around the perimeter. Matsubara had the feeling that exploring this place could take a lot of time, and yet the thought excited her. Afterall, they were somewhere else, and handling technology that was likely centuries, if not millennia, ahead of that of the Federation. She wanted to know exactly where, and exactly how they got here, in addition to learning how to get back home. The problem was finding a starting point with so many to choose from.
Turokuot, almost sensing Matsubara's predicament, said, "There's no way to limit the choices. More than likely, you're going to pick the wrong door first."
"I know that. I guess I must pick the first one on intuition alone."
"Of course."
Matsubara and Stanislava and their groups approached the wall, and since their initial aim was to find the way out, they remained together. Stanislava said, "Judging by the footprints all over the place, I think that the Adamsburg people tried many of the doors. They could be scattered all over the place. We may be stumbling over them almost at random."
"That's possible," Matsubara admitted.
As they approached the wall, their lights started to play over shapes lining the walls, but it was soon apparent that they were not anything brought over from Adamsburg. They were bodies. Matsubara, the scientific curiosity rising in her, played the beams of her wrist lights over the long-dead bodies. The flesh had dried out and had decayed into fragile layers of dust and tissue. In many areas, the skeleton was exposed, and that indicated that the beings might have been vaguely humanoid. However, the creatures must have walked with a stoop, since their backs were covered with a rigid, bony shell with small spikes and bumps along the top and the sides.
"Sentient armadillos?" Guerrero remarked.
"I guess it's possible," Matsubara replied.
"Not only that," Turokuot added, as he played his beam down the length of the wall. The bodies were everywhere.
"That's not a good sign."
"Why?"
"This race somehow got here, and never found the way back. They might've died from a lack of food or something."
"What's curious," Matsubara continued, after a few scans with her tricorder, "is that these bodies cannot be all that old. I mean, it is cool here, and it is dry here, and these bodies are somewhat mummified, but even so, anything more than a thousand years, maybe two thousand years, and they should have disintegrated more."
"Humans had not been on Charamand for that long," Turokuot pointed out.
"But there's no sign of any kind of alien presence in the valley where Adamsburg is."
Stanislava spoke up, "In addition, there are no species known that even faintly resemble a 'sentient armadillo,' as Ray called them. I'm sure I'd be aware of any." Since this was closer to Stanislava's specialty, Matsubara had to accept her at her word.
The groups reached the doorway. The door was purely mechanical, with a pole to grab and slide it open as it sat in a raised doorframe. The door opened smoothly and noiselessly, but nothing much was revealed beyond. The door opened into a corridor, a corridor which turned out to be as sterile and featureless as the worst on a starship. The floor was made of some kind of stone, and the walls were covered in some kind of polymer and plaster combination that had impressive staying power. Every so often, support struts were present in the walls. They consisted of simple columns made of an alloy of iron and titanium and some assorted trace elements that seemed to give the columns strength and protection from corrosion. The ceiling consisted of grated sheets of some kind of metal, and behind them were assorted conduits and pipes and even large, flat rectangular items that Matsubara was sure were lights. None of them worked.
Seeing Turokuot taking scans, Matsubara asked, "What can you tell me?"
"Not much. The materials are simple, but built for durability. I can't get any indication of age, or any indication if this place is being maintained. The pipes above are standard life support, power conduits and what look like optical data conduits. None of them are active."
"One question," Guerrero asked. "Are we on a planet, or on a space installation of some kind?"
"To be honest with you, I can't tell," Turokuot remarked. "Even out of that chamber, I can't scan beyond the walls. More advanced materials are behind the visible walls and floors. I'm reading gravitons, but of course, if the technology is advanced enough, I couldn't distinguish natural gravitons from artificially-generated ones."
"I'd hate to see the size of this 'space installation' if that is what it is," Matsubara finally said. "Lets get going."
The group moved into the corridor, and started to walk down it. They came to cross-corridors, and explored them and mapped them on their tricorders. About the only thing that they found were more of the dead armadillo aliens. In fact, they were finding hundreds of the bodies, often alone or in groups of one or two. All of them appeared to have died peacefully, as there was no sign of trauma or other injury that would reveal itself even after all of these years. Matsubara, like the others, was finding it spooky to see so many bodies lying around. The more she walked, and the more the complex revealed itself to be some kind of maze, she was beginning to wonder if the armadillo aliens simply might have been lost and starved to death. Upon a closer look at a larger collection of bodies, she found no devices on them, nothing like weapons or communicators or tricorders, or even survival gear.
They saw many kinds of corridors, including narrow ones with doors along both sides. Matsubara and the others opened them, and saw small rooms that looked like primitive quarters, although the beds consisted of nothing more than flat slats in slots in the wall. Some of them had more armadillo aliens. On one, they even found their first piece of technology, a disk-like object that was about ten centimetres in diameter. It had a metal frame, and in the centre, a piece of glass. One button was provided at the top, and around it was some alien lettering. Matsubara closed her eyes and tried to fight off any sense of squeamishness as she removed it from the skeletal remains. She did her best to make sure no part of her brushed against any part of the bony fingers. Finally, she had the disk.
"What are the odds that it still works?" Guerrero asked.
"Slim to none," Matsubara remarked. As if to demonstrate the point, she pushed the lone button. Nothing happened. The button did not even budge. She took it back into the corridor, and handed it to Stanislava. "Margaret, do you recognize the writing on this?"
The archaeologist took the artifact, and looked it over. She even scanned it, before saying, "No, ma'am. That's not a writing system I've encountered before."
Next she gave it to Turokuot, asking, "What was it? Can we get anything from it?"
The engineer scanned it, saying, "The circuitry suggests something like a tricorder, but the power cells are spent, and are corroded. It's possible that on the ship, I can pull something out of the memory, if they're solid-state and made with stable isotopes and can be identified. I can't do it here, though."
"We'll take it."
Their travels went on for the better part of ten hours. They explored the corridors, and continued even as Turokuot and Stanislava pointed out that they were going in circles, despite evidence to the contrary in the tricorders. The corridors were featureless and similar, although some were wider, and some had tracks in the floor or the ceiling. They saw many rooms, most of them empty box-shaped caverns that looked like they could be storerooms. They saw more of what could have been crew quarters, and even crew common areas, many of which consisted of rows of benches and small tables around a central column which might have been some kind of holographic or image projector. They found lots of equipment and machines, some of which was built in place and others which was mobile. In many cases, the internal components had deteriorated, so the equipment likely would not work-if a day should come that power was applied to them. In addition, they continued to find armadillo alien bodies, until the count pushed past a thousand. One thing that they did not find were any of the Adamsburg survivors, or any sign of them. One of the last things they did find were spiraling ramp-like structures that led to different levels.
"We must rest," Guerrero finally said. "I do feel hungry, but can accept that. I'm getting thirsty too."
"So am I," Matsubara remarked. They travelled back a couple of hundred metres to one of what they called a common area, although this one was mostly free of bodies. She sat down on one of the benches, and reflected on what had happened. This place was eerie, as it was dark and silent. The air was dry and a little on the cold side, but as long as they were moving around, the cold was not a problem. Matsubara sat down, and contemplated her situation. She had turned off the small lights on her wrist-mounted device. They had left only one on to give them just a little illumination, and to preserve the power in the others. But if that last one was turned off, Matsubara could find herself in total darkness. If she did that, she would undoubtedly feel this world-or this space station if that was what it was-close in around her, and trap her and confine her here in conditions that were almost like sensory depravation. It was cold and dark and silent, and she was a long way from home and a good meal and welcome conversation with Captain Thorpe. Had it been just ten hours ago? It was just a routine away-team mission, a couple of hours examining a mine and an alien artifact that the mine had run into. It should not have resulted in this, but it had. This was frustrating.
"Damiko?"
Matsubara turned to her left, where the voice had come from. That direction was only darkness, but she could sense the presence, and made the observation that Guerrero's voice was nothing like that of Thorpe. "Yes?"
Guerrero asked, "Remember what you were saying about the wrong door?"
"Yeah, bad luck, isn't it? But then, many of the other doors from the big cavern opened into those corridors."
"I was thinking of the big starship doors at the opposite end," the man continued, after a pause. "Logically, they're not going to open into a similar room in the facility. They're going to open to the outside."
"Which may be space," Matsubara pointed out.
Turokuot, sitting nearby in the near-darkness, added, "And there's no chance we can open them."
"No," the geologist continued, "but nearby might be other doors, other exits outside, either directly or through an airlock. This way is not giving results. It might also explain where the Adamsburg people went."
"How?"
"Remember, they're not going to have anything like portable lights like we have. They can't function in the darkness. They might have found the other way out first, and then they all headed in that direction."
"Wood," Waye suggested. "A lot of trees were in that vegetation mess back there."
"Wood that was living days ago doesn't burn all that well, and dead wood never made it across," Matsubara said. "Once the darkness fell, they might not wanted to have returned to the cavern, to even grope for vegetation or wood or whatever, because they wouldn't know if they were groping the armadillo bodies." None of the others said anything more, so Matsubara remarked, "Okay, lets head back the way we came. Hopefully, these tricorder maps are accurate. We'll see if Cubins and Gorwitz and the others made any progress in finding food."
"Maybe they found water too," Guerrero said.
"Not likely."
"Captain," Johnson started, "I've again been in contact with the Odonan government. Of the three individuals I was talking to, two had no idea what I was talking about, and the third stuck to his story that a ship was coming to Charamand, and would be here soon. He said he was not authorized to give out more information, or to even find what kind of information he couldn't give out."
"I see," Thorpe had started. It had been a long night, and the morning was not starting off much better. He had Johnson contact the Odonans to try to get some more information out of them, if only a more accurate time of arrival than "sometime soon." She had not succeeded.
"It's the war," the first officer continued. "I believe that the Odonans do not want to transmit such information unencrypted and on an unsecured channel. We simply don't have their codes, and any common codes, they feel, have already been compromised by the Dominion."
"Damn war," Thorpe replied, and then he quickly restrained his anger. Such emotions were not going to help now. They had kept him up much of the night, as he tried to come up with some way to get Matsubara, and the rest of the away team, back. Nothing feasible came to mind, because it all came down to what the Odonans knew. Whatever they knew, and whatever they were willing to share with him, would make all the difference. More than once, he thought of how curious it was that the Athena had not lost its science officer in the war, something the ship was not designed for or its crew trained for, but instead had lost it in a routine scientific investigation, something that the ship was designed for and the crew trained for.
"In addition, Governor Whitmore is requesting an update. People are anxious to find out more of what happened here, and when it is safe to open up the roads and the mag-lev trains."
"As I informed the governor earlier, given what happened, we realistically cannot proceed until the Odonans get here, and we can combine information. However, given how this device works, it would appear to be safe to open the road and the rail line again. The governor might want to move her road blocks so that access to the town is blocked. We'll also inform her if we're going to do anything in the affected zone so that she can pull out those people."
"Understood, I'll relay the message on. Anything else, sir?"
"No, nothing more right now."
Thorpe was technically on duty. The first shift had started a half hour ago, but the captain was not really needed on the bridge as the Athena continued to orbit Charamand. If he was needed-if someone was attempting to contact him or if sensors were picking up the approach of the Odonan starship-he could get to the bridge quickly. He just did not feel like sprightly leaving his quarters and going about the day. He did think about Matsubara, a lot, more now than in some other situations, such as the time he was putting his survival training to use on the Gamma-Quadrant planet of Beta Manganese. He and some others had been left behind by his ship, the Disraeli, when Jem'Hadar ships happened upon the scene. It took a couple of weeks for the rescue ship to arrive. Oddly, he did not have such dark thoughts about not seeing Matsubara again like he was having now. Curiously, that incident on the Disraeli was just about at the end of his time on that ship. Not long afterwards, he was given the chance to move to the Athena, where he was the first officer and had some influence on staffing the ship. He recommended Matsubara. Now, he wondered if that was a good choice.
Thorpe headed to the Acropolis for a late breakfast. The room was surprisingly crowded for the time of day, which made the captain wonder why all of these people were not at their stations or going about their tasks. Then again, with the Athena doing nothing about their current situation, not everybody had something to do. He was barely at the senior officers' table-which was vacant-and barely into his pancakes and cup of tea, when someone approached. "Need company?" asked Lucia Quintollez, the ship's counselor.
"Sure," Thorpe replied.
Quintollez was one of the older members of the crew. She was still fairly attractive, with long black hair, worn loose and flowing on this occasion, and the dark features that were characteristic of her Andean ancestry. "How do you feel?" she finally asked.
Thorpe had this thought that Quintollez was acting as if she was on duty while in the Acropolis. Was there not a ship rule against that, he wondered. Then again, maybe she was on duty. He answered, "Okay, given the circumstances."
"Thinking of Damiko?"
He could not make it that obvious. Sure, he was thinking of her, and the other fourteen as well. They were all valued members of the crew. "Yes, her, and the others too," he finally said. "Based on what we know, the odds are good that they're still alive. They're just... somewhere. The hardest part is that I know they're somewhere, but I just don't know how to get them back. I have to wait for some Odonans to come here and tell me how, as if they know. That's frustrating."
"But it is also about Damiko, isn't it?"
Thorpe decided to admit what was on his mind, more or less. "Perhaps, in a way. I do think of her on a more personal level, but it's true I think no less of the others. There's the personal side, that focuses on her, and then there's the fact that I'm the captain. I hate to lose members of the crew, any members of the crew. I must do what I can to get them back."
"I know."
"And I think that my problem is that I have to rely on the information that the Odonans have, and which they are not sharing."
"You know the reasons for that," Quintollez said.
"I know the reasons, the official reasons, but I still get the feeling that when the Odonans arrive, they're still not going to be very forthcoming. They might even want to take control of this investigation."
"That can't happen unless you let them. The worst thing is that you will think of Damiko, and you will let that sway you into command decisions that you might not otherwise take. I am aware that you will say you're above that, that as the captain, you have to think of the broader interests, but the person inside the captain might not always see things that way. You can let your emotions for Damiko take over, and you might become more suggestible to what the Odonans have to say."
"I'll try not to," Thorpe remarked. "At least by you telling me this, I could become aware of my thinking and how I might not be thinking in the most suitable way."
"We can all understand your feelings towards Damiko, since we've all had lovers, people we've cared about. Very few of us have, however, the ability to put them in harm's way like this."
"Most captains shy away from it. They think twice about such relationships. We're told, and we understand why, having relationships with members of the crew is not in the best interest of the captain."
"And as you will say, captain," Quintollez cut in, "that the situation with Damiko is different. It is in one sense, but no matter how the relationship started, or when, the captain in the situation you are in would tend to think in a particular way."
"I see."
"These are difficult times," the counselor continued. "Undoubtedly, you're thinking that it might be possible to recover the missing people, the officers, the Adamsburg people, even Damiko. I sense that you're worried that the Odonans might show up and say there's no way. You're dreading that."
"You could say that, but I'm not dreading it simply because it's Damiko, and I'm ignoring the others. That's not true at all. They all matter"
"I know that, but undoubtedly, Damiko is the first one you think about. Your plans, whatever you do, and however you react, are based on your feelings for her foremost, and your feelings for all the others are secondary."
"You make that sound almost like a bad thing."
"It's not," Quintollez quickly replied. She did not even get a chance to sip the coffee she had brought to the table. "Relationships are rarely wrong. Captains are people too, and they need to experience those same emotions, the same emotions of love and being loved, that everybody else needs. It is just that the captain has greater responsibilities than most, and needs to be reminded of that every so often."
Thorpe smiled just a little, saying, "It is almost sounding like you're trying to see how I would react if I had the choice to rescue Matsubara but not the others."
"Yes, perhaps. That would be a very rare situation for a captain to be in."
"But has it happened?"
"It has happened."
Thorpe was about to ask what Quintollez knew about that, but he heard his commbadge chirp, and it seemed rather loud even in the otherwise noisy Acropolis. Tapping the badge, he said, "Thorpe here."
Johnson was on the bridge, and she reported, "Sir, long-range sensors have picked up an Odonan ship, apparently Epi-class, moving at extremely high warp, something like five hundred thousand times the speed of light." Thorpe and Quintollez exchanged surprised glances at that number.
"What ship is it?"
"The navigation beacon identifies it as the Bluestar."
"What do we know about it?" Thorpe asked.
Johnson seemed to have the information at hand, as she answered, "Very little, sir. The ship is only a month old and was still going through its proving trials. We don't know who the captain is, and who the senior officers are, or even if they had formalized the commanding officers list on that ship."
"How long until it arrives?"
"It's hard to extrapolate a deceleration curve for a ship going like that, but I'd say within the hour, ninety minutes at the most."
"Very well. If they hail us, let me know. Thorpe out." He tapped at his commbadge, and said, "Well, Lucia, it's about time."
"Remember, captain, you might be disappointed by what the Odonans tell you."
"I know..."
Matsubara and her group returned to the vast central chamber, where the security officers and some others were attempting to gather and organize the vegetation that had been brought along with the inhabitants of Adamsburg. "How has it been going?" the commander asked.
Gorwitz answered, "Well, about what you would expect given that we have to use tricorders and can barely see anything, and there are these creepy alien bodies, rather mummified and dried out, all over the place. I can see why the other people would not want to stick around here."
"Yeah, I know."
"Some of this stuff is edible. It'll be like survival training all over again, but I think we'll need to find a source of water. Anything we do will require it."
"I know," Matsubara said. "That's assuming we're on a planet, a class-M planet or something close, and not out in space. Nevertheless, keep up with the work."
"Until the power in these lights and the tricorders run out."
Matsubara said nothing. She, along with Guerrero, Turokuot and Stanislava, continued towards the part of the wall that contained the doorway large enough for a starship to pass through. As they approached it, they saw that the floor ended a short distance from the wall, and at a lower level were a number of doorways, as well as hatches and what looked like machinery. Matsubara played her wrist lights along the edges of the depression, and saw what looked like forcefield emitters, as if this section could be protected when the main doors opened. They found steep and slightly rickety stairways down to the lower level, and at that level, they found a lot more of the sentient armadillo bodies. Matsubara played her lights over the consoles, and found that they consisted of unmarked buttons of various sizes, some knobs and some small display screens. A few larger screens were mounted in the vertical part of the console. To her, all of this equipment was meant to be durable, with solid construction and inert materials. It was also completely non-functional. She spent fifteen minutes exploring the large area with the others, as they came across several graphics, one of which displayed the facility they were in.
"Doesn't look good," Stanislava remarked.
"What?"
"Look at it. The layout, the shapes, the self-contained nature of it. We must be in space."
"But where did the Adamsburg people go?" Matsubara asked.
"I don't know," Guerrero spoke up. He returned from trying the doors that were built into the bulkhead underneath the main door. "None of those doors are manual, and none of them work." He looked around, an exasperated look on his face hidden in the deep shadows. "Have I ever told you how tired I am of the dark?"
"I think I know."
"If this is a space station," Stanislava continued, "then something must be maintaining gravity and life support. It's too bad that we can't find it here."
Turokuot, who had travelled to the far end of the lowered section, beyond where the big door would go if it lowered into the floor, and now was visible as a somewhat distant spot of light, shouted out, saying, "Commander Matsubara, I think I have something!" She turned, and saw his little section of light against a doorway that opened either manually or to his touch. She and the others quickly headed in his direction.
Turokuot had uncovered a small room, which was about two metres wide and about ten metres long. On each side were long hatches, covering the full two and a half metre height of the room and about five of the ten metres of length. There were two similar doors, on each of the long walls. The one that led under the main floor of the cavern was surrounded by what looked like a great deal of machinery, with piping and conduits and various boxes and other equipment all along the edges. The other hatch had a much smaller display of equipment.
"Where do they go?" the science officer asked.
Turokuot answered, "I don't know. The tricorder can't penetrate any of these walls."
"My guess is that this could lead to the power source. When we first arrived here, something underneath the floor glowed with energy that faded quickly. This could lead to that kind of machinery."
"I don't know how to open them, though. They are active. I do detect a little power flowing in the more exposed machinery, and there are these faint lights." Turokuot moved his wrist-mounted lights off of part of the surrounding machinery, revealing a couple of faint orange-red diode-type lights. Matsubara found a similar set on the opposite hatch. She also found a few simple controls, mostly toggle-type switches, on the largest panel.
"I wonder where this one goes," Matsubara said. She faced the controls, and scanned them quickly with the tricorder. They seemed to be nothing more than simple switches.
"Be careful, commander," Guerrero remarked. "This could be an airlock of some kind, and that could lead to the outside."
"Not likely," Turokuot replied. "The door I opened is far too flimsy and unsecured for an airlock, and the controls too complex. I've never seen airlocks with hatches like this, including one that clearly points inwards."
"Clearly, the Adamsburg people went somewhere," Matsubara started. "Maybe this was where they went. It's time to take our own chances." She pushed one of the buttons, but the door did not open. Instead, light panels mounted at each end of the long room came on, and though their light level was dim, it was blinding enough for the four officers, whose eyes were adapted for very dim light. In addition, more lights came on within the more complicated machinery around the inside doorframe. "Well, here goes nothing. If we get sucked out into space..." She said nothing more, but pushed the second switch. This one caused the door to open. The air did not rush out, and they were not greeted by the blackness of space. It was clear that they were in fact on a planet. The three stepped outside. "Oh man," the science officer said.
"Incredible," Guerrero remarked.
Stanislava simply said, "Wow."
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