{"data":{"id":16380,"title":"Whisperer in the Dark","rsi_url":"https:\/\/robertsspaceindustries.com\/comm-link\/serialized-fiction\/16380-Whisperer-In-The-Dark","api_url":"https:\/\/api.star-citizen.wiki\/api\/comm-links\/16380","api_public_url":"https:\/\/api.star-citizen.wiki\/comm-links\/16380","channel":"Undefined","category":"Undefined","series":"None","images":[{"id":22580,"name":"Whisperer-In-The-Dark.jpg","rsi_url":"https:\/\/robertsspaceindustries.com\/media\/0wuu6epvy1gs0r\/source\/Whisperer-In-The-Dark.jpg","alt":"","size":286350,"mime_type":"image\/jpeg","last_modified":"2018-01-23T20:32:08+00:00","api_url":"https:\/\/api.star-citizen.wiki\/api\/comm-link-images\/22580","similar_url":"https:\/\/api.star-citizen.wiki\/api\/comm-link-images\/22580\/similar"}],"images_count":1,"translations":{"en_EN":"Writer\u2019s Note: Published originally in Jump Point 1.1, this story takes place before the events of The Lost Generation.\nPeople complicate things. That\u2019s what they\u2019ve always been good at. Take a look at any functioning civilization and you will see chaos, confusion, and frustration. It could be human, Xi\u2019an, Banu, Vanduul, whoever. We may look different, be built different, but boil us down and you\u2019ll find the same insecurities, fears, and anxieties gnawing.\n\nTonya Oriel watched the yawning abyss outside the window. Kaceli\u2019s Adagio in 4 gently wafted through the otherwise empty ship. Scanners cycled through their spectrums on the hunt for any flagged anomalies.\n\nThe void. It was pure. It was simple. It was permanent.\n\nA calm serenity huddled around Tonya\u2019s shoulders like a blanket, the kind that can only exist when you are the only person for thousands of kilometers. Everyone else can have Terra, Earth, or Titus, with their megacities teeming with people. Never a moment where there wasn\u2019t a person above, beside or below you. Everything was noise. Tonya needed the silence.\n\nHer ship, the Beacon, drifted through that silence. Tonya customized almost every hardpoint and pod with some form of scanner, deep-range comm system, or surveying tech to get her further and further from the noise.\n\nThe problem was that the noise kept following.\n\n* * * * After three weeks on the drift, Tonya couldn\u2019t put it off any longer. She was due for a supply run and to sell off the data and minerals she\u2019d collected. After repairs, new scrubbers, and a spectrum update, she hoped she\u2019d have enough for some food.\n\nThe Xenia Shipping Hub in the Baker System had been the closest thing to a home she\u2019d had for the past few years. Tonya set her approach through the shifting entry\/exit patterns of ships. The station\u2019s traffic was busier than usual. As soon as the Beacon docked, her screen buzzed with a handful of new messages from the spectrum. She passed them to her mobiGlas and went to the airlock.\n\nTonya paused by the entry and savored this last moment of solitude as the airlock cycled, then hit the button.\n\nThe sound of people swept inside like a wave. She took a second to acclimate, adjusted her bag and crossed into the masses.\n\nCarl ran a small information network out of his bar, the Torchlight Express. An old surveyor for a long-defunct terraforming outfit, Carl traded moving minerals for slinging booze and information. Tonya had known him for years. As far as people went, Carl was a gem.\n\nThe Express was dead. Tonya checked local time. It was evening so there was no real reason why it should be like this. A group of prospectors sat at a table in the corner, engaged in a hushed conversation. Carl leaned against the bar, watching a sataball game on the wallscreen. His leathery fingers tapped out a beat to some song in his head.\n\nHe brightened up when he saw Tonya.\n\n\u201cWell, well, well, to what do we owe the honor, doctor?\u201d He said with a grin.\n\n\u201cDon\u2019t start, Carl.\u201d\n\n\u201cSure, sorry, doctor.\u201d He must be bored; he only called her that when he wanted to pick a fight. Tonya slung her bag onto the ground and slid onto a stool.\n\n\u201cAnything interesting?\u201d Tonya pulled her hair back into a tie.\n\n\u201cI\u2019m great, Tonya, thanks for asking. Business is a little slow, but you know how it is.\u201d Carl said sarcastically and slid a drink to her.\n\n\u201cCome on, Carl. I\u2019m not gonna patronize you with small-talk.\u201d\n\nCarl sighed and looked around.\n\n\u201cAt this point, I\u2019ll take any patrons I can get.\u201d He poured himself a drink from the dispenser. Tonya swiveled her mobiGlas around and showed him her manifest. He looked it over. \u201cRunning kinda light this time, huh?\u201d\n\n\u201cI know. You know any buyers?\u201d\n\n\u201cHow much you looking to get?\u201d\n\n\u201cWhatever I can,\u201d Tonya said as she sipped. She could tell Carl was annoyed with the non-answer. \u201cI need the money.\u201d\n\n\u201cI might be able to get you ten.\u201d He said after a long pause.\n\n\u201cI would give you my unborn child for ten.\u201d\n\n\u201cWith all the unborn kids you owe me, you better get started.\u201d He said. Tonya smacked his arm.\n\nOne of the prospectors drifted over to the bar with empty glasses. He was young, one of those types who cultivated the dirty handsome look. Probably spent an hour perfecting it before going out.\n\n\u201cAnother round.\u201d\n\nAs Carl poured, the prospector looked at Tonya, giving his looks a chance to work their magic. They failed. Carl set a fresh batch of drinks down. The prospector paid and went back slightly deterred.\n\n\u201cI think someone liked you.\u201d Carl teased.\n\n\u201cNot my type.\u201d\n\n\u201cLiving?\u201d\n\n\u201cExactly.\u201d Tonya watched the prospectors. They were really in an overtly secretive conversation. \u201cAny idea what they\u2019re here for?\u201d\n\n\u201cOf course I do.\u201d\n\n\u201cYeah? What\u2019d they say?\u201d\n\n\u201cNothing\u2026 well, not to me anyway.\u201d Carl pulled an earpiece out and held it out to her. Tonya wiped it off and took a listen. Suddenly she could hear their conversation loud and clear. Tonya looked at Carl, stunned.\n\n\u201cYou have mics on your tables?!\u201d She whispered. Carl shushed her.\n\n\u201cI deal in information, honey, so yeah.\u201d Carl said, almost offended that he wouldn\u2019t listen in on his customers.\n\nTonya took another sip and listened to the prospectors. It only took a little while to catch up. Apparently Cort, the prospector who tried to woo Tonya with his ruggedness, got a tip from his uncle in the UEE Navy. The uncle had been running Search & Rescue drills in the Hades System when their scanners accidentally picked up a deposit of kherium on Hades II. Being the military, of course, they couldn\u2019t do anything, but Cort and his buddies were fixing to sneak in there and harvest it for themselves.\n\nKherium was a hot commodity. If these prospectors were on the level, they were talking about a tidy little fortune. Certainly enough to patch up the Beacon, maybe even install some upgrades.\n\nEven better, they obviously didn\u2019t know how to find it. Kherium doesn\u2019t show up on a standard metal or rad scan. It takes a specialist to find, much less extract without corrupting it. Fortunately for Tonya, she knew how to do both.\n\u201cYou\u2019ve got that look.\u201d Carl said and refilled her glass. \u201cGood news?\u201d\n\n\u201cI hope so, Carl, for both of us.\u201d\n\n* * * * Carl offloaded her haul at a discount so she could set out as quick as possible. Last time she checked, the prospectors were still at the Express and from the sound of it, they wouldn\u2019t leave for a couple hours, maybe a day.\n\nTonya disengaged the Beacon from the dock and was back in her beloved solitude. The engines hummed as they pushed her deeper into space, pushed her toward a lifeline.\n\nThe Hades System was a tomb, the final monument of an ancient civil war that obliterated an entire system and the race that inhabited it. Tonya had it on her list of places to study, but every year Hades was besieged by fresh batches of young scientists exploring it for their dissertation or treasure hunters looking for whatever weapon cracked Hades IV in half. So the system became more noise to avoid.\n\nTonya had to admit that passing Hades IV was always a thrill. It\u2019s not every day you get to see the guts of a planet killed in its prime.\n\nThen there were the whispers that the system was haunted. There was always some pilot who knew a guy who knew someone who had seen something while passing through the system. The stories ranged from unexplained technical malfunctions to full-on sightings of ghost cruisers. It was all nonsense.\n\nThere was a loose stream of ships passing through Hades. The general flight lane steered clear of the central planets. Tonya slowed her ship until there was a sizeable gap in the flow of traffic before veering off toward Hades II.\n\nShe passed a barrier of dead satellites and descended into Hades II\u2019s churning atmosphere. The Beacon jolted when it hit the clouds. Visual went to nil and suddenly the ship was bathed in noise, screaming air, and pressure. Tonya kept an eye on her scopes and expanded the range on her proximity alerts to make sure she didn\u2019t ram a mountain.\n\nSuddenly the clouds gave way. The Beacon swooped into the light gravity above a pitch-black ocean. Tonya quickly recalibrated her thrusters for atmospheric flight and took a long look at the planet around her.\n\nAs was expected, it was a husk. There were signs of intelligent civilization all around but all of it was crumbling, charred, or destroyed. She passed over vast curved cities built atop sweeping arches meant to keep the buildings from ever touching the planet itself.\n\nTonya maintained a cruising altitude. The roar of her engines echoed through the vast empty landscape. The sun was another casualty of this system\u2019s execution. The cloud systems never abated so the surface never saw sunlight. It was always bathed in a dark greyish green haze.\n\nTonya studied the topography to plot out a course and set the scanners to look for the unique kherium signature she had programmed. She engaged the auto-pilot and just looked out the window.\n\nBeing here now, she kicked herself for not coming sooner. It didn\u2019t matter that this was one of the most scientifically scrutinized locales in the UEE. Seeing the vastness of the devastation with her own eyes, Tonya felt that tug that a good mystery has on the intellect. Who were they? How did they manage to so effectively wipe themselves out? How do we know they actually wiped themselves out?\n\nA few hours passed with no luck. Tonya had a quick snack and ran through her exercise routine. She double-checked the settings on her scans for any errors on the initial input. A couple months ago, she was surveying a planet and found nothing, only to discover on her way back that there had been one setting off that scuttled the whole scan. It still bugged her. It was an amateur mistake.\n\nShe brought up some texts on Hades. Halfway through a paper on the exobiology of the Hadesians, her screen pinged. Tonya was over there like a shot.\n\nThe scope gave a faint indication of kherium below. She triple-checked the settings before getting her hopes up. They seemed legit. She looked out the front. A small city sat above endless sea of dead trees lay ahead. It looked like an orbital laser or something had hit it excising massively deep craters from buildings and ground.\n\nTonya took a closer look. The craters went about six hundred feet into the ground, revealing networks of underground tunnels. They looked like some kind of transport system.\n\nTonya looked for a suitable landing spot with cover from overhead flights. If she was still here when the prospectors showed up, her ship would be a dead giveaway and things would get complicated.\n\nShe strapped on her environment suit and respirator. She could check the ship\u2019s scanners through her mobiGlas but threw another handheld scanner\/mapper in with her mining gear just in case. Finally, she powered up her transport crate, hoping the anti-gravity buffers would be more than enough to lug the kherium back.\n\nTonya stepped out onto the surface. The wind whipped around her, furiously kicking up waves of dust. She pushed the crate in front of her through the blasted forest. Gnarled branches clawed at her suit as she passed. The city loomed overhead, black silhouettes against the grey-green clouds.\n\nHer curiosity got the better of her so Tonya decided to take a ramp up to the city streets. She told herself the detour would be easier on the crate\u2019s battery. Smooth streets are easier for the anti-grav compensators to analyze than rough terrain.\n\nTonya moved through the barren, empty streets in awe. She studied the strange curvature of the architecture; each displayed an utterly alien yet brilliant understanding of pressure and weight dispersal. This whole place seemed at once natural and odd, intellectually fascinating and emotionally draining.\n\nThe kherium signature was still weak but there. Tonya maneuvered the crate around destroyed teardrop shaped vehicles. Pit-marks in the buildings and streets led her to suspect that a battle had taken place here however many hundreds or thousands of years ago.\n\nThe crater closest to the kherium was a perfect hole punched through the middle of the city into the ground. Tonya stood at the edge, looking for the easiest way down. The crate could float down but she would have to climb.\n\nIn a matter of minutes she secured a line with safeties for herself and the crate. She stepped over the edge and slowly rappelled down the sheer wall. The crate was making what should be a simple descent a little more complicated. The anti-grav buffers meant that any kind of force could cause the crate to drift away, so Tonya needed to keep a hand on it at all times. To make matters worse, the wind started picking up, flinging small rocks, branches and pieces of debris through the air.\n\nA shrill scream tore through the air. Tonya froze. She heard it again and looked for the source. The screaming was just exposed supports bending in the wind.\n\nSuddenly she realized, the crate had slipped out of her grasp. It slowly drifted further out over the crater, the swirling wind batted it around like a toy. Tonya strained to reach it but the crate floated just out of reach. She kicked off the wall and swung through the churning air. Her fingertips barely snagged the cargo before she slammed back against the wall of the crater.\n\nHer vision blurred and she couldn\u2019t breathe from the impact. The HUD went screwy. Finally she caught her breath. She took a moment or two before continuing down.\n\nThe scanner from the Beacon couldn\u2019t isolate the signature any clearer to determine depth so she had to rely on her handheld. The kherium looked like it was situated between two tunnels.\n\nTonya secured the crate, climbed into the upper tunnel, and tied off her ropes. She checked her suit\u2019s integrity in the debris-storm. The computer was a little fuzzy but gave her an okay.\n\nShe turned on a flashlight and activated the external mics on her suit. The tunnel was a perfectly carved tube that sloped into the darkness. Tonya couldn\u2019t see any kind of power or rail system to confirm her transport tube theory. She started walking.\n\nHours passed in the darkness. Tonya felt a little queasy so she decided to rest for a few minutes. She sipped on the water reserve and double-checked her scanner. She was still above the kherium and it was still showing up as being in front of her. That much hadn\u2019t changed.\n\nShe heard something. Very faint. She brought up the audio settings and pumped the gain on the external mics. A sea of white noise filled her ears. She didn\u2019t move until she heard it again. Something being dragged then stopped.\n\nIR and night vision windows appeared in the corners of her HUD. She couldn\u2019t see anything. In the vast stretches of these tunnels, there\u2019s no telling how far that sound had travelled. Still, she went to the crate and pulled the shotgun out. She made sure it was loaded, even tried to remember the last time she had cause to use it.\n\nTonya started moving a little more cautious. She doubted it was the prospectors. For all she knew it could be some other pirate or smuggler down here. Regardless, she wasn\u2019t going to take any chances.\n\nThe tunnel started to expand before finally giving way to a vast darkness. Tonya\u2019s night vision couldn\u2019t even see the end. She dug through her supplies and picked out some old flares. She sparked one.\n\nIt was a city. A mirror city to be precise. While the one on the surface reached for the sky, this one was carved down into the planet. Walkways connected the various structures built out of the walls on the various levels. She\u2019d never heard of anything like this before. Everyone speculated that it was civil war that destroyed this system. Was this a city of the other side?\n\nShe came to an intersection and the first real sign that the fighting had spread here. A barricade of melted vehicles blocked one of the tunnels. The walls were charred from either explosions or laser-blasts. A shadow had even been burned into the wall.\n\nTonya stood in front of it. The Hadesian seemed to have a roundish bulky main body with multiple thin appendages. A thousand year old stain on a wall is hardly much to go by, but even as a silhouette, it looked terrified.\n\nA cavernous structure was built into the wall nearby. Tonya approached to examine the craftsmanship. It was certainly more ornate than most of the other buildings down here. There weren\u2019t doors down here, just narrow oval portals. There was some kind of tech integrated into the sides.\n\nTonya decided to take a look. It was a deep bowl with rows of enclosures built into the sides. All of them were angled towards a single point, a marble-like cylinder at the bottom of the bowl. Tonya descended toward it. There was a small item sitting on top. She kept her light and shotgun trained on it. It was made from a similar marble-like stone as the cylinder. Tonya looked around. Was this some kind of church?\n\nShe leaned down to get a better look at the item, careful not to disturb anything. It was a small carving. It wasn\u2019t a Hadesian shape. Not one she was familiar with. She weighed whether she should take it.\n\nTonya\u2019s head suddenly swam. She stumbled back and steadied herself on the enclosures. After a moment or two it passed. A subtle stabbing pain started to ache in her arm. She stretched it, trying to work out the ache. She took a last look at the small carving.\n\nTonya stepped out of the ornate building and brought up her scanner. The kherium was close. She followed the scanner\u2019s directions into the dark and twisted tunnels. Her eyes stayed locked on the growing glow of the screen. She tripped over something. The scanner clattered across the floor. It echoed for a minute.\n\nTonya shook her head slightly. This place\u2026 She turned her lights back right into the face of a rotted corpse, its mouth open in a silent scream.\n\n\u201cHell!\u201d she yelled as she scuffled away from it. She looked around. There was another form on the floor about twenty feet away. A strongbox sat between them. The initial shock subsided.\n\nTonya got up, grabbed her scanner and walked over to the first body. Its skull had been cracked open. There was no weapon though. No club or bar nearby. That was odd. The other one had clearly shot himself. The gun was still in his hand. They were definitely human and based on their clothes; they were probably surveyors or pirates. She didn\u2019t know what kind of elements were in the air here so she couldn\u2019t give an accurate guess how long they\u2019d been dead but suspected months.\n\nShe shuffled over to the strongbox and kicked it open. Kherium. Already extracted and carefully wrapped. Sweet relief drifted through the exhaustion.\n\n\u201cThanks guys.\u201d Tonya gave them a quick salute. \u201cSorry you aren\u2019t here to share it.\u201d Something flitted across her IR window.\n\nTonya snatched up her shotgun and aimed. It was gone. Her breathing became rapid and shallow as she waited. Her finger hovered over the trigger. She pumped the gain on the external mics again and scanned the hall. The whole time, telling herself to calm down. Calm down.\n\nEvery movement of her suit amplified a hundred times in her ears. She tracked the rifle through the tunnel, looking for whatever was in here with her. Something came through the static. Close.\n\n\u201cWelcome home,\u201d it hissed.\n\nTonya fired into the dark. She spun behind her. Nothing down there. She racked another round and blasted anyway. The shots blew out the speakers in her helmet.\n\nShe grabbed the strongbox and ran.\n\nRan through the slippery, sloping tunnels of pitch-black, now in total silence. She passed the intersection, where the Hadesian still raised its arms in terror. She kept looking back. She could swear something was there, just beyond the range of the IR, watching from the static.\n\nTonya sprinted up a rise to see the grim overcast light of the exit, now just a pinhole. Her legs burned. Her arm killed. All she wanted to do was go to sleep but she wasn\u2019t going to stop. If she stopped, she knew she would never leave.\n\nShe pulled herself up the rope and pushed through the blasted forest back to the Beacon. Thirty seconds later, the thrusters were scorching earth. One minute later, she broke atmo.\n\nAs Hades II drifted away, she tried to steady her nerves. Her environment suit slowly twisted on the hanger in the decontamination chamber. She noticed something.\n\nThe respiratory functions on the back were damaged. The fall in the crater must have done it. It bashed up the feeds and she was getting too much oxygen. The headaches, nausea, and fatigue\u2026 even that voice. Even though it chilled her still. They were all probably just hallucinations and reactions to oxygen poisoning.\n\nProbably.\n\nTonya set a course back for the Xenia Shipping Hub in Baker. She had goods to sell, true, but right now, she wanted to be around people.\n\nShe wanted to be around the noise.\n\nBack in the decontamination chamber, the tiny Hadesian carving sat on the floor.\n\nTHE END","de_DE":"Anmerkung des Autors: Diese Geschichte, die urspr\u00fcnglich in Jump Point 1.1 ver\u00f6ffentlicht wurde, spielt vor den Ereignissen von The Lost Generation.\nMenschen verkomplizieren die Dinge. Das ist es, worin sie immer gut waren. Werfen Sie einen Blick auf jede funktionierende Zivilisation und Sie werden Chaos, Verwirrung und Frustration sehen. Es k\u00f6nnte menschlich sein, Xi'an, Banu, Vanduul, wer auch immer. Wir sehen vielleicht anders aus, sind anders gebaut, aber wir werden uns einnisten und du wirst die gleichen Unsicherheiten, \u00c4ngste und \u00c4ngste finden, die uns nagen.\n\nTonya Oriel beobachtete den g\u00e4hnenden Abgrund vor dem Fenster. Kaceli's Adagio in 4 wackelte sanft durch das ansonsten leere Schiff. Scanner durchsuchten ihre Spektren auf der Jagd nach irgendwelchen markierten Anomalien.\n\nDie Leere. Es war rein. Es war einfach. Es war dauerhaft.\n\nEine ruhige Gelassenheit kuschelte sich wie eine Decke um Tonyas Schultern, die Art, die nur existieren kann, wenn man die einzige Person f\u00fcr Tausende von Kilometern ist. Alle anderen k\u00f6nnen Terra, Erde oder Titus haben, mit ihren Megast\u00e4dten voller Menschen. Niemals einen Moment, in dem es keine Person \u00fcber, neben oder unter dir gab. Alles war L\u00e4rm. Tonya brauchte die Stille.\n\nIhr Schiff, die Bake, trieb durch diese Stille. Tonya passte fast jeden Hardpoint und Pod mit irgendeiner Form von Scanner, Deep-Range-Kommunikationssystem oder Vermessungstechnik an, um sie immer weiter aus dem Rauschen herauszuholen.\n\nDas Problem war, dass das Ger\u00e4usch immer weiter folgte.\n\nNach drei Wochen auf dem Drift konnte Tonya es nicht mehr hinausz\u00f6gern. Sie war f\u00fcr einen Versorgungslauf und den Verkauf der von ihr gesammelten Daten und Mineralien f\u00e4llig. Nach Reparaturen, neuen Schrubbern und einem Spektrum-Update hoffte sie, dass sie genug f\u00fcr etwas Essen haben w\u00fcrde.\n\nDie Xenia Shipping Hub im Baker System war dem Haus, das sie in den letzten Jahren besucht hatte, am n\u00e4chsten gekommen. Tonya setzte ihren Ansatz durch die sich \u00e4ndernden Ein- und Ausgangsmuster von Schiffen. Der Verkehr auf der Station war belebter als sonst. Sobald der Beacon angedockt war, summierte ihr Bildschirm mit einer Handvoll neuer Nachrichten aus dem Spektrum. Sie gab sie an ihr mobiGlas weiter und ging zur Luftschleuse.\n\nTonya hielt am Eingang inne und genoss diesen letzten Moment der Einsamkeit, als die Luftschleuse in Bewegung kam, und dr\u00fcckte dann den Knopf.\n\nDer Klang von Menschen fegte wie eine Welle hinein. Sie brauchte eine Sekunde, um sich zu akklimatisieren, passte ihre Tasche an und ging in die Massen.\n\nCarl betrieb ein kleines Informationsnetzwerk aus seiner Bar, den Torchlight Express. Carl, ein alter Vermesser f\u00fcr ein l\u00e4ngst ausgedientes Terraform-Outfit, tauschte bewegliche Mineralien gegen Schnaps und Informationen. Tonya kannte ihn schon seit Jahren. Was die Menschen betrifft, so war Carl ein Juwel.\n\nDer Express war tot. Tonya hat die Ortszeit \u00fcberpr\u00fcft. Es war Abend, also gab es keinen wirklichen Grund, warum es so sein sollte. Eine Gruppe von Prospektoren sa\u00df an einem Tisch in der Ecke und f\u00fchrte ein ged\u00e4mpftes Gespr\u00e4ch. Carl lehnte sich gegen die Bar und beobachtete ein Sataballspiel auf dem Wandschirm. Seine ledrigen Finger schlugen einen Beat zu einem Lied in seinem Kopf heraus.\n\nEr erhellte sich, als er Tonya sah.\n\n\"Nun, nun, nun, nun, wem schulden wir die Ehre, Doktor?\" sagte er mit einem Grinsen.\n\n\"Fang nicht an, Carl.\"\n\n\"Sicher, tut mir leid, Doktor.\" Er muss sich langweilen; er nannte sie nur so, wenn er einen Kampf austragen wollte. Tonya legte ihre Tasche auf den Boden und rutschte auf einen Hocker.\n\n\"Irgendwas Interessantes?\" Tonya zog ihr Haar wieder in eine Krawatte.\n\n\"Mir geht es gut, Tonya, danke der Nachfrage. Das Gesch\u00e4ft l\u00e4uft etwas schleppend, aber du wei\u00dft, wie es ist.\" sagte Carl sarkastisch und schob einen Drink zu ihr.\n\n\"Komm schon, Carl. Ich werde dich nicht mit Small-Talk bevormunden.\"\n\nCarl seufzte und sah sich um.\n\n\"An diesem Punkt nehme ich alle G\u00e4ste, die ich kriegen kann.\" Er goss sich einen Drink aus dem Spender ein. Tonya drehte ihr mobiGlas um und zeigte ihm ihr Manifest. Er sah es sich an. \"Diesmal l\u00e4uft es etwas leicht, was?\"\n\n\"Ich wei\u00df. Kennst du irgendwelche K\u00e4ufer?\"\n\n\"Wie viel willst du bekommen?\"\n\n\"Was immer ich kann\", sagte Tonya, als sie trank. Sie konnte erkennen, dass Carl \u00fcber die Nicht-Antwort ver\u00e4rgert war. \"Ich brauche das Geld.\"\n\n\"Ich kann dir vielleicht zehn besorgen.\" sagte er nach einer langen Pause.\n\n\"Ich w\u00fcrde dir mein ungeborenes Kind f\u00fcr zehn Jahre geben.\"\n\n\"Mit all den ungeborenen Kindern, die du mir schuldest, solltest du besser anfangen.\" Sagte er. Tonya schlug ihm auf den Arm.\n\nEiner der Goldsucher trieb mit leeren Gl\u00e4sern zur Bar hin\u00fcber. Er war jung, einer dieser Typen, die den schmutzigen, gutaussehenden Look kultivierten. Hat wahrscheinlich eine Stunde damit verbracht, es zu perfektionieren, bevor er rausging.\n\n\"Noch eine Runde.\"\n\nAls Carl goss, sah der Goldsucher Tonya an und gab seinen Blicken die M\u00f6glichkeit, ihre Magie zu entfalten. Sie haben versagt. Carl stellte eine frische Ladung Getr\u00e4nke ab. Der Goldsucher bezahlte und ging leicht abgeschreckt zur\u00fcck.\n\n\"Ich glaube, jemand mochte dich.\" Carl neckte.\n\n\"Nicht mein Typ.\"\n\n\" Leben?\"\n\n\"Genau.\" Tonya beobachtete die Goldsucher. Sie waren wirklich in einem offen geheimnisvollen Gespr\u00e4ch. \"Irgendeine Idee, warum sie hier sind?\"\n\n\"Nat\u00fcrlich will ich das.\"\n\n\"Ja? Was haben sie gesagt?\"\n\n\"Nichts... nun, jedenfalls nicht f\u00fcr mich.\" Carl zog einen Ohrst\u00f6psel heraus und hielt ihn ihr entgegen. Tonya wischte es ab und h\u00f6rte zu. Pl\u00f6tzlich konnte sie ihr Gespr\u00e4ch laut und deutlich h\u00f6ren. Tonya sah Carl fassungslos an.\n\n\"Du hast Mikrofone auf deinem Tisch?\" fl\u00fcsterte sie. Carl hat sie beruhigt.\n\n\"Ich handle mit Informationen, Schatz, also ja.\" Carl sagte, fast beleidigt, dass er seinen Kunden nicht zuh\u00f6ren w\u00fcrde.\n\nTonya nahm noch einen Schluck und h\u00f6rte den Prospektoren zu. Es dauerte nur eine kleine Weile, um aufzuholen. Anscheinend erhielt Cort, der Goldsucher, der Tonya mit seiner Robustheit zu umwerben versuchte, einen Tipp von seinem Onkel in der UEE Navy. Der Onkel hatte Such- und Rettungs\u00fcbungen im Hades-System durchgef\u00fchrt, als seine Scanner versehentlich eine Kheriumdepot auf Hades II aufhoben. Als Milit\u00e4r konnten sie nat\u00fcrlich nichts tun, aber Cort und seine Kumpels wollten sich da reinschleichen und es selbst ernten.\n\nKherium war eine hei\u00dfe Ware. Wenn diese Goldsucher auf dem Niveau waren, sprachen sie von einem aufger\u00e4umten kleinen Verm\u00f6gen. Sicherlich genug, um das Leuchtfeuer zu reparieren, vielleicht sogar einige Upgrades zu installieren.\n\nNoch besser, sie wussten offensichtlich nicht, wie sie es finden sollten. Kherium zeigt sich nicht auf einem normalen Metall- oder Radarscan. Es braucht einen Spezialisten, um einen Extrakt zu finden, viel weniger, ohne ihn zu besch\u00e4digen. Gl\u00fccklicherweise f\u00fcr Tonya, wusste sie, wie man beides macht.\n\"Du hast diesen Blick.\" sagte Carl und f\u00fcllte ihr Glas wieder auf. \"Gute Nachrichten?\"\n\n\"Ich hoffe es, Carl, f\u00fcr uns beide.\"\n\nCarl entlud ihren Hol mit einem Rabatt, damit sie so schnell wie m\u00f6glich losfahren konnte. Letztes Mal, als sie es \u00fcberpr\u00fcfte, waren die Goldsucher noch beim Express, und wenn es so klingt, w\u00fcrden sie erst in ein paar Stunden, vielleicht an einem Tag, gehen.\n\nTonya l\u00f6ste das Leuchtfeuer vom Dock und war wieder in ihrer geliebten Einsamkeit. Die Motoren summten, als sie sie tiefer in den Raum dr\u00fcckten, sie zu einer Rettungsleine dr\u00fcckten.\n\nDas Hades-System war ein Grab, das letzte Denkmal eines alten B\u00fcrgerkriegs, der ein ganzes System und die Rasse, die es bewohnte, ausl\u00f6schte. Tonya hatte es auf ihrer Liste der Studienorte, aber jedes Jahr wurde Hades von neuen Chargen junger Wissenschaftler belagert, die es f\u00fcr ihre Dissertation erkundeten, oder von Schatzsuchern, die nach dem suchten, was auch immer die Waffe in zwei H\u00e4lften zerbrach. So wurde das System mehr Rauschen zu vermeiden.\n\nTonya musste zugeben, dass das Passieren von Hades IV immer ein Nervenkitzel war. Es kommt nicht jeden Tag vor, dass man die Eingeweide eines Planeten sieht, der in seiner Bl\u00fctezeit get\u00f6tet wurde.\n\nDann gab es das Fl\u00fcstern, dass das System verfolgt wurde. Es gab immer einen Piloten, der einen Kerl kannte, der jemanden kannte, der etwas gesehen hatte, w\u00e4hrend er durch das System ging. Die Geschichten reichten von unerkl\u00e4rlichen technischen St\u00f6rungen bis hin zu kompletten Sichtungen von Geisterkreuzern. Es war alles Unsinn.\n\nEs gab einen losen Strom von Schiffen, die durch den Hades fuhren. Die allgemeine Flugbahn hielt sich von den zentralen Planeten fern. Tonya verlangsamte ihr Schiff, bis es eine betr\u00e4chtliche L\u00fccke im Verkehrsfluss gab, bevor sie in Richtung Hades II abbog.\n\nSie passierte eine Barriere aus toten Satelliten und stieg in die aufgew\u00fchlte Atmosph\u00e4re von Hades II. hinab. Das Leuchtfeuer r\u00fcttelte, als es die Wolken traf. Die Sichtweite ging auf Null und pl\u00f6tzlich war das Schiff in L\u00e4rm, schreiende Luft und Druck getaucht. Tonya behielt ein Auge auf ihre Zielfernrohre und erweiterte die Reichweite auf ihre Ann\u00e4herungsalarme, um sicherzustellen, dass sie keinen Berg rammt.\n\nPl\u00f6tzlich wichen die Wolken. Das Leuchtfeuer schoss in die leichte Schwerkraft \u00fcber einem pechschwarzen Ozean. Tonya hat ihre Triebwerke f\u00fcr den atmosph\u00e4rischen Flug schnell rekalibriert und einen langen Blick auf den Planeten um sie herum geworfen.\n\nWie erwartet, war es eine Schale. Es gab \u00fcberall Anzeichen einer intelligenten Zivilisation, aber alles war zerbr\u00f6ckelnd, verkohlt oder zerst\u00f6rt. Sie ging \u00fcber riesige geschwungene St\u00e4dte, die auf geschwungenen B\u00f6gen gebaut wurden, um zu verhindern, dass die Geb\u00e4ude den Planeten selbst jemals ber\u00fchren.\n\nTonya hielt eine Reiseflugh\u00f6he. Das Gebr\u00fcll ihrer Motoren hallte durch die weite, leere Landschaft. Die Sonne war ein weiteres Opfer der Ausf\u00fchrung dieses Systems. Die Wolkensysteme haben nie nachgelassen, so dass die Oberfl\u00e4che nie Sonnenlicht sah. Es war immer in einen dunkelgraugr\u00fcnen Schleier getaucht.\n\nTonya studierte die Topographie, um einen Kurs festzulegen und die Scanner so einzustellen, dass sie nach der einzigartigen Kherium-Signatur suchen, die sie programmiert hatte. Sie schaltete den Autopiloten ein und sah nur aus dem Fenster.\n\nDa sie jetzt hier war, trat sie sich selbst, weil sie nicht fr\u00fcher kam. Es spielte keine Rolle, dass dies eine der wissenschaftlich am besten untersuchten Schaupl\u00e4tze in der UEE war. Tonya sah die Weite der Verw\u00fcstung mit eigenen Augen und f\u00fchlte, wie sie diesen Zug, den ein gutes Geheimnis \u00fcber den Intellekt hat, zog. Wer waren sie? Wie konnten sie sich so effektiv ausl\u00f6schen? Woher wissen wir, dass sie sich tats\u00e4chlich ausgel\u00f6scht haben?\n\nEin paar Stunden vergingen ohne Gl\u00fcck. Tonya hatte einen schnellen Snack und lief durch ihre Trainingsroutine. Sie \u00fcberpr\u00fcfte die Einstellungen auf ihren Scans auf Fehler bei der ersten Eingabe. Vor ein paar Monaten hat sie einen Planeten vermessen und nichts gefunden, nur um auf dem R\u00fcckweg festzustellen, dass es einen Ausl\u00f6ser gegeben hat, der den gesamten Scan versenkt hat. Es hat sie immer noch gest\u00f6rt. Es war ein Amateurfehler.\n\nSie erw\u00e4hnte einige Texte \u00fcber den Hades. Auf halbem Weg durch ein Papier \u00fcber die Exobiologie der Hadesianer, ihr Bildschirm ist gezackt. Tonya war da dr\u00fcben wie ein Schuss.\n\nDer Anwendungsbereich gab einen schwachen Hinweis auf das untenstehende Kerium. Sie \u00fcberpr\u00fcfte die Einstellungen dreifach, bevor sie sich Hoffnungen machte. Sie schienen echt zu sein. Sie blickte nach vorne. Eine kleine Stadt sa\u00df \u00fcber dem endlosen Meer toter B\u00e4ume und lag vor ihr. Es sah aus wie ein Orbitallaser oder etwas, das ihn getroffen hatte, indem es massiv tiefe Krater aus Geb\u00e4uden und Boden herausschneidet.\n\nTonya hat sich das genauer angesehen. Die Krater gingen etwa sechshundert Fu\u00df in den Boden und enth\u00fcllten Netzwerke von unterirdischen Tunneln. Sie sahen aus wie eine Art Transportsystem.\n\nTonya suchte nach einem geeigneten Landeplatz mit Deckung durch \u00dcberkopffl\u00fcge. Wenn sie noch hier w\u00e4re, als die Goldsucher auftauchten, w\u00e4re ihr Schiff ein verr\u00e4terisches Zeichen und die Dinge w\u00fcrden kompliziert werden.\n\nSie schnallte sich ihren Umgebungsanzug und ihr Atemschutzger\u00e4t an. Sie konnte die Scanner des Schiffes durch ihr mobiGlas hindurch \u00fcberpr\u00fcfen, warf aber f\u00fcr alle F\u00e4lle einen weiteren tragbaren Scanner\/Mapper mit ihrer Minenausr\u00fcstung hinein. Schlie\u00dflich schaltete sie ihre Transportkiste ein und hoffte, dass die Anti-Schwerkraft-Puffer mehr als genug w\u00e4ren, um das Kerium zur\u00fcckzuschleppen.\n\nTonya trat auf die Oberfl\u00e4che hinaus. Der Wind peitschte um sie herum und wirbelte w\u00fctend Staubwellen auf. Sie schob die Kiste vor sich durch den gesprengten Wald. Knorrige \u00c4ste krallen sich an ihrem Anzug, als sie vorbeikam. Die Stadt ragte \u00fcber ihr hervor, schwarze Silhouetten gegen die grau-gr\u00fcnen Wolken.\n\nIhre Neugierde wurde immer st\u00e4rker, also beschloss Tonya, eine Rampe bis zu den Stra\u00dfen der Stadt zu nehmen. Sie sagte sich, der Umweg w\u00e4re einfacher f\u00fcr die Batterie der Kiste. Glatte Stra\u00dfen sind f\u00fcr die Anti-Gravitationskompensatoren leichter zu analysieren als unwegsames Gel\u00e4nde.\n\nTonya bewegte sich durch die kargen, leeren Stra\u00dfen in Ehrfurcht. Sie studierte die seltsame Kr\u00fcmmung der Architektur; jede zeigte ein v\u00f6llig fremdes, aber brillantes Verst\u00e4ndnis von Druck und Gewichtsverteilung. Dieser ganze Ort schien nat\u00fcrlich und seltsam zugleich, intellektuell faszinierend und emotional anregend.\n\nDie Kherium-Signatur war noch schwach, aber dort. Tonya man\u00f6vrierte die Kiste um zerst\u00f6rte tropfenf\u00f6rmige Fahrzeuge. Grubenmarken in den Geb\u00e4uden und Stra\u00dfen lie\u00dfen sie vermuten, dass hier noch vor vielen hundert oder tausend Jahren eine Schlacht stattgefunden hatte.\n\nDer dem Kerium am n\u00e4chsten gelegene Krater war ein perfektes Loch, das durch die Mitte der Stadt in den Boden gestanzt wurde. Tonya stand am Rand und suchte nach dem einfachsten Weg nach unten. Die Kiste k\u00f6nnte nach unten schwimmen, aber sie m\u00fcsste klettern.\n\nInnerhalb weniger Minuten sicherte sie sich eine Linie mit Sicherheitsvorkehrungen f\u00fcr sich und die Kiste. Sie trat \u00fcber den Rand und seilte sich langsam die schiere Wand hinunter. Die Kiste machte eine einfache Abfahrt etwas komplizierter. Die Anti-Gravitationspuffer bedeuteten, dass jede Art von Gewalt dazu f\u00fchren konnte, dass die Kiste wegdriftet, also musste Tonya immer die Hand daran halten. Erschwerend kam hinzu, dass der Wind aufkam und kleine Felsen, \u00c4ste und Tr\u00fcmmer durch die Luft schleuderte.\n\nEin schriller Schrei riss durch die Luft. Tonya ist erstarrt. Sie h\u00f6rte es wieder und suchte nach der Quelle. Das Schreien war nur entbl\u00f6\u00dft, St\u00fctzen, die sich im Wind biegen.\n\nPl\u00f6tzlich merkte sie, dass ihr die Kiste aus dem Griff gerutscht war. Langsam driftete er weiter \u00fcber den Krater hinaus, der wirbelnde Wind wirbelte ihn wie ein Spielzeug herum. Tonya versuchte, es zu erreichen, aber die Kiste schwebte knapp au\u00dferhalb der Reichweite. Sie trat von der Wand und schwang sich durch die aufgew\u00fchlte Luft. Ihre Fingerspitzen verfangen sich kaum an der Ladung, bevor sie gegen die Wand des Kraters zur\u00fcckschlug.\n\nIhre Sicht verschwamm und sie konnte durch den Aufprall nicht mehr atmen. Das HUD wurde verr\u00fcckt. Schlie\u00dflich kam sie zum Atem. Sie brauchte ein oder zwei Augenblicke, bevor sie weiter nach unten ging.\n\nDer Scanner vom Beacon konnte die Signatur nicht klarer isolieren, um die Tiefe zu bestimmen, also musste sie sich auf ihren Handheld verlassen. Das Kerium sah aus, als bef\u00e4nde es sich zwischen zwei Tunneln.\n\nTonya sicherte die Kiste, kletterte in den oberen Tunnel und band ihre Seile ab. Sie \u00fcberpr\u00fcfte die Integrit\u00e4t ihres Anzugs im Tr\u00fcmmersturm. Der Computer war ein wenig verschwommen, aber er gab ihr ein Okay.\n\nSie schaltete eine Taschenlampe ein und aktivierte die externen Mikrofone an ihrem Anzug. Der Tunnel war eine perfekt geformte R\u00f6hre, die sich in die Dunkelheit neigte. Tonya konnte keine Art von Strom- oder Schienensystem sehen, um ihre Transportrohrtheorie zu best\u00e4tigen. Sie begann zu laufen.\n\nStunden vergingen in der Dunkelheit. Tonya f\u00fchlte sich ein wenig unwohl, also entschied sie sich, sich ein paar Minuten auszuruhen. Sie nippte an der Wasserreserve und \u00fcberpr\u00fcfte ihren Scanner. Sie war immer noch \u00fcber dem Kerium und es zeigte sich immer noch als vor ihr stehend. So viel hatte sich nicht ge\u00e4ndert.\n\nSie hat etwas geh\u00f6rt. Sehr schwach. Sie brachte die Audioeinstellungen zur Sprache und pumpte die Verst\u00e4rkung an den externen Mikrofonen. Ein Meer aus wei\u00dfem Rauschen f\u00fcllte ihre Ohren. Sie bewegte sich nicht, bis sie es wieder h\u00f6rte. Etwas, das gezogen wird, stoppt dann.\n\nIR- und Nachtsichtfenster erschienen in den Ecken ihres HUD. Sie konnte nichts sehen. In den weiten Teilen dieser Tunnel ist nicht zu sagen, wie weit dieses Ger\u00e4usch gereist ist. Dennoch ging sie zur Kiste und zog die Flinte heraus. Sie stellte sicher, dass es geladen war, versuchte sich sogar daran zu erinnern, wann sie das letzte Mal Grund hatte, es zu benutzen.\n\nTonya begann sich etwas vorsichtiger zu bewegen. Sie bezweifelte, dass es die Goldsucher waren. Nach allem, was sie wusste, k\u00f6nnte es ein anderer Pirat oder Schmuggler hier unten sein. Egal, sie wollte kein Risiko eingehen.\n\nDer Tunnel begann sich zu erweitern, bevor er schlie\u00dflich einer riesigen Dunkelheit Platz machte. Tonyas Nachtsicht konnte nicht einmal das Ende sehen. Sie grub ihre Vorr\u00e4te durch und suchte sich ein paar alte Fackeln aus. Sie hat einen ausgel\u00f6st.\n\nEs war eine Stadt. Eine Spiegelstadt, um genau zu sein. W\u00e4hrend derjenige auf der Oberfl\u00e4che nach dem Himmel griff, wurde dieser in den Planeten gehauen. Laufstege verbanden die verschiedenen aus den Mauern gebauten Bauwerke auf den verschiedenen Ebenen. Sie hatte noch nie zuvor von so etwas geh\u00f6rt. Alle spekulierten, dass es der B\u00fcrgerkrieg war, der dieses System zerst\u00f6rte. War dies eine Stadt der anderen Seite?\n\nSie kam an eine Kreuzung und das erste echte Zeichen daf\u00fcr, dass sich die K\u00e4mpfe hier ausgebreitet hatten. Eine Barrikade von geschmolzenen Fahrzeugen blockierte einen der Tunnel. Die W\u00e4nde wurden entweder durch Explosionen oder Laserstrahlen verkohlt. Ein Schatten war sogar in die Wand gebrannt worden.\n\nTonya stand davor. Der Hadesier schien einen rundlich sperrigen Hauptk\u00f6rper mit mehreren d\u00fcnnen Forts\u00e4tzen zu haben. Ein tausend Jahre alter Fleck an einer Wand ist kaum zu \u00fcbersehen, aber selbst als Silhouette sah er erschrocken aus.\n\nIn die Wand in der N\u00e4he wurde eine h\u00f6hlenartige Struktur eingebaut. Tonya n\u00e4herte sich, um die Handwerkskunst zu untersuchen. Es war sicherlich kunstvoller als die meisten anderen Geb\u00e4ude hier unten. Es gab hier unten keine T\u00fcren, nur schmale ovale Portale. Es war eine Art Technik in die Seiten integriert.\n\nTonya entschied sich, einen Blick darauf zu werfen. Es war eine tiefe Schale mit Reihen von Einhausungen, die in die Seiten eingebaut waren. Alle waren auf einen einzigen Punkt ausgerichtet, einen marmorartigen Zylinder am Boden der Schale. Tonya stieg darauf zu. Da sa\u00df ein kleiner Gegenstand oben auf dem Tisch. Sie hielt ihr Licht und ihre Schrotflinte darauf trainiert. Er wurde aus einem \u00e4hnlichen marmor\u00e4hnlichen Stein wie der Zylinder gefertigt. Tonya sah sich um. War das eine Art Kirche?\n\nSie lehnte sich nach unten, um einen besseren Blick auf den Gegenstand zu werfen, und achtete darauf, nichts zu st\u00f6ren. Es war eine kleine Schnitzerei. Es war keine hadesische Form. Nicht eine, die ihr bekannt war. Sie wog ab, ob sie es nehmen sollte.\n\nTonya's Kopf schwamm pl\u00f6tzlich. Sie stolperte zur\u00fcck und beruhigte sich auf den Gehegen. Nach ein oder zwei Augenblicken war es vorbei. Ein subtiler stechender Schmerz begann in ihrem Arm zu schmerzen. Sie dehnte es aus und versuchte, die Schmerzen zu l\u00f6sen. Sie warf einen letzten Blick auf die kleine Schnitzerei.\n\nTonya trat aus dem kunstvollen Geb\u00e4ude und brachte ihren Scanner hoch. Das Kerium war nah dran. Sie folgte den Anweisungen des Scanners in die dunklen und verdrehten Tunnel. Ihre Augen blieben an das wachsende Leuchten des Bildschirms gebunden. Sie ist \u00fcber etwas gestolpert. Der Scanner klapperte \u00fcber den Boden. Es hallte eine Minute lang.\n\nTonya sch\u00fcttelte den Kopf leicht. Dieser Ort.... Sie drehte ihre Lichter wieder direkt in das Gesicht einer verrotteten Leiche, deren Mund sich in einem stillen Schrei \u00f6ffnete.\n\n\"H\u00f6lle!\" schrie sie, als sie sich von ihr wegtrieb. Sie sah sich um. Es gab noch eine andere Form auf dem Boden, die etwa 20 Fu\u00df entfernt war. Zwischen ihnen befand sich ein Geldkasten. Der anf\u00e4ngliche Schock lie\u00df nach.\n\nTonya stand auf, packte ihren Scanner und ging zur ersten Leiche. Sein Sch\u00e4del war aufgebrochen worden. Es gab jedoch keine Waffe. Kein Club oder Bar in der N\u00e4he. Das war merkw\u00fcrdig. Der andere hatte sich deutlich erschossen. Die Waffe war noch in seiner Hand. Sie waren definitiv menschlich und auf der Grundlage ihrer Kleidung; sie waren wahrscheinlich Vermesser oder Piraten. Sie wusste nicht, welche Art von Elementen hier in der Luft waren, also konnte sie nicht genau erraten, wie lange sie schon tot waren, aber vermutete Monate.\n\nSie schlurfte r\u00fcber zum Tresor und trat ihn auf. Kherium. Bereits entnommen und sorgf\u00e4ltig verpackt. Eine s\u00fc\u00dfe Erleichterung trieb durch die Ersch\u00f6pfung.\n\n\"Danke Leute.\" Tonya gab ihnen einen kurzen Gru\u00df. \"Tut mir leid, dass du nicht hier bist, um es zu teilen.\" Etwas flog \u00fcber ihr IR-Fenster.\n\nTonya schnappte sich ihre Schrotflinte und zielte. Es war weg. Ihre Atmung wurde schnell und flach, w\u00e4hrend sie wartete. Ihr Finger schwebte \u00fcber dem Abzug. Sie pumpte die Verst\u00e4rkung an den externen Mikrofonen wieder an und scannte die Halle. Die ganze Zeit und sagte sich, sie solle sich beruhigen. Beruhige dich.\n\nJede Bewegung ihres Anzugs verst\u00e4rkte sich hundertmal in ihren Ohren. Sie verfolgte das Gewehr durch den Tunnel und suchte nach dem, was hier mit ihr drin war. Etwas kam durch die Statik. Nah dran.\n\n\"Willkommen zu Hause\", zischte es.\n\nTonya schoss in die Dunkelheit. Sie hat sich hinter ihr gedreht. Da unten ist nichts. Sie schlug eine weitere Runde und schoss trotzdem. Die Sch\u00fcsse haben die Lautsprecher in ihrem Helm zerst\u00f6rt.\n\nSie schnappte sich den Tresor und rannte weg.\n\nEr lief durch die rutschigen, abfallenden Tunnel des pechschwarzen Schwarzes, jetzt in v\u00f6lliger Stille. Sie passierte die Kreuzung, an der der Hadesier noch immer seine Arme vor Schreck ausstreckte. Sie blickte immer wieder zur\u00fcck. Sie konnte schw\u00f6ren, dass etwas da war, etwas au\u00dferhalb der Reichweite des IR, und von der Statik aus zusah.\n\nTonya sprintete einen Anstieg hinauf, um das d\u00fcstere, bedeckte Licht des Ausgangs zu sehen, das jetzt nur noch ein Nadelloch ist. Ihre Beine brannten. Ihr Arm wurde get\u00f6tet. Alles, was sie tun wollte, war schlafen zu gehen, aber sie wollte nicht aufh\u00f6ren. Wenn sie aufh\u00f6ren w\u00fcrde, wusste sie, dass sie nie wieder gehen w\u00fcrde.\n\nSie zog sich das Seil hoch und schob sich durch den gesprengten Wald zur\u00fcck zum Leuchtfeuer. Drei\u00dfig Sekunden sp\u00e4ter verbrannten die Triebwerke die Erde. Eine Minute sp\u00e4ter brach sie die Atmo.\n\nAls Hades II. wegtrieb, versuchte sie, ihre Nerven zu beruhigen. Ihr Umweltanzug drehte sich langsam auf dem Kleiderb\u00fcgel in der Dekontaminationskammer. Sie hat etwas bemerkt.\n\nDie Atmungsfunktionen auf dem R\u00fccken wurden gesch\u00e4digt. Der Sturz im Krater muss es getan haben. Es hat die Futtermittel zerst\u00f6rt und sie bekam zu viel Sauerstoff. Die Kopfschmerzen, \u00dcbelkeit und M\u00fcdigkeit.... sogar diese Stimme. Auch wenn es sie immer noch k\u00fchlte. Es waren wahrscheinlich alles nur Halluzinationen und Reaktionen auf eine Sauerstoffvergiftung.\n\nWahrscheinlich.\n\nTonya setzte die Weichen f\u00fcr den Xenia Shipping Hub in Baker zur\u00fcck. Sie hatte Waren zu verkaufen, wahr, aber im Moment wollte sie unter Menschen sein.\n\nSie wollte um den L\u00e4rm herum sein.\n\nZur\u00fcck in der Dekontaminationskammer sa\u00df die kleine hadesische Schnitzerei auf dem Boden.\n\nDAS ENDE","zh_CN":"Writer\u2019s Note: Published originally in Jump Point 1.1, this story takes place before the events of The Lost Generation.\nPeople complicate things. That\u2019s what they\u2019ve always been good at. Take a look at any functioning civilization and you will see chaos, confusion, and frustration. It could be human, Xi\u2019an, Banu, Vanduul, whoever. We may look different, be built different, but boil us down and you\u2019ll find the same insecurities, fears, and anxieties gnawing.\n\nTonya Oriel watched the yawning abyss outside the window. Kaceli\u2019s Adagio in 4 gently wafted through the otherwise empty ship. Scanners cycled through their spectrums on the hunt for any flagged anomalies.\n\nThe void. It was pure. It was simple. It was permanent.\n\nA calm serenity huddled around Tonya\u2019s shoulders like a blanket, the kind that can only exist when you are the only person for thousands of kilometers. Everyone else can have Terra, Earth, or Titus, with their megacities teeming with people. Never a moment where there wasn\u2019t a person above, beside or below you. Everything was noise. Tonya needed the silence.\n\nHer ship, the Beacon, drifted through that silence. Tonya customized almost every hardpoint and pod with some form of scanner, deep-range comm system, or surveying tech to get her further and further from the noise.\n\nThe problem was that the noise kept following.\n\n* * * * After three weeks on the drift, Tonya couldn\u2019t put it off any longer. She was due for a supply run and to sell off the data and minerals she\u2019d collected. After repairs, new scrubbers, and a spectrum update, she hoped she\u2019d have enough for some food.\n\nThe Xenia Shipping Hub in the Baker System had been the closest thing to a home she\u2019d had for the past few years. Tonya set her approach through the shifting entry\/exit patterns of ships. The station\u2019s traffic was busier than usual. As soon as the Beacon docked, her screen buzzed with a handful of new messages from the spectrum. She passed them to her mobiGlas and went to the airlock.\n\nTonya paused by the entry and savored this last moment of solitude as the airlock cycled, then hit the button.\n\nThe sound of people swept inside like a wave. She took a second to acclimate, adjusted her bag and crossed into the masses.\n\nCarl ran a small information network out of his bar, the Torchlight Express. An old surveyor for a long-defunct terraforming outfit, Carl traded moving minerals for slinging booze and information. Tonya had known him for years. As far as people went, Carl was a gem.\n\nThe Express was dead. Tonya checked local time. It was evening so there was no real reason why it should be like this. A group of prospectors sat at a table in the corner, engaged in a hushed conversation. Carl leaned against the bar, watching a sataball game on the wallscreen. His leathery fingers tapped out a beat to some song in his head.\n\nHe brightened up when he saw Tonya.\n\n\u201cWell, well, well, to what do we owe the honor, doctor?\u201d He said with a grin.\n\n\u201cDon\u2019t start, Carl.\u201d\n\n\u201cSure, sorry, doctor.\u201d He must be bored; he only called her that when he wanted to pick a fight. Tonya slung her bag onto the ground and slid onto a stool.\n\n\u201cAnything interesting?\u201d Tonya pulled her hair back into a tie.\n\n\u201cI\u2019m great, Tonya, thanks for asking. Business is a little slow, but you know how it is.\u201d Carl said sarcastically and slid a drink to her.\n\n\u201cCome on, Carl. I\u2019m not gonna patronize you with small-talk.\u201d\n\nCarl sighed and looked around.\n\n\u201cAt this point, I\u2019ll take any patrons I can get.\u201d He poured himself a drink from the dispenser. Tonya swiveled her mobiGlas around and showed him her manifest. He looked it over. \u201cRunning kinda light this time, huh?\u201d\n\n\u201cI know. You know any buyers?\u201d\n\n\u201cHow much you looking to get?\u201d\n\n\u201cWhatever I can,\u201d Tonya said as she sipped. She could tell Carl was annoyed with the non-answer. \u201cI need the money.\u201d\n\n\u201cI might be able to get you ten.\u201d He said after a long pause.\n\n\u201cI would give you my unborn child for ten.\u201d\n\n\u201cWith all the unborn kids you owe me, you better get started.\u201d He said. Tonya smacked his arm.\n\nOne of the prospectors drifted over to the bar with empty glasses. He was young, one of those types who cultivated the dirty handsome look. Probably spent an hour perfecting it before going out.\n\n\u201cAnother round.\u201d\n\nAs Carl poured, the prospector looked at Tonya, giving his looks a chance to work their magic. They failed. Carl set a fresh batch of drinks down. The prospector paid and went back slightly deterred.\n\n\u201cI think someone liked you.\u201d Carl teased.\n\n\u201cNot my type.\u201d\n\n\u201cLiving?\u201d\n\n\u201cExactly.\u201d Tonya watched the prospectors. They were really in an overtly secretive conversation. \u201cAny idea what they\u2019re here for?\u201d\n\n\u201cOf course I do.\u201d\n\n\u201cYeah? What\u2019d they say?\u201d\n\n\u201cNothing\u2026 well, not to me anyway.\u201d Carl pulled an earpiece out and held it out to her. Tonya wiped it off and took a listen. Suddenly she could hear their conversation loud and clear. Tonya looked at Carl, stunned.\n\n\u201cYou have mics on your tables?!\u201d She whispered. Carl shushed her.\n\n\u201cI deal in information, honey, so yeah.\u201d Carl said, almost offended that he wouldn\u2019t listen in on his customers.\n\nTonya took another sip and listened to the prospectors. It only took a little while to catch up. Apparently Cort, the prospector who tried to woo Tonya with his ruggedness, got a tip from his uncle in the UEE Navy. The uncle had been running Search & Rescue drills in the Hades System when their scanners accidentally picked up a deposit of kherium on Hades II. Being the military, of course, they couldn\u2019t do anything, but Cort and his buddies were fixing to sneak in there and harvest it for themselves.\n\nKherium was a hot commodity. If these prospectors were on the level, they were talking about a tidy little fortune. Certainly enough to patch up the Beacon, maybe even install some upgrades.\n\nEven better, they obviously didn\u2019t know how to find it. Kherium doesn\u2019t show up on a standard metal or rad scan. It takes a specialist to find, much less extract without corrupting it. Fortunately for Tonya, she knew how to do both.\n\u201cYou\u2019ve got that look.\u201d Carl said and refilled her glass. \u201cGood news?\u201d\n\n\u201cI hope so, Carl, for both of us.\u201d\n\n* * * * Carl offloaded her haul at a discount so she could set out as quick as possible. Last time she checked, the prospectors were still at the Express and from the sound of it, they wouldn\u2019t leave for a couple hours, maybe a day.\n\nTonya disengaged the Beacon from the dock and was back in her beloved solitude. The engines hummed as they pushed her deeper into space, pushed her toward a lifeline.\n\nThe Hades System was a tomb, the final monument of an ancient civil war that obliterated an entire system and the race that inhabited it. Tonya had it on her list of places to study, but every year Hades was besieged by fresh batches of young scientists exploring it for their dissertation or treasure hunters looking for whatever weapon cracked Hades IV in half. So the system became more noise to avoid.\n\nTonya had to admit that passing Hades IV was always a thrill. It\u2019s not every day you get to see the guts of a planet killed in its prime.\n\nThen there were the whispers that the system was haunted. There was always some pilot who knew a guy who knew someone who had seen something while passing through the system. The stories ranged from unexplained technical malfunctions to full-on sightings of ghost cruisers. It was all nonsense.\n\nThere was a loose stream of ships passing through Hades. The general flight lane steered clear of the central planets. Tonya slowed her ship until there was a sizeable gap in the flow of traffic before veering off toward Hades II.\n\nShe passed a barrier of dead satellites and descended into Hades II\u2019s churning atmosphere. The Beacon jolted when it hit the clouds. Visual went to nil and suddenly the ship was bathed in noise, screaming air, and pressure. Tonya kept an eye on her scopes and expanded the range on her proximity alerts to make sure she didn\u2019t ram a mountain.\n\nSuddenly the clouds gave way. The Beacon swooped into the light gravity above a pitch-black ocean. Tonya quickly recalibrated her thrusters for atmospheric flight and took a long look at the planet around her.\n\nAs was expected, it was a husk. There were signs of intelligent civilization all around but all of it was crumbling, charred, or destroyed. She passed over vast curved cities built atop sweeping arches meant to keep the buildings from ever touching the planet itself.\n\nTonya maintained a cruising altitude. The roar of her engines echoed through the vast empty landscape. The sun was another casualty of this system\u2019s execution. The cloud systems never abated so the surface never saw sunlight. It was always bathed in a dark greyish green haze.\n\nTonya studied the topography to plot out a course and set the scanners to look for the unique kherium signature she had programmed. She engaged the auto-pilot and just looked out the window.\n\nBeing here now, she kicked herself for not coming sooner. It didn\u2019t matter that this was one of the most scientifically scrutinized locales in the UEE. Seeing the vastness of the devastation with her own eyes, Tonya felt that tug that a good mystery has on the intellect. Who were they? How did they manage to so effectively wipe themselves out? How do we know they actually wiped themselves out?\n\nA few hours passed with no luck. Tonya had a quick snack and ran through her exercise routine. She double-checked the settings on her scans for any errors on the initial input. A couple months ago, she was surveying a planet and found nothing, only to discover on her way back that there had been one setting off that scuttled the whole scan. It still bugged her. It was an amateur mistake.\n\nShe brought up some texts on Hades. Halfway through a paper on the exobiology of the Hadesians, her screen pinged. Tonya was over there like a shot.\n\nThe scope gave a faint indication of kherium below. She triple-checked the settings before getting her hopes up. They seemed legit. She looked out the front. A small city sat above endless sea of dead trees lay ahead. It looked like an orbital laser or something had hit it excising massively deep craters from buildings and ground.\n\nTonya took a closer look. The craters went about six hundred feet into the ground, revealing networks of underground tunnels. They looked like some kind of transport system.\n\nTonya looked for a suitable landing spot with cover from overhead flights. If she was still here when the prospectors showed up, her ship would be a dead giveaway and things would get complicated.\n\nShe strapped on her environment suit and respirator. She could check the ship\u2019s scanners through her mobiGlas but threw another handheld scanner\/mapper in with her mining gear just in case. Finally, she powered up her transport crate, hoping the anti-gravity buffers would be more than enough to lug the kherium back.\n\nTonya stepped out onto the surface. The wind whipped around her, furiously kicking up waves of dust. She pushed the crate in front of her through the blasted forest. Gnarled branches clawed at her suit as she passed. The city loomed overhead, black silhouettes against the grey-green clouds.\n\nHer curiosity got the better of her so Tonya decided to take a ramp up to the city streets. She told herself the detour would be easier on the crate\u2019s battery. Smooth streets are easier for the anti-grav compensators to analyze than rough terrain.\n\nTonya moved through the barren, empty streets in awe. She studied the strange curvature of the architecture; each displayed an utterly alien yet brilliant understanding of pressure and weight dispersal. This whole place seemed at once natural and odd, intellectually fascinating and emotionally draining.\n\nThe kherium signature was still weak but there. Tonya maneuvered the crate around destroyed teardrop shaped vehicles. Pit-marks in the buildings and streets led her to suspect that a battle had taken place here however many hundreds or thousands of years ago.\n\nThe crater closest to the kherium was a perfect hole punched through the middle of the city into the ground. Tonya stood at the edge, looking for the easiest way down. The crate could float down but she would have to climb.\n\nIn a matter of minutes she secured a line with safeties for herself and the crate. She stepped over the edge and slowly rappelled down the sheer wall. The crate was making what should be a simple descent a little more complicated. The anti-grav buffers meant that any kind of force could cause the crate to drift away, so Tonya needed to keep a hand on it at all times. To make matters worse, the wind started picking up, flinging small rocks, branches and pieces of debris through the air.\n\nA shrill scream tore through the air. Tonya froze. She heard it again and looked for the source. The screaming was just exposed supports bending in the wind.\n\nSuddenly she realized, the crate had slipped out of her grasp. It slowly drifted further out over the crater, the swirling wind batted it around like a toy. Tonya strained to reach it but the crate floated just out of reach. She kicked off the wall and swung through the churning air. Her fingertips barely snagged the cargo before she slammed back against the wall of the crater.\n\nHer vision blurred and she couldn\u2019t breathe from the impact. The HUD went screwy. Finally she caught her breath. She took a moment or two before continuing down.\n\nThe scanner from the Beacon couldn\u2019t isolate the signature any clearer to determine depth so she had to rely on her handheld. The kherium looked like it was situated between two tunnels.\n\nTonya secured the crate, climbed into the upper tunnel, and tied off her ropes. She checked her suit\u2019s integrity in the debris-storm. The computer was a little fuzzy but gave her an okay.\n\nShe turned on a flashlight and activated the external mics on her suit. The tunnel was a perfectly carved tube that sloped into the darkness. Tonya couldn\u2019t see any kind of power or rail system to confirm her transport tube theory. She started walking.\n\nHours passed in the darkness. Tonya felt a little queasy so she decided to rest for a few minutes. She sipped on the water reserve and double-checked her scanner. She was still above the kherium and it was still showing up as being in front of her. That much hadn\u2019t changed.\n\nShe heard something. Very faint. She brought up the audio settings and pumped the gain on the external mics. A sea of white noise filled her ears. She didn\u2019t move until she heard it again. Something being dragged then stopped.\n\nIR and night vision windows appeared in the corners of her HUD. She couldn\u2019t see anything. In the vast stretches of these tunnels, there\u2019s no telling how far that sound had travelled. Still, she went to the crate and pulled the shotgun out. She made sure it was loaded, even tried to remember the last time she had cause to use it.\n\nTonya started moving a little more cautious. She doubted it was the prospectors. For all she knew it could be some other pirate or smuggler down here. Regardless, she wasn\u2019t going to take any chances.\n\nThe tunnel started to expand before finally giving way to a vast darkness. Tonya\u2019s night vision couldn\u2019t even see the end. She dug through her supplies and picked out some old flares. She sparked one.\n\nIt was a city. A mirror city to be precise. While the one on the surface reached for the sky, this one was carved down into the planet. Walkways connected the various structures built out of the walls on the various levels. She\u2019d never heard of anything like this before. Everyone speculated that it was civil war that destroyed this system. Was this a city of the other side?\n\nShe came to an intersection and the first real sign that the fighting had spread here. A barricade of melted vehicles blocked one of the tunnels. The walls were charred from either explosions or laser-blasts. A shadow had even been burned into the wall.\n\nTonya stood in front of it. The Hadesian seemed to have a roundish bulky main body with multiple thin appendages. A thousand year old stain on a wall is hardly much to go by, but even as a silhouette, it looked terrified.\n\nA cavernous structure was built into the wall nearby. Tonya approached to examine the craftsmanship. It was certainly more ornate than most of the other buildings down here. There weren\u2019t doors down here, just narrow oval portals. There was some kind of tech integrated into the sides.\n\nTonya decided to take a look. It was a deep bowl with rows of enclosures built into the sides. All of them were angled towards a single point, a marble-like cylinder at the bottom of the bowl. Tonya descended toward it. There was a small item sitting on top. She kept her light and shotgun trained on it. It was made from a similar marble-like stone as the cylinder. Tonya looked around. Was this some kind of church?\n\nShe leaned down to get a better look at the item, careful not to disturb anything. It was a small carving. It wasn\u2019t a Hadesian shape. Not one she was familiar with. She weighed whether she should take it.\n\nTonya\u2019s head suddenly swam. She stumbled back and steadied herself on the enclosures. After a moment or two it passed. A subtle stabbing pain started to ache in her arm. She stretched it, trying to work out the ache. She took a last look at the small carving.\n\nTonya stepped out of the ornate building and brought up her scanner. The kherium was close. She followed the scanner\u2019s directions into the dark and twisted tunnels. Her eyes stayed locked on the growing glow of the screen. She tripped over something. The scanner clattered across the floor. It echoed for a minute.\n\nTonya shook her head slightly. This place\u2026 She turned her lights back right into the face of a rotted corpse, its mouth open in a silent scream.\n\n\u201cHell!\u201d she yelled as she scuffled away from it. She looked around. There was another form on the floor about twenty feet away. A strongbox sat between them. The initial shock subsided.\n\nTonya got up, grabbed her scanner and walked over to the first body. Its skull had been cracked open. There was no weapon though. No club or bar nearby. That was odd. The other one had clearly shot himself. The gun was still in his hand. They were definitely human and based on their clothes; they were probably surveyors or pirates. She didn\u2019t know what kind of elements were in the air here so she couldn\u2019t give an accurate guess how long they\u2019d been dead but suspected months.\n\nShe shuffled over to the strongbox and kicked it open. Kherium. Already extracted and carefully wrapped. Sweet relief drifted through the exhaustion.\n\n\u201cThanks guys.\u201d Tonya gave them a quick salute. \u201cSorry you aren\u2019t here to share it.\u201d Something flitted across her IR window.\n\nTonya snatched up her shotgun and aimed. It was gone. Her breathing became rapid and shallow as she waited. Her finger hovered over the trigger. She pumped the gain on the external mics again and scanned the hall. The whole time, telling herself to calm down. Calm down.\n\nEvery movement of her suit amplified a hundred times in her ears. She tracked the rifle through the tunnel, looking for whatever was in here with her. Something came through the static. Close.\n\n\u201cWelcome home,\u201d it hissed.\n\nTonya fired into the dark. She spun behind her. Nothing down there. She racked another round and blasted anyway. The shots blew out the speakers in her helmet.\n\nShe grabbed the strongbox and ran.\n\nRan through the slippery, sloping tunnels of pitch-black, now in total silence. She passed the intersection, where the Hadesian still raised its arms in terror. She kept looking back. She could swear something was there, just beyond the range of the IR, watching from the static.\n\nTonya sprinted up a rise to see the grim overcast light of the exit, now just a pinhole. Her legs burned. Her arm killed. All she wanted to do was go to sleep but she wasn\u2019t going to stop. If she stopped, she knew she would never leave.\n\nShe pulled herself up the rope and pushed through the blasted forest back to the Beacon. Thirty seconds later, the thrusters were scorching earth. One minute later, she broke atmo.\n\nAs Hades II drifted away, she tried to steady her nerves. Her environment suit slowly twisted on the hanger in the decontamination chamber. She noticed something.\n\nThe respiratory functions on the back were damaged. The fall in the crater must have done it. It bashed up the feeds and she was getting too much oxygen. The headaches, nausea, and fatigue\u2026 even that voice. Even though it chilled her still. They were all probably just hallucinations and reactions to oxygen poisoning.\n\nProbably.\n\nTonya set a course back for the Xenia Shipping Hub in Baker. She had goods to sell, true, but right now, she wanted to be around people.\n\nShe wanted to be around the noise.\n\nBack in the decontamination chamber, the tiny Hadesian carving sat on the floor.\n\nTHE END"},"links_count":1,"comment_count":67,"created_at":"2018-01-24T00:00:00+00:00","created_at_human":"8 years ago"},"meta":{"processed_at":"2026-05-07 23:33:02","valid_relations":["images","links"],"prev_id":16378,"next_id":16383}}