The 100 Year Cycle

Chapter 1: A Fated Star Falls

Why is it glowing?

Dante looked out over the frozen expanse of alien terrain and marveled at the sheer beauty of it. The small size of the viewport in the officer's Alpha 3 lounge restricted his view, but it did nothing to lessen the majesty of the sweeping ice flows and frozen pillars that waited just on the other side of the lons-carbon window. The world on the other side was cold, strange, and more than a little frightening, but it was also undeniably breathtaking. Instead of exploring it, like he desperately wished, Dante was stuck admiring it from a distance while the Chief Safety Officer rattled off a list of do's and dont's that only an idiot wouldn't have already known.

But why is it glowing? As far as we can tell, it is just regular dihydrogen monoxide in its solid phase. Undoubtably with a myriad of trace minerals and native elements, but none that I can think of that would make it glow like that.

The eerie blue-green glow played across the composite windows of the ship in a constantly shifting, hypnotic pattern. It originated from within the ice flows and up through the frozen pillars that dotted the alien world at random. Something within them produced that light, bathing the world in emerald waves that reminded Dante of what the Aurora Borealis looked like back on Earth. It was beautiful, mysterious, and so far unexplained; exactly the type of puzzle Dante loved to solve.

Of course, there was an excellent reason no one had solved the mystery of the glowing light radiating from the world of frozen water outside the ship. It was the same reason almost no one had actually stepped foot on the planet yet at all. It was because they weren't supposed to be there. If things had gone according to plan, they would have been light-years away travelling towards an entirely different planet to deliver their cargo. Things hadn't gone according to plan, however. In fact, they had gone very much against the plan. About as much against it as was possible.

As the Chief Safety Officer finally finished the Alpha shift safety meeting, Dante forced himself to pay attention to the rest of what was said. Given their current situation, he was certain it was all going to be important from that point onward. He, like most of the rest of the crew, knew precious little of what had happened. At least other than the glaringly obvious.

Something happened during superluminal travel. Something bad enough to cause the Cassimir Drives to go offline and us to drop below superluminal speeds, but not so bad that we all blinked out of existence in an annihilation event. Dante had to suppress a shiver at the thought of such a fate. Ships had done it before, or at least it was assumed they had. By definition, there wasn't much left after an annihilation event to investigate. It was bad enough though, whatever it was, that the Captain either couldn't control the ship or was forced to crash-land on this planet to avoid a worse fate out in space. The question is, what was it that happened? An even more important question is, how screwed are we with the damage to the ship?

No one Dante had spoken to seemed to have the answers, but he was counting on finding out at least a bit more today. The Captain was supposed to be debriefing each of the crews during the start of their shifts, and, if anyone knew, it would be him. Since the crash, the man had been seen all over the ship taking control of what was basically a worst-case scenario. From what few dealings Dante had previously had with the man, he had come away with the impression of the Captain being strong, capable, and rarest of all; genuinely caring about his crew. Which was a very good thing, considering pretty much everyone was on the verge of shock, hysteria, or worse. The Captain had so far held everything together, though.

Looking around the Alpha 3 lounge, Dante took note of the usual attendees. Most of them were officers or crew members from his own Alpha shift. He was new to the ship, having just come on board before this latest trip, but he had worked with them all long enough during the months since to have gotten a decent read on their body language and emotional state. At this moment, they were all shaken and more than a little overwhelmed but also resolute and determined down to a man.