Chapter 2

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29th August 2033

CEO of the Silver Star Research facility Dr Phillip Hammond, Chief of Investigations Brad Sullivan, and security officer Warren Harris walked up and down the passageway in Level B2 of the complex, checking in all of the filing rooms, doing a complete sweep covering every aisle in every room. All three were armed with compact laser devices. They found and heard nothing unusual.

"Okay, now we go down to B3," Hammond said, "Be ready for anything."

They stepped into the lift and he entered a code which took them down one level.

No one had set foot in Level B3 for fifteen years since Phillip Hammond, his daughter Tracy and Brad Sullivan had encountered an alien telepathic entity which had lain dormant in a laboratory for sixteen years after being left there by two scientists who died in a car accident. Tracy had destroyed the crystal cluster which the entity apparently lived in. But had the creature somehow survived and was waiting for someone to venture down to the abandoned lab? There was only one way to find out.
The lift doors opened and they stepped out into a musty smelling dimly lit passage which led to two laboratories. All was silent. 

"We'll check Lab Two first," Hammond said, "That's where we last encountered this thing."

They walked along the passage and stopped in front of a solid looking door with a sign which read 'Laboratory 2, Authorised Personnel Only.'

Hammond entered a code on the keypad and the door clicked. He pushed it open and the three of them entered the lab.


29th August

Tracy had just sat down at her desk in the Mars Research Unit when the computer gave her an alert.
"Good Morning Dr Hammond," it said in its soft female voice, "Data stream from Mars Base has just completed download."

Tracy opened the folder on her desktop computer. The data stream usually consisted of a number of files containing photos, videos, and analyses of samples taken from the Martian surface. There was also a video file from the Mars Base commander. She opened this file first.
The face of Dr Adam Bennett appeared on the screen and he looked excited. "Hi, MRU team. Something extraordinary has happened. I draw you attention to images 152 to 154 taken by the satellite as it passed over the lower Tharsis region four hours ago. Tracy paused the video and opened the relevant file, bringing up images 152, 153 and 154 on her split computer screen. She stared in fascination as Bennet continued.

"As you can see it's back, and we finally have the exact coordinates. Just to refresh your memory. It was eighteen years ago that the satellite took two images of what appeared to be something metallic in this same region, but there was a fault with the on-board equipment and the exact location was not recorded. It was somewhere in a ten thousand square kilometre area. When the fault was repaired and the satellite passed over the region again three days later a huge dust storm was affecting half the planet. The object couldn't be found. We assumed it had been buried under metres of shifting Martian sand. We checked our database and found that no space probes from Earth had made soft or hard landings in that region. So the big question is what is it? For eighteen years it's remained a mystery, presumably still buried under the sand all this time. Regular passes by our satellite have shown nothing until now. There was another large dust storm several days ago which has apparently uncovered it.

"Tracy, can you please send this file and the images to your father. He will want to know about this. We'll be investigating the object in a few days when we can get the SOEV (Sub Orbital Exploration Vehicle) ready for flight. We'll notify you when we are ready to go, and send you a report and images when we reach the objective. I don't want to speculate, but people it's just possible this object could be extra terrestrial."

"Or it might just be a panel that fell off a satellite or probe that was passing over," Tracy muttered to herself. She pressed a button which allowed the facility's main frame super computer to access the images. "Computer, analyse images 152, 153 and 154 in file MRU362," she instructed.

"Analysing specified images," replied the computer. Additional information was attached to the images including date, time and altitude of the satellite and temperature of the atmosphere. The computer would include all this in its analysis. A minute later it gave its report.
"Metallic object, likely of titanium alloy composition approximately ten metres square. Possible origin remains of terrestrial satellite or probe. Recommend Mars team examine object for further identification. Caution should be exercised in case of possible biological hazard."

Tracy had magnified one of the images and was looking at it closely. "Computer, I think I see a black dot in the middle of the object. Any ideas?"

"There is a five per cent chance it is a transmitter and receiver for radio transmissions."
"So this thing could be a communications dish, a square one?"

"There is a five per cent chance."

"You and your percentage chances," Tracy muttered, "Well we better get the rest of the MRU team together and discuss this. Computer send a message to all MRU team that we are having an urgent meeting in one hour."


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