Prologue

PROLOGUE

1832 HOURS GMT
NOVEMBER 5^TH 2232
TITAN, SATURN
APRPOX 2000 KM FROM SATELLITE

Tearing, soaring through the black backdrops of glittered stars, nebulas and galaxies, the ESV Nightingale approached its primary objective. After thirty days of travelling at its maximum speed of 1,900,000km/h, Commander Logan Grey finally called for the deceleration of the research ship’s engines, promptly slowing the vessel for the calm approach.

“Inputting vector coordinates for STAGE-3 planetary orbit,” reported Jim Ramirez, the ship’s able flight lieutenant. Piloting the ship, Ramirez altered their course digitally, whilst interfacing with the ship’s navigator and XO, Luke Hunter.

The ESV Nightingale suddenly tilted, none of the ship’s thirty-two crew members noticing the abrupt change in direction and speed, then its engines roared, powerfully guiding the ship to orbit.

“Commander, engines are overheating,” Sarah, another bridge crew member, signaled, an alert signal rapidly beeping on her screen, “switching to cooling protocol.”

Commander Grey materialized on the command deck, which held the relatively frantic combined crew of the bridge and navigation, constantly juggling tasks while the ship drew closer and closer to the now massive cosmic body.

He ran his hands through his black hair, and then strode over to the middle, where, upon arrival, his seat extended from the floor.

“Excellent work,” Logan announced, “Follow protocol systems.”

The ship began to shudder slightly, the satellite’s gravitational field finally scraping the ship’s integrity. But just as quickly as it came, the effect dissipated as countering fields balanced the equation. Within two minutes, the ship had pivoted twice to polish its course, and within one, Titan’s gravity had trapped it and sent it into a swift orbit around the moon.

“Commander, engine three has failed; engineers are working on it now,” Ramirez called out, hardly worried at the apparently common event, “speed at seventy percent. Stabilizing the Nightingale.”

Commander Grey nodded to his crew respectfully. One could not feel but safe with a crew such as this, despite literally being millions of miles away from home. He stepped off from his mount, and treaded out of the bridge, taking the ship’s internal lifts to the ship’s Quarters level.

Moving out, he briefly passed the empty Mess Hall and the entrance to the Medical Bay, where Doctor Erin Baker was already treating a few new crew members, who had still not been accustomed to long-distance space flight. The most common of medical conditions on board—and most frequent, to the Commander’s experience—were psychological; where, virtually, the mind still remained absolutely incredulous to the notion of travelling at speeds of half a million meters a second, in turn causing the body to be unsynchronized with its surrounding reality. It occurred to over 80% of recruits—Grey was never one of them. Such problems were, of course, never terminal, as surmounting such issues always came eventually; sooner or later. As was everything else, thought Logan; impossibility is impossible.

He entered the Engineering Bay; the Engine Room of which greeted him with the triumphant thunderous noise emitting from the massively powerful engines. Logan Grey could never understand how, when every engineer, adept at their profession, spent many countless hours in this indescribably deafening room and still remain sane and with perfect eardrums.

Glancing to the right, where an array of earmuffs was hung on a metallic rack, Grey snatched one and donned it, feeling slight embarrassed that he was the only one wearing the tool.

Chief Engineer Ilya Pirunov was there to meet him instantly. He came hurriedly, practically skipping like a joyful little girl, and snapped to attention like a seasoned soldier, albeit unsuccessfully, before the revered Commander.

“Give me a SITREP, Ilya,” Logan requested, scanning the third engine fleetingly, which had smoke trailing from its structure. Several engineers were already huddled around it, formulating theories on how to repair the engine.

“Overheating! Nothing intricate, really,” the somewhat eccentric Russian replied, “Space weather was far worse than we anticipated. We were hit by a substantial dose of solar wind that, combined with our engine statuses running at their pinnacle, caused much of our propulsion system to malfunction.”

Logan paused, and then nodded, signaling for him to continue.

“Failsafe measures functioned as usual, but it was too much and our cooling systems just couldn’t compensate.”

Ilya lead him over to the particular engine; a cylindrical and relatively massive mechanism, its one end emanating with a soft red light, while the others were blinding blue. Evidently, the engine was disengaged, and they could not even begin to think about entering Titan’s thick atmosphere with three out of four essential active engines. Logan glanced at his wristwatch, estimating; the delay could not be more than an hour; else their setback would ignite fury back in Ground Control.

“How long will it take for the team to repair it?”

“Two hours, more or less,” estimated the tireless engineer.

“Make it an hour.”

Ilya’s facial expression crunched instantly, then relaxed just as fast, a torrent of confidence surging within him, “Yes, sir, commander! We will do our best!”

Commander Grey seemed to roll his eyes. Subsequently dismissing him, Logan tapped his comm-device, calling for the XO second in command Luke Hunter, “Hunter, establish a transmission link with Ground Control, double-time.”

His reply was instantaneous: “Yes, sir.”

Logan switched channels again, summoning Ramirez’s voice on the line.

“Jim, alter course for STAGE-4 orbit and standby for further instructions. Relay orders to the rest of the crew.”

“Sure thing, boss.”

The Commander made his way out of the Engineering Bay and back to the Command Deck, then through a corridor that lead to the ship’s communications room, often used for conferences regarding status report updates.

Hunter was already there, awaiting his arrival, seated on his designated chair.

“I’ve tried to connect with Earth, but all attempts have failed; still attempting, we should be online with Control anytime now,” the Executive Officer proceeded to operate the control panel, but after odd minutes of utter signal silence, he surrendered and merely shrugged at the commander, “There must be an interference.”

“Ilya claimed there was a surge of solar wind that the Nightingale supposedly caught which evidently resulted in the engine failures, The Commander offered, “Program a cycle and leave it until we establish a link with home base.”

“This rarely happens,” Hunter responded incredulously, “We have six different communication-relays posted around the system. If the solar burst was powerful enough to encompass the entire system, we would have lost all engines and, worst case scenario, all our onboard circuitry.”

“And every stored research data we have,” a voice continued from behind. Hunter and Logan turned around to find their chief scientist, Normandy, entering, his unsettlingly calm demeanor outshining everything else, “I analyzed everything. One of our secondary sensors was lost during the incident.”

“I assume our communication transmitters were destroyed as well?” Hunter inquired curiously.

“They are working perfectly fine,” Normandy replied with confidence, incidentally confusing Logan and Hunter. The scientist merely sighed and explained, “All transmitters are operating as they should be. So it’s either our relays are just malfunctioning or overloaded, or our Earth-based ones were affected by the solar storm as well.”

“How long will it take for them to reset and repair the system?”

“Two hours, maybe one if they’re swift enough,” surmised Normandy, hardly worried and instead content that they had finally reached their destination, “Look, gentlemen, the fact of the matter is that we are here and we should just proceed as planned.”

Commander Grey sighed; Normandy was one of the more intense scientists, who, above everything else, would risk life just to collect a mere piece of data such as a rock sample. Logan, who was more concerned with the wellbeing of his crew and ship, and following protocol and orders, had to always find a way to wriggle around the man nicknamed for his birthplace without upsetting him.

Hunter answered for Grey: “We simply can’t do that. We have to confirm with the ESN and the ISS before we plunge into Titan, not to mention that we only have three out of four engines running, and a possibly compromised communications system.”

“For the last time, it is not compromised,” reiterated Normandy strongly, an irritated tone apparent in his words, “Seventy-five percent engine power is more than enough to land on Titan. We could even utilize half of that, and it would be enough to finish the mission.”

“There is a considerable risk, Normandy! We have over thirty men and women onboard, and you want to land on an erratic moon?”

“Erratic? With the Nightingale’s technology, we could land this vessel on Venus and stay there for months to study the relentless thunderstorms and acid rain. Titan is nothing compared to Venus!”

“Ease off, both of you! Normandy, we will get every data you need on Titan, eventually. Don’t push it. Let’s remember that we are already on thin-ice with all these manned expeditions. Our primary objective is not only to study planets, but to expand the human borderline, to what and where we as humans can reach. That is a very ‘moral’ perspective, and not a very cost-efficient one; which, as everyone onboard knows, means that they could just have easily saved trillions worth of money by sending machines, and not flesh, out into dangerous space,” Logan glanced back to the large screen, blank and offline, “We will standby until all systems are fully operational, and when we have contact and confirmation from Earth.”

“Fine,” Normandy muttered; his expression immediately stoic. He spun and stormed out of the communications room, his contradicting grumbles trailing off as he exited.

“Hunter, just program the cycle, and tell me when you’ve established contact,” Commander Grey instructed.

“Yes, sir. Will do,” He replied, striding away to the control panel obediently.

Then, abruptly, Ramirez’s voice crashed into the intercom, followed by a shrieking alarm siren, while every single light instantly switched into ominous red.

“Sir! Unidentified object, headed straight for us on a collision course! Velocity is at twenty thousand meters per second. We need you on the bridge, now!”

Commander Logan Grey traded troubled expressions, before both erupted into motion, sprinting back into the bridge, where many were frantically working to assess the situation.

“Sir, I don’t know what the hell it is, but it’s coming in fast and there isn’t enough time to evade!” Ramirez cried out in sheer panic, “sixty seconds to impact!”

“My god!” called out one of the bridge crew, who had already analyzed the incoming object, “Sir, it’s some sort of asteroid and is twice as huge as the ship!”

“Thirty seconds to impact!”

“Divert all power to engines and move!” yelled Grey forcefully.

“Sir, we should focus all on the electromagnetic field!”

“It’s too fast and too large, it’ll be useless!” someone screamed out, “twenty seconds!”

“Ramirez, divert all power to engines and move, now!”

Ramirez slammed on the controls, and stretched the ESV Nightingale as much as he could, dangerously reviving the third dead engine to life. He activated all boosters, which sent a quivering and vociferous roar as rocket fuel ignited violently.

Suddenly, everyone began to float from their position, as if released by a gentle hold.

“Artificial gravity systems are offline!”

“Ten seconds!”

The Nightingale began to accelerate rapidly—inertia was felt by everyone. The vessel itself shuddered, as unspeakable amounts of energy bristled around them.

Five seconds.

Logan latched onto the nearest handle, screaming loudly.

“Brace for impact!”