Prologue

Stranded

The impact came suddenly and unexpectedly, ripping through the Masi'shen ship defenses before the collective consciousness could sense alarm or mount counter-measures. The entire central section of the ship's modules were torn loose from its spine and spun away, hurling their precious aquaculture contents in great arcing gouts.

The shock wave pulsed down the central core of the ship's control and communications trunk, rebounding in a massive resonant spike. The ship's intergalactic communicator, a crystalline focus lens feeding a dished array, shattered. The primary intelligencer and the array it controlled sat blinded, helpless, its communications focus destroyed and its neural trunk cut. Auxiliary intelligencers in the forward bridge section and the aft propulsion sections kicked into emergency control mode, giving the crew time to restore stability and begin damage control assessment.

The news was grim. Not fatal, in the short term, but their voyage must end. They must land and prepare for long-term survival in some sanctuary with resources where they could remain hidden and wait for rescue. This was an explorer ship on the edge of an obscure galaxy, charting star systems in an unknown corner of the universe.

They had no way to send a distress message. No other Masi'shen ship was in this quadrant. They were alone and would remain alone for a long, long time. There was little time for grieving. Nearly one-third of their crew, the leaders and technicians tending the precious aquaculture and habitat sections of the great ship, had been swept away into the void. They must find sanctuary. Grief for their lost shipmates was a luxury they could indulge later, if they survived.

Antarctic Mission

He was a tall, raw-boned veteran with geek glasses perched on his sunburned nose. Michael Hawthorne, geologist and geophysicist, was not pleased. He was pissed, highly pissed. He was enjoying a solitary vacation at his remote cabin in an isolated mountain valley, spending his days on cross-country skis and his evenings in front of the fireplace where he penned reports into journals he'd not had time to keep current.

He enjoyed his vacation until a helicopter landed on the frozen pond near the cabin and two agency officers impatiently stomped snow off their boots on the front porch of his cabin. He'd been alerted to their arrival by the swiveling searchlight on the chopper flooding through his cabin windows, several minutes before it touched down.

He got orders to pack one bag and get aboard the helicopter immediately. His vacation was cancelled. No reason was given.

This was the price he paid for his lucrative consulting work for the agency. It paid well, and it came infrequently enough that it didn't interfere with his preferred life as a geophysical consultant for major mineral and resource extraction corporations. He was also a Fellow of his alma mater and served in several advisory and steering positions. Between that and several investments, Michael had achieved a certain financial independence. He enjoyed the rare luxury of choosing his commitments.

Except for the agency. They would not be denied. When they beckoned, he complied. Michael had few fears, but he was not a foolish man. He did not go around kicking sleeping bears in their caves, and he did not provoke the agency to test their response. Nobody with any sense would anger an agency whose existence was denied, whose structure was unknown, whose funding sources were never seen, even by congressional oversight committees, and whose long reach within and without the country was never questioned. When they called, he answered. The few times prior had been harrowing but extremely lucrative. He also suspected that in some covert way, he was also serving his country.

Within hours he was seated at a conference table, reviewing satellite data of a remote antarctic region. Although 'remote' and 'antarctic' might seem synonymous, he had to admit that Marie Byrd Land on the continent's western quadrant was remote even for that desolate part of the world. Satellite gravity pattern sensors and deep-sensing radar showed something massive, buried deep under the ice, uncharacteristic of anything known. There was not enough detail to determine its nature or compare it with known anomalies but even so, there was enough 'not right' about it to raise questions. Most disturbing to the agency was the shape of the anomaly. It was massive, miles wide and many more miles long. It covered a rectangular area, bulbous at each end with a long, skinny section between. Computer analysis flagged it as "unknown, unnatural." That was the puzzle, and a huge red flag. The agency detested puzzles without answers; it was absolutely paranoid about 'unnatural' alerts, even in the remote antarctic.