Skinner’s first thought was that they’d arrived at the wrong planet.

“Lumos, where are we?” he asked, sitting up in the captain’s chair. “This can’t be Schunston.”

Lumos was quiet as she scanned the surrounding area. “We are currently holding position approximately 1,000 kilometers above the surface of Schunston, Captain.”

“I thought there were colonies here. If this is Schunston, there’s no way anyone is left.”

The planet represented in Lumos’s hologram looked nothing like what was actually outside his window. The hologram showed a rocky, reddish world that looked like a sibling to Mars. Despite its craggy, arid appearance there were still pools of water, oceans, rivers and lakes. A fluffy atmosphere coated the planet, bringing with it clouds and storms.

Below him, however, was a charred and dead sphere. No atmosphere remained, or at least so little that he couldn’t see it with the naked eye. Any water remaining on the surface of the planet had evaporated, leaving dusty depressions where oceans or lakes had once resided. “No way… is there atmosphere? Is it safe to go down?”

“Scans indicate the presence of an atmosphere, but it is far too weak to detect a baseline composition,” his companion announced. “EVA is possible, but I recommend wearing your suit for the duration.”

“Take us down,” he said. “You said that researcher is still here?”

“Researcher Cutlep’s identity tag is still active,” Lumos said, highlighting a region of the planet on his window. “He is in the Kavbar region. I cannot tell you more without getting us closer.”

“Do it and find out where he is,” Skinner said. “I want to know what’s so darn important about this doodad that the Constellation would all but invade a colony over it.”

The Dangerous dove down towards Schunston, aimed for the region in which Lumos said the scientist was. They barely met any atmospheric resistance, the hull plating heating up only a scant three percent as they entered. Once they were closer to the surface, Skinner got a good look at the planet-wide devastation.

There had once been an abundance of life here – he could see the telltale remnants. Forests had once covered the area they were flying over, but the trees had all fallen down and died. Their trunks were gray and lifeless, and a cold breeze blew some of them across the surface of the barren world. “Lumos, do you have any idea what happened? I thought you said biosphere collapse like this wasn’t possible. At least not this fast.”

“The extent of my databanks says it is not,” she responded. Skinner could tell she was already scanning the planet, looking for any trace of what might have caused this. “Devastation on a scale like this seems deliberate – as if someone intentionally triggered a total biosphere collapse.”

“Is that even possible?” he asked, horrified.

“Both the Rhurni and the Kevilkamas have done so, albeit not deliberately. In both recorded cases, it was the result of poorly programmed nanites which overharvested specific resources or species. This led to an accelerated biosphere collapse, as ultimately the nanites drove certain species to extinction and then substituted their primary directives with a subsequently suitable target.”

“Trickle-down genocide on a planetary scale, you mean.”

“More or less,” she said. “Although genocide implies direct intent, the result was the same. Both Sulleron and Betolara suffered extreme biosphere collapse within fifty local cycles.”

“That’s in fifty cycles, though. This is less than twenty!” he said, gesturing to the wasteland outside.

Lumos called up several images of the planets she had mentioned, showing similar landscape to the terrain of Schunston. “In these cases, once the cause was discovered, several species attempted to intervene. This slowed the collapse considerably, but it was far too late to avert it.”

“So, you’re saying no one tried to stop this?” he said, getting up and walking over to one of the windows. The landscape flew past them as their ship headed towards the Kavbar region. “Why not?” Something pinged on the scanners before Lumos could answer. Skinner turned around as she brought up a topographical map of the region. “What’s that?”

“A colony,” Lumos answered. “Or what remains of one. No life signs detected.”

“Take us there. I want to see.”

The Dangerous changed course. Skinner watched the colony come into view on the horizon, keeping his eyes on it as his ship slowed to a hover almost directly overhead. It was built similarly to Felicity, but this one hadn’t seen use in several years. The buildings had either caved in completely or were rotting away. The generator in the center was inactive and large portions of the colony walls had come down.

“Captain, scans do not reveal the presence of organic matter,” Lumos said, interrupting his silence. It was as if she could read his mind – he’d just been thinking about the colonists who had once inhabited this place. “Or at least not enough to account for more than a single organism of sapient size. It is highly likely that the colonists left this location before the collapse.”

“I hope you’re right,” Skinner said, taking a deep breath. While he wasn’t a colonist, he felt some kinship with them. Most of them were here to escape bad situations or to start over. Out here, things like species seemed to become irrelevant. Most of the Frontier was settled by fugitives or prospectors of one sort or another. He’d aimed to do the same at one point. “Let’s get going. See if you can get a better lock on this Cutlep guy, huh? This place creeps me out.”

“Affirmative,” Lumos said. The Dangerous passed over the colony and continued North towards a series of mountains. They were shiny and black, thrusting upwards from the ground at almost perfect parallel angles. They reminded Skinner of a dragon’s spine. “Identity tag signature is strong and stable. I should be able to get you within a few meters of it, provided it does not turn out to be underground.”

“That would be an issue,” Skinner said as he picked up his helmet and looked out the window. The mountains were like nothing Skinner had ever seen. Formed from volcanic basalt, they twinkled and glittered like spears of black glass as the Dangerous flew over them. He could still see signs of habitation here and there – a mining outpost clung to a rock face and there was a landing pad higher up the slope – but otherwise the mountains were as cold and dead as the rest of the planet. “Why would Cutlep stay here? This place is a graveyard!”

“Possibly to research the cause of the collapse, if it is not known,” Lumos suggested. “However, as an Erythian, his field of study could have something to do with it. If he were on the cusp of a breakthrough, he would be unlikely to leave.”

“Seems kinda stupid if you ask me,” Skinner said. “There’s no amount of bookwormery that could convince me to stay planetside if everything around me was dying.”

“You are not an Erythian,” Lumos said.

Skinner’s ship slowed to a stop above a landing pad carved into a crater near the top of the mountain range. Several buildings had been partially buried here, most of them into the sloping walls of the depression. They were linked by what looked like conduits from space stations, which would have prevented any occupants from needing to leave and expose themselves to the hostile surface conditions. “I don’t suppose they have a doorbell we could ring?”

“I am hailing them on all frequencies,” Lumos said. “Unfortunately, I am not receiving a response.”

“Emergency channels?” he asked, frowning as he pulled on his helmet. The pressure seal locked around his neck and the metallic, filtered air filled his lungs. No protites this time – with the atmosphere uncertain and possibly hazardous, it was safer to stick to air tanks. “This seems like the time I’d be using my emergency channels.”

“Even the emergency lines are silent, Captain,” Lumos said as she carefully lowered the Dangerous onto the landing pad. “I recommend taking that rifle you stole from the Constellation, although I doubt you will find anything hostile.”

“I doubt I’ll find anything at all,” he said as he picked up the weapon. “Be ready to take off if something goes wrong – I’ll be coming back immediately—and at very high speed—if it does.”

“Understood,” Lumos said as she opened the interior airlock for him. “Best of luck.”

Skinner’s first impression as he stepped out of the airlock was that the planet was cold. Even somewhat sheltered in the basin of the crater he could feel the biting wind that seemed ever-present on the planet. It picked up fine grains of basalt dust and threw them around in glittering dust devils that played havoc with his eyes. He cautiously advanced towards one of the buildings, pounding his fist against the door a few times before trying his own radio. “This is Captain Maxwell E. Skinner of the Dangerous. Does anyone copy?”

Perhaps it was the eerie, silent environment around him but Skinner could have sworn he heard motion inside the structure. He frowned, analyzing the keypad. It was fairly standard for Erythian technology – he could probably go back to the ship and grab Lumos to hack it. Just as he was about to turn away, he heard the inside door of the building’s airlock hiss and slam shut. He unslung the rifle, disengaging the safety and stepping back as he watched the lights come on along the perimeter of the outer door. A moment later, it hissed open to reveal the interior of the airlock. There was nobody inside, but he could definitely hear motion beyond the second door. “Lumos, I don’t like this. I don’t like this at all!”

“Captain, by using your suit as a relay point, I am scanning the structure. There is an Erythian biosignature inside that structure – likely Cutlep.”

“Are you sure?” he asked. “I really don’t want to get killed.”

“My analysis indicates that there is a 97.2% chance that you are dealing with Cutlep.”

“Okay…” He was about to lower the rifle and step forward when an exterior loudspeaker crackled to life and a buzzy Erythian voice echoed around the crater.

“Get in here! Quickly! We can talk once you’re inside!”

Skinner left the rifle pointed ahead as he advanced into the airlock. It was a paranoia of his, but anyone who was trying to rush him usually meant ill will. “I’m coming in,” he announced as he stepped over the threshold.

The door closed behind him and he could feel the chamber repressurizing before the inner door opened. An ancient, beady-eyed Erythian peered through at him with no small amount of suspicion. “Who are you? What do you want?” he asked, his words fast and clipped. They reminded Skinner of someone who had been drinking far too much coffee. Or perhaps was on cocaine.

“Are you Cutlep?” Skinner asked. “I hear you are an expert in artifact appraisal.”

The small alien paused, looking up at him. “Yeeeesssssss…” the Erythian said slowly. “I am Cutlep… and I do specialize in artifact identification… but not appraisal.”

Skinner set down his bug-out bag on the floor of the airlock. “I found an artifact in an Erythain ship – the Gesiak – and the Constellation just destroyed half a colony to try to take it from me. I need to know what it is.”

“Waitwaitwait… the Gesiak?!” Cutlep blurted. “You found her?!”

“In orbit above Myrtea,” Skinner confirmed. “I was only able to salvage this, but there were dozens of other crates on board.”

Cutlep threw the airlock door wide open, his jaw slack. He was dressed in a polyform suit similar to Skinner’s but in bone white. Orange geometric patterns crisscrossed the chest. “I don’t doubt it! The Gesiak was one of the few ships tasked with removing artifacts from the vaults on Sernomir and Besodaari during the Tenth Galactic War. How it ended up all the way at Myrtea is a mystery, though.”

Skinner stepped into the makeshift shelter, bringing the bag with him. It was immediately clear that Cutlep had been here for quite some time and most of it alone. Spent ration packs were scattered across the floor and dozens of notebooks were hastily shuffled around on tables. The room itself wasn’t large – perhaps the size of his ship’s bridge – but it had been stuffed full with computer monitors and strange, bone-white machines. A single cot rested in a corner, although it looked like it hadn’t been used in days. Cutlep saw his gaze sweeping around the room and snorted irritably. “Must you snoop?”

“Well, I was hoping you could tell me what happened to Schunston,” Skinner said. “Especially seeing as it wasn’t this way twenty cycles ago, was it?”

“No indeed,” Cutlep said. “This was my first station after graduation – I wanted to study the lifeforms on the Frontier worlds. This planet used to be rich with life. Very diverse. All kinds – even multiple base forms, which is rare. There were both carbon-based lifeforms and methane-based lifeforms coexisting in the same regions!”

“So, what happened?” Skinner asked as he set his bag. “My ship’s CI says a biosphere like Schunston’s couldn’t have degraded this badly in only twenty cycles.”

“Your CI would be correct,” Cutlep said peevishly, his four-fingered hands flexing eagerly as he stared intently at Skinner’s bag. “I will make you a deal. Show me what you recovered from the Gesiak and I will tell you what I know. Deal?”

“Very well,” Skinner said as he reached in and pulled out the artifact. He set it on the table and stepped back as Cutlep rushed forward to examine it.

“Mymymymymy… you say this was on the Gesiak? Not possible. No, not possible at all!” he said, his brow furrowed so much it looked painful. “Nonono… this… this isn’t Erythian. Nor is it Sov-Nikan. It can’t have come from… no, definitely not Besodaari…” he looked back at Skinner, his eyes sweeping over him. “You have no idea what you have found, do you?”

“Not a clue,” Skinner said. “Could be an alien sandwich for all I know.”

Cutlep made a face that looked as if he’d smelled something unpleasant. “Definitely not!” he said. “I am not certain exactly what this is, but I can tell you a little bit about it.”

“It’s Erythian, then?”

Cutlep shook his bulbous head. “I did not say that, human. Nowhere close. This object matches a few other unidentified artifacts, though, with enough parallelism that I feel confident in telling you it is not Erythian. In fact, I suspect it belongs to one of three different species, based on the precision of the angles and these rotating toroidal forms.”

“Okay, so who owns it?”

“Why, nobody. All three species are extinct,” Cutlep said. “That’s why we probably had it in a vault… if we did… I don’t remember reading about objects like this… nono… not during the war, at least…” he trailed off into his own little world, poking at the artifact with his fingertips.

Skinner cleared his throat after a few moments. “I showed you the artifact,” he said. “You said you’d tell me what happened to Schunston. Last I heard it was supposed to be because of ghosts or something.”

Cutlep paused and nodded, stroking his pointed chin. “Hmm… I suppose I did… yes…” he said. “Very well. I will explain the best I can.”