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The
other ten or so members of the mission to this planet were all
dotted around, doing their respective tasks, all against the
backdrop of these incredible ruins.

With
dusk coming down, the shadows that had built up along the building
and under the stairs of this ruined compound deepened.

Though
it wasn't cold, Nida found herself shivering.

She
wanted to be back on the ship. Though ostensibly it was exciting to
be on a real mission, she felt a little like she was walking across
someone's grave. Who cared if no one had inhabited this planet for
2000 years? It still felt wrong to walk all over these ruins
without a hint of compassion or respect.

Just
as Nida looked around for a place to sit, a man cleared his throat
gruffly behind her.

She
turned to see none other than Commander Sharpe.

An
enormous man of half human and half Yara build, he was like a brick
wall on legs. He also had a particularly stony expression to match.
“Cadet,” he said, the word sounding exactly like a shot from a gun,
“what are you doing?”

“Ah,”
she swallowed hard, “I haven't been assigned a task yet,” she
managed.

Sharpe's eyes narrowed, and he regarded her with a look that
could melt steel. “This is an important mission, and you need to
treat it like one,” he began.

She
nodded, for some reason bothering to throw in a salute, even though
it was completely unnecessary.

Sharpe
rolled his eyes. “Don't just sit there,” he said, breathing through
his teeth.

“Yes
sir,” she snapped. Then she shuffled her feet slightly. “Um, should
I go back to the shuttle?”

Sharpe
grumbled under his breath.

This
was not the first time Nida had come to the unwanted attention of
Sharpe. In fact, he was the bane of her existence. He threatened
her every other day with expulsion from the Academy for being the
‘worst recruit in 1000 years'. So he was fully aware that not only
was this her first mission, she really didn't have the skills to be
here; hence, she was standing around and staring at the
sky.

“Look,
take this,” he handed her one of the spare scanners from his belt,
“and do a mineralogical survey of the ground,” he
suggested.

She
took the scanner silently and didn't point out that there was no
point in doing a mineralogical survey, as it had already been
done.

“Just
stick to where I can see you,” he added harshly. “And even if you
aren’t doing anything useful, for god’s sake, look busy. The Force
is here, and you could at least try to pretend you’ve earned the
honour of being here with them.”

She
didn’t react to that cutting remark. Instead, she nodded, adding
another needless salute.

Rolling his eyes, Sharpe walked away, muttering something
under his breath that sounded exactly like “worst damn recruit in a
thousand years.”

Nida
desperately wanted to point out that the Galactic Coalition Academy
had only been running for the past 450 years, but she didn't.
Instead, she bit her tongue, turned on her foot, and picked a
random direction. Then she turned the scanner on and wandered
off.

She
had no idea how long this mission was meant to last. Presumably
until the Force had done whatever they were meant to do. But Nida
really didn't like the idea of spending the next several hours
walking over the same section of dust, scanning it for no other
reason than to appear busy.

As
dusk settled darker around her, she found herself walking further
away from the compound.

She
reasoned that if she'd been tasked with a mineralogical survey, she
might as well do a thorough job, and the geology seemed to be
different the further away she walked from that ring of ruined
buildings.

Once
she was safely out of earshot of everyone else, she began humming
to herself.

She
liked it when she was alone. There was no one to point out she was
a failure. Plus, she could explore space the way she felt it ought
to be explored. By taking the time to stare up at the stars above
and to revel in their mystery and beauty. In fact, it was when she
was doing just that, that she tripped over something.

Her
head was turned up to the heavens as she walked along, the scanner
held steadily in her hand, but when her boot snagged on some rough
piece of stone, the scanner went flying and so did she.

Her
body slammed against the uneven and dusty ground, her chest
smacking into a rock that pushed the wind from her
lungs.

“Ow,”
she managed after a short pause.

Then
she scrambled to her feet to seek out the scanner. Usually they
were hardy, but Nida was a particularly unlucky soul, and seemed to
have a talent for breaking everything.

And
Sharpe would be seriously unhappy if she came back with a shattered
scanner. As he kept on telling her, a good cadet looked after their
equipment.

She
pushed herself up, then she stopped.

She
could see the scanner. It was several meters in front of her, down
a set of dark stairs that led into a room sunk low underneath the
earth.

“What
the hell?” she breathed wildly. “Where did that come from?” she
pushed back on her knees, getting to her feet.

Her
heart pounded in her chest, the powerful thump of it reverberating
through her clenched teeth.

She
had already wandered around this compound, and she had not come
across this set of stairs before.

How
had she missed it? Had she been so busy staring at the sky that an
enormous, gaping hole in the ground had failed to grab her
attention?

Scrunching her bottom lip in and biting it earnestly, she
turned over her shoulder to see if anyone was in
earshot.

They
weren't. In fact, she couldn't even see the rest of the
group.

They
were hidden by a slight rise in the ground.

Damn,
she thought bitterly. Sharpe had told her specifically not to walk
out of sight, and here she was, completely hidden from the compound
and the rest of her team.

“Right, just go get the scanner, then get back to the group,”
she told herself firmly.

Then
she could return triumphant to Sharpe, and let him know she'd
found . . . a random set of stairs that hadn't
appeared on the scans the ship had done from space.

Her
gut twisted with fear.

Before
the team had come down to the planet, they'd all been forced to
attend a briefing. In it, Lieutenant Blake and Commander Sharpe had
explained what they were all to do. They'd also shown everyone an
in depth interactive hologram based on a blueprint of the
ruins.

This
set of stairs had not appeared in that hologram, she was sure of
it.

“Right,” she managed, taking a deep breath.

So
this was good, yeah? She'd just found something no one else had.
Something that had somehow failed to appear on the numerous scans
that had been done of this planet.

Sharpe
would be proud of her discovery. Perhaps it would even raise his
estimation of her.

. . . .

Yeah
right. As if that would ever happen.

“Get
the scanner, stop stalling,” she told herself firmly.

With a
deep breath, she stepped forward, her black, standard-issue boots
reaching the first step.

It was
firm, like all steps, and felt like stone under her tread. And that
was it. It didn’t turn into a monster and consume her whole, and
neither did it disappear as it was replaced by a seething spatial
anomaly.

Because it was just a normal frigging step, and there was
nothing to be worried about.

“Come
on, get over it,” she commanded herself.

Sighing, she walked down the stairs.

The
scanner had fallen a fair way down, and she had to travel quite far
into the shadow of the stairwell until she leaned down to pick it
up.

Her
breath was shallow, and she couldn't seem to force enough air
through her dry throat.

Her
heart kept pounding dramatically too.

She
held onto the scanner with a firm, almost terrified grip, then she
turned sharply on her foot to race back up the stairs.

A part
of her was objective enough to realise she was being seriously
pathetic here. For Christ’s sake, she was on an alien planet,
granted, but one that had no life, no secret weapons, and no
malevolent mercenaries—in fact, it had nothing more dangerous than
a few treacherous holes that could trip you up. And yet the
prospect of descending a set of darkened stairs had her adrenaline
pumping as if she were about to dive into the sun.

She
tried to roll her eyes at her own pathetic lameness.

Suddenly she stopped.

She
felt something.

A
vibration.

Slight, and coming from behind her.

Her
scanner started to beep dramatically.

She
frowned, glancing down at it.

It was
registering some kind of energy source.

Which
was impossible; there were no energy sources on this planet. It had
already been scanned multiple times, and no one had ever come
across anything more powerful than a particularly mighty piece of
dust.

Yet as
the scanner beeped, she couldn't deny her eyes.

“Okay,” she said slowly. “Time to go and tell Sharpe what
you've found.”

She
took another step up the stairs.

Hesitating, she stopped.

She
turned over her shoulder to look back down the darkened stairwell
and into the tunnel below.

She'd
been instructed to do a mineralogical survey, but she knew Sharpe
just wanted to keep her occupied, or at least the appearance of
occupied, so the Force didn't question why he'd brought along such
a soppy and hopeless cadet.

Sharpe
thought she was more than useless, and he expected her to come back
with nothing worthwhile.

. . . .

So
what would he do if she returned with some incredibly valuable
information?

What
if she found something really important in this tunnel?

That
would shut the belligerent Commander up.

So
what was the harm in going and investigating this tunnel
herself?

If she
found anything, she could really use the brownie points.

As
soon as that thought crossed her mind, she shook her head
resolutely.

No.

It
wasn't safe.

With
that, she ascended the stairs.

Dusk
had settled even darker around her by the time she
emerged.

With a
sigh, and one final glance over her shoulder at the stairwell, she
made her way quickly back to Sharpe.

When
she reached him, he was locked in what looked like a seriously
important conversation with none other than Blake.

“There's something more on this planet, I'm sure of it. I
don't think we should leave yet,” Blake said quietly.

Sharp
was about to say something, then he looked up to see Nida loitering
around behind them. “Yes, Cadet? Is there any reason you're
eavesdropping?”

Nida
knew her face blushed a bright red at the allegation, and she even
sucked in a startled breath. “Um, what? No,” she answered
ineloquently.

“Then
what is it?” Sharpe snapped.

“Um, I
found something,” she managed, wondering how to explain her story
in a way that didn't sound dumb.

Sharp
sighed heavily. “Leave it to the report.” He turned back to Blake,
shooing her away with a sweep of his hand as he did.

She
didn't move off. Instead, she gritted her teeth. “Ah, sir, I found
something you should probably see,” she managed again.

“I
don't care about the mineralogical survey; it can wait,” Sharpe
snapped again. “Now go away, Cadet.”

She
knew she should leave before he gave her a reprimand for ignoring
an order, but she stood her ground nevertheless. “I found a set of
stairs that lead to a kind of tunnel under the ground. They aren't
on the blueprint we got from the ship,” she forced her words out in
a string of nervous mumbles.

Sharp
turned his attention back to her, and this time Blake glanced her
way as well. He narrowed his startling violet eyes. “Sorry, what?”
he questioned quickly, straightening up as he did.

“Ah,
over there,” she pointed randomly over her shoulder. “Or was it
over there?” she put more thought into it, turned around, and
surveyed the rapidly darkening compound to figure out where the
stairs lay.

“Where?” Sharpe asked angrily.

“Oh,
ah,” Nida surveyed the compound, looking for a landmark or anything
that could help her get her bearings.