Chapter 2
A quiet mood had overcome the freighter as we closed in upon the mines. The far belt, we had left behind in the night, and we were now altogether separated from the galaxy that we once knew.
The pastel aura of interspace dissipated into darkness, as we passed through our final gate. Nothing but the pin-prick light of the stars could be seen amongst the dim shadow of a nebula cloud.
There were three planets set in this cloud, and they appeared like distant gods. The first was a steely grey and had an oily sheen that danced through its atmosphere. It was a gas giant of some kind, and it had a mottled ring of asteroids. The next was further away, and in truth I could not tell whether it was a moon of this giant or a planet of its own. It had dark clouds that surged over the surface in storms. Already, however, the ship had turned on these grim companions, heading instead to the third planet.
The third was our destination – a body of detestable significance. It was no larger than the giant; it was by several degrees smaller, in fact. However, there was something about it – something quite unfathomable. I could not say what it was, but I saw that this world had arrested the excitability of my fellow travellers and replaced it with an emotion unfamiliar.
There was a vast presence that this world had over us, and an endless energy that it consumed from us. We were all drawn closer as the surface grew to shroud our vision. And we saw faint streaks, and canyons, and mountains. We saw infinitesimal specks of the most myriad colours, and the strangest formations that shared a structure so implausible. This world spoke in whispers of a time gone by – an age lost to all. And yet such whispers were blown away in the winds of our minds. Such was the story we had all been told and the torrent it took us down. Centarion was all… and this planet could not have been what it claimed to be.
“Approaching Callisto. Return to your seats,” the flight attendant sharply interrupted our contemplations; and upon her final words, the glass of the windows turned to an opaque shade. We were temporarily cast into a darkness even more so than the void around us. Then harsh lights flooded the cabin, and we were thrust back into the world that we knew – now, not even permitted to see the planet that would become our home.
The ship settled with an almighty roar, and I surmised that the gravity here was slightly heavier than that of most worlds. It was an unwelcome thought, but I happily pushed it aside. After all, I had to remember why I was here!
Even if every shovel of dirt was heavier than anywhere else in the galaxy, I would be escaping falling bombs, and minefields, and street-warfare. Again, visions of the world that I knew plagued me. I saw soldiers in the streets – most of them were civilians, all haggard and twisted. I saw the once-adverts that hung from the skybreakers now replaced with turrets and platforms for military dropships. I saw the sky illuminated with millions of intersecting trails of weapon-fire. I heard the screams. I heard the sirens. I heard the muffled cries of people who had misplaced their trust in those authorities that cared not for the individual life. Every horror that would ever be, I could feel… and all of them, I would escape.
We trundled out of the freighter like dregs on a morning maintenance run – wearily but not without a programmed excitability. A temperate air met us. It carried in its rising warmth, the scent of iron, and so overpowering was this smell that I had to draw my breath. Down the long ramp we walked, and onto the sharp black carpet of hematite. The substance crumpled on each footstep, and in places it was no more than sand. Around these black fragments were rocks and boulders of pure iron ore.
It smelt like blood.
It was not long before the first evidence of man’s presence on this planet became apparent. From beneath the blackish ground, modern paths snaked into being. They were white, and smooth, and appeared in patches. We were guided towards one, and then we followed it for some time. Eventually, the path turned to steps which rose from the ground and propelled us over the crest of a hill.
I stood there for a moment; it felt, all of a sudden, as if I were alone. Completely alone. My company disintegrated into odd apparitions, that could have been mistaken for the still and rocky formations prevalent to this land. Their noises were now either muffled by the rising wind or silenced all together by the same stillness that had found me. My eyes craned upwards with an unerring vertigo, and I was surrounded by an ancient expanse that stretched for miles around, at first in the gentle rolling of small hills, and then beyond, in a desolate, and circular, near endless plain. Only in the far distance did mountains finally break apart this flat desert that had little in the way of life.
However, that was the very contradiction. Life could be found in the form of desperate plants that seemed not to know whether to climb towards the light or bury themselves from its scorching stare. Life could be found in the form of dried reptile skins that blew in the wind. Life could be found in the singular raindrop that fell from the sky and hit my cheek, turning my thoughts to the above – a darkening heaven, one brooding with a heaviness, one that was set to burst and unleash muddy torrents over the land below. Life could be felt everywhere, elusive and hidden away, but still burning to be found. And so, there was a sensation that over took me – a primordial sense of connection, the most exhilarating connection. I was alive… and life I could feel. Brimming and bursting, it was there – in this bitter and hostile, incomprehensible landscape. A forgotten spring, all but dried up – it was just waiting to well again.
The feeling swirled inside and slowly took a more solid form. An emotion. A thought.
This planet was a place where life once thrived, and this was the reason we were here. We were not to know it, however. We were not to nurture it. We were here to bury it!
Beyond the hill upon which we stood, the path descended towards an installation. An equally white monstrosity that stood out on this world like a raptid in humanspace – it was the Callisto Collective.
As I held this oddity in my perception, I became aware of its attributes. Sounds of industry started to bound off of the hills and into my ears. I could hear a great drilling and the sound of mighty vehicles. I could hear distant underground explosions which threw the faintest shudders through my body. I could hear human life all around me; it was a monstrous thing. How far had I come to escape from the coming war? I believed that I had succeeded in that regard, and yet I also knew that I had stumbled into another war – one far older, one inherent in ourselves, one that we could not contain for any moment of our existence.
Humanity had a need to mark themselves upon all that they touched, mark themselves over what had once been. The Callisto Collective was our imprint, and the mines were our dark device.