Chapter 9:

Landing on the new planet, the Athena crew hopped off their ship and began scouring the planet, searching for anything that could show them that life does have a possibility of living on it. The icy land of the new planet took them by surprise as they didn't expect the pure-white snowy ground to be so heavy. Cold merciless winds threatened to force the crew back aboard their ship and swiftly leave the planet without a second thought, but they had a mission to accomplish and they weren't going to leave until it was done.

"Darius, isn't it obvious that humans cannot live here?" Skylar complained as another heap of snow landed right beside her, "it'd be way too dangerous for anyone to even spend a day here."

Shaking his head, he kept his steady pace as he led the way across the violent land, yelling, "we won't need to live above ground, necessarily, we can adapt to live below ground. We need to find a cave!"

They all reluctantly continued on, letting Darius lead the way to where a cave would hopefully be located. They crossed mountainous lands full of snow and ice as they forced their way through the snowstorm. Snowflakes as large footballs crashed against the crewmembers, landing against their cushioned suits like rocks.

"Is that not a cave?" Aria yelled, pointing to the faint darker spot that was hardly visible through the compacted snow.

Darius and Adrian and Skylar glanced over to the spot Aria was pointing towards, seeing the small black hole at the foot of a large white mountain. It looked like it could've been a cave, a small, hopefully, deep cave, that could become the first clue to finding out whether or not life is possible. Carefully, they made their way over to the foot of the huge mountain to their right, enduring the forceful snow that collided against their body like ice.

"What should we do if we encounter life?" Skylar asked, "though I couldn't imagine any type of being living here."

"Be as passive as possible," Adrian replied, loudly as they reached the cave, "we don't want to startle any of the inhabitants."

Nodding, they reached the cave and silence swiftly engulfed the crew. The difference between the outside snowy world and the dark, damp, rocky, cramped cave they rested in was astounding to the crew. They couldn't believe such a drastic difference was possible, especially in a few seconds.

"I'll go collect some samples of the land," Darius said as he pulled out a couple of test tubes, "do you want to look for inhabitants?"

"We'll check the environment below," Adrian said, pointing down the cave as it sunk further and further, "see what it's like."

Nodding, the group became two as they split off to do their separate things. Adrian, Aria and Skylar gradually made their way down the wet, rocky cave as Darius remain above, collecting different samples of snow, rocks and air. Following Adrian, the girl carefully stepped down the steep rocks, keeping their arms out for balance.

As they reached lower and lower, the silence of the cave began bothering the three. They had never been to a planet so creepily quiet to the point of scary.

"I'm sure there has to be at least another being living here," Aria said, glancing around, "even if they were attacked, survivors should be about."

"Yeah..." Skylar trailed as she heard a faint noise coming from behind him. She turned back, her chocolate brown eyes scanning the vicinity for any cause of the noise, "did you guys hear something?"

Perplexed expression landed on the other two's faces as they glanced between each other, shrugging, before shaking their head to Skylar. Thinking that it was nothing but her paranoia from lack of inhabitants speaking, she proceeded to follow the other two, keeping an eye out for something suspicious.

Hours passed and Darius met up with the other three. They had now begun their way back to the ship, carefully making their way through the continuous snowstorm. As they proceeded on, a thought lingered in the back of Skylar's mind as she repeatedly checked behind her. She couldn't stop thinking about the noises she heard from the cave as well as the lack of inhabitants.

Wandering through the icy, relentless wind, the crew gradually made their way back to the ship. The forceful storm threatening to knock each member down with every step they take. Due to the heaviness and denseness of the storm, they could barely see ten feet in front of them and just plainly hoped that they were going in the right direction.

"Shouldn't we nearly be there?" Aria yelled, her arm lifted above her eyes as she forced her way through the heavy snow.

"I think we should've reached the ship five minutes ago," Adrian replied, stopping as he tried to gain an ounce of understanding of where they are, "but... I'm not sure."

The past footprint they had left all disappeared as the snow continuously piled up higher and higher. Although the planet was already fairly dark as the dim Sun in the sky hardly let any light through onto the ground, it seemed to grow darker by the minute. The lack of light started concerning the crewmembers as they quickened their pace towards the ship. Desperately, the stopped for a second in search of their torches that they hoped they brought. The original plan was to return to the ship by nightfall, but at the rate, they were going, they'd be lucky to arrive back at the ship at all.

After searching through their suits for a couple of minutes, the crew ultimately concluded that none of them brought their torches and began moving again. As they trekked across the endless snowy land, the snowstorm only growing in strength, they quickly began losing hope for their ship. Anything could've happened to it and they wouldn't even know. Their ship could be buried, torn, robbed, or stripped, nothing good seemed like it could happen.

"You don't think we walked over the ship?" Skylar asked, glancing around as she searched for metal-plated spots.

"Highly unlikely," Darius responded, "the ship wouldn't be covered yet, it might be in a few more hours."

"Then we'd better hurry," Aria said, picking up the pace as she resumed her venture towards where she believes the ship is.

"Hold on!" Adrian called, grabbing hold of her shoulder as he forces her to stop, "there."

He pointed over to the faint spot of light that glimmered in the distance. It was barely visible, the only way they could see it was that it was flickering, almost like whoever was using the light was sending out messages through morse code. Darius squinted his eyes as he tried to decode the message.

"Over... Here..." He spelt out, "the... Ship... Is... Ihis- This... Way..."

"Wait- Are they signalling to us?" Aria exclaimed as she tried to see the light, "no way, right? We never told anyone that we were here."

"I don't know, but it does seem like they're talking to us," Adrian replied, "either way, we might as well give it a shot."

And with that, the crew swiftly dashed towards the light, ignoring all the resistance from the storm. All four of them hurried over to the light, begging that it was signalled to them and not some unknown being that they hadn't discovered yet. Scurrying swiftly towards the light, ignoring every single thing that collided with them, they eventually reached the ship. Covered in a thick layer of snow with the torch they saw hung up on one side of the ship, they searched around for their saviour.

"Do you see anyone?" Adrian asked as he went to the airlock, before stopping for a moment as he noticed it was already open.

Aria, who was behind Adrian, questioned, "do you think the being entered the ship?"

"Looks like it," he cautiously entered the ship, everyone else following slowly behind, "be careful, we don't know who we're dealing with."

Warily, the crew entered the ship and thoroughly searched every room. Checking under every table, every chair, behind cabinets, they thoroughly investigated every inch of the ship. After not finding anything, they moved to see whether anything was caught on the cameras, knowing they had set it to record the rooms of the ship while they weren't about.

"Here," Adrian said, pointing to a spot on the top right monitor as a shadow appeared on the screen, "something's coming."

A dark shadow slowly came into view of a small thin boy with curly dark blonde hair messily spread atop his head. He looked human, but not someone they recognised. As they watched the recording, thoroughly, they following his footsteps across the ship. He's movements looked like he knew what he was doing like he knew where everything was and how to deal with the security codes. However, he didn't look like a student from the academy nor does he look like a trained space voyager.

"Do any of you know how this kid got on this ship?" Adrian asked as he watched him go out of view and began searching through the other screens for him, but, in the end, he disappeared again.

"He could have come from the Janus ship," Aria suggested, "they were acting very suspiciously."

"That's true," Darius added, as his eyes roamed for the boy on the monitors, "they really didn't want us to go onto their ship for some reason."

After talking about different issues and desperately trying to locate the mysterious boy on the ship, they ultimately opted to contact the Janus ship and see whether or not they know anything about the young boy.