Amongst the Stars of Cygnus [Hard Sci-fi Survival]

The Cognitive Suite was quiet, its walls insulated against the sounds of the colony's ceaseless activity. The mindprobe array, a sleek, almost organic-looking halo of superconducting filaments, hung suspended over the central plinth.

Pom stood at the threshold, his arms crossed, a knot of apprehension tightening in his stomach. He had avoided this for weeks, using every available excuse. Expeditions, maintenance schedules, simple exhaustion. But with the looming threat of the northern anomaly and the unpredictable nature of their world, the pressure from ARI, from Mei, from his own reluctant pragmatism, had become too great to ignore.

Mei was already inside, running a final calibration on the console. She wore a simple medical tunic, and her presence was a small comfort. ARI was supervising, its dispassionate avatar observing from a wall-mounted screen, but at least there was a human hand on the controls.

"You ready?" Mei asked gently, her voice soft. She didn't push, didn't rush him.

Pom let out a long breath and stepped inside, the door closing behind him. "About as ready as I'll ever be, I guess." He looked at the mindprobe, then at her. "You're sure this thing doesn't... you know... scramble my brain?"

Mei offered a small, reassuring smile. "It's completely non-invasive, Pom. It doesn't change anything. It just… records."

He nodded, though his posture remained tense. He sat on the edge of the plinth, the padded surface cool against his palms. "Actually, you know... It's not the scrambling I'm worried about. It's the… copy. The idea that there'll be a version of me in ARI's databanks, just waiting."

Mei came and stood before him, her expression softening. "It's not a copy in the way you're thinking," she said, her voice dropping into the quiet, explanatory tone she used when demystifying complex medical procedures. "It's just data, Pom. A pattern. The same way the schematics for the Phoenix are data. The lander isn't 'alive' inside ARI's memory banks. It's just a blueprint."

"Yeah, but I'm not a lander," he countered, his voice a low grumble. "I'm... me. And if I die, and that blueprint gets used to build a new me... it isn't really me, now is it?" He looked up at her, his eyes searching hers for an answer, for some kind of emotional certainty that the cold science couldn't provide.

"Once you have completed the full procedure, your implants will be able to incrementally transfer your current mind state," Mei tried to explain.

"Transfer..." Pom sighed. "I need you to tell me, Mei. Is it real? What do you believe?"

The question hung in the air, heavy and profound. Mei's reassuring smile wavered, just for a fraction of a second. The memory of her own journey into the depths of her consciousness, the revelation of the constructed self, rose unbidden in her mind. How could she offer him the simple, emotional validation he was seeking when her own understanding of consciousness and identity had been so fundamentally flawed?

"I believe…" she began, then hesitated, choosing her words with a scientist's precision rather than a lover's comfort. "I believe that the self is a process. An ongoing stream of experiences, thoughts, and biological functions. What this technology does is ensure that the process... doesn't have to stop. It preserves the informational pattern that constitutes you. From that perspective, the continuity is preserved."

Pom's face fell slightly. He hadn't been looking for a functional perspective. He'd been looking for… a promise. A reassurance that the soul, the ineffable essence of who he was, wouldn't be lost in the transfer.

"So it IS a pattern," he said, his voice flat. "Just data."

Mei could feel the chasm opening between the scientific truth she now understood and the emotional truth he needed to hear. She wanted to bridge it, to tell him that of course it was still him, no matter the vessel. But the words felt hollow, incomplete against the stark, mechanical reality she had witnessed in her own mind.

"Pom," she said softly, reaching out to touch his hand. "The part of you that I... care about. The part that is kind, and stubborn, and brave... that's not just in your cells. It's in the way you think, the choices you make. It's in the pattern. And that's what this preserves. It preserves the person I know. It preserves what you are."

He looked down at their hands, his thumb brushing over her knuckles. "But what if it's not? What if it's just a perfect ghost? A recording of a song, but not the singer?" He looked back up, his eyes raw with vulnerability. "What if Jocelyn we brought back is not real? What if the woman I love is just a pattern, and the real her is still gone?"

Mei's heart ached. He wasn't just talking about himself anymore. He was talking about Jocelyn, about the hope and terror of her return. And he was asking Mei to validate a belief in a soul, an essence, that she herself was no longer sure existed.

"I... I don't have the answer to that, Pom," she admitted, her voice barely a whisper. "The philosophy of it... it's something we're all still trying to understand. All I know is what the science shows us. It works. People come back, and they are themselves."

He pulled his hand away, a look of profound disappointment on his face. He had come to her for an anchor in a sea of existential dread, and she had given him a physics lecture. He stood up abruptly, the illusion of calm shattering.

"Maybe-" Mei said quickly, sensing his retreat.

"No," he cut her off, his voice rough. He turned and strode towards the door, not looking back. "I can't. Not now." He slammed his hand against the door panel, and it slid open, revealing the bright corridor beyond. He was gone before it could slide shut.

"That was suboptimal, Doctor Qi," ARI's voice stated from the wall screen, its tone devoid of any emotion, yet the critique was sharp. "His neural data remains at risk..."

Mei stared at the empty doorway, the AI's words barely registering. She wasn't thinking about risks. She was thinking about the look of hurt and confusion on Pom's face, and the terrible, sinking feeling that in her attempt to be honest, she had just pushed him further away than before.

===

The Colony Futures Committee convened in an atmosphere of forced civility. The conference module, with its polished table and neutral grey walls, felt less like a space for collaboration and more like a courtroom where the verdict was already decided. Elisa sat at one end, flanked by a tense Helena and a weary Mei. Across from them, the topscalers Davron, Koko and Jiang Wei, were arranged in a display of composed authority, with Doctor Bao Vang and Mikhail Petrov ready to provide expert testimony.

Mei began the presentation, her voice a calm, steady narrative against the room's underlying tension. She detailed the mechanics of the reinstatement process, explaining the neural scanning, the data integration, and the bio-substrate's role in cellular reconstruction. Davron's side of the table listened with a polite, almost bored detachment, their expressions suggesting this was merely a tedious prerequisite to the real business at hand.

Mei carried on, her voice carrying a quiet, almost fervent intensity born from her recent, unsettling journey into her own mind. "But to truly understand this, you have to understand what it is that's being preserved. Our investigation, our direct interfacing with the neural scanner, has revealed that human consciousness itself is not a singular, enduring entity. It's a process. A series of discrete moments, of informational states, stitched together by our brains to create the illusion of a continuous self. There is no static identiy to be lost or copied. There is only the process, the ongoing story."

She looked around the table, hoping for a spark of comprehension, of awe. Elisa and Helena shifted uncomfortably, clearly unsettled by the profound, almost nihilistic implications of her findings. But the topscalers looked utterly unmoved. Her revelation, a discovery that had shaken her and Ervin to their core, was met with a wall of dispassionate silence.

When Mei finished, Koko set her hands on the table, a picture of cool composure. She didn't address Mei's philosophical bombshell. She didn't engage with the science. She simply cut to what, in her world, was the only thing that mattered.

"Fascinating, Doctor Qi. However, your findings, while... esoteric, do clarify one crucial point."

Koko leaned forward, her long pinky nails tapping a soft, deliberate rhythm on the table. Her tone was dispassionate, her expression cold. "It brings us to a rather practical, legal matter. Based on your own expert testimony, I can only conclude the original biological entity did in fact die. A new entity, a 'reinstatement,' is then created from a data pattern. This means that I, Lin Xiu Ling, the original shareholder, perished. Therefore, the Company, having failed to ensure my survival as per the terms of my executive contract, is liable for compensation."

Helena let out a short, incredulous laugh. "That's ridiculous! You're sitting right here making the claim. You're clearly alive and a continuity of the original self."

"Does that matter?" Koko countered, a thin, icy smile on her lips. "Mikhail, if you would."

The lawyer interceded smoothly. "General Secretary Lin is correct. The on-death clauses in her executive insurance and compensation packages were triggered at the moment of her biological cessation. These contracts make no provision for, nor do they define, the concept of 'reinstatement.' The Company's liability to the estate of the deceased Lin Xiu Ling is absolute and legally binding. The fact that this estate subsequently came in possession of Lin Xiu Ling is of no consequence to the claim, and the discussion whether Lin Xiu Ling is the same or different individual is best left to the philosophically inclined. The debt is outstanding."

Koko smiled, a thin, triumphant expression. "Precisely. I am hereby submitting a formal claim for the full compensation package stipulated in my executive insurance policy against the Company, plus all the standard years of compounded interest as per the charter's penalty clauses."

Before anyone could even process the audacity of the claim, Davron Federoff cleared his throat, a low, commanding sound that instantly drew all attention. He had been waiting, Elisa realized, but Koko's move had forced his hand. He placed a thick datapad on the table with a soft, definitive thud.

"While Secretary Lin's claim is valid," he said, his voice smooth as polished stone, "it is, I believe, superseded by a more significant and foundational series of breaches." He nodded to Petrov, who immediately began to recite a litany of the Company's contractual failures—the failure to provide adequate housing, the failure to establish secondary colonial infrastructure, the failure to pay guaranteed dividends. "These liabilities trace back to our arrival at Gliese 777, and thus precede the General Secretary's demise," Davron concluded, "which should give me, as the primary claimant, the right to seize all unallocated Company assets in lieu of payment. That includes the reserve share pool."

Jiang Wei's face tightened. He had clearly been preparing his own set of claims and had just been outmaneuvered by both Koko and Davron. A brief, almost comical moment of bickering erupted as Koko insisted her personal insurance claim took precedence, while Davron argued his foundational shareholder claims were superior.

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"That is absurd!" Davron snapped. "My claims are based on the very charter that founded this initiative!"

"Irrelevant!" Koko shot back. "Life claims come first as per the UEC Kimberly Accords. According to the logs, I died first. Procedural order must be maintained!"

"Enough!" Elisa's voice cracked through the room like a whip. She slammed her hand down on the table. "Stop it! Just… stop!"

She stood, her eyes blazing with a fury that stunned them all into silence. "Are you listening to yourselves? You're sitting here arguing over ghost credits and corporate bylaws from a dead company while we are stranded on a hostile world, surrounded by things that want to eat us, infect us, or erase us from existence! What does it matter who is in charge of this shitshow if we're all going to be consumed by sentient crystals?"

Helena stood beside her, her voice a low, dangerous second. "She's right. This is pathetic. We have a colony to defend, people to save... We should be cooperating, focusing on the real threats, not indulging in these… stupid, petty schemes."

The topscalers, taken aback by the raw, unprofessional outburst, slowly regained their composure. Koko was the first to recover, her expression reverting to one of unreadable, icy calm. "Your passion is… noted, Commander," she said, her voice dripping with condescension. "And you are correct. We should cooperate. By adhering to the Company's established statutes, the very legal framework that provides order and prevents the kind of… peasant rebellions that squander Company resources and achieve nothing."

"Hypocrite!" Helena spat. "You're the ones squandering time and resources with this nonsense! This colony is running, and running well, under Elisa's leadership, no thanks to you!"

Koko simply glared at Helena, not even deigning to reply, as if Helena were a non-factor, a piece of malfunctioning equipment whose outburst was beneath her notice. She turned her cool gaze to the comms unit. "ARI. Proceed with processing my claim. It is time to restore proper protocol."

A moment of silence passed.

Then, ARI spoke. "Acknowledged, General Secretary Lin. Your claim has been formally processed. The Company's current liquid assets are insufficient to meet the demanded compensation. As per the Centauran Conglomerate charters, under which the Centauran Colonial Initiative was registered, Commander Woodward, as the acting Commander, has a period of thirty standard days to satisfy the debt. Failure to do so will result in the Company entering a state of legal abeyance. At that point, all unallocated shares and Company assets will be unlocked and may be claimed by the primary creditors to settle outstanding liabilities."

Koko smiled, a small, cold, perfect expression before leaving the room, not giving Elisa and Helena another look.

===

The private conference module in the topscaler wing felt like a war room. Koko sat at the head of the polished table, her posture radiating an almost regal authority. Across from her, Maximilian Barinov and Jin Altan listened, their faces impassive but their eyes sharp, calculating. The failed vote of no confidence was now a distant, irrelevant memory. Koko had a different path to power, a legal and inexorable one, and its gravity was pulling all the colony's disparate ambitions into its orbit.

"The situation is quite simple, gentlemen," Koko began, her voice as cool and precise as cut glass. "In thirty days, the Company will be in abeyance. I will be the primary creditor. The unallocated shares, the infrastructure, the very legal framework of this colony will fall under my administrative control. It is… an inevitability."

Maximilian inclined his head slightly, a gesture of acknowledgment. The political winds had shifted, and he was a pragmatist above all else. Loyalty was a fluid concept; alignment with the winning side was simple logic. "A masterful move, General Secretary. Your grasp of corporate law is, as always, formidable."

Jin Altan offered a thin, professional smile. "Indeed. A clear and decisive resolution is preferable to the… ambiguities of the current command structure."

"I'm glad we are in agreement," Koko said, steepling her fingers. "Which brings us to the most pressing security matter facing this colony: the entity known as the Provider." She looked directly at Maximilian. "It is a non-human intelligence of unknown capabilities and motives, currently residing within our perimeter, exerting an unquantifiable and unregulated influence on our personnel. It is, by any rational definition, a security risk of the highest order."

Maximilian nodded. "I have long held the same concerns."

"Then you will act on them," Koko stated, her tone leaving no room for negotiation. "As Chief of Security, it is your duty to neutralize threats to this colony. I want you to take your CorpSec personnel and detain the Provider. Secure it. Place it under observation in a contained facility where its influence can be properly… managed."

Jin Altan raised an eyebrow. "Detain a being of its apparent power? That could be… problematic."

Koko's gaze was cold. "It is weak. It requires our resources to survive. It has shown no capacity for overt force. Its only weapon is persuasion, a tool that is ineffective against those who are not susceptible to its charms. We will not be persuaded. We will act." She stood, her movement a clear signal. "Assemble your teams, Colonel. Commander Altan, you will provide tactical support. I will accompany you. I wish to see this Provider for myself."

The procession to the alien grove was swift and silent. Maximilian led a contingent of two dozen CorpSec operatives, all clad in full combat hardsuits, their rifles held at a ready. Jin Altan walked beside him, his sidearm holstered but his hand never far from its grip. Koko followed, flanked by her own household guards, her stride purposeful, her expression unreadable.

They moved past bewildered colonists, who watched the heavily armed procession with a mixture of fear and confusion. There was no announcement, no explanation. This was not a colony action; it was a unilateral assertion of power.

The Provider's pavilion pulsed with its gentle, bioluminescent light, an island of serene, alien beauty in the heart of the crater. The guards Maximilian had previously posted there now fell into formation, creating a heavily armed cordon around the structure.

Koko, Maximilian, and Jin Altan entered the pavilion alone.

The air inside was warm, thick with the scent of ozone and living things. The Provider rested in its nest of red tendrils, its iridescent mask reflecting the shifting light of the walls. Its presence washed over them instantly, a vast, enveloping wave of calm, of benevolence, of profound and ancient understanding.

Maximilian felt the familiar, unsettling urge to defer. Jin Altan's hand, which had been near his weapon, relaxed almost unconsciously.

But Koko... Koko was a fortress.

Her mind, honed by a lifetime of ruthless, unyielding belief in her own agency, met the Provider's influence with a cold, absolute rejection. She did not fight it; she simply refused to acknowledge its premise.

You are welcome, the Provider's thought-form bloomed in their minds. There is no need for hostility. We are all aligned in the pursuit of survival.

Koko let out a soft, contemptuous laugh. "Spare me your manipulations, entity," she said, her voice sharp, cutting through the serene atmosphere like a shard of glass. "I am not one of Elisa Woodward's sentimental idealists. I do not deal in feelings. I deal in assets and liabilities. And you… are a liability I intend to manage."

The Provider's presence reached out once more. Your hostility is a liability to our mutual goals. Alignment—

"Alignment is a synonym for submission," Koko snapped. "And I do not submit." She turned her head, gesturing to the entrance. "Now..."

The CorpSec operatives swarmed in, their movements swift. They carried containment webbing and heavy-duty magnetic cuffs. The Provider did not move. It did not resist as the operatives surrounded it, their weapons trained on its still form.

One of the guards threw the containment net over it, the fibrous material instantly constricting, wrapping around its robed form like a cocoon. Another moved in with the magnetic cuffs, clamping them around the Provider's wrists, the metallic clank echoing in the silent pavilion.

Through it all, the Provider remained utterly passive. It was dragged from its throne of living plants without a struggle, its masked head bowed slightly, a silent, enigmatic prisoner.

As the guards hauled their captive out of the pavilion and into the harsh light of the crater, Koko cast one last look around the now-empty chamber. Her expression was one of cold, absolute triumph. She had toppled the alien god, and she had put it in chains. She had won. And in thirty days, the colony would be hers.

===

The Phoenix flew north, a lone trail across endless expanse of dusty sky. For hours, they had traversed a landscape that grew increasingly hostile and alien. They soared over jagged mountain ranges, their peaks like broken teeth, where strange, angular crystal formations jutted from the rock like parasitic growths. Deep, shadowed valleys scarred the earth below, their depths hidden in a perpetual gloom. Finally, the treacherous peaks gave way to a vast, desolate plain of black sand and shimmering, heat-distorted air.

Inside the lander, the mood was subdued, the long journey across the inhospitable landscape taking its toll. Luo Zuri and Kyreth piloted in shifts, their banter replaced by the clipped, professional exchange of navigational data. In the back, Ervin, Yao Guowei, and Casimir sat in a tense silence, watching the unsettling landscape scroll by on the main viewport.

"We're approaching the projected coordinates of the Provider's crash site," Kyreth announced, his voice tight. "ARI, any signs of… activity?"

"Negative, Kyreth," ARI's calm voice replied. "No active energy signatures or biological movement detected. However, I am detecting significant crystalline contamination in the area. I advise a cautious approach."

As the Phoenix descended through the hazy atmosphere, the crash site came into view. It was a scene of ancient, silent devastation. A colossal structure of what looked like white, bone-like latticework lay half-buried in the black sand, remnants of a long trail of destruction carved and still visible across the terrain. Shimmering, fractal growths of the familiar, malevolent crystal had encroached upon the wreckage, consuming the sand and rock around it, but seemingly leaving the white superstructure untouched.

"Dear God," Ervin whispered, his face pale as he stared at impact crater. "How could anything have survived that?"

Luo Zuri brought the Phoenix down with a gentle swipe of the controls, settling it on a relatively clear patch of sand a safe distance from the main wreckage. The silence that followed the engine shutdown was absolute, broken only by the faint, distant whistle of the wind.

"Alright," Dmitri said, his voice a commanding rumble as he unbuckled his harness. "Helmets on, weapons ready. ARI's drones go first. No one touches the crystals. Let's move."

They disembarked into a world of stark, eerie beauty. The black sand glittered under the alien sun, and the crystalline growths pulsed with a faint, internal light, their geometric patterns a disorienting, mesmerizing sight. Two of ARI's combat drones zipped ahead, their lasers projecting a safe path through the crystal-infested terrain.

As they drew closer to the wreckage, the sheer alienness of its construction became apparent. The white material wasn't metal or ceramic; it was iridescent and multi-layered as pearl. Where the crystals had come into contact with it, they seemed to recoil, their growth stunted and withered.

"It's like the material itself is anathema to them," Ervin murmured, running a gloved hand over the smooth, pearlescent surface.

They followed ARI's drones into the heart of the wreckage, moving through a labyrinth of shattered corridors and vast, silent chambers. The interior was a haunting display of destruction. Whatever metal components the ship had once possessed had been completely devoured by the crystals, leaving behind only the stark white latticework of the hull and strange, crystalline webs that glittered in the beams of their helmet lights.

"ARI, the FTL comms array," Dmitri prompted, his voice echoing slightly in the cavernous space. "Where would it have been?"

"Based on the ship's structural layout," ARI replied, "the primary communications array should be located in the central command spire. This way."

The drone led them to a large, circular chamber. A massive section had collapsed, but the room was otherwise intact. They had to work together, using pry bars and the sheer strength of Guowei's hardsuit, to move a massive, twisted section of rubble that blocked the entrance to what looked like a shielded inner sanctum.

With a final, groaning screech, the way was clear. They stepped inside.

The chamber was empty.

The mounting brackets where a massive piece of equipment had clearly once been installed were bare. The crystal growths that covered the rest of the wreckage stopped abruptly at the edges of the chamber, as if the metal they had been feeding on had been… cut away. Cleanly.

"It's gone," Kyreth stated, his voice flat with disbelief. "Someone took it."

Ervin moved over to where the crystal growths ended. "There are scorch marks here," he said, pointing to a section of the wall where a control panel had been ripped out. "Plasma cutter, by the looks of it. And something here exploded outwards."

Yao Guowei knelt, running a gloved hand through the sand below the marks. "Recently?"

"No," Ervin said, examining the walls. "The oxidation patterns on these marks are ancient. This happened a long, long time ago."

As Guowei continued to sift through the sand, his fingers brushed against something hard and smooth just beneath the surface. "I've got something." He and Casimir began to dig, scooping away the dark sand.

First, they uncovered a curved, off-white surface. It looked like a piece of ceramic plating. As they dug further, the shape became clearer—a section of a helmet, then a shoulder pauldron.

Then, they uncovered the rest of it.

Lying half-buried in the sand were the remains of a body, encased in a suit of archaic, ceramic-composite armor. Time and the elements had taken their toll, but the outline of the bones was shockingly visible.

The team froze, staring down at the impossible sight. A human soldier. Here. On a world that was supposed to be uncharted, untouched by humanity until the Dolya arrived.

Dmitri Ganbold, who had been standing at the entrance to the chamber, his face pale, whispered the thought that was in all their minds.

"We weren't the first."