NationStates Jolt Archive

The small monitor ship Dardelos aproached the massive piece of rock quickly, it's image growing in the screens as they got closer. Thuan and Athond could feel the imposing presence of the silent asteroid, slowly spinning and drifting across the Kuiper Belt. Such kind of asteroids was not unusual in the Belt, although the Belt Monitoring Station of the Omeldor-1 had sent them to investigate. Apparently, this asteroid had suddenly changed it's orbit around the Solar System, something that should not happen naturally, at least not unless the asteroid had been struck by a different body, or suddenly trapped by some unknown force. Since no large collisions had been detected in that region lately, they were beginning to lean to the second possibility.

They Dardelos rushed toward the asteroid, called the BR-20-BF, or Big Rock, as Thuan named it. They had not noted any unusual properties about the asteroid during their approach: It was composed mainly of carbon and silicate, with certain accumulations of iron and nickel, among many other materials in much smaller amounts. It was shaped like a fat pear, about 10 kilometres tall and 12 wide on it's largest section.
But when they attempted to get a lecture on the asteroid's core, the signal was suddenly interrupted. They tried a second, a third, and a fourth, all of them failing.

Thuan turned to Athond "Something within that rock seems to be jamming our signals. Perhaps some kind of metal or unusual composite is blocking them"

Athond nodded "Could be, but I am not so sure. So far, we have never found an asteroid with such kind of properties. Besides, I found this a couple of minutes ago" Athond pointed to one of the screens before him. Thuan stood and walked to it, watching the image closely "It seems to be some kind of structure carved from the asteroid's surface" He signalled to a pyramid-like hill of rock that grew inside a small crater "It can not possibly be part of the crater, just look at it. It was clearly formed after it"

Thuan seemed confused "It could be part of the smaller asteroid that created the crater"

"With that shape? Impossible. It is simply too symmetric and constant on it's dimensions to be the remnants of a crashed asteroid" Answered Athon.

"Then how? Are you suggesting someone put that there?"

Athond nodded "Perhaps. There have been finds of incredibly old patches of civilization all over the galaxy, and I would not be surprised to find one here. I would like to see that thing from close..."

Athond was interrupted by series of bips, which indicated an incoming signal.

"We... that... we are receiving a signal" Announced Thuan, while quickly entering the commands to check any message within the signal. And there was "I think someone is trying to contact us, and it is certainly not a someone from the Omeldor-1. Just hear this"

Thuan compiled the message and made the system reproduce it. A deep, hard voice spoke with a heavy accent "Meâr uthak-en-amur-il-eter. Erat-ib maurak othal-en-otok-il-enok-et-thurat. Thamir thul-sitil, ul-kzor, kal-eûr ul-kzor"
Thuan then gazed at Athond, who seemed to be following the message with attention "What? You understand what it is saying?"

Athond denied with his head "No, I don't, but I have heard this before. I think..." He stopped talking and went immediately to his console, where he looked for the General Translator "This sounds intriguingly similar to an old dwarf language I once dug up from the General Translator, back in Adranor's Academy of History. It was called something like Ort-Kalak, Orm-Alak..." He continued looking for it for a few more minutes "Orn-Valâk! Here it is!" He accessed the language entry, and made the system compare the message with the online language data. After a few seconds, the message was spoken in their tongue, with a perfectly toned and modulated synthesized voice "We be dying. Assistance is required to us soon. Located in nation of asteroid, subterranean world, we located in subterranean world"

Athond seemed excited "The translation is not very good, but the message is clearly understandable. These people actually speak this language, which was thought dead! How did they get here, beats me, but someone or something is sending a distress call from within that asteroid, and I would dare to say dwarfs"

A team of landing ships have been called to explore the asteroid. The people back at the Omeldor-1 were not very sure of the sense behind all this, but Athond knew where to press to get this kind of things done. So three small ships were about to reach the asteroid and commence closer exploration in the pyramid-like structure.
Athond and Thuan would monitor the operation from the Dardelos, and would try to establish contact with those inside the BR-20-BF... if there was someone. The possibility of the distress message to be an old record from a now dead group of desperate people was there. But Athond was curious. Besides, someone or something must have been behind the strange and sudden change of orbit of the asteroid.

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The three ships landed close to each other, around the pyramidal structure. It was not very large -about one hundred metres wide and thirty high, carved from the same rock of the asteroid, located in the bottom of a shallow and perfectly round crater. On each of the four faces of the pyramid were large square openings that leaned toward the centre of the structure. Inside them, the stone was impressively smooth, and long symmetrical cuts covered the sides.

One of the team members activated his intercommunicator "It would seem like if something was fitted inside these holes, perhaps the base of a bigger structure, or something else"

The pyramid was not very step, so the team walked toward it's top with ease, helped by the low gravity of the asteroid. When they reached the top, they found that it was flat, crisscrossed by thin cuts on it's surface that met in the middle, dividing the square in four equal parts.

"I would venture to say that this thing opens" Noted one of them "Look at the edges: The stone there has marks of friction on both sides"

Another, an aged woman, swept the surface with her gaze "So this would be some kind of entrance to whatever lies below" The rest of the team nodded while looking at the ground and around them "Well then, lets see what's below"

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It took them about ten minutes to fetch and deploy the subground scanner. The old woman turned it on, and series of images that ranged from green to purple showed up on the scanner's console. Below the pyramid, series of levels grew progressively bigger, until reaching a large opening, closed at the bottom. Although the image was diffuse, it was clear that the figures they saw on each level were some kind of statues -or at least very big people made of stone. The levels extended toward a very large level, about sixty metres below the bottom of the pyramid. After it, layer after layer of open areas, occupied by various structures, some of metal, some of stone, grew progressively bigger, following the shape of the asteroid.

"So this asteroid is empty. It is like a bee colony inside; the rock just acts as a protection for the complex carved inside. Let’s open this thing"