Mwene couldn't stop his hand shaking. He would tuck his hand behind his back just like the thought of how unprepared he was for this entire expedition. As he looked around the shuttle, he saw they were all ready. Nike had a belt of various first aid equipment. Anan had a polished battle rifle, three grenades and ammo on either side of her waist. Ayla sat in the front with Inyanga and was monitoring the sensors, with a large handgun, searching for wildlife. Inyanga, with a shotgun strapped on his chest, and a tool belt around his waist flew the shuttle carefully towards the dead gray planet. He felt naked with only his suit, medallion, and wet hair with him.
"Objective is 500km away." Patience stated as Mwene looked out and stared at the moon. There was something off about it. The more he laid his eyes on it the more uneasy he felt. It was as if it knew that they were approaching.
"Ya notice anything odd?"
"I notice a strange energy signal on the surface but it's spread out evenly so I can't exactly pinpoint it out." Ayla explained.
Inyanga lowers the shuttle into the atmosphere of the planet. Its surface had been scarred with a millennium of comets and asteroid impacts. There were endless canyons and mountain ranges. In the distance was an active ice volcano that spilled its contents into the vacuum.
"Location of interested has been found. Advice course correction advised" Patience instructed. Inyanga glanced at his monitors and found the way points directly above the volcano. Just as he began to turn to the shuttle in it's general direction a blinding wave of light engulfed the planet. It hit the shuttle and it just went dead and started to drift. The crew start to rub their eyes in an attempt to focus their eyesight again.
"Patience. Status report." Mwene demanded
She didn't respond.
"All the electronics are offline. Nothin is working." Shouted a squinting Inyanga.
"Land us safely then."
"Aye"
They all strapped in and the shuttle, cursing at 900km/h (560 mph) sank fast towards the ground. Inyanga looked at the manual instruments and swore loudly. He reached under the control panel and flipped a switch and the secondary rockets roared to life.
"Hang on."
The shuttle drastically decreased just as it hit the surface. The secondary engines break away on impact and explode. The force of the explosion lifted the rear end of the shuttle up before it flips onto the roof. It hits a rock which sends the shuttle into an uncontrollable spin. It seemed to last forever until it eventually ground into a halt on its side. The shuttle was dead quiet for a moment other than the odd wire spark.
"Any casualties?" bellowed Mwene.
"Only me pride." Shouted Inyanga.
"Only nauseous."
"Ill live" proclaimed Anan
" No" replied Ayla
"Status report" inquired Mwene
" The status is that there's nun to report. It's like anything with a microchip took a nap."
"An EMP?" suggested Anan as she unhooked herself from her seatbelt.
"Would explain why we can't contact patience." Added Mwene as he helped to unhook Nike from his seatbelt.
"What's that?" Ayla questioned as she unhooked herself and began to hand out helmets.
"An electromagnetic pulse. An invisible radio that fooks with computers." Inyanga continued to tinker with the monitors but to no success.
"Probably came from the mountain." Anan checked her rifle.
"The answers you seek are where you least want to look I suppose." Nike pulled on the visor of his helmet.
"Alright. Eyes sharp. We don't know what to expect but let's look out for each other."
They all nodded as they got ready. Inyanga manually opened the door and jumped out. He boosted the rest of the crew out and they all explored the landscape. It was no different than the moon back at home. Hostile and lifeless. Mwene signaled everyone to keep their eyes open and they jumped down on the shuttle and walked on foot towards the ice volcano.
Hours and hours of walking on a planet whose gravity seemed slightly stronger than that of the ship took a toll on Nike and Ayla, the least physically capable of the crew. Frequent waters were necessary to stop them from fainting. Slowly but surely they made progress and as they got closer to the ice volcano, the ice began to sparkle and form a rainbow. A sight that none of them thought they would never see.
"Do you think heaven will have sights like this?" Ayla asked.
"What's heaven when I'm not there with you to see it?" Mwene smiled.
"That was such a corny line, lad." Inyanga blurted.
Ayla and Nike laughed but she stopped quickly as the group bantered amongst each other. She whipped out her rifle and aimed it at the black moon. She saw dozens of black projectiles launching from its surface.
"We need to move."
Her words cut the banter dead as they focused on her. She focused her rifle at the foot of the volcano and found multiple cave openings.
" I estimate the caves are at least 3 kilometers from us."
They all start running with Anan leading the pack.
"What did you see?"
"Multiple black projectiles heading our way from the moon."
The terrain became even more mountainous as they approached the volcano but they kept on moving. Occasionally Anan would look back through their scope and monitor it but her solemn expression never changed. With only a kilometer left they heard distance booms around them.
"Those impacts don't sound random." Noted Inyanga
"They're trying to surround to use." Shouted Anan as she dropped back and covered their rear. In the distance from the smoke multiple black orbs emerged. They edged closer as they did. Anan fired a quick shot in the air hoping the flash would scare them off. It didn't.
She put her hand on the grenades for a moment but thought against it and placed her hand back onto her rifle. She aimed down the sights and focused on one of the black orbs. Her finger on the trigger ready to cross the line when she noticed something. An eye. Just then the ground beneath here split in two and the volcano started to rise. The rest of the crew managed to make it to a cave and called Anan. She began to run and after a minute made it to the cave. Just as she reached out her hand to Mwene a trap door from underneath opened. She fell and it closed. Before any of the crew could process what had happened a giant rock fell in front of the cave entrance throwing everyone back.