Somewhere well beyond the grasp of earth's gravity, a young traveller placed his hand on the thick synthi-glass window that separated him from the cold of space. Even the many layers of stratified silicon yielded to the intense sub temperatures that fought tirelessly to invade the traveller's vessel. He pulled his tingling hand away from the frigid porthole and stared at the purity of the stars outside. They seemed no closer to him now, although he had come almost four hundred million miles from his home on earth. Tiny pinpoints of energy, their light thrust out from millions of giant furnaces burning silently in their solitude. Each destined to die someday. A day the young traveller would not likely be around to see.

The sun's unfiltered light suddenly pierced the window as the freighter turned in its approach of the spinning Ramsey Docking Facility. The huge spacecraft continued to swing in a slow wide arc to mate with the docking target that jutted out from the girder-laced space station. Strobe markers guided the freighter's initial insertion before the comdock system took over. For a moment the silence throughout the freighter was broken by a gentle impact shudder as the vehicle finally locked into its mooring bay.

The young traveller shielded his eyes and stared out the window one last time. His long journey was over, but he was looking forward to his new life as an earth colonist's son and future scientist. He collected his things and headed for the freighter's egress station.

His father was a micro-botanist, assigned to monitor the growth rate and general welfare of the hydroponics department on the scientific research colony recently settled on Jupiter's ice-encrusted moon, Europa. Colony 238, as it was known on earth, consisted of a small central hub that encompassed the living quarters, around which a handful of multi-Government-funded research labs were situated. A network of sub-crust level tunnels connected the various departments to one another. Scientists were urged to share their findings with their colleagues by their Earth-bound directors in a spirit of cooperation. A spirit borne from the peace that now existed between a new capitalist China and the rest of the free world.

As the young traveller walked through the freighter's hatchway to the platform where his father stood waiting, he recalled his mother's decision to remain on Earth. She did not share his father's ambitions of space exploration and discovery but they had married anyway, knowing full well that someday the family would be smaller for a few years. And when the day arrived for his father to leave, the time had seemed to pass by so quickly that the young boy made a vow to join his father someday, wherever he was going.

Now, that day had arrived, his relocation created out of circumstance. Four months earlier the boy's mother had died in an accident, the victim of an aircar guidance malfunction. He had been a passenger that day, and the horror of the crash still haunted him. Narrowly avoiding death himself, he was left to wonder why it had happened and why he was still alive and his mother was not. His youthful self-image of immortality had been shattered violently and far too soon in his young life.

The middle-aged man standing on the platform had the faintest traces of tears in his eyes as he tightly embraced the son he hadn't seen in three years. He marveled at how he had grown so quickly since he had left. The images from the tiny viewphones at the colony were heavily distorted at best, providing a ghostly picture that could not convey the changes of time on the human body. He had grown into a young man in the blink of an eye.

The boy held on for a moment longer and then scooped up his belongings and followed his father to the shuttle departure zone. The gravity here was only half of earth's, enough to allow a normal walking motion but at a slower pace, once you'd adjusted. The traveller soon found that the reserve of nervous energy he had worked up before arriving had suddenly run out, leaving his father with a quiet companion on the thirty minute journey to Europa's surface.

The boy awoke with a start as the shuttle gently connected with the airlock tunnel at Colony 238's docking area. His father smiled down at the sleepy face beside him and helped the boy to his feet. Gathering up his belongings once more, the boy trudged off the shuttle and entered the Colony's Main thoroughfare known simply as 'The Hub'. The passageways leading away from The Hub had signs pointing to their eventual destinations with fanciful names like 'The Ice Pit' and 'The Mines of Moria'. The boy smiled at the last one, a reference he recalled from one of his father's tattered books he'd read when he was thirteen. As his father helped him load his belongings into a waiting battery-powered cart, he imagined the creature that might dwell in these particular Mines of Moria. After all, this was a fairly new colony and although the early surveys had produced no signs of life, there was still the possibility that they'd missed something.

Zooming through the dimly lit corridors towards his father's lab, the boy was struck by the absence of visible activity. He had expected a virtual beehive of scientists buzzing with excitement as endless streams of new data came pouring in over their computer screens. But the rooms that he could see were each populated instead by one or two technicians with sweaty brows, their noses buried deep in computer manuals. His father revealed, after polite questioning, that the computer network was experiencing some problems. Problems that sometimes had no explanation. Down time was increasing, and at the present rate, the research station could soon be in jeopardy. The boy frowned, unable to understand how such an exciting place could ever be shut down. It never dawned on him that his young mind wouldn't accept defeat because of broken equipment or lack of funding. These places were just supposed to be explored. In the spirit of the explorers that had gone before them, these things just had to be done. There was just no two ways about it. If something was wrong here, it should simply be fixed and then everyone could carry on with their amazing discoveries, no matter how much it would cost. Although the boy's sense of immortality had been lost forever when his mother died, the thoughts of a dreamer still lived on.

The cart slowed to a halt in front of a large, hangar-sized area, filled with a myriad of plants in all shapes, sizes and colors. His father explained that many of the plants were simply grown for consumption, but a few, more exotic varieties, were cultivated for research on varying duration of exposure to Europa's atmosphere. None of the earth plants ever survived the ordeal of a trip to the colony's outer airlock. If the cold didn't kill them immediately, the radiation that strayed from Jupiter's powerful radiation fields eventually did. The boy looked at his father in wonder as the importance of the radiation shield that protected the colony loomed large. Europa suddenly seemed like a very different place than he had imagined a few days ago.

His father showed him around the research area and then took him on a short tour of The Hub, pointing out the important sites, places his father said he would soon get to know very well. The long trip from Earth had worn him down more than he knew. By the time they had arrived at his father's quarters, the boy was fast asleep. The scientist carried his son's limp body through the spartan living area and set him down gently on his bed. It had taken the last three months to get transferred to larger quarters so that his son could have his own bedroom. The boy was getting to that age where he would want privacy, some space to himself. Space inside the research colony was at a premium and the price of the transfer had been steep. But he knew that this would be important to the boy, and to him. He did not know how long they would be here together if the project sputtered back to life. Perhaps for the rest of his life. He hadn't a clue. That was something he preferred not to think about yet.

He stared down at the sleeping youth, wondering what he might be dreaming about. He had seen the excitement on the boy's face and the youthful energy he exuded at the prospect of a new, potentially rewarding life at the boundaries of man's otherworldly travels. In time the excitement would wear off as the boy realized that Europa did not reveal it's secrets without a fight: an aspect of the colony's existence he was growing more concerned about each day.

The computer problems were the least of their difficulties. It seemed that the incidence of problems throughout the base's many life-support and Earthlink systems was growing at a rate that defied rational explanation. The environmental system had shut down several times giving everyone an incredible scare and the communications with Earth had deteriorated markedly, leaving them to rely on an ailing backup system. At first the problems were viewed entirely as machine malfunction but as the colony entered its third year, its more superstitious inhabitants began to talk of foul play and the possibility of sabotage. This second theory was ridiculous to the botanist but a growing number of his colleagues claimed to have experienced events that could only be explained by someone *outside* the facility causing the malfunctions. When asked to report their evidence publicly they refused, knowing that their credibility would be at risk. Yet still, the reports of alien interference persisted until that very night, when the unexplained explained itself.

The first explosions shook the colony's structure without damaging it beyond repair, but as the boy woke up to the blaring evacuation alarm and the rumbling of shock waves, a second barrage of much closer subsonic thumps reverberated through the facility, commencing its collapse. The attack had been so swift that a distress call had not yet been issued to the Ramsey Docking Station, though even if it had, there would be little left when help finally arrived.

The Hub had held up better than it's outlying spindles but the central airlock had been compromised, and death was imminent for any who managed to find sealed pockets of air among their laboratory chambers or living quarters. Crumbling and crashing down, the colony was slowly giving in to the mysterious invading force, and the cold of space was stepping in to claim the stragglers.

Outside the boy's window, four bat-like ships in formation flew silently overhead and disappeared from view. He turned suddenly to face his closed door as sounds of an argument erupted outside. The boy lay shivering in his bed paralyzed by fear as he listened to his father's angry shouts and the short replies in a language he'd never heard before. A vaguely humanoid shape burst through his door and took aim at his head with an intimidating weapon of some kind. While his assassin hesitated, the boy's eyes darted to the room beyond, where two more of the humanoid figures stood over his kneeling father, one figure with his weapon aimed at the scientist's head. The boy screamed as the alien fired the energy weapon, piercing his father's head and killing him instantly. The scientist's body slumped to the ground and the two assassins exited the room silently, leaving the boy to face his own peril.

Turning back in horror to his unsure would-be assassin, he noticed that the invader was wearing a helmet, filled with a liquid of some kind that obscured most of its facial features. The boy peered at the blurred, yellow eyes that stared back at him through the murky visor. Time seemed to stand still as he studied those eyes and saw in them a fear equal to his own. Eyes he could never forget. Eyes he promised himself he would never forget. Before he could inspect his assassin to any greater extent, the alien finally raised his weapon assuredly, and fired. The boy never felt a thing.

When he awoke, the boy's first instinct was to go someplace, the location of which he did not know. The powerful urge overwhelmed him, making him momentarily blind and blocking out any other thoughts. He struggled against the urge, knowing there was something important he must do first before he departed. The struggle grew into a battle with some unseen primal force that tore at his soul to follow it, but he would not give in. Just when he felt his defense was slipping away, the urge was gone from him, just as suddenly as it had arrived. And so was his blindness.

He stared about him in shock when he saw what was left of the colony's once sturdy structure. The Hub had been leveled and the research labs were nothing but rubble. Little was left standing to identify the original structure's purpose. From the corner of his eye he noticed movement. Turning to face the activity, he saw four humans in EVA suits sifting through the rubble. The shuttle he had arrived on earlier was parked at the docking tunnel, attached to what remained of the mooring mast. The boy called out to the probing figures but his voice made no sound.

He looked down at his body and saw only a faint, shimmering outline of his former self. Looking *through* his body he could see the dirty, blue and gray ice crust that covered the entire moon. He looked above him. There was no radiation shield left or any structure around him to protect him from the radiation, but he was not in any pain. He was also breathing regularly, as far as he could tell, but he was sitting outside in the vacuum of space.

As the reality of his situation quickly swept over him, threatening to engulf him in its insanity, he remembered the cold. He placed the shimmering outline of his right hand onto the icy, blue surface beneath him and felt nothing. No burning or tingling or even the sensation of contact. No feeling at all. He stared back at the four space-suited rescuers who continued to sift through the debris, oblivious to the boy's new understanding. He had died in the alien invasion but had not been escorted to the nether world where he would have expected to go. For some reason he remained exiled at the site of his death to ponder his new existence. An existence that suddenly filled him with immense fear.

As he sat out in the open and stared up at the stars trying vainly to cry, he suddenly remembered the sight of his father's death. A horrible few seconds that he wished he could forget. He wanted desperately to cry, but the tears would not come. And then the strange, water encased faces of the aliens who'd killed him and his father entered his mind. He was astonished at his memory, as his assassin's face came back to him in sharper detail then he thought he could recall. He remembered the fear in the creature's eyes and now he understood it. The alien looked younger than the other two he had seen, perhaps even his own age. The hesitation to pull the trigger, added to the fear in it's eyes- it was a moral dilemma for the alien that only compounded the boy's confusion as to why the attack occurred. One thing was clear. He would never forget the young alien's face.

Standing upright, he felt a strange surge of energy run through him that he instinctively understood. Turning one final time to look at the remains of Colony 238, the boy then reached out his hands to the stars, turned away from the destruction and closed his eyes. A sudden sensation of movement prompted him to open his eyes again. He had taken silent flight among the stars, moving faster than any ship ever could. He looked down and saw the rapidly fading disk of Europa and Jupiter's gaseous bulk shrinking beneath him. He felt no joy from the experience; just amazement at his new found ability. He soon discovered that certain aspects of his former self were gone, leaving only an unenthralled spirit behind. But an emotion left to him by the forces that be, ate at him now, pushing its way past his fear and awe into his brain. It was anger.

His father's death suddenly flashed through his mind, playing over and over again. Why had they killed him? Who were these invaders and what could the destruction of a peaceful research colony have accomplished? Suddenly he felt a purpose for his new life. He must find the frightened face behind the watery mask, that had taken his life, and the young alien's companions that had taken his father's life as well. Where to start he did not know, but whoever they were, they could not hide. He would search the entire universe if he had to. And he knew inside that he had the rest of eternity to do just that.

More to come... stay tuned!