text: [Themes: sci-fi]
  
  It is a long walk down the length of the ship's engineering section to Chief Dansmith's workshop, located two levels below the flight deck. It is a small space cluttered with components from countless devices in various states of dismantlement. There is a stool for the chief, but it otherwise does not appear to be a space where he has much company--rather, it is a private sanctuary where he tinkers on his projects with minimum disturbance.
  
  You and Lieutenant Hun-Spruk look around, then give each other a puzzled look. "How long do you think it will take you to extract the files contained on those nodes?" you ask.
  
  "Hard to say," Dansmith says. "Could be minutes, could be hours." He takes off his field duty jacket and drapes it over the back of the stool, revealing two powerful arms that are clearly well acquainted with manual work. Their strength complements the charismatic confidence of his personality.
  
  "Is there anything I can do to help?" Hun-Spruk asks.
  
  Dansmith thinks for a moment, and then says, "No, I think I got this. There is a team of technicians just down the corridor I can tap if need be. Why don't you two lieutenants go find yourselves some lunch? I'll call you when I'm ready to start playing back the holojournal logs."
  
  The idea of lunch does sound good; down on the planet, all you had to snack on were NutriRations. On the other hand, returning to your quarters to relax sounds tempting, too.
  
  > If you return to your quarters, turn to page 130.
  Your main desire is to clean up and rest after the mission to the planet. You doubt you will be sent back down to Folvan until the morning, so there will be time to wash up and relax. Therefore you part company with Dansmith and Hun-Spruk, and then ride the nearest lift into the Sphere. You get off at H Deck and make the short walk to your quarters.
  
  You are greeted by the HoloScene, which is today depicting a sunny afternoon in the American Mountains, with the blue-green color of the oto trees on full display. There is no wind, and you suspect the summer day on which this particular portion of the scene was recorded at Uncle Croen's camp was hot and stifling.
  
  Back when you and your uncle used to explore the Backcountry beyond those mountains, your favorite days were the partly cloudy ones, when the clouds that were being blown inland off the ocean cast shadows that sped across the steep and rugged slopes. Those days had the benefit of ample sunshine coupled with less heat.
  
  The comm shows that you have a message awaiting your retrieval. First, though, you down one of the NutriRations from your field pack, and then you indulge in a shower. You have no other duties today beyond the Folvan mission, so your plan is to relax for a bit and then get started on your report of the day's activities.
  
  You should probably play back the message on the comm. If it's from Uncle Croen it could wait a little while, but if it's from one of the senior officers you should at least see what it's about.
  
  Before you can do anything, though, you get a call from Lieutenant Hun-Spruk. "We need you in Chief Dansmith's workroom," she says. "He's repaired the memory nodes and is ready to play the holojournal logs. Even Captain Ynthramanni is here."
  
  > If you check your messages first, turn to page 94.
  The metadata attached to the message is limited--no sender ID, just a time stamp from two hours ago, about when you were flying back up to the ship. You call up the message, and an image of Dr. Munro appears in your quarters.
  
  Although it's only been four years since you last saw Dr. Munro, she's aged a bit. Her hair is no longer the sandy-colored bob that you remember, but gray and held back in a long ponytail. Not much socializing occurred while you were marooned in that desert, so you did not have a chance to learn much about your fellow survivors. But your sense of Dr. Lori Munro and Ander Dyo was that they were married professionals who enjoyed their work too much to be weighed down by the burdens of raising a family; they were both in their forties, but still youthful in appearance at that time. Now her eyes are more care-worn, as if her years on Folvan have not been easy.
  
  You play the message. "I heard you were spotted down here a short while ago," the recorded hologram says. "I saw the images that Skarahk took and I recognized you instantly from that ordeal on Giri Minor. It looks like congratulations are in order--from a lowly starman to a lieutenant in charge of a mission! I'm sure you've deserved it. Anyway, I'm pretty sure I know why you're here, and if I'm going to get found out by someone, I guess it ought to be an old friend, right? And boy, do I have a story to tell.
  
  "There is no point in trying to hide it any longer. Embedded in this message you'll find a set of coordinates. Take a shuttle, bring your captain. Don't bother trying to be secretive, because the Folvans know all about us. There are secrets on the Grass Planet, but not the ones the Astral Navy is thinking of. You'll find Ander and me waiting for you when you arrive. He doesn't know you're coming yet, but I'm sure he'll be happy too when he finds out."
  
  > Page 114
  An hour later you are taking a shuttle back down to the planet's surface, heading to the coordinates that Dr. Munro sent you--which, as it turn out, point to a location just outside the village by the lakeshore that you had made so much effort to avoid on your first visit. Hinju is your pilot once more, but instead of Dansmith, Hun-Spruk, and the others you are joined by three of the Orion's senior officers: Captain Ynthramanni, Commander Andrade, and Lieutenant Skaxa.
  
  "Any idea what's going on?" Andrade asks.
  
  "I wish I knew, Dionysya," the captain says. "Star Base Ishtria has suspected for some time that something wasn't adding up on Folvan, but it took this recent break in their reports to really get our attention."
  
  He stands up as if to stretch his legs, lights from the shuttle's computer displays reflected in his deeply bronzed skin. The Orion's crew knows very little about Ynthramanni's personal background, but it is widely supposed that his ancestry can be traced back to some island in or around Earth's Indian Ocean.
  
  Lieutenant Skaxa, the ship's security chief, gestures toward you as she speaks to Andrade. "The information brought back by our search team suggests Dr. Munro has been falsifying her reports for the last several years."
  
  "Falsifying her reports?" Andrade says. "Why on earth would a scientific expedition feel the need to do such a thing?"
  
  The captain shakes his head. "Apparently they were trying to protect the Folvans from the Iib Ch'iib. Don't ask why. We'll let the good doctor explain it to us."
  
  At that moment Hinju interrupts the conversation. "Captain, the Orion is reporting that a ship is approaching Folvan trough hyperspace. It will be here any minute."
  
  "We're not expecting anybody, are we?" the captain says to his security chief.
  
  "No. The Southern Cross is the nearest starship, and they're fifty lightyears away on a special assignment for Admiral Stackhouse."
  
  "Sir," the pilot says again, "Orion says it's an Iib Ch'iib raider!"
  
  "What is going on here?" the captain says. "Turn us around. I need to get back on the ship. Get us there at your best possible speed, Mr. Hinju."
  
  All of a sudden you feel very exposed here on the shuttle. The Iib Ch'iib are a race of insectoids with which humans have never been able to reach a peaceful accord. But their homeworld and all of their colonized planets are on the far side of Old Earth, in the space patrolled by the First and Second Fleets--nowhere near the Grass Planet.
  
  > Page 134
  The Orion is changing course to reposition itself between your shuttle and the incoming alien raider, but the distance between you is so great that you fear the maneuver will take too long to complete.
  
  Then the Iib Ch'iib raider drops out of hyperspace, coming straight for you; for a split second it seems to streak through space as the image catches up with the physical object. The design of the ship is basic, but asymmetrical--more like it was accreted over time rather than constructed according to a plan, like a giant hive adorned with hexagonal hyperspace field generators.
  
  Without hesitation the Iib Ch'iib ship opens fire. The plasma ray misses the shuttle, but only because Hinju had already initiated an evasive turn to starboard. The Orion returns fire on your behalf, but the beam is easily deflected by the enemy ship's refractive shielding. And the Iib Ch'iib are not taking the bait; they seem intent on picking off your shuttle, not engaging with the Orion.
  
  "There must be something on this planet they really don't want us to see," Ynthramanni says. "And damn me for ever leaving the ship."
  
  Hinju is a skilled pilot, but his talents can only do so much in an unarmed shuttle during a combat situation. The Iib Ch'iib are pouring their entire arsenal on the shuttle, and soon one of those shots hits its mark. The shuttle disintegrates in a small but silent burst of light.