Okay, make that two things I hate about going into space, Doreen thought to herself. The food, and the space suits.

The Mucky Pup had put down on the asteroid without incident some moments earlier, and Doreen was making her best effort to struggle into a vaguely bipedal Mog-Link rig with more armour on it than a heavy tank and the comfort and articulation of a garden shed. Still, she thought as she slipped the fishbowl helmet over her head and winced as it pressed her ears down against her head and gave her the appearance of a cartoon bunny, it would all be worth it.

She hefted her precious scanner in her gauntleted right paw. She found Oliver a little brash sometimes, but he did have a way of designing something down to the last detail. "Hope that thing does what it says on the tin," Rodolfo said from beside her. "I hate those bloody mass-produced units we get stuck with."

Doreen laughed, though the suit's communicator was off and the sound rebounded inside the helmet. She switched it on and laughed again. "Oh, it will."

Hachi was calibrating her Dragon's Breath mining laser. The large, rifle-shaped weapon had also been modified by Oliver; this modification gave the laser a more concentrated beam. The stock model tended to 'splash' the blast about. "Oliver might be a condescending fuzz-butt," she was saying, "but he does good work. This thing has been optimized seven ways from hoo-ha."

A fourth voice failed to make an announcement.

Doreen glanced over at the ship's medic, Fleur. The little Newfoundland was hovering behind them, looking as if she would topple over if someone breathed in her direction. She looked positively tiny inside her suit. "Think we might have some tension in the ranks, Rodolfo."

Rodolfo smiled and called over to Fleur. "You alright, Miss Marlow?"

Fleur nodded fractionally. "Yeah, I'm okay. Just a little nervous."

"You're nervous, and you're going to be responsible for our well-being out there?" Hachi asked. "That doesn't fill me with confidence."

"Save it, Hachi," Rodolfo put in.

Hachi scowled, but she acquiesced. Doreen just made out Hachi's sullen utterance of "Bloody nervous" and found that her communicator's receiving volume was five percent above recommended levels. She reset it.

"Captain Hayes," Rodolfo called over the main channel, "we're all suited and booted down here. Open the lock."

"Copy that. Opening the lock," was Hayes' response. Doreen felt her chest tighten with anticipation as a rhythmic alarm began to sound and the lock was bathed in red emergency lighting. A countdown timer next to the ship's exterior doors began to blink down. The doors leading back into the vessel shut with a resounding clang, and every quart of air was expelled from the space as the exterior doors wrenched themselves open. There was a rush of wind – and then nothing.

Silence.

Doreen tensed up as the only sound to reach her ears for a few seconds was her own breathing, the only sight to reach her eyes the condensation on her visor. Then she was staring out of the Mucky Pup onto the exterior access lift, lit by a stark system of floodlights. She couldn't see anything of the asteroid beyond the ship's superstructure.

"Let's go, troops," Rodolfo called out, moving ahead. "Hachi, take my six. Doreen, Fleur, you flank us." He lumbered onto the lift, followed by Hachi, then Doreen and Fleur brought up the rear.

Doreen had expected the asteroid's surface to be amazing, but she hadn't prepared herself for actually seeing it. As the lift carrying her and the team descended from the belly of the Mucky Pup, a brassy ocean shone up at them. Huge crystalline towers came powering up from the rock, catching the light from suits and floods and refracting it in all directions.

She was struck dumb.

Doreen couldn't speak. Her brain wouldn't form words. No mere remark could express her awe. She'd seen some amazing sights on some amazing worlds, but this asteroid, this humble space rock, defied description. The lift wound to a halt and Doreen found her feet moving before she could know she was walking. Then she was standing on rock.

And then she looked up.

The Ilarik Asteroid Belt stretched overhead, an immense ribbon of rock that stretched into infinity against the blue sky of the nearby nebula. Doreen stared hypnotically at the sight, momentarily mesmerized. She shook herself out of her reverie and fixed her mind back on where she was. Like Rodolfo had said back on the bridge, no sightseeing. She switched her scanner on.

"Right," Rodolfo said as he stepped off the lift, "before we set off, I'd like everyone to tell me where they'd rather be than here. Hachi, you're up first."

"Back on Acadia, with my family," Hachi said.

"Doreen?"

Doreen opened her mouth. She had been about to offer something about a café on Racale and sunshine, but the sight before her forestalled her words. "Uh..."

"Okay, we'll come back to you," Rodolfo went on. "Miss Marlow?"

"Ooh, sunbathing on Symba Prime," Fleur said fancifully. "There's this beautiful beach there – Whitewash Sands."

Rodolfo laughed. "I know. I've been. I'll choose that." His helmet revolved in Doreen's direction. "You okay, Doreen?"

Doreen nodded. "This place is just so beautiful."

"Alright, so you'd rather be here than be here. Makes sense." Rodolfo swung his arm in the direction of the sun-limned horizon. "Let's go, then."

Although it was big for an asteroid – roughly the size of a small planetoid – Ilarik H5 lacked a strong gravitational field. Doreen found that walking across its surface was like stepping on an inflatable. Small clouds of dust marked her passage, along with the footsteps of the others.

"Bring the scanner up, Doreen," Rodolfo said. "Let's see what we've got here."

Doreen activated her scanner and swept it around her in a parabola. Results scrolled across the screen.

"What we got, then?" Rodolfo asked.

Doreen snuffled. "According to the scanner, the surface crust is comprised of some common elements found on pretty much every Core world. It's just the mineral mixture in the rock that gives it the bronzy look."

"We know that from the probe sweep. What about those crystals?" Hachi remarked.

Doreen nodded. "Sorry. Just being a geologist." She looked about, spotting one of the towers nearby rising from the top of a scalable ridge. "There's one over there," she said, pointing a gloved hand at the rock. "I'll go check it out."

"Fleur, go with her," Rodolfo said. "The last thing we want is Doreen falling off that ridge and breaking something. But if she does, you being there might help."

"Thanks, Rodolfo," Doreen grumbled.

With the medic in tow, Doreen set off across the shiny crater. "So," she said to the medic once they were out of range of the others, "you're from Symba?"

"Yes," Fleur said. "You been?"

"Can't say as I have," Doreen replied. "I'm from Racale, by the way."

"Ooh, Racale," Fleur clucked. "I've been there. Don't remember seeing you, though."

Doreen chortled. She grunted as the incline increased under her boots. "Careful. The g's getting lighter the higher we go."

The Newfoundland squeaked as she wobbled up the mound. "Hope I don't float off."

"We should be okay," Doreen said, keeping an eye on her suit's display. "Almost there."

The crystal monolith loomed above them, glowing with... what was it glowing with, Doreen wondered? It wasn't refracted sunlight, that much was clear. The glow was coming from within.

She stopped just short of the effulgent pillar and unsheathed her scanner. A quick sweep later, and Doreen's eyebrows went up. "Well, I'll be."

"What is it?" Fleur asked nervously.

"Geothermal energy," Doreen proclaimed. "And here's something." She moved her scanner down towards the ground. The reading spiked. "And it gets stronger closer to the ground."

She turned from her activity and switched her radio to the common channel. "Rodolfo, Hachi, get up here. We might have something."