Vice

Disclaimer:

This book is a work of fiction. The events, characters, and organizations depicted herein are products of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual NASA protocols, operations, or individuals is purely coincidental. NASA most certainly does not deal with situations like those described, nor should this story be taken as a representation of real science. Enjoy the chaos.

The Control Room at the Lunar Deep-Space Observatory wasn’t built for comfort. Its walls were lined with exposed conduits, patched panels, and unrelenting fluorescent lights that hummed just loudly enough to be maddening. Rows of monitors and data terminals pulsed with constant feeds of numbers, graphs, and spectrographs, creating a digital cacophony.

Dr. Samuel Greaves sat hunched over his desk, eyes bloodshot from thirty hours of staring at the same incomprehensible patterns. His once-white lab coat was now coffee-stained and rumpled, his tie long since abandoned. Across the room, Dr. Leah Voss leaned against a terminal, arms folded, her brows furrowed in the way they always were when something didn’t make sense—and right now, nothing made sense.

“You’re sure it’s not interference?” she asked for the third time that hour, her voice sharp but tired.

“It’s not interference,” Samuel replied, not even looking up. His fingers tapped rapidly across his keyboard, pulling up another graph. “We’ve checked every variable, recalibrated every sensor. Hell, we even pointed the receiver at deep space to cross-check. It’s real.”

“What’s real?”

“The signal,” he said, spinning his chair toward her. “It’s not random. It’s repeating—deliberately repeating.”

Leah pushed herself off the console and walked over to his workstation. The monitor displayed a wave pattern, jagged and erratic at first glance, but Samuel highlighted a section with his cursor and zoomed in. There, in the chaos, was a clear and consistent structure.

“Five-second intervals,” he said. “It’s been coming from Saturn’s orbit for over two weeks now.”

Leah squinted at the screen, her skepticism palpable. “Saturn’s orbit? From what? Cassini Redux isn’t even in that sector.”

“That’s the million-dollar question,” Samuel said, rubbing his temples. “There’s nothing there. No active probes, no satellites, no debris clusters big enough to reflect radio waves like this. And before you ask—yes, I’ve triple-checked the celestial map.”

Leah stared at the wave pattern in silence. The room seemed to grow colder as the implications settled in.

Meanwhile, across the room, a younger technician, Priya Kapoor, was wrestling with a separate but equally confounding problem. She sat at a station labeled IO-ALPHA MONITOR, its screen dominated by a grainy, static-filled feed from one of the observation drones stationed near Jupiter’s volcanic moon.

“Uh… Dr. Voss?” Priya called hesitantly, her voice cutting through the tense silence.

Leah turned. “What is it?”

“I… I think you should see this.”

Leah and Samuel approached Priya’s station, where the audio feed from Io’s surface played faintly through the speakers. At first, it was the usual static and low rumbles—background noise from the moon’s intense volcanic activity. But then, cutting through the white noise, came something unmistakable.

A scream.

It wasn’t human. It wasn’t animal. It was a sound that clawed its way into the brain, an unholy mix of metallic screeches and guttural howls. Priya flinched as it echoed through the room, her finger hovering over the volume controls.

“What the hell was that?” Leah demanded.

“It’s coming from Io,” Priya said, her voice trembling. “The drone picked it up yesterday, but I thought it was just equipment failure. Then it happened again this morning. And now…” She gestured at the screen, where a second scream erupted, this one louder and more desperate.

“Is it the drone?” Samuel asked.

“No,” Priya said quickly. “The drone’s fine. I ran diagnostics twice. The sound isn’t coming from the drone—it’s coming from something on Io’s surface.”

Leah stared at the screen, her mind racing. Io was one of the most hostile environments in the solar system—volcanic eruptions, intense radiation, a landscape in constant flux. Nothing could survive there. Nothing should be screaming.

“Could it be geological?” Samuel suggested weakly.

“Volcanoes don’t scream,” Priya said, her voice shaking.

Leah turned back to the Saturn signal on Samuel’s screen. Two impossible anomalies. Two different locations. No answers.

“I don’t like this,” she muttered.

“No one does,” Samuel replied.

But even as they spoke, the signal from Saturn began to change. On Samuel’s monitor, the wave pattern shifted, growing sharper, more defined. What had been a simple repeating pulse now seemed almost… articulate.

The lab was quieter than usual—too quiet. After the screaming anomaly on Io and the strange signal from Saturn’s orbit, the team had gone into overdrive. Conversations were clipped, commands barked. Sleep was an afterthought.

Dr. Samuel Greaves sat glued to his console, running yet another diagnostic on the Cassini Redux. Despite its age, the probe remained one of NASA’s most advanced instruments, a marvel of engineering. It shouldn’t have been malfunctioning—yet here they were, trying to figure out why its sensors were throwing nonsense data.

“What’s the status?” Leah Voss asked as she paced behind him. She’d had three cups of coffee and zero patience.

“It’s not the probe,” Greaves muttered, his tone a mix of frustration and disbelief. “The instruments are fine. The signal isn’t internal interference.” He hesitated before continuing. “It’s external.”

Leah stopped mid-step. “External? Like... something touched it?”

Before Greaves could answer, an alarm blared from the Cassini Redux feed. The sound jolted everyone in the room. Priya Kapoor, who had been monitoring Io, spun her chair around to face them.

“That’s the proximity alert!” she said, panic creeping into her voice.

Samuel’s fingers flew across his keyboard, pulling up the live camera feed from Cassini Redux. “Something’s near the probe,” he said, his voice tightening.

“Near it? There’s nothing out there but rocks and ice,” Leah snapped, leaning over his shoulder.

“Not anymore,” Samuel muttered grimly.

The live feed sputtered to life, a shaky view of the black void of space. The probe’s floodlights illuminated swirling rings of ice and debris—the ethereal beauty of Saturn’s outer rings. For a moment, there was nothing out of the ordinary.

And then, something moved.

It darted into the edge of the frame—a small, metallic shape, barely visible against the backdrop of ice and shadow. Samuel zoomed in, the image sharpening. The entire room fell silent.

The creature—or machine—looked like nothing they’d ever seen. About the size of a medium dog, it was quadrupedal, with sleek, segmented limbs that ended in sharp points. Its body was a glossy, gunmetal gray, etched with faint, glowing lines of gold that pulsed like a heartbeat. Its head was vaguely fox-like, with two large, triangular “ears” that rotated nervously, as though scanning its surroundings. The “eyes” were round, glowing lenses, wide with unmistakable distress.

It was clinging to the side of Cassini Redux, its body contorted awkwardly as it tried to stabilize itself against the probe’s rotation.

“Is that… a robot?” Priya asked, breaking the silence.

The machine’s face turned toward the camera, its luminous eyes locking directly onto the lens. For a moment, it froze, like a deer caught in headlights. Its expression—or at least the impression it gave—was one of sheer panic.

“Jesus Christ,” Leah muttered, taking a step back. “It’s scared.”

Before anyone could react further, the probe’s thrusters fired to correct its trajectory. The sudden movement jolted the creature loose. It flailed wildly, its limbs scrabbling against the smooth surface of the probe. For a brief, agonizing moment, it hovered in the camera’s view, tumbling end over end.

“What the hell is that?” Leah demanded, her voice rising.

“Hold on, I’ll track it!” Samuel said, switching the feed to the probe’s secondary camera.

The new angle caught the machine as it drifted away from the probe. It wasn’t tumbling chaotically anymore—instead, it seemed to be flapping its limbs in an almost comical attempt to “swim” back toward the probe. The effort was clumsy, frantic. It looked... alive.

“Tell me I’m hallucinating,” Leah said, her voice shaky. “Samuel, please, tell me we all accidentally dosed ourselves with LSD or something.”

“Not unless it’s in the coffee,” Samuel said, his tone flat but his face pale.

On the screen, the machine emitted a faint, high-pitched noise—static mixed with digital chirps. It wasn’t random; it sounded like a distress signal.

“What’s it doing?” Priya asked.

“It’s freaking out,” Samuel replied. “Like it didn’t mean to end up there.”

The team watched in stunned silence as the creature flailed its way toward a nearby chunk of ice, using it to push off and reorient itself. It waddled awkwardly through the debris field, clearly out of its element. Its large ears drooped slightly, and its movements seemed less frantic now—more resigned.

Leah exhaled sharply, running a hand through her hair. “Okay, Greaves, what the fuck was that?”

“I have no idea,” he said, his voice barely above a whisper.

“Well, we can’t just pretend we didn’t see it!” Leah snapped. “Do we… I don’t know, call someone? Who do you even call about this?”

“Ghostbusters?” Samuel offered weakly, earning a glare from Leah.

“Get serious!” she barked.

Priya, still staring at the screen, whispered, “Do you think there are more of them?”

The thought sent a chill through the room.

The lab buzzed with an eerie tension as the researchers gathered around the latest batch of images from Cassini Redux. Priya had spent the last twelve hours refining the probe’s imaging software, eking out every ounce of detail from the high-resolution captures. What she found defied belief.

“Okay,” Priya said, her voice trembling slightly as she transferred the images onto the main display. “This is what we’ve got.”

The first image appeared—a crisp shot of the DES-9 unit they had seen earlier. This time, it was crouched on the surface of a large ice shard, its ears angled upward as if scanning.

“That’s the same one from before,” Leah said, her tone skeptical. “It looks like it’s… listening?”

Priya nodded. “Yeah, and here’s the kicker.” She flicked to the next image.

The DES-9 was now riding a spinning chunk of rock like a cowboy on a mechanical bull. Its legs were splayed awkwardly, gripping for dear life. But most bizarrely, it was sporting a pair of tiny sunglasses perched atop its metallic snout, held in place by nothing discernible.

Leah groaned. “You have got to be kidding me. Who gave the space fox sunglasses?”

Samuel snorted. “It’s got style. I’ll give it that.”

“Focus, people,” Priya said sharply, swiping to the next image.

This one showed the DES-9 mid-leap, using the momentum of its spinning rock to propel itself toward another shard of ice. Its form was aerodynamic, almost graceful, and unmistakably mechanical.

Leah crossed her arms. “So these things are just… hanging out in Saturn’s rings? Joyriding?”

“Not just that,” Priya said, her expression grim. She pulled up a series of graphs and waveforms. “I ran a spectral analysis of their emissions. These things are sending signals—very specific signals.”

“To what?” Leah asked, already dreading the answer.

“That’s the problem,” Priya said, pointing at the screen. “They’re all transmitting toward Saturn. And the signals are coherent, structured. It’s communication.”

The room went silent.

Leah pinched the bridge of her nose. “Alright, let’s go through this logically. There’s no way something like this could exist on Saturn, let alone with the capability to communicate. So, let’s list all the reasons why this is bullshit.”

She grabbed a whiteboard marker and started writing furiously:

The Environment: “Saturn’s upper atmosphere is a swirling vortex of gas, pressure, and radiation. Nothing survives that. Nothing.”

Gravity: “The gravity alone would crush anything trying to build or sustain infrastructure there.”

Lack of Solids: “There’s no surface! Just gas. Where would anything even sit?”

Communication Interference: “The constant storms and electromagnetic interference should fry any signal, let alone sustain structured communication.”

Energy Source: “What the hell powers them? Saturn’s sunlight is too weak for solar, and nuclear reactors don’t just grow on trees.”

No Precedent: “We’ve scanned Saturn’s atmosphere for decades. We’d have noticed something this big before.”

Material Durability: “Anything strong enough to survive Saturn’s atmosphere would’ve been detected in the rings. Those fox-bots look tiny.”

Signal Origin: “If these are relaying messages, where are they going to? We’d have triangulated by now.”

Population: “How many of these things are we talking about? Building even one would be a feat of engineering.”

Purpose: “Why? What’s the point? Nothing about Saturn warrants a mechanical fox army.”

She capped the marker with a triumphant click. “There. Ten reasons why this is impossible.”

Priya sighed. “Leah, the data doesn’t care about your reasons. Look at this.”

She overlaid a 3D map of Saturn’s rings on the main screen. Tiny blips appeared, scattered across the orbital paths of the icy debris.

“These are all the DES-9 units we’ve logged so far,” Priya said. “Each one emits a unique signal, but they’re all transmitting toward the same location in Saturn’s northern hemisphere.”

The map zoomed out, and the blips multiplied as the software expanded its search radius.

“How many are there?” Samuel asked, his voice hushed.

“Four hundred and counting,” Priya replied. “And that’s just within the probe’s range.”

Leah felt her stomach drop. “Four hundred?”

“Yep,” Priya said, popping the “p” with grim emphasis. “And they’re all synced to the same central hub.”

“Wait,” Samuel interrupted, pointing at the screen. “Look at the pattern. They’re not scattered randomly—they’re forming… I don’t know, a network?”

Leah’s eyes narrowed as she studied the display. He was right. The DES-9 units were strategically positioned, their orbits overlapping in a way that maximized coverage of the ring system.

“This isn’t random,” Priya said. “It’s deliberate.”

“Okay,” Leah said, her voice rising. “So we’ve got four hundred mechanical space foxes joyriding through Saturn’s rings, chatting it up with something in Saturn. What’s the plan here, people? Do we keep watching? Send out a press release? Declare war on alien robots?”

“First,” Samuel said, “we figure out what’s in Saturn.”

Leah groaned. “Right. The planet that eats spacecraft for breakfast. Great.”

Priya leaned back in her chair, rubbing her temples. “You’re gonna love this part, then. Cassini Redux just picked up a new anomaly.”

“Let me guess,” Leah said dryly. “Another space fox?”

“Worse,” Priya replied. She pulled up the latest telemetry data. “Something’s responding to the DES-9 signals. And whatever it is... it’s big.”

The room fell silent again, the weight of the discovery sinking in.

“Define ‘big,’” Samuel said, his voice barely above a whisper.

Priya hesitated, then turned to face them. “Saturn-big.”

Leah dropped a thick stack of folders onto the conference room table with a resounding thud. “Alright, team, let’s figure out how to crack open Saturn without dying, going bankrupt, or looking like complete idiots on CNN.”

Samuel leaned back in his chair, spinning a pen between his fingers. “Easy. We’ve got a blank check from Congress and the president’s attention. What’s the worst that could happen?”

Leah shot him a look. “Don’t jinx it. The last time someone said that, a raccoon got into Mission Control.”

Planning the Mission

Leah and Samuel worked late into the night, outlining the equipment necessary to penetrate Saturn’s impenetrable clouds. They faced one monumental challenge after another.

Entry Probe:

“We need a probe that can handle absurd pressures and temperatures,” Samuel said, scribbling notes. “Something with a reinforced titanium-alloy hull. Anti-corrosive coating. The works.”

Leah nodded. “And parachutes. Big ones. Unless you want it free-falling at Mach 30.”

Data Transmission:

“The storms will shred radio waves,” Priya pointed out during a video call. “We’ll need a high-powered relay satellite above the atmosphere to boost signals.”

“Add it to the list,” Leah said, writing “Satellite Relay” underlined three times.

Power Source:

“Solar won’t cut it that far out,” Samuel said. “Nuclear reactors or bust.”

“Fine. But we’re making them modular,” Leah replied. “If Congress finds out how much those cost, they’ll scream.”

Sensors:

“We need spectrometers, pressure analyzers, imaging systems, atmospheric samplers…” Samuel trailed off, counting the list on his fingers.

Leah groaned. “You’re describing a billion-dollar shopping spree.”

Escape Plan:

Leah raised an eyebrow. “What if the probe finds… something?”

Samuel shrugged. “We run. Fast.”

“No, genius. We design it to survive long enough to send back whatever it sees.”

The Budget Bombshell

By the end of the week, the preliminary budget for their Saturn mission sat at an eye-watering $6.5 billion. Leah presented the findings to NASA HQ, fully expecting pushback.

Instead, they were met with the enthusiastic nods of politicians who had already seen the images of the DES-9s. One congressman reportedly shouted, “Fox robots in space? I’ll vote for anything to figure that out!”

The funding was approved with surprising speed. The president himself signed off, his comment on the matter: “This is one of the coolest damn things I’ve ever seen.”

Later that evening, as they finalized the purchase orders for their equipment, Samuel noticed something strange. “Hey, Leah, this line item doesn’t look right. It’s… an extra million dollars?”

Leah didn’t even blink. “Bonuses.”

Samuel stared at her. “Bonuses? For who?”

“For us. For me. For you.” She smirked. “Look, Samuel, we’re spending billions on a probe to chase robot foxes into Saturn. I think we deserve a little hazard pay.”

He couldn’t argue with that logic. “Alright, but I’m using mine to buy a new boat.”

Leah rolled her eyes. “Whatever floats your overpriced dinghy.”

Back at the lab, Priya continued her round-the-clock surveillance of the DES-9 units. The numbers were staggering—850 units logged so far, each one unique.

She cataloged their behaviors with fascination:

One was seen balancing on two chunks of ice, its ears swiveling like radar dishes.

Another appeared to be “grooming” itself, polishing its metallic fur with a reflective shard.

A third had somehow managed to scavenge a piece of debris shaped like a tiny umbrella and was using it as a parasol.

“They’ve got the intelligence of an average human,” Priya muttered to herself, her fingers flying over her keyboard. “But why the hell do they act like… foxes?”

Her musings were interrupted by a notification on her screen. Cassini Redux had completed its next orbital pass, and she’d taken the liberty of programming it to approach one of the DES-9s directly.

The images were breathtaking. A close-up of a DES-9 revealed intricate details—its sleek, polished frame, segmented limbs, and expressive “face” formed by an array of sensors. Its luminous “eyes” glowed faintly blue, wide with what looked like fear.

“It’s scared,” Priya whispered.

As Cassini Redux drew closer, the DES-9 began to visibly panic. Its ears flattened, its tiny legs flailing as it scrambled to maintain its perch on the ice chunk. When the probe’s shadow loomed over it, the DES-9 curled into a defensive ball, its limbs trembling.

And then it bolted.

The unit leapt from its icy perch, its movements erratic and frantic. Its signals became a rapid-fire burst of incoherent patterns, like the desperate cries of a trapped animal.

“What’s happening?” Priya muttered, her heart racing.

Samuel’s voice crackled through her headset. “Priya, what the hell are you doing?”

“It thinks it’s about to die!” she snapped back, fingers flying over the controls.

“Then stop chasing it! You’re scaring the damn thing!”

But it was too late. The DES-9 launched itself onto another chunk of ice, sliding wildly as it disappeared into the shadow of Saturn’s rings.

Priya sat back, her hands trembling. “They’re not just machines,” she whispered to herself. “They’re alive.”

A New Understanding

By the end of the day, Priya had cataloged 872 DES-9 units, each more unique than the last. But the encounter with the panicked unit haunted her.

Leah returned to the lab later that evening, still riding high from their budget approval. “Priya,” she called out, “how’s it going with the fox-bots?”

Priya didn’t look up from her screen. “Leah… I don’t think these things are just drones.”

Leah frowned. “What do you mean?”

“They’re scared of us,” Priya said, pulling up the video of the fleeing DES-9. “They’re scared. Machines don’t get scared, Leah. These things… they feel.”

Leah watched the footage in silence, her expression unreadable. After a long moment, she muttered, “Well, that’s just great. Now we’re terrifying space foxes. What’s next?”

Priya glanced at her, a hint of fear in her eyes. “I think the real question is, who made them?”