Missing Probe

As the M-Probes kept following the Energy lines that lay beneath the surface of B1, The researchers had a more clear picture about the whole planet. All the energy lines didn't follow the same pattern. Some were straight and went directly to the planet's core, Some went through many different areas before going straight towards it's inner core.

The reasons for this variations weren't quite clear. But one thing that was clear was that they were all going directly towards the core.

As everyone was watching the projection of the planet and the energy lines being mapped, Suddenly one of the probes lost their signal.

"What's wrong with that probe?", Dr. Helen asked immediately.

"We've lost connection to the probe."

"Try to get the connection back."

"Establishing connection. Failed."

"Try again."

"Trying again, Establishing Connection, Failed. It's not responding."

"What about the backup probe?"

"No signal from that either."

"Did both of them get destroyed?", She looked skeptical. M-Probes were built to withstand the pressured of the core of a planet. It could comfortably go to the core of a planet and withstand all the heat and pressure without any problem. Although the B1 was a bit bigger than planets it was designed for. But it shouldn't have failed so early.

"Send a few more probes that way."

"Sending Probes."

The new probes started down the previous path the probes left. As it didn't need to burrow through the earth anymore, it quickly followed the previous path and reached the destination. But as soon as the Probes reached the end of the tunnel. They too lost connection.

"This is weird.", Dr. Helen fell in deep thought.

"Should we send more probes after them?"

"No. Sending any more probes down the same drain is just wasting credits. Just leave it for now. Continue on the other probes."

Dr. Helen instructed as she was looking at the projection. Unlike the single use probes, These probes were really expensive. The Probes used rare exotics. So each one was really precious. Just sending down these expensive probes down the same path is pointless.

"Just keep mapping the lines. And let me know of any anomalies." Dr. Helen said as she was walking out of the main compartment of the Yuki. She went to her room to take a break.

Not every member aboard the Yuki had their own personal room. Some of the personnel shared the bunks when on a mission aboard the shuttles. But as Dr. Helen was higher up in the command chain, she got a room to relax and to take a break while on the mission.

When she reached her room she began to take off her vac-suit. The shuttles were pressurized and isolated from outside environment. Except for the bays, Most of the shuttle was completely pressurized and the things such as atmosphere and temperature were maintained. So it was generally okay to take off your vac-suit. But protocol demanded that everyone wore their vac-suit all the time. Dr. Helen wasn't an exception to the rule.

But she didn't care about it right now. She wanted to get a breather. It was almost 26 hours since she had come to this planet. And this was the only instance that she was able to take a break. But as there was many things going on, it would have to be a really short break. She wanted to relax out of the suit.

As soon as she took off her suit she laid down on the small bed that was provided with the room. It was only big for 1 person and was somewhat comfortable. As soon as she laid down, a notification pinged her comm. She was being warned for taking off her suit.

"Meh", She turned off the notification and closed her eyes. She was too excited and busy to fall asleep. So she decided to rest her eyes for a bit. As she laid there with her eyes closed she began to think.

'If these lines reach all the way to the core of the planet, then there might be a huge power source at the center of the planet. These energy lines needs to get their power from somewhere. And there has to be a drain to all this energy. Otherwise there's no point to this huge network that spans the entire planet.'

To her the main question was the purpose of this energy. Even if it was a natural construct. Nature doesn't do things for no reason. It needs to have a purpose for nature or some other party to go through the painstaking process of building up the huge energy channels.

She had a few theories on what the energy lines were for.

'It's probably feeding the trees. Splitting the atom and then rearranging them should take a huge amount of energy. But the source of this energy isn't apparent. It could be that the trees are being fed by the energy lines.', It was the most probable explanation she had. But she had a feeling that she was missing something. There was something about this arrangement that didn't made sense. But she quite couldn't put a pin on what exactly was it. But her intuition told her that she was missing something really important.

As she lay there with her eyes closed thinking about the situation. Her comm suddenly beeped. There was a notification from Dr. Kbom. He wanted her to go and investigate a specific area on the planet. As this was an order from Dr. Kbom. She naturally had to follow. She gave a reply back and then got up.

"Enough resting, I need to get back on this mission. The sooner we figure this planet out the sooner we can move out."

She put on her Vac-Suit again and moved out of her room. She proceeded towards the main compartment. She moved on to the terminal and punched in the coordinates Dr. Kbom sent her. She took a look at the location he wanted them to investigate. It just happened to be the magnetic poles of the planet. Dr. Helen's eyes lit up. Latest scans of the area showed really huge energy spikes. The pattern matched the spikes of this forest that they were in right now. But it was only an Order of magnitude greater.