Just to let you all know, this Space 1999 continuity is fixed in the Big Finish continuity where the moon left Earth's orbit because it was torn out of orbit by a traversable wormhole triggered by the planet Meta which transmitted a signal to the nuclear waste in the silos where it was transformed into the exotic matter to fuel the wormhole.

Enjoy.

How many are there?

As he finished off his report detailing the events on the ice-planet Ultima Thule for Simmonds perusal with emphasis placed on Rowland's twisted experiments which had left so many people in a deranged, or vegetative state, or even drugged while also pointing out to the Commissioner if they had landed eventually they would have become sterile so the chances of growth were minimal, Koenig wished not for the first time they could rescue the people still on Thule.

But they couldn't; Rowlands and his wife had both died when they had tried leaving the planet's atmosphere, there was no doubt in his mind the same thing would have happened to the others.

"John?"

Koenig sat up when he heard Victor's voice, and he lifted his commlock and saw Victor's face on the screen, but he wasn't alone. Helena was with him (Koenig clenched his fist at the sight of her haunted expression which made him wish he could pummel Rowlands to death which amazed him since he liked to see himself as a calm, non-violent man but something about Helena made him want to protect her; she had recovered quickly from Rowland's attack on her when he had tried to experiment on her, but the haunted expression was still there).

"Hi, Victor, what is it?"

"Can we come in?"

Koenig pointed the lock to the door and transmitted the unlocking code and admitted the two inside. "How is it going?"

Victor held up a sheaf of paper that Koenig recognised as a report. "We've just finished off our reports, John. We're going to go with you to Simmonds so then he doesn't make some stupid decision to push through Operation Exodus without seeing all of the facts."

"Not that that ever stopped him," Helena's voice was full of disdain. She would never forgive the way Simmonds had placed a communications embargo during that mess with the Meta probe; the results had seen the moon being blasted through a wormhole, and a handful of pilots being affected by exotic matter to say nothing of how many lives were lost when the moon passed through the wormhole.

Koenig didn't say anything; he had lost trust in Simmonds when he had discovered the scale of the other man's mistakes during that time. "What did you focus on in your reports?"

"I focused on the experimental side on Thule, and how Rowlands hadn't thought twice about torturing people just to gain an understanding in how the immortality worked, and my own personal observations of the results," Helena replied.

"I turned my focus over to the fact while they had created a near successful colony, the only reason it hadn't fallen apart is that the original colonists have been alive for centuries," Victor's voice was grim as he clearly recalled his initial findings and realising that because the body was immortal, there was no need for children. It was a cold, chilling thought, but it was scientifically grounded in reality and fact. "What about you?"

"Ah, I focused on everything; what the colonists and their ship's computer had told us about surviving on the planet after falling through time and their theories of what had taken them to Thule in the first place, what happened to you Helena, what Rowlands was planning, what he did to Jack and the others, and what the consequences would have been if we had initiated Operation Exodus, and what Rowlands likely had in mind for his interstellar ship. Also in the report is a pasted image of the result of what would happen if anyone immortal left, taken from the Eagle's records," Koenig said.

"The loss of the ship really hurts Simmonds, John," Helena pointed out.

"I know. It hurts me as well," Koenig replied.

"We're going to release this report to the general population on Alpha, aren't we?" Helena asked knowing the rest of the Alphans would be torn between saying the lack of a real evacuation could mean Koenig and the senior staff members wanted them to remain trapped on the moon forever while the others would accept the truth, that places like Thule were dangerous.

"That's the idea. We're also going to release Rowland's last words to the population. I think that would be a better idea, rather than visiting a planet only to discover it's not suitable."

"How long do you think it's going to go on for, John?" Victor asked. "We can't stay on Alpha forever; you know as we all do, the only reason Alpha existed as a scientific colony was because we relied on supplies from Earth. With Earth… no longer around," the scientist trailed off as he tried to find the best way to describe the disaster and what it meant for them all, "we are on borrowed time."

"I'm aware of that, Professor. But we'll just have to hope for later," Koenig said, hoping when they found a planet, they didn't evacuate because the life-support systems were burning out.

"What I'd like to know is if they were thrown out here through a wormhole as well, then who else was?" Helena looked between the two men quizzically. "Were there many disappearances of older space probe expeditions that vanished?"

"More than you could imagine, Helena; the problem with space exploration is we never really knew how to get it right, thanks to the Space Commission going out of their way to squeeze the bank."

"No, no, that's unfair, John. A lot of the disappearances took place because we didn't know what kind of phenomena were out there; it wasn't until we launched unmanned probes from Alpha that a lot of mysteries were answered," Victor looked firmly at Koenig.

"Oh, you mean like the Ultra Probe?" John countered before Victor waved a hand in frustration.

"I knew you were going to bring that up, John; those records and Tony's account was never proven!"

"I believe him still. Do you know why? We know nothing about what could be out here, and we still don't; that's a fact we need to accept, Victor."

"Alright, but a monster, John? A monster we can't identify?" The scientist looked torn between being offended and irritated by this subject. "We still don't have proof, the Ultra probe instruments detected nothing-."

"Stop, what was the Ultra probe again? I think I remember it; wasn't it our first major long-range manned flight?" Helena looked between the two men.

Koenig sighed as the memories of that time were unlocked in his head. "It was after the Queller drive was invented. Victor was one of several scientists who discovered a planet a few light-years away from Earth, a shorter distance between us and Meta sure, but at the time it was the most ambitious flight of our time. An expedition was put together and they were gone, 16 months. When they got back, only the control module came back. The captain of the expedition was an old friend, a veteran space pilot and astronaut like Jack was; Tony Cellini came back and he went from being a hero who controlled such an unexpected flight back to Earth to a lunatic. He described a strange monster that brainwashed the crew and ate them. This monster was living in the middle of a number of dormant alien ships."

Helena looked between the two men seriously, seeing the seriousness on John's face and in his eyes, and the scepticism in Victor's expression. "Why do you believe him, John?"

"Why not? First, we don't know what's out there, what kind of phenomena exists, so why can't there be creatures out there which don't conform to our laws of nature?" John replied.

Helena had to agree with that. Until recently she would never have believed there were aliens out there who took alien bodies and were non-corporeal wraiths, and a planet where humans had survived since the 11th Century.

"Maybe he is right," Helena agreed, seeing that while Victor was sceptical her old friend was willing to claim otherwise. That was one of the things she loved about the man; Victor might be a scientist, but he had a desire for knowledge, and he was willing to accept new facts. "But we're missing the point; do you think it's possible those missing expeditions found themselves out here?"

"It's possible, certainly; if we could do it, and Rowland's expedition as well, why can't there be others? We might even meet people who went missing from Earth out here," Victor said.

"Oh, like who?"

"Amelia Earhart, for one; to this day, nobody knows where she went, and there are mysteries, myths and legends which might be found out here," Victor countered.

"Like what?" Helena asked.

"We might find answers about who were operating the UFOs from the 1940s onwards. There were dozens of mysterious disappearances at sea, like the Mary Celeste which were never explained. Why couldn't the crew have been transported somehow away from Earth?" Victor said.

For a moment Koenig wondered if the scientist and his old mentor were taking this conversation seriously, but he realised that he was. Clearly, the talk about the Ultra Probe mission had struck a chord within Victor, as he realised the scope of what could be found in the universe.

"We'll have to wait and see, Victor," Koenig finished philosophically.