Remembering Jan's directions, Chisato went back to the floor with the dining room on it. There were quite a few people eating there. It was a standard work cafeteria: cheap, noisy, with uncomfortable plastic seats. Chisato soon spotted Eruaqs sitting in the corner on his own with a big plate of chips. Buying a coffee and a slice of cake, Chisato went over and sat opposite him. When he saw her, he instinctively leant over his plate and covered it with his arms.

"Don't worry, I'm not going to steal your food."

He raised his eyes and acknowledged her with a nod before staring back down at his food.

"What's that?" she asked, pointing to the back of his head. Attached to the ports behind his ears was a device that looked like speaker phones.

"Power limiter." he grunted between mouthfuls.

"A what?" the only context she had heard that word was in conjunction with Indalecio and Filia. The thought of facing him without his power limiter brought a chill to her spine.

"Power limiter." he repeated.

"I wanted to thank you for bringing me here, Eruaqs." she told him. He attempted to stuff a handful of chips into his mouth at once, still watching her intently.

"'S okay. Chronicle needs ya. No-one else does the dangerous jobs. They ain't got the guts. You was always my hero, goin' into dungeons an' fightin' monsters an' takin' picters of 'em. If they was a war, you'd make a great war reporter."

"Er... thanks?"

"There'll be lotsa work fer ya. Always somethin' goin' on out there in the galaxy..."

He started telling her all the latest news in between mouthfuls. Apart from the Earth Federation incident, the XINE attack was the biggest story. They were everywhere. Some had even started invading major planets, in groups of hundreds at a time. She sipped her coffee and listened to him, avoiding the occasional spray of food. After a short time, Marietta walked in.

"The contract is printed. Please, if you would like to follow me..."

Chisato stood up and followed the Director out of the door. Eruaqs followed them as well, stuffing a chocolate bar in his pockets for later. They walked down the corridor to the lift before pressing a button for the top floor. Marietta led them down a dimly lit corridor into the command centre. Chisato gasped at the sheer volume of wires and machinery crammed into one room. There was barely enough room for Marietta. She sat back on her chair and plugged herself in again.

"This is the most secure room in the station." said the Director, "We will be able to speak without interruption."

"Isn't this a bit much for a work contract?" said Chisato, nervously watching as she pressed a button and the door slid shut and locked itself.

"Actually, I did not ask you to up here to sign a work contract." she admitted, "I never took you off the staff register, you see. Reporters aren't declared dead until we find the body. Our staff often survive life-threatening situations."

"No, I have a special request for you." she continued, "One that must be kept strictly confidential."

"Already, but I only just..."

"This assignment is perfect for your approach to journalism." she said, "I want you to take Eruaqs to planet Styx."

"Where?"

"Styx is a barren planet. It hasn't been inhabited for millions of years." said Marietta, "And yet, there are signs that it once supported life. Artificial structures have been discovered. The biggest of these structures is an enormous stone gate in the middle of a lifeless wasteland. A year ago, we found Eruaqs lying outside that gate, almost dead."

"Really? Just lying there?"

"Whereas he quickly physically recovered, his mental state is..." Marietta looked at Eruaqs, who had unwrapped his chocolate bar and was in the process of eating it, "Sporadic. It has taken our medics a year of intensive therapy to make him behave as normally as he does now. He remembers nothing of his life before we found him. We believe that he was driven insane."

"By what?"

"We don't know." she admitted, "Although the planet is largely unexplored, Styx is widely believed to trigger abnormal psychological responses in humanoids. Maybe its the utter desolation, the silence and stillness, acting like a sensory deprivation chamber. People have been known to hallucinate, hear voices, have panic attacks. Sometimes the effects are permanent."

"Part of the reason Styx is unexplored is that this phenomenon tends to happen to the pilot of the ship as they are attempting to land." continued Marietta, "As you can imagine, this tends to cause them to crash the ship. Styx is a dangerous planet, Chisato. It got its name because it is a planet of death. People go there and don't return."

A chill ran down Chisato's spine. She could see it somehow: the lonely, silent planet, its civilisation long reduced to dust, its inhabitants to ghosts. A planet as cold and lifeless as the tone of Marietta's voice. She looked around at Eruaqs. He had wiped his hands on the door and was now staring thoughtfully at it.

"And you want me to go there?" she asked, "Why?"

"It is our last resort. I can think of no other way to help Eruaqs recover his memory. Whatever happened to Eruaqs... I believe it is a danger to Tria."

"Wh... what makes you think such a thing? Maybe he just crash landed on the planet..."

"Have you noticed yet that Eruaqs has a power limiter?"

Chisato nodded, "I thought Indalecio destroyed the last one."

"Indeed, the last power limiter on Nede was destroyed by Indalecio Gabriel..." said Marietta, "But this device is not of Nedian origin. It does not bear the markings of any technology from any civilisation in the Tria galaxy."

"Alien technology? But that's impossible. Tria has never been contacted by a race outside the galaxy."

"There's always a first time, Chisato." said the Director, "Furthermore, Eruaqs is clearly from Tria, most likely from a species similar to a Roakian. The limiter was placed there by somebody else, against his will."

"So now aliens are experimenting on us?"

"Maybe. But we cannot such verify such a theory. All we know is that Eruaqs was tampered with by a hostile force from outside the galaxy."

"The power limiter... how do you know what it is? Have you tried taking it off?"

"Eruaqs was not wearing his power limiter on board your ship. That was because it was damaged in such a way that it fell off." she said, unblinking, "Of the four hundred XINE that intercepted the Revorse... one hundred were slain by Eruaqs."

"One HUNDRED?" yelled Chisato, turning to Eruaqs, "Is that true, Eruaqs? Eruaqs?"

However, Eruaqs had already worked out the password for the door and let himself out. The reported turned back to her boss.

"Okay. " she said, "I'll go to Styx. I'll help Eruaqs recover his memories."

"Then you've made up your mind?"

She nodded, "It's the least I can do in return for him leading me here and fighting the XINE to protect me."

She wished she felt as confident as she sounded. Somehow, the planet called to her but it was like a siren song, as deadly as it was alluring, dragging her deep underwater into a dark, icy grave.

"Now, about the pilot." said Marietta, "Only an expert space pilot would be able to negotiate their way through the asteroid belts around Styx. The staff of the Battle Fortress Chronicle are not expert space pilots. I had extreme difficulty finding a pilot willing to travel to Styx. Fortunately, I recently managed to find a skilled pilot who was specifically and rather urgently in need of our services."

She pressed a button on her chair and the display screen on the wall, previously displaying a slideshow of surface images of Styx, changed to show a familiar face.

"Hey, Chisato, wanna be a slave? I found you ten buyers already." said Commander Revorse, lounging on the chair in her conference room and sipping from a strong-looking cup of coffee.

"Will you really take me to Styx?" asked the reporter.

"To get that information published, I'd marry you, sweetie." sighed the merchant.

"You mean, you're doing this for something other than large amounts of money?" Chisato raised an eyebrow.

"It would have been a far lower risk to pay the Commander in Fol." said Marietta, "The information she has requested us to distribute will almost definitely lead to the collapse of negotiations with the Earth Federation."

"We leave tomorrow. Don't keep me waiting." said Commander Revorse before shutting down her communication channel.

"I'd better catch some sleep." said Chisato, yawning.

"The door is open." said Marietta, sounding almost angry about this.

Chisato quickly fell asleep in her comfortable bed, lulled to sleep by the ambient music. That night, however, her dreams were haunted by images of Styx, its rivers of dust and fields of bone, its ghosts and shipwrecks singing an eerie song across desolate plains. At this rate, she thought, I'll crack before I get there.