Station 22: part 2

Silence in the dark

"You may enter." The voice of Rinn, the Overseer of the station 22 was calm and precise. He maintained an absolute control, which made reading his emotions from the tone impossible. He usually does. Shael, the young Seraphim walked into the room as clueless about the reason for her summoning as when the message had come. Fifteen local years she was here in training and he never broke the schedule. This must be serious.

The Overseer was standing in the front of a holographic galactic map. That, was most unusual as the Station 22 had a sole purpose of watching over a single planet. Overseer Rinn, unlike most of the Seraphim, had no use for sentiment or distractions. That was one of the reasons why his office was completely empty apart from the holo-projector. Walls were in monotonous grey without any shiny surfaces and without any windows.
It would be appropriate if she waited in silence until the Elder would decide to speak to her, however being eager to impress and to dive deep into her new job and it's secrets she cautiously asked about that which would seem obvious.
"Are we selecting a new place to relocate the project?" The implications were clear and not so well hidden anxiety and a speck of fear were coloring her voice. He didn't bother to look at her. He had no need to. "Your concern is noted. In time, when you will study them closer, you will learn to free yourself of such attachments. Morality is an empty concept. Necessity is what matters here."
He turned around and looked her in the eyes. "We still have a control over the population and there are no indications that this Cycle will end differently. We will initiate ending stages of this Cycle within the fifty local years." He understood her relief and how did she came to that conclusion. She just joined the staff and therefore, she was still under the influence of the Community conditioning. The idea of ending the life of one thinking being was a horrifying barrier for her, several billion and a habitable solar system with it was probably something her mind could not even grasp yet.
The Overseer Rinn turned back to the map. "I had called you here, because something indeed had changed. But not on Terra V. We received a report from the Community that an exploration ship was lost. There was no accident and no violent end was felt. It is as if the connection had disappeared, as the report states." Now that was an alarming information. Shael, while being incapable of psionic connections herself, knew very well how it works. If any psionic entity linked with the Community was killed, the death would had been felt. Even if the unlucky person drove at hyper-speed to the black hole. "I am sending you Shael, to investigate what happened."   

On her way to the hangar bay the blue haired novice was nervously listing through the mission briefing material. She was in turmoil. Why did he send her? There were a lot more experienced agents and the Overseer would never give mission of such importance to someone without an extensive field experience. The idea that he would be testing her or gave her a chance to prove herself was ridiculous, he doesn't think that way. So why would he pick her? The question had burned through her mind even as she was in her assigned small covert-operation frigate uploading the coordinates. Her first real mission is to find what could have silenced an entire exploration cruiser. It had a crew of thirty... as her thoughts had wandered trying to find the answer in the mission data, the surface of the Terra V appeared as her ship flew through the hangar doors. She glanced at the marble of life, alone in a tiny ship for two and found her answer. "I am the least valuable asset he can sacrifice."