Leo squinted at the viewscreen. Outside the Arctic Hare , there were no stars. Just endless, falling snow.
The Polaris Station was a mess. Wires hung like icicles from the ceiling. Every surface was frosted white. In the main computer core, a single screen glowed with a blinking prompt: snowy space trip download
A memory file finished downloading. A video window popped up automatically. It showed the old crew of Polaris Station , laughing, drinking coffee. Then, one of them—a woman with red hair—pointed at the observation window. “What’s that?” she asked. Leo squinted at the viewscreen
Outside their station, there was snow. And moving through the snow was a shadow. Tall. Thin. Antlers like a frozen tree. The Polaris Station was a mess
He landed the ship with a soft thump . When he opened the airlock, the cold bit through his suit instantly—not the sterile cold of space, but the wet, clinging cold of a winter morning on Earth. He crunched across a surface that looked like a frozen lake, yet he was standing on an asteroid.
As the percentage climbed, the snow outside the station’s cracked windows began to fall harder . The wind howled—a sound that shouldn’t exist in a vacuum.
Back on Earth, Leo sat in a warm, dim lab. He plugged the drive into the analyzer. It contained only one file: a single, low-resolution image.