Twenty-Four.

“So,” said Andromeda, “We've tried shooting it, zapping it, blowing it up, and kicking it. It seems pretty impervious.”

She was looking at a peculiar metal door at the base of the tree. It was made of shining chrome, virtually featureless except for five letters engraved in its surface: S.A.N.T.A.

“I give up,” she said, taking a seat on a pile of snow. “Nothing short of magic can open this door. I suppose the Systematic Administrator left the message just to tell people to sod off.”

Danielle stood considering the door. So close, and yet so far away. Had they come this far only to not be able to revive the Administrator, after all? Her heart sank. She looked around at her companions, each and every one of which seemed to be of the same opinion as Andromeda. Well... all except one. Her eyes fell on the dark-haired man with the cybernetic leg: Darren. They had only just met, but Danielle noticed something different about him – while everyone else was looking at the door, he was looking at the sky.

“Have you got any idea, Mr... Darren, was it?”

“Maybe. Rita, could you tell me the message again?”

“When one-winged angels fly, magic will open the door. Or something like that.”

Darren got to his feet. He cleared his throat, and spoke up.

“I have an idea. Probably a stupid idea, but I got reminded of a saying. One-winged angels are people, see. The saying goes, we are angels with only one wing: We fly by embracing each other.”

Everyone looked at each other, and particularly Consul Danielle seemed stunned.

“Are you saying we revive the greatest AI in the history of the universe by... hugging?”

“It's a long shot, I admit. But it seems this Administrator guy... thing... whatever, was a little eccentric. I still can't figure out the magic bit though.”

Babs and Sylver shone up at the same time. “Are you thinking what I'm thinking?” - “That's it, isn't it?” - “I think it is!” - “It makes perfect sense: Friendship!”

They rushed to their feet and hugged whoever happened to be closest: Sylver squeezed Selma in what looked more like a wrestling move than a hug, and Babs tackled Sawyer to the ground. Krystof looked at Darren, skeptically.

“Well man, it was your idea.” he said with a shrug.

Before his partner could protest, Krystof grabbed him in an extremely manly bear hug. Soon, everyone was hugging someone else, and on the ground, Sawyer was laughing.

“Babs, whoever you are, you're crazy. Get off me. Merry Christmas.”

He had no idea why he said it. It just seemed to fit. It did.

§§§§§§§

And from that great door, there arose such a clatter,
They sprang from the ground to see what was the matter.
O, the great Tesla tree did both sparkle and flash,
And away from the lightning they quickly must dash.
A moon (or space station) shone down on the snow,
And it seemed like the planet itself was aglow.

When, what to their wondering eyes should appear,
But a great cosmo-sleigh, and eight cyborg reindeer!
And there in the sleigh there was seated no man,
nor machine, not like anything made in Japan:
This strange, wondrous being, that flew for the sky
Was a powerful, marvelous godlike A.I.
A being of shimmering energy pure,
Now back from the dead – of that they were sure.

And yet somehow so plump, such a jolly old elf,
that each laughed when they saw him, in spite of himself.
A wink of his eye, and a twist of his head,
Soon gave them to know they had nothing to dread.
He spoke not a word, but just raised both his hands,
And displayed all his power by changing the lands.
First came there a cottage, so cozy and warm,
Then soon the whole planet was all terraformed!

There were so many gifts that he gave them besides:
Warm socks and warm sweaters of every size,
Both hoverboards, hovercats, and holograms
Of famous bands playing their favorite jams.
Now laid he a finger aside of his nose,
And giving a nod, up in space there he rose,
To stop the galactic war with his gifts
To give out such presents, as mend any rifts.

Away flew his sleigh, so fast you would get carsick,
For it crossed the whole Galaxy in but twelve parsecs!
But they heard him exclaim, throughout all space and time:
“MERRY CHRISTMAS TO ALL / AND GOODNIGHT / END OF LINE.”

Twenty-Three.

The little valley surrounding the metal tree was suddenly quite crowded. Sylver, Love and Selma stood in the middle. To one side stood Andromeda, Maximus and Sawyer, weapons drawn. On the other side stood Consul Danielle Ash and her friend, Kendra. Both of them looked quite calm. Nobody spoke; the only sound through the valley was the whining of Christmas Planets' loud winds.

“Step off of Selma.” said Andromeda, waving her pistol. Love casually did so. “You all right?”

Selma made some kind of noise that could be construed as a “Mostly”.

Presently the Consul spoke up. “I would advice you not to aim a gun at Love. She doesn't appreciate it.”

“I reckon she's fast, but can she dodge a bullet?”

“On Helios, I saw her dodge a laser. I'm Danielle, by the way.”

“Name's Andromeda. What are you doing here?”

Unexpectedly, another voice rang out as a third party entered the little valley. “The Consul is here because of something Love and me discovered. The four of us came here following these guys.”

“These guys” turned out to be Babs, Krystof, and Darren. The person speaking was someone both Andromeda and Sylver knew very well.

“Rita!”

“That's me. It looks like I've arrived just in time to provide the exposition.”

Danielle nodded, approaching the tree. “Please do share the story. I see no reason not to.”

Andromeda holstered her gun, and walked closer as well, helping Selma to her feet. Soon, they were all gathered around the strange metal contraption, as Rita cleared her throat.

“In ages past, some hapless programmers accidentally invented an incredibly powerful artificial intelligence. Nobody knew exactly how it worked, not even the inventors, but it seemed to possess strange, almost divine powers. The machine was dubbed the Systematic Administrator of Numerous Treasured Artifacts, because of its ability – and tendency – to give people the resources they needed. Gifts, if you will. For the few precious years it was operational, there was peace and prosperity throughout the Galaxy.”

She took a break, looking out over the assembled people. Andromeda spoke up:

“I thought the Systematic Administrator was just a myth?”

“It's a commonly held belief, yes. As I said, the machine was only operational for a few years. Nobody knows exactly what happened, but the AI just vanished one day, leaving behind a curious message – it would return on 'the darkest day'. There were some other peculiar passages in there as well – something about 'When one-winged angels fly', only then could the door could be opened, but even then only by – and I quote – 'magic'. The only part we could decipher was this: The Systematic Administrator would be waiting under a Tree of Snow.”

She gestured to the large metal tree.

“That, ladies and gentlemen, is the true Treasure of Christmas Planet – the key to reviving the Systematic Administrator of Numerous Treasured Artifacts. And it's right underneath our feet.”

Danielle, presently, produced something from her pocket. It looked like an incredibly advanced remote control, and she cautiously approached the tree, reaching out to touch the device to one of the branches. Immediately, it lit up like – well, like a Christmas tree. It also started to radiate rather a lot of heat.

“We're about to get a close look at it. Everyone stand back. I've activated the Tesla circuit.”

As they backed off, the snow around the tree began to melt...

Twenty-Two.

“So, Sylver... do you suppose this giant metal tree is the treasure?”

“I don't think it is.”

They were waiting for the others to arrive. There wasn't much else to look at, so they were looking at the tree itself – a shiny metal contraption covered in chrome, about two meters of it sticking out of the snow. By the look of it, it was vaguely conical.

“The snow must be very deep here,” Selma commented. “I have a feeling the tree is pretty big.”

“I expect it is. Hm. I wonder what purpose it serves?”

Sylver got up from where she was sitting, and walked over to it. Neither of them had touched it up until now, but presently she put on a black rubber glove and poked it. Nothing happened. She waved Selma over.

“Could you touch it?”

“Why?”

“Just touch it.”

Selma reached out a hand to touch the tree with her bare hand. There was a bright flash – moments later, Selma was lying in a crater in the snow, smoking slightly.

“Hah! Just as I suspected – it's a Tesla tree! The entire thing conducts electricity! It must be some sort of security mechanism.”

“Thank you for sharing that information.” said Selma as she got to her feet. “I think I'm okay though, that hurt less than you'd-”

Here she stopped speaking, because she was suddenly ninja kicked in the chest. Sylver looked rather surprised at this turn of events, and looked quizzically at the woman who was standing on top of her assistant – a short-haired, black-clad woman. Sylver was about to comment on this peculiar way of introducing oneself, when a voice rang out.

“Love! That's enough.”

The voice belonged to a tall, blond woman that Sylver recognized from pictures: Consul Danielle Ash. Another voice answered her: It was Andromeda.

“You bet it is.”

Twenty-One.

Babs was moving through the snow, frustrated at how much it impeded her movements. She was wearing a space-suit, because it helped her stay warm, but the helmet was troubling her – snow kept clinging to it, making it almost impossible to see anything. She had been heading for what she thought was a hill, to get a vantage point. Now that she had been walking for a while, though, she wasn't sure she'd be able to climb it – the space-suit was slippery on all the snow, and it was difficult enough just to walk.

Well – there was nothing else to it, but to try. She began to scale the hill, and it felt like she slipped two steps backwards for every step forwards. Snow got everywhere, and she was soon hip-deep in it. Suddenly, she thought she saw a movement. She flinched, turning to the side and trying to see what it had been, but she caught nothing. The helmet was impairing her vision, though.

She hesitated for a moment, and then reached to unlatch it, removing it. The planet had breathable air, but it was blasted cold. She looked around tensely, wondering what it had been she saw. There was definitely something strange going on.

BEEP BEEP!

The communicator activated. She nearly fell over with shock.

“Jeez, Krystof. You scared me. What's up?”

“Babs, watch out! There's a-”

– and then, a blow to the back actually did knock her over. She stumbled forwards landing in the snow. Babs flailed around trying to get up, but it was like trying to climb out of cotton candy. Krystof's muffled voice came from somewhere in the snow, but presently someone else spoke.

“What's your name?”

It was a woman's voice, and it sounded more curious than threatening.

“Babs. Who the hell are you?”

Someone reached out a hand, helping her to her feet. She came face to face with a short-haired woman in black clothes, who seemed relatively unaffected by the cold. Her expression was very harsh for a moment, but suddenly she loosened up, and smiled.

“Hello, Babs. My name is Love. I work with the Consul. She instructed me to contact you.”

“This is how you normally contact people? By karate chopping them in the back?”

“Yes. Why?”

Twenty.

“So this is Christmas Planet, is it?”

Andromeda was surveying what they could see as they stepped out of the ship. She could sum it up in one word: Snow.

“Doesn't look like much.” commented Maximus, stepping out to join her. “Did we travel through all that Snowman-infested space dust for this?”

“Yep. Mighty lucky we didn't run into any of them. I guess they must've been distracted elsewhere.”

Presently she put down a large metal briefcase on the ground, opened it up, and pressed a few buttons. A holographic representation of the planet appeared before their eyes, and pretty soon the entire crew – plus the two prisoners – were gathered around it.

“The coordinates said the treasure would be located somewhere around the planets' north pole. That's where we are now. Can't see it, though.”

“So what, we dig?”

“Let's hope we don't have to. It might be somewhere out of sight. Let's split up, each look in one direction, and we'll call each other on the communicators if we find something. We've got a groundcar, but I don't think it'll work very well in the snow, so we'll simply have to walk.”

They all nodded, and pretty soon they were split up into teams. Since they had landed on the northern pole, Sylver and Selma would check to the south, Andy and Sawyer would check the south, and Maximus would bring the prisoners south; he didn't trust Joanna enough to leave her on the ship. Soon they were all on their way, each team walking across an identical wintry desert, hoping to find something that would break the monotony.

Sylver and Selma were the ones who found it: An enormous metal tree, buried in the snow.

Nineteen.

“Krystof? Wake up, man.”

Krystof opened his eyes. There was a vague shapeless blob before his sight, which turned out to be Darrens' face.

“Wh- what happened?”

“I managed to program in a trajectory at the last moment. The impact knocked me out too, but the Gilmore was apparently sturdier than their ship – somehow we must've smashed straight through it and kept flying. She followed the course I set, and put us down here. She's pretty badly banged up, though – I'm not sure if she'll be able to take us away.”

“...and where is 'here', exactly?”

A grim look passed over Darren's face. “Christmas Planet. We made it. But as far as I can tell, there's just snow here. Not space-snow, either. Regular snow.”

Krystof slowly became aware of the fact that he was very cold, even though he was wearing a warm sweater. He looked around the ship, and noticed everything was switched off – including life support. They must have been running on emergency power until they landed, and now it had gone out. They were lucky it had lasted as long as it did.

“Babs is out doing some reconnaissance, I haven't seen her for almost an hour.”

Krystof got to his feet. “So we're stuck on a legendary planet with a broken ship?”

Darren nodded. “Seems like it. You're not hurt, are you?”

“Not badly. I'll manage.”

“There's still hope. If we can find the treasure... well, nobody really knows what it is, but it's supposed to be pretty high-tech. We might be able to use some of it to fix the ship, and we should have landed fairly close.”

Krystof walked over to the cockpit and looked out through the window. Darren was right – it seemed to be just snow. Before his eyes was a frozen wasteland that seemed as vast and endless as space itself, a great white blanket cast over a barren landscape. If there was anything underneath all the snow, it was probably just rocks. Only one thing broke the monotony: A figure was moving across the white surface. Krystof squinted – it had to be Babs, right?

It was. And there was someone behind her.

Eighteen.

Babs looked in awe as the silicon-snow of Winterspace turned into a white blur.

“Wow, this ship is fast! We might even have a chance to outrun them!”

“Well,” smirked Krystof, “We didn't name her the Gilmore for nothing. We're not out of the woods yet, though – it's hard as hell to steer in here.”

He hastily pressed a few buttons and leaned sideways, narrowly dodging a large asteroid. “Darren, how are you holding up?”

Darren was typing frantically on a small keyboard. “I'm working as fast as I can, but calculating our trajectory in here is hard! All the snow is disturbing the readings. I have no idea where we're going!”

“It doesn't matter. Anywhere away from the Snowmen is a good direction.”

“What are they, really?”

“Nobody's sure, but they seem to be some kind of... artificial intelligence. They're made of the same material as the Snow, and whatever AI originally controlled them must have gone rogue or something. I heard Kendra studied their chemical make-up, she might know more... all she told me was, they've got some kind of a hive-mind.”

“Hive-mind? Wouldn't that mean-”

Abruptly, a large, crystalline needle floated up in front of them. Krystof's speedy reflexes saved them; a moment's slower reaction, and the Gilmore would have been skewered.

“That a Snowman ship?”

“Yes. I don't want to alarm you guys or anything but IT'S A TRAP!”

Krystof looked up – they were dodging straight into a Snowman ship. The next thing he knew, there was a loud crash, and everything went dark.

Seventeen.

“Du borde ha dödat mig när du hade chansen, Joanna.”

Confused, Sylver leaned over to whisper a few words to Andromeda. “What language is that? I don't recognize it.”

“Maximus is from X-R. They still have many of the old Earth dialects there. I don't know what he just said... but it seems they've met before.”

It did. Maximus kept his rifle trained on the woman who stood in the airlock, holding a weapon of her own. She was tall, lanky, with a friendly-looking face – even now, held at gunpoint. Andromeda noticed, that there was a man behind her – a blond guy, but she couldn't tell much more about him.

“Lugn, Max. Vi är här för att förhandla. Kapten vill ha betalt, sen lämnar vi er ifred.”

“Vi förhandlar inte med pirater.”

“Ni har inget val. Ni kommer inte härifrån, och vårt skepp är beväpnat.”

Suddenly, there came a loud clang from the control panel. Everyone looked over to it: Sylver had hit it with Selma's wrench. Andromeda blinked as she watched the little lamp indicating that the neutrino drive was once again functional.

Joanna blinked. “What was that?” she asked, speaking in a recognizable language for the first time. “Did... did you fix it?”

“Sure did!” Sylver replied. “Me and Selma learned to override these silly traps back when we were in Galactic Help Center. It doesn't surprise me she has forgotten, though. I'm in charge for a reason.”

She adjusted her glasses. “Whatever you two are talking about, I'm pretty sure it has been rendered irrelevant by my awesomeness. Andy, would you like to take us up to full speed again?”

Joanna looked a little awkward. She stared at Maximus' rifle.

“I guess... me and Sonny will just return to our ship, then?”

“No.” Maximus said flatly. “We're not taking any chances. If you warn them, they could still open fire. You're coming with us. Andy, full speed. Now.”

Sixteen.

“Did you figure it out?”

Selma nodded, looking up from a bunch of wires under the cockpit. “There's nothing wrong with the ship. We've been caught in a trap.”

Andromeda looked skeptical. “At our speed? How is that even possible?”

“It's a deceleration field. Space pirates set them up to catch fast-traveling ships. We're lucky theirs wasn't stronger, sometimes the crew doesn't survive the impact. Either way, they'll probably try to board us. Anyone here got fighting experience?”

They all looked around at each other. Fighting experience, sure, but going up against space pirates?

“Well,” concluded Andromeda, “We ain't gonna let them take us without a fight, are we? Maximus is a crack shot with a rifle, that gives us a chance. The fact that I've got a pistol and Selma's got a wrench isn't gonna hurt our cause.”

They waited. Little by little, they saw a shuttle approach, floating silently through space towards them. It seemed to come from some larger ship, but the shuttle itself wasn't terribly impressive. It could probably fit no more than three or four people.

“What if they just blow our hull open?”

“They wouldn't do that, not unless they're stupid.” Andromeda responded. “It's the ship they'll want to steal, and the repair costs wouldn't be worth it. No, they'll force their way in via the airlock.”

“Which is good for us, cause it's where I'll be aiming,” said Maximus, as he finished loading up the rifle, “Don't worry. Velma's never failed me before.”

“...who's Velma?”

“It's what he calls the gun.”

There was a noise from the airlock. Maximus took aim. “Everyone, prepare yourselves. If we're lucky, this will be over before it starts.”

The doors opened. He didn't fire.

Fifteen.

Maximus looked at the neutrinometer with astonishment. Their little ship was accelerating at a ridiculous, almost dangerous rate. Andromeda was at the controls, although there wouldn't be anything she could do if the autopilot failed – if they hit a gravity sink, they'd be torn into atoms before anyone had a chance to react.

“Are you sure we should be going this fast? We just had the new nav disc installed, what if there's something wrong with it?”

“Don't worry, I've got this.”

Maximus buried his face in his hands. Sure, it was nice that reaching Winterspace would take less than a day... but he wasn't comfortable with pressing the little ship this hard, particularly not after a repair. He had to think of something else. Getting up, he left the cockpit to walk into the little common room, where Selma, Sylver and Sawyer were seated. They were huddled about a screen; it appeared they were watching an old two-dimensional film.

“What's up, guys?”

“Shh!” Sylver said, “He's about to start singing.”

Before long, strange and old-fashioned music emerged from the little screen. It sounded old, even older than Sawyer's music. Maximus took a seat, and was astonished to see the display wasn't even in color. He couldn't follow the plot of the film very well, although he grasped the archaic language with ease. Still, it was hard to focus – he was worried how the ship would hold up. Hesitantly, he leaned over to Selma, whispering:

“Are you sure it's safe for us to go this fast?”

“Almost definitely. The Serendipity is a fine ship, there's nothing wrong with her.”

Abruptly, they were thrown across the room.

Fourteen.

“This is it, guys. We're entering Winterspace.”

Darren, Krystof and Babs stared out of the cockpit at what lay ahead. The blackness of space glittered with little crystalline specks, illuminated by some distant star. Their ship was slowly floating into a swirling kaleidoscope of cosmic dust, and it was a breathtaking sight – but also a frightening sight.

“So this what they call cosmic snow?” Darren asked Babs, who nodded. Krystof looked out at it, squinting, and tried to recall what he had learned about it in his studies of chemistry.

“It's silicon.” he said finally. “Fragments of silicon swirling around in space. Nobody really knows where it comes from, but it glitters like snow – that's why they dubbed this sector Winterspace.”

“I don't know if this looks like snow,” Darren remarked. “It's more like... I don't know. I can't describe it. It's beautiful.”

They nodded in unison as the ship kept gliding through the cloud of multicolored confetti, swirling and snaking around the ship in long streams. For a long time they were silent, just staring out at the patterns that emerged and disappeared before their eyes. Darren thought idly, that the fact that it was so lethal only made it prettier: Most of the mineral fragments were razor sharp. To leave the ship in Winterspace, even for a short space-walk, would almost certainly be suicide.

Suddenly, the silence was broken by a high-pitched beep. Babs flinched, patting herself down to find her communicator, before she realized that wasn't it. Darren, on the other hand, looked at the control panel.

“There's a ship approaching. I... don't recognize this signature.”

Krystof immediately slammed down a button, hard, and leaned over towards the microphone. “This is Krystof Haag on board the Gilmore. Please identify yourselves.”

He let go of the button. A garbled noise emerged from their speakers, a horrible droning sound like metal being dragged through gravel, as if someone was sharpening a sword on a driveway. There was no image accompanying it, the screen just displayed a blur. Both Krystof and Darren turned to Babs, who had turned very pale.

“Snowmen.”

Thirteen.

The room was dark. Dark, and quiet – but within moments, something broke the silence. A song drifted through the chamber, a slow, beautiful chant – and then there was a light, a light of flickering flames.

It was Andromeda. She wore a white space-suit, but without a helmet – a halo of fire stood about her head, illuminating the chamber, dancing over the chrome panels so that it was reflected a thousand times in her face. By the light of these flames, a procession of other people came into view behind her, each clad in white: One by one, diminutive flames lit up in their hands. It was a very beautiful sight.

Jane broke the silence.

“You set fire to your hair?”

“I didn't mean to. I think it's a bug. I was trying to set fire to the NPCs, but they're not reacting to it... Something is seriously wrong with your script.”

“It worked fine last week. Granted, I set fire to Selma...”

Andromeda laughed, so loud that it drowned out the music. “Well, it's not working now. Turn it off.”

The flames died out, and the procession behind her winked out of existence. “Apart from the fire bug, I'd say it seems okay. Nice background music."

“Yeah, it worked."

Someone coughed. They both turned around, looking at the entrance: Selma, Maximus and Sawyer were all standing there, waiting for them.

“Are you two done playing around? Selma's installed our disc. We're taking off.” Maximus said shortly. “Sawyer's thinking of coming with us... and Selma voiced an interest in it, as well.”

“If she's coming, I'm coming.” said Sylver. “Rita should be back soon, anyway, and we just tested all the automated systems. They're OK.”

Maximus scratched his head. They had gone from two to five – a far more complete crew. Well, they could probably use the extra hands on board... the ship was in a bit of a mess, after all.

“Right. All aboard then, I guess?”

Twelve.

Danielle looked at the enormous hovering hologram that occupied most of the Battle Academy's assembly hall. It was a stellar map, compressed to show a vast multitude of stars and planetary systems – there was a lot to keep track of. Her attention was drawn to one particular section, though – a section covered in a kind of white haze, almost like cosmic fog. The fog of war, she thought to herself.

“You know, this is a strange coincidence. I was just visited by Darren and Krystof. They have the coordinates.”

“They do?”

“They claimed to, at least.”

“Wow. Well, that speeds things up considerably, wouldn't you say?”

“I'm still not entirely convinced. If what you're telling me is true, it could be the solutions to all of our problems – and it's not that I don't trust you, but it just seems too good. There's got to be a catch. The Systematic Administrator has been lost for centuries... it can't be this easy.”

“Easy? This is Christmas Planet we're talking about. I don't even know where Christmas Planet is. I just know that's where you'll find the Administrator. It's the treasure in the legend, it's got to be.”

Danielle considered. She wandered through the holographic universe, glancing at the various planets and their political affiliations... so much to keep track of. It had been easier, once. She reached out to touch a small planet, one she had an immense fondness of.

“I was sure we'd found it, once. Do you remember? Here, on Helios, under the Tree of Rain. The logs were... cryptic. But if it's supposed to be snow... the Tree of Snow?”

“A Christmas tree. I'm telling you, it's been there all along.”

Danielle sighed. The evidence did match up. She had never followed up on it, mainly because everyone thought Christmas Planet was just a legend – but it did make sense. For that matter, most people didn't believe in the Administrator anymore, either, but she had concrete proof that it had existed, once. If it still did... it could bring peace in the entire Galaxy. She sighed.

“I guess I'll just have to go find out for myself, won't I?”

Eleven

“Babs! Quit poking that!”

“What? Is it important?”

“Kind of.”

She was seated on the control panel, curiously looking around the interior of the cockpit. Right now she was fiddling with three switches in the ceiling – Krystof had no idea what they did, but it was probably bad news to play with them. He looked for some way to climb up after her, but he decided he didn't want to risk it – chances were he'd step on far more important buttons himself in the process.

“Babs, seriously... come down from there, okay?”

“Fine.”

With an agile leap, the athletic woman landed so close to Krystof that he almost fell over, flinching backwards. Babs smiled. “So, where are we going, exactly?”

“Darren does most of the navigating, but I know it's somewhere in Winterspace. That's why we need you... and why we would have needed Danielle and Kendra, too.”

“Winterspace, huh? I was in Winterspace during my advanced combat training. We only did planetfall once, but I caught some kind of sickness... had fever dreams for a month. It's a nasty place, even if you avoid landing anywhere.”

Krystof found himself relaxing a little. Babs was, despite her sometimes-strange behavior, experienced and reliable in these kinds of situations. It was easy to forget about her military training.

“We won't be making planetfall anywhere but Christmas Planet, hopefully. What's there to worry about if we stay flying?”

“In Winterspace? Well, you've got nasty asteroid belts, cosmic snow, unpredictable slipstreams, and radioactive stellar winds.” Babs said with a nasty grin. “And then there's the Snowmen, of course.”

“Snowmen? D'you think our ship could handle a Snowman attack?”

“One attack? Probably. We'll have to count with more, though.”

Darren poked his head into the room. “We're ready for take-off. You sure you wanna do this, Babs?”

A sardonic smile came over the womans' lips. “Yeah, well. No-one lives forever.”

Ten.

Danielle walked through the Academy with brisk steps, the clacking of her high heels echoing through empty corridors. Although her expression was calm, there were a number of slight cues to her emotional state: The speed of her steps, the twitch in her eyes, the way she fingered her document viewer as she walked. She was upset.

Christmas Planet. An exploration, not a mission so much as an adventure – what a chance! But now... Now really wasn't the time. There were far too many factors to consider, far too many things that could go wrong: The galaxy needed her, and she knew it. All the same...

She stopped outside a small door, unlocking it with her palm. It was made to look old-fashioned with fake wood panels, and she actually had to push for it to open. As it did, a large, rather comfortable office came into view, with a leather armchair and a small fireplace, rather anachronistic in this day and age. She hurried inside, sighing in exhaustion as she sank down into her leather armchair, opening the digital dossier. There was so much to do.

She barely had time to relax, though, before she froze up again. Something was wrong: There was someone else in the room. She heard quiet breaths from behind the curtains. Slowly, cautiously, she reached for the lasgun in her desk drawer – there was no reaction. She got to her feet, turning around slowly, and approached the curtain.

Steeling herself, she reached for the heavy cloth. One, two, three!

The curtain was yanked aside.

“You!?”

“Long time no see, Danielle.”

Nine.

The room was lit only by the soft green glow of a holo-table. The five people around it looked distorted in the strange light coming from underneath, and the dead silence in the room added to the effect. There was a definite tension in the air.

“Check.” came a voice.

“Check.”

“Blindfold.”

Babs slammed her cards down on the table, abruptly. “Dammit, Danielle!”

“What? It's a tactic. I'll lose more slowly.”

Krystof shook his head. Maybe gathering these three women again hadn't been such a good idea. They had sat down to play some games for old times' sake, and he had been meaning to bring up the treasure, but there had never been a good opportunity for it. They'd been talking for a good three or four hours now. He looked to Darren, but he was just as silent – how do you start talking about the greatest treasure in the history of the galaxy?

“So why are you really here?”

The voice cut through the room like a knife, silencing Danielle and Babs at once. It was the fifth player. She sat at the end of the table, leaned back so that her features were concealed, her arms crossed. Kendra. Of course.

“I'm glad you asked.” said Darren, throwing down his cards. “We've found the coordinates to Christmas Planet. We intend to go there, but just the two of us... we wouldn't get far. What do you say?”

A dead silence fell over the room. All three of the women glanced at each other, seemingly waiting for someone else to answer. Babs broke the silence.

“Well, I'm in. How about you?”

Danielle bit her lip. “I'm tempted, sure. But... Unfortunately, I can't come with you. I'm duty-bound to another mission.”

“What could possibly be more important than Christmas Planet?” asked Krystof, surprised.

“Averting a galaxy-spanning war. The details are, I'm afraid, confidential.”

The room fell silent again. Everyone turned towards Kendra, who wasn't speaking. It seemed like she was mulling it over.

“No. My family needs me.”

Darren was disheartened. He had hoped to get the help of all three; that Danielle would back out was perhaps half-expected, but to lose Kendra as well...

“Well, guys, you still have me!" Babs spoke up, "I don't usually talk about myself, but let me tell you, I handle crisis situations extremely well. Maybe not as well as Danielle, but... Well, I don't have as much experience with it, but either way. This one time, a guy tried to pick a fight with me on Zebulon VI, have I told you that story?”

Darren and Krystof exchanged glances. There was no convincing either Danielle or Kendra, that much they knew. Well, Babs was good. Hopefully good enough.

“Allright, let's keep playing."

Eight.

They walked deep into the bowels of the maze-like Holosphere, occasionally doing local shifts in the artificial gravity so that they were walking on walls or ceilings. The Holosphere was designed to be navigated in this way, and it was a pretty dizzying experience if you weren't used to it: Maximus had no idea where they were, or in which direction they were going. Eventually, though, Selma reached a door, and pressed a button next to it.

“Sawyer? Can I come in?”

“Sure.”

The door slid open. Beyond it was a guy not much taller than Maximus, blond, wearing old-fashioned headphones. Maximus blinked a little as he saw what they were attached to: An antique gramophone, with an old vinyl record spinning in a glass container. As he saw Maximus and Selma, he lifted the needle from the record, removed the headphones, and shook out his long hair.

“Max! What a surprise! It's been a while.”

“Sure has.” Max responded, looking around inside the room which was full of antiquities. “What kind of place is this?”

“I keep some Old Earth artifacts in here. Mostly from the sixties and seventies.”

“This music player is from twenty-seventy? Wow.”

Sawyer smiled. “You're off by a century, Max. Anyway, what brings you to the Holosphere?”

“Our nav disc broke down. We need a new one, Andy thought Rita might be able to help us, but she isn't here, and now Andy's stuck debating with that Silver person.”

“I think we have some lying around, but I'm not sure I know how to install them...”

Selma coughed, bringing attention to herself for the first time. “If you need something installed... I work with tech support.” she said, striking a pose. “I'll fix it in no time. Are you in a hurry?”

Max considered. On the one hand, it wasn't a good idea to let too many people in on the secret of Christmas Planet... on the other hand, him and Sawyer were old friends – and as for Selma, well, they could use a technician.

He cleared his throat. “We kind of are. See, we picked up these coordinates...”

Seven.

“No, no, no! It says plainly on page 437 of the Decker Guide that you have to connect the transdimensional optic spirograph to the main port if you want vector inversion!”

“Only if you're using old editions of the matrix scanner. It's been updated; besides, the errata to the Decker Guide clearly states that the optic spirograph is more or less redundant.”

“Really? I'm not sure I like that...”

Maximus sighed, looking at the two women arguing. Since they had docked at the Holosphere, they had accomplished absolutely nothing. He didn't understand much of the conversation. The way he saw it, this Jane woman had asked Andromeda for help, and then apparently disagreed with Andy's solution, and then Andy had disagreed back, and now it was just a contest about who could disagree the most.

“Wow. They're really going at it, huh?”

Maximus jumped – there was someone behind him. He spun around, coming face to face with a brown-haired woman wearing a Terminal Imagination T-shirt.

“You're a Terminal Imagination fan?” he asked, surprised. He dimly recalled that Jane had spoken about an “assistant”.

“Of course. They're an awesome band. I'm Selma. I'm the one who actually does the work around here.”

“Maximus. My friends call me Max. So... you're Jane's assistant?”

“She likes to call me that, for some reason. We're sort of taking care of things around here at the moment. Well... us and Sawyer.”

“Sawyer's here?” asked Max, surprised. “Wow, I haven't seen him in a while. Does he live here?”

“Yeah. Works here, uses the 'sphere to broadcast lectures... and to research old stuff.”

“Any chance I could meet him?”

“Sure. I don't think those two will be finished for a while yet, anyway. Right this way.”

Maximus got up from his seat, following Selma through the cluttered corridors of the Holosphere. Things had just taken a turn for the better. Sawyer would be willing to help them, for sure.

Six.

The interior of the Intergalactic Battle Academy carried an air of tradition and elegance. Outside it looked like any other space station, a great rotating ring of steel and plastic – but the inside had been built and decorated to look like an Old Earth academy, with genuine oak doors and mahogany floors. It was built to impress, and compared to most stations it was wasting an obscene amount of space on high ceilings, enormous archways and large hallways. The only exception were the student dormitories, which were small and cramped. Krystof and Darren remembered this well.

“I can't believe we're back.”

“Me neither,” replied Darren. “It's been way too long. Maybe this was a bad idea.”

“You could have at least asked, first. So are we recruiting a coupla students, or what?”

“Better. We're recruiting from the staff.”

“Huh? You're bringing our old teachers with us on a treasure hunt?”

They turned a corner, heading for one of the zero-gravity classrooms. “Don't be stupid, Krystof. Our old teachers are probably retired. I'm looking for old friends.”

He punched a few buttons, and the door to the zero-gravity chamber slid open. The huge, cylindrical chamber was almost empty, but as Darren and Krystof drifted inside, they spotted someone near the ceiling. It was a short-haired woman in camouflage pants and a red bandanna. She looked a little distracted, floating through the room with her attention focused on a hand-held computer.

Krystof's eyes widened. “Babs?”

“Huh? Oh! Hi! Christian! Darryl! So good to see you!”

“You haven't changed a bit,” Darren smiled. “Listen, can you round up the other girls? We've got a job on our hands, and we could use some help.”

“Sure thing! They should be somewhere around the Wormhole.”

“Gotcha. Uh, are you coming with us?”

“In a minute. Just gonna finish this game...”

Five.

“Hey, Silver?”

“What is it now?”

“Someone's approaching. Someone on a pretty messed-up ship. Looks like they're coming straight for us.”

Jane Silver spun around in her seat. “Customers, is it? Interesting.”

She pressed her palms together, a sinister look passing over her face. The white light of the control room reflected in her glasses, as she leaned over to press a few buttons. “Let's see what they want, shall we? Put them on screen.”

Her companion did so. An extremely blurry picture came on, full of interference: Jane could see two people, a man and a woman. The man was remarkably short, somewhat eccentrically dressed and serious-looking; by contrast, the woman was tall, sharply dressed with a brown coat and brown trousers, but with a peculiar, exaggerated grin on her face. It very quickly vanished from her face.

“Sorry, I thought you were someone else.” the tall woman said apologetically. “We're here to see the owner. She knows we're coming, I sent her a message.”

Jane adjusted her glasses.

“Rita isn't here right now. My assistant whats-her-face is running the show around here in her absence.”

Both of the strangers looked disheartened at these news. “Any chance she's left any messages concerning us? I'm Andromeda, this here's Maximus. We're old friends of Rita. Our nav disc is broken, we could really use a replacement.”

Jane considered. In all likelihood, these two people wouldn't be able to cover the cost of a nav disc. Then again... maybe they could come in handy.

“Either of you know anything about hologram technology?” she asked.

“Pretty much everything there is to know.” said the other woman.

“You can dock at airlock three. Over and out.”

Four.

Maximus slammed his hands against the control panel in frustration.

“Useless piece of cac,” he swore. “Useless, useless, useless.”

“Still no luck, huh? Hold on, let me try one more thing...”

“It's no use, Andy. It's bust. I can't believe it! We get the coordinates for the biggest treasure in the galaxy, and now our nav disc isn't working!”

Andromeda leaned back in her chair, thinking. “Well... maybe we could get it repaired.”

“For what money? All we found on board that ship were the coordinates.”

“I know, but... we could call in a favor.”

Maximus looked at the woman, puzzled. “Who owes us a favor?”

“I was thinking... We're not far from the Holosphere. We could navigate there just riding a wave.”

“The Holosphere? You think she would help us?”

“I think maybe she might. We're old friends, after all.”

Maximus considered. It might be that they would have to share some of the treasure if they called for help... but then again, if the legends were true, the treasure of Christmas Planet would be huge enough to last well over a dozen people for a lifetime. Surely splitting it with one or two more people wouldn't hurt too badly?

“Fine.” he said. “Contact her.”

Andromeda leaned forwards, pressing a few keys on her hand-held communicator. “Already on it. It's a good thing I have free wave service on this thing.”

Three.

“Christmas Planet? I thought that was just a legend.”

“So did I, but the transmission is genuine. Krystof, the garbled message we picked up really did come from the Star of Bethlehem. I triple-checked it. It must have travelled through space for months, years maybe, but it's real.”

“If it's been travelling through space for years, don't you think someone else has already picked it up and looted the planet?”

“No. It was encrypted. Even if someone else picked it up, they'd need a pretty sharp programmer on board to figure out what it meant. My algorithm cracked the code, but it was sheer luck I tried to run it on this particular wave of random junk. Unless someone found the actual Star, we should be the only ones with the information.”

A strange sort of glow passed over Krystof's face. His eyes shone up, and he took a step closer to Darren. “Are you serious? We have a shot at the treasure of Christmas Planet? Oh wow, imagine all the stuff we could buy! Computers! Androids! A holodeck! Imagine that: Our own holodeck!”

“Calm down. We need to get there first. And I admit, there is a risk someone else has found the message too, so we'd better hurry.”

“Gotcha. Set the course and give me maximum speed. I'll soup up the engine, if I can.”

Darren sighed. It was so like Krystof to take command in situations like these. Well, it was a sensible course of action, so he wouldn't object. He spun around in his seat, entering the coordinates into the ships' computer, and started the autopilot. The ship turned around, away from the black expanse of nothingness, to face a cluster of bright stars.

A thought struck him.

“Hey Krystof?”

The other didn't respond. He was probably already down in the engine room. Well, it would be foolish to rush towards their goal. Christmas Planet could be dangerous: It probably was, judging from its location in uncharted regions. Neither himself nor Krystof had the equipment they needed for serious combat, and even if they did, there were only two of them.

“I can't believe I'm doing this...” Darren said to himself. “Well, there'll be enough treasure for everyone, I guess.”

He reached the keyboard of the control panel, and fed it the coordinates for the Intergalactic Battle Academy.

Two.

“Careful with those explosives. You've got to be gentle.”

“Don't worry, I've got this.”

Maximus looked on anxiously as his companion climbed out of the airlock, wearing the old suit he had patched up himself. He hoped it would hold. Virtually everything on the entire ship had been repaired at least once, but it was different with a suit: A suit didn't have any back-ups. If it failed...

Andromeda seemed to be doing fine, though. He saw her do the thumbs up before she climbed up on top of the ship, disappearing from sight. When she next appeared, she was floating gracefully through empty space, holding a cable. She had calculated the jump carefully – moments later, she slammed into the wreckage. Maximus breathed a sigh in relief – at least the easy part was over.
“All right, Andy, do you hear me?” he said into the microphone on the control panel.

“Loud and clear.” came a distorted reply. “I'm setting down the charges now.”

“Make sure you attach the cable.”

“Already have.”

There was no noise, of course. Maximus just saw the explosions light up, and then the airlock doors of the wrecked spaceship collapsed. He sent a thought to the poor bastards who had been on board – to die in space wasn't a pleasant fate.

“I'm going in.” came Andromeda's voice from his speakers.

She was already climbing across the hull of the ship, reaching the destroyed doors and disappearing inside. He hated this part: The waiting. “Roger that.” he responded, and leaned backwards, trying to distract himself.

He settled for practising a little of the old Earth languages he was studying. Closing his eyes, he mumbled the words one by one, slowly, so they would last for a while. Minutes went by.

“You okay, Andy?”

“I'm fine. Already on my way back.”

He opened his eyes, and saw her float through space – holding the cable in one hand and a metal briefcase in the other. She disappeared from sight, and he stared in anticipation at the airlock. After a little while, it opened.

Andromeda was a tall woman, much taller than himself – much taller than most men, in fact, and powerfully built: The fact that the briefcase caused her to stagger a little against the artificial gravity meant it probably was rather heavy. She dragged it into the cockpit, and just ruffled his hair as he tried to help her with it.

“Let's just open it here, Max, all right?”

He nodded, and cleared away some space on the small desk. Andromeda set the briefcase down, and opened it – it wasn't locked.

A strange green light emerged from inside, illuminating the both of them. They stared at the contents, trying to make sense of what it meant.

“Are these... coordinates?” asked Maximus.

“You know, I think they are."

“For what? What could possibly be so important that you use a whole computer just to store the coordinates?”

The answer to the question struck them both at once.

One

Space. The final frontier. A vast ocean of nothingness, an inky black expanse between the distant stars, a big, stupendous, amazingly-sized enormous huge giant infinity of stuff.

Darren didn't like it. It made him feel uneasy.

He stood staring out from the ship's bridge, the only illumination being the green light from the screens of his computer. He couldn't see a damn thing out there, which was very disconcerting, because it meant there wasn't anything there to see.

Tearing his eyes away from the glass, he turned instead to the screen of the computer. Even out here, there were fortunately ways to keep busy. He could perhaps play a game or something, to keep himself from going crazy. He sat down by one of the monitors, ready to start up a program – any program, really – when he noticed a little flashing symbol in the corner of the screen.

“Huh. That's odd. What's this do again?” he thought to himself, pulling it up to full-screen.

Moments later, he was hurtling down the corridor. “Krystof! Krystof! Wake up!”

He tore open the door to his companions' quarters, and the other man jerked awake, confusedly trying to untangle himself from his sheets. He grabbed a gun from the bedside table, and leaped out of bed, still wearing his sleep mask.

“What? What? Are we being attacked?”

“Whoa, Krystof, careful! Don't wave that thing around.”

The other man angrily tugged the blindfold from his face, throwing it aside. He blinked at the sudden change in light, shielding his face with his gun arm.

“Jesus, Darren, don't you know how to knock? Don't startle me like that.”

“I'm sorry, it's just... Come on. You've got to see this.”