It has been 83 days since we received orders from NASA Central Command to explore the origins of a mysterious telepathic transmission from a region of space, which has never been visited or inhabited. It has been 6 days since we crash landed on a massive, monstrous sentient planet. It has also been 6 days since we lost contact with our engineer, Smolder. And 6 days since this planet has begun trying to destroy us.

It has been 2 days since our initial encounter with the alien warrior Ominous, and 2 days since the death of Captain Noble and our lead pilot Aphelion. And it has been a day since we’ve learned that our ship’s counselor no longer possesses her hyper-abilities. During our confrontation with Ominous, Euphoria attempted to nullify him with a calming aura, but the dreadful warrior detected her presence and hit her with a blast of dark energy. Ominous agreed to spare her life, once Noble and Aphelion agreed to give up their own. Their sacrifice also persuaded the planet to cease its onslaught of elemental attacks. However, if we harvest any more resources from the planet – food, water, fuel, anything – it is clear that we will be attacked once again.

With Ominous and the planet finally allowing us a reprieve, we have been able to ascertain the full extent of the injuries we’d suffered. My injuries are minimal. The same is true for our communications officer, Placebo. We, however, were the exceptions. HyperThrust, Wavelength and Powerline have sustained severe injuries. Doctor Robotica is also badly hurt, but her duty as medical specialist has forced her to work through the discomfort as she tends to the others. Furthermore, while the immortal Marco Crux and the nearly invincible Chief Two Strike sustained minimal damage, it is clear that their minds are beginning to crack. Crux grows more and more frustrated that his god-like powers cannot save us all, and Chief Two Strike is grief stricken by the dire condition of his sister, Euphoria. She’s drained, emaciated, tattered, and falling in and out of consciousness, as she rambles incoherently about kings, queens, rooks, knights and pawns – a far cry from the majestic persona she once embodied.

Euphoria was actually born a princess in a reclusive indigenous Sioux tribe, located in South Dakota. The Lakota people stem from the bloodlines of noble warriors and chiefs, and Euphoria is a direct descendant of Chief Sitting Bull. Though many of the traditional titles and statuses are no longer officially recognized, she was still respected among her people as royalty from a very young age. But her lineage was not the only reason people bowed before her, or fell silent whenever she entered a room. It was also because of her insanely potent hyper-ability.

She was born with the power to tap into the part of the brain that maintains homeostasis, which is a living entity’s ability to sustain physical, chemical, and emotional balance. This includes body temperature, hunger, blood pressure, and levels of hormones in the circulation, as well as stress levels and bodily rhythms like the night-time secretion of melatonin.

In my experience, her powers usually manifested as a calming aura emanating from her being, which she most commonly employed as a means of relieving extreme stress or duress in others. As you can imagine, it’s very useful on a space-faring starship. But while the calming affects of her hyper-ability are the most notable, make no mistake, her powers were able to be weaponized. She could subdue almost any living entity with her aura, rendering them powerless against her advanced fighting and weapons techniques; or she could induce a state of uncontrollable panic in her adversaries, driving them literally out of their minds.

By the time she was 15 years old, her brother had taken the mantle of Chief and primary protector of the vast Sioux Sanctum region of the US, west of Platinum City around the Dakotas. Chief Two Strike had also begun working as a well-known superhero throughout the world. But he was most protective over Euphoria, and thus, despite her clear ability to defend herself, Chief Two Strike rarely allowed her to leave the Sanctum without a vanguard.

However, on her 21st birthday, both of them would be recruited to go further from home than either could have ever imagined. While building the Stratalight, Placebo, Powerline and Captain Noble needed a unique device called a Hyper Modulator Unit, which is what allows our powers to interface with the ship. The only individual on the planet who had such a device was Chief Two Strike. The trio visited him, told him about the ship, and made a lucrative deal to relieve him of the HMU. But once Euphoria caught wind that NASA Central Command officials were in her home, she introduced herself, and petitioned them to accept her as a potential crew member for the Stratalight. Her advanced combat skills, as well as her unique hyper-abilities, combined with her psychology degree from the widely respected Sioux University, made her the perfect candidate for the position of starship counselor.

Captain Noble eagerly agreed to expedite her application process, and since she was 21 years old, Chief Two Strike could not forbid her from joining up. What he COULD do was join up with her. And so they both became employees of NASA, and eventually members of the Stratalight crew. Euphoria has acquitted herself admirably, and her hyper-abilities have, of course, been invaluable.

But now we’ve found ourselves in the most terrifying situation imaginable, and it has become apparent that Euphoria’s powers are gone. Chief Two Strike has not left her side since the dark energy incident, except for the periodic fits of rage in which he thrashes about the ship, and screams to the gods of his people. Within a few minutes he’s back by her side. Both Doctor Robotica (from a meta-physiological standpoint) and Placebo (from a psionic standpoint) have been trying everything imaginable to restore her abilities, but nothing has worked. I am not one hundred percent sure if Euphoria herself realizes what has happened, but in her waking moments she is paranoid and afraid. Those are two sensations that would usually remain nullified by her hyper-abilities, so I suspect she is pretty aware of her condition.

For someone born with a hyper-ability, abruptly losing that hyper-ability is tantamount to a regular human abruptly losing the ability to hear or see. Euphoria has lost the ability to feel. But that’s not all. HyperThrust has lost his mother. Chief Two Strike has lost his faith. Captain Noble and Aphelion have lost their lives. Marco Crux is losing his sanity. We are all losing hope….

Damn this planet. Damn it to hell.

‍