With her remaining strength, she manually steered the submarine toward the borehole she had created on the way down. It was a race against time.

She possessed skin that could withstand extreme radiation and eyes that could see in the infrared spectrum. Her mind was a biological supercomputer, capable of calculating complex orbital mechanics in milliseconds. Yet, despite her artificial origin, Jackie possessed a deeply human curiosity.

After hours of tense descent, the Abyssus broke through the ice into the liquid ocean. It was a world of absolute darkness, illuminated only by the submarine's powerful floodlights. Jackie steered the craft deeper, guided by sonar and her own intuition.

At a depth of five miles, the sensors detected something extraordinary. It was a hydrothermal vent, spewing warm, mineral-rich water into the freezing ocean. And clustered around the vent were life forms unlike anything ever seen on Earth.

As she prepared to return to the surface, a sudden shift in the ocean currents slammed the Abyssus against a rock formation. The hull breached, and freezing water began to spray into the cabin. The ship's systems began to fail one by one.

Her spacecraft, the Seeker , was a marvel of fusion-powered engineering. For three years, it hurtled through the silent void of space. Jackie spent the long journey maintaining the ship, analyzing data, and dreaming of the mystery that awaited her.