The Cosmic Mystery of Orion Station

Through the panoramic window of the Orion III space station, the entire Milky Way was visible. The station orbited quietly around Saturn, its rings glowing like a rainbow haze. Lena, Julek and Niko sat in the control centre, playing with a model rocket and snacking on freeze-dried ice cream. They had been best friends forever and their parents worked on the station as scientists. There was a strange silence on Orion that day - not even the clatter of robots cleaning the corridors could be heard. "Can you feel it?" - Lena asked, glancing at the communications panel. "It's like... something's gone off here. Let's check the systems." Julek flicked a few buttons and furrowed his brow. "Hey, look! Sector 17 isn't responding. That's where the labs are." Niko glanced at the station map. "That's where Dad is working on the new oxygen plant!" - he worried. The friends packed their torches and toolkit and set off through the deserted corridors. Lights flashed and automatic doors opened with a slight delay. The closer they got to Sector 17, the more they could feel the tension. Suddenly, Lena stopped and showed something on the floor - glowing, purple footprints led to an unused hatch. Julek turned pale. "These are not human footprints..." Niko knelt by the manhole. "Someone, or something, went in there. What do we do?" There was silence all around, and behind the narrow hatchway waited a secret that could change everything. Lena swallowed her saliva and looked at her friends. "We decide now: do we go on, or do we go back?" At the same moment, the hatch creaked open and....