Once beyond the haze with the planet in view, his expectancy short-circuited. “Whoa!” he shouted. “Look at that! There’s no color. Everything’s black and white! It looks like something from an old-time movie.” “It’s a colorless planet,” Star advised, looking at a viewscreen image of black, white, and shades of gray draped in a ghostly silver mist. “It happened over time.” “Colorless?” he mumbled. Suddenly she cried out, “No, no!” and tapped on the keyboard with her eyes glued to the viewpanel. Bach slid in beside her and took over. He enlarged the image and his breath stopped for a moment. Colorful shards of a wrecked co-op ship lay scattered like confetti on the grayscale planet. A second ship nearby was unharmed. Star stared at the monitor, hardly able to speak. “One of our ships … crashed.” “The Rooks!” Bach pounded his fist on the console. She computerized an aerial scan. “There’s no Rook ship on the planet or airborne.” “Then they were here and left.”
