The ruin planet was collapsing bit by bit. Before losing contact, probes that had risked entering the cracks in the crust sent back information indicating that this enormous mass of wreckage had a core with an astonishing energy signature. A series of complex support structures protected that core, preventing it from being damaged by the planet's immense internal pressure. In the region between the core and the upper mantle, there was extremely intense force-field interference. It was this interference that had prevented us from scanning the ruin planet's complex internal structure at first, making us mistake it for chaotic energy reactions produced by the massive amount of wreckage deep within the planet. Now, however, the core's energy source seemed to have lost control. It was rapidly releasing energy, destroying its own support structures and slowly separating the gigantic wreckage that made up the planet's main body. The energy accumulated in the mantle gradually spilled out onto the surface, leaping through the highly conductive ship wreckage scattered there and forming an interference belt above the planet equivalent to several times the thickness of an atmosphere. This interference belt was not particularly harmful to living beings, but it almost completely blocked the rescue fleet's life-detection equipment. The scanning echoes from the surface were nothing but a chaotic mass of garbled data.
Less than twenty-four hours remained for this planet. Yode had mentioned ancient "knowledge" earlier. That record had marked the ruin planet's instability and stated that when something began to sink, the planet would lose balance and gradually disintegrate. This process had a twenty-four-hour prelude. According to the Timeline our ships had obtained by measuring the rate at which the ruin planet's structural strength was declining, the figure was nearly identical.
"We have to find a way to evacuate the civilians on