Coma

We send some robots to some distant planet, fully intelligent artificial intelligence. They go there, observe the planet, measure every single physical variable on the planet and thus declare it safe and habitable. We send a bunch of scientist and their families to set up the first colonies and they land successfully and set up the first human civilization on board a super-earth. 

As the scientist settle on this beautiful planet they keep on exploring with their robots after a brief period of acclimatization. 

The one day on their expedition one of the scientist, Julia became ill for some unknown reasons. She suddenly fainted on the field and was taken for medical examination. 

Her illness was very puzzling to everyone, the radiation levels of the planet were equivalent to what was on earth, all viruses and pathogens were no much different from what was on earth too. 

After extensive medical tests including levels of radiation in her body, it was still found that it was no different from her normal levels. 

The area she fainted in and all the pathways she took towards the end of her path were mapped and studied and still no sign of anything. They still ended up setting up monitors to find out if some external wave of radiation, pathogens or any other thing could be the cause of her illness. 

After suspending the expedition for weeks of the planets time which was equivalent to several months of earth time, they resumed their search and there were no extra emergencies. But Julia was still in the coma, with all her vital signs intact and with sort of a permanent smile on her face. 

Although her daughter was worried about the fate of her mum, she was consoled by this smile on her face and knew that she would be having pleasant dreams wherever she was.

After about a month, Rob, an african scientist also fell unconscious at a different location too for unknown causes. All this while monitorings were going on at the old site to no avail, nothing was yet found. 

Rob was taken to the medical center and was placed under intensive care. But no sign damage was found anywhere in his system and his vitals were still normal.

The main shock came when shortly after Rob fainted, one of the robots that was their guide Alex also passed out and was literally switched off.

This was the greatest puzzle ever, because it was clear that Alex was a bot and not flesh and blood, so how could it be that he was affected by whatever was going on. From now on it was clear that this was not caused by a pathogen, since an electromagnetic monitoring system was set up around the entire perimeter, there was no surge of energy within the vicinity.

The team had parked their spaceship outside the planet in orbit and now they sent a small team to visit one of the planets 3 satellites for the observation of the surface. This was part of the mission, to set up camp on the main planet and join the other robots on the satellites which were also habitable and almost earth size. 

As they entered their shuttle and shut up out of the planet, they hit and invisible barrier which crashed their spaceshuttle. Owing to the superior design of their vehicle, the were safe and unharmed after the crash. 

They were rescued and the puzzle of the crash kept on twisting their minds. The robots had observed everything and sent all the data to the humans on earth before the journey and nothing dangerous was observed in data. 

Suspicion then grew against the robots, could they be hiding something? Since they were fully intelligent creatures could they be desiring to take over the planet from humans and make it their own?

The suspicion for the robots on the team further slowed down progress in solving the puzzles of their alien world.

The robots were asked to submit themselves for a thorough scan of their minds, and all but one, Alice refused to be violated and ran away. This proved clearly that she might be responsible for the troubles and she put Alex out maybe to take away suspicion from themselves. 

So the search was on for her, and it was concluded that if she was found, the problem would be solved. So most of the team left camp leaving Julia's daughter to care for the 3 who were at the medical center. At 16 she was already a medical doctor so she knew the drill.

The search for Alice took the scientist across the landscape, which was breathtakingly beautiful but their desperation to find Alice the bot took over so much of their minds that they did not spend time to savor the beauty. So on the wen and after a few months on the trail, feeding off the landscape, which provided fruits much different from that of earth, but was tested to safe and nontoxic for human consumption.

While the journey was proceeding slowly, following trails on the ground because Alice had turn off her tracking, one of the robots went off again. This increased the sympathy of the humans for the bots in their team. They now could see clearly that the assailant would stop at nothing to render the team ineffective.

After laying the bot down in a location that they could later come for him, maybe calling on air support from camp from the fully automated craft. 

With the tact of a hunter, the aussie scientist/ wild life enthusiast trailed Alice and cornered her into a nearby cave were she was apprehended with the help of the remaining bots on the team. 

She pleaded painfully when caught begging that her brain not be scanned, but despite all it was and since she did not have access to the protected levels of her mind, it was found out that the secret she was hiding was that she was in love with Rob. 

To the shock of everyone. The craft was summoned and they return to camp with the fallen bot. 

Exhausting all their theories, they settled to wait things out. Hoping that the coma would end for all their fallen comrades and Alice even resorted to prayers since all logic had failed. 

But Ivan the Russian physicist on the team who had been looked at as a crank for his unconventional ideas about nature had been working on some old partially completed Tesla project, the Tesla shield. He suspected that they were inside one of this shields and he was designing a rudimentary scanner that would prove his ideas right.

After working on his designs all the way on the expedition to find Alice, he had produced schematics that he believed could work so he started of printing it on his 3d printer. Since he was the last person working on anything that had any hope so far, he was listened to by his his comrades who had ran out of options. And they listened carefully as he related to them his design. Usually this would bring scorn and ridicule but this time around they even helped him work on the idea.

After a first trial it detected nothing on the monitor. Giving up and feeling betrayed by his mind, he flung the device away, but before it could reach the ground, Alice had sprung to its rescue and as she did, some contacts where reconnected in a different pattern and on the monitor they saw that they were withing an invisible energetic geodesic dome, much like the Tesla shield he was talking about but much more advanced. 

This was a major eureka moment for all. As soon as this was discovered, they could see that the shield above them fluctuated in a fixed pattern and could be predicted. The cause of the crash was discovered and it was also discovered random faintings were caused by a faulty power source causing the shield to colapse randomly within the dome. The scalar wave which was undetected by their equipment cause the seizure of regular conscious activities and put the body into a healthy coma with no sign of degeneration of the organs.

Knowing the problem they were facing, it was easier for the onboard AI to figure out how to solve the problems. First of all the device had to be found and decoded. This device would be obviously alien, but with the superintelligent AI, its design could be figured out very fast. Simultaneously the solution to the unconsciousness of both the humans and robots was being figured out rapidly.

The device was found and after thorough analysis was shielded because the technology it contained was so alien that they could not think of anyway to interfere with its functioning. With the shielding, the field collapsed and they were free.

Awakening the humans from their unconscious state required the construction of a device that best mimicked the scalar device that generated the field but one with an intensity that could safely be used to manipulate human consciousness as it executes in brain matter. 

The device worked successfully and all the unconscious members of the expedition were safely awoken. The bots were tested completely and the integrity of their consciousness was ascertained. The humans were also tested and even scanned to see if any undesirable changes had occurred in their brains, but to the best of the machines and humans that performed the scanning, they were in top condition, or were they?

With the whole experience brought to a happy conclusion and the team ready to move on to their next mission this chapter in their lives was over. But what lay ahead? Only time could tell.

Ivan secretly told Rob about the findings they had discovered from the forced scanning of Alice's mind. Owing to his respect for her, he decided not to let her know he had being told about her crush on him. He waited for the natural unfoldment of events.