Lost Nebula: An Astral Rites Novel

Caleb’s eyes snapped open to a symphony of chaos. Warning alarms shrieked through the cramped space while emergency lights painted everything in violent reds and oranges. Sparks erupted from the control panel above him, showering his helmet visor with orange embers that died against the reinforced glass.

He couldn’t move. The cockpit straps bit into his shoulders and chest, holding him suspended upside down in his pilot’s seat. Blood rushed to his head, making his temples throb with each heartbeat. The metallic taste of copper filled his mouth.

What happened? The question hammered against his skull as he fought to piece together fragments of memory. Launch sequence. Jupiter trajectory. Then... nothing.

A sharp pain lanced through his forehead. Something warm trickled down his scalp, pooling at his hairline before sliding past his eyebrow. He managed to raise one hand despite the restraints, fingers coming away crimson.

The instrument panel before him told a grim story. Half the displays flickered with error messages while the other half remained dead black. Electrical fires crackled behind broken panels, filling the air with acrid smoke and the ozone smell of fried circuits.

His breathing came fast and shallow, fogging the inside of his helmet. Panic clawed at the edges of his mind, but his training kicked in like muscle memory. Eight years military. Three years NASA. He’d survived worse than this.

Focus. Assess. Survive.

“Mission Control, this is Nebula One requesting a Sit Rep on all systems, do you copy?”

Static answered him. Nothing but the hiss of dead air through his comm system.

“Mission Control, this is Nebula One requesting a Sit Rep on all systems, i repeat, do you copy?”

The silence stretched on, broken only by the pop and crackle of dying electronics.

Caleb worked his fingers under the harness release mechanism. The buckles fought him for a moment before clicking free. He tumbled forward, catching himself against the instrument panel with both hands. His legs wobbled as blood flow returned to normal.

The flight deck felt smaller now, walls seeming to press inward. He moved toward the rear bulkhead, each step deliberate despite the spinning sensation in his head. Above the door leading to the mid deck, a maintenance panel hung slightly ajar. Inside, a ruggedized tablet nested beside a master key attached to a retractable cord.

The avionics bay access hatch groaned as he lifted it. The ladder rungs felt cold even through his gloves as he descended into the ship’s electronic heart. Banks of servers and communication equipment lined the narrow space, most showing damage from whatever had knocked them out of controlled flight.

“Mission Control, this is Nebula One, please respond.”

Still nothing. Were they orbiting Earth? Had they crashed into Europa or Ganymede? His last clear memory shows the FTL jump should have placed them three days out from Jupiter’s closest approach.

He worked methodically through the damaged systems, rerouting power where possible, bypassing burned-out circuits. After twenty minutes of improvised repairs, he managed to restore partial function to the external camera array. The heat shield controls responded sluggishly to his commands.

The shield mechanism whined as it began to retract, offering his first glimpse of the outside world since regaining consciousness. Metal groaned against twisted metal. Hydraulics hissed and stuttered. Then the system seized completely, leaving only a narrow gap between the shield plates.

Not enough to see anything useful.

Caleb climbed back to the flight deck, his head wound still seeping despite the clotting. Putting on his EVA suit and helmet the pre-EVA checklist ran through his mind automatically as he moved toward the airlock controls.

“Mission Control, this is Nebula One. Not sure if you can hear me, but I am exiting the ship to evaluate damage to the hull.”

The comm system offered only silence in return.

Caleb stood at the airlock, anticipation thrumming in his veins. As the bulkhead door creaked open, a blinding intensity surged through his visor, rendering him momentarily sightless. Instinctively, he shut his eyes, waiting for the spots of light to fade.

When he opened them again, disbelief gripped every part of him. The jungle before him was unlike anything he’d imagined. Vast trees towered overhead, their trunks thicker than the ancient redwoods of Earth and colored a peculiar shade of muted brown, reminiscent of petrified clay. Sunlight trickled through an alien canopy of leaves—every frond a vibrant shade of blue that mirrored the soft blue carpet of grass underfoot.

He blinked, half expecting it to vanish like a mirage. Space crafts weren’t supposed to land in jungles—especially ones with two suns. His mind raced as he tilted his head back to observe the twin orbs casting their light from opposite horizons. It felt like a cosmic puzzle, a wrong piece forced where it didn’t belong.

Panic clawed at his gut. “Am I hallucinating?” he murmured, his words almost swallowed by the breathable air around him. Was it oxygen deprivation, maybe?

He glanced at his wrist, where a screen pulsed with his vitals. Oxygen levels were stable, but the tank showed a stark quarter remaining. Cursing quietly, he muttered, “I’m dreaming. It has to be a dream—still in the cockpit, head throbbing from a concussion.”

He pinched his arm, hard. Nothing changed. The alien world remained, undisturbed and very real.

The wrist monitor beeped insistently. A quick glance showed his heart rate escalated, blood pressure spiking. “Calm down,” he whispered. Training steadied his breathing, an anchor in stormy seas.

His father’s voice echoed from memory, grounding him back to simpler times: “What’s rule number one, Caleb?”

Ever so confident, young Caleb’s voice answered, “Always trust your gut!”

He shook off the nostalgia, a renewed focus settling across his features. The landscape before him wasn’t a dream. The gut feeling solidified that truth.

“Huston...” His voice broke through the silence, laced with disbelief and awe. He didn’t know if they heard him—doubt or distance—but he continued. “...We have a problem.”

He took a tentative step, the ground shockingly real beneath his boots. Each leaf and blade of grass seemed to pulse with a life of their own, catching the light in waves of blue-green shimmer. He felt eyes on him, though the jungle remained still, save for an occasional breeze whispering through the leaves.

Pausing, he scanned the horizon, seeking any sign of familiar landmarks or the spaceship’s wreckage. Nothing but endless flora met his gaze. Beneath the serenity, tension simmered—unspoken threats lurking in the undergrowth.

Continue the story. He looked over his ship trying to see if anything was salvageable. all that was left was the front of the ship.

Caleb turned back toward his spacecraft, dread pooling in his stomach. The twisted metal that greeted him bore little resemblance to the sleek vessel he’d launched in. Only the nose cone and forward section remained intact, jutting from the blue grass like a metallic gravestone. The rest had simply vanished—no debris field, no scattered components, just an abrupt end where the hull should have continued.

He circled the wreckage, boots crunching on unfamiliar ground. The cockpit dangled at an awkward angle, its viewport spider-webbed with fractures. Navigation computers sparked intermittently through gaps in the hull plating. Emergency beacons blinked uselessly, their signals lost to whatever strange physics governed this place.

A rustle to his left made him flinch. Caleb’s mind snapped to survival mode, reminding him of the uncharted dangers such worlds might hold. He needed to find shelter soon, assess his priorities.

His vitals beeped again, urging caution. If he were to survive—oxygen tank dwindling—he needed strategy, not panic. Caleb glanced once more at the broken horizon, suns setting their paths ever so leisurely. There were answers here, about the world, his ship, and the reason behind it all.

Caleb set off, steps deliberate. Behind him, Nebula One lay silent, a metallic relic amidst the vibrant expanse.

Hours passed—or what felt like hours. Caleb’s boots crushed the blue grass beneath him as he pushed deeper into the alien wilderness. Tree after tree stretched endlessly before him, their clay-colored trunks forming an unbroken wall of bark and shadow. The canopy above swayed gently, filtering the twin suns’ light into dancing patterns across the forest floor.

Somewhere in the distance, a haunting trill echoed through the trees. Then another, higher pitched, answered from his left. Bird-like creatures, perhaps, though Caleb couldn’t be certain. If this world mirrored Earth’s evolutionary patterns, these jungles teemed with predators—creatures that might view a stranded astronaut as an exotic breakfast.

He glanced upward, squinting through the canopy at the twin suns. They hung in exactly the same positions as when he’d started walking. No lower, no shift in angle. The realization sent an uncomfortable chill down his spine.

“How long have I been walking?” he muttered, checking his wrist display. The chronometer showed three hours since leaving the wreckage, yet the suns remained frozen in their celestial dance.

Another trill, closer this time. Something rustled in the undergrowth to his right—a flash of movement that vanished before he could focus on it. Caleb quickened his pace, pushing through a tangle of vines that hung like curtains between the massive tree trunks.

The vines clung to his suit, their surfaces slick with moisture that beaded on his helmet. He fought through them, each step requiring more effort as they seemed to multiply around him. Sweat dripped down his forehead, fogging the interior of his visor.

A sharp beeping pierced his ears.

Caleb’s blood turned to ice. He jerked his wrist up, staring at the display in horror. The oxygen indicator flashed red—empty. Zero percent remaining.

“No, no, no!”

His breathing became labored, each inhalation requiring conscious effort. The beeping grew more insistent, drilling into his skull like an alarm clock from hell. Panic flooded his system as his lungs began to burn.

He clawed at the vines, desperate to break free from their embrace. His movements grew frantic, uncoordinated. The helmet felt like a suffocating cage, trapping him in recycled air that had run out minutes ago.

Two choices. Keep the helmet on and suffocate, or rip it off and hope this alien atmosphere wouldn’t sear his lungs. Either way led to death—one certain, one possible.

The beeping reached a crescendo. Black spots danced at the edges of his vision.

With trembling hands, Caleb fumbled for the helmet’s release mechanism. The safety locks disengaged with a soft hiss. He gripped the sides and twisted hard, the helmet coming free with a pop that echoed through the jungle.

Cool air rushed against his face. He gasped, expecting fire, poison, and death.

Instead, his lungs filled with strange, thin air that tasted faintly metallic. It wasn’t the rich oxygen he was accustomed to—more like breathing at high altitude—but it was breathable. His chest rose and fell in rapid, grateful gulps.

The relief was short-lived. The oxygen deprivation had taken its toll. His head spun violently, the jungle tilting and swaying around him. The blue grass seemed to pulse with each heartbeat, and the twin suns blurred into swimming orbs of light.

Caleb stumbled forward, his legs betraying him. The vines caught his fall, cradling him as he sank toward the alien ground. His eyelids grew heavy, the world fading to gray around the edges.

The last thing he heard before darkness claimed him was another trill, much closer now, followed by the soft whisper of movement through the blue grass.