Chapter 1
Another day, another war.
This one was called the War of Nauun. The locals claimed it was a divine mandate. From my cloaked observation pod hanging in Taum’s high atmosphere, it looked like a particularly vicious land dispute. My screen was a mess of heat signatures, red and orange blobs clashing and fading. I was supposed to be tagging tactical patterns for my report. My mind was on the coffee substitute brewing in the corner of my pod. It tasted like acidic mud(disgusting), but it was the only thing keeping me awake.
The _Voyager 3 Delta_ paid me to watch. Junior Cultural Analyst. It sounded important. It meant I was a professional voyeur. The Earth Colonial Authority called it “non-invasive study.” I called it a paycheck. A small one. Not nearly enough to buy my way out of the corporate indentured service program that got me this gig in the first place.
A flicker on the screen. A glitch. The wide-angle view of the battle dissolved, and the focus snapped against all protocols, onto a single heat signal. It was moving faster than the others, a white-hot needle stitching through the chaotic tapestry of the fight. The system auto-tagged it. `Subject: Ygdrill. Clan: Graun. Status: Active Combatant. _
I sighed and went to reset the view. My hand stopped.
He was a storm of controlled violence. Bronze skin gleaming under the pale sun, covered in a history of tattoos I couldn’t read but understood instinctively. They weren’t decorations; they were a testament. A record of kills, of journeys, of survival. Metal rings glinted along the curve of his ear, in his eyebrow. He wielded a blade of dark, polished stone that should have been crude. But in his hands, it was like a katana, precise, smooth and sharp.
My job was to note tactical efficacy. So, I watched him. Closely.
He moved with a calculated motion that was terrifying. A pivot, a feint, a strike. He didn’t waste a single breath. A warrior from the northern clan lunged at him with a spear. Ygdrill didn’t block. He flowed around the thrust, grabbed the shaft, and used the man’s momentum to pull him onto the point of his own blade. It was so brutally efficient. He grinned then, a flash of white teeth in the dust and blood, and my heart did a stupid, fluttering thing against my ribs.
A proximity alert blared. One of my sensor drones was drifting into the kill zone. Protocol demanded an immediate recall. I’d have to justify the loss in a report. More paperwork.
I hit the override and pushed the drone closer. I needed a better visual. For the report(obviously).
The high-res feed sharpened. I could see the tension in his jaw, the absolute focus in his eyes. This wasn’t rage. It was a kind of concentrated, focused peace. The console chimed again. Not an alert this time. An internal command.
`Lemon. Bio-metrics show elevated heart rate and pupil dilation. Are you observing a new weapon? Do you require backup? - Evans._
My supervisor. Of course. The ECA monitored everything. Even my goddamn pupils. I typed a reply, my fingers cold.
`Negative. No new weapons. Subject Ygdrill’s combat patterns are highly dynamic. Stress response from focused analysis.`
A lie.
`Acknowledged. Log the patterns. And Lemon... Prime Directive 7. Observe. Do not interfere. Do not become involved. Contamination is a terminal offense. - Evans out._
The screen went dark. Terminal offense. They meant getting fired. Maybe jailed. On Earth, that was a death sentence. Here, it was just a different kind of end.
I looked back at the viewport. The battle was over. The Graun had won. Ygdrill stood amidst the carnage, his dark blade planted in the soil, his chest heaving. He scanned the field, then his gaze lifted to the sky. It wasn’t a look of victory. It was a search. His eyes narrowed, scanning the empty blue, and for a single second, I felt it—goosebumps formed on my arm. Like he was looking right through the stealth tech, right at me.
It was impossible. A trick of the light. My imagination.
But the feeling stuck.
_Observe. Do not become involved._
My hands moved on their own. I isolated the last few minutes of footage, found the perfect frame. Ygdrill, standing tall, the tattoos on his torso a story I suddenly, desperately wanted to read. The file name blinked.
I didn’t save it to the official database.
I saved it to a private drive. `Project_Zero.jpg`.
On the screen, Ygdrill turned away, barking orders at his men to reorganize the troops.
But in the silence of my pod, the first domino had fallen. I’d just committed my first act of interstellar treason. And the worst part was, it didn’t feel like treason at all. It felt like the first real thing I’d done in years.
