CHAPTER 1 – The Crash on Orpheon-3
The first thing Lieutenant Rei Calder tasted when she regained consciousness was metal—cold, rusty metal on her tongue. The second thing was blood.
Her ears rang with a high-pitched frequency, like a broken comms unit refusing to die. As she forced her eyes open, a ceiling of warped steel stared back at her. The emergency lights flickered weakly, painting the interior of the crashed shuttle in pulses of crimson.
We’re not supposed to be here.
Orpheon-3 wasn’t even on their route.
“Calder! Rei, are you conscious?” Captain Darius Holt’s voice cut through the static, rough but unmistakably alive. He pushed debris aside and knelt beside her, his left arm bleeding through a torn sleeve.
Rei tried to sit up. Pain shot through her ribs, sharp enough to make her vision blur. “What… happened?”
“Gravitational spike. Something pulled us out of hyperslip,” Darius said. “Our engines shut down before we could compensate. We crash-landed.” He exhaled, glancing toward the broken cockpit. “And we’re not alone.”
Rei tensed. “Survivors?”
“Yes. And something else.”
He helped her stand. The floor was tilted at a dangerous angle, cracked open in places where the hull had folded like paper. Sparks snapped from exposed wires. Beyond the shattered front window, Rei saw a landscape painted in the colors of another world.
A crimson sky.
A sea of stone dunes glowing faintly.
A forest of jagged monoliths stretching into the horizon like broken teeth.
Orpheon-3—a planet marked uninhabitable on all star charts.
Rei swallowed. “How many crew?”
“Five confirmed alive. Two missing. One… gone.” Darius didn’t need to say more.
A low hum vibrated through the ground—so deep Rei felt it in her bones. It wasn’t mechanical. It wasn’t natural either. Something was moving beneath the surface.
“Captain…” she whispered. “This planet is not dead.”
Darius grabbed a plasma rifle from the emergency rack. “Which means we move quickly.”
They forced open the main hatch. Hot, dry air rushed in, carrying the scent of iron and something slightly sweet—like flowers left too long under the sun.
The crash site was a crater, still steaming. Shattered metal and burning fuel spread across the sand. The remaining crew gathered: Engineer Mira Kovac, medic Juno Vélez, pilot Carter Rehn, and scout Lyo Ashen—each bruised, ash-covered, but breathing.
Carter stared at the dunes with wide, fearful eyes. “I—I picked up signals before the comms died. Something was scanning us.”
“Local wildlife?” Mira asked, though her voice trembled.
“No life signs detected,” Lyo muttered, checking his visor. “But this entire region is radioactive in unusual patterns. It’s not decaying naturally. It’s… rhythmic. Like a pulse.”
“Artificial?” Darius asked sharply.
“Possibly.”
A sudden tremor rippled through the sand.
Everyone froze.
Another tremor followed—stronger. The dunes shifted like liquid. Mira’s scanner beeped wildly.
“Movement under us!” she shouted.
“Form up!” Darius barked.
The ground burst open.
A geyser of crimson dust erupted as something enormous lunged upward—a creature shaped like a centipede forged from stone. Plates of obsidian armor clacked together as it uncoiled, easily the size of the shuttle wreck. Its mandibles glowed with molten heat.
Rei raised her rifle. “Hostile incoming!”
The creature screeched, the air vibrating with the intensity of seismic waves.
The team scattered.
A swipe of its plated tail knocked Carter off his feet. He slid across the sand, gasping as he clutched his shoulder. Juno ran after him.
Rei fired a burst of plasma. The shots ricocheted off its armor, leaving only cracks of glowing orange.
“It’s shielded!” she yelled.
“No,” Darius corrected. “It’s evolving.”
The cracks Rei created began to glow brighter—as if the creature absorbed the heat instead of taking damage.
“That’s impossible!” Mira shouted.
“It’s adapting to energy signatures,” Lyo added. “Don’t use plasma!”
But it was too late. The creature lunged at Rei, pulled by the last shot she fired. She dove aside, feeling the heat of its mandibles scorch her arm guard.
Darius threw an electromagnetic grenade beneath its torso. The explosion released a silent shockwave. The creature convulsed violently, its plates flickering with blue distortion.
It wasn’t killed.
But stunned.
“Move!” Darius shouted. “Into the monolith forest! Now!”
They sprinted across the sand, the creature thrashing behind them as it slowly recovered.
The monoliths loomed like titanic ruins—towering slabs covered in geometric markings. Rei didn’t recognize any known alien architecture.
As they entered the forest of stone towers, the temperature dropped sharply. The hum beneath the ground grew louder, more deliberate.
Rei touched one of the monoliths. The moment her fingers brushed the stone, a holographic ripple flickered—lines of light tracing ancient circuits.
“Captain…” she whispered, breathless. “These aren’t rocks.”
Darius approached, eyes narrowing. “Then what are they?”
“A message,” Lyo murmured. “Or a warning.”
A sudden pulse surged through the monoliths. The symbols brightened, forming a pattern, then stabilizing into a single image—a world exploding, fractured into pieces.
Mira stepped back, horrified. “Oh god…”
Rei felt her chest tighten. “This planet wasn’t abandoned. It was destroyed.”
Behind them, the creature shrieked again—closer now.
Darius steadied his rifle, jaw clenched. “This is a battlefield. A graveyard. And whatever annihilated this place might still be here.”
Rei locked eyes with him.
“Then we survive,” she said.
The monoliths pulsed again—this time projecting coordinates deep into the planet’s interior.
A message meant for the last survivors.
Or the next victims.
