We're all here, staring at the chaos beyond the bridge's viewport. Kassian's wired by hardline into the ship, deep in its systems, barely moving except for the twitch of his fingers. Keira's pacing, her boots soft on the deck. I can feel Nora's unease, her eyes darting between the data feeds and the viewport.
I stand, hands gripping the railing, forcing myself to stay still. The ship thrums around us, a low vibration. The air feels heavy, like something's waiting.
"We're close," Kassian mutters. "Minutes away."
"Where?" My voice cuts through the quiet, too calm for how I feel.
Keira glances over, her optics flickering.
"Small Syndicate system," Kassian.
Keira stops pacing. I feel her eyes on me, but I keep staring through the viewport, the endless mess of fifth-dimensional space twisting in on itself. We've been here too long. My instincts are screaming, but I keep quiet. This is the calm before—always the calm before.
Kassian pulls us out of ultralight.
The view snaps into place. Cold. Clear. Space as it should be. I blink, my optics adjusting to the sudden shift, and there it is—a planet in the distance, green and blue. And then something else draws my attention. Ships. A fleet.
"Hell," Nora mutters under her breath.
The ships are too far to make out, but I know those colors—red and black. Syndicate. But... something's off.
"Talk to me, Kassian." My voice is sharp, and I don't take my eyes off the wreckage.
"It's not what you think."
Keira moves beside me, squinting at the distant shapes. "Then what is it?"
"Here." Kassian brings up the holoprojector, and the image flickers to life. The fleet. Syndicate ships, for sure. But they're not moving. They're dead—ripped apart, floating like tombstones in orbit.
"What the hell happened here?" Nora asks, her voice low, almost like she doesn't want to know the answer.
Kassian finally pulls out of the ship's interface, blinking as he adjusts. "Looks like the Syndicate sent them after the Morningstar's signal. Bounty hunters, maybe. I'm guessing the Frame did it somehow, but they're not completely destroyed. There might still be some survivors."
The door suddenly slides open behind us, and Evander walks in, straight from the deep sleep pod. He steps up to the holo, his face unreadable, but I know him well enough by now to catch the tension in his jaw. He stops beside the display, arms crossed, like he's been here the whole time.
"What's on the planet?" he asks, straight to the point.
Kassian doesn't hesitate. "Minor world, but hospitable. Database says it has a few small settlements, but that's it."
But then his optics flicker, and I know something's wrong. He pulls up another image on the projector—a close-up of the planet's surface. There, in the middle of a dense jungle, is a massive, perfectly round pit.
"What is that?" Nora's voice is barely above a whisper. Keira's gaze sharpens, lips pressed tight.
Evander just stares at the holo, silent.
And then something hits me.
Pain tears through my neural matrix like a lightning strike, white-hot and unforgiving. My knees slam into the deck, the impact jarring, but the agony makes everything else fade to numbness. My hands claw at my head, desperate to shield my mind from the relentless, searing force invading every thought, every nerve—like a blazing storm that refuses to let go.
YOU ARE READING
Children of The Spheres
Ficção CientíficaIn the centuries following The Fraying, humanity has clawed its way back from the brink. In a galaxy fractured by conflict and guarded by fragile alliances, civilization thrives under a veneer of technological prowess, its people riddled with cyberw...
