The ship's low hum and the harsh glare of flashing red lights caught Kael Ryn by surprise. He struggled to sit up, his heart racing, and his lungs were burning from the stale air. Something was wrong. Kael stumbled out of the cryopod with his legs shaking beneath him as the lid hissed open. As the ship gently swayed, he steadied himself by grasping the pod's edge. Fragments of his training surfaced as he stumbled his way through the ship's pitch-black corridors. He recalled his mother's advice, "Don't trust what you see." The truth is always just beyond the horizon." Now that he was confronted with the eerie silence and malfunctioning equipment, he wondered if she had been announcing something else. He had always assumed she meant it literally. Broken equipment and consoles littered the bridge. The walls were shadowed in an eerie way by a weakly flickering crack in the hologram. On the display, a star system unlike any he had ever seen slowly spun. The coordinates flashed in a strange

As Kael descended into the crater valley where the Erevan had smashed into the ground, the Exile Prime winds howled through the jagged cliffs. The ship's charred hull stood as a reminder of a past no one could remember. It had a twisted skeleton that was half covered in dust and silence. With his boots slamming into the shattered metal as he stepped through the shattered entry hatch, Kael The charred interior was illuminated by the lights from his wrist beacon. A tomb, this was once the lifeline of his mother's crew. He whispered, "Erevan logs, power on," and ordered. a glimmer. Later, static. The internal systems' faint hum came to life. A terminal on the command deck sputtered, and Kael rushed over. Due to decades of exposure, the data had become fragmented and corrupted. However, the entry titled "Final Broadcast" remained intact. He utilized it. The ship was filled with the tired and frantic voice of a woman. “This is Commander Yara Solari of the Erevan. To anyone who finds this,

Kael followed the signal past the cliffs and into the rocky spine of the planet, where the landscape became darker and narrower. Exile Prime's surface was etched with sheer canyon walls and shadowed ravines that began as barren dust plains. Kael examined the wristpad. The coordinates pulsed steadily, guiding him further into unfamiliar ground. He descended carefully into one of the larger chasms, his boots crunching on gravel and fractured stone. His suit lights' dim light led the way as the sun vanished behind the high ridges above. The ravine echoed strangely, his own movements or something else entirely? Deep in the canyon, Kael noticed strange patterns along the walls. Symbols sharp, angular, and unlike any Earth-based language—were carved directly into the rock. He reached out to touch one, and a low hum vibrated through his gloves. His wristpad was blinking. The symbols weren’t just decoration; they responded to him. Further ahead, remnants of machinery littered the path. Unde

Through the mountain pass, Exile Prime's gentle winds whispered like echoes of long-forgotten voices. Kael was standing at the edge of a deep ravine, where the sharp rocks below caught glimpses of the twin moons above. Although he had become accustomed to the planet's stillness, which held secrets rather than peace, the silence was unsettling. Kael's motivation had changed when he came across his encoded logs in the Erevan wreckage. He had a path, albeit a murky and perilous one, and he was no longer lost and aimless. He was now guided by her calm and determined voice in the recordings. She had known more than she ever told him. She had anticipated this. But why? The map she'd left led Kael to the jagged ridge known as The Divide. The data indicated that a previous communications relay station was concealed within the mountain's walls. He might be able to communicate with someone or learn more about what his mother had kept hidden if it still worked. The oxygen levels in his suit rem

The corridor wound its way through the center of Exile Prime like a gold thread. The air around Kael and Nyra, who were hovering close, shimmered with memory rather than heat as they moved. There wasn't just rock on the walls. They were screens that displayed time fragments. places, faces, and voices from long ago. This was more than just a road. It was a calendar. He was also at the center of it all. Each step Kael took echoed louder than the last. Not in sound, but in meaning. Not only was he moving forward, but he was also delving deeper into the life that his mother had left behind and the secrets that she had guarded. The corridor led to a chamber unlike any Kael had seen. A platform that floated above nothingness was framed by towering light pillars. Space twisted beneath it like a whirlpool of stars. A huge, pulsating, and alive crystalline sphere floated just above the platform. Nyra spoke more subtly than usual. “That’s a Memory Core central to the Veil. Selene's research, th