2025-08-11 18:25:09
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The Link
DEVON’S POVMy finger hovers on the trigger. Just a few ounces of pressure, and this ends.But I can’t.Ez’s eyes catch the emergency lighting like shattered glass catching fire and each shard reflecting red, each pupil split into precise, unnatural geometry. A design no human body should carry. And yet, past the alien fracture, I still see the kid who hauled me out of that Devourer snare on Europa Station.Still the kid who slid me half his last ration pack when we were pinned down for 3 days. “Devon.”Dr. Aveline’s voice slices through my hesitation. Not sharp enough to cut it clean, but enough to remind me she’s watching.“What’s your assessment?”Assessment. Sure. Like this is some neat little briefing over coffee instead of me aiming a rifle at my friend’s face.The flicker of the red emergency lights tugs me somewhere else. Dad’s workshop, back on the farm before the war. Lantern glow spilling over half-finished repairs on the workbench. The hiss of rain on the barn roof.
The Voice in the Dark
“Ez? You with us?”Kira’s voice is the first thing I hear, thin and sharp through a fog thick enough to drown in. I’m on the floor of Lab Seven, staring up at lights so bright they feel like needles punching into my eyes.“What… happened?” My throat’s dry. I push myself upright. Devon is crouched beside me, weapon still in hand but aimed at the floor. Dr. Aveline slumped against her workstation, skin ashen, knuckles white around the edge of the desk.“You were connected for seventeen minutes,” Aveline says, voice low and uneven. “We couldn’t break the link.”I blink at her. “What do you mean couldn’t?”Devon glances at her, then at me. “You started speaking their language. Not just words. We could feel what they meant… in our heads.”Memory crashes back in shards—the network. Billions of voices braided into one. Something vast and patient was watching me, learning.“I remember.” I stand slowly, testing my balance. “It showed me things.”“What kind of things?” Aveline asks.“The way
Contact
DR. AVELINE’S POVThe alien voice is still clinging to the walls when I drag Ezren down to Lab Seven.It’s in my ears, in my bones, the way a bad song loops even after the speakers go dead.“Dr. Aveline, wait…” He digs his heels in, sneakers squeaking on polished tile. “What exactly are we doing down here?”“What we should’ve done weeks ago.” I don’t slow, don’t look back. Three levels underground, my fingers fly over the keypad. The steel door blinks green, and the first lock hisses open. “Sixteen hours, Ezren. That’s all the time we’ve got before those probes hit the atmosphere.”The corridor swallows us deeper with each checkpoint, retina scan, heartbeat signature, and a metal bite against my palm for DNA. The air smells colder here, filtered through systems that haven’t seen daylight in years.Devon leans toward the last scanner, the red beam dragging across his eyes. “Doc, this is overkill. What’s hiding down here that needs this much paranoia?”“Our future,” I say simply. “If
The Last Vote
Seventeen minutes.My fingers work the manual thruster controls like I’ve done this a thousand times before. The pod jolts at every correction burn, the vibration crawling up my arms into my teeth.“Come on… come on,” I mutter, nudging the course away from the planet’s pull. The nav display curves, just enough to stop being a death sentence.Outside, station debris streaks past. Twisted panels, shards of glass, like the angry scatter from a busted hive.“There,” I breathe, watching our path slowly curve away from the planet’s gravity well. “Got it.”Rynn checks his scope, nods once. “Stable trajectory. We’re clear.”My shoulders sag. For the first time in hours, I notice Chen’s breathing sounds less like a rattle. The medbay’s synthetic blood is already putting some color back in his paper-white skin. Kid’s built from tougher stuff than he looks.Twelve hours later, we’re back.***The underground HQ hums with a kind of order that’s only skin-deep. Techs hunch over consoles, face
Narrow Escape
Forty-five seconds.The floor drops out from under us. Not a clean drop, but a stomach-twisting shudder that sends my weight pitching sideways.Chen’s gurney rolls toward the fractured wall. I dive, fingers hooking the frame before it smashes into jagged metal. The kid’s eyes snap wide. He is more awake now, but his skin is the color and texture of wet paper.“Move!”The word tears out of me over the shrieking alarms.Along the corridor, the magnetic rails thrum to life, low at first, then a bone-deep vibration that creeps up through my boots and plants itself in my chest.Overhead, the bulkhead plates groan like a wounded animal, grinding against each other as the station’s frame fights to stay whole.Thirty-eight seconds.Kira rams the gurney forward, IV bag swaying wildly. Chen’s got a death grip on the side rail, his knuckles the color of bone.“Stay with me,” she murmurs, but her voice shakes like it’s on borrowed strength.The blood’s still seeping through his bandages. Each bu
The Core Breach
Thirty-five seconds.The sentry’s red eye slices across the corridor. One blink, then another. Click, click, as it scans, hunting. Chen’s weight drags on my shoulder. Kid’s limp now. The bandages Kira threw on earlier are soaked through, blood warm against my jacket, creeping down my side. Feels like he’s pouring out faster than I can hold him in.“Devon!” My voice bounces off the walls, jagged.He’s already at the blast door controls, fingers hammering the interface like it insulted his mother. Hydraulic groan’s getting louder, but the gap is still just wide enough for a single desperate person.Twenty-eight seconds.The sentry’s head snaps toward us. Click-click-click. It locks on Something flashes past my ear. Rynn’s EMP grenade. Blue sparks trail it like dying fireflies. The burst swallows the corridor in electric glare.The sentry stiffens mid-step, twitching, then collapses in a heap, sparks fizzing from its joints.“That was the last one,” Rynn pants. No victory in it.
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