The Architects of Dust

Chapter 1: Cold Wake

 

The hum of failing power systems was the first thing Riven Hale heard as consciousness clawed its way back into his body. It wasn’t a sound one forgot — low, droning, always just under the edge of hearing, like a machine whispering the countdown to its own death.

The cryochamber hissed as the seals decompressed, clouds of sterile vapor spilling into the room like ghosts eager to flee. Riven's eyes fluttered open, pupils contracting sharply as the station’s dim emergency lighting pulsed in blood-red cycles. He sat up slowly, joints creaking as if he were ancient stone stirring after a thousand years.

In many ways, he was.

His skin was pale from stasis, muscles tight and sluggish from years frozen in bio-suspension. Every breath felt like sand scraping inside his lungs. But worse was the emptiness — a yawning, cavernous blankness where his memories should have been.

He could remember his name. Riven Hale. The name felt weighted, sharp, like a blade sheathed under his skin.

He could remember war — flashes of fire, the crackle of plasma across black void, screams layered in static. But not faces. Not reasons. Not the ending.

As the chamber hissed fully open, a mechanical voice announced, "Cryo Subject 019-A: Vital status nominal. Reanimation successful. Time elapsed: 62 years, 7 months, 14 days."

Riven staggered out, his bare feet meeting cold metal. The cryo-suite was empty—half the pods cracked open, the rest flashing red in error states or sealed in death. Dust shimmered in the low light. A soft tremor rattled the walls. Somewhere in the station, systems were failing.

He wasn’t alone.

A figure emerged from the shadows of the chamber doorway — humanoid, tall, garbed in a matte-black exo-suit with gold trim worn down by time. A shimmering badge pulsed faintly on their chest: Interzone Council.

The figure removed their helmet, revealing a woman with silver-threaded hair pulled tightly back, eyes that glowed faintly blue with retinal augments, and an expression as neutral as a blank ledger.

“You're awake,” she said.

Riven’s voice came hoarse, broken. “What year is it?”

“2151 standard. Your file said you were cryo-locked just after the First Collapse.”

Riven frowned, “Why was I revived?”

The woman extended a data tablet toward him. “You’re being offered reinstatement — conditional.”

He didn’t take it.

“I don’t work for dead councils,” he muttered.

Her expression didn’t change. “The Interzone Council is very much alive — what’s left of it. We’re rebuilding order. And we need people like you.”

“I’m done taking orders.” Riven turned his back, grabbing a discarded jumpsuit and dragging it over his half-numb limbs.

“You haven’t even heard the mission.”

“I don’t care.”

She was quiet for a moment, watching him dress. Then she said, “The Veil gates are destabilizing again. Something’s coming through.”

That stopped him.

Riven turned, “The Veil’s gone, I saw it fall.”

She stepped forward. “That’s what we thought. But in the last decade, there’ve been flare events — gravimetric anomalies, data phantoms, corrupted physics zones. Some of the ancient gate systems have reactivated. We believe they’re tied to the original breach.”

Riven narrowed his eyes. “And you want me to go poking around in the wreckage?”

“We need someone who understands how the Veil worked before the Collapse. You were there. You were part of its shutdown.”

His blood ran cold. “No, I wasn’t.”

The woman tapped her tablet. “You were commander of the Warden Initiative. Final operational control. Your team initiated Protocol 0, which severed the Veil network from the galactic grid. Billions of lives were lost in the resulting blackouts.”

Riven’s hands clenched, “That wasn’t my order.”

“But it was your command.”

The weight of it pressed into his chest like a collapsing star. He didn’t remember giving the order. Hell, he didn’t even remember the mission. But if the record said he did…

He turned to the viewing port on the far wall. Outside, the stars looked tired. Distant beacons scattered across the galaxy, many now cut off or dying. A broken orbit passed just beyond the station’s perimeter — pieces of a shattered world, its core still glowing faintly. Debris from a past war. Maybe one he’d started.

“What do you want me to do?” he asked quietly.

The woman handed him the tablet again. “There’s a Veil gate remnant near the Virek Expanse. It’s emitting weak signals — coordinates that don’t exist in current star maps. We want you to investigate. Confirm whether it’s a system glitch… or a surviving fragment of the old network.”

He stared at the display. The glyphs pulsed in a language he recognized but couldn’t name.

“You’re not telling me everything,” he said.

She didn’t deny it.

“There are whispers of something else,” she admitted. “People vanishing near the old gates. Ships lost in transit. Survivors talk about seeing… things. Memories that aren’t theirs. Voices in the static.”

“Dustborn?” Riven asked.

Her eyes flickered, “We don’t use that term anymore.”

“But they’re still out there?”

“They never left.”

Of course not. The Dustborn — zealots of the Veil Collapse, radicalized by the idea that reality itself was a lie. That the Veil didn’t separate space, but perception. That once it was gone, people would see the truth.

And some had, and some had gone mad.

Riven took a long breath. “How long until I ship out?”

“Six hours, the Council’s already assigned you a vessel, and a crew.”

“Anyone I know?”

She hesitated, “Your former second-in-command, Vara Kest. She’s… not happy about your return.”

“Can’t blame her.”

The woman nodded, “There’s also an envoy joining you. Not human. One of the Syn-Soul observers.”

Riven’s eyebrow rose, “You’re putting me on a ship with an AI?”

“Not just any AI,” she said. “One who claims to have seen through the Veil — and come back.”

He wasn’t sure what to make of that. There had always been whispers that the Veil gates were more than transport systems. That some connected to places outside time. Outside thought.

Riven looked at his own reflection in the viewing port. He barely recognized the man staring back — older than his years, eyes like cracked glass.

“Fine,” he said. “I’ll take the mission.”

“Why the change of heart?” she asked.

He didn’t answer at first. Then:

“Because if I really ordered the shutdown... I need to know why.”

And maybe, just maybe, find out who he was before everything fell apart.