Thalyn remained still as the throne lifted her upright, her head throbbing with a dull ache that echoed the phantom pain of the memory. The chamber snapped into focus around her: the low hum of ancient machines, the glyphs on the walls flickering like dying stars in a forgotten constellation. She exhaled a slow, shaky breath, then lifted the crown from her head with a groan.
Korr and Elara’s voices sliced through the ambient noise, caught mid-argument. Korr’s hands fluttered over a device, its screen alive with erratic lines, while Elara jabbed a finger at a larger console on the wall, the symbols there flashing in angry, alien script.
Then Elara spotted her. Her voice dropped instantly. She crossed the distance in three long strides, her eyes scanning Thalyn’s pale face. “What’s the matter?”
Thalyn grunted, rubbing her temple. “Just a headache.”
Elara’s expression tightened, her eyes cutting to Korr.
He shook his head. “Wasn’t me this time.”
Elara fished a sleek tool from her satchel. The tip glowed blue as she waved it over Thalyn's head, her movements precise. The light danced over Thalyn's temples and the nape of her neck, bathing her skin in a pale, sterile glow.
“Larek and I were taken,” Thalyn murmured. “They strapped me into a scanner to look for my past.” She winced. “It was… excruciating.”
Korr leaned in, the console forgotten. “What did they find?”
Thalyn’s lip curled. “Nothing. Arvie tampered with the scans, messed with the readings. They couldn’t make sense of it.”
Elara blinked. “Arvie did that?”
Korr’s frown deepened. “What exactly is Arvie? An AI companion shouldn’t have that kind of autonomy. Manipulating a scan like that... it’s beyond ordinary.”
Elara resumed her scan, her fingers absently adjusting a dial. “The headache is likely just residue from the memory. Nothing physiological seems wrong.” She tapped the tool against her palm, frowning.
Thalyn sighed, rolling her shoulders. “Either way, it’s fading. I’m better now.”
Elara’s tone turned firm. “Even so, take it slow. Walk, rest or get some air. Go check on the commander. Anything but that.” She nodded toward the throne.
Thalyn offered a crooked smirk. “I’ll go pretend to care about rocks.” She grabbed her breather mask and slipped it on. The seals hissed as she stepped out.
Outside, the fog lay across the jungle like a sleeping beast. Soft tendrils curled around shattered pylons and moss-claimed statues, their original forms eroded into abstraction. The air was warmer here, wet and alive, full of hidden movement.
The ruin loomed behind her, silent as a dead god. The walls, still faintly aglow, vanished into a skeletal canopy of ancient boughs and black-veined vine. Colossal trees rose like petrified titans along the horizon, their limbs vanishing into the mist. Beyond them, Atapalurin dominated the sky, the mother planet, a massive silhouette against the dim haze.
She followed a cracked path upward, skirting a fallen beam that looked like it once fed power into the ground itself. A filament still pulsed deep inside the stone, dim, but not dead. A tree had cracked through the beam’s spine, its roots wrapped tight around a gleaming panel of obsidian alloy.
Thalyn crouched near it, brushing away grit. A swarm of tiny insects, like silver threads with glass wings, scattered at her touch. One hovered for a heartbeat near her visor, its eye a perfect sphere of violet light, then vanished into the mist. She watched it go, unsettled.
The path rose toward a shallow ridge. The wind shifted, sweeping the fog back just enough to glimpse the jungle canopy below. From here, the trees looked like something ancient and coiled. Spires of bark and bone clawed upward, forming a roof above a floor she could not see.
A faint tremor ran through the stone beneath her boots. She moved toward the sound, the slope slick but manageable. Luminous moss lined the crevices, bright green pulsing erratically.
Down and to the left, she spotted the commander. One boot up on a broken ledge, drill braced to his hip, carving through rock with patient aggression. But as Thalyn moved closer, the illusion of the tireless machine faltered. His heavy suit was dark with sweat between the shoulder blades, and a tremor rattled his forearms even when he paused. He was pushing through sheer exhaustion.
“Commander,” she called.
He didn’t pause, though his breath rough. He just nodded toward the satchel at his side. “Detector.”
She knelt beside the pack and pulled the device free. It flickered to life in her grip, its readings jittery. She swept it across the rock face, three pulses, then a hard spike.
“Shallow vein,” she said. “Little left. Try left. And Jaxon... you’re running on fumes. Go back to base and rest.”
He grunted, adjusting his stance with a wince he couldn't quite hide. “Soon. I'll finish this vein, then I'll head back.” The drill screamed as it bit deeper.
Dust kicked up, clinging to her sleeve like pollen. The air stank of scorched ore and something foul. Dead animals, maybe.
She lingered a moment longer, watching his trembling hands fight the heavy machinery. Breath, drill, breath, drill.
She slipped the detector back and stood. “Take care.” Another grunt. She moved on.
To the west, the cliff had collapsed. Now, broken stone sloped down toward a cleft half-swallowed by root and vine. A ribbon of fused conduit traced the ridge, a vein of slag marking what used to matter.
She ducked inside.
The cavern expanded as she entered, the sudden chill biting right through her suit. A low, rhythmic hum echoed faintly. Her eyes adjusted, analyzing the layout as some kind of ancient medical or stasis bay. Embedded in the walls were rows of elongated pods. Most were cracked open or collapsed, their glass covers long since melted to slag.
She stepped around a skeleton, a tall one. Its chest crushed inward , limbs sprawled like it had tried to crawl free.
She hesitated, looking around the cavern. She was robbing a violent tomb. Keeping a watchful eye on the shadows, she took a slow step toward the blinking pylon at the far end.
From the debris beside it, the rubble violently shifted. A sentinel droid, its chassis half-fused with creeping moss, tore itself from the wall. Its optics flared a blinding, hostile crimson. It raised a heavy, integrated weapon-arm, twin targeting lasers snapping directly onto Thalyn’s chest.
She jumped back, heart hammering into her throat, hand reflexively dropping to her sidearm.
But before she could react, a violent shudder racked the droid’s frame. Sparks showered from its corroded neck joint. The targeting lasers flickered and died. The angry red of its optics cycled down to a dim, passive green.
It slowly lowered its weapon, its raspy voice grinding through damaged vocals. “Protocol... corrupted. Apologies, mistress. The patients are... deceased.”
It stepped back into the shadows and froze entirely, becoming just another piece of the ruin.
Thalyn let out a breath she hadn’t realized she was holding. She stepped cautiously past the frozen machine and reached out to the pylon. The glyph beneath her glove blinked. Then a compartment hissed open.
Inside was a sphere, fist-sized, matte black, etched with rings of ultra-fine script. As she reached for it, her vision shimmered.
A whisper tickled her mind, just a sensation, like a thought almost remembered. Then it was gone.
She slid the sphere into her pack and climbed out.
Outside, the fog had begun to shift, creeping over the plateau’s rim like something learning to walk. The jungle sounds had changed, less birdsong, more breath. Far off, something heavy disturbed the canopy, slow and deliberate.
Then, a sudden crack of branches.
From the nearby treeline, the underbrush exploded.
Shapes burst into view, some furred, others scaled, all fleeing low and fast. Dozens of them: slinking, bounding, skittering, jaws clicking. Winged critters flared out of the bushes, wheeled away from her, and vanished into the mist with a shriek.
Thalyn jumped back, hand reflexively on her sidearm. But whatever spooked them never emerged.
Just the hush.
She let out a long, slow breath, her fingers loosening on the weapon. “First the tomb guard, now the local critters,” she muttered to the mist. “Outstanding. If one more thing jumps out of the shadows today, I’m just handing it the artifact.”
She adjusted her mask and made for the ruin, boots whispering across moss-slick stone. The fog parted slightly as she passed through the archway.
Inside, the command center hummed, low and ancient. Glyphs pulsed faintly across the consoles like veins beneath skin.
Korr was hunched over one panel, muttering in a tongue that didn’t belong to throats. The light flickered across his gaunt face as though listening.
Thalyn crossed the chamber and set the black sphere down on the console beside him with a deliberate clack.
He froze. Eyes wide. Slightly twitching. “Where did you…? This wasn’t here.”
“Outside,” she said, unsealing her breather. “In a cavern. It was guarded.”
Korr stared at the sphere like it might hatch. “You have no idea what this is.”
“No, that’s your problem,” Thalyn said, her voice hard. “Which is why you are going to be extremely careful with it. I found it in a tomb. Do your scans, but whatever you do, do not try that thing on anyone until we know exactly what it is.”
Elara looked up from her datapad, brows arched. “Next time, bring back something with protein.”
Thalyn caught the drink pouch Elara tossed, sank onto her bedroll, and lay back. The faint hum of the machines droned on, a lullaby of another age.
She closed her eyes.480Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ0Lb75Upc9B
and then Add to home screen.