John remained looking through the observation window long after Laureline’s voice fell silent. Her words echoed in his skull, but what disturbed him more was the residue of their psionic connection—her emotions still coiled inside of him like smoke which refused to disperse. Somewhere within, he’d found something unexpected: a black room with a white piano. It was a memory that wasn’t his. Fingers from some ethereal spirit danced on ivory keys. A name whispered through the haze—Thariel. He felt the sensation of love so ancient and unbroken it hurt to recall the memory. He pressed his palms against the glass as if to push it away, but the emotions stubbornly clung.

  For the first time since becoming Arbiter, he didn’t feel like the center of the stage. He felt like a bystander in someone else’s tragedy. And that unnerved him.

  Sasha’s voice returned, quieter than usual. “There’s something else,” she said. “During the data surge—when you touched Laureline—I detected background noise. Frequencies woven into the psionic burst. Not random. It resembled…command code. But not hers.”

  “Then whose?”

  “Unknown origin. But it mirrors the architecture I’ve associated with Thariel’s presence in past encounters. The command didn’t come from Eurynome. It came from somewhere else. Somewhere distant.”

  “Hyperia?”

  “No. The signal originates in the Abyssal Zone, between the Dependency and Hyperia. Unfortunately, the signal isn’t strong enough to pinpoint an exact location.”

  A cold silence took hold. John’s thoughts turned to the worst possibility. Thariel wasn’t operating from the shadows of a dying world. He was testing, probing, and preparing something. Something terribly important was just outside the edge of his reach. But what?

  He turned and looked back at Laureline. She looked asleep, but there was the faintest glow that still pulsed beneath her chest.

  “Sasha, find out what you can from her.”

  ###

  The footage played in silence.

  On the primary command deck of the Hemingway, Sasha projected the recovered data streams from the Foretold Reckoning—fragments relayed from the doomed Caldera Reach colony. The lighting dimmed. The first video played on the holoscreen.

  The video began as a calm day in Caldera Reach. The perspective belonged to a police officer’s body cam: sunlit bone tile streets, gentle wind through the morrow tunnels, and civilian chatter. Earth-born colonists strolled through clean corridors. Neon vendor signs blinked against bone-white walls. Then came the shadow. There was a deep and low droning sound. It wasn’t mechanical or organic, but wet and buzzing. A separate officer across the way raised her hand to cover her ears from the irritation, but the thing came from under her.

  The ground split open like a mouth.

  The Braccari swarmed up through the sinewy tunnels. They wore armor plating and their fungal limbs unfolded like night-blooming vines. People screamed. Some ran. Others froze. The first Braccari reached the officer and struck with its scythe-like razor sharp forelimb. The camera spun as the officer fell, catching only brief flashes of carnage: blood against solar glass, limbs dragged into the cracks, and spraying acid.

  The video ended.

  The second one began.

  The video was from a handheld device, shaky and grainy footage in low light, marked with interference. A resistance cell of twenty fighters were crouched in an underground atrium lit by bioluminescent moss. They wore makeshift armor, scavenged Dependency rifles, and whispered prayers. Then the assault began. Braccari burst through ceiling vents, gigantic killer insects erupting from their hive. One resistance fighter screamed and opened fire. EM pulses lit the room with harsh white flashes. For a moment, the flow of the Braccari slowed and some retreated. Some cheered believing they had won the battle.

  They didn’t.

  The Braccari regrouped and attacked again, overwhelming them in seconds. Chitinous limbs, glowing red eyes, and carapace jaws were drenched in red gore. The last thing the camera captured was a woman crawling backward on hands slick with blood before she was impaled, her scream cut short.

  The second video ended.

  The final video played.

  The perspective wavered—it was from a child. A small girl’s voice whispered. “Help…is anyone there?” She crawled through a narrow duct. Dirt and bone dust smothered her hands. The camera trembled in her grasp and illuminated a sharp-edged fungus and a shaft that descended down into darkness. Her breath came in rapid and panicked gulps. Then she dropped the device. It tumbled. The last image was of a Braccari’s face filling the screen, its black eyes glistening. Then, a massive limb smashed the device and the video ended.

  Stolen story; please report.

  The room remained still for a long time after the playback ended.

  John stood at the center of the command center, fists clenched, jaw tight. “They were just colonists,” he said. “Barely even unpacked. Families. Children.”

  Rhea Morgan stood behind him, arms folded. “The Braccari didn’t hesitate.”

  John’s voice was low. “We need to sterilize the area. I want the biggest bug bomb we have on this ship. Do we have anything like that?”

  Dr. Halven Deratt, tall and gaunt with reflective lenses over his eyes, spoke with caution. “It will take days before we can develop something effective. The terrain will complicate it—the Braccari hives could be anywhere and we would need a gas that could spread throughout the entirety of Eurynome’s bone-honeycomb structures. If we took that approach, we would need to plant multiple charges in the interior.”

  “We have laser turrets,” Lt. Reyes added. “And rocket launchers.”

  “They may prove insufficient,” Deratt replied.

  Samantha stepped forward. “We don’t know that everyone is dead. There may be survivors who have intel.”

  John turned to her, his expression cracking. “You saw the girl. You saw those things.”

  “I did,” she said. “But I also saw her fighting to survive. We don’t know who else may be hiding. We don’t know what else may be waiting for us.”

  Selathe Min said quietly from the navigation console, “Their distress signal lasted for three days.”

  Cortari Commander Esh-Kaet stepped forward then. He wore the borrowed human frame of a recently deceased eighteen year old marine who died from an unknown disease before he finished basic training. His face looked fresh, almost boyish, but his tone and expression held an old soldier’s certainty. “I volunteer, Arbiter. Send me down with a small squad. We hit them fast. We find what’s left.”

  John nodded, slowly. “Four of us will go. The rest of you will stay behind and monitor from orbit. If things go wrong, the Hemingway pulls out. No hesitation.”

  Rhea Morgan stepped forward. “If the Cortari Commander is coming with you, then I’m in. Can’t let the zombies have all the fun.”

  Esh-Kaet said nothing, expression cold—he just saluted her.

  Malkrathi Security Chief Karzoth Vey hissed from the upper level. “Arbiter. The Hyperion—Laureline—should not remain aboard while you’re away. She is unstable.”

  John’s gaze didn’t waver. “Study her. Learn everything you can. If she twitches in a way that frightens you, I give you permission to kill her. But try to avoid it.”

  The briefing ended.

  They moved quickly.

  Inside the armory, the reactive plating of their Astralis-9 combat armor gleamed blue and gold. Thea selected the RX-15 “Hurricane” Arc Shotgun with its dual barrels crackling with preliminary charge. Esh-Kaet retrieved the Omega-1 “Judgement” Ion Beam Pistol, a slender design which hummed with stored energy. Sam holstered her DR-77 “Hellfire” revolver. She checked the overcharge coils then clipped on a belt of fragmentation grenades. John grabbed the VX-88 “Scorcher” plasma submachine gun—light, fast, deadly—and a pouch of programmable explosive breaching pouches. Once they saw John grab the explosives, they all grabbed some of their own.

  Each suited up, armored and ready.

  The bay doors peeled open like a mechanical flower. Through the shimmering blue and purple shielding lay the vast dead planet of Eurynome.

  The Hemingway descended low through Eurynome’s roiling upper atmosphere, through piercing green-tinged clouds that coiled like poison. Winds howled against the hull as the ship aligned with a natural clearing—an ancient spinal ridge that ran like a shattered causeway through the haze.

  Inside the launch bay, John stood in the launch chute, suited and ready, beside his team. The other three—Samantha, Esh-Kaet, and Rhea Morgan—waited beside him. Their armor gleamed with low-lit HUD readouts. The deck vibrated as the ship hovered in place, repulsors cycled in measured pulses.

  “Final checks green,” Sasha said in his ear. “Drop window opening.”

  John spoke to Selathe on comms. “Once we land, take the Hemingway back to orbit. Stay dark. Scan for signs of Hyperion activity. If you detect Thariel or other signatures—don’t engage. Evade. Relay data to the Galactic Council.”

  Selathe’s voice was tight. “Understood, Arbiter. And if we lose contact?”

  “You don’t come back unless I call you.” He paused, then added, “I need eyes in orbit, not dead heroes in the wreckage.”

  Rhea Morgan spoke up. “You sound like a real Arbiter.”

  John grinned faintly beneath his visor. “Let’s not get sentimental.”

  Sasha’s voice cut back in. “Atmospheric readings are within acceptable tolerances, though you will want to avoid prolonged exposure. You’re clear to drop, Arbiter.”

  The red warning lights dimmed. On the planet’s surface, the bone spires jutted skyward like broken fingers. Wind kicked sheets of dust and bioluminescent spores. Deep within, marked on their HUD in red, was their landing zone.

  “On my mark,” John said. “Three…two…one—drop!”

  They launched.

  Gravity slammed them downward. The Hemingway’s hull rushed behind them, its thrusters fired to stabilize its climb. The ship twisted hard and pulled up into a steep climb. Its engines roared as it arced back up into the high atmosphere. It disappeared as a silver streak in the clouds.

  The four figures dropped like black comets through the storm.

  Wind screamed past John’s helmet. His HUD flickered with telemetry data—velocity, wind shear, and terrain marks. Below, the landscape of Eurynome opened up like a gaping mouth of jagged cliffs, fungal geysers, and skeletal bridges half-submerged in fog.

  Their chutes opened. They sailed in the dead silence, and then—impact.

  Their boots connected with a wide ribbed platform of bone and mineral. Thrusters erupted from their back, chest, and arms and leveled them, preventing them from collapsing forward from the intense force. Each landed in a practiced crouch, weapons raised.

  John stood first.

  Above them, the sky swirled in bruised green spirals. The Hemingway was gone—vanished into high orbit. But John knew they’d be watching. Waiting.

  He looked at the others.

  “Alright,” he said, voice steady. “Let’s make this count.”

  They moved forward—four shadows against a dead world.

  The hunt for Thariel began.