The shuttle slowed as it approached the tangled skeleton of a derelict relay node. Once a beacon for long-range comms, now it was a husk of scorched plating and shattered framework, half-twisted by a forgotten explosion. Crystalline fragments of fiber-optic glass glittered in the dark, catching distant starlight like fractured stardust.
Kael stood at the airlock, helmet sealed, mag-boots clicking softly as he paced through his final checks. His mind moved slower than his hands—drained, focused, yet tethered to a creeping unease he couldn't quite name. Zone C was supposed to be a quiet drift. But the AI's scans had shown strange radiation traces here. Minor. Unstable. Intermittent. But there.
Patch hovered near the airlock, its diagnostic lens fixed on him like an artificial eye of judgment.
"Life-support nominal. External structure fragile but within navigable limits," the AI reported. "Proceed with caution. Primary objective: retrieve scavenger drone components."
"Understood," Kael muttered, tightening a harness across his chest. His breath fogged the inside of his helmet. "Keep the tether ready. I want to minimize exposure."
The airlock cycled open, and the cold of the void greeted him like an old enemy—silent and absolute.
⸻
The relay node was even worse up close. Melted supports jutted from twisted corridors. A communications dish the size of a cargo crate spun slowly, trailing severed cabling like a jellyfish caught in slow collapse. Kael maneuvered carefully, boots clinking against jagged metal as he descended into the node's lower framework.
Most access panels had been fused shut. Others were sheared open like something had torn through in a rush. Kael paused. Not torn—blown outward. The pattern was too clean for random damage. Controlled detonation? Emergency purge? It didn't feel right.
He slid deeper into the wreckage, flashlight sweeping collapsed conduits and shattered bulkheads. Then, abruptly, his light stopped.
Curled into the shadowed corner of a collapsed maintenance junction was a shape that didn't belong. At first, Kael thought it was a warped repair drone—maybe fused with a hull breach during the blast. But then his beam caught the outline of its head and limbs, and his gut twisted.
It was biological.
Roughly two feet tall and equally long, with furless skin stretched tightly over taut muscle. Its body was hunched low to the ground, and its limbs ended in round suction-cup feet that clung to the inner hull plating. The head was broad and snoutless, with no visible ears or nose—but dozens of glossy eyes covered the top of its skull, reflecting light like black marbles.
Dead. Frozen.
And in the middle of its forehead was a small, circular hole.
Kael's heart skipped a beat. A bullet wound.
"Kael, telemetry indicates your vitals have spiked," the AI said calmly. "Report status."
He swallowed hard. "Found something."
He drifted closer, flashlight fixed on the creature. The wound was clean. No blood. No explosive trauma. Just a single entry point that told a story he couldn't begin to explain.
Who shot it? Why? There shouldn't have been firearms out here, not with vacuum exposure and depressurization. And the thing—it didn't look like anything from Earth. Not terrestrial. Not even near-human. Alien.
Kael's breath fogged faster. "Patch, log coordinates. Scan this thing's bio-signature. I'm bringing it back."
He pulled a storage box from his harness—standard containment crate, re-sealable. It was barely big enough. Kael gently eased the creature inside, sealed the lid, and magnet-clipped it to his back. His fingers moved automatically, but his mind swirled with cold questions.
Outside the wreck, he tethered the box to the shuttle's rear hull using industrial-grade cable, locking it into place with a double-seal. Space itself would preserve it—zero atmosphere, absolute cold. He needed answers. And he couldn't get those by leaving it behind.
Back in the cockpit, Patch hovered silently, its lens flickering yellow as Kael unlatched his helmet. The AI said nothing. Neither did Kael.
For a few minutes, he just sat in the silence, hands trembling lightly on the controls.
"Resume mission," he finally muttered.
⸻
He returned to the wreck with renewed caution. Drone components—that had been the purpose of this run. Scavenger drone parts, specifically. The creature had just… been in the way. A discovery no one should have made.
"Scan for signal cores, compact thruster units, and long-range sensor clusters," Kael ordered.
"Confirmed. One scavenger-class diagnostic core detected on Deck 2. Partial damage. Proceed with retrieval."
The AI directed him downward through the relay's secondary shaft—a narrow chute lined with cables and collapsed ceiling panels. Kael worked his way in, careful not to snag his suit. Sparks still flickered from a few half-dead panels. He didn't like that.
Halfway down, he spotted a cradle—likely meant for diagnostic drones. It had been torn from the wall, the drone inside snapped in half, but the signal core glowed faintly. Still viable.
He reached out, careful fingers extracting the device. It came free with a soft click.
That was when his comm spiked.
"Warning: survivor ping detected."
Kael jerked upright. "Say again?"
"Survivor signal registered. Localized to adjacent section. Distress beacon from personal suit. Weak but stable. Origin: compartment 42 meters northeast."
Kael's breath caught. "Oxygen levels?"
"Unknown. Scan inconclusive. Partial hull integrity."
He glanced at the scavenger part, then toward the direction of the signal.
"Mark core as recovered. Redirecting to beacon."
⸻
The module was barely intact—a torn-open crew quarter sealed only by overlapping debris and an angled corridor. Kael squeezed through a narrow breach, weapon holstered but fingers twitching near it.
Inside, everything floated. Furniture. Emergency packs. Debris. The gravity field was completely dead, but there was a faint visual shimmer in the air—a sign of lingering atmosphere, however thin.
In the far corner, a figure floated limply.
A man, by the suit's frame. Standard-issue. Still sealed. Helmet intact. One arm was bound across the chest in a makeshift sling, the other drifting freely. The leg… bent in the wrong direction at the knee. No blood—just unnatural angles and a concerning stillness.
Kael approached quickly. The man's eyes fluttered open as Kael's shadow fell over him. Recognition. Relief. Then, unconsciousness again.
Kael caught him before he could float off.
"AI, prep interior for evac. He's alive, barely."
"Confirmed. Cabin re-pressurizing. Assigning drone to monitor vitals."
Kael pushed off and navigated back the way he came, the unconscious man clutched tightly to his chest. Every jolt of movement sent waves of pressure through the man's limbs. Kael worked carefully, silently.
Once aboard the shuttle, he lowered the man into the rear cabin and clipped him down to the anchor points on the bench. The drone Patch hovered nearby, its lens blinking as it scanned the newcomer.
Kael pulled off the man's helmet and winced. Pale skin. Dry lips. No frostbite, no visible trauma to the head. Still breathing—barely.
No medbed. No real equipment beyond emergency packs.
He reached into the overhead cabinet and yanked down his field medical kit. Basic gear from his military days—sterile foam, rigid braces, pain stims. Not ideal. But something.
He worked methodically. First, the leg—twisted, likely shattered at the femur. Kael braced it against a foam splint and wrapped it tight with adhesive mesh to hold the bone in place. Then the arm—dislocated shoulder, based on the sling. He reinforced the existing wrap and injected a minor anti-inflammatory stim at the joint.
Throughout, Patch watched silently, scanning with quiet precision. The man's vitals pinged to Kael's suit HUD. Still alive. Still unconscious.
Kael sat back, breath heavy. "There. That's all I've got."
He looked over the man—drifting slightly under the restraint straps, eyes closed.
"Just hold on," he said quietly. "You're not alone anymore."
Outside, the void remained still. The alien creature floated in its sealed crate, tethered to the hull like a ghost on a leash. Inside, the survivor breathed, unconscious but present.
And Kael—sitting between both mysteries—watched the stars beyond the viewport and knew that everything was about to change.