Thalyn remained still as the throne lifted her upright, her head throbbing with a dull ache that echoed the pain of moments before. The chamber snapped into focus, the hum of ancient machines, the glyphs on the walls flickering like dying stars in a forgotten constellation. She exhaled slow, then lifted the crown from her head with a groan.
Korr and Elara’s voices sliced through, mid-argument. Korr’s hands fluttered over a device, its screen alive with erratic lines, while Elara jabbed a finger at a larger screen on the wall, the symbols flashing there in angry, alien script.
Then Elara spotted her. Her voice dropped. She crossed the distance in three long strides, eyes scanning Thalyn’s face. “What’s the matter?”
Thalyn grunted. “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 her temples, the nape of her neck, bathing her skin in a pale, sterile glow.
“It started in a prison cell,” Thalyn murmured. “Larek was there. They took him first. Then me. Wanted to know if I was connected to him.”
She paused, fingers twitching at the memory. “I said I didn’t remember. Didn’t matter. They strapped me into a scanner.” 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, fingers absently adjusting the dial. “The headache could just be residue from the memory… or something else.” She tapped the tool against her palm, frowning. “Nothing seems wrong, though.”
Thalyn sighed. “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 watch 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.
Jagged cliffs loomed nearby, towering over the landscape, their peaks swallowed by a veil of mist. Above, 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.
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. The whine of the tool was swallowed quick by the mist.
She moved closer, the slope slick but manageable. Luminous moss lined the crevices, bright green pulsing erratically.
“Commander,” she called.
He didn’t pause, 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.”
He grunted, adjusted his stance. The drill screamed as it bit deeper.
Dust kicked up, clinging to her sleeve like pollen. The air stank of scorched ore and something older. Dead animals, maybe.
She lingered a moment longer, watching him work, breath, drill, breath, drill. Machine and man, indistinguishable.
Then 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. A low hum echoed faintly. Embedded in the walls were pods. Rows of them. Cracked open or collapsed, collapsed inward, glass 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.
At the far end, a pylon blinked.
Thalyn reached out. 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.
Only the silence returned.
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 without a word and set the black sphere down beside him.
He froze. Eyes wide. Slightly twitching. “Where did you…? This wasn’t here.”
“Outside,” she said, unsealing her breather. “In a cavern.”
Korr stared at the sphere like it might hatch. “You have no idea what this is.”
“No,” Thalyn said. “That’s your problem.”
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.
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