The air buzzed with static, the kind that lived in your bones and whispered of old tech still humming after aeons. A low thrum echoed through the chamber, barely audible but constant. The air shimmered in subtle, shifting folds, like oil on black water disturbed by currents no eye could follow. Soft flickers crept along the curved walls.
Lieutenant Korin paced the length of the chamber with precise, mechanical steps, his boots tapping on stone older than recorded time. The floor was seamless stone, dulled by age, inset with swirling filigree of burnished gold.
Every few turns, Korin paused beside the command panel and glanced toward the tech.
“Well?” he asked again.
The technician, a wiry man with high cheekbones and full ocular shielding, shook his head without looking up from the displays. “Still nothing.”
Two marines stood at attention near the arched entrance. Beyond them, through lattice-cut windows, the brittle light of Vael pressed inward, almost accusatory. The filtration seals held, mostly. But the wind still brought whispers. Sometimes literal.
Below, in the wider caverns carved into the cliffside, the tribesmen murmured. Their voices floated upward in soft chants and uneven hymns. None among them dared approach the threshold of the ruin.
Vael had once been a jewel.
A world sheathed beneath a planetary shroud woven from controlled stardust and stabilizing magnetic fields, forgotten tech from a forgotten era. From time immemorial, it had tempered the wrath of the mother star, bathing the land in hues of lavender and gold. The orchards yielded crystalline fruits; the herds were fat and exotic, the type no offworlder had ever seen.
Then, one cycle, the veil collapsed.
Rays of light lanced through the heavens, roasting everything in the open. The herds died in droves. The crops withered to ash. What life remained crawled into valleys and shadows, taking refuge in the bones of the ancient city carved into the cliffside. They named it Mhutha'Vael. Mother's protection.
And here, in one of her eyes, the ruin breathed.
“Lieutenant!” The tech snapped upright, voice tight. “Motion, bearing forty-seven, half a span out.”
Korin was already at the window, monocular raised. The ashlands stretched flat and endless, shimmering with mirage. Then, movement. A lone figure, lurching forward through the gray. Each step kicked up soot. The wind curled it back like the strokes of a giant brush.
He turned. “Send the lift. Now.”
The lift, cobbled together from an old mag-crate rigged with a platform and a winch, groaned its way down the cliff face. By the time it reached the bottom, the murmurs from below had risen to a chant, low and thrumming, matched by the growing clamor of the tribesmen.
“Du, vai, nor… Du, vai, nor… Du, vai, nor…”
The figure collapsed into the lift.
Moments later, commander Duvainor stood among them.
His tattered uniform was blackened at the edges, the ablative plating blistered and warped. His boots were gone, burned away somewhere along the journey. The split flesh of his feet left wet marks on the stone. Ash clung to him like a second skin, streaked through his silver-blue hair and the sharp grooves of his jaw. His eyes, unprotected, burned green as polished flame.
“By the divines…” Korin muttered. “Sir, what in the void happened?”
Duvainor limped forward, waving off the medic with a silent glare. “Took a shortcut. Bad idea.”
“What happened?”
“Sinkhole, hidden beneath the surface ash. Driver's dead. I climbed. Walked the rest.”
“Sir, your feet…”
“They’ll heal.”
He shrugged the satchel off his shoulder. The canvas was torn and scorched in places, but the clasps still held. He unfastened them with care and drew out a bundle wrapped in dark cloth.
From it, he revealed a metallic object, pulsing faintly with inner light, shaped like an asymmetrical star fractured inward.
Korin leaned forward, his voice dropping. “Is that…?”
“The artifact. Yes.”
“But how did you…? I mean, how do you even know what it is, or what it does?”
Duvainor met the younger man’s gaze, unblinking. The silence stretched, gaining weight.
“You'd either try to kill me,” he said at last, his tone dry as the ashlands outside, “or worship me, if I told you. Neither ends well, trust me.”
He exhaled, the sound halfway between a sigh and a chuckle. “I've had enough of both for a lifetime.” He turned from the group and limped to the center of the chamber.
There it loomed. A monolith of angles and interlocking spheres, inert but wrong, as if its geometry strained against the limits of comprehension. It emitted a pressure on the soul, like standing at the edge of something vast and awake.
Duvainor reached the base, felt along the sculpted surface, and found a shallow depression like the absence of a star. He placed the artifact inside.
A click. Then the world shifted. No sound, only a profound sensation, as if some immense, unseen weight had lifted from every molecule. The air grew sharper. Clearer. The shimmer across the walls dimmed for a breath, then settled.
Outside, the world darkened. The searing glare of Vael’s exposed star softened. One of the marines slowly reached up and removed his protective visor, blinking into the sudden twilight.
“…Divines.”
Through the windows, the chanting surged into rapture. The tribesmen poured from the caverns, their voices beating against the cliff like war drums.
“Duvainor! Duvainor! Duvainor!”
A static hiss crackled in Duvainor’s mind.
« Commander? »
« Yes. »
« What happened down there? We lost your signal. »
« I’ll explain later. We need repairs. Our ship crash landed. »
« At once, sir. Uh, your droid is requesting a channel. Patch her through? »
« Go ahead. »
Another voice came through, warm with mischief and modulated sarcasm.
« Master, you’re late. And… I found the ruin. It’s lovely. »
« Great job, Arvie. »601Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡWwhS3IvYkY
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