007.01 – "You Will Not Leave"
The chamber was quiet, but not still.
Somewhere behind the wall plating, gears turned in slow cycles, metal grinding faintly against metal. The air carried the tang of oil and dust, and the light overhead flickered with each pulse of unstable power. The crew stood at the center of the room, flanked by two silent guards in piecemeal armor.
Zea’s gaze fixed on the far wall of light as it fractured, splitting open in a silent cascade, as if the light itself had been unzipped. Through the rift stepped a tall, lean silhouette, his armor a living archive of conflict: plates scavenged from battlefields, polymers worn thin by centuries, and fragments of forgotten Iovian tech glinting beneath the grime. A tattered coat draped from his shoulders, more like a shadow from another world than clothing. And over his left eye, mounted to a cracked rig of metal and bone, sat a softly glowing monocle.
When he spoke, the translator adjusted. The voice that emerged was smooth, articulate, and unnervingly calm.
“You must forgive the accommodations,” the man said, pacing slowly. “Our kind doesn’t get many guests, and we never prepared for...this.”
Zea said nothing at first. He glanced at the others: Artelle beside him, jaw set; Rhea holding tension like a wire; Getro, eyes set on the light wall that held them prisoners, already calculating. Hagok and Kolnar stood next to each other, observing and probably planning something.
The stranger gave a courteous nod.
“Allow me to introduce myself. I am Varn Duren, steward of this outpost and leader of the Vorren. And you, I believe, are far from where you belong.”
Hagok cleared his throat. “We’re part of a long-range expedition. We picked up a signal, a broadcast. It was Iovian.”
That gave Varn pause.
He stopped pacing, posture still perfect, as if absorbing the words fully. Then, with the faintest trace of sorrow, or perhaps confusion, he spoke again.
“You say it was Iovian, from here?”
Hagok nodded. “Clear as anything, encrypted with our old compression layers. We thought we’d find survivors. Or at the very least the distress beacon itself.”
Varn turned, walked to the far wall, and ran a gloved finger along a rusted conduit.
“Curious,” he said softly. “The only Iovian equipment on this planet…hasn’t spoken in decades.”
Artelle stepped forward. “You have an Iovian vessel?”
“We do, or rather, we did. A wreckage, long since dead. We built our home from its bones.”
Rhea bristled. “Then the signal did come from there.”
Varn turned back toward them, folding his hands behind his back.
“And now you’ve come. With a ship of your own, capable of long-range scans. Which means you’ve logged our coordinates. Mapped the system and know exactly where we are.”
Zea’s expression hardened. “We didn’t come to expose you. We just came looking for the signal. We know now that this world is occupied, and there are no Iovians here. If we can take a look at the vessel to confirm, then we’ll leave.”
“Leave?” Varn echoed, almost amused.
He took a step closer. The guards shifted, but he waved them off.
“I’m sure you mean that, and I believe you’d even try. But intentions, I’ve learned, are like dry wells: promising on the surface, empty when it matters.”
The crew didn’t speak. There was nothing else to say.
Varn gave a slow exhale. The glow from his monocle flickered.
“I have no hatred towards you. Even though your kind thought themselves superior to all, I respect what you once were. Powerful, enlightened, and incredibly brilliant. But we live here, and we live in peace. The moment you leave this planet, that peace becomes, well, uncertain. You’ll talk, you’ll transmit, and one way or another our location will be compromised.”
His voice didn’t rise. It didn’t need to.
“So no,” he said. “You will not leave.”
He gave a shallow bow.
“I suggest you get comfortable; the mines on this planet are harsh and the days are long.”
Then he turned on his heel and walked out. The light wall split open, allowing him to exit, then closed behind him with the finality of a sentence already carried out.
The silence returned, heavier than before.
“Oh,” Varn continued speaking from the other side of the light wall, “we are actively scanning for your ship. It’s only a matter of time.”
007.02 – "We’ll Show Him"
The cell was nothing more than a narrow room surrounded by three carved-out walls and the wall of humming light. The field shimmered faintly, vibrating at a pitch just beyond hearing. Getro had been studying it for the past 10 minutes, counting the pulses in his head.
The guards had left them alone. Too confident, Getro thought. Too sure the field would hold.
He shifted his wrists, letting the metal cuffs slide down far enough to expose a slim, scuffed band on his forearm. The surface was matte black, marked with dents from a life of close calls. Tilting it toward the emitter’s glow, he brought it alive, with tiny diodes sparking to life in a pattern only he understood.
“You sly devil, you.” Artelle’s voice was a whisper. “Careful, or they’ll see you.”
“I’ll be quick,” Getro whispered.
A thin filament uncoiled from the band, no thicker than a hair. Getro guided it toward the control plate embedded in the wall just outside the cell. The filament slid into a seam, searching. His thumb brushed cracks on the wall, and the device began to hum its frequency, deliberately mismatched to the cell’s field.
The hum built into a pulse. The light wall began to flicker.
“Reversing polarity,” he muttered, almost to himself. “Give it a moment.”
The field shivered, then snapped with a sharp crack. The air smelled faintly of burnt metal as the barrier died.
Rhea stepped through without hesitation. “Oh no, he said we can’t leave, whatever will I do?” She smirked. “We’ll show him.”
“Move,” Hagok said. “We don’t get second chances.”
Together, they slipped out of the cells. Hagok and Kolnar moved silently and efficiently. Two guards waited down the hall; they didn’t see the strike coming. Rhea moved in behind them, towering over both. In one fluid motion, she locked her arms around their necks, slamming them to the ground, and knocked them out cold before stripping their weapons. The crew armed themselves and pressed deeper into the base.
They ghosted through the dim corridors, Getro’s band unlocking doors and sealing others behind them. Twice they avoided patrols by a fraction of a second. As they moved deeper inside, the Vorrens’ voices rose, orders sharp and terse. The sound of a net closing in on them.
They descended two levels before reaching a sealed chamber. The door’s design was unmistakably Iovian.
Getro pressed the band to the Iovian door.
Ancient locks sighed open, and the crew stepped inside. Under tarp and dust, the Iovian ship lay broken, hull fractured, compartments gutted, cockpit glass clouded with age.
Zea’s gaze roamed over the plating, following curves he knew from old archive schematics. Something under the dust caught the light. He stepped forward, brushing his hand across the metal. Grit fell away to reveal the raised peaks and valleys of an emblem.
The instant his fingers traced its center, the hangar dissolved.
He stood in the same bay, centuries earlier. An Iovian woman in military uniform crouched at a console, sliding a nav-core beneath the floorboards. She rose as a scavenger entered, voice tightening.
“It was never meant for you.”
The words hit him like cold air, sharp and inexplicable. He had heard them before now, dreamed them, but that thought slipped away as quickly as it came.
The scavenger stepped from the smoke; she wore patchwork clothes, with her scavenged weapon low, eyes hunting for weakness.
“The beacon’s a call for help,” he said.
“Not yours to answer,” she replied.
Movement behind her revealed an older Iovian at the command rail, steady even as the ship shuddered. The nameplate on his badge read: Captain Rhovan Hagorr.
The vision collapsed into dust and silence. Zea’s palm still rested on the emblem, now cold and still.
Artelle stepped up beside him, brushing more dust from the plating.
“The Naru-Sava,” she whispered.
Hagok froze, eyes on the crest. “My grandfather’s ship.”
“Captain Rhovan Hagorr,” Zea said without thinking.
Hagok’s eyes narrowed. “How did you…?”
“Must’ve read it somewhere,” Zea deflected.
Kolnar stepped closer. “He captained her more than five centuries ago. Only deep exploration ship Iova ever commissioned.”
Zea’s eyes drifted to the deck plating. Without hesitation, he knelt and pulled up the same floorboard he’d seen in his vision. The nav-core gleamed in the dust.
Kolnar stared. “How?”
Zea shook his head. No answer.
Hagok broke the silence. “Zea, check the comms,” he said, unaware of what Zea had located.
Zea reached for the console. “Comms are dead.”
“The beacon,” Getro said. “The beacon still has power. Not sure how much is left, but those backup batteries are meant to last hundreds of years. If I reroute the power from the beacon to the comms, we might be able to get something out.”
“Do it,” Hagok ordered.
Getro slid under the communications console, exposing a harness of aged wiring. His fingers moved with practiced precision.
“Okay, done. No audio, the system’s too fried. Best I can do is a simple data burst every five seconds until we either run out of power…”
“…Or get noticed,” Rhea cut in.
Hagok leaned over his shoulder. “Then let’s hope Zion and Rotan widen the frequency scan. If they’re still locked on audio, this might as well be silence.”
“First message away,” Getro said. “Here’s hoping.”
Alarms rang out in long, low tones vibrating through the walls. Boots pounded overhead.
“Guess we got noticed,” Rhea said.
“Arm up,” Kolnar ordered. “We hold until we get a reply, then we move for the Vaila.”
“Second message away,” Getro announced.
Hagok raised his rifle. “Hold the line.”
The first muzzle flashes lit the corridor. Behind them, the Iovian hull thrummed like it remembered running.
007.03 – Echoes in the Hull
The first wave came fast, shadows breaking from the far corridor and rifles spitting white fire. Kolnar’s shots cracked back, dropping the lead Vorren in a spray of sparks.
Rhea was already moving, cutting down a second before he could brace his weapon.
The rest faltered, then melted into the smoke, their retreat deliberate.
“They’re pokin’ the fence to see where it sparks,” Rhea said, slamming a fresh mag home. “Next round’s gonna hurt.”
Silence fell, but the air stayed tight with the promise of another strike. Alarms bled into the walls, vibrating through the hull of the Naru-Sava. Artelle stood with her back to the sealed chamber door, eyes flicking between Zea and the inert comms panel. The ship’s silence was unsettling, like tending to a patient who’d forgotten how to breathe.
Boots struck metal somewhere above. The Vorrens were moving in squads now; the rhythm was too coordinated to be random.
“The transmitter just died,” Getro said from under the access lip. “If the Savasu’s listening, they can still answer.”
Kolnar adjusted the rifle on his shoulder. “We should move. If we stay here any longer, they’ll box us in.”
“No,” Hagok said, voice tight. “Not until we know they got our message.”
Artelle knelt beside Getro. “How much more can you pull from the reserve without killing the receiver completely?”
“She’s already dead.” Getro gave a thin smile. “Captain…that was the Naru-Sava’s final message. It’s out of power.”
“Nothing more we can do here,” Hagok decided. “Let’s move out.”
“Let’s just hope they got our message,” Rhea muttered.
Zea stepped up to Artelle and handed her the nav-core.
“This is a navigation core,” she said, turning it over. “A map of where the ship’s been. If I pull the sector data…” she examined the wafer-thin drive, “and if it still works, we could get surrounding systems, lanes, drift hazards, everything. Where’d you find this?”
“I found it,” Zea said, offering nothing more.
Kolnar’s look was sharp enough to cut, but he kept silent.
“Good find, soldier,” Hagok said, a rare compliment.
“Guess this trip wasn’t a total loss,” Rhea said, shooting Zea a crooked grin. “Shame it took you this long to find something useful.”
“Time to go,” Kolnar added.
They moved quickly, sealing the chamber behind them. The corridors outside were dim, lit by swaying lanterns and the strobe of alarm beacons. Vorren voices echoed ahead, barking orders.
Rhea took point and led them down a side passage. They flattened against bulkheads as patrols swept past.
Artelle’s thoughts kept circling back to the Naru-Sava, to the weight of what they were leaving behind. To the faint, stubborn pulse she’d felt in the plating, as if the hull itself still remembered the stars.
They were nearly clear of the lower decks when a shadow detached from the wall ahead: a Vorren in patchwork armor, raising his rifle. Kolnar dropped him with a clean, single shot.
“Upstairs,” Hagok urged.
007.04 – Break Orbit
The corridors bucked with each distant concussion. Dust and oil smoke swirled in the flicker of failing lights. Zea moved with the others through the belly of the Vorren stronghold.
Rhea was ahead, silent and fast. Getro brought up the rear.
A sharp crack of gunfire chased them into an access tunnel. The metal rang as bolts struck bulkheads. Hagok replied with shots of his own, but it was too dark to see any pursuers. He could only fire into the void and hope the shots landed.
They arrived at a junction that led to a main corridor. Shots rang from one end; Kolnar dropped into a crouch beside Zea and fired several precise bursts around the corner. The shots died out, and only the crew’s heavy breathing remained.
“Clear enough, maybe,” Kolnar said. “Let’s move.”
Rhea took one step into the corridor and saw several flashes coming at her, nearly striking her. She fell back into the access tunnel. “I thought you said it was clear.”
“I said maybe, and now we know.” Kolnar dropped to one knee, Zea standing above him. They leaned into the corridor and lit it up. “Clear. I’m sure of it.”
Rhea got up and gave both Zea and Kolnar a long stare, then led them into the corridor. It wasn’t long before it spilled into the shadowed hangar. The Vaila sat half-hidden in the gloom, flanked by supply crates and draped tarps.
Artelle broke into a sprint for the ramp, vanishing inside. She slid into the pilot’s seat, hands flying over the console. The readings lit up, power cells fully charged, but the transfer grid flatlined. “Cells are fine,” she muttered. “But they’re not getting any power.”
“The Vorren have her locked down,” Getro shouted from outside. He was already at the base of the hull, staring at an ugly hunk of alien tech clamped to the plating. “There! That’s their leash.”
Hagok’s voice cut through the gunfire. “Artelle, get out here and help Getro strip it. Kolnar, Rhea, cover that side. Zea, with me!”
Artelle grabbed the Vaila’s toolkit from storage before bolting back down the ramp, sliding in beside Getro. “Three anchor points. Give me ten seconds.”
“You’ve got five,” Hagok said, planting himself at the ramp and firing downrange. Zea dropped beside him, adding cover while they worked.
Artelle yanked the plasma cutter free, its white-blue arc screaming to life. She carved through the first clamp, then the second, molten metal spitting across the deck.
The third was fused. “This one’s welded,” Getro warned.
“Not for long,” Artelle muttered, overloading the cutter until the beam flared near-white. Sparks showered her gloves as the weld finally split, the jammer dropping away with a clang.
“That was reckless!” Getro yelled.
The Vaila’s lights surged as Gizi’s systems roared back online.
“Would you like me to weld it back?” Artelle said. “You’re welcome.”
Zea took the ramp two steps at a time, hands brushing the familiar rail. Inside, the air was cooler, humming with fresh power. “Status?”
“Engines in thirty seconds,” Getro replied. “Shields will be late to the party.”
“Won’t matter if we’re gone before they’re in range,” Zea said.
007.05 – Message Received
The Vaila tore free of the atmosphere, engines screaming under Getro’s steady hands. Through the forward canopy, the curve of the Vorren world dropped away, along with any chance of returning unnoticed.
“Three on our tail,” Kolnar reported from the gunner’s station. “They’re gaining.”
Getro banked hard, breaking into a corkscrew climb. Beams of white-hot fire lanced past, shaking the hull with every near miss. “They’re not letting us go without a fight.”
A fresh barrage lit the void, only this one wasn’t aimed at them. One of the Vorren fighters burst in a silent blossom of fire, debris tumbling end over end.
“There!” Artelle’s eyes gleamed as a dark mass swept past their flank, fast, large, and bristling with guns. “The Savasu.”
The cruiser surged ahead, cutting across the Vaila’s bow. Its broad stern loomed in their view as the last of the Vorrens’ fire splashed harmlessly against its shields.
The comms crackled, and Zion’s voice slipped through the static, her smirk nearly audible. “Mind if we crash the party?”
Rotan’s voice followed, steady and precise. “We received your message. We have your vector. Bay doors opening; match speed and come in hot.”
The remaining Vorren ships poured fire into their path. One shot scorched the starboard wing, and the Savasu’s shield alarms wailed, but the Vaila held.
The bay’s magnetic field flared as they crossed the threshold. Getro dropped the Vaila hard onto the deck. “We’re in!”
“Seal it!” Hagok shouted.
The hangar doors slammed shut. The instant they locked, the Savasu’s FTL drive engaged. Space outside folded, streaking into the luminous tunnel of the Nairu.
They were gone, leaving the Vorren world, its secret, and its captain behind. For now.
Rhea leaned back in her seat as the Vaila powered down. “That was fun, but way too easy.”
Artelle stared at her. “Easy for you?”
Kolnar frowned from the gunner’s station. “They had a lot more to throw at us.”
Hagok’s voice cut in, low and certain. “Question is, why did they let us go?”
Silence settled over the cockpit, the hum of the Savasu’s engines the only reply.
