The alarms shrieked like dying animals as Captain Isolde Rook sprinted down the corridor of the mining rig, her boots clanging against the rusted metal grates. Smoke coiled from the vents, thick enough to taste—burnt copper and something worse underneath. The emergency lights painted everything blood-red, flickering across her face: sharp cheekbones dusted with grime, dark eyes wide with adrenaline, auburn hair escaping its tight braid. Her reinforced jumpsuit, the deep green of old Earth forests, was streaked with hydraulic fluid and what she hoped wasn’t someone else’s blood.
"Status!" she barked into her wrist comm.
"Core breach in Sector 7," came the reply, static-laced. "Containment failing. We’ve got maybe ten minutes before this whole rig goes up like a supernova."
Isolde swore. Epsilon-9 was supposed to be a simple job: extract the newly discovered quantum ore from the asteroid belt, collect their pay, and never think about this corporate hellhole again. But then the drills had hit something—something alive—and now her crew was dying.
She skidded around a corner and nearly collided with Novak, her engineer. His face was ashen under the glow of his holographic schematics. "It’s not just the core," he gasped. "The thing we drilled into—it’s reacting to the ore. Like they’re talking to each other."
A tremor rocked the rig. Somewhere deep below, metal screamed.
Three Days Earlier
The mess hall hummed with the usual pre-shift chaos when Isolde first heard the whispers. She sat apart, nursing synthetic coffee that tasted like recycled regret, her gaze drifting over the crew. Novak was elbow-deep in a dismantled drone, grease smeared across his forehead. Kaya, their medic, argued with the rig’s AI about suture quality. Normal. Routine.
Then the new hire slid into the seat across from her. Lysander Vey, corporate liaison, crisp in his black-and-silver uniform. Too handsome, too polished for the grime of Epsilon-9. "Captain," he said, flashing teeth. "I hear you’re the best at finding what others miss."
Isolde’s fingers tightened around her cup. "And I hear you’re here because the last three crews ‘disappeared.’"
Vey’s smile didn’t waver. "Let’s just say… the ore here is special. And my employers are very invested in its retrieval."
She should’ve walked away then. But the payout he quoted could buy her a ship of her own—no more corporate chains. So she’d nodded. And sealed their fates.
Now
The rig shuddered again. Novak grabbed Isolde’s arm as a conduit exploded overhead. "We need to abandon ship!"
"Not yet." She yanked open a maintenance panel, fingers flying over the manual override. "Kaya’s still in the med bay with the injured. And that thing we woke up—"
Lights flickered. The walls breathed, metal warping like flesh. Then the comms erupted with screams.
Vey’s voice cut through the chaos, eerily calm: "Captain. Look at your screens."
Isolde turned. The surveillance feeds showed the drill site—or what was left of it. The ore pulsed with unnatural light, tendrils of it snaking into the veins of the creature they’d unearthed: a vast, chitinous mass, part machine, part nightmare. And it was growing.
"What the hell is that?" Novak whispered.
Vey’s laugh was a razor in the dark. "The future."
Isolde met his gaze. Saw the fanaticism there. "You knew."
"I hoped." He spread his hands. "The ore amplifies neural energy. Imagine weaponizing a creature that feeds on human thought."
The rig groaned. Isolde made her choice. "Novak—rig the core to blow. Full yield."
Vey lunged. She shot him in the knee.
As he crumpled, she leaned down. "You wanted a weapon? Enjoy being its first meal."
The last thing she saw before the escape pod launched was the creature’s maw opening—a yawning void where the drill site had been—and Vey, screaming, being pulled toward it.
Epilogue
Three survivors. A stolen shuttle. And a secret heavy as a dying star.
Kaya bandaged Novak’s burns as Isolde plotted a course into the black. "Where now?" the medic asked.
Isolde glanced at the data chip in her palm—every scrap of Vey’s research. "Somewhere they’ll believe us."
Behind them, the remains of Epsilon-9 glittered like a funeral pyre. And somewhere in the dark, something listened.
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