Verlin leaped from the crater's edge, launching himself back in the direction he'd come from. Based on his memory, the Arctic wasteland lay south of the western continent. He landed with a heavy thud that cracked the ground beneath him, then broke into a sprint toward his destination.
As he ran, he scanned the landscape for any sign of life—or any structure that might indicate intelligent design. But as he approached the coast, the only unnatural thing he noticed was the exhaustion creeping into his own body.
The land began to slope downward as he neared the water. At first, the decline was subtle, barely perceptible beneath the ash and fractured stone. But soon the terrain dipped more sharply, leveling out into long stretches of broken rock that led toward a darker horizon. The air shifted with the changing landscape. The sulfuric stench thinned, replaced by a cold, damp wind carrying the scent of salt and ash.
The coast.
Verlin slowed from a sprint to a jog, then gradually came to a stop.
Under normal circumstances, he never truly got tired. But now, after crossing just a few hundred kilometers, he could feel fatigue setting in—faint, but undeniable. It didn't make sense. He'd spent days clawing his way back to the surface through solid rock, and while that had strained him, it had never produced this particular sensation. This urge to stop.
He drew in a breath, but there was a faint, lingering tightness—an old sensation, familiar in the way scars were familiar. Not painful. Just… inconvenient.
Verlin tilted his head slightly and exhaled. Then he coughed once.
The sound was deep and controlled. Another cough followed, more deliberate this time, and something cracked loose inside him.
A chunk of solidified magma dropped from his mouth and struck the stone at his feet with a dull click.
He paused, unfazed.
Leaning forward slightly, he coughed again, expelling several more jagged fragments—dark, glassy stone still faintly warm from the heat they'd held for years. They scattered across the ground, steaming softly in the cold coastal air.
Verlin spat once, clearing the last of it from his throat.
He stared down at the fragments.
Seeing what had just come out of his lungs made him wonder, not for the first time, how he was still alive. His body held no solar radiation anymore. The dagger was still lodged in his heart.
Before he'd lost his solar energy, his survival had made sense—Kryptonians only needed solar radiation to stay alive. But without it? According to everything he knew about his own biology, he should be dead.
He looked down at his hands, though he'd noticed the change before and hadn't given it much thought until now. His skin no longer looked alive in any human sense. From his fingers to his arms, his torso, his legs—all of it had turned a dark grayish hue, stone-like in texture and laced with faint glowing cracks, as if heat were still trapped just beneath the surface. The skin wasn't smooth anymore. It looked forged, scorched, almost like armor that had been tempered in fire.
Whatever adaptation his body had undergone, it had kept him alive—even if he was far weaker than before. What he did know was, his body wasn't using solar energy anymore. That much was certain.
Which meant...
Verlin's eyes narrowed slightly as the realization settled in.
Geothermal energy.
His body had adapted. It had to have. Down in the mantle, surrounded by crushing heat and pressure, his cells must have shifted their fuel source entirely. Instead of drawing power from the sun, they'd learned to absorb the planet's internal heat—the raw, endless warmth radiating from Earth's core.
That would explain why he was still alive. Why his body had survived despite being buried in molten rock with a dagger through his heart.
But it also raised a question.
If his energy now came from geothermal sources... would he have to dig underground again to recharge?
He glanced back toward the continent's interior, where the land rose into jagged volcanic peaks and fissures still glowing with residual heat. If he needed more energy, that's where it would be. Deep beneath the crust. Close to the mantle.
But he wasn't feeling that tired yet. Just... slightly drained. Enough to notice, but not enough to stop him.
He could deal with it later.
Verlin turned back toward the coast, his expression hardening as he refocused on the situation at hand.
The ocean.
Between the western continent and the Arctic lay approximately 3,200 kilometers of open water. Cold, dark, and deep.
He needed to cross it.
Verlin stood still for a moment, running through his options.
Swimming was out of the question. Given his weight, he'd sink like a stone the moment he entered the water. Even if he tried to stay afloat, the drag alone would make it nearly impossible to maintain any kind of speed. He'd probably end up walking along the ocean floor—slow, inefficient, and a waste of energy.
Leaping was tempting. But without flight a single jump across that distance would require a perfect launch angle and trajectory. One mistake, one fraction of a degree off, and he would come down in the middle of the ocean, disoriented and lose direction of the arctic. With his questionable energy reserves, he couldn't afford to do that.
That left one option.
Running.
Verlin's jaw tightened.
It was possible—in theory. If he moved fast enough, his momentum could carry him across the surface before his weight broke through. It was a matter of speed and timing. Keep moving, don't stop, don't slow down.
But his weight was still an issue.
He wasn't sure how much he weighed now. In fact even during his solar powered days, he was never sure how much he had weighed, with his bioelectric aura, he always offset his weight and could even walk on water if he wanted.
Now his body had changed too much. Just standing in place was causing him to sink slowly into the stone beneath his feet, the ground cracking and settling under the pressure.
If he hesitated for even a second on the water's surface, he'd drop straight through.
Verlin exhaled slowly, steam rising faintly from his mouth.
He didn't have time to overthink this.
He stepped forward, approaching the edge of the coast where the broken stone met the dark, churning water. The waves crashed against the rocks below, sending up spray that hissed and steamed as it struck his superheated body.
Verlin stopped at the edge and looked down at the ocean, then back across the distance he needed to cross.
3,200 kilometers.
He'd need momentum. Real momentum.
He turned away from the coast and began walking inland, counting the distance in his head. One kilometer. Two. Five. He didn't stop until he'd put roughly ten kilometers between himself and the water's edge—enough space to build up the speed he'd need.
Verlin turned back toward the ocean, now a dark line on the horizon.
He crouched slightly, lowering his center of gravity. His fingers flexed, and the stone beneath his feet cracked under the pressure.
Then he decided.
He'd just run as fast as he could and see what happened.
High Orbit - Arctic Region
The Surveillance room was dimly lit, illuminated only by the soft glow of dozens of displays and the steady pulse of indicator lights. The hum of the ship's systems was a constant backdrop, punctuated by the occasional beep from the monitoring stations.
Zereth sat before the main viewscreen, his limbs crossed in a resting position. Surveillance of the continent below has been the same for the past 18 months, the frequent volcanic eruption, never ending earthquakes, and occassional re-entry of debris in low orbit.
"Anything new?"
The voice came from behind him—deep and resonant, with the characteristic harmonic undertone of a Draeknith. Drayen, making his usual rounds.
Zereth didn't bother turning. "Same as yesterday. Same as last week. Arctic seismic activity remains elevated but stable. No major eruptions near the coratian mothership in the past seventy-two hours."
"Small mercies," Drayen muttered, his towering frame filling the doorway before he stepped into the room. Nearly 2.5 meters tall, his body was composed entirely of translucent crystalline structures, faceted and geometric. Veins of bioluminescent energy pulsed slowly through his core, visible through the clear crystal like living circuitry.
When he moved, there was a faint, musical chiming sound—the natural resonance of crystalline plates shifting against one another.
Drayen continued, "How much longer till we acquire all the salvageable technology from the Coratian mothership."
"Current projections have us finishing the main salvage sweep within two weeks. After that, maybe another month for deep extraction." Zereth replied.
"That's good to hear." The light within Drayen pulsed brighter—a flicker of something that might have been hope. "If we can get this technology back to the Alliance and reverse-engineer what we've discovered... it could help turn the tide against the Coratians."
Zereth shifted in his seat, two of his limbs uncrossing as he turned to face the commander. "I still find it odd, though."
"What's that?"
"The Coratians." Zereth's eyes shifted to a contemplative violet. "They're meticulous. Obsessive, even. They'd rather self-destruct entire installations than leave any technology unattended. Yet here we are, standing over a mothership of this magnitude, and they just... left it. Abandoned it completely."
He gestured to the tactical display showing the bisected wreck. "This model might be outdated by their current standards, but based on what we've discovered —when this mothership got here, it would have been considered top of the line. Cutting edge. And they just left it to rot on this planet."
Drayen was silent for a moment, the light within him dimming slightly as he processed the observation.
"Small mercies," he said finally, though his tone carried an edge of unease.
It was strange. Not just the abandoned mothership, but this entire solar system—planets scorched, moons shattered, debris fields everywhere. Whatever had happened here had been catastrophic.
The past five years had been brutal. For centuries, there had been three major powers: the Draeknith Civilization, the Coratian Empire, and the Interstellar Alliance. Each had maintained their territory in careful equilibrium.
Then the Coratians had changed everything.
In just a few years, they'd achieved technological advancements that should have taken centuries. Shield matrices that could absorb massive damage and redistribute the energy. Weapons that hit harder and faster than anything the Draeknith or Alliance could field. Stealth systems that slipped past every sensor grid.
Battles that should have been evenly matched turned into massacres.
The Draeknith had been the first to realize the truth: alone, they couldn't survive. Neither could the Alliance.
The partnership had been born out of necessity. Now, ships like the Talon's Edge carried mixed crews. Draeknith commanders worked alongside species from the Interstellar alliance like the Kyral, Quellan, and the Vorrn.
It was effective enough to slow the Coratian advance.
But it still wasn't enough to stop them.
That's why this mothership mattered. If they could find even one exploitable weakness in the Coratian systems, it might buy the Coalition the time they desperately needed.
"If the Coratians did abandon this ship," Drayen said quietly, "then whatever forced them to leave it behind must have been significant. Significant enough to make them run."
Zereth's eyes shifted to a deep amber. "You think whatever destroyed this ship is still down there?"
"I don't know," Drayen admitted, the light within him flickering with uncertainty. "But here's what doesn't make sense: if there was a civilization advanced enough to successfully repel the Coratians—to do that—" he gestured at the image of the bisected mothership, "—they would have made a name for themselves in the galaxy by now. The Coratians don't lose. Not anymore. And certainly not without the entire quadrant hearing about it."
He paused, the light within him dimming further. "Yet we've detected no signs of any advanced civilization in this system. No orbital infrastructure, no energy signatures consistent with spacefaring technology, no communications traffic. Nothing. The planets are barren, the moons fractured. We're not even sure if there was an indigenous species capable of this, or if this system was just a battlefield for something else entirely."
Zereth's eyes cycled through several colors "So either..."
"Either whatever civilization was here was completely annihilated—erased so thoroughly we can't even find traces of them," Drayen finished, "or they were forced to flee entirely. Abandoned their own system rather than face whatever the Coratians brought with them."
Before either could speak again, one of the monitoring displays flared bright red.
An alert chimed—sharp and insistent.
Drayen spoke, "Another eruption?"
Zereth's eyes snapped to the display, his limbs unfolding instantly as he leaned forward. "No... Something is closing in on the mothership."
Zereth's hands flew across the interface, pulling up the Arctic surveillance feeds. "I don't know how we missed it—it must have come in fast—but there's a massive thermal signature on the continent. Moving across the continent at—" He stopped, staring at the velocity readout. "Mach 8.5. Ground level.."
"What is it?"
"I don't know." Zereth pulled up the optical feed on the main viewscreen. "But, whatever it is, it's heading straight for the mothership."
The image was grainy, distorted by atmospheric interference and the extreme heat radiating from whatever was down there. Massive plumes of steam and mist billowed in its wake, flash-evaporating from the snow and ice as it passed. The trail it left was a churning white cloud that stretched for kilometers behind it, obscuring almost everything except the thermal signature itself.
A blur of heat cutting through the Arctic like a knife through paper.
Moving in a perfectly straight line.
Directly toward the mothership.
"Distance to the crash site?" Drayen asked, his voice dangerously quiet.
Zereth checked the tactical display. "At current speed... seventy seconds."
"What about the salvage units?" Drayen asked.
Zereth pulled up another display showing the locations of their robotic salvage teams—Draeknith war constructs repurposed for extraction work. Massive crystalline automatons, each one 3.5 meters tall, constructed from hardened crystal. Built for combat first, salvage second.
Dozens of them scattered across the mothership wreckage.
"They're still operational. All units reporting normal function." Zereth's eyes shifted. "Should we pull them back?"
Drayen pointed at the closest unit to the anamoly. "Unit Seven, Redirect it to intercept. I want eyes on whatever this is."
Zereth's hands moved across the interface. "Redirecting now. Unit Seven is twenty four kilometers from projected path."
Both of them stared at the screen as the thermal signature blazed across the frozen wasteland. The steam trail was enormous—a massive white column rising into the atmosphere, visible even from orbit. Ice shattered. Snow vaporized instantly. The ground itself seemed to crack and buckle under the forces involved.
"Forty seconds to contact," Zereth announced.
The thermal signature didn't slow. The steam cloud behind it continued to grow.
On the tactical display, Unit Seven was already moving to intercept the anomaly, as the distance closed to 10km, the anamoly started slowing down.
By the time it came to a complete stop, it was only 2 kilomters away for unit seven.
"It stopped."
"I can see that. Get unit seven closer."
Unit Seven closed the remaining distance, its onboard cameras coming fully online. The image on the main viewscreen sharpened.
There—captured in sharp detail—was the figure.
Bipedal. four limbed. Roughly 1.9 meters tall.
Its body was dark gray and stone-like, textured like cooled volcanic rock. Faint glowing cracks ran through it—orange and red, pulsing slowly like molten veins beneath the surface. Steam rose from its form in constant waves. And protruding from its chest—visible just above the sternum—was the hilt of what appeared to be a blade.
Unit Seven descended, approaching carefully. The construct was massive—3.5 meters of hardened crystal, equipped with technology that enabled combat in the harshest conditions, and combat skills based on an algorithm trained and upgraded for several millennium in the Draeknith Civilization.
At first, the being just stood and analyzed unit seven before speaking.
Sound crackled through Unit Seven's audio receivers—a voice, deep and rough, like stone grinding against stone.
Words came out, but they were incomprehensible.
"Running translation protocols," Zereth said immediately, his hands moving across the interface.
The figure waited, steam continuing to rise from its body.
Several seconds passed.
"Anything?" Drayen asked.
"No match," Zereth said, "It's not in any of our language databases. Not any dialect from the Alliance worlds, not anything from known civilizations in this quadrant. It's... completely unknown."
The figure seemed to register the lack of response. Its head tilted slightly, as if considering.
Then it spoke again—different sounds harsher, more guttural. The words came out slowly, carefully, as if the speaker was struggling to remember them.
Zereth's display flashed immediately, " Its registering as Coratian"
The light within Drayen flared, " Translation?"
The figure raised one arm, pointing directly at the bisected skull of the mothership in the distance.
The translation appeared on Zereth's screen: Ship.
The figure lowered the arm and placed a finger against its own chest.
The translation flashed: Mine.