Rex stepped forward, his massive power claw inserting into a hidden recess beside the door. "Everyone stand clear. Let the professional handle this."
A low growl emanated from his chest engine as the power claw exerted immense torque. A grating sound of metal on metal, transmitted through solid contact and their bone conduction sensors—one of the few 'sounds' audible in the vacuum—filled the space. The heavy emergency valve was pried open, creating a gap just wide enough for a person to squeeze through sideways.
Inside lay deeper darkness.
"Lights."
Three beams of light stabbed into the darkness, cutting through the stagnant air (if any existed within). The lights revealed a wide corridor leading deep underground. The walls were standard alloy plating, but they seemed coated in a thin, gray substance that was neither ice nor frost, causing the light to diffuse and appear hazy.
"Pressure rising... Reaching breathable standards, but composition is anomalous. High inert gas ratio, low oxygen content," Lia reported the environmental data. "Temperature: Minus 10 Celsius. Detecting multiple organic compound residues... widespread throughout the corridor."
Kael moved first, squeezing sideways through the gap.
Inside was an airlock chamber, but the inner door was also wide open. He stepped through, with Rex and Lia close behind.
Once they were all inside the corridor, the emergency valve behind them, driven by hydraulics, slowly and silently closed automatically.
"The valve closed!" Rex immediately swung his weapon around.
"Likely an automatic pressure equalization mechanism," Lia scanned the valve. "It can be opened from the inside."
Kael ignored the door behind them, his sharp eyes scanning ahead. The corridor extended about ten meters before making a turn. The air carried a strange odor—not decay, but a bizarre mix reminiscent of ozone, scorched metal, and a cloying, biological sweetness. The result of various substances slowly reacting after the life support systems failed.
On the floor and walls, messy marks were visible, like scrapes from something being dragged, along with dried, blackened, splatter-like stains.
Lia crouched, examining a larger stain carefully with her scanner. "Organic residue. Components match human blood, but... cellular structure is completely degraded. DNA strands show unnatural fragmentation."
She directed her beam towards the wall. Under the light, the gray film seemed more apparent, coalescing in places into fine, web-like or crystalline vein structures.
"The ambient energy signature intensity has increased significantly," Lia's voice held a note of alertness. "Commander, that 'background radiation' is no longer background here. It has become... active."
Kael raised a hand, signaling the team to halt. He listened intently—besides his own simulated heartbeat and system noises, there seemed to be an extremely faint, rustling sound, like countless grains of sand rubbing together. The sound didn't come through the air, but acted directly on his sensors, and even... on his consciousness.
*Something* was around the corner.
He gave a tactical hand signal. Rex immediately understood, pressing his large frame against one side of the corridor, the barrel of his blaster peeking slightly around the corner. Kael took the other side, pulse rifle ready. Lia remained at the rear, scanner aimed at the corner.
Rex snapped his head around the corner, his scanning eye's light sweeping the corridor beyond, then instantly pulled back.
"Report," Kael whispered.
A mix of disgust and confusion distorted Rex's speaker output.
"Sir... I think... you'd better see this for yourself."
"No moving targets. But... what the hell... happened to this place?"
Kael took a deep breath of the cold, oddly scented air and slowly leaned out to look around the corner.
The light beams illuminated the scene ahead.
The corridor widened here, seemingly into a small junction hub. The sight that met his eyes sent a chill down Kael's spine, even after countless battlefields.
The walls, ceiling, and floor of the corridor were covered in thicker, denser versions of the gray growths. They were no longer a film, but had formed distorted, vein-like crystalline structures, resembling some malignantly grown coral or fungal colony, pulsating with an almost imperceptible, subtle movement. The rustling sound seemed to originate here. These crystals emitted a very faint, unsettling grayish-white phosphorescence.
And embedded within these twisted crystalline thickets were *things*.
The remains of the outpost crew.
Some were half-kneeling on the floor, others leaned against the walls, some even hung upside down from crystalline clusters on the ceiling. Their bodies were partially encased and penetrated by the gray crystalline material, their skin showing the same grayish, partially crystalline transformation, rigid as stone. Their facial expressions were frozen in extremes of terror and agony, mouths agape, eyes transformed into empty, lifeless black sockets from which fine crystalline tendrils extended.
They didn't appear to have died from an attack; it was more like... they had become part of this grotesque growth, 'fixed' in place like some macabre exhibit.
There was no blood, no signs of violent destruction. Only a complete, unnatural **transmutation**.
"Good god..." Rex's voice was distorted.
Lia's scanner beeped urgently. "Biological structures... extensively crystallized. Energy signature... is identical to these growths! They... they are being assimilated into this... substance!"
Kael slowly lowered his rifle, staring at the scene of incomprehensible horror.
Lonely Endpoint. Everything here had indeed reached a desolate endpoint.
And they had just stepped into the edge of this nightmare.