In memory of all those lost along the way.
Most people go through life not knowing who they are or what they are meant to be. They spend their years searching for ways to add meaning to their existence, desperate to find a purpose that justifies their existence.
I have never had that problem. I have always had a purpose. I was born into it. It is the very reason I came to be.
My name is Ezra. I am a Mah'Abeu. An envoy. A problem solver.
This is my story, at least, as much as any story can truly belong to one person. But to tell it properly, we must go back to the beginning. We must start before I was called upon to play my part, to where all of this started, in the cold, silent dark of a restricted orbit.
KHATSEY COLONY: RESTRICTED ORBIT
TIME: 23:47 SET
The shuttle drifted like a ghost through the graveyard of Khatsey's orbit. Every onboard system had been purged of power, leaving the vessel cold and dark to avoid detection.
Any visual contact or scanner interaction would report just another piece of mining debris, one of a thousand irregular shapes of ore and rock being pulled slowly into the planet's gravity well.
Inside the cramped cockpit, Mayvheen spoke in a hushed whisper, as if the vacuum of space itself might carry her voice to the enemy.
"We're drifting towards the blind spot," she said, her eyes fixed on the passive sensors. "Are you ready to power up and fire the engines?"
Veera, sitting in the pilot's chair, kept her hands hovering just inches above the dead controls. "I'm ready."
"Just–" Mayvheen started, her voice trailing off with anxiety.
"I know," Veera interrupted, her jaw set. "Too early and they detect us. Too late, and we burn up in the atmosphere. I've got this."
Veera glanced down at her wrist console, watching the silent countdown toward the all-clear notification. The moment the display pinged, she slammed her fingers onto the ignition sequence. The ship's consoles flickered to life, bathing their faces in a pale, clinical blue light.
She reached for the engine controls, but before she could commit to the burn, a sickening shriek of metal on metal echoed through the hull.
The shuttle bucked violently.
"What was that?!" Veera shouted, fighting the controls as the ship began to tumble.
"It sounded like a collision– a large piece of mining debris!" Mayvheen cried, her hands flying over her own station.
"It pushed us off course," Veera gritted her teeth, wrestling with the stick.
"It's worse than I thought!" Mayvheen's voice rose an octave as she read the telemetry. "We're heading straight for the atmosphere. We don't have much time! Veera, correct the course! Fire the engines!"
"No, it's still too soon!"
"Veera, if you don't fire now, we'll burn up!"
"Not yet!" Veera's eyes were locked on the orbital map. "We're still outside the blind spot. Firing the engines now will create a massive engine signature pin. The squids will see the ping, they'll come to investigate, and our cover will be blown."
"We only have a few seconds left!"
Veera ignored her, her heart hammering against her ribs. She watched the threshold of the blind spot approach on the HUD. The hull began to groan as the first wisps of the upper atmosphere clawed at the shuttle.
"Almost... almost..."
"Veera–!"
"Now!"
Veera slammed the thrust control forward. The roar of the engines was deafening in the small cabin, G-force pinning them back into their seats. The tiny shuttle groaned under the strain, fighting the planetary pull, until finally, the trajectory levelled out. They slipped into the shadow of a massive derelict freighter, safely tucked into the blind spot, hidden among the trash.
As the vibration died down, Mayvheen exhaled a breath. "Is there movement from the blockade? Did they detect us?"
Veera checked the passive scans. "No. But we took some damage. We have a minor fuel leak and some structural dents, but the atmospheric integrity is holding."
"Praise be," Mayvheen whispered. "It could have been much worse."
Veera leaned back, the adrenaline beginning to recede, leaving a bitter taste in her mouth.
"I still don't understand why this is a covert mission. Why can't we just approach the colony and ask what's going on? Aren't the squids supposed to be our allies now?"
"The Cephilusks," Mayvheen corrected automatically. "And yes, they are allies, but the situation is... complicated. Khatsey has always been in the restricted zone, but now, suddenly denying us access to our own people? Something isn't right."
Veera looked at the fuel display. The leak was slow, but in space, "slow" was a death sentence for a return trip. "May... the collision. If we land this shuttle, we won't have enough fuel to get back into orbit. We're stuck."
Mayvheen frowned. "We can't open a comms channel, the Cephilusk fleet would pinpoint us in seconds."
"What about a Drop-Drone?" Veera suggested. "We could send me down with an old longwave comm-kit. Even if the squids catch the radio chatter, they'll assume it's just local planet-side transmissions."
Mayvheen hesitated, then nodded. "It could work. But you'll need to be careful, Veera. We don't know what to expect down there."
Veera made her way to the storage module, grateful for a moment of solitude. Mayvheen was younger than her, and despite outranking her, Veera often felt the gap in their experience. Mayvheen followed the manuals; Veera followed her instincts.
And her instincts told her that whatever was happening on Khatsey, it wasn't a diplomatic misunderstanding.
She began prepping the Drop-Drone. The pod was small, usually meant for emergency supply drops, but it could fit a single passenger with the current configuration, if they didn't mind the squeeze. She began grabbing crates. Medical supplies, she decided. If the colony had gone dark, there was usually violence involved. She packed heat-wands, nano-gel packs, synth-skin for burns, and adrenaline injectors.
Finally, she strapped the long-wave radio pack to the top of the stack.
She moved to the secure armoury. If she was going down alone, she wasn't going down unprotected. She stepped onto the assembly platform, stripping down as the automated systems whirred to life.
Mechanical arms hissed, snapping plates of re-graph metal over her limbs. The suit was heavy, a relic of her days as an assault marine, but it felt like a second skin. A small laser engraved her name and rank onto the shoulder plate with a sharp, ozone smell. She snapped the helmet into place, the HUD flickering to life.
She grabbed her rifle, the weight familiar and comforting, and returned to the cockpit.
"Drone is ready," Veera's voice sounded metallic through the suit's external speakers. "Did you find a touchdown spot?"
Mayvheen didn't look up. Her face was pale in the scanner's glow. "Veera... I discreetly scanned the colony. Something is wrong."
"What is it?"
"There aren't many people down there," Mayvheen whispered. "I could only detect thirty-seven life forms. There should be several thousand."
The air in the cockpit felt suddenly cold. "Do you think the squids... did they eradicate the colony?"
"I don't know. Attacking a human colony would be suicide for their Concordat membership," Mayvheen said, trying to convince herself. "The Cephilusks aren't stupid like that."
"I fought them in the Discovery War, May," Veera said, her voice grim. "They are cruel. For them, inflicting suffering is motivation enough."
"It was war, Veera. We weren't any less cruel."
"You weren't there," Veera snapped. "It's different when you're safely in a starship, worlds apart from the carnage. You didn't see the horrors."
Mayvheen sighed, rubbing her temples. "We need to stay focused. We have a job to do. Are you ready?"
Veera checked the seals on her armour. Thirty-seven survivors. A planet full of ghosts. And a blockade of "allies" watching from above.
"Let's get this over with."
A moment later, the shuttle's bay doors hissed open. The Drop-Drone was spat out into the void, a tiny spark of metal falling toward the dark heart of Khatsey.