The Endeavor's medical bay smelled like antiseptic and failure.
Chelsea sat beside Lucas's quarantine pod, watching the purple discoloration crawl up his thigh despite three months of treatment. The infection from the moon base refused to respond to any antibiotic, antiviral, or anti-corruption protocol in their arsenal. Dr. Yun called it "unprecedented cellular invasion." Chelsea called it a death sentence on hold.
The medical equipment hummed around them—ventilators, monitors, filtration systems keeping the contamination contained. Chelsea hadn't left this room for more than an hour at a time since they escaped. Sleep came in fragments, stolen between checking his vitals and running yet another ineffective treatment protocol.
"Still here," Lucas said through the pod's speaker, his voice weak but defiant. His face was pale behind the transparent barrier, dark circles under his eyes evidence of the sleepless nights the infection brought. Twelve years of military service had taught him to endure hardship, to push through pain that would break lesser soldiers, but this was different. This was his own body betraying him, cell by cell, the corruption rewriting his biology according to rules written in no human language. The stubborn set of his jaw remained unchanged—the same defiance he had shown in seventeen combat deployments, the same refusal to surrender that had earned him commendations and reprimands in equal measure. "Still breathing."
"Still stubborn," Chelsea countered, her voice pitched light though her throat tightened around the words.
Through the viewport behind her, the Void stretched endlessly—that sphere of absolute darkness they had escaped three months ago, now millions of kilometers behind them. Even at this distance, it watched. The Hollowing had touched something in all of them, left a resonance that hummed in the back of her skull during her worst nightmares.
They had made it out. Barely. With a stolen ship, a corrupted leg wound that the medical team could not explain, and the knowledge that nothing aboard the moon base had survived. The extraction had cost them three team members—good people, professionals she had worked with for years, now reduced to entries in mission reports and memories that surfaced unbidden in the small hours of the night.
Except one signal.
Her hands shook when she allowed herself to think about what they had left behind. The bodies arranged in neat rows. The half-eaten meals still warm after fourteen months. The Fist's mad eyes as they fled.
Marcus found her there an hour later, the recorder still running at his chest—always running, always documenting. The circles under his eyes had become permanent fixtures, and his cheeks had hollowed over the weeks. None of them were sleeping well.
"Rylee wants us in the briefing room," he said quietly. His voice carried the careful neutrality of a man trying not to hope. "Team 2's beacon pinged again."
Chelsea's head snapped up. "That's impossible. We lost Team 2's signal three months ago when we entered the corrupted planet's atmosphere. Nothing gets through that interference."
"Not from the planet. This is different." Marcus pulled up a data tablet, showed her the signal trace. Lines and coordinates that shouldn't exist, pointing to a location that made no sense. "New coordinates. Different system entirely. Like they... jumped."
Or were taken, Chelsea thought but didn't say. The Hollowing had reached through space before. Had twisted reality in ways their instruments couldn't measure. Who was to say it couldn't move people across star systems like pieces on a board?
---
In the briefing room, Nigel had charts projected across every surface. System maps, signal analysis, probability curves that all trended toward impossible. His hands moved through the data with manic energy, connecting points that Chelsea's exhausted mind struggled to follow.
"Team 2's automated beacon activated four days ago," Nigel explained, pulling up a three-dimensional star map. "Broadcasting from a planet two systems over. Not where they were supposed to be. Not where our briefing said they'd go."
"Could be a trap," Lucas's voice crackled through the comm—he was patched in from quarantine. The connection fuzzed with interference from the medical pod's shielding. "The Hollowing could be using their equipment."
"Could be," Rylee agreed. She stood at the head of the table, arms crossed, jaw set in that way that meant she had already made a decision. The weight of command sat visible on her shoulders—Rylee carried it better than anyone Chelsea had known, but even she showed the strain now. "But if there's any chance Team 2 survived..."
"We follow the signal," Chelsea finished. "When do we leave?"
"Already en route." Rylee nodded to the viewport where stars streamed past in faster-than-light blur, streaks of light that still filled Chelsea with wonder after all these years in space. "ETA seven hours. Alpha Team landed three days ago, established a perimeter, but they're not responding to hails. Just their automatic systems confirming they're still alive."
"Define 'alive,'" Marcus muttered. His hand rose unconsciously to touch his recorder, checking that it was still capturing.
No one answered him. They didn't need to. They had all seen what the Hollowing did to the living.
---
Chelsea ran diagnostics on their equipment for the fifth time, the familiar routine providing a thin veneer of control over a situation that defied every protocol she had learned. Her engineering training had taught her to trust systems, to believe that careful analysis could solve any problem. But the data from Alpha Team suggested problems that no amount of analysis could address. New planet, new protocols. Her scanner showed atmospheric composition within human tolerance—just barely. Temperature twelve Celsius. Breathable nitrogen-oxygen mix with trace elements that didn't match any database entry.
No biological signatures.
Her jaw tightened at that reading. No bacteria meant no ecosystem. No ecosystem meant something had killed it all.
Or was still killing it.
She looked out the viewport at the planet growing larger with each passing hour. Gray and brown, clouds scattered across its surface like old wounds. It looked dead from here. Looked like a corpse that hadn't realized it should stop moving.
"Rylee," Chelsea called across the shuttle bay where the commander was reviewing tactical positions. "The sensor data from Alpha Team. It's... wrong."
"Define wrong."
Chelsea pulled up the readings, projecting them on the bay's main display. The others gathered around, their faces illuminated by the data. "Their scans show abandoned settlements. Pre-fabricated structures. But the age doesn't match. These buildings have been here for centuries, but the materials are still pristine. No weathering. No decay. It's like time stopped."
Nigel appeared at her shoulder, squinting at the data. His breath smelled of coffee—his fourth cup today, by Chelsea's count. "Like the moon base. Everything preserved. Meals still warm after fourteen months."
"Exactly like the moon base," Chelsea confirmed. The words tasted sour in her mouth. "Whatever happened there might be happening here."
The silence that followed was heavy with unspoken fears. Each of them carried memories of the moon base—nightmares that surfaced unbidden, flashbacks triggered by sounds or smells that should have been harmless. The psychological evaluations had cleared them for duty, but evaluations could not measure the weight that settled on their shoulders every time they closed their eyes. The moon base had been a nightmare. Bodies arranged in poses of domestic normalcy. Equipment functioning perfectly despite years of abandonment. And the Fist, waiting in the darkness, changed by forces they still didn't understand.
Marcus raised his recorder, checking the angle before speaking. His documentarian's instinct, capturing the moment. "Personal log, supplemental. Six hours from landfall on planet designated Echo-Seven. Alpha Team has not responded to contact in seventy-two hours. Team 2's automated beacon continues broadcasting. Atmospheric analysis suggests habitable conditions but zero biological signatures—a sterile world that shouldn't be possible. Environmental preservation matches patterns observed at the corrupted moon facility. Chelsea Park has identified temporal anomalies in structural aging. Lucas Chen remains in quarantine with infection status unchanged. Commander Voss has authorized full tactical deployment with emphasis on rapid extraction if the situation mirrors our previous encounter."
He paused, then added quieter: "I don't think we're going to find Team 2. I think we're going to find what's left of them."
---
Four hours from landing, the screaming started.
It came through the medical bay comm—Lucas, his voice raw with agony. The sound tore through Chelsea's concentration like a blade, familiar and terrible. She ran, Marcus and Nigel right behind her. Their boots thundered against the deck plating, the rhythm of desperation.
They found him convulsing in the quarantine pod, the purple infection blazing up his entire leg, spreading toward his torso in branching patterns like lightning frozen in flesh. The color seemed to pulse with its own inner light—dark purple shot through with black, corruption made visible.
"Sedation's not working!" Dr. Yun shouted, hands flying over controls. Her face was pale, sweat beading at her temples. "Vitals are spiking—"
"It's the planet," Lucas gasped between spasms. His body arched against the restraints, muscles standing out like cables under his skin. "Getting... closer... it knows we're coming..."
Chelsea pressed her hand against the pod's transparent surface. The material was cold against her palm, a barrier between her and someone she had grown to think of as family. "Lucas, look at me. Stay with us."
His eyes focused on her, and for a moment he was himself again. The fear showed in the white around his pupils, but so did something else. Understanding. Knowledge he shouldn't have. "The corruption. It's... connected. All of it. The moon. This planet. Whatever Alpha Team found." He gritted his teeth against another wave of pain, the cords in his neck standing out. "Chelsea. Promise me. If it takes me... don't let me become like the Fist."
"You're not going to—"
"Promise."
She met his gaze. "I promise."
The seizure passed. Dr. Yun increased the sedation to levels that would kill most patients, and Lucas finally stilled. His breathing steadied, his heart rate dropping to something approaching normal. The purple infection stopped spreading—for now.
But it was closer to his heart than it had been an hour ago. And they were getting closer to the planet.
Rylee stood in the doorway, her expression carved from stone. Her jaw was tight, the only sign of the emotion she wouldn't let herself show. "We land in four hours. Suit up. Full contamination protocols. And Chelsea?" She waited until Chelsea looked up. "Bring the kill-codes for our suit systems. Just in case."
Just in case they needed to mercy-kill a teammate from orbit. Just in case one of them became something that needed to be stopped.
Chelsea nodded, not trusting her voice.
---
Three hours before atmospheric entry, something changed.
Dr. Yun appeared in the medical bay doorway, her expression caught between disbelief and hope. "The infection—it's stabilizing."
Chelsea looked up from Lucas's pod. "What?"
"The closer we get to the planet, the more the corruption seems to... settle." Yun showed her tablet, scans that meant nothing to Chelsea but clearly meant everything to the doctor. "It's like the infection is responding to something in the system. Going dormant."
Lucas's eyes fluttered open. For the first time in days, they were clear. "Told you," he rasped. "Still stubborn."
"You should stay in quarantine," Yun said, but there was no conviction in her voice. "The infection isn't gone—it's just waiting."
"So am I." Lucas pushed himself up in the pod. His arms trembled with the effort, but they held. "Whatever's down there, whatever took Team 2—I'm not letting the team face it without me."
Rylee appeared behind Yun, her expression unreadable. "You can barely stand."
"I have fought in worse shape. Seventeen combat deployments in twelve years—I have crawled through firefights with broken ribs, completed missions with shrapnel still in my leg, held defensive positions for seventy-two hours without sleep. This infection is just another enemy, and I have never lost to an enemy I could see." Lucas swung his legs over the pod's edge, wincing as the motion pulled at muscles that had atrophied over three months of confinement. "The infection's in my leg, not my trigger finger."
"If you collapse down there—"
"Then leave me. I'm not asking for a rescue. I'm asking for a chance."
Rylee studied him for a long moment. Then she nodded once. "Suit up. Light gear—you're on observation unless we need you."
"Commander—" Yun started.
"He's right. We need everyone we can get." Rylee's jaw tightened. "And if the infection starts spreading again, we'll deal with it. Chelsea, get him combat-ready. We land in three hours."
Lucas caught Chelsea's eye as she approached with fresh fatigues. The look that passed between them carried the weight of shared experience—three months of vigil, three months of watching the infection spread while searching for treatments that did not exist. They had become something to each other during those long nights in the medical bay. Not quite friends, but something deeper. Survivors bonded by proximity to death.
But at least this way, he got to choose.
---
Marcus stood in the shuttle bay as the final countdown began, his camera recording the team's preparation. The red light blinked steadily, capturing everything. Rylee checking weapon systems with mechanical precision. Nigel running scanner calibrations, his movements jerky with barely suppressed anxiety. Chelsea triple-checking her demo charges and the sealed envelope containing suit shutdown codes—codes that could end any of their lives with a single transmitted signal.
Lucas moved stiffly beside them, favoring his infected leg but present. His rifle hung across his chest, and his jaw carried the same stubborn set it always had. The infection crept closer to his heart with every passing hour, but he refused to face this planet from a quarantine pod.
And somewhere on the planet below, Alpha Team had stopped responding. Team 2's beacon continued its automated ping, a digital voice crying out in the darkness. And something that had killed worlds waited in patient silence.
"Sixty seconds to atmospheric entry," the pilot announced over the intercom.
Chelsea looked at Marcus, her face pale in the shuttle bay's harsh lighting. "Think we'll find anyone alive down there?"
Marcus thought about the moon base. The warm coffee. The open books. The Fist's mad eyes watching them escape. He thought about Lucas, who just hours ago had convulsed in his pod, screaming about connections and corruption. He thought about a universe that had proven itself far stranger and more terrible than anything he'd imagined.
"I think we'll find something worse," he said. "We'll find exactly what they want us to find."
The shuttle shuddered as it hit atmosphere. The hull groaned around them, metal protesting against forces it was barely designed to withstand. Through the small viewports, fire bloomed against the blackness of space.
Below them, a planet that had been dead for centuries waited with fresh coffee cooling on empty tables.
And somewhere in an abandoned settlement, a child who shouldn't exist huddled in the dark, seven years old and terrified, waiting for rescue that didn't know she was there.
Kate Morrison pressed her hands over her ears, trying to block out the song only she could hear—the song that had been calling to her since the Hollowing took her parents three months ago. It whispered in frequencies no instrument could measure, a melody woven from darkness itself. It told her things about the universe that a seven-year-old should never know.
The song that said they were finally here.
The song that said it was time.
She didn't understand what that meant yet. But she would.
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