Golden light from the Meridian Gate spilled through the thin bulkhead windows and penetrated every room aboard the Hemingway. Arbiter Drayton stood at the center of the command deck, beside his chair. He raised his eyes toward the vaulted dome above him. Within the chamber, every conversation fell silent. Even Sasha muted the ambient notifications as the ship aligned with the ancient Meridian Gate.

  “Everyone take this in,” John said. “You’re not just witnessing history. You’re about to write it.”

  No one spoke. The stars outside twisted in an impossible pattern as the ship’s nose crossed the ring’s threshold. The gate reacted instantly. Beams of violet, gold, and silver rippled across the hull like fire dancing across a mirror. The crew stared, awestruck, as the stars peeled away and the void stretched into an endless tunnel.

  John recalled an old quote. “Sunny Ithaca is far away... but still I go. For a man’s life, nothing is better than to journey and learn the minds of many. The gods will find a way to get you home. But you must be brave. You must go out and seek your fate. You must not cling to your boyhood any longer. It’s time you were a man.”

  Samantha seemed impressed. “Wise Physseus, tactful man of many schemes, your fame has reached the skies.”

  Half an hour later, the ship trembled, slowed, and came to a stop deep inside Dependency. It was a pocket of space which others rarely traveled.

  The mixed feelings of adventure faded when they arrived within view of the planet Eurynome and the lost vessel the Foretold Reckoning which orbited it.

  Once the Hemingway entered orbit above the rogue exoplanet, the silence deepened to something suffocating as everyone witnessed a place unlike any other. Eurynome was not a world in the traditional sense; it was more of a fossil. It appeared as a dead spherical ribcage adrift in the stars, the remains from some ancient reptilian beast called a Parlogoosa. It gave John the chills. “That thing used to be alive?” he said, with a weight on his chest.

  Sasha spoke from the room’s center console. “The mighty Parlagoosa are still alive in certain parts of the universe. They’re difficult to track. They’re one of the reasons the Meridian Gate was created…to skip the unfortunate lanes of travel where other Abyssal Zone monsters roam freely in the Dependency. There are too many to control so we simply avoid them.”

  John gulped.

  Iridescent vapors drifted from ruptures in the marrow crust and spiraled into space. Jagged ridges looped around massive honeycomb voids that leaked atmosphere like the final breath of a dying titan. There were no oceans or continents. There were just bone-white plates of calcified crust, stained red from blood in some places, and deep fractures that yawned wide enough to swallow an entire Dependency armada.

  “That’s not right,” Selathe Min said, from her pilot’s terminal. “Arbiter…you need to see this.”

  “Selathe, what’s wrong?”

  “Someone should have pinged our approach…Caldera Reach is the biggest colony on the planet. There should be thousands of colonists, most from Earth. Sir, I know that the Dependency command stopped receiving long range communications after the Braccari attack, but I’m not getting a single response. We should be receiving something now that we’re in close orbit. The air is just…dead.”

  John stepped forward. “Continue pinging Caldera Reach. We can’t assume the worst just yet.”

  On the main screen, the image zoomed in on the Foretold Reckoning which hung nearby in lower orbit around Eurynome. The vessel was massive. It was twice the length of a Dependency battleship but thinner and organically jagged. Its hull wasn’t merely torn open, it looked molted as if something had burst out from within; veins of fungal growth laced the armored plating like a bad rash.

  “Arbiter,” Selathe said. “Portions of the Foretold Reckoning appear to be…breathing, sir. It’s subtle, but I’m detecting a slow and rhythmic expansion and detraction in parts of the frigate.”

  “What is that supposed to mean?”

  “I don’t know yet, sir.”

  “Send as much data as you can to Dr. Theo Marche and Dr. Halven Derat. See if they can figure out what’s going on.”

  “Aye, sir.”

  “What do Dependency records say about the ship?”

  This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report.

  “The last Dependency record of this ship was logged eighty-three years ago. Even the official records are unclear. They state the ship simply vanished.”

  “And now it’s here…”

  That chilled the room.

  From behind, Vaelis Rhun approached. “The ship was named after an ancient prophecy from the humans of Eden. The Foretold Reckoning participated in many battles. It was said to be a vessel of final judgement. A myth. A warning to children. And now…it’s here.”

  John’s mouth felt dry. It wasn’t a myth any longer.

  Sasha’s voice returned, leveled and soft. “My passive scans detect a faint Hyperion signature deep within the wreck.”

  John turned toward the center console. He pressed his thumb against the embedded bioscanner. A needle slipped beneath his skin and extracted a sliver of DNA. It felt like a pinch. A holographic interface appeared.

  “Mission authorization: Arbiter John Drayton,” Sasha announced. “Mission logged. Confirmed.”

  John signed the digital seal. The gold ring dissolved.

  “Objective added,” John said. “We’re delaying the descent to Caldera Reach. First, we investigate the Foretold Reckoning. Hyperion technology may be onboard, If so, its retrieval takes precedence. It could change the war.”

  Samantha narrowed her eyes. “You believe Thariel’s involved?”

  “Yes. Or someone like him. Maybe someone worse.”

  Chief Rhea Morgan stepped forward, fists clenched. “Let me take a team. We can sweep the interior, clean and fast.”

  John shook his head, no. “We don’t know what’s in there. I won’t risk it. I’ll go in quietly.”

  “I’m going with you,” Sam said.

  John nodded. “Fine.”

  Thea snapped. “That’s reckless.”

  “That’s the job,” Sam replied.

  Rhea Morgan stared for a moment longer, then exhaled and nodded.

  “We’re suiting up,” John said. “Selathe, orbit the Foretold Reckoning.”

  “Aye, Arbiter.”

  In the armory, the Astralis-9 suits activated. They were sleek and matte-blue with golden detailing along the spine and chest. Each suit was equipped with magnetic boots and microthrusters. Their armor didn’t have the same capabilities and protection as a Griffin Wing, but it was thick enough for a short mission.

  “Telemetry links green,” Sam said. She locked in her helmet. “Stealth systems engaged. If we take it slow, we’re as silent as a snake in water.”

  John nodded. “If we’re quiet, we live. Nothing reckless.”

  Sam gave him a look.

  “What?”

  “That’s less up to me and more up to you.”

  They launched from the Hemingway’s airlock and drifted silently toward the wreckage. They passed through fields of objects. As they passed by, John spotted frozen dead faces. They soared amongst a matrix of thousands of frozen corpses.

  “These soldiers weren’t killed in a battle,” Samantha said. Her voice tightened. “They were discarded.”

  Shards of bone and tattered flight suits spun slowly in zero-g. They weren’t Dependency marines or any unit he recognized.

  “Sasha, what are those markings on their necks and arms?”

  “Pirate guilds.”

  “What about the ones without markings?”

  “Bruising from shackles. Slaves from Abyssal Zone colonies. I do not detect Dependency civilians or marines. They are likely citizens of various territories in the Abyssal Zone.”

  John’s boots touched down first. Magnetic clamps engaged as he moved through the gaping hull fracture of the Foretold Reckoning. Sam followed.

  The inside was worse.

  It was still alive.

  The walls pulsed faintly. Black, semi-organic plating undulated beneath their feet. Fungal filaments twitched in the air like sensing tendrils. A low hum vibrated through the deck. An ambient frequency pressed behind John’s eyes like tinnitus from another dimension.

  “Are we safe?” John asked Sasha. “I don’t want us contracting some celestial cancer.”

  “You’re safe, so long as your combat armor remains intact.”

  “Flashlights off,” John muttered into comms. “We go in dark. Use your thermals. I don’t want to wake anything.”

  They moved through halls shaped like spinal canals, past remnants of half-absorbed cargo and twisted remains. Doors opened as they approached. They didn’t slide open; they peeled open like muscle tissue split by a scalpel.

  “I’m detecting movement,” Samantha hissed. “Left side.”

  They froze.

  A shape crawled across the wall—half-Braccari, half machine. Its legs moved like broken blades. Its thorax was fused with surgical piping. Its eyes were blank and black as the void.

  But it didn’t attack.

  It whispered something indecipherable.

  Then it crawled away, back into darkness.

  Samantha exhaled. She unsheathed her DR-77 Hellfire Dual-Rail revolver. “I already want to blow everything up.”