"Zor'go, assemble a security detail. Vaxon, you'll lead ground team. Zorn, prepare medical bay for potential casualties—unknown species, unknown medical requirements."
The bridge erupted into controlled activity. I returned to Engineering to prep my gear, mentally cataloging what I'd need for an unknown first contact scenario. Translation matrix, universal interface adapters, portable power units, environmental suit rated for extreme conditions.
Krev met me at my office. "You think there's really someone down there?"
"The signal suggests intent. Someone built that beacon, someone's maintaining it." I pulled my field kit from storage, checking each component. "Whether they're still alive when we arrive is another question."
"And if they're not?"
"Then we'll recover what data we can. Every lost civilization teaches us something."
But I hoped there were survivors. The engineer in me was curious about their technology. The part of me that had lost my birth family to a mining disaster—the part that had driven me to master engineering so no one else would have to die from preventable failures—wanted to save whoever was broadcasting that desperate signal into the void.
We reached the planet in two hours. The hostile environment lived up to its designation—scorched surface during day cycle, violent weather during night cycle, with only narrow windows ofrelative safety during transitions. The kind of world you'd avoid unless you were desperate or had no choice.
The signal was originating from a cave system near the equator, its power signature flickering like a dying heartbeat.
"Landing team, to the bay," Captain Tor'van ordered.
I joined Vaxon and his security detail—six of his best, all armed and armored. We loaded into the landing craft, a sleek transport designed for hostile extractions. Vaxon ran through the mission brief with his usual efficiency: establish contact, assess threat level, evacuate any survivors to Mothership for processing.
Simple on paper. Reality was rarely simple.
2
Dana
The cave smelled like fear and desperation, with a sharp undertone of scorched metal that never quite left my nostrils. I pressed my palm against the rock wall, feeling the residual heat from the day's burn still radiating through the stone. Fifteen hours until the sun rose again. Fifteen hours until the surface outside became a literal hellscape, temperatures climbing past two hundred degrees Fahrenheit, hot enough to melt the soles off our boots if we stayed out too long.
"Dana, the beacon's dying again." Jalina's voice cut through the darkness, high and tight with barely contained panic.
I didn't turn around. Couldn't afford to let them see my face right now, see the way my jaw was clenched so hard my teeth ached. "I know."
"Can you fix it?"
Can I fix it?The question of the hour. The question of every goddamn hour since we'd crashed on this burning rock three weeks ago. Could I fix the emergency beacon cobbled together from salvaged parts and desperate hope? Could I fix the water reclamation system that kept coughing up rust-colored liquid? Could I fix the fact that we were stranded in a galaxy we'd neverheard of, on a planet that actively tried to kill us twelve hours a day?
"I can try."
I pushed off from the wall and turned back to face the cave's interior. The emergency lighting we'd rigged cast everything in a sickly blue-green glow, throwing shadows that made the sixteen women huddled in our makeshift shelter look like ghosts. Maybe that's what we were, ghosts of the Liberty mission, haunting this miserable excuse for survival.
The beacon sat in the center of our camp, a Frankenstein's monster of technology that had no business working at all. Three different power sources, wiring from four separate systems, and a prayer that the electromagnetic interference from the planet's mineral-rich crust wouldn't scramble our signal into meaningless static. I'd been nursing it along for days, rerouting power, bypassing burned-out circuits, basically performing electronic CPR every time it flatlined.
I dropped to my knees beside it, ignoring the way the movement pulled at the half-healed burns on my thighs. Souvenirs from our first night outside, when I hadn't understood just how hot "hot" could get. The medkit had barely enough burn gel left to matter, and we were rationing it like gold.
"Talk to me, you bastard," I muttered, pulling open the access panel. My hands moved on autopilot, checking connections, testing voltage levels. The multimeter we'd salvaged from the crash gave me numbers that made my stomach drop.
Power output was down to thirty percent. At this rate, we'd be broadcasting silence by morning.
"Well?" Bea appeared at my shoulder, her botanist's hands surprisingly steady as she held the work light for me. Tall and rail-thin, she'd lost weight we couldn't afford to lose. We all had.
"The primary cell's shot. I can reroute through the backup, but it's going to drain our remaining power reserves faster."
"How much faster?"
I did the math in my head, wished I hadn't. "We'll have maybe four days of signal. Maybe less."
Bea's breath caught. Four days. Four days of broadcasting into the void, hoping someone, anyone, would hear us. Four days until we'd be sitting in the dark, invisible to whatever rescue might be searching for Liberty's scattered survivors.
