CHAPTER 1
KRISTI
Iwalk the polished metal corridors of Novaria Prime with my jaw locked tight and my heart cinched into armor. Everything about this place glows too brightly—clean walkways, domed skylights, reflective glass facades stitched between towering spires of alien alloy. It's like the damn city is trying to prove something. Harmony, they call it. Integration. Progress.
Bullshit.
To me, it's just a lie laid in chrome. A cover-up sprayed across the face of what this planet really is—a graveyard with nice lighting.
The hum of hovertrams overhead stirs the fine hairs at the back of my neck. Conversations in half a dozen tongues flood my ears: chirping Fratvoyan dialects, the guttural rhythms of Vakutan, soft melodic Sereen notes. It all blends into a cultural soup that makes my stomach churn. My boots click too hard on the floor—human-made leather on alien-grown steel. It’s a quiet rebellion, but it’s mine.
My route never changes. I take Corridor B to the municipal archives—second level, southeast quadrant, past the fractal garden someone thought would be a lovely multicultural symbol. I think it looks like blood stains under sunlight. Thearchives sit tucked behind a mural of unity: humans clasping claws and tendrils and luminous alien limbs in some grotesque approximation of peace.
I don’t look at it. I never do.
Inside, it’s cool and dry. Sterile. The lighting dims by design to preserve the ancient datacores. The smell here is familiar—ozone, dust, old electricity. Safe. Human. The only place on Novaria that doesn’t feel like it’s trying to talk to me in a language my body refuses to understand.
“Morning, Kristi,” says Margo, without looking up from her desk.
“Is it?” I grumble, tossing my badge onto the counter with a soft thunk. She laughs.
Margo’s a good sort. Human. Older. Wears her hair in tight coils with silver pins that sparkle like old Earth stars. She used to be a historian before she became an archivist. I think she drinks too much tea and trusts too easily. We don’t agree on aliens, but she’s smart enough not to push me about it.
I head to my alcove, a recessed study nook filled with hardcopy files, sealed memory slates, and a flickering interface I’ve rigged with blind-spots. Uncle Dennis might’ve secured me this job, but I do it well—no one questions that. I’m efficient, meticulous, cold as the vacuum beyond the stratosphere. It’s how I survive.
My fingers dance across the console as I bring up today's batch—documents flagged for digital decay, most of them from wartime. I always volunteer for those. The stories in them are broken. Like me.
Today’s pull includes a bundle of personal logs from an old Vakutan war unit—encrypted, but not tightly. I skim them, jaw tightening with every line. Tales of evacuation. Burnt villages. Dead children. There's too much detail. Too much... humanity.
I slam the slate down harder than I need to. My pulse is racing.
Why do they always have to sound like us?
The door hisses open behind me and I freeze. I didn’t hear the pad alert. My heart jumps to my throat, but it’s just Margo.
“You all right?” she asks, narrowing her eyes.
“Fine.”
“Your shoulders are at war with your spine,” she says, smirking. “Want tea?”
“No.” My voice is sharper than it should be. She flinches a little. I soften. “Sorry. Long morning.”
“Mm-hmm.” She hands me a thermocan anyway. “Mintroot and bark. You’ll like it even if you pretend you don’t.”
I take it. I don’t drink it.
When she leaves, I stare at the slate again. There’s an image embedded—a blurry capture of a Vakutan soldier. Tall, armored, with scales glinting like rubies. Something about him unnerves me.
I shove the slate away.
Back to work.
The rest of the day drags like a limp-legged drone. By the time I finish my logs, triple-check the data integrity transfers, and pack up my tools, the sun’s already dipped below the Novarian skyline. The archive's windows catch only the tail end of twilight—violet streaks and fading gold bleeding into the mirror towers of the capital.
I clip my badge back onto my coat and nod to Margo as I pass her desk.
“Try not to scowl all the way home,” she calls after me.
