It’s not adrenaline anymore. It’s unease.
Carson appears beside me a moment later, face tight. “What the hell happened?”
“Someone spotted an Odex, they say.”
His eyes go wide. “Here?”
I nod slowly. “Yeah. But Carson… it didn’t attack.”
He gives me a sharp look. “Are you defending it?”
“No,” I say, unsure. “Maybe. I don’t know. It just didn’t feel right. The way it looked at us—it wasn’t rage. It was more like… analysis.”
“Are you saying it was intelligent?”
“More like I’m saying it didn’t feel like an ambush.”
The compads flicker with updates:Perimeter breach. Defensive posture authorized. Patrol rotation increased. Risk rating: Elevated.
I feel that risk settle into my bones.
Back at camp, the atmosphere doesn’t ease. Even after the marines return empty-handed—no tracks, no signs, no confirmation—their tension doesn’t bleed off. No one admits it out loud, but they’re spooked. It takes a lot to unnerve guys likeGrady. But he’s coiled tighter than a spring now, barking orders and pacing the command tent like a caged animal.
Later, after lights-out is called and the base goes quiet again, I find myself outside my bunk, wrapped in a thermal jacket, staring at the sky.
The haze shimmers above like oil on water. Colors ripple in the upper atmosphere, caught in the weave of the planet’s fractured magnetic field. It’s almost beautiful, in a haunted kind of way. The stars are faint here, just barely piercing through the muck. But enough to remind me this place is still part of a universe. Still under the same night sky as everything else.
I wrap my arms around my knees and breathe in the sharp, mineral-heavy air. My visor is off now. It’s safe enough inside the camp’s perimeter. Or so we hope.
Somewhere in the cliffs, that creature—Odex or not—is probably watching.
I can feel it.
That same sensation I had before—on the first night here—settles over me again. Not fear. Not exactly. But a pressure. Like someone’s eyes on my back.
Except… it doesn’t feel malevolent.
I don’t know how to explain it.
It feels like the planet itself is holding its breath again. Like something’s waiting.
And for the first time, I don’t feel like the observer.
I feel like the observed.
CHAPTER 4
MAUG
The tunnels groan around me like an old animal, restless and aching.
I drag my weight through the tightest bend, stone scraping my back plates, until I reach the hollow deep enough to silence the world. It isn’t a true cave—more like the ribcage of something ancient. A collapsed transit channel, maybe. From when Purgonis had cities and laughter and more than bones to offer. Before lava roots webbed through everything like arteries. Before the pressure blooms pulsed and spat caustic vapor from cracks in the walls.
I sit. Let my bulk settle into the jagged floor. The air is wet here, heavy with sulfur and ash. But at least it doesn’t reek of humans. At least I can think.
I should’ve never gone that close.
I know better.
