Just like the ones I failed before.
I snarl low in my throat and slam the blade back into its sheath. The sound is final, but I’m already moving.
The cave lets me go like it’s been waiting.
I climb out into the night, the moons carving pale paths across the ridgelines. The cliffs are slick, but I know every handhold. Every breath of this broken planet is mapped into my body now. It takes me less than an hour to reach the outcropping above the camp.
And there it is again.
That damn light.
Their towers hum with it. Soft pulses of artificial security. Motion sensors beep. Tiny drones blink red as they scan their zones. Marines mill about, pretending to be warriors, their armor scratched and ill-fitted.
Children playing war on a godless world.
But she’s there too.
Outside again.
Alone.
Leaning against the side of a storage unit, arms wrapped around herself.
Her face turned up to the stars, even if they’re half-blotted by the haze.
She thinks she’s alone.
She never is.
My hands dig into the rock as I crouch. Watching.
Always watching.
I should turn around.
Instead, I breathe her in across the distance, the scent of her cutting through the wind like sunlight through stormclouds.
And I stay.
CHAPTER 5
JILLIAN
Ilose track of time here. Purgonis doesn’t give you neat twenty-four-hour days or star-swept nights. The skies are a constant migraine blur of ash and magnetic haze, like the planet resents you tracking its rhythms. But I measure time by samples, by shifts in the soil texture, by the crystalline formations that glitter like shattered glass embedded in slag.
I start seeing patterns.
The crystalline fungi grow in strange fractals—almost mathematical in precision, though nature loves to pretend at order. More than that, they shimmer differently depending on the sound around them. The first time I notice it, I think I’m hallucinating. One of the marines is yelling across the compound—some dumb joke—and I catch a faint pulse ripple through the edge of the fungus I’m cataloging.
I freeze. Wait. Tap the edge of my compad. It makes a soft chirp as it powers up.
Another ripple.
My breath catches. This isn't some random coincidence. The fungus is… reacting. Not just passive reflection. Actual resonance.
I record everything—timestamped video, spectrographic scans, even the tone frequencies from the compad audio files. I don’t tell anyone. Not yet.
Because I know what Ciampa will say.
