The base's night cycle was beginning, lights dimming to their evening settings. In the distance, Noah could hear the faint hum of the perimeter shields cycling. Everything normal, everything secure. Except for Kelvin's increasingly agitated typing.
"You know," Noah said carefully, "if you're worried about the inspection tomorrow..."
Kelvin's fingers froze over his tablet. "I... that's..." He took a deep breath. "It's not exactly standard equipment."
Noah kept his expression neutral, waiting.
That got a small laugh out of his roommate. "This is different. It's..." Kelvin lowered his voice. "It's a custom scanning array. Been picking up some weird readings since we landed."
'A scanner?' Noah maintained his casual demeanor while his mind raced. 'Could it have detected something when I accessed my domain?' He kept his voice light. "Weird how?"
"Like..." Kelvin glanced at the door, then back to his tablet. "Energy signatures I can't identify. Strongest reading came just as we were landing. Then nothing. Like it vanished."
The hair on the back of Noah's neck stood up. 'Same time as when the quest showed up. Could it be or something else entirely?' He needed to be careful here – any obvious interest might raise questions he couldn't answer.
"Probably just atmospheric interference," Noah suggested, lying back down. But his mind was already connecting the dots. Whatever had triggered Nyx's behavior might have also triggered Kelvin's scanner. And somehow, he had a feeling Micah knew more than he was letting on.
The moons' light had by now shifted, casting long shadows across the room. In the distance, something waited. And Noah couldn't shake the feeling that it was watching them right back.
----
In the base's control room, Commander Hayes stared at his coffee cup like it had personally offended him. "Who," he asked with dangerous calm, "made this abomination?"
'Five years commanding deep space expeditions, and I still can't get a decent cup of coffee on any base,' he thought, watching the thick sludge refuse to drain from his cup when he tilted it.
"Sir," a nervous technician started, but was interrupted by urgent beeping from one of the monitoring stations.
"Commander!" Lieutenant Santos called out. "We picked up something during the students' arrival. An unidentified object appeared just as their ship breached atmosphere."
Hayes set down his coffee, instantly alert. 'Just what we need. Unknown contacts on day one of hosting academy brats.' He moved to Santos' station with practiced efficiency. "Show me."
The main screen flickered to life, showing a blurry shape at the edge of their sensor range. Then, nothing.
"Get me readings. Energy signatures, trajectory calculations, anything." Hayes leaned closer to the display, eyes narrowing. 'Same pattern as before. Always at the edge of our range, always just long enough to make us doubt what we're seeing.'
"That's just it, sir," Santos replied, fingers flying over his console. "The electromagnetic interference is masking everything. Whatever it was, it appeared and vanished in less than three seconds."
'Three seconds.' Hayes' jaw tightened. 'Same as the Epsilon incident.' But he kept his voice steady. "Run a full spectrum analysis," he ordered. "Check for void energy traces, temporal distortions, the works. And get me a damage assessment of our sensor array – could be the E.M. waves playing tricks on us."
"Yes, sir. But..." Santos hesitated. "The timing seems... convenient."
'With a batch of fresh academy recruits just landing?' Hayes nodded grimly. "Keep on it. I want to know if anything so much as hiccups in our outer detection grid."
Minutes later, in his private office, Hayes sat heavily in his chair. The weight of command, of responsibility, pressed down on him like a physical force. His tablet activated with a touch, displaying a photograph he knew by heart. A woman in a commander's uniform smiled back at him, her eyes holding the same determined look he saw every day in the mirror.
'What did you see out there, Sarah?' His hands shook slightly as he touched the screen. "What did they make you forget?"
The photograph, like always, offered no answers. Instead, his mind wandered to the student files he'd reviewed earlier. Most were unremarkable – typical academy prospects with more enthusiasm than experience.
Hayes pulled up the student roster, scrolling through the names. 'Traditional academy structure – Class 1A through 1C. Just like back on Earth.' His eyes scanned through the detailed files they'd received in advance.
'Third-gen talents are rare as ever,' he mused, noting the genetic classifications. 'Mostly second and first-gens. Weak, by any combat standard.' His lips twitched. Back in his day, they wouldn't have even qualified for field training.
A familiar name caught his eye: Adrian Albright. 'Commander Albright's son,' he thought, remembering the proud messages from the vice headmaster of Earth's academy. The academy had grand visions – if this Cannadah mission succeeded, they'd establish another academy here. 'Another breeding ground for cannon fodder,' Hayes thought bitterly.
He continued scrolling until another name made him pause: Eclipse, N. The biodata was sparse, parents greyed out, but the recent field report... Hayes sat up straighter. 'Two level 3 beasts, killed without combat ability?' He read further, brow furrowing. 'Only listed talent is... perfect sound mimicry?'
'Well, that's different,' he thought, but not enough to explain the combat results. Something wasn't adding up.
Hayes dropped the tablet onto his desk and stood, moving to the window. The eternal twilight of Cannadah's twin moons painted the landscape in muted purples and blues. 'Still prefer this view to what I left behind,' he thought. 'Better than leading another platoon of underpowered soldiers to die against the Harbingers.'
He watched a group of students crossing the courtyard below, their excited chatter carrying faintly through the reinforced glass. 'So eager, so clueless.' They had no idea what the war really meant, how badly humanity was losing. Reports from other human occupied planets grew grimmer each month, but here on Cannadah...
'Here, I can finally retire,' he thought, touching the cool glass. 'If we last that long.'
Hayes returned to his desk, picking up the tablet again, though his mind remained clouded. The endless chain of unknown threats, the pressure to prepare underqualified students for a war they could never win—it weighed heavier than his years in space ever had.
He pulled up a search bar, hesitating for only a moment before typing. His fingers danced across the screen, and soon, a video began playing. The sound was unmistakable—high-pitched, breathy moans mixed with excitable murmurs.
He glanced toward the door, ensuring it was locked, then sighed. "A commander's indulgence," he muttered, unzipping his pants with mechanical precision. The years away from Earth had robbed him of many comforts, and while discipline kept him functioning, there were limits to what even the most hardened soldier could endure.
The tablet screen reflected his movements, the video playing at a dizzying speed as he adjusted its volume lower, muttering something about "thick walls" and "privacy protocols." His breaths quickened, tension leaving his body in a way no battle simulation or debriefing could manage.
For a moment, Hayes allowed himself to forget—forget the academy brats, the Harbingers, and the threat looming at the edge of their sensors. He wasn't Commander Hayes of Cannadah Base anymore; he was just a man, alone in the quiet vastness of space, desperate for one fleeting moment of solace.
But the moment didn't last.
A sharp knock at the door shattered the fragile reprieve.
"Commander!" Santos' voice rang out, urgency cutting through the heavy silence. "You need to see this!"
Hayes cursed under his breath, scrambling to compose himself. The tablet clattered onto the desk, and he zipped up, running a hand through his hair. "One moment!" he barked, his voice carrying the authority that made soldiers snap to attention.
As he unlocked the door, his heart sank. Santos' face was pale, eyes wide with barely concealed panic.
"What is it now?" Hayes demanded, already bracing for the next disaster.
Santos thrust a datapad toward him. "The unidentified object... it's back, sir. And this time, it's not alone."