The interstellar train, a sleek marvel of engineering, glided silently along the spaceway, its hull shimmering with the faint glow of quantum shields.
It was a two-day haul from the Starhold Border Outpost to Planet Imperial Nexus, center of this galactic empire.
Beyond the holographic window, space sprawled out—endless, cold, and speckled with stars and swirling nebulae.
Lena Cross, pale as a ghost, stared into it, her thick black hair spilling over her shoulder against the cabin's sterile white walls.
A service robot rolled up, all smooth moves and glowing panels, offering her a vial of meds. She frowned, hand hovering like she wasn't sure it'd bite.
Then she coughed—twice, sharp and loud in the dead quiet.
Three days back, life made sense. Well, as much as it could in year twelve of a post-apocalypse world.
She'd been scavenging past New Hampton, dodging danger for scraps, when—bam—she woke up here. A shiny, futuristic mess, stuck in the body of some girl with her name but a whole different deal.
Both were Lena, sure, but that was it for overlap.
A woman in a tight uniform strode over. "Hey, your health's the priority. Take the meds," she said, firm but not harsh. Iris, her name was, longtime sidekick to General Aldric Cross. She'd been sent to drag his so-called adopted daughter back home.
The "adopted" part came with air quotes. Word was, Lena might be the general's dirty little secret from a fling out at Starhold Outpost. No proof, just juicy rumors the Xu family didn't bother squashing.
Lena wasn't about to chug mystery potion without a fight. Iris captured the hesitation, snatched the vial from the bot, and took a swig herself.
"See? Not poison." She waved the robot for another dose. "I'll keep testing them till you're good to go."
Back when Iris first hit Starhold and saw Lena—pale, frail, half-dead—she'd called in top doctors to whip up a fix. Getting her to take it, though? That was the real mission.
"Then you drink it," Lena shot back, voice flat.
Iris didn't flinch—downed the next one.
By the fourth, Lena caved. "Fine, give me that," she muttered.
The stuff tasted like fake banana, sticky-sweet and wrong. She grimaced but choked it down.
Iris watched her swallow, then had the bot fetch a food tray before bailing.
Lena poked at it—some weird space slop—but her gut twisted, and she shoved it aside, flicking the robot off with a hand wave.
This body sucked. Eat too much? Feel like garbage. Too little? Worse. Coughing fits hit out of nowhere, sometimes with blood.
In her old apocalyptic stomping grounds, she'd have been toast ages ago with this body.
The girl who'd owned this wreck of a shell checked out three days back—too weak to hack it. Then Lena, end-times scavenger with the same first name (and now last name, post-adoption), slipped in, snagging her memories and language chops.
That original Lena? Her life was bleak. Starhold Outpost covered four planets, and she'd been marooned on the farthest rock. Always sick, no family, just wasting away on nutrient fluid in a cramped hole.
Lena had barely clocked three days in this skin when Iris swooped in to haul her to the Imperial Nexus. Officially, she'd be General Aldric Cross' adopted kid now.
But as the train sliced through the void, Lena couldn't shake the vibe she was barreling toward something way messier than a new address.
The cabin's sterile, high-tech hum freaked her out—nothing like the jagged, busted-up world she'd ruled.
She was still Lena, but not really. The sickly girl's memories tangled with hers, a jumbled mess of who she'd been and who she was now.
"Who the hell am I anymore? And what is waiting on the Imperial Nexus?" she muttered to herself.
No clue. But she'd have to get sharp, fast.
Lena had spent the last three days glued to her opticomputer—basically an advanced smartphone—diving solo into the chaos of this interstellar era.
The galaxy was split between two big dogs: the Alliance and the Empire.
The Empire had broken off from the Alliance 95 about a century back, and ever since, it'd been a tense standoff—border skirmishes and petty wars flaring up like clockwork.
Things had only simmered down in the last few years, like both sides were finally catching their breath.
She couldn't wrap her head around it. 'Why, in this star-spanning future, are they still rocking slliances and empires?'
She'd pictured something slicker—a utopian setup where AI-androids handled the grunt work, and the state raised kids in some shiny communal cradle. But nah, this place was raw, political, and stubbornly human.
At the center of it all was Cerulion, a golden star anchoring a messy system of dozens of tiny planets—none even close to Earth's size.
The Empire and Alliance had split them fifty-fifty, like kids divvying up candy.
Their tech, though? Straight-up wizardry. Environmental mods could tweak a sun-scorched rock or a frozen wasteland into something humans could call home.
The border zones—Starhold and Sentinel—were a rough patch of eight planets, each barely scraping by with 300 to 500 million people. Half of them were grunts, military types always on edge, eyeballing the other side for the next spark.
Inside the Empire, they'd carved out four star systems. The capital, Imperial Nexus, hogged System One, a playground for the elite sipping their lab-grown cocktails.
The other three? A steep slide into squalor. System Four was the pits—space slums where dreams went to rust.
Centralized power, wealth gaps that'd make your jaw drop—feudal lords with starships, basically. Not exactly a utopia, and Lena's new identity? A total mystery.
Still, it beat the hell out of her old life—scraping by in a post-apocalyptic nightmare.
She soaked up the rare calm, a peace she hadn't tasted in forever. Her fingers brushed the white snake ring on her right hand—its scales so damn lifelike it gave her chills.
It'd been there since day one, and something told her it wasn't just jewelry. This world, this new life—it was a puzzle begging to be solved.
The interstellar train—a gleaming silver beast—rolled into the Capital Star's massive hub.
Lena thought she was prepped, but the place hit her like a supernova. Flying cars—real ones—zipped between gleaming towers. Robots, some humanoid, some just floating orbs, hustled through the crowds.
It was every sci-fi blockbuster she'd ever binged, but the hum of engines and the tang of ionized air made it real.
The shuttle to the Cross Residence sliced through the elite district, where the city's chaos faded into perfection.
A hulking mecha statue towered over gardens, wreathed in flowers and fountain mist.
The air was crisp, the temp dialed to "paradise" by climate tech. Roses and frost lilies bloomed side by side—like nature had been reprogrammed.
They switched to a ground skimmer for the last stretch. It pulled up to the Cross Residence, a weird mashup of styles—like some ancient crib got a futuristic facelift.
A plaque in flowing interstellar script read "The Corss'."
Iris steadied her as she stepped out, whispering, "Mrs. Cross's waiting. She's... quite blunt."
Lena coughed twice—nerves kicking in—and pushed open the heavy doors.