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1. A Derelict Adrift, and Two Commissions
The Luna Geist, its silver hull cutting through the void, brought Shutia to a halt before a massive structure — grimy and vast, floating alone at the bottom of a deep darkness.
It had drifted in without warning from some distant region of space: an ownerless structure of unknown origin. Its outer walls were torn open in a dozen places from old explosions and long decay, and the exposed steel beams jutted outward like the fangs of some enormous creature. What it had once been was a space factory. What it was now was a ruin.
The commission Ledea and Shutia had taken from the station administration was a routine one: infiltrate the structure, confirm the presence or absence of any remaining data or hazardous materials.
From the copilot's seat, Ledea ran a sweep of the perimeter. A reading on the console made her raise an eyebrow, just slightly.
"There's a signal on radar."
She pushed her hair back and pulled the readings up on the monitor.
"Transponder confirmed — the Aqua Ignition. Asphi and Kanoa?"
"Huh? Did someone beat us here?"
Shutia kept one hand on the controls and tilted her head, puzzled.
"That's strange. I thought this was an exclusive advance survey — the kind where you don't run into other contractors. Did someone mix up the paperwork?"
"Let's check," Ledea said, and opened a channel.
"Aqua Ignition, do you read? This is — the Silver Anchor — " a brief pause — "the Luna Geist, today."
Static hissed, and then a familiar figure appeared on the monitor: a woman with a soft smile and long blue hair.
"Oh, Ledea and Shutia." Asphi's eyes moved briefly to the ship, reading it. "...Hm. That's the ship one of you used to fly alone, isn't it. What a coincidence."
She had narrowed her eyes with quiet recognition. Then, from the edge of the frame, another face appeared — Kanoa, eating a snack with characteristic detachment.
"hey, Shutia sis. hey, small sis."
The moment she heard it, Ledea's eyebrow rose. A small, precise movement — contained, as always, but unmistakably there. When she answered, her voice was marginally quieter than usual.
"Hello, Asphi. — And Kanoa, as cheeky as ever. We received this commission through Subaru Station's administration. It's an official survey."
"Oh, really? We took this job through Orange Rock's guild." Asphi pressed a finger gently to her cheek. "It looks like two different offices assigned the same commission to different contractors without knowing what the other had done. These things do happen."
It was the sort of bureaucratic error that came up often enough in the outer regions that no one bothered to be very surprised by it.
"We only arrived a few minutes ahead of you. ...We did have some visitors, though. Somewhat aggressive ones. We helped them on their way."
"they said something about treasure," Kanoa added, without inflection. "they were loud. so i hit them from behind."
She said it with the same affect as a weather report. Apparently a raider scouting party had had its eye on the structure — but by the time the Mace sisters arrived, the Aqua Ignition's crew had already seen to them entirely.
"I see. Understood." A brief pause. "In that case — would it be all right if we joined you?"
"Of course. We're here now, after all — let's take a look inside together."
Asphi's voice had a way of softening the edges of situations. The Luna Geist docked alongside the Aqua Ignition.
The airlock hatches opened. All four descended from their respective ships and stepped into the frozen dark of the ruin.
The artificial gravity had failed. There was an unsettling lightness to the air — a faint sense of drift. Shutia swept the surrounding space with practiced attention, then turned back to her sister — much smaller than her, as always — and spoke with genuine seriousness.
"Sis — the raiders might not have been the only ones, and I don't know what else is in there. Make sure your defense gear is on properly."
The concern was excessive. It was also accurate. Ledea gathered her silver hair and nodded, simply and without ceremony.
"I know. ...And I have no intention of giving Kanoa anything to look down at me for. Let's do this properly. Let's go."
And so began the strangest, noisiest derelict survey either crew had ever conducted.
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2. A Familiar Corridor, and a Flickering Light
"A little dangerous here. Watch your step."
Asphi's voice came through the comm — gentle but careful.
The four of them moved through the dark corridors of the ruin in a single file, cautious and deliberate. Asphi led, her eyes ranging constantly over the space around them. Kanoa and Ledea followed directly behind. At the rear, Shutia moved with a sensor terminal linked to the Luna Geist's array, keeping herself between the passage's blind angles and her sister's back.
The structure had no atmosphere — open to vacuum throughout. All four wore sealed pilot suits, navigating the wreckage through their visors. The only sounds were the steady hum of the life support systems inside the suits, and each other's voices through the comm.
"Orange Rock's administration flagged a strange pulse from this area," Asphi said, explaining as they went. "They thought the source might be here."
The commission from Subaru Station had mentioned nothing specific about any pulse. But Orange Rock was geographically closer to the structure — which would have given them sharper observation data.
"So far, though — " Shutia tapped at her terminal — "it looks like any other old abandoned facility. Nothing unusual on sensors."
"if there's nothing here, we report nothing and go home," Kanoa said. "i'm going back to subaru station and eating Shutia sis's cooking."
She said it flatly, as though this were a reasonable plan. A sharp voice came from ahead of her at once.
"Kanoa. Please do not arrange my sister's schedule without asking. When Shutia cooks for someone, it is as my sister."
There was something almost — almost — flustered in Ledea's voice. At the rear of the line, Shutia's expression transformed entirely.
"S — sis — ! You just said — my cooking belongs to us, you and me — did you actually just say that — !? I'm so happy, I love you so much, sis — !"
Behind her visor, Shutia's eyes were literally shining. Kanoa, observing this exchange, said "small sis got flustered" with an air of mild satisfaction. Asphi, listening to all of it through the comm, smiled to herself.
The strange, warm noise of it carried them deeper into the ruin.
Then they came to it: a long connecting passage. Straight, metal-walled, featureless — running directly into the deepest part of the structure.
*(Wait... this...)*
Shutia's feet stopped without her deciding to stop them.
Her pulse struck up a sound she didn't like. Déjà vu — no, something more physical than that. The image from the dream — the one she'd woken from, hours ago, in her room at Subaru Station — was overlapping with what was in front of her now.
A featureless connecting passage she recognized.
And just ahead of her — silver hair, moving.
Shutia was not the only one who had stopped. Ledea, a step ahead of her, had stopped too — at exactly the same moment, with the same quality of stillness.
"...Hm."
From Ledea: barely a sound. Small. Not quite a word.
"Ledea? Is something wrong?"
Asphi had noticed immediately. She turned, leaning in to see her face.
"small sis, what's wrong. stopping here is dangerous." Kanoa was already moving. "Asphi sis, i'm going ahead."
She'd clocked the situation, registered it, and pressed on — the responsible choice, and her usual one. A few steps forward, then she faced down the passage.
*What is this.*
The thoughts came fast and dark.
The passage. The light. The memory. The signal. And right there — her sister's back.
A silhouette disappearing into light.
Whatever Ledea was feeling — whatever had made her stop — Shutia felt it arrive in her own body at the same moment, louder than it had ever been. Every instinct she had was sounding at once.
"The signal — the light — look out — !"
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She never finished the sentence.
Shutia's cry and Asphi's movement came at the same moment — Asphi had already broken into a run toward the far end of the passage.
"Kanoa — !"
"Sis — !"
Shutia's arms closed around her sister — still, unable to move — and she threw them both sideways with everything she had. Her back hit the metal wall of the corridor with a force that knocked the air from her lungs.
An instant later, the torrent of light tore past them — white, total, consuming — passing so close that Shutia felt it as something physical. It may have lasted only a moment. To Shutia, it lasted forever.
"Sis..."
She held on. She checked: warmth, presence, weight. All there. Still there.
"Shutia..."
Ledea had gone still in her arms. Then she came back — a breath, a movement, the familiar particular way she collected herself.
"Thank you. That was — what was that — ?"
They turned to look behind them, where the light had gone.
Nothing. No trace of anything.
Then they turned back to face the passage ahead.
Standing there alone — the only one left — was Kanoa.
"Asphi... sis...?"
The words hung in the silence of the corridor, with nowhere left to go.