Nov - Cerberus

Vale loaded her sidearm. “Then we don’t cross.”

They were five: Vale, Thorne, Engineer Kovac, Pilot Chen, and Comms Officer Dekker. Their mission was prospecting, not first contact. But Hades-9, a dark speck in a forgotten system, had other plans. nov cerberus

The station went silent.

Commander Vale ordered a full evacuation on November 19th. The shuttle’s pre-flight check failed. Every system read the same error: . Not a date. A command. A name. Vale loaded her sidearm

Commander Vale fired her gun into the ice. The bullet stopped mid-air, frozen in a web of crystals. The ice hummed a fourth tone—deep, final, like a stone door closing. But Hades-9, a dark speck in a forgotten

Dekker was found in the comms array, his eyes wide open, pupils dilated to black holes. His lips were moving, but the only sound was a low, harmonic hum. When Kovac shook him, Dekker’s body crumbled—not like flesh and bone, but like ash. A fine, grey dust that smelled of burnt cloves and cold iron.