1:001: January 12th, 2089 – 7:35 AM

January 12th, 2089 – 7:35 AM

Aboard the Perseverance – 20 minutes to landing.

CELESTOS-4-2: “Attention: Final mission parameters initializing. Please remain seated and review assigned objectives.”

The AI’s voice rang through the ship, cold and clinical. It had been their constant companion for six months, monitoring, analyzing, and evaluating every move. CELESTOS-4-2 wasn’t just a voice—it was embedded in every system, from the ship’s navigation to their environmental suits. There was no turning it off. No tuning it out.

“Ugh, why do we even have this thing?” Dr. Amiran Patel muttered as he stepped out of the AI Core room, running a hand through his graying hair. “Six months of code tweaks and it still sounds like a 2070s HR bot.”

He didn’t bother closing the door behind him. The soft whirr of servers and pulsing lights spilled into the corridor, as though the AI was still watching—even after he’d left. Patel crossed the cabin and slid into his seat, the curved glass shell automatically sealing around him with a muted hiss . The oval enclosure shimmered faintly with reactive shielding—rated for EMPs, shockwaves, and hull breaches.

Ethan was already strapped into his own. The transparent shell enveloped him like a high-tech sarcophagus, sleek and silent. The restraints were snug, the seat molded to absorb G-forces, but his focus stayed elsewhere. He barely registered the pressure digging into his shoulders.

His gaze flicked to Captain Varma, the only one still exposed. She stood at the mission console, arms crossed, eyes sharp as she scanned the latest telemetry data. She was steady, always steady, even when everything else felt uncertain.

“Final system check. Status?” she asked, voice smooth, measured.

Co-Pilot Reyes, a steady presence in the cockpit, was the first to answer. His fingers danced over the controls with practiced ease. “Course locked. Descent path is stable.” His voice carried the confidence of a veteran pilot, though a faint edge of tension lingered beneath the surface.

Lieutenant Harris, their tactical lead, followed, his tone clipped and professional. “Weapons green. Ground conditions remain unknown.” He sat rigid in his seat, one hand resting near the safety harness across his chest. The dim glow of the console reflected off his sharp features, his eyes scanning for any sign of trouble.

Patel added, “Comms still dark. Veslaya team is non-responsive.” She frowned at her display, adjusting the earpiece nestled in her dark curls. The scientist’s usual curiosity was tinged with concern—radio silence was never a good sign.

Hearing it confirmed made Ethan’s stomach twist. The Veslaya research team had been silent for weeks. Their last transmission had been routine—nothing out of the ordinary. After that, they simply vanished. No one had been able to reach them. Every attempt at contact? Met with the same unbroken silence. And the longer that silence stretched, the worse it felt.

Varma remained still, her expression unreadable as she folded her arms and studied the display. “Understood.”

Ethan exhaled through his nose. He could feel the weight in the cabin, pressing against them like the gravity they’d soon face. It had been four months without contact, and they needed to uncover what had happened. The silence, the unanswered transmissions—it gnawed at Ethan, tightening in his chest like a warning he couldn’t ignore.

He tightened his grip on the harness straps, forcing himself to stay focused, and taking a deep, calming breath. Maria was down there. She had to be alive. The silence from the Veslaya team didn’t mean she was gone, but the uncertainty chewed at him from the inside out. No matter his feelings, he was determined to find her. And the fact that he was this close? There was no space for anymore stress. He exhaled, and let it all go.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

January 12th, 2089 – 7:50 AM

Aboard the Perseverance – T-minus 5 minutes to landing.

CELESTOS-4-2: "Final approach nominal. Atmospheric interference minimal. Brace for turbulence. Descent parameters locked."

A tremor ran through the ship’s frame—no longer subtle turbulence as their descent began. A sheen of plasma sheathed the hull as the Perseverance slammed into the atmosphere at hypersonic velocity, shockwaves compressing the air into searing heat that scorched the heat shields. Ablative layers vaporized in streaks of white-hot gas. The cabin dimmed to red as gravity slammed into them like a tidal wave. Ethan clenched his teeth, lungs compressed under the mounting G-forces. His restraints dug deep, harnessing him against a world trying to rip the ship apart.

The ship adjusted, thrusters firing in sequence, the stabilizers compensating before turbulence could build. A smooth descent—just like in the simulations. Just like they’d drilled. Across the cabin, Captain Varma sat rigid, eyes fixed on the monitors, their glow reflecting against her sharp gaze. No sign of doubt. No hesitation.

The overhead lights shined brightly as Ethan stared up, hoping the moment would pass quickly. He forced his breathing to steady, resisting the impulse to check his vitals. The bio-monitor clung to his skin beneath the reinforced fabric of his suit, silent as always.

Reyes’ voice crackled through the comms, calm but clipped. "Descent path locked. No unexpected variables."

The ship gave another barely perceptible lurch, auto-stabilizers kicking in before Ethan could fully register the movement. Patel muttered something under his breath, fingers hovering near his console like a pianist waiting for the first note. Harris sat unnervingly still. Harris let out a quiet exhale—measured, steady.

The hum of the ship deepened, thrumming through the walls, the seats, the bones in his chest. It was happening. No turning back now.

Ethan’s helmet display flickered as CELESTOS overlaid real-time visuals atop weeks-old orbital scans. The terrain matched—mostly. Jagged iron-hued forests and metallic lakes gleamed where cloud cover had once obscured satellite imagery. Rivers shimmered with mineral-rich sediment, snaking through a crust visibly scarred by impact craters and tectonic upheaval. It reminded him of basic training back on Mars, of a simpler time with Maria before The Discovery happened.

But the surface wasn’t still—like Mars it writhed beneath a roiling veil of red dust, whipped into spiraling columns by chaotic wind shear. The scans hadn’t lied, but they hadn’t shown this. The atmosphere churned with particulate haze, the dust coating everything—tree canopies, riverbanks, fractured cliffs—in a dull crimson pallor. Seeing it raw and shifting, with turbulent gusts kicking that red powder over the dense canopy, made it real.

Reyes let out a low whistle. “Hell of a view.”

Harris barely spared the display a glance, eyes fixed on his instruments. “Looks hostile.”

Patel snorted. “Wow. Brilliant analysis. Maybe you should submit a research paper.”

“We’ve got five minutes to hell or history, so let’s stop the petty bickering.” Ethan said with a confidence he didn’t feel.

“Yeah, yeah, thanks mom.” Patel muttered, but the rest of the crew quieted down.

The ship gave a faint shudder as thrusters adjusted, fine-tuning their angle for re-entry. The shift was minor, routine—barely more than a ripple through the reinforced hull.

"Hold steady." Varma’s voice was smooth, and steady. “We’re clear.”

Harris gave a slight nod. Patel rapped his fingers against the shell of his seat, exhaling through his nose, the tension in his shoulders easing just a fraction from the self-soothing.

Ethan flexed his fingers against the armrests, forcing himself to relax. The silence pressed in, unnerving in its stillness. Too smooth. Too quiet. His anxiety was getting the best of him so he closed his eyes.

He opened them as a shriek of static ripped through the cabin. A muffled detonation followed, echoing from the aft—far too internal to be atmospheric. CELESTOS immediately rerouted power, emergency bulkheads slamming into place as the rear thruster array failed catastrophically. The ship lurched off-axis.

“We’re under attack!” Ethan shouted, even as his harness snapped taut. His vision swam. Artificial gravity buckled momentarily before the stabilizers compensated—barely. Red indicators flared across every console. The lights dimmed but held—thanks to redundant power cells kicking in.

Patel stared at the readouts, wide-eyed. “Who? What the hell just hit us?”

No one had answers. Only the silent agreement that it hadn’t been a malfunction.

There was a brief respite, a collective hope that maybe the worst was over. Then—a burst of white light outside the forward viewport. And everything died. Almost everything.

CELESTOS-4-2: “T-minus 4 minutes. Unknown projectile detected. Origin—unable to—threat confirmed. Rerouting stabiliz—”

Her voice garbled mid-syllable and cut out entirely as another explosion rocked the ship. Monitors bled to black, consoles went dead, and the artificial horizon stuttered, flickered, and vanished.

Ethan’s HUD flickered—but held. The protective shell of his seat whined as its EM shielding kicked in, layers of insulation deflecting the worst of the fiery and electromagnetic pulse.

Varma had no such protection.

She’d been standing outside the shells, exposed at the mission console, her anti-grav boots locking her to the floor. Ethan saw her silhouette just as the second wave of energy rolled through—then the console exploded. A column of fire and shrapnel engulfed her in a heartbeat. One moment she was there—commanding, unshaken—the next, she was fire.

Emergency capacitors discharged too late. The rear thruster overloaded and detonated. The shockwave slammed through the frame, pitching them violently off-axis. Ethan’s harness snapped taut, ribs straining against the jolt. The ship wasn’t descending anymore. It was falling.

Harris and Reyes didn’t wait. The moment the EMP hit and systems failed, they were already moving—unclipping restraints with practiced precision and sprinting toward the forward bay. Their boots hammered the deck in unison, and within seconds, both men vanished into their assigned drop ships. Hydraulic clamps disengaged with twin bursts of pressure, and the vessels detached in a staggered arc, heat shields flaring as they vanished into the burning sky.

Smoke coiled through the cabin. Ethan coughed, throat raw, lungs burning. His hands scrambled at his harness—slick with sweat, fumbling with the release latch. Across from him, Patel was doing the same, cursing under his breath. They broke free almost simultaneously, adrenaline surging as they lunged to their feet. It became a race.

They ran. The corridor twisted around them—flashing lights, fire-lit shadows, bulkheads groaning like dying machines. The deck bucked beneath their boots, the ship’s spine unraveling with every shudder. Somewhere ahead, the final drop ship blinked green on the emergency panel—prepped for launch, but holding.

His last shot. If he missed it, he wasn’t getting off.

Patel was beside him—running hard, breath ragged, boots hammering the scorched deck. The hatch was still open, hydraulics straining, edges glowing faintly from heat stress. They reached it at the same time.

Ethan surged forward, ready to dive through. Patel caught his arm—too firm to be steadying. Then Patel’s voice hissed through clenched teeth, sharp and low, like he didn’t want to hear himself say it.

“You were never gonna make it anyways.”

The shove came instantly—no time to react. Ethan’s shoulder slammed into the bulkhead with a crack, pain detonating through his ribs. The impact knocked the air from his lungs, his vision going watery and gray. He gasped, blinking through smoke and static.

He stared after Patel, stunned. The man didn’t even glance back. Just turned, vaulted through the hatch, and vanished.

The door sealed with a final, mechanical clunk that echoed louder than any explosion. A heartbeat later, the drop ship fired its thrusters and shot into the storm of fire and debris.

And Ethan was still here. And the Perseverance was dying and burning around him.