It was Christmas morning aboard the Triumph of Darron, and the speakers played festive music through the corridors, but Luca barely heard it. He was too busy trying to keep his eyes open over his third cup of coffee, his body pleasantly wrecked from a night that had stretched well past three in the morning, ship time.

  Emily sat beside him at the mess hall table, her hair still damp from the shower, a satisfied smile playing at her lips every time their eyes met. She looked as tired as he felt. Neither of them was complaining.

  "Merry Christmas, everyone," Luca said, raising his mug.

  The crew responded with varying degrees of enthusiasm. Zoe was bright-eyed despite everything, already on her second plate of rehydrated eggs. Ryan was slumped over his coffee, his face a pale mask of exhaustion. Chris was marginally more functional, picking at his food.

  Joey had positioned Danny's wheelchair at the head of the table again, the IV pole tucked beside him, and Danny was eating with the appetite of someone whose body was still rebuilding itself from the inside out.

  "You two look like hell," Ryan muttered.

  Emily's smile widened. "Late night."

  "Yeah, I bet." Ryan's tone was flat. "Some of us were trying to sleep."

  Luca felt heat creep up his neck, but Emily just laughed, completely unrepentant. Her hand found his thigh under the table and squeezed.

  Worth it.

  Once breakfast was finished, Luca set down his mug and straightened. The easy warmth of the morning faded as the weight of what lay ahead settled back over him.

  "Alright, everyone. Bridge in ten minutes. I want all hands at stations." He looked around the table, meeting each of their eyes. "We don't know what we're approaching. I want us ready."

  The crew nodded, the shift in energy immediate. They'd been through too much to take anything for granted now. The facility ahead was still a mystery, and mysteries in Alpha Centauri had a way of trying to kill them.

  The bridge hummed with activity as the crew took their stations.

  Luca settled into the captain's chair, fingers drumming against the armrest. The main display dominated his view, and what it showed made his chest tighten.

  The facility was massive.

  Built directly into the surface of an asteroid, the structure sprawled across the rocky terrain like something that had grown there rather than been constructed. Dark metal and harsh lines. Long, sharp edges that could be antennas or weapons or something else entirely. A shimmering shield wrapped around the entire asteroid, catching the distant light of Alpha Centauri A and throwing it back in fractured rainbows.

  The Triumph looked like a toy beside it.

  Zoe adjusted her display, zooming in on the exterior. "Shield's holding steady. No fluctuations. And those bay doors..." She pointed at the screen. "They're big enough for multiple ships to enter side by side."

  "Matching rotation," she added, fingers dancing across her console. The Triumph adjusted its orientation, syncing with the asteroid's slow tumble through the belt.

  "System portal signatures inside," Danny added from his station, his voice still slightly rough but alert. "At least two, maybe three. Hard to get a clean reading through that shield."

  Ryan crossed his arms, studying the display. "Any bets on whether this is an automated death station?"

  Emily glanced over at him. "You're such a ray of sunshine, Ryan. Could be anything. Research station. Outpost. Supply depot."

  "Yeah, or a tomb," Chris said, his voice low. "This place looks abandoned."

  "Abandoned but intact," Danny said. "That shield's been protecting it. Whatever's inside, it's been preserved."

  "Thanks, Professor X," Ryan muttered.

  Danny's head snapped toward him. "Hey! I resent that. I have hair."

  "For now you do..." Ryan grinned.

  "Not funny." Zoe punched his shoulder hard enough to make him wince. "Leave him alone."

  Luca stared at the structure, and something cold crawled down his spine.

  He'd seen this before.

  The realization hit him, stealing the air from his lungs. Not the facility itself, he'd never been here. But the feeling. The dark silhouette against the stars. The shimmering barrier. The utter silence of something ancient and waiting.

  “I’ve been here,” Luca murmured. “Not here, but… something like this.”

  Emily turned to look at him. "What do you mean?"

  "I don't know." He shook his head, trying to pin it down. "Something about this whole place. It feels familiar."

  The unease was a sharp point in his chest, wrong and persistent.

  "We're holding position," Zoe reported. "Three hundred meters from the shield perimeter."

  Luca made his decision. "Ryan. Chris. You're with me. We'll EVA over and find an airlock. Get access, assess the situation."

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  Ryan hesitated. "Wait, just like that? What if it's crawling with bad guys?"

  "Really, Ryan?" Zoe raised an eyebrow. "Want me to take your spot?"

  "Nah." Ryan's grin was immediate. "I've been itching for some action."

  Chris nodded, more measured but just as ready. "Let's do it."

  "We're almost out of medical supplies," Joey said, his voice cutting through the energy. He wasn't looking at them, his eyes were fixed on Danny, on the IV line running into his brother's arm. "If anyone punctures their suit out there, if there's no atmosphere in that station..." He finally looked up, and his expression was hard. "We don't have the reserves to handle another crisis."

  Zoe moved to Ryan, adjusting a strap on his armor with more force than necessary.

  "Relax," Ryan said. "What's the worst that could happen?"

  Nobody laughed. Ryan's grin flickered and died. He looked away.

  Chris checked his plasma rifle, then glanced at Ryan. "I'll keep him out of trouble."

  Ryan snorted, but it was hollow. "The hell you will."

  Luca turned to Emily. "You're in charge while we're out. Zoe, monitor everything."

  "We'll be ready." Emily's eyes met his, and beneath the calm, he could see the worry. She crossed to him as he finished checking his Centauri Phantom Scout Suit—thin, flexible armor designed for infiltration, nothing like the heavier suits Ryan and Chris wore.

  "You come back with a scratch," she said quietly, "and I'm putting you in the med-pod next to Danny. Try me."

  He smiled despite himself. "Noted."

  Near the equipment rack, Emily's EVA jetpack sat in its mount. Luca reached for it, but the connections wouldn't seat on his scout armor.

  Chris took it from him, rotated the pack, and clicked it home on his own back. "I'll take point."

  Emily's eyes narrowed. "That's mine, thief."

  "Borrowing it. You've got a ship to fly."

  She didn't argue. She didn't have to—the look said everything.

  He ran through his final equipment check. TL9 hacking pad, secured. Multitool: attached, its pulse scanner overlay active, feeding environmental and material data directly to his HUD in real time. Passive creature detection online. Everything hands-free, everything streaming. His plasma tomahawk mag-locked to his thigh, plasma blaster holstered at his hip. Chris and Ryan both carried plasma rifles slung across their backs.

  "Cameras on," Emily said. "We need to see what you see."

  "Already active." Luca sealed his helmet, the HUD flickering to life around him. "Let's move."

  The airlock cycled, and the outer door opened to the void.

  Space stretched out ahead of them, cold and infinite. The asteroid facility hung against the starfield like a dark wound, its shield shimmering with that strange, ethereal light. No atmosphere. No gravity. Every movement would have to be precise.

  Beyond the facility, the asteroid belt of Alpha Centauri A drifted in slow silence. Rocks the size of houses tumbled lazily past in the distance. Further out, a chunk of stone the size of a city block rotated against the stars, its surface pockmarked with ancient craters. The scale of it made Luca's chest tight. They were specks out here, insignificant against the vastness.

  Chris went first.

  He pushed off from the Triumph's hull, the jetpack on his Guardian armor firing in short, controlled bursts. A tether line trailed behind him, unspooling as he crossed the gap toward the facility's exterior airlock. His movements were smooth, Emily's TL9 backpack working wonders in zero-gravity.

  "Tether's secure," Chris reported. His voice crackled slightly in the comms. "Coming across the shield threshold now."

  Luca watched his progress on the HUD, tracking the moment Chris passed through the shimmering barrier. The shield flickered around him but didn't resist.

  "It's passive," Chris said. "Probably designed to stop debris and microasteroids. We can move through it fine."

  "Good to know," Ryan muttered. "Would've sucked to bounce off."

  Chris reached the airlock and anchored himself, attaching the tether line to a structural mount. "Line's set. You're clear."

  Luca grabbed the tether and pulled himself along, Ryan close behind. The magnetic clamps on their boots were useless in the void. Out here, it was all upper body and careful momentum. Luca focused on the line, on the facility growing larger ahead of them, and tried to ignore the black vastness pressing in from every direction.

  He crossed the shield threshold. A faint tingle passed over his suit, like static electricity, and then he was through. The barrier held steady behind him.

  The facility's exterior was even more imposing up close. Dark metal, sharp angles, brutalist architecture that felt ancient and alien and somehow familiar.

  That's where the déjà vu came from.

  The realization hit him with sudden, uncomfortable clarity. This was like the Genesis Platform. The one his dad had won in the system lottery. The dark, abandoned station. The shimmering barrier. The silence.

  Athan had claimed the Genesis Platform by completing three brutal portal challenges. Three gauntlets that had nearly killed his entire family before granting them access to the station's rewards.

  Luca's stomach dropped.

  If this place was the same...

  Joey's words echoed in his head. They were running on fumes. Food stores depleting. Med-gel nearly gone. And if this facility required them to run portal challenges to claim it...

  We might not survive the claiming.

  He pushed the thought down. One step at a time. Get inside first. Figure out what they were dealing with.

  "You okay, Luca?" Emily's voice came through the comms. "Your heart rate spiked."

  "I'm fine." He reached the airlock and grabbed the structural mount, pulling himself to a stop beside Chris. "Just... thinking."

  Ryan arrived a moment later, slightly too fast. Luca caught him before he could overshoot, pulling him in.

  "Easy, Ryan."

  "What can I say?" Ryan's voice was tight. "I'm eager."

  The three of them floated at the exterior airlock, tethered to both the Triumph and the facility. Luca examined the control panel, dark, unpowered, but the design was almost recognizable. Like someone had taken human technology and adjusted it.

  "This looks familiar," he murmured.

  Ryan peered at the controls. "Yeah. Like the System tweaked it for us."

  He pulled out the TL9 hacking pad and connected it to the panel. The device hummed, cycling through protocols, probing the dormant systems. After a long moment, something clicked. Power trickled through the panel, emergency reserves kicking in.

  "Got it," Luca said.

  He initiated the airlock cycle. A mechanical whir, a hiss of escaping pressure, and the door began to shift.

  They stepped inside.

  The airlock was dark. No atmosphere. Their helmet lights cut through the blackness, illuminating smooth walls and an interior door ahead. Luca closed the exterior hatch behind them, sealing them in.

  "Boost your lights," Emily said. "We can barely see anything."

  "Already at max," Luca said. He moved to the interior door and tried the controls. Dead. He connected the hacking pad again and manually pumped the airlock, forcing the mechanism to cycle.

  A thought struck him as he worked.

  The spores.

  They were still contaminated. The Triumph's environmental systems were crawling with those green particles, and every surface they'd touched, every piece of equipment they were wearing. If the spores could infect his starship, what would they do to an abandoned base?

  Does it matter?

  The place was dead. No atmosphere. Whatever was inside had been sealed away for god knew how long. Maybe the spores wouldn't survive in a vacuum. Maybe this facility would give them the answers they needed to deal with the contamination.

  The interior door groaned open.

  They floated through, and the airlock hatch sealed behind them with a thud that echoed in Luca's chest. The facility stretched out ahead, its dark corridors silent and clean, preserved perfectly beneath that shimmering shield. No atmosphere. No gravity. No life.

  Luca remembered the early days. Arriving at the Genesis Platform in a small shuttle. The same darkness. The same silence.

  "Any of you getting an objective?" he asked. "Guidance? Anything from the System?"

  "Nothing," Ryan said.

  "Same," Chris confirmed.

  Luca nodded slowly. That tracked. The System never made it easy.

  “This is a System reward,” Luca said, floating forward, deeper into the dark. “We just have to claim it.”