Luca pulled himself along, one hand over the other, his helmet lights carving pale beams through absolute darkness. The walls were smooth, featureless, gray metal extending into shadow. No dust. No debris. No sign that anything had ever lived here.
Their breathing was too loud in the comms. The silence pressed in from every direction.
"Status check," Luca said.
"Good here," Chris replied, his voice steady.
"Still alive," Ryan said. "Though this place is making my skin crawl. Feels like something's watching us."
"Nothing on creature detection," Luca said, checking his HUD overlay. The passive scanner showed empty corridors in every direction. "We're alone."
"That's almost worse."
They floated deeper, passing door after door, all sealed. Some had markings etched into the metal, symbols that looked familiar in a way Luca couldn't place. Similar to Varnathi script, but not quite. Something older, maybe. Or something the System had adapted from multiple sources.
"Emily, you seeing this?" Luca focused his helmet camera on a cluster of symbols.
"Cataloging it now," she replied. "Danny's trying to match them to known databases. Could be Varnathi derivative, could be something else entirely. The architecture, though, looks just like the Genesis Platform."
Luca's chest tightened. He'd been right. This was a System construct: built for them to find, to claim. Which meant there would be a price.
"How many portals did your dad have to clear to claim the Genesis Platform?" Chris asked.
"Three," Luca said quietly. "And they almost killed us, come on. Let's keep moving. We need to see what we're dealing with."
They found the workshop twenty minutes later.
It was massive: a fabrication facility that stretched across an entire deck. Machines lined the walls, their forms sleek and advanced, nothing like any equipment Luca had seen before. Resource storage containers were stacked in neat rows, organized by type. Metal alloys. Polymers. Composites he didn't recognize.
Ryan drifted toward one of the machines, his multitool already raised and scanning. The data scrolled across his HUD, and his jaw went slack.
"Holy..." He trailed off, scanning again like he didn't believe the first reading. "Luca. These are TL9 fabricators."
"What?" Chris pushed off toward him. "We've had TL9 schematics for months and nowhere to use them. You're telling me—"
"I'm telling you we just hit the jackpot." Ryan's voice was shaking. "Full molecular assembly. All those schematics we've been sitting on? Weapons, armor, ship components, and medical equipment. We can finally build them. All of it."
As Ryan's helmet light swept across the nearest fabricator, something inside it twitched. A brief flicker of movement, there and gone. Ryan jerked back, rifle half-raised.
"The hell was that?"
They stared at the machine. It sat dormant, silent, exactly as dead as everything else.
"Probably thermal expansion," Chris said. "Your light heated something."
"Yeah." Ryan didn't sound convinced. "Probably."
Luca floated closer, looking at the sleek machinery. TL9. A full tech level above anything humanity had achieved. If they could get these running...
We can do this.
They moved through the workshop, cataloging what they could. The equipment was pristine, preserved perfectly in the vacuum, and waiting for someone to bring it back to life.
This is a test. But we've passed tests before. We'll pass this one too.
The apartments came next.
Hundreds of them, lined up in rows across multiple decks. Small but functional, with the same square footage as his quarters back on the Genesis Platform. The same clean, utilitarian design. The same System architecture.
"Space for a lot of people," Ryan said.
"Hundreds," Chris agreed. "Maybe more."
Luca floated through one of the units, his light sweeping across the empty space. A life could happen here. Meals, sleep, work, rest. Everything a person needed to survive.
We're never going back.
The thought hit him before he could stop it. Earth. His dad. His brothers. All of it, gone. This cold, dark station was their future now.
He shoved it down. Not the time.
The Genesis Platform had looked exactly like this before they'd claimed it. Dark and empty and waiting. Now it was the heart of his family's operations, the shipyard, their home, and future.
Enjoying this book? Seek out the original to ensure the author gets credit.
This place could be the same.
"It's like the Genesis Platform," Luca said. "Same template. Same design."
"So the System builds these things," Chris said. "Drops them in star systems for people to find."
"And claim." Luca pushed off, floating back toward the corridor. "Come on. Let's find the rest."
A thought struck him as they moved. If the System built facilities like this in Alpha Centauri, did it build them in other systems too? At every star humanity reached, would there be something waiting to be claimed? Something to help them expand further, push deeper into the galaxy?
The System wants us to keep moving forward. Every system we reach, there's another door.
The idea sent a thrill through him. This wasn't just about survival anymore. This was about the future.
The storage bay held supplies: crates and containers stacked high, some transparent, showing preserved nutrient bars and sealed rations. System loot drops, just like the supplies they pulled from defeated enemies. Enough to sustain a crew for months. Maybe years.
"The System was preparing this for whoever claimed it," Luca said.
Further in, they found more resources. Metal ingots. Construction materials. Everything they'd need to build, repair, expand. It was almost too perfect. Too convenient.
Ryan floated beside a see-through crate, his light illuminating rows of sealed packages. "You know what bugs me?" he said quietly. "We're stuck out here. Cut off. Running low on everything. And then the System just... drops this in our lap? A whole facility? Right when we need it most?"
"What are you saying?" Chris asked.
"I'm saying it feels like we're being managed. Like the System's been nudging us. Herding us."
"We're not that special," Emily said through the comms. "The System is likely doing this for everyone. Every star system, every group of explorers. It's not about us."
"She's right," Joey added. "This isn't a conspiracy. It's infrastructure. The System wants humanity to expand. This is how it helps us do that."
Luca nodded slowly. That made sense. The System was building the framework for humanity's future among the stars. They just happened to be the first ones here.
And we're going to claim it.
They rounded a corner into a larger section of the storage bay, and Luca's pulse quickened.
There. Against the far wall, between two stacks of resource containers. A shimmer distorted the air, a ripple in reality contained within an oval frame.
A portal.
"You seeing this?" Ryan's voice was tight.
"Yeah." Luca floated closer, his light playing across the shimmer. The portal was inactive, dark, dormant, but unmistakable. He'd seen these before.
Three brutal challenges. Three gauntlets that nearly killed my entire family.
But they'd survived. They'd claimed the Genesis Platform, and it had changed everything.
We survived those portals. We'll survive these too.
"It's a portal," Luca said. "Guarding the supplies."
"So there'll be more," Chris said.
"Two more. If it's like my dad's station." Luca raised his palm toward the portal, and the System interface flickered to life in his HUD.
[System Message: Operation Site]
Scenario: High Society
Gateway: Inactive
Recommended Level: 76
Maximum Level: 90
Maximum Participants: 2
Mission Objective: Infiltrate an exclusive fundraiser in an asteroid resort, bypass four levels of advanced security, and steal the prized artifact.
[End of Message]
"Infiltration," Chris said, reading over his shoulder. "That's your specialty."
Luca nodded. "Let's find the others."
The drydock took their breath away.
It was vast, an interior hangar large enough to house multiple ships for maintenance and repair. Cranes lined the walls. Docking mechanisms. Workstations designed for hull repairs and system upgrades. The Triumph could fit in here ten times over with room to spare.
"Holy shit," Ryan breathed. "This isn't a shipyard. It's a full maintenance hub."
"Imagine what we could do here," Chris said. "Repair the Triumph. Upgrade it. Outfit it for deeper exploration."
Luca grinned. "We will. Once we claim this place."
They floated through the drydock, their lights sweeping across the towering walls and dormant machinery. The potential was undeniable.
TL9 fabricators. A full drydock. Supplies for months. All we have to do is clear three portals.
They'd done it before. They could do it again.
And then he saw it.
At the far end of the drydock, where the main docking clamps would secure a ship's hull was another shimmer. Another portal. The industrial machinery, an integrated part of the structure, framed this one.
"That's two," Ryan said.
Luca nodded and raised his palm.
[System Message: Operation Site]
Scenario: The Shipyard Gambit
Gateway: Inactive
Recommended Level: 76
Maximum Level: 92
Maximum Participants: 2
Mission Objective: Infiltrate a fortified space-borne shipyard to recover a device capable of overriding control systems on the local navy's corvettes.
[End of Message]
The System knows exactly what we need. And it's giving us a chance to earn it.
"Emily," Luca said through the comms. "You getting all this?"
"Yeah." Her voice was tense but steady. "Two portals. That means one more."
"In the generator room," Luca said. "Has to be. The heart of the facility."
They moved on.
They found the generator room behind a massive set of double doors.
The seals released with a hiss when they pumped them manually, and the doors slid apart to reveal an enormous chamber. Machinery filled the space, all centered around a cylindrical structure that extended upward through multiple decks. The generator. The heart of the facility.
And there, at the base of the generator, was the third portal.
Luca floated toward it, his light playing across the shimmer. Three gateways. Three challenges. Identical to the Genesis Platform.
"That's all of them," Chris said.
Luca raised his palm one last time.
[System Message: Operation Site]
Scenario: Junkyard of the Jitters
Gateway: Inactive
Recommended Level: 82
Maximum Level: 98
Maximum Participants: 5
Mission Objective: Search for a valuable Ship Upgrade Mod in an old junkyard while protecting Varnathi engineers trying to make repairs.
[End of Message]
"Ship Upgrade Mod," Chris said. "That's a real reward. We could upgrade the Triumph with that."
Ryan let out a low whistle. "Now we're talking."
Luca studied the portal descriptions, his mind racing. The recommended levels were in the high seventies and low eighties. They were all around that range, give or take. The number of participants varied: two for the first two, five for the third.
"We can't run these one at a time," Luca said. "If we activate one, they'll all activate. That's how it worked on the Genesis Platform. We ended up with mobs all over the station damaging shit, so we need to run all three challenges at once."
"So we split up," Ryan said. "Hit all three simultaneously."
"Which means we need everyone." Luca turned to face them. "Zoe. Joey. Emily. We can't do this with just the three of us."
Chris nodded. "So we bring the Triumph in. Get the whole crew inside."
"And then we run the portals," Ryan finished. "All at the same time."
Luca thought about his father. His mother. His brothers. They'd nearly died claiming the Genesis Platform. But they'd made it through. They'd built something incredible.
Our turn now. And we're ready.
"Emily," Luca said through the comms. "We found them. Three portals. We're going to need everyone for this."
"Copy that." Her voice was steady, but he could hear the focus beneath it. "What are you thinking?"
"Dock the Triumph at the airlock where we came in. Get everyone suited up and inside." He paused. "We're claiming this facility. Tonight."
One way or another.
A moment of silence on the comms.
"Understood." Emily's voice cracked slightly. She cleared her throat. "We're on our way."
Luca looked at the portal, the shimmer playing across his visor.
Three challenges. Three gauntlets.
They were ready.