CHAPTER 1: RADIANT SCRAPPING
The scent of ozone and ionized metal filled Zoran Vex's nostrils like some strange perfume, a familiar comfort in the cramped confines of his underground workshop. Before him, spread across the scarred workbench that had been his father's before the Great Silence, lay the crystalline heart of a Concord Mark VII power core. Most would have considered it scrap, its energy matrix fractured, its phase conduits fused into useless slag by whatever catastrophe had claimed its original starship. But where others saw junk, Zoran saw possibility.
"Lyra, the quantum calibrator," he murmured, his voice barely audible over the persistent hum of the workshop's aging environmental systems. His focus was absolute, his world narrowed to the intricate web of circuits and crystalline structures beneath his fingers.
His sister's slender hand appeared in his periphery, the requested tool already configured to his exact specifications. At sixteen, Lyra moved with a grace that belied the weakness slowly claiming her body. The genetic decay the medics called Stellar Wasting had stolen the healthy glow from her cheeks and left dark shadows beneath her eyes, but it hadn't touched the sharp intelligence in her gaze.
"You're bypassing the primary regulator again," she observed, leaning carefully against the workbench. The slight tremor in her hand didn't escape Zoran's notice, nor did the way her breathing seemed just a bit too shallow.
"The Concord's safety protocols limit output by forty percent," Zoran said, his fingers dancing across the calibrator's interface. "I can give us more stable power if I reroute through the secondary conduits and reinforce the matrix with that Aetherium-infused alloy we found last week."
"More stable power, or a more spectacular explosion?" Lyra's tone was light, but the concern in her eyes was genuine.
Zoran flashed her a confident grin. "When have I ever blown anything up?"
"The north sector hangar," she began counting on her fingers, "Old Man Jax's moisture vaporator, the entire western comms array that time you tried to—"
"Okay, okay," Zoran laughed, holding up his hands in surrender. The motion caused the workshop's flickering lights to brighten momentarily, a phenomenon he'd learned to ignore. "But those were learning experiences. This..." He gestured to the power core. "This I understand."
As he returned to his work, Zoran allowed himself a moment of pride. Their workshop, carved deep into the bedrock beneath Kylos-7's radioactive surface, was a testament to his skills. What had begun as a simple shelter had grown into a marvel of repurposed technology. Concord energy shields, scavenged from a dozen different wreckages, protected them from the planet's deadly radiation. A patched-together atmospheric processor provided clean air, and the power grid, a chaotic but functional network of solar collectors, geothermal taps, and scavenged fusion cells, kept the lights on and Lyra's medical equipment running.
But it was never enough. Not while Lyra continued to weaken.
A sudden spike on the core's energy readout snapped Zoran's attention back to the present. The crystalline matrix began glowing with an intensity that had nothing to do with the power flowing through it.
"Zoran?" Lyra's voice held a note of alarm.
"I see it." His hands moved with practiced precision, adjusting controls, rerouting power flows. But the glow only intensified, shifting from the cool blue of normal operation to a brilliant, almost painful gold. "It's resonating with something. But what..."
Then he felt it , a warmth spreading from his chest down his arms, a sensation like sunlight flowing through his veins. The workshop lights flickered wildly, tools rattled on their shelves, and the very air seemed to hum with power.
"Zoran, your hands!" Lyra whispered.
He looked down. Golden light,the same light now pouring from the power core, was wreathing his hands, dancing between his fingers like liquid electricity. And he could feel it, a connection between himself and the machine, as if some fundamental part of his being was communicating with the technology.
With a thought, he directed the energy. The golden light flowed from his hands into the power core, weaving through the fractured matrix like threads of sunlight. Where it touched, the damage repaired itself, cracks sealing, burnt-out conduits regenerating, the entire system coming alive with a stable, powerful hum he'd never heard from any machine.
The glow faded, leaving behind a perfectly restored power core, its energy output reading at one hundred fifty percent of designed capacity without a single fluctuation.
For a long moment, brother and sister stared at the device, then at each other.
"What was that?" Lyra finally breathed, her eyes wide.
Zoran flexed his hands, the last traces of golden light fading from his skin. "I... I don't know."
But even as he said the words, memories surface, the way electronics sometimes behaved strangely around him, the times he'd fixed complex systems with just a touch, the dreams he'd had of golden light and whispered secrets. He'd always dismissed them as imagination, coincidence. Now...
A sudden crash from the surface shattered the moment, followed by the unmistakable sound of heavy footsteps on the access ramp.
"Vex!" a rough voice shouted. "We know you're down there! The Overlord wants to see you!"
Zoran's blood ran cold. Jax's men. And if the Overlord was asking for him by name, it couldn't be good.
"Get to the safe room," he told Lyra, his voice low and urgent. "Now."
As Lyra moved toward the hidden panel behind the medical supplies, Zoran's mind raced. The Overlord controlled Kylos-7's largest scavenging operation with an iron fist, and he'd made it clear he didn't appreciate Zoran's independent operation. But this felt different. More urgent.
The workshop door shuddered under a heavy blow. "Open up, Vex, or we'll melt our way in!"
Zoran's eyes swept his workshop, assessing his options. His modified plasma cutter was on the far benc, useless at this range. The sonic disruptor he'd been repairing was in pieces. But the newly restored power core... and the strange energy he'd somehow summoned...
Another crash, and the door's locking mechanism began to glow red. They were using a thermal lance.
Acting on instinct, Zoran placed his hands on the power core. The golden light returned instantly, flowing through him and into the device. But this time, he didn't direct it toward repair. He thought of protection, of barriers, of keeping the invaders away from his sister.
The air in front of the door shimmered, coalescing into a semi-transparent wall of golden energy just as the door burst inward. The first of Jax's men a hulking brute in patched-together combat armor, charged through, only to rebound off the energy field as if he'd hit a solid wall.
The two men behind him stared in confusion, then raised their plasma rifles. Blue energy bolts splashed harmlessly against the golden barrier, the energy dissipating in shimmering waves.
"What in the seven hells is that?" one of them muttered, taking a step back.
Zoran could feel the strain of maintaining the field, a steady drain on something deep within him. But he could also feel the power core feeding energy back to him, creating a feedback loop that strengthened the barrier even as it drained him.
"Lyra," he called without turning, "the emergency exit. Get to the starport, find Captain Rourke. Tell him I'll triple his usual fee if he can get you off-world tonight."
"I'm not leaving you," her voice came from behind the medical bay partition.
"You have to," Zoran said through gritted teeth. The energy field flickered as one of Jax's men produced a sonic hammer and began pounding against it. "This isn't just about the Overlord anymore. What just happened with the power core... they'll want to know about that. They'll want to know how I did it."
He risked a glance over his shoulder. Lyra stood by the hidden exit, her face pale but determined. In her hands, she held their father's old data slate the one containing all their research, their secrets, their hopes for a cure.
"The starport," Zoran repeated. "Go!"
As Lyra vanished through the hidden passage, Zoran turned his full attention back to the intruders. The golden energy field was holding, but he could feel his strength waning. He needed to end this.
Focusing his will, he pushed. The energy field expanded rapidly, slamming into Jax's men and throwing them back through the ruined doorway. He heard the satisfying clatter of armor against rock, followed by curses and retreating footsteps.
They'd be back, and in greater numbers. He had to move.
Grabbing a pack, Zoran began stuffing it with essential tools, data chips, and the few valuable components he couldn't replace. His hands moved automatically while his mind raced, trying to process what had just happened.
The golden light. The energy manipulation. The way he'd communicated with the machine.
He looked at the power core, now humming peacefully on his workbench. It was more than just repaired,It was better than new, its energy signature clean and powerful in a way he'd never seen.
What was happening to him?
A soft chime from the workshop's ancient comm unit startled him. The private channel the one only one person ever used.
He activated it. "Rourke?"
"Your sister just came sprinting into my hangar looking like death warmed over," the gravelly voice of the starport's most disreputable and reliable smuggler came through the speaker. "She says you've got trouble. The expensive kind."
"Can you get her off-world?" Zoran asked, shouldering his pack.
"For triple my usual fee? I'd fly her through the heart of a supernova. But she says she's not going without you."
Zoran sighed. "Tell her I'll meet you there. Twenty minutes."
"You'd better make it fifteen. Word is Jax has put a bounty on your head, and every two-bit enforcer on Kylos is looking to collect."
The connection cut out. Zoran took one last look around the workshop that had been his home, his sanctuary, his prison. He'd known this day would come, he'd just hoped it would be on his terms, with Lyra's cure in hand and a ship waiting to take them to one of the core worlds where she could get proper treatment.
Instead, he was running with nothing but questions and a strange new power he didn't understand.
As he moved toward the hidden exit, his eyes fell on a small, heavily shielded box in the corner, his father's legacy. Inside lay the only thing of value the man had left them: a data crystal of unknown origin, and a strange, disc-like device that had never responded to any of Zoran's attempts to activate it.
On impulse, he retrieved both items, stuffing them into his pack alongside his tools. If he was leaving everything behind, he might as well take the mysteries with him.
The sound of approaching vehicles decided him. Jax was back, and this time with heavier equipment.
Zoran slipped through the hidden exit just as the main workshop filled with the sounds of tearing metal and shouted orders. He moved quickly through the narrow tunnel, his mind already working on the next problem: how to get past Jax's men at the starport, how to pay Rourke, where they could go that Jax's influence wouldn't reach.
But beneath the practical concerns, one thought echoed with terrifying clarity:
The golden light had saved them today. But what would it cost them tomorrow?
As he emerged into Kylos-7's perpetual twilight, the planet's twin moons casting sickly green light across the radioactive wastes, Zoran Vex knew one thing for certain. His life as a simple scrapyard engineer was over. Whatever came next would be far more dangerous, and far more strange.
And it all began with that golden light.