The doors finished their groaning arc with a final convulsion of metal, and the light beyond swallowed everything. For a moment, he thought he'd gone blind. White glare pressed through the visor, blooming until all detail dissolved. He staggered, boots scraping the threshold, bar clutched in his hand more as an anchor than a weapon.
Air hissed in his ears. Filters rasped, steady now, steady enough to prove he was still breathing. His lungs hurt with each draw, as though the air itself had weight. The HUD flickered with warnings, symbols drifting across the visor before steadying into a faint overlay.
Pressure stable. Suit integrity: marginal. External temperature: hostile.
The light thinned. Shapes emerged.
He was standing on stone.
Not stone like hallways and walls. Not alloy plating or scorched composites. But raw stone, fractured, ancient, laid bare under a sky without end.
He turned slowly. The threshold loomed behind him, the doors still half-open, a wound carved into the surface of the world. Dust drifted outward in faint clouds, torn loose by the exhalation of the chamber. Beyond, nothing waited but the expanse.
His boots sank slightly into fine powder. Grey-white, clinging, shifting under each step. He crouched, pressed gloved fingers into it. Granules compacted, finer than sand, softer than ash. They clung stubbornly to his suit. He rubbed them together until friction warmed the glove. When he raised his hand again, the powder glittered faintly in the harsh light, like frost turned to dust.
The silence pressed closer. He realized it wasn't true silence. There was the rasp of his own breath, the thud of his pulse echoing in his ears, the faint creak of suit joints each time he moved. But beyond that—nothing. No wind. No whisper of air. Not even the faint hum of the assembler's heart, muffled by walls. Only emptiness.
His chest tightened. He forced a breath through clenched teeth, fogging the visor from within.
Alive.
He was alive out here.
He lifted his head.
The sky was black. Not dark-blue twilight, not clouded storm, but absolute black, sharp and endless. Against it burned stars so numerous they blurred into rivers of light. They spilled across the void in arcs and whorls, constellations unrecognizable, unanchored to memory.
One burned brighter than the rest—a swollen orb suspended at the horizon, massive, luminous, bleeding pale fire into the void. Not a sun in the way he remembered. Too vast. Too distant. Its light bent across the fractured stone, casting long shadows that stretched forever.
His knees weakened. He dropped into a crouch, bar braced against the ground, as the weight of it hit him. The scale. The distance. The undeniable truth that this was not Earth. Not any Earth he had known.
The visor dimmed automatically, tint shifting to compensate for the glare. The HUD flickered again—symbols flashing, readings scrolling faster than he could track.
Radiation levels: tolerable. Atmosphere: null.
Nothing here lived. Nothing here breathed.
And yet...
He rose, slow, legs trembling beneath the suit's weight. Each step forward crunched powder beneath his boots, leaving deep impressions that lingered.
The land stretched uneven, a plain fractured by jagged ridges and shallow craters. Stone glittered with crystalline edges where fractures had sheared it apart. Dust coated everything, softening edges, muting color until the world seemed painted in shades of grey and white.
Here and there, darker patches marked the surface. He crouched beside one, bar resting across his thighs as he scraped at the ground. Beneath the dust lay a vein of black composite, rough and uneven. He pressed his glove to it. Brittle fragments broke free, clattering faintly against his armor.
Carbon.
The word surfaced from the assembler's list.
Carbonaceous substrate: 32 kilograms.
His heart kicked. He brushed more dust away, exposing a wider seam. Enough to fill a sack. Enough to begin.
He looked up, scanning the plain. Other patches dotted the ground at intervals, black against the pale stone. Each one a promise. Each one a demand.
The HUD chimed faintly, marking the seam with a blue glyph. He blinked at it, half startled. The machine had linked his suit to its guidance systems. Even out here, it was watching. Directing.
He walked further. Steps slow, deliberate. Muscles burned beneath the suit's weight, but momentum carried him forward. The horizon shifted, revealing a fracture in the land ahead. A crevasse, stretching wide, its edges sharp and raw. He approached, boots skidding on loose dust as he neared the edge.
He looked down.
Ice.
It glittered far below, veins of translucent blue threading the darkness. Light from the swollen orb above caught on it, scattering in shards that painted the walls in fractured brilliance. His chest seized.
Water.
Not trickles. Not residue. Reservoirs, deep and thick, preserved in the planet's wounds.
He pressed both hands against the edge of the crevasse, forehead against his visor, and laughed—a ragged sound swallowed by his helmet. Relief and hunger and terror twisted together.
The assembler had not lied.
The HUD blinked again.
Reservoir located. Intake potential: high.
His shoulders sagged, tension bleeding from him. The fear did not vanish, but for the first time, hope threaded through it.
He turned from the crevasse, lifting his gaze once more. The swollen orb still burned on the horizon, but beyond it the stars stretched infinite. He searched them, desperate, hungry for patterns he might know. But none came.
He whispered aloud, voice shaking. "Where… am I?"
The machine did not answer. The void did.
His breath fogged the visor again, and he pressed a gloved hand to the glass, smearing it away. The silence swallowed him whole. For a moment, he felt smaller than dust, a speck adrift on stone beneath eternity.
The thought pressed harder than hunger. He was alone. Completely, utterly alone.
He sank to his knees, boots grinding powder. The bar slipped from his grip, clattering against rock. His chest heaved. His vision blurred.
Alive. Alone.
Movement.
No—illusion. His visor caught a reflection, a glint in the dust. He wiped at the glass again, squinting toward the ridge ahead.
Shapes jutted from the stone. Curved. Ribbed. Not natural fractures. Not random shards.
He rose, staggered toward them, bar dragging behind. As he neared, detail sharpened. Bones.
Or what passed for them.
Fossilized remains protruded from the ridge, half-buried, stone fused with petrified tissue. Curves of exoskeleton. Segments of limbs. Fragments of what might once have been jaws.
His stomach twisted. He crouched, ran a gloved hand along the largest fragment. It crumbled at his touch, flaking into dust.
The assembler's list whispered back. Organics fraction: 18 kilograms. Bioactive.
He drew his hand back fast, bile surging in his throat.
Not yet. Not like this.
He climbed the ridge, bar hooked across his back now. The suit groaned with the effort, joints stiff. Dust slipped under his boots, sliding back down the slope, but he forced his body upward.
At the crest, he stopped.
The horizon stretched endless. Craters yawned like scars. Ridges rose jagged against the void. In the far distance, half-buried beneath dust and stone, shapes rose that were not natural. Geometric. Angled. Towers collapsed onto themselves, domes shattered, spires broken and leaning.
Ruins.
His breath caught.
Not a barren world. Not untouched. Something had been here. Something had built. And died.
The HUD flickered, warning glyphs blinking at the edges of his vision.
Radiation traces. Structural instability. Intake potential: unknown.
He tore his gaze away, scanning further. For a moment, just for an instant, he thought he saw light. A faint gleam. Not starshine. Not reflection. A pulse.
It vanished as fast as it came.
He froze, body locked, breath caught in his throat. His visor fogged again, HUD symbols jittering.
"Movement?" he whispered, though no one answered.
The machine's voice crackled faintly, distorted by distance.
"External anomaly detected. Recommend caution."
His heart hammered, loud in the silence. He scanned the ruins again. Nothing moved. Nothing glowed. Only stone and shadow.
But the thought had lodged deep. He was not alone.
He tightened his grip on the bar, knuckles aching inside the gloves. His chest rose and fell too fast, filters rasping with each breath.
The void pressed closer, stars burning above, ruins watching from afar. The world itself seemed to wait.
He swallowed hard.
And stepped forward.