The rust-choked air bit. Cassian tasted ozone, dust, and something metallic-sweet. She pressed a hand to her side, the bandage stiff. Another Glitch run-in, another scrape. Nothing new.
Her boots crunched over shattered ferrocrete, the sound swallowed by the vast, open maw of Sector Delta-7. Twisted rebar clawed at a sickly purple sky. The old terraforming complex: a graveyard of progress. And somewhere in its decaying heart, the signal pulsed.
Faint. Intermittent. But persistent. Not static. Not the chaotic energy signature of Glitch-corrupted life. A pattern. A whisper of something organized.
"Don't get your hopes up, Cass," she muttered, the words gritty in her throat. Hope was a luxury she couldn't afford. It led to disappointment. Disappointment got you eaten.
She moved low, a shadow amongst the ruins. Her system-interface flickered at the edge of her vision, a green overlay against the gloom. Temperature readings, structural integrity scans of the debris around her, Glitch density projections. All numbers, cold and hard.
[GLITCH DENSITY: MODERATE. CAUTION ADVISED.]
Cass snorted. Caution was always advised. She shifted the weight of her modified plasma rifle, the stock worn smooth against her cheek. Scavenged. Refurbished. Kept alive by sheer stubbornness and a few system-crafted components.
She picked her way through a collapsed administrative building. Data terminals lay shattered, their screens like dead eyes. Desks overturned. The ghost of a bustling office, now just a mausoleum of bureaucracy.
Then, a new sound. Not the low thrum of distant Glitch fauna. A high-pitched whine. Mechanical. And getting closer.
Cass dropped, rolling behind a crumbling partition wall. She peered over the edge. A Glitch-Drone. Smaller than the biomass horrors she usually faced, but fast. Its metallic shell was encrusted with weeping, organic growths, pulsing with faint bioluminescence. Its optical sensor, a single red cyclops eye, swept the area.
It was a scout. Or a hunter. Either way, trouble.
Its whine intensified. It had caught her heat signature. Damn it. She hadn't seen it on her scans. The Glitch was adapting. Integrating tech.
"Alright, rust-bucket," she whispered. "Let's dance."
She didn't wait for it to pinpoint her. She burst from cover, firing a concentrated burst. The plasma sizzled, melting through the drone's carapace. It screeched, an unholy blend of metal on metal and raw, organic pain.
It veered, surprisingly quick, its spindly legs kicking up dust. A volley of corrosive bile launched from an orifice that hadn't been there a second ago. Cass dodged, feeling the acid eat into the ferrocrete where she'd been.
"Nasty trick!"
She activated a system skill. [REFLEX BOOST: ACTIVE]. Time slowed, a fraction of a second, but enough. She saw the next attack coming before it fully formed. Its red eye locked onto her, but she was already moving.
She charged, her roller derby instincts kicking in. Low. Fast. Before the drone could re-orient its attack, she was under it. She slammed the butt of her rifle into its underside, right where the organic matter was thickest.
The drone bucked, its internal machinery groaning. She heard a crack, then another. The organic growths ruptured, spilling black fluid. The red eye flickered, then died.
The drone hit the ground with a wet thud, twitching. She kicked it, ensuring it was dead. Its internal components sparked and smoked. The metallic-sweet smell intensified.
[GLITCH-DRONE DEFEATED. 25 EXP GAINED.]
"Pitiful," she grumbled, holstering her rifle. That was too close. Too clever. The Glitch wasn't just mindless corruption anymore. It was learning.
The signal pulsed stronger now, drawing her deeper into the complex. Past derelict terraforming domes, their crystalline structures shattered, revealing monstrous, overgrown flora within. Past maintenance tunnels clogged with biomass.
She found herself in a massive, open space. Or what was left of it. It looked like a central processing hub, once. Now, a vast cavern of collapsed catwalks and shattered monitors. In the center, almost perfectly preserved amidst the chaos, stood a single, cylindrical structure. Dark metal, uncorrupted. Its surface glowed with a faint, blue light.
The signal emanated from it. Steady. Clear.
Cass approached, rifle raised. No Glitch on her scans. This was… clean. Too clean.
The structure had no visible entrance. She ran a hand over its cool surface. The blue light intensified slightly where she touched it. Her system interface flashed.
[UNKNOWN DATA NODE DETECTED. ATTEMPTING INTERFACE.]
She didn't tell it to. Her system was acting on its own. A shiver ran down her spine. The alien tech, the Glitch, her system… all linked, somehow.
Then, a chime. A soft, melodic tone. From the structure itself.
A small panel shimmered into existence, retracting into the cylinder. Revealing a data port. An archaic one, by the looks of it. And next to it, a small, glowing symbol. Not a language she knew, but instantly recognizable in its form.
A roller derby skate.
Cass stared. Her breath caught. No. It couldn't be. Not here. Not this.
Her fingers trembled as she reached for the panel. Her system pinged, an urgent warning. [DATA CORRUPTION RISK: HIGH. PROCEED WITH CAUTION.]
She ignored it. The skate. It was a sign. A taunt. A connection to the life she'd lost.
She touched the glowing symbol. The blue light flared, engulfing her, pulling her in. Her system went wild, displaying a rapid fire of warnings and data streams she couldn't comprehend. Then, a single, clear message.
[INCOMING DATA STREAM: UNIFIED COLONIAL ARCHIVE. RECONSTRUCTION IN PROGRESS.]
[WARNING: PARASITIC ATTEMPT DETECTED. SOURCE: UNKNOWN.]
Cass felt a jolt, not physical, but a mental assault. A wave of foreign data, cold and sharp, slammed into her mind. She stumbled back, clutching her head. The blue light intensified, warping, pulsing with an unnatural rhythm.
Images flashed behind her eyes: pristine colony worlds, futuristic cities, faces of people she didn't know. Then, the images fragmented, corrupted by creeping black tendrils. Screams. Silence.
"What is this?" she gasped, her voice hoarse.
The cylindrical structure began to hum, a deep, resonating sound that vibrated through the floor. Cracks spiderwebbed across its dark surface. The blue light turned an angry, pulsing crimson.
[WARNING: DATA NODE COMPROMISED. GLITCH INFILTRATION DETECTED.]
[EXTERNAL THREAT DETECTED. ENEMY CLOSING.]
And from the darkness beyond, from the entrance she had used, came a sound. Not the drone, not the biomass. Something larger. Heavier. A rhythmic thudding that shook the very foundations of the cavern. Each step closer, each thud, a promise of an encounter she wasn't ready for.
Cass turned, rifle snapping up. Her vision blurred, the images from the data node still burning behind her eyes. The Glitch wasn't just *outside* this structure. It was *inside* it. And now, something colossal was coming for her, for the compromised node, or both.
She was trapped. The crimson light pulsed, bathing her in its malevolent glow. The thudding grew louder, closer. A shadow fell across the cavern entrance, impossibly vast, utterly alien. Her system screamed warnings she couldn't process.
[CRITICAL THREAT. ESCAPE ADVISED. ESCAPE ADVISED.]
But where the hell was she supposed to go?