To know more about this, visit this Series Title Page
If you are curious about the prompt that started this series, ‘Beautiful Things’,
you can find it here.
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Enjoy
‘A’ is for Apogee
The orbital platform spins like a mechanical flower, solar collectors spread wide as petals, drinking binary starlight.
Anchored to a massive asteroid’s iron core, the structure uses the rock’s gravity well and mineral deposits for stability and power. Industrial modules string together with transport tubes and docking pylons—architecture designed for expansion, not defense.
The Eclipse hangs in shadow behind the asteroid’s ridge, hull dark and silent. Kyra anchors herself to the ship’s outer airlock, magnetic boots locked to plating. Through tactical scopes, she tracks security patterns across the platform’s scattered modules on the asteroid’s far side. Shift change in thirty seconds.
“Clean entry vector,” she whispers into comm. “Vex, you have the feeds?”
“Ghost loops active,” comes their tech specialist’s voice. “Twenty minutes before anyone notices phantom signals.”
Zane floats in powered armor beside the platform’s central data core—a crystalline module pulsing with quantum processors. Neural interface cables snake from his helmet into access ports, connecting directly to the implants embedded in his skull. His augmented brain serving as bridge between alien encryption and their modified systems.
“The corporate firewall’s insulting,” he murmurs into comm, thoughts already flowing through fiber optic pathways. “It’s almost like they want to be robbed.”
The platform bears a stenciled designation: Meridian Industrial Solutions.
Their client wants mining surveys, resource assessments—simple corporate theft. But something tastes wrong in Kyra’s mouth. Metal tang of recycled air mixed with adrenaline. Through her scopes, the modules look too clean, too new. She sees no ore processing equipment, no heavy machinery signatures.
“Zane, deep scan. What are we really seeing?”
She watches him work—consciousness linked to crystalline architecture. Whatever’s unfolding in his augmented mind makes his breath audibly catch.
“Christ. This isn’t mining, love. Surface layer looks right, But underneath... this is military-grade encryption. The power consumption alone...” His voice carries new tension. “I’d say we’re looking at an intelligence hub.” She can just hear his shit-eating grin, “The mining data must be a front.”
A front.
Zane’s voice comes in, unnerved by the lack of answer “Abort?”
She shakes off the dread, “Negative. You already integrated with their systems. Might as well finish the job.”
Through scopes, she watches him work. The asteroid’s rotation brings new perspective—one of the twin suns is on the horizon now, casting harsh shadows across collector arrays. Light fractures through her visor, painting everything in copper and bone.
She hears the strain in his voice as processing load increases. “Mining data acquired,” he reports, “But Kyra... I can see G.O.D.S classification markers everywhere here. This entire platform is military intelligence.”
Ice floods her veins. Their client knew. Sent them to steal from G.O.D.S deliberately. But why?
“Download everything you can.”
“That will trigger—”
“Everything, Zander!”
If someone’s playing games with her crew, she needs to know who and why.
She watches him push deeper into the system, his body going rigid with concentration as massive data streams flow through his neural interface. Minutes tick by. His breathing becomes labored.
Suddenly, a screeching noise blasts through her comm, the platform’s emergency strobes begin flashing—they’ve detected the intrusion.
“Zane, get out of there!”
“Almost... got it...” His voice barely heard under the alarms.
Then the platform’s security barriers slam shut. She watches his body convulse as the connection severs violently, feedback burning through him.
Warning lights cascade through the platform’s structure—module to module in waves of crimson panic. Emergency suits deploy from airlocks, thruster signatures blooming like angry stars as security teams scramble to contain the breach.
The platform’s modules begin emergency separation. Transport tubes retract, docking pylons release, the flower-structure breaking apart, petal by mechanical petal, to prevent total system compromise. Zane tumbles between fragmenting sections, his suit’s thrusters fighting the gravitational chaos.
“Bridge!” Kyra shouts into comm. “Break stealth! Emergency recovery!”
The Eclipse roars to life, engines burning hot as the ship abandons concealment behind the asteroid ridge. Someone fires the tractor beam. Energy lances across space, latching onto Zane’s armor just as industrial debris explodes around him. A severed solar collector clips his helmet, cracking the visor.
“Medical!” she shouts as the tractor beam guides him into Eclipse’s airlock. “Vex, full decon! Now!”
Through the airlock’s viewport, she watches Zane’s unconscious form floating in the chamber. His damaged helmet shows cracks spider-webbing across the visor. The airlock cycles through decontamination protocols—sterilization fields, atmospheric analysis, pressure equalization.
Finally, the inner doors seal and the bay floods with ship’s atmosphere. She tears through the opening seal, reaching Zane as the emergency systems flood the chamber with healing foam. Blood runs from his nose, the neural interface ports at his temples still humming from the violent disconnection. Fiber optic filaments dangle limp from his skull, like severed nerves.
His pulse is steady under her fingers. Breathing regular.
Dr. Kess pushes past her without ceremony, scanner already running over him. “Neural interface trauma, atmospheric exposure… Captain, let him go. I need him in surgery now.”
Eight hours.
Kyra sits beside the medical bay’s recovery bed, watching the three monitors tracking Zane’s healing brain patterns. She hasn’t left his side since surgery, her focus entirely on the rise and fall of his chest.
Vex enters carrying a data pad, expression grim but excited. “Decryption’s complete boss. We got what the client wanted—enough dirt on rival mining consortiums to blackmail half the Fringe. Plus leverage material on three major corporate players in this sector.” They pause, studying her exhausted face. “There’s something else, though. I–”
“Later,” Kyra says without looking away from the monitors.
“Captain.” Vex’s voice carries unusual urgency. “Kyra. This can’t wait.”
Reluctantly, she takes the pad. Corporate acquisition records, territorial claims, mining rights in the outer colonies. Standard corporate espionage material. Then she sees it.
Buried in the G.O.D.S files, a name she thought she’d never see again: Thessaly Prime.
Status: Quarantined.
Not destroyed. Quarantined.
Twenty years of believing her homeworld was ash. Twenty years of building this new life while—
“Love?” Zane’s voice, rough but present.
She turns. His eyes are open, pupils still wide, but tracking.
“How bad?”
“I… You’ll have processing delays for a couple of days. I am glad you are ok.” She touches his hand.
“The data?”
She shows him the screens. “You got it. What we needed and more. Look“ And she shows him the line: Thessaly Prime - Quarantine Status: Active.
Zane stares. Slowly, understanding floods his features—what this means, what she’s thinking, what comes next.
“Your brother.”
“All this time,” she whispers. “I thought I was the only survivor. But if Thessaly exists, if the quarantine’s holding people there...” Her voice breaks. “Theron might be trapped, waiting, thinking I abandoned him.”
“There are others too,” Vex says quietly. “Three more worlds in that sector. All listed as ‘quarantined’, all officially destroyed.”
Silence stretches between them. She watches a rueful smile stretches on his face. He knows what she needs. What she’s asking.
“How do we get there?” he says quietly.
“G.O.D.S space is impossible. They will have military patrols, quantum barriers, reality distortion fields around the quarantine zone. It’s suicide.”
“That’s not what I asked.” His hand grips hers with desperate strength.
She meets his eyes. Sees love and terror and absolute commitment written in dark depths. He will choose possible death to save a man he’s never met, for a planet he’s never seen, because she needs this more than breathing.
Because she’s asking, and he always says yes.
“We’d need… everything,” she whispers. “Ship modifications, stealth systems, weapons that can breach G.O.D.S barriers. It would cost our entire life here. And the chances of survival are...Abysmal.”
His thumb traces circles on her palm. “Abysmal sounds perfect.”
The Eclipse’s hull hums around them. Through medical bay viewports, binary suns paint their stolen future in copper and gold. Somewhere in quantum-locked space, Thessaly Prime turns in its forbidden orbit.
Vex glances at their data pad, frowning. “Captain? The ship is running unauthorized calculations. Seems to be plotting jump routes to G.O.D.S’ closest Sector. Should I… stop it?”
Kyra and Zane share a look. The Eclipse seems to hold its breath, waiting.
“Let her plot,” Kyra says, voice steady now. “We’re going home.”
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to be continued…
© 2025 E.M. di V. - writing as Morgan A. Drake. All rights reserved.