The stars outside the shuttle window flickered like distant memories—cold, unreachable, and utterly silent.
Oliver Vale sat strapped into his jump seat, helmet balanced on his knee, fingers locked together to stop them from trembling. It wasn't fear—at least, not the kind they warned you about in training. It was the other kind. The quiet kind. The kind that burrowed into your chest like frost, the kind that came when you realized your life might be about to change... and you couldn't control how.
"First recon, huh?" muttered Garek, the squad's demolition tech, chewing gum like it was his job. "Don't worry, rookie. Just keep your suit sealed and don't touch anything glowing or breathing. That's usually the rule."
Oliver gave a dry smile. "Comforting."
He glanced around the drop shuttle—tight metal walls, flickering status lights, and six people who all looked like they'd been doing this too long to be nervous. Squad Lancer wasn't elite, but they were sharp. Veterans of small conflicts. Ghost chasers in dead zones. Not the kind of people who asked questions—they just pointed their weapons and cleared corridors.
Oliver? He still asked questions. That's why he didn't fit in.
"Two minutes to drop," came the pilot's voice, buzzing through their helmets.
The mission seemed simple. A derelict mining facility on Kara-7, one of the Empire's outermost moons, had gone dark. No signals. No emergency beacon. Just silence. Central Command wanted a sweep—check for pirates, upload a report, maybe haul back salvage.
But Oliver had read between the lines.
He studied the brief three times longer than he should have. Kara-7 wasn't supposed to be occupied at all. The mining operation had been abandoned over a year ago after the core collapsed. Toxic air. Cracking crust. No value left. So why send an armed squad?
Because someone had picked up a signal.
One that wasn't public.
Oliver adjusted the display on his wrist. Vital signs: steady. Pulse: elevated. A message from his mother blinked unread in his inbox. She always told him not to be like his father. Not to follow the same path.
Too late now.
"Hey," said Lira, the squad's medic, nudging him. "First drop jitters are normal. You'll be fine. Just don't trip on landing like Garek did last op."
Garek didn't even look offended. "The terrain was unstable. Also, I was dodging plasma fire while you were hiding behind a medcrate."
"I was applying a tourniquet!"
"Yeah, to yourself."
Oliver chuckled quietly. Their banter was familiar, oddly comforting.
"Drop in five," said the pilot.
The hatch hissed open, and Kara-7's broken sky came into view—violet storm clouds hanging low, lit by occasional bursts of green lightning. Wind howled through the open bay, cold and sharp as razors. The ground below was a metallic graveyard. Cracked domes. Twisted scaffolding. A land long abandoned.
Oliver leapt.
Gravity caught him, yanked him down like a giant hand. His boots hit the rocky surface with a thud. Dust exploded around him. The others landed moments later in a practiced formation—weapons drawn, scanners humming, visors down.
The mining facility loomed ahead. Three crumbling structures connected by sealed corridors. Lights still pulsed faintly on the outer panels, like a heartbeat refusing to die.
"Lancer, move in," barked Lieutenant Armin, their leader. "Standard formation. No unnecessary chatter. Vale, you're on diagnostics. Corridor B."
"On it," Oliver said, voice steadier than he felt.
As they split off, Oliver entered the main airlock of corridor B. The interior groaned as pressure equalized, a stale hiss escaping the vents. Emergency lights flickered along the walls. Dust coated the floor. Signs of struggle—scorch marks, broken tools, something smeared like rust… or blood.
His HUD blinked—anomalous energy reading. Not heat, not movement. Something different. Something faint. Like a signal pulsing just out of reach.
He followed it.
Down a rusted stairwell, deeper into a sub-level that didn't appear on the map. His boots echoed off metal. His flashlight danced along the walls—symbols etched into steel, but not in any Empire language he recognized. Like spirals and stars melted into runes.
Then he found it.
A chamber—circular, perfectly preserved despite the ruin around it. And in the center, suspended in the air, floated a Core.
It wasn't large. Maybe the size of a human heart. Glossy black, with glowing silver-blue veins coursing along its surface in fractal patterns. It hovered without support, utterly still. Yet, as Oliver stepped closer, he felt it watching him.
Not with eyes.
With intent.
"Oliver Vale," a voice said.
He froze.
"Who—who's there?"
The voice wasn't over comms. It wasn't even external. It was inside his mind, whispering like a memory wrapped in static.
"You are not ready.""But you are chosen.""Do you accept the inheritance of the Echo Core?"
"A system?" Oliver whispered. "You're a system?"
"No.""I am what remains of a legacy forgotten by galaxies.""My master is gone. My function is to find the one who dares stand against the void."
Oliver felt like the air had been vacuumed from the room. He wasn't special. He wasn't trained for this. He was just a cadet—just a name, a number, a face in the background.
But something in him stirred. A small voice. A memory of his father saying, "One day, you'll be stronger than me."
He stepped forward.
"I accept."
The Core pulsed.
A flash of light burst outward, striking his chest. Data flooded him—images, sound, emotion, languages, entire starscapes unraveling inside his mind. He screamed, knees buckling. The floor vanished.
For one second, he wasn't on Kara-7. He stood in a galaxy of light, looking up at a colossal figure made of armor and flame, holding a staff that cracked the sky.
Then darkness.
And somewhere, faintly, the stars flickered again.