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ONE

Cerani

The wind scratched across Cerani’s visor with grit peppering the outer layer of her Enviro-Protect suit. She didn’t blink. Her gaze tracked the line of bodies ahead of her, each one wrapped in the same dull gray armor of survival, moving in one sluggish row toward the mine’s opening.

Beneath the suit, sweat crawled down her spine. Not from heat, but from unease. The man in front of her, Jorr, was coughing again. A low, rattling sound that didn’t stop. He was older than her, and the surface conditions had chewed him up faster than most.

The moon they were on didn’t even have a name. FK-22R wasn’t a place meant for life. The ground was cracked and dry. Iron-colored dust stretched like old scars in every direction. Jagged rock clusters jutted from the dirt like broken teeth. Nothing green lived here. Nothing ever had. Even during the wake cycle, the twin suns’ copper haze cast more shadow than light. Every few meters, metal rods stuck out of the crust with blinking sensors, a reminder of who really controlled the land. The air was too poisoned for most to breathe outside the suits. And the sky? Always the same smudged red, as if the whole moon had never stopped bleeding.

Cerani adjusted her pace to stay close behind Jorr. His hunched shoulders gave away more than his cough. His steps dragged too much. “How long’s the coughing been this bad?” she asked.

“Six cycles,” he said through the suit’s comm system. His voice was brittle. “Maybe more.”

“That’s more than enough. You need med intake.”

“They take you offline after four med visits. I’ve seen it happen. You know that.”

Cerani did. They didn’t say someone died here. They took prisoners offline just like tools when they broke. Jorr was right. That kind of record meant one thing.

“I’m not letting you die in that tunnel,” she said.

“You’re a sweet kid,” Jorr replied, and his breath hitched. “But I don’t think that’s up to you.”

She clenched her jaw and faced forward. The others around them looked the same—bent shapes in gray suits, moving slow, coughing hard. To her left, Sema stumbled. Just a hitch in her step, but Cerani caught it. Sema’s suit hung looser than it had five cycles ago and Cerani knew that under the EP suit, Sema had a sealed patch on her arm—a quick fix for radiation blistering. She was shrinking. So was Toval. And Elba. So many of them were running out of fight, their bodies giving up before their minds did.

In thirty-three cycles, Cerani hadn’t seen one person get better.

She stared at her own hands. No tremors. No weight loss.

The mine was eating everyone but her. And she still didn’t know why.

Cerani’s boots kicked up another small swirl of dust as she stepped forward. It settled fast, sinking back into the soil like it had a thousand times before. Nothing here wanted to be disturbed. Not the ground. Not the dead. Not the truth, whatever that was.

Cerani adjusted the air intake settings on her wrist panel, even though she knew it wouldn’t help anyone. What worked for her didn’t seem to work for the others. She didn’t understand it, and saying anything about it only made the other prisoners stare harder, like her lungs had betrayed them.

“Keep the line tight,” said the mech guard at the rear. The static of its vocal processor was loud in her helmet’s comm.

Cerani didn’t answer. No one did. Talking wasted air.

Above them, the twin suns of FK-22R pushed through the dusty sky, bleeding red through the atmosphere. The mine ahead looked like a wound in the ground, rough edges vibrating faintly with the tremble of machines already at work below.

She hated this place. Hated what it did to the others held here. The act of extracting basian crystals was very detailed and nuanced, and so far, no machine had done it as successfully as trained living beings had.

Cerani straightened as the line began to descend toward the entry platform. The railing buzzed faintly under her glove when she grabbed it. Even with the suit’s air filters, the mine air smelled metallic and sharp, like breathing rust. But her chest didn’t seize the way the others’ did. Her blood didn’t throb in her temples. The moon was killing them, and somehow, it wasn’t touching her.

Her boots thumped on the steel-plated ramp as the platform groaned under their weight. Below, the chamber lights flickered across jagged rock walls and tunnels carved by hands and drills that never stopped. The stench of burned ozone hit hard. Someone had overloaded the plasma cutters again.

Cerani glanced across the platform. Sema had fallen further behind. The mech guard didn’t notice. Or didn’t care.

“Step up,” the guard barked again, louder this time. Several in the line flinched but quickened their steps.

Cerani turned back to look at Sema, who was hunched low now, one hand on her side. She should’ve said something. Called a med warning. But that would’ve drawn attention. And attention here was a death sentence in waiting.

The metal grates under them creaked as the elevator scraped lower into the shaft. The noise was constant—hydraulics groaning, tools whining, the endless scrape of tools on rock. It filled the space in her head where thoughts used to go.

She glanced up. No sky now—just steel beams strung with cold lights and the press of stone all around. Down here, time didn’t move. Only the shift did.

Jorr coughed again. So did Toval behind her. And Elba. The sound was spreading.

But not from her.

The mech scanned them all as they stepped off the lift, its single red sensor sweeping through the group like a searchlight. Rows of tool racks lined the wall—picks, scrapers, micro lasers. Cerani reached for her usual set without looking, the grip of the precision scraper shaped to her hand after so many cycles.

A green light blinked on her wrist panel. Her coordinate flashed: T-7L. She checked over Jorr’s shoulder—his was T-7M. Close.

The tunnel they were assigned curved away from the central shaft, tight walls pressed with old drilling scars and the dull, flickering lamps bolted into the rock. Cerani fell into step beside Jorr. His walk was uneven again. When they reached the split in the path, a mess of fallen rubble forced them to slow.

She dropped to one knee, shoved some of the loose rock aside, and turned her head toward him. “You want help getting over this?”

“Depends,” Jorr said. “You offering to push?”

She grinned. “Don’t tempt me.”

He laughed, but it turned into a wheeze. She held out her hand. He stared a second too long before taking it, and she hauled him past the bigger slabs. Once on the other side, he leaned against the wall and pulled in a shaky breath.

“Thanks,” he said.

Cerani nodded and bent to clear more debris from the edge of her path. “I used to move irrigation stones twice this size. No machines at the settlement to help. We used our backs.”

“I thought Teria was all fruit trees and clean air.”

“I wouldn’t know. I’ve never been to Teria,” she said. “My people live on what we thought was a farming settlement.” She tapped the side of her neck. “Didn’t think much of the symbols here. Every newborn receives some. It’s just our designation. Then I saw everyone here has marks on their skin just like mine and learned the truth the hard way. No one on Settlement 112-1 knows they’re living in an Axis penal colony.”

“I remember some of your story.” Jorr’s brow pulled. “You were taken from there by raiders, right?”

“Yes.” She was glad he was talking with her. Lately, he’d been more and more distant with everyone. “A black ship showed up just before my friend’s bondmate ceremony and took us to an auction.” Her hand tightened around the handle. “They read my number like I was inventory.”

He leaned his head back and stared up at the sloping ceiling. “That’s what we are, you know.”

She didn’t answer. Just angled her scraper against the wall and let the blade flex beneath her fingers. The crystal veins here were tight and delicate—like glass threads wound through rock. It took patience. Jorr shuffled a few meters to the left and began on his own work.

“I was a cook,” he said finally. “In New Vails. Until I poisoned an Axis official.”

“Was it an accident?” she asked. This was the longest conversation she’d had with Jorr, even though they all lived in the barracks together. Conversing about nonessentials was prohibited.

Jorr flashed a quick, weary grin. “Nope.”

They talked until the work got too intense to allow for distractions, then the only sounds were those of the suit respirators and the scrape of tools on rock. Cerani placed the delicate crystals she removed with care into a box with padded sections. She’d filled most of them. Her and Jorr’s shift was nearing its end and she looked forward to getting off her feet and getting a meal. They fed the miners well, at least, and that was the one and only plus to this awful place. She had much more food here than she’d had at the settlement.

A sound broke through the steady rhythm of their work—boots on metal, unhurried but loud enough to prick at Cerani’s nerves. She looked up. The scraper stilled in her hand.

The corridor widened at the bend to her left, letting the light from overhead flicker off a tall figure striding toward them. He stood out, even before his wings caught the light—broad and folded against his back, the same deep, sapphire blue hue as the scales that lined the sides of his neck and the backs of his hands. He was Zaruxian, just like the overseer back at Settlement 112-1—though he’d had purple scales instead of blue. Cerani hadn’t seen another of their kind since, and she’d learned they were rare, almost never outside Axis control centers.

He didn’t wear an EP suit. Apparently, his body was unaffected by the radiation. The uniform he wore didn’t crinkle. It hugged his tall frame, spotless and dark, with the Axis insignia gleaming at his collar. According to the other prisoners, his name was Stavian. Cerani had picked up the name from whispered shifts and ration lines. Everything about him looked sharp—his features straight and clean, his jaw set, the weight of his silver gaze piercing whoever it landed on.

That gaze landed on her.

Cerani held still, not because she was afraid—though maybe she should have been—but because it was impossible not to look back. His eyes were clear silver, bright as the offworld moons, and heavy with something she couldn’t place.

It wasn’t judgment.

It wasn’t sympathy either. Still, something in her chest pitched off-balance.

The controller moved past Jorr, glancing at the scant crystals tucked in his box. Then he turned toward her. His boots made no sound on the smooth floor plating, and when he slipped one gloved hand behind his back to cradle the small inspection tablet, Cerani noticed how precise every movement was. Controlled. Like everything in him had been trained to stay in tight lines.

He stopped two meters from her.

She didn’t lower her gaze. He didn’t speak.

She wondered how he did it—how he walked these tunnels, saw the suffering, and still went to sleep in comfort during each sleep cycle. Did he hear them coughing in his head?

She didn’t hate him, exactly. But she hated whatever had turned him into just another part of the system. Like the overseer on Settlement 112-1. Like the raiders who’d abducted her, and even like the zealots from her settlement who worshipped the Axis, even as the Axis starved them.

It was too bad, really. The controller had a kind face.

Looks were deceiving, though, and the controller’s actions were not kind.

He looked down at the tool in her hand, then back to her. She swore his gaze lingered for a second longer than necessary. Cerani raised her chin, refusing to be intimidated.

“Your quota?” he asked.

“Ninety percent complete,” she replied.

He flicked his tablet, entering data from her box. Then he moved on. His footsteps faded into the tunnel, but the tension in Cerani’s shoulders didn’t.

Jorr leaned toward her once Stavian disappeared around the bend. “Never seen him check anyone individually.”

Cerani scraped her tool along the crystal vein, trying to pretend her hands were steady. “Maybe he thought I was stealing.”

“You’d be the last,” Jorr said. “You finish your quotas like you grew up mining.”

She didn’t answer. She hadn’t—mining was new, awful work. But her body thrived on this red, miserable moon. And now she was drawing the controller’s attention, which had never been good news for anyone here.

Her wrist panel blinked again with an alert—shift extension. She sighed and tapped it without thinking. She glanced toward Jorr’s panel. His didn’t ping.

“What’s that?” he asked, pointing.

“They’re making me work an extra half shift,” she said with a frown. “They extended my quota. Again.”

“You’re too efficient.” He shook his head. “You should slow down, or you’ll break down.”

Cerani didn’t think that was going to happen. She looked down at her crystal haul. Thin strands, good clarity. They were excellent as conduits in power systems, she’d heard, and as power sources themselves if the node was large and pure. These were nothing special, but still valuable. Yes—she was too efficient. Shift extensions had been happening more often lately. She wasn’t sure why, but if it meant miners like Jorr got a break, it was worth it.

Suddenly the ground beneath her feet trembled. Gently. But a small tremor could be a big problem in the mines. She froze. Jorr did too.

Another tremor ran through the floor, dropping dust from the tunnel’s ceiling.

“Collapse?” Jorr asked.

But Cerani wasn’t looking at him—she was watching her panel. Four emergency signals lit up in yellow. Not on their mining level, and not a collapse. Just one of the many tremors that made this mine unstable. Still, they were required to evacuate until the mine was cleared for reentry.

“Let’s move,” she said, already grabbing his arm.

He sighed. “Why do they bother? This place is so thick with radiation, we’re dead either way.”

“Out. Now.” Still, he had a point. Death by tunnel collapse was a lot faster and less painful than death by radiation. She’d seen both in her time here.

The miners shuffled to the lifts to be temporarily removed while mechs assessed any damage.

At the lift, the noise picked up again—boots, coughing, the soft clatter of tools hitting the collection bins. A few workers muttered, but no one fought the Axis’ order. Most were too tired. Too used to fear disguised as protocol.

Cerani held Jorr’s elbow to steady him as the metal gates clanked shut and the lift jerked upward. His shoulders slumped the moment he let go of the wall.

The air inside their suits tasted stale, like they’d cycled it one too many times.

When they reached the upper platform, guards were waiting with scanners. Medics, too—but not the kind that healed. Just the kind that logged vitals and made reports. Cerani’s stomach twisted.

“Proceed to the barracks,” one mech said.

Cerani didn’t. Not right away. She turned her gaze to the lift again, watching the empty shaft where the mine yawned below.

Something had shifted. Not just in the rock.

She didn’t know what the controller had seen when he looked at her. Just that it hadn’t felt like routine.

And she no longer believed the Axis did anything without reason.

Whatever this was—they weren’t done with her yet.