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J eslean, Neri – Legion Headquarters

The capital city of Jeslean stretched beneath Andri, its skyline a labyrinth of towering spires and sweeping bridges that gleamed under the planet’s pale sun. From the highest floor of the Legion Headquarters, Andri Andronikos observed his empire through the massive transparisteel windows of his office. The city pulsed with controlled order—precisely as he had designed it.

His control of the star systems was almost absolute. Only the Knights of the Gallant Order and a few council members continued to defy him, and there were only a handful of them left. Andri and his brother had made sure of that.

He turned and walked over to his desk. His office was an extension of that control. A vast chamber brightly lit by crimson recessed lights in the walls, the black marble floors polished to a mirror sheen. The furniture was sparse—elegant but severe. A single desk carved from obsidian, its surface immaculate. A long, vertical holoscreen flickered beside the desk, casting shifting shadows across the walls. Every detail of the room was calculated, measured, perfect —a stark contrast to the turmoil churning beneath the surface of his mind.

Andri sat down, motionless, fingers steepled beneath his chin as he listened to the voice on the transmission. The captain of the Varrien , one of his most efficient warships, reported from the debris field they had discovered.

“We picked up an anomaly, Director Andronikos. It was brief, a fraction of a second, but the disturbance in subspace was significant. We couldn’t pinpoint an exact location before it disappeared.”

Andri’s jaw tensed. Another anomaly. Another disruption without explanation. This was the third such report in the past cycle.

“We have begun recovery operations,” the captain continued, his voice tinged with something unspoken—unease. “The wreckage is… unusual. The material composition doesn’t match any known ship in our records. And there’s more, sir—our instruments detected five unique energy signatures moving in different directions before they vanished. We lost track of them almost immediately.”

Five.

Andri’s eyes flicked to the other report that lay before him. The one he had received just hours earlier. His stomach twisted with a cold weight of certainty as he exhaled slowly.

“Retrieve everything. I want every fragment analyzed at the Jeslean laboratories. Nothing is to be left behind.” His voice remained smooth, clipped, but his fingers tightened over the edge of his desk. “And Captain?—”

“Sir?”

“If any trace of those five energy signatures reappear anywhere in the system, I want to know immediately.”

“Understood, Director Andronikos. We’ll update you the moment we have further information.”

The transmission ended, the holoscreen flickering back to idle status. Silence draped over the room like a suffocating shroud.

Andri inhaled deeply, the sound loud in the quiet space. His fingers traced the edges of the report before him—the one from his historian, detailing what remained of the Gallant Order.

For two decades, Andri and his brother had hunted them, eliminating them one by one. He had thought they were finished. The Gallant was a relic of a bygone era, shattered and scattered, their so-called warriors little more than dying embers of a forgotten fire.

But the fire was returning.

His eyes dropped to the faded parchment nestled among the official reports. A copy of an ancient prophecy, a fragment of text that had always haunted him. He had dismissed it as a myth for years. A precautionary tale woven by fools who refused to let go of the past.

But now…

Now the universe itself seemed to be conspiring to make it true.

Andri’s lips parted slightly as he read the lines again, his fingers tracing the delicate etchings of ink:

“When the stars fracture and the darkness rises, five will return from beyond the veil. Five warriors, bound by fate, shall rally the lost, forge the broken, and stand against the tide. The Ancient Knights of the Gallant will rise once more, and in their wake, empires shall fall.”

His throat tightened. His heart pounded once, hard, against his ribs.

His gaze shifted to the image—a centuries-old carving discovered in the caverns of Aetherial. It depicted five warriors standing in three interconnected circles, the Gallant Staffs in their hands raised, their faces unreadable. Three men. Two women.

Five.

Andri sat back in his chair, his breathing slow and measured. The office felt… smaller than it had minutes before. The shadows pressed in at the edges, the hum of the city outside suddenly distant, almost unreal.

The Ancient Knights of the Gallant had not simply been legends. They had been real. Their power had once united entire star systems. And now, if these signals were correct…

They have returned.

Andri exhaled sharply, his pulse accelerating in his throat. This wasn’t a coincidence. It wasn’t random chance. This was a pattern, a movement, a force that had been set in motion long before he had ever taken his first breath.

This cannot happen.

His control was absolute. His rule was undisputed. He had spent years bending the will of planets, ensuring the Legion remained unmatched, unchallenged. If the Ancient Knights returned…

Everything he had built—everything he had taken—would crumble.

He couldn’t allow it.

With deliberate precision, Andri reached forward and keyed in a secure transmission. The holoscreen flickered, shifting into the sharp, rigid features of his brother.

Coleridge Landais answered. “Andri. What is it?”

Andri stared at him for a long, tense moment. Then, quietly, he spoke the words he had long dreaded:

“The prophecy is true.”

Coleridge’s brow lifted slightly. “What prophecy?”

Andri’s hands curled into fists against the desk, his knuckles white. His breath was slow, controlled—but beneath it, something burned. Something sharp and raw.

“The Ancient Knights of the Gallant have arrived. They must be stopped, Coleridge. You must find them and stop them.”

For the first time, a shadow of emotion flickered across Coleridge’s face.

Andri felt it then, deep in his bones—the inevitability of what was coming. A war unlike anything the Legion had faced before.

The fire had been reignited.

And he would do whatever it took to extinguish it before it could consume everything.

Present Day:

Deep space, unknown galaxy

Mei’s body bowed sharply as she sucked in a breath, her nerves reacting before her mind fully caught up. The pod shuddered as its lid clicked open, allowing frigid, stale air to sweep over her. Somewhere in the fog of her mind, a voice murmured. Familiar. Urgent.

“Mei… wake up. You have to wake up.”

The voice was distant but steady. A soft, insistent whisper against the abyss pulling her under. She recognized it—Li Wang, the MIT student she had been working with back on Earth.

“Computer readings indicate the air is suitable for humans. Gravity is within the range of normal human function. Caution is needed. You have been in stasis for ten days, eight hours, forty-three minutes.”

“Computer, l-location,” she requested, her throat dry.

“Location unknown,” Li replied.

“Computer, location of the Gliese,” she asked, reaching out and gripping the edge of the escape pod to pull herself up into a sitting position.

“Location unknown,” Li answered.

Mei breathed in deeply, testing the oxygen while her eyes scanned the room. The smell of rust, decay, oil, and several unidentifiable, foreign things overwhelmed her after nearly two years of purified oxygen. The scent felt lived-in. The air was thick, almost clogging her lungs with the taste of corrosion.

After nothing came to investigate, her fingers twitched as she slowly pushed the heavy lid of the pod upward to open it further. It moved stiffly. She winced at the sound of metal against metal when the resistance suddenly disappeared and the lid crashed against the backside of the pod. Her eyes flew around the room.

It seemed empty of anyone—or any thing— who would react to the noise, but the room was massive, cavernous, and the only light came from above the dirty, dented double doors, a sickly green glow that cast more shadows than light. Damaged and neglected machines, twisted beams, shattered hull plating, old cryo-chambers, broken satellites, and more were all stacked in uneven mounds, covered in layers of grime, rust, and unidentifiable filth.

Mei lifted a hand to her head. The dull, aching weight in her skull pulsed, radiating down her spine, spreading through her limbs like the aftershock of trauma.

She was weak, and for a moment, she remained motionless, gathering her thoughts. Something had gone terribly wrong. The last thing she remembered?—

The explosion. The Gliese breaking apart. The cold emptiness of space swallowing everything before the sedative in the pod kicked in, reducing her heart rate.

She unzipped her jacket and ran her fingers under the edge of her shirt, along her collarbone, to the nutrition patch she had placed there before she lost consciousness, but the thought of its potential usefulness and the unknown duration of her survival in the unfamiliar place made her pause before pulling it free. A shuddering breath hitched in her throat, her heart pounding a rapid rhythm against her chest as the full horror of her situation dawned on her.

She caught herself before panic could take root. Emotions would not save her. Survival was all that mattered.

Slowly, she pushed herself upright. The escape pod’s interior was small and cramped, its curved walls lined with survival compartments.

She inhaled slowly and waited until she could sit up straight without holding onto the pod. Her eyes scanned the dingy, cluttered room. The doors would slide open instead of swinging in or out on hinges. She would have to remember that.

Peering through the window that ran along the top of the pod, she noticed a small, grime-covered viewport. Unfortunately, it offered little but shadows and metal, a confirmation that she was still in space. Someone—or some thing —had collected her. She needed to find out who .

A low hum vibrated beneath the escape pod, telling her that the ship was functioning in some capacity beyond the basics necessary for life. Mei inhaled deeply, centering herself. Her training demanded she assess, adapt, and act.

She was not safe here.

Her body protested as she half-rolled, half-stepped over the edge, gripping it when her knees gave out. She leaned forward, muscles stiff, weak from the time she had been unconscious. That weakness wouldn’t last. She wouldn’t allow it.

Her mind slowly cleared, helped by the chill in the air. Muscle memory from years of training took hold; every action precise, efficient, focused solely on survival. Each second felt like an eternity as she listened for any sound that would signal someone’s approach. From the extensiveness of the disarray around her and the space dust covering the items, she concluded the items were not likely to be attended closely. Still, she needed to make sure she had removed everything she needed before anyone appeared.

She reached back into the pod and pulled out the standard survival gear that had been packed by the Project Gliese’s team before she pulled a Ka-Bar USMC combat knife from a slot in the wall. Running the tip along the liner, she slit the silky material, revealing a cache of additional gear not on the scientists’ lists. It had been tricky getting the added weight onboard the Gliese. She wouldn’t have been able to if not for the extra mission into space during the building process that her father had arranged.

Mei ran her fingers along the hilt of her katana, the familiar weight grounding her. It was one of many weapons she had trained with—one of many she would use if necessary.

She glanced toward the viewport on the far side of the storage bay. Through the grime-smeared glass, the vast emptiness of deep space stretched beyond the freighter’s battered hull.

A sharp exhale left her lips. She might be lost, but she wasn’t dead. And yet, she was alone. That was what hit the hardest.

Mei pushed away the flash of grief at the thought of losing Sergi, Julia, Ash, and Josh. She stepped out of her weighted boots and stripped out of the standard-issued uniform worn by the crew of the Gliese, keeping on her black cotton t-shirt and matching black boy-shorts. She tossed the uniform and boots into the pod, then pulled on her replacement gear: a pair of black thick socks, black cargo pants, black soft leather combat boots, a black form-fitting jacket with hidden pockets, a black knitted cap to hide the shine of her hair, and black gloves to hide the sheen of her skin. Flexing her fingers, she felt confident that she could disappear into the shadows. Especially if the rest of the alien vessel was as dark as this room.

Minutes later, she was warm and armed, and she placed everything she needed in a black duffle bag which she stowed in a secure spot near the door.

She spent the next hour exploring the room. The ship clearly dealt in junk , and from the looks of the writing on the assorted pieces, the ship had interplanetary space travel capabilities.

It was tricky climbing over the heap of debris to the viewport, but she wanted a better look outside the spacecraft. She pulled a cloth out of the pocket of her jacket and cleaned a section of the interior pane. Her heart caught in her throat when she noticed the ship was near a planet.

Dark gray clouds and flashes illuminated below her. It looked like there was one hell of a storm covering most of the celestial body. In the distance, she counted three small moons in a line.

Her gaze moved back down to the planet. She didn’t know if it was habitable. It could be a gas giant, with no actual landmass. Pain flashed through her at the thought that she—or one of the others—could have landed on such a world.

The thought settled like cold steel in her chest, building as another sank in. There was no home to return to—not without another gateway and a spaceship that could take them. Even if they had one, there was no guarantee a new gateway would spit them into their galaxy.

“What would I have to go back to anyway? The cage my father kept me locked in?” she murmured, her voice raw with emotion.

Closing her eyes as a swift shaft of pain ran through her, she released a silent prayer to the universe.

Please… let the others be safe.

Three weeks later, Mei had become a ghost aboard the alien freighter, slipping into their stores of food and water, memorizing the ship’s layout, and watching the crew from the darkness. She moved silent as a breath, and used the maze of rusted passageways and flickering lights to her advantage.

The ship was old, patched together with scraps of salvaged tech. The air always carried a scent of ozone and burned metal, and the hull creaked like an ancient beast groaning under its own weight.

Sitting on a beam high above the massive storage bay where they sorted what they had collected, she pulled a small notebook and pencil out of a pocket of her cargo pants and leaned back in the shadows, observing the two men below.

She opened the notebook and turned to a new page. Her eyes flicked between the scene below and the drawing she was making to capture it. This was her tether. Her quiet anchor in a world she did not belong to. Some wrote journals to process their thoughts—Mei let them bleed into lines and shading. Each sketch was proof she existed. That she was still here.

She had captured each of the five crew members onboard the freighter. As far as she could tell based on their physical characteristics, they all came from different worlds. This meant that wherever she had awoken, there were multiple planets that could sustain life.

She paused in her drawing when the tall, reptilian man with dark, shimmery green patches of luminescent gold skin that pulsed when he spoke entered through a narrow doorway. She knew that the doorway led to the level where the galley and the crew cabins were located. He paused on the platform and called out to the two men. His name was Xyphos, among a few other things which she might not precisely understand but knew the gist of based on the derisive tone with which they were said. He had four eyes that blinked independently, a sour disposition, and from the way the men reacted to him, she was positive he was the captain of the freighter.

“Rak’tol varun nezhak-toh kry’tulakh ves’tan Cryon-II!” Xyphos commanded.

Grak shrugged while Tiv snapped to attention. Even without understanding the words, Mei recognized submission when she saw it. Tiv moved faster, his mandibles clicking, while Grak—slower, lazier—barely acknowledged the command, tossing debris over his shoulder with deliberate indifference.

“Tzarak Urvalek. Vash’kal nerai Frell’shak vok’ta Cryon-II turak vor’zhak,” Xyphos grumbled to himself in a voice pointedly loud enough to be overheard, his glance singling out Grak.

Mei’s lips twitched. Even without knowing the words, she could tell he wasn’t wishing Grak good health. Her gaze flickered down to the quick sketch she had drawn of Xyphos, the lines of his angry expression dark and emphatic.

Lorik stepped through the doorway to stand beside Xyphos, and Mei watched with amusement as the captain started for the stairs, intending to grouchily ignore the newcomer on the scene before Lorik placed his hand on Xyphos’s arm, shook his head, and spoke in that hypnotic voice of his. A moment later, Xyphos grumbled something she couldn’t hear, nodded, and disappeared back the way he came.

Lorik was the most human-like of the five. He had dark obsidian skin with silver veins that pulsed faintly, but it was his voice that Mei found the most intriguing. It was smooth, spellbinding. He used it most with the three other crew members, but like today, she had seen him use it a few times on the captain when the man had become tired of the bickering among the crew or with Grak’s insubordination.

Grak, Frell, and Tiv were the grunts. From the disconnection between them and the captain and first officer, she suspected they had been a rash hire—one that both men regretted.

Mei casually sketched Grak. He was a massive hulking brute, with thick skin covered in spiked ridges down his arms. He was slow, but strong. His voice was a deep, guttural growl.

She had noticed over the last few weeks that he had a bad habit of drinking too much. He was not a functioning alcoholic. His ineptness had led to a near fatal accident yesterday when he hit the wrong button on the lift controls and dropped a pile of space debris on Frell.

That was probably why Frell wasn’t there today. Frell, the smallest of the crew members, had been fortunate that he was wiry and fast. He had four arms and piercing red eyes that never stayed still. Yesterday, he had come close to killing Grak. The argument had escalated to the point that Mei had been surprised that Lorik hadn’t confined Grak to keep him from being murdered.

Her eyes softened when she studied Tiv. He was the only one she found herself… liking. Which was strange—he wasn’t human, wasn’t even close. But unlike the others, he never barked orders, never wasted words on cruelty.

His mandibles clicked when he was nervous, and sometimes, she imagined she understood what he meant by the small, weary tilt of his head. Maybe that was why she watched him more than the others. Maybe that was also why she hoped—just a little—that when she finally made her move, he wouldn’t be in the way.

He was the only one of the crew worth keeping in her opinion. Tiv worked tirelessly, never complained—that she had witnessed—and kept to himself. When he was working with Grak and Frell, he tried to keep the peace between the two.

Out of the five, Mei enjoyed watching Tiv the most. There was something about the way his eyes moved and how he would just shake his head at Grak and Frell that amused her and reminded her of Julia, Ash, and Josh when she and Sergi were teasing each other.

Well, not quite the same way. We picked on each other for fun.

The memories caught her off guard. For a short time, she’d had a family—one made of laughter and teasing and bad birthday surprises. One where she wasn’t a tool, a weapon, or a mission. She hoped—desperately—that she still did have a family. Somewhere. Anywhere in this strange new universe.

With a shake of her head, she returned to her observations. The aliens’ languages were a chaotic mix of guttural clicks, rolling consonants, and deep rumbles. She could pick up fragments, but nothing cohesive. There was one word that stood out, though. Turbinta .

They had said it often over the last few days. When they did, their voices lowered. Their gazes darkened. It was a name, a place, or a warning.

Interesting. Very interesting.