K-92B The planet

The Rustmoth trembled.

Steam hissed through ruptured pipes. Lights flickered and cracked. The walls wept sparks.

Vermond lay broken against the wall, barely conscious, his face swollen, blood dripping from his mouth, his arm twisted wrong.

The Cleanser stood over him like a specter of judgment.

“You are unworthy,” it rasped, raising its bladed arm. “The vessel must be opened.”

Vermond tried to crawl. His fingers trembled. His emerald-glowing eyes flickered, dimming. The light inside him flared—but his body was too weak to hold it. His ribs felt shattered, his mind reeling from the burning pressure of whatever Kiana had left him.

The Cleanser lunged.

And then—

A deep hum vibrated through the ship.

Outside the Rustmoth, a fighter jet streaked past the portholes—Federation markings on its wings.

Vermond blinked through the haze of blood and pain.

In the distance, the wreckage of Federation ships floated—scarred, shredded, glowing with dying lights.

The patrol fleet…

It had lost.

Badly.

Only scraps remained—burning husks drifting through the void.

And from the shadows…

The Cleanser ships emerged again.

Still eight of them.

Only two lost.

Unscathed. Silent. Relentless.

They hovered like ancient gods watching ants scatter.

The Federation fleet was fleeing.

Running for their lives.

But one ship didn’t turn away.

A small, angular Federation corvette—a recon-class fighter—broke off formation, veering toward the Rustmoth.

Inside, tension crackled.

“Captain, we need to go! The patrol commander’s dead!”

“We saw what they did—those weren’t pirates, they were something else—”

“We won’t survive, sir!”

“Shut it.”

The voice was deep. Calm.

Captain Fredene.

Tall. Muscular. Square-jawed, with a scar across his brow and fire in his eyes.

“We’re not running from this,” he growled. “Not while there’s a survivor out there.”

“Sir, that ship is falling apart!”

“So are we. Dock it. Gear up.”

Inside the Rustmoth, the Cleanser snarled, having sensed the incoming ship. It turned toward Vermond again, arm trembling with impatience.

“The orb. Now.”

It reached forward, fingers extending, ready to carve into Vermond’s chest.

But Vermond rolled—barely dodging the first swipe. He gasped in agony as broken ribs screamed, but he needed time—just a few more seconds.

Outside—a docking clamp locked on.

BOOM.

The airlock blew open.

Federation soldiers stormed in.

Four of them—tight formation, rifles raised, armored in matte-black exo-suits. The first one through the breach caught a blade to the chest before he even fired.

Dead before he hit the ground.

“CONTACT!” the others shouted.

The Cleanser whirled—bladed limbs slicing, glowing symbols dancing along its body.

It moved like a blur—like death itself.

But Fredene came in last.

He didn’t flinch.

Didn’t speak.

He charged.

Metal met metal.

Fredene’s arm was wrapped in powered gauntlets—custom-forged plasma bracers. He blocked the Cleanser’s blade and punched it hard enough to shake the ship.

“Get that kid out!” he barked. “I’ll keep this freak busy!”

The soldiers regrouped, forming a triangle around Vermond, dragging him toward cover as Fredene and the Cleanser tore into each other.

It was like a dance of monsters.

Fredene was human—but he moved with the fury of a man who'd stared death down and told it to wait.

The Cleanser didn’t expect resistance.

It got a brawl.

Fredene parried blows with impossible strength, kicking the Cleanser back into the reactor room.

“GO!” he roared. “MOVE HIM!”

Vermond, dizzy and bloodied, looked up from the arms of the soldier carrying him.

“Who… is that guy…”

One of the soldiers answered, panting.

“That’s Fredene. He’s insane.”

And just behind them—

The Cleanser shrieked.

Wounded.

For the first time.

Vermond collapsed into the floor of the corvette, barely conscious, his vision doubled and red around the edges.

The interior was cramped, humming with energy and cold sweat. The Federation soldiers worked fast, slamming control panels, shouting orders into headsets. One of them, a woman with short hair and eyes like gunmetal, pressed a stim-patch to Vermond’s chest.

“You’re gonna live, kid,” she muttered. “Don’t make me regret saving your ass.”

Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere.

The docking ramp was still extended.

The soldiers who stayed behind—two of them—were firing nonstop, trying to suppress the Cleanser, but its silhouette loomed through the smoke like something ancient and unstoppable.

And then—

Fredene burst through the smoke.

Blood on his arms.

Armor cracked.

His face twisted in fury.

“UND—OCK!!” he roared.

“CAPTAIN!” the crew shouted.

“DO IT NOW!”

They hit the release.

Metal screamed as the clamps detached.

The boarding bridge blew free just as Fredene dived across the threshold, landing hard, rolling to his feet and slamming the inner door.

“GO, GO, GO!”

The pilot didn’t wait for a second command.

Engines roared.

The corvette kicked backward, spun on its axis, and blasted into space.

Behind them—

The Cleanser leapt.

It screamed, a sound like a dying star and shattering glass, as it launched itself from the Rustmoth, pushing off debris, racing toward them at impossible speed.

“What the hell is that thing!?” the pilot barked, yanking the controls.

Fredene gritted his teeth. “Doesn’t matter. Fly faster.”

The Cleanser began running through open space—using the floating wreckage of the Federation patrol ships like stepping stones. Every movement sent out shockwaves. Each leap covered kilometers.

It was catching up.

“Reroute auxiliary power to engines!”

“We’ll blow the drive core if we push more than this—”

“DO IT!”

The ship rocked as the thrusters surged.

Inside, Vermond struggled to sit up. His vision was flickering—every heartbeat felt like a hammer in his skull. But something stirred inside him.

He could feel the Cleanser behind them.

That… hunger.

That ancient, silent call that whispered:

“You belong to us.”

Outside, the corvette darted into an asteroid field—sharp rocks spinning, gas clouds distorting sensors.

The Cleanser didn’t stop.

It dove after them, smashing through small asteroids with its body, ignoring damage, not slowing down.

One of the crew screamed, “It’s still on us—how is it still on us?!”

Fredene took the co-pilot’s chair, blood dripping from his brow.

“Time to give it a real fight.”

He armed the back cannons.

“Let’s light this bastard up.”

The Cleanser lunged in for the kill—

And got a face full of plasma.

Twin turret blasts detonated in its path—bright, white-hot bursts that shattered nearby rocks and bathed space in flame.

The Cleanser was hit—but it didn’t die.

It tumbled, shrieked, reoriented mid-air…

And then it stopped.

Floating in the dark.

Just staring.

Like a predator waiting.

Silence.

The corvette surged forward, deeper into the field.

For now… safe.

Inside, the crew breathed again. Barely.

Fredene slumped against the wall, eyes on the sensor screen.

Vermond sat quietly, staring at his bloodstained hands.

No one noticed the faint green glow fading from his eyes.

Not yet.

The scattered remains of the Federation patrol fleet limped away from the battlefield, silent engines firing in retreat. Ships that had been proud, clean, precise… were now cracked, scorched, leaking oxygen and pain.

In the belly of one of the remaining command ships, an emergency holo-meeting snapped to life.

Screens flickered—twelve officers across different vessels.

Some had soot on their faces. Others were pale, in shock. The commanding officer, Vice Captain Yurell, stood grim and hollow-eyed, his voice ragged from smoke.

And then—

“How do we report this?”

The room exploded into chaos.

“We were wiped out!”

“This wasn’t some outlaw gang—this was coordinated, tactical slaughter!”

“We don’t even know what that thing was!”

“Our commander didn’t even get to draw his weapon—he was just—gone!”

Monitors shook with raised voices.

“I counted ten ships down!”

“Twelve, confirmed!”

“We got no scans. No ID. No heat trail, no engine signature—it’s like they don’t exist!”

A long silence.

Then Yurell spoke.

“…We do not speculate.”

His voice was slow, cold.

“We report what we saw: A patrol fleet engaged with unidentified hostiles. Our commander was lost in action. We retrieved three vessels, minimal survivors.”

A younger officer asked, quietly, “And what about the small civilian ship?”

Yurell’s brow tightened.

“Wrecked. Not destroyed. No known threat. It was in the crossfire. We pulled one survivor. Name unknown. Nothing unusual recorded.”

They moved on.

The name Vermond was never mentioned.

Back on Fredene’s corvette, the tension slowly settled. The crew moved through their drills like ghosts. Triage stations were set. Wounded patched. Systems rebooted.

Vermond lay in a cramped med bay.

A young medic cleaned the blood from his face. Her hands were gentle. Her voice didn’t match the cold world around them.

“You’re stable now. Concussion, cracked ribs. Shoulders bruised to hell. But you’re alive.”

Vermond didn’t speak.

His eyes were fixed to the far wall.

Not at it—but through it.

Out where the stars drifted.

Where the Rustmoth was.

Floating alone.

The only place he had ever called home.

He remembered Marloy’s laugh echoing in the hallways. The smell of old coffee. The way the pipes knocked during hyperjumps. His grandpa’s voice—“She may be slow, Vermond, but she’s ours.”

Now…

Gone.

But something inside him still pulsed.

Not pain.

Not fear.

Something deeper.

A low thrum in his bones.

A whisper in his veins.

Kiana’s last words ringing like an echo:

> “I will become your power.”

He didn’t understand it.

Not yet.

But the orb inside him wasn’t sleeping anymore.

It was awake.

The battered Federation patrol fleet drifted through the void like a bruised animal licking its wounds. Once seventeen ships strong, it now limped forward with only five vessels remaining: two corvettes, one recon frigate, one logistics carrier with a ruptured hull, and the half-scorched command destroyer, HFS Lancer.

Their engines flickered with minimal power, food reserves were critically low, and the wounded outnumbered the healthy. Each ship ran on emergency rations and recycled water. The silence between transmissions was heavy with dread. Even the AI systems responded slower, as if grieving.

Aboard the Lancer, Vice Captain Yurell stood over a holo-table.

"We need to find ground," he said, voice hoarse. "Anything habitable. Even a dirt rock with edible moss."

The scan teams went to work. Every passing system was charted. Sector after sector yielded nothing but gas giants, dead moons, or radiation-choked wastelands.

Until—

Sector K-92B.

A green-blue orb hovered on the edge of a twin-star system. No name. No records. But breathable atmosphere. Water. Forests.

They redirected course immediately.

Descent.

The fleet shuddered as it entered the exosphere of the unknown planet. Turbulence rocked the fractured hulls, but they held. One by one, the five remaining ships descended through scattered clouds and touched down in a wide, open valley surrounded by massive silverleaf trees and low fog.

Scouts were sent. Drones were deployed. All returned the same data: no signs of civilization. No power sources. No weapons. Just raw, untouched nature.

The air was crisp. Rich with oxygen. The breeze smelled like wet stone and green bark.

The crew spilled out onto the grass, most for the first time in months, some in years. Some wept. Others collapsed to sleep. A few just stood in silence, eyes wide with disbelief.

Teams began searching for food—roots, fruits, anything edible.

Others set up makeshift repair tents using portable fab-techs. Engines hissed and clanged as work began on hull tears, damaged comms, and compromised systems.

Above them, birds—six-winged and translucent—glided through the pale sky.

Aboard Fredene's corvette, the interior remained dim and quiet. Vermond still rested in the medbay, strapped in loosely to keep from aggravating his injuries.

The orb's power had gone quiet again. He didn’t know if he missed it or feared it.

His thoughts wandered back to the Rustmoth—lost somewhere in the black.

Footsteps approached.

The door hissed open.

Fredene entered, still in torn armor but carrying a tin cup of something warm.

“Brought you something,” he said, offering it. “Synth brew. Tastes like burnt socks but it’s hot.”

Vermond sat up slowly, accepting it with a nod.

Fredene leaned against the bulkhead.

“You holding together, kid?”

“…Yeah. I think so.”

“No one expects you to be fine. That was hell out there.”

Vermond took a sip. It was awful. But grounding.

Fredene studied him. Not with suspicion—just weariness.

“You got a name?”

“…Vermond.”

Fredene nodded. “Well, Vermond, welcome to what’s left of the Federation’s glory. You’re alive. That means something.”

They sat in silence a while.

Outside, the trees swayed. Engines whirred. Soldiers laughed, cooked, cried.

For now, they were safe.

But Vermond knew—

This planet was only a pause. Not an ending.

The command tent was sweltering with tension.

Aboard the green surface of the mysterious planet, the Federation survivors gathered in a patchwork of officers, engineers, and wounded fighters. Makeshift lighting flickered overhead, barely enough to illuminate the projection of Sector K-92B. At the head stood Vice-Captain Yurell, arms crossed, his voice the only thing keeping chaos at bay.

“Let’s begin,” he said, stone-faced.

Five remaining ships—scattered and scarred—were all that remained of the once-proud patrol fleet. The projection showed jagged damage logs, failed long-range comm attempts, and a slowly recharging power grid. The silence of space had been replaced by thick air and growing paranoia.

“We are stranded,” Yurell began. “And running out of time.”

Murmurs broke out, some hushed, some angry. The tension wasn’t just from their circumstances—it was from the decisions yet to be made.

“We stay grounded. We scavenge food. We repair. We wait for enough power to send a wideband signal—if anyone’s left to answer.”

Lt. Carrus stood abruptly. “You’re ignoring protocol. We should’ve split up for recon days ago.”

“And risk losing more people?” Yurell snapped. “No. We stay. No ship moves without direct authorization from me.”

Commander Faltey, rough-voiced and bruised, growled, “So we sit and pray? That thing—we still don’t know what it was! What if it comes back?”

Yurell slammed his fist against the table. “And what do you suggest, Commander? Chase it with half-powered thrusters and broken guns?”

Faltey shouted over him. “Maybe that’s better than playing house on some cursed rock!”

Chairs scraped. People yelled. The room split between fear and fury. Accusations flew. Some officers hinted at deeper worries—traitors, tech corruption, and what that glowing creature had really been.

Meanwhile—

Outside, Vermond stepped onto real ground for the first time in his life.

The soil felt soft under his boots. The air tasted like stone, rain, and something electric. Silver-leafed trees loomed overhead, their branches gently swaying like they were breathing.

He walked alone into the woods, heart pounding, eyes scanning the landscape like a dream he wasn’t sure he could wake from.

Then—he felt it.

A warmth.

The orb in his chest began to glow.

Emerald light pulsed under his shirt. He stumbled, grabbing at his ribs.

A flood of something ancient surged into him—memories that weren’t his, voices in languages that cracked the edge of his mind, echoes of entire civilizations dead for eons.

He fell to one knee, gasping.

Then—it stopped.

The light vanished.

He sat there a moment, shaking, trying to catch his breath.

“…What are you?” he whispered to the silence.

Whatever it was, it had chosen him.

He stood, slowly. And headed for the meeting tent.

When Vermond entered, the room didn’t notice him at first—until Fredene spotted him.

The captain gave a subtle nod and slid a chair over. Vermond took the seat without a word.

“Glad to see you walking,” Fredene whispered.

Vermond didn’t answer. His eyes were locked on the officers shouting at each other.

Something was wrong with them. Not their bodies—their minds. He could feel the fear blooming under their skin, amplified, humming like a broken wire.

The orb pulsed quietly, undetectable to the rest.

Yurell raised his voice above the arguing.

“I will not tolerate rebellion. We are Federation. We do not splinter.”

“But what if we’re already splintered?” Carrus said coldly. “What if something’s changed us?”

The room went still.

For a second—just one—everybody looked at everyone else with something darker than doubt.

Paranoia.

Fredene’s hand tightened into a fist.

The silence was broken only by static from the comms unit, as if even the planet itself was listening.

Vermond watched. And felt something… watching back.

The planet wasn’t dead.

And something out there hadn’t finished with them.

The meeting was reaching its boiling point when it happened.

A sound—deep, otherworldly, and enormous—shook the planet.

Everyone inside the command tent froze. The walls vibrated, and the ground trembled beneath them. It was not an explosion. It was a roar—a guttural, endless roar that reached into their chests and twisted their insides.

The soldiers reached for their sidearms instinctively. Engineers dropped tools. Someone knocked over a container and it clattered across the metal floor, lost in the noise.

The roar didn’t stop.

It rolled through the valley, vibrating the ships, rattling the trees, rising like a storm of pure dread. It wasn’t natural—it sounded like a god screaming underwater.

Vice-Captain Yurell stood up, face pale, voice trembling with urgency.

“Everyone, prepare for launch! I want full systems checked, I want repair crews on triple time! Get us off this planet—NOW!”

They obeyed. Scrambling. Panicking.

Even as the roar kept going.

For sixteen minutes, the world trembled with it.

And then… silence.

As if something massive had gone back to sleep.

The silence was worse.

“All ships,” Yurell’s voice called over the comms. “We don’t have the time to wait. Finalize the loadouts, seal the cargo bays. I want us in the air before it roars again.”

But before they could finish—

The roar came back.

Closer.

Louder.

Trees cracked in the distance. Water surged from a hidden lake, sloshing against cliffs like it was breathing. Panic erupted. One of the med freighters nearly toppled from a poor hover startup.

“Get it online! Get it online!” Fredene shouted.

The crews didn’t need encouragement now. Systems blinked to green. Engines roared. Within minutes, all five remaining ships rose shakily above the valley floor:

The Corvettes and others.

The moment they gained altitude and left the treetops behind, the noise of the roar dulled.

Open comms crackled.

Vice-Captain Yurell’s voice came through, strained: “What the hell was that?”

A voice from the science vessel—a younger researcher—answered, trembling.

“It’s… it’s a Grelloda,” she said. “A massive aquatic organism. Dormant most of the time, native to planets like this. We didn’t think it still existed. It’s rare. Extremely rare.”

Fredene cut in, frowning. “Why now?”

“It must have sensed us. The land tremors, the repairs, the engines—it must’ve woken it. They don’t attack unless disturbed.”

Yurell didn’t waste time. “We have food. We have water. That’s enough. Plot an exit course. We’re leaving orbit.”

The five ships turned, breaking free from the atmosphere, the blue-green curve of the planet shrinking behind them.

Silence filled the ship.

Everyone finally exhaled.

But not Vermond.

Back on the Corvette, in the medbay, Vermond sat up suddenly.

Then he screamed.

His chest burned—no, exploded with pain. It wasn’t an injury. It was something inside him shifting, something ancient and unnatural tearing its way through his nerves.

He screamed louder, falling to the floor, clutching his ribs.

Green light flickered under his shirt.

Medics rushed in, yelling, trying to hold him down.

“He’s seizing—!”

“No, his vitals—his vitals are spiking—I don’t understand!”

Fredene ran in just as Vermond convulsed again, blood trickling from the side of his mouth, eyes rolled back but glowing faintly emerald.

“What’s happening to him?” Fredene barked.

“I don’t know!” the lead medic shouted, trying to inject a sedative. “He’s not dying—he’s changing!”

Vermond arched his back—and then, suddenly, collapsed.

The light in his chest slowly dimmed.

But Fredene noticed it hadn’t gone out.

It was just… waiting.