The words came through his earpiece, crackling in sharp pops.

“We are at the site and making our final approach to the anomaly.”

Administrator Rostov winced at the distortion in his ears. He paced, wiping the sweat from his brow, and looked out at the lunar expanse. The spire gave Rostov’s administrative group a decent view, but the reconnaissance team was still beyond his view. A few moments before, it had been a normal day – countless vessels orbiting, coming and going, refugees, freight, colonists bound for the stars.

“Take care out there, Redd. Keep us posted.”

Rostov covered the mouthpiece with one hand, rubbed his moistened forehead with his palm, and turned his head, “For fuck’s sake, get me a cleaner signal this instant.” He knew Lorraine, his assistant, understood he wasn’t yelling at her specifically. He heard her scurry off to the operations section without a word, her feet scraping loudly against the metal flooring.

The Administrator turned back toward the wide screen in front of him. Looking around, he realized all the top brass in the command module was gathered, gazing almost blankly at the screen with him. The rest of the staff continued to scurry, attempting to provide whatever remote support they could to the security team.

“Between this and the lockdown, it’s a wonder this facility is still standing,” Rostov whispered.

The feed showed the familiar terrain of the lunar surface, an endless sea of bright white and dull grey dust stretched out before the security team, their vision bisected by the infinite stretch of space beyond. The feed shook as Security Officer Cob’s sharp and jump-like steps in the lower gravity bobbled his helmet around. His deep, labored breaths came through the mic and over the loudspeakers as white noise. Covering it all, however, was the sharp green glow that arose from the ground. The security team was now heading towards it.

Redd’s helmet swayed to the left, checking on Cob’s progress.

“Redd, do you note anything unusual?”

Redd’s voice came through slightly more clearly.

“Well, sir – do you mean apart from the blinding green light?”

Rostov sighed.

“Goddamnit, Redd, apart from it.”

“Other than that, sir, nothing seems strange.”

Cob’s helmet panned back to the right, facing forward again. The light glowed so bright that when Cob looked at it, only lens flares were visible and the feed completely whited out, save for the white noise increasingly appearing in the video.

Rostov hated these direct feeds. All the panning, the swaying, the bopping, the shaking – it was all he could do to prevent himself from vomiting. But there was no other choice; simple satellite feeds and location tracking weren’t going to be enough. Not for this mission. He had to see it, hear it.

The Administrator heard a wurring behind him. He turned and immediately jumped. One of the station’s several robotic security sentries stood directly behind him for a moment as part of his routine patrol. He never liked the looks on those things’ faces – they had been painted to look friendly and welcoming – with big, cartoony eyes and wide, toothy smiles. They were supposed to incite calmness in people, but instead they just gave him the creeps. With yet another loud crackle in his ear, his face contorted into a visage of anger.

“Get me a goddamn better feed! And while you’re at it, get that goddamn security bot out of here!”

The bot was smart enough to do what he was told. He bowed his head, simulating a cartoonish shame, and began walking out, his robotic limbs and joints whirring with every movement.

“We’re at the site, Administrator. I can see the-” Cob’s voice cut out into a deafening scratch that caused everyone gathered in the command center to wince audibly. Rostov’s face contorted angrily a second time as he turned sharply around, shouting at Lorraine again, who had scampered back into her place behind him.

“For fuck’s sake! Who do I need to blow around here to get a clear signal?”

Lorraine tried to speak up, but her voice gave out.

“Yes?” Rostov demanded, his voice feigning understanding.

“Operations tried boosting the signal. They switched to the backup and did a quick power cycle on the primary without interrupting the data flow. This is the best we’re getting.”

Rostov stood up and walked towards her, tearing off the head set and pointing his finger violently toward the big screen, “Our people are completely exposed out there, investigating who-knows-what, and we can’t get them sufficient comms?”

Lorraine’s upper lip quivered, and she began to respond, but Terrell’s voice broke through; his comms were also extremely broken. The Administrator responded.

“Say again, Cob.”

“…-see the probe, still brok-… approaching the light.”

Rostov watched as Cob’s helmet looked down at the rover they had sent to check the anomaly out. Cob kicked it but nothing happened.

“It’s fried.”

“Take a closer look at the anomaly, please.”

Redd hesitated; Rostov could hear him take a deep breath. But then he took a step, looked at the green light shooting into the blackness. He took care not to look at it directly and cause another white out of the feed.

The green light appeared to be emanating from some sort of oblong device, partially buried in the white ground. Rostov wondered if it could be seen from Earth, and if so, why they hadn’t reported it yet.

A white glove appeared in the periphery of the feed as Redd shielded his eyes. He looked back at Cob, who had gotten closer. Together, they squatted down to inspect the device.

It looked metallic, but otherwise completely ordinary. Nothing special in the slightest. Redd turned around as Cob began reaching out to touch the device. Despite being nothing spectacular, Rostov couldn’t place any of the strange markings that circled it.

Rostov squinted and frowned, walking toward the screen to get a better look. Suddenly the screen went completely and blindingly white. The crackling in his ears was so loud he tore off the headset. Rostov whirled around and looked back at Lorraine, his eyes ablaze but not saying a word.

“It’s not the feed! I just checked!”

Rostov looked back just in time to see the video feed filter back in from the white out. The green light was gone. He could see what he thought was Redd’s motionless body, lying on the white ground. Looking more closely, he noticed what looked like blood and brains spattered on the inside of his helmet. The light emanating from the device had changed; instead of a bright green, a blinding red right flew forth, reflecting on the white surface.

“Jesus Christ.”

Someone behind Rostov gagged and someone else gasped. Rostov picked his headset back up and slipped it awkwardly over his head.

“Redd! Come in, Redd!”

Nobody responded, but Rostov saw Cob get up slowly and look up toward the device. He heard Cob’s heartbeat come through the headset; his breathing was shallow. The device was now glowing bright red, and there was a correspondingly red, bright light shooting out of it and into space. Cob looked back over towards Redd’s corpse. Rostov saw Cob’s feed stop as he hesitated and understood what he was looking at. He looked around and realized that everyone in the command center had stopped to look at the monitor with him.

“Cob, can you-” Rostov tried to project calmness, but his throat closed on him and he coughed. He tried speaking again, “Can you hear me?”

“I can hear you, Administrator, but Redd…”

“Yes, I can see.”

A console behind Rostov began beeping loudly. Rostov turned toward the sound to see a flurry of technicians rush in to see what the alert was.

“What is it?”

They touched the console while speaking commands to the computer.

“Administrator Rostov, what’s… wha?”

Rostov touched the headset as the crackling continued to invade his ears. It was getting worse. He could barely hear Cob’s voice.

“Stand by, Cob.”

“Solar storm!” one of the technicians yelled. His console was beeping and glowing alerts.

Lorraine muttered under her breath, “I knew it wasn’t the feed.”

Rostov’s eyes opened wide. “Begin emergency procedures! Shut down the satellites and all non-essential systems!”

But they were already on it, and Rostov knew it would be too late. What had been a curious, fearful calm had become pandemonium. Technicians and engineers were racing from console to console, moving from other areas through the tunnels.

Cob’s voice came through; it sounded incredibly weak, “What’s happening, Leo?”

Rostov sighed, “There’s a solar storm, Cob”

“Wha-? A wha-?”

“Don’t worry, Cob, we’re coming out to get you,” he said calmly before bellowing feebly to no one in particular, “Get someone out there now!”

Lorraine stepped up and spoke quietly, “You can’t mean that, Administrator. Anyone we send out there is going to end up just like Redd”

“We don’t leave our people out there to die!” he snapped back at her.

“What do you suggest, Administrator?”

“I’ll go out there.”

“What? No! That’s insane. We need you-”

But it was too late. Rostov heard screaming over the headset. He turned back to the feed as quickly as he could. Cob’s helmet was on the ground again, his face looking out to the white ground. Space was barely visible from his vantage point. He was convulsing on the ground as the radiation entered his body and burned it from the inside out.

“Turn off the feed!” Lorraine cried.

“Belay that order,” Rostov responded. He put his head in his hands and listened seemingly frozen as he and the rest of the crew remaining in the command center heard the final cries of Cob’s waning life. His anxious cries of sudden awareness of what was happening to him very quickly became a blood-curdling, inhumane wail as his internal organs were liquefied and boiled. The Administrator heard two pops as Cob’s eyes burst open inside his helmet. Just as the full impact of the solar storm hit the way point, Cob finally lie still and the feed winked out, completely dead. The lights went out. The emergency backup generators kicked on and the secondary red lights filled the command center, matching the new light outside coming from the device.

Despite the continued flurry of all of his technicians and engineers, the command center itself seemed to slow for a moment, in an odd but completely recognizable sense of reverence for what everyone just witnessed. Some were weeping openly. Lorraine was looking at the floor, her arms crossed.

The Administrator looked out the only window not covered by the protective shield. The visible surface of the moon was covered in the sickly, bloody glow of the device’s red light that continued to cast a red glow upon them.

#

Spirits were high in the mess, but not for Shep. The crew’s cheers echoed throughout the metal hallways in an overlapping, incoherent rabble. They had just successfully completed a job – finally, the first in months. A routine salvaging operation that turned up a few goodies; enough artifacts to almost pay the bills, if only Shep had joined the mission this time. Gav was bloviating as usual as Tanner was congratulatory, and the new girl stood in the back – walking the tightrope of enjoying the fun but not assuming she was part of the team yet. Shep quietly excused himself and walked back from the mess toward his own bunk; no one questioned his early departure and although he didn’t wait for it, he did notice.

It was a long way from his home on Enceladus, and that was precisely how Shep preferred it. He paused amid the now-muffled laudations and peered out one of the tiny port holes, counting the stars and pretending he could discern the distance from home. He quickly gave up this fruitless endeavor and decided to blame the window for being too foggy anyway. Regardless, right here and right now, hundreds of thousands of kilometers from anywhere recognizable to him, he knew that no one depended on him or needed him out here. No one relied on him. Perfect.

The acrid gases on the ship filled Shep’s nostrils as he took a deep breath and wandered away from the port hole, his hands in his pockets. The lights beaming from the ground were low and indirect, casting shadows on the cratered, cheap metal walls.

The ship had a heartbeat all of its own. The engines rumbled and reverberated throughout the hull. After a while Shep forgot it was there. But during this time of night, with no one else around, it seemed louder than ever. The engine’s roar was omnipotent, and it buried all that hooting in the mess.

The engine’s heat permeated throughout the ship. The colder temperatures from space leaked in from microscopic cracks in the old hull and windows, and it condensed the hot water vapor from the engine, so the hallways around the ship and between the living quarters were usually quite humid. On particularly steamy days when the ship and engine had been worked overtime, the air would literally drip from the ceiling, trickling down the walls and collecting into puddles on the floor. Shep could smell the mildew as he walked the halls, his soles making metallic pangs and slippery squeaks on the floor.

Shep stopped at an access panel, rusty and barely functioning in the humidity. He quickly looked around to make sure nobody was watching. The shadows from the low, indirect lighting seemed to leap out as if they were trying to remind him that what he was doing was completely immoral and unethical, and if anyone found what he was doing, he’d probably get beaten to a pulp. It would be worth it, or at least it could be. Everyone knew the rules. The crew shared from a pool, which incentivized cooperation. But clearly Gav had little care for that rule or for Tanner’s preferences. What Gav had taken from the last haul - he had no right to it. And Shep knew, but couldn’t admit, that it was easier to take from someone else, again, than to face the pressure of helping the crew get the haul in the first place. Gav found the little handheld computer in a small compartment near the salvaged bridge; Shep had heard Gav bragging about it and saw Gav checking his bag for it when he thought no one was looking. It was probably a few hundred years old. Long past broken, but its CPU would still sell for a fortune, as would its on-device memory.

Shep popped open the back of the access panel and began to prod with his fingers. He found the hot wire and searched for the relevant sockets to stick it in. Every time he had stolen from others, stolen from his parents, from his friends, it was always the last time. He’d get things straightened out before needing to do it again. Despite that and the efforts he was putting forth to go back home, mother wouldn’t see the progress. She’d only see the state of things, and that they hadn’t changed.

“It’s been almost two years, Shepard,” his mother had said the last time they’d spoken over video feed.

Shep had hung his head. “I know.”

“When are you going to sort this out and figure out a way forward? Her grades are dropping, she’s just… not the way she was when you were here. We’ve tried everything, but sometimes there’s nothing like having your dad”.

He had felt that one in his gut, like someone had kicked him. She was trying to help, but it wasn’t how it felt.

“I know.”

There had been a short pause while mother’s face hung there, as if she was expecting some sort of answer. The feed may as well have frozen. Shep had searched for a response to what felt like a non-sequitur. He felt the shameful pull of unclear expectations that he somehow wasn’t meeting. He began to say something, but mother interrupted him.

“Are you going to say anything else? It feels like I’m talking to a brick wall.”

A bolt of anger shot through him. Either he wasn’t talking enough or he wasn’t doing enough. It was always the same message, just with different words and a different tone – the message was always clear. He began a breathless response, but mother had cut him off again.

“And I can’t believe your captain hasn’t found more work and more salvages for your team. You’d really think the company would find someone else.”

Shep had hesitated to answer again. He’d looked from the screen down to the floor, littered with empty bottles, as he thought of all the jobs he had slept through.

“He’s okay. He’s trying.”

"I keep telling you, you need to see someone about this problem. We need more support, Shepard. We can’t do this alone. We need you. Leila needs you."

She continued.

"Ever since Derek-"

"Mom," Shep's tone said more than the word itself could convey. A warning not to continue with the line of dialog. Shep had watched as mother's expression changed from impatience to grudging acceptance.

"Do you want to talk to Leila this time?"

Another familiar lump of guilt in his stomach and anxiety in his chest. He wanted nothing more than to hide. What would he have to say to her? What could he possibly say or ask? She would want to know when he was coming home, and he didn't have an answer for her. He couldn’t face that; he couldn’t stand to look her in those big blue eyes and disappoint her, again.

"No, I can't. I have to get to sleep. Big job tomorrow. Gotta be ready to go."

He wasn't sure how possible it was, but mother's expression grew more passive-aggressively disappointed.

"Okay." But it very clearly wasn’t.

"I should probably go, mom. These calls are expensive. Gotta save money, you know."

"Okay. I love you."

It didn’t always feel like it.

"I love you too."

He had clicked off the feed and grabbed the nearest bottle. Holding it up to his mouth, he had tilted it back, but nothing rushed out. He had tossed it behind him, and it clanked loudly. He had groped in the dark blindly for another bottle and pulled it to his lips. This one had a trace of warm, flat liquid in it. He had gulped that one down and then tried to find yet another. The next job. The next one – he knew he’d muster the courage to get through it; to send some money back home, to help out as much as he could.

Shep realized he’d been lost in thought, then looked back at the entry panel for Gav’s room. He’d gotten it powered on. He stared at the request for a retina scan or an access card. Tracing his fingers along the paneling, it was slippery to the touch. Water dripped around him from the ceiling, at least partially covering the sound of his heartbeat, drowned out by the dual-noise cancellation of the dripping water and the deep wurrrrr of the engine.

He knelt down to better examine how the panel seemed to work. Looked pretty standard, if not slightly newer than the ship, which was to say, still probably a quarter century old, give or take. He knew it had a main electrical current that could be overridden; he knew where the circuit needed to be connected… problem was that if he just hotwired the damn thing, anyone would know what happened. There also wasn’t a place for him to plug in his handheld. He’d need Gav’s access card. Shep realized he had not thought this plan through at all and his confidence was suddenly shot. Why had he been so foolish to think this could even work to begin with? Better just to give up now before he had a chance to muck it up. He began to hurriedly close up the panel as beads of sweat formed and rolled down his face.

“Ahem.”

Shep whirled around and saw a mop of red hair he immediately recognized as the new girl’s. Tess had her hands on her hips, and despite being new to the crew, the knowing expression she wore was universal.

“Oh, uh, well – hi.”

Her expression didn’t shift one bit.

“I see you had the same idea I did. And I also see you didn’t think ahead like I did.”

Shep would have outwardly agreed with her if he didn’t know her motives. She flipped out an off-white rectangle and held it between her index and middle finger. That wasn’t what he was expecting.

“Let me spell it out for you – I’m going to help you with what you’re doing if you split it halfway.”

The ship’s engine outgassed, sending a loud exhale through the interior as Shep thought of a response. Tess still had her hands on her hips and cocked an eyebrow.

“Don’t trust me yet? I get it.”

She rushed forward anyway and waved the card over the slot. The access terminal began to spout its standard greeting, “Welcome Ga-,” but Tess covered the speaker with her hand. The door crackled open, and the steam from the engine room began to filter in. Tess followed it. It took Shep a second to realize he was all alone outside; within another second, he had closed up the access panel and was rushing to join Tess in Gav’s quarters.

As soon as Shep walked past the open door, it closed behind him, stealing the light from the hallway and bathing the quarters in darkness. Despite that, he was able to see Tess already rummaging through Gav’s things.

“If I were an ancient computing device, where would I be?”

Panic and anxiety began to creep into Shep, “Tesla-,”

“Ugh, just ‘Tess’, please.”

“Tess,” Shep corrected himself quickly, “on second thought, this is a terrible idea.”

“Nonsense,” she said with mock exuberance, not looking up from her work. She didn’t seem to have any care for whether Gav figured out his place had been ransacked. She threw his clothes around, messed up Gav’s pictures of himself on his dresser, “This ass clown stole from all of us. He’s getting what’s coming to him.”

“Yeah, but what if he finds out it was us?” Shep started pacing behind Tess, picking up the items she was tossing about and replacing them as best as his memory could serve.

“Whatever, who cares; it’s two against one. It’ll be fine.” She spoke in quick, dismissive phrases.

Shep shook his head, unconvinced. “We need to leave right now!” He realized he had balled his fists.

“Ah, here it is!” Tess withdrew her hand from Gav’s dresser; sure enough, she had the blocky, sharp device in her hands, “When we get back to Enceladus, we’ll make a fortune off this puppy.”

The anxiety in Shep’s chest only got worse. “We’re in so much trouble. What the hell was I thinking?”

“Relax,” Tess reassured him. Without word, she began to walk out.

“There’s like five of us on board!” Shep started to yell. Tess shushed him, but there was nothing condescending about it. She guided him back to the door, her hands on his lower back.

“Besides,” Tess said as they approached the door again, “you’ve got like 30 pounds on Gav and probably five inches.”

With horror, Shep’s eyes opened wide, “Which one do you think is Gav?”

The door opened suddenly. Light returned to the quarters, making them both squint. In front of them stood a very large man. Face, head, neck, even his earlobes were somehow larger than average.

Tess pointed, “That’s… Gav?”

Shep sighed, “That’s Gav.”

Tess’s mouth went agape, “Oh.” She composed herself and fake-whispered to Shep, “I thought Gav was the skinny one.”

“No, that’s me,” said another person behind Gav. Tess had to move her head to see around Gav, who was panting deep, angry breaths. But he wasn’t looking at Tess; he was looking at Shep.

“You,” Gav started, his voice a low rumble. His throat rattled as it forced up spit. He spoke in slow, angry bursts. “You. Mother. Fucker. You thief. You’ve stolen from us. Again!”

“Hey, it was mostly her,” Shep looked over at Tess, who didn’t even seem to hear his protest.

Tess squinted at Gav, “You stole this device from all of us. You know the rules – no one’s supposed to steal from the loot.”

Gav heaved his large head in the direction of Tess, a knowing and exhausted expression on his face, “You don’t know how many times this asshole has stolen from us, loot or otherwise.”

“Then why don’t we call it even?” Tess parried, putting on a negotiating face and refusing to be boxed in. “How can you possibly say you’re better than he is when you’ve both done wrong?”

The Skinny One spoke up, “She has a point, Gav.”

“Shut up, Webb,” Gav said, without even looking behind him. Without mincing words, Gav lurched forward and grabbed Shep by his lapel. He pulled him back out into the hallway and away from Tess. In the quickness of the moment, Shep couldn’t even try to defend himself and before he knew it, Gav was pounding his fists into Shep’s stomach. Over and over. Strike after strike.

After the third strike, Shep coughed up blood. He could hardly see anymore, his vision blurry and his head light. Gav dropped him onto the cold, wet floor, where Shep instinctively curled up, protecting his gut. The condensed engine steam at once soaked into his dirty clothes. He could feel the blood drip from his mouth, and it hurt to breathe.

Shep opened his eyes to see the blurry underside of Gav’s heavy boot as he raised it above Shep’s head. Despite being injured, he managed to slide away at just the right moment, with just enough space between his bloodied face and the side of Gav’s steel-tipped boot. Gav grunted when he realized he’d missed.

To Shep’s surprise, he saw a wisp of ginger hair as Tess ran forward and kicked Gav in the side. Her boots were just like his, and his size didn’t seem to shield him from a kick that strong. Gav groaned, and Tess followed up with a swift kick right to the groin. Shep saw Gav’s eyes bulge out and he fell over, next to Shep, suddenly not seeming to care all that much about the ancient computing device.

“Enough!”

Captain Tanner’s voice was loud and forceful enough that it echoed up and down the ship. Shep saw Captain Tanner walk forward, look at Shep, and shake his head. He didn’t bother to look at Gav; probably knew he was just fine. He walked over to Tess, grabbed the device from her hands, and threw it on the floor. It shattered into a million pieces, eliciting a groan from the crew.

“There, now none of you gets it.”

There were murmurs of discontent, “I don’t give a damn how expensive our finds are, nobody steals from all of us, and nobody,” he looked down at Shep again, “steals from each other, or this is what will happen from now on. Understood? If you want me to treat you like children, then that’s precisely what I’ll do.”

Shep heard murmurs of feigned compliance. Somehow squirming on the ground dulled the pain, at least somewhat.

“Good. You’re all confined to quarters. Get the hell out of here.”

Tanner looked back over at Tess and pointed down to Shep, “You got him?”

Shep didn’t hear Tess reply, but he did feel her footsteps come closer. She helped him back onto his feet. Gav groaned, still on the ground.

Tanner looked over to Gav and made a face. “Get over it, you big ape,” he said, briskly walking away.

Leaning on Tess, Shep also let out a groan.

“Come on,” she said, “I’ll get you fixed up.”

He mumbled agreement. As he stumbled to his feet, he noticed blood gathering on the tip of his nose before a drop leapt off his face and hit the ground, mixing with the ship’s condensation.