The crew gathered at dawn. Mist curled across the clearing, but above, the sky was sharp and endless. Mars hung like a bloodstain on the horizon.
Hayes stood at the foot of the ramp, voice flat but steady. "No more test flights. Today we see if this thing can carry us where we came for."
Marquez ran a hand along the hull, her fingers brushing over faint glyphs that pulsed beneath the steel. "She's ready," she whispered, though her eyes betrayed uncertainty.
Daniel's chest glowed faintly as he stepped aboard. The crystal was eager—he could feel it. The ship hummed like a predator straining at its leash.
---
Launch Sequence
Okafor's voice was tight as he read the final diagnostics. "Core stable… for now. Systems are rewriting faster than I can log them. Captain, once we go up, I don't know if we'll ever come back down the same."
Hayes settled into the captain's seat, jaw set. "Then we make sure we come down alive."
Daniel placed his hands on the console. He didn't need to press a single button. The ship recognized him. Circuits flared. Glyphs bled into the screens. The Artemis IV awakened.
The engines roared. The ground shook. Trees bent back under the force of the blast.
"Lift-off," Hayes growled.
And the ship obeyed.
---
Ascent
The clearing fell away. Clouds tore apart around them as the Artemis climbed. The air screamed against the hull, but instead of fracturing, the patched steel glowed with alien reinforcement.
"Altitude twelve thousand… fifteen thousand… twenty—" Okafor's voice broke into disbelief. "She's holding."
Daniel's vision blurred. The crystal filled him with fire, every nerve sparking. He saw layers of the atmosphere as shifting veils of pressure, currents that the ship cut through like a blade.
"Push it," Hayes barked.
Daniel did. The ship surged.
---
Breaking the Sky
At sixty thousand feet, the hull trembled violently. Systems screamed warnings. Marquez's fingers flew over the panels. "We're overheating! If we keep climbing—"
"Then we burn," Hayes finished grimly.
The crystal flared inside Daniel, burning hotter than ever. His body convulsed, but he forced the surge into the ship's veins. The Artemis howled, its engines screaming not like machines, but like something alive clawing toward freedom.
Flames engulfed the viewports as they slammed through the edge of atmosphere. The sky darkened from blue to black. Stars flickered above, sharp and infinite.
And then—silence.
The weight vanished. The fire faded. The Earth curved below them, vast and shimmering.
They had broken free.
---
The Warning
Cheers erupted in the cockpit. Marquez laughed, half-weeping. Okafor muttered prayers under his breath. Even Hayes allowed himself a faint exhale of relief.
But Daniel wasn't smiling. The crystal pulsed erratically, not triumphant, but restless. His vision warped with fragments of something beyond—structures in the void, shadows moving between stars.
And in the silence of space, the ship whispered, not in words but in knowing:
Forward. Deeper. Mars is only the beginning.
Daniel's skin turned cold. Whatever they had awakened, it hadn't led them this far to stop.
It had chosen them for something far greater—and far more dangerous.