The allocated thirty minutes of rest felt less restorative and more like a compression of tension. Pulse, didn't bother lying down. He sat on the edge of the flimsy cot, reviewing the extraction protocols for the third time, the numbers solidifying themselves into etched memory. Survival, he knew, was 90% preparation and 10% pure, brutal luck.
When the timer chimed, Pulse rose, the light modern armor fitting snugly, its dark gray matte finish designed to absorb rather than reflect. He left the staging barracks and walked the familiar concrete corridor toward the Sector Seven Expedition Hub, a building dedicated solely to dimensional travel logistics.
The Hub was dimly lit, smelling faintly of ozone and stale coffee. At the expedition desk, a tired clerk with rings under his eyes stared past a hologram displaying available destinations.
"Standard request," Pulse stated, leaning against the counter. "New recruit viable. Resource acquisition focus."
The clerk didn't look up, his fingers flying across the console. "Kharavel. Class three bio-hazard, high material yield, moderate infrastructure presence. Good for scaling up. We lose about three percent of recruits there, mostly to logistics failure, not direct combat."
"Kharavel it is." Pulse nodded, the accepted risk profile already calculated.
Before stepping into the staging area, Pulse diverted to a small, overpriced supply shop tucked into the corner of the Hub. The cost of a good, reinforced pack was prohibitive, so he settled for a cheap, enormous canvas sling bag. It smelled like chemically treated jute, but it would hold supplies. He used his remaining credits to acquire nutrient paste and dehydrated meal packs, food was survival, and he wasn't trusting any alien ecosystem's berries.
Bag slung over his shoulder, Sword secured to his back, Pulse approached the designated portal. It shimmered with an unsettling, oily purple light, humming a low, headache-inducing frequency. He stepped through, the transition feeling like being violently stretched and then snapped back into place.
Pulse emerged into a prefabricated, fortified bunker. Kharavel's air hit him, dry, mineral-heavy, and hot. It was the middle of the day, an unforgiving sun, not red, but a blinding, stark white beat down on the metallic roof of the base.
The interior was a controlled chaos of activity: Awakened members in various stages of gear adjustment, technicians monitoring shimmering data screens, and the low, steady thrum of power generators. He didn't linger. Pulse made his way immediately to the outdoor landing pad where a heavy-duty transport ship, a modified dropship designed for rugged atmospheric entry, was preparing for liftoff.
He clambered up the ramp just as the warning siren sounded. Inside, the dropship was Spartan, metal benches, reinforced restraints, and the distinct smell of ozone, sweat, and fear. There were fourteen Awakened crammed inside, ranging from heavily armored veterans to a few who looked as green and nervous as Pulse felt, despite his practiced indifference.
The ship lifted off with a shuddering jolt, turning north, away from the established resource zones and toward the vast, unexplored continental wastes.
About twenty minutes into the ride, a man seated opposite Pulse, a hulking figure whose scarred knuckles rested near the hilt of a massive axe, leaned forward.
"New blood, yeah?" the man rasped, his voice rough. "Never seen your stupidly covered face before."
Pulse met his gaze. "Pulse. Yes, first expedition."
The man grunted, a sound that might have been amusement. "Good. You should know something, Pulse. This ain't practice. That instruction manual you probably memorized? It barely covers the real threats. This world is designed to chew you up. Extraction isn't guaranteed."
Pulse shifted slightly, adjusting the weight of his daggers. "I appreciate the concern, man. I read the instructions. Especially the ones on how to call the ship when I decide to extract. Thanks for the heads-up, though."
The man, who didn't offer his own name just settled back, his expression hardening. His warning had been delivered, and Pulse's calm dismissal seemed to satisfy his obligation.
The ride stretched into three hours. The occasional casual question or technical comment broke the monotony, but mostly, the cabin was silent, the silence amplified by the rhythmic roar of the engines. Everyone was in their own head, running simulations, preparing for the inevitable horror show awaiting them below.
As the dropship soared over a jagged, deep-green mountain range, the pilot's voice crackled over the comms: "Zone 4-A. Pulse, this is your drop point. Good hunting."
Pulse stood, cinching his pack tight. He was the first to deploy. He walked toward the open ramp, where a dense, swirling cloud cover hid the ground hundreds of feet below. With a final check of his sword, he dropped. The magnetic braking system on his armor slowed his descent just enough to prevent a fatal impact, allowing him to free-fall until he deployed a small, high-drag chute, guiding him expertly into the thick canopy of ancient, alien trees.
He landed softly on a bed of spongy moss, the sheer scale of the jungle dwarfing him instantly.
He was far from the base. Too far.
Pulse immediately discarded any thoughts of hunting large game for meat or creature parts. Killing a behemoth was one thing; hauling a fresh, multi-ton corpse hours back to a rendezvous point or worse, trying to preserve it while awaiting an extraction ship was logistical suicide. He needed raw, non-perishable materials: crystals, rare earth metals, or dense mineral deposits.
Pulse began his search, focusing on geological features. He spent hours traversing the unstable, steep terrain. The world of Kharavel was aggressive. Everything was either too large, too fast, or too toxic. He avoided two towering, six-legged grazers that could crush him inadvertently, and sidestepped a patch of bioluminescent flora that, according to the briefing, induced rapid internal organ liquification.
Hours passed. The sun began its slow, inevitable descent. His search yielded nothing. No veins, no deposits, no sign of the metallic ore he sought.
Pulse realized he couldn't afford to be caught on the ground at night. He found a colossal tree, its trunk wider than a family home, and began the difficult climb. When he reached a massive lateral branch near the crest of the canopy, he pulled out his gray camo netting, securing himself tightly to the branch, blending into the surrounding foliage.
He was settling in for a long, uncomfortable night when he saw a distant flash of light, a thin, silver needle ascending rapidly into the darkening sky. An extraction ship. Someone had been successful, or perhaps, someone had failed early and called for a quick, shameful retreat. The sight was a grim reminder of his own vulnerability.
Pulse forced his breathing to slow, the pain in his shoulders from the climb fading into a numb awareness. He didn't sleep deeply, but he rested.
The morning brought renewed hope, fueled by dry nutrient paste. Pulse spent the first few hours moving slowly, following a narrow, mineral-rich riverbed. The environment was still deadly, but the light was better.
Then, there it was. Half-hidden by the massive root system of a petrified tree, a deep, black-hole yawn in the side of the mountain face. A cave.
Pulse felt a surge of adrenaline, his weariness momentarily forgotten. He broke into a run, the massive canvas bag bouncing against his back. Minerals and resources were often found deep underground, away from the intense surface radiation.
He was ten feet from the entrance, sword half-drawn, when the cave violently erupted.
A creature Pulse instantly recognized from the threat database, a Kharavelian Scale-Lizard came crashing out, easily the size of a rhino. It was bloodied, its massive head twitching, panicked. It slammed into the ground meters from Pulse, scattering rock and soil.
Pulse froze, assessing the threat. Before he could decide whether to engage or flee, his eyes were drawn back to the cave entrance.
Stepping out was a figure that defied the environment. It was a woman, undeniably Awakened, but her gear choice was insane. She wore nothing resembling tactical armor, just worn, dark denim booty shorts, a tight, sweat-soaked black T-shirt, and a simple leather choker. The only concession to danger was a series of complex, humming energy devices strapped loosely to her forearms and thighs.
The contrast was shocking: Pulse was fully covered, masked, anonymous. She was exposed, a walking dare. Sweat tracked down her abdomen, dampening the flimsy shirt, highlighting the curves of her body with reckless abandon.
But it was her arm that drew his attention. Her entire right arm, from shoulder to fingertips, had undergone a partial transformation. It was no longer flesh, but a jagged, crystalline structure the color of raw amethyst, and it was entirely, horrifically bloodied. Crimson gore coated the sharp edges of the crystal, dripping onto the hot dirt.
The lizard, recovering from its violent exit, registered the woman as the primary threat and charged, a guttural, acidic shriek tearing from its throat.
The woman didn't move. A wicked smirk played on her blood-smeared lips.
Then, the transformation completed.
In an instant, the remaining flesh of her body, the exposed skin of her legs, her chest, her face flashed with a spectral light and solidified. Every inch of her became hard, multi-faceted crystal. The thin T-shirt was ripped away, not surviving the rapid molecular shift, leaving her crystal body bare, starkly beautiful, and utterly lethal.
The crystal woman leaned into the charge, ignoring the terrifying impact. The lizard slammed into her, its massive bulk failing to stop her forward momentum. She caught the creature's snout, the crystal digits digging into the thick, armored hide.
What followed was not a fight, but a biological dismantling.
With a shriek of grinding, fractured bone, Crystara twisted. The raw, unstoppable power contained within the transmuted body was horrifyingly efficient. She didn't just kill the lizard; she leveraged its momentum and her own crystalline strength, ripping its head clean off.
A geyser of black, syrupy blood erupted, coating the cave entrance and showering Crystara's already gore-slicked body. The headless, thrashing lizard corpse fell, spraying a final gruesome mist of tissue and fluid onto the mountain rocks.
The crystal woman stood, naked but for the shorts and devices, glistening with sweat, fragmented blood, and the internal light of her power. She looked like a goddess carved from violence.
"Damn," Pulse muttered, the sound barely audible against the wet thump of the dying lizard.
The noise, however small, was enough.
Crystara, still vibrating with dangerous adrenaline of the kill, spun around. Her face, now sharp, emotionless crystal snapped directly toward Pulse, who was frozen ten feet away.
Their eyes, hers sharp, faceted, and indifferent; his wide, masked, and filled with unexpected shock and locked across the blood-soaked clearing.