The landing gear of the Celestial Vanguard crunched down onto soil that felt more like ash than dirt. The engines whined down, the azure glow of the exhaust fading into the oppressive grey gloom of the planet.
"Atmosphere is breathable," Elis announced, her hologram flickering with a nervous jitter. "But it tastes like stale copper. And Kael? The chronometric radiation out there is... erratic. Don't touch anything that looks like it's vibrating."
Kael stood in the airlock, adjusting the straps of the armor Elis had fabricated for him. It was a light tactical suit, matte black with the emblem of the Starborn—a stylized supernova—etched faintly on the chest. It felt heavy, not with weight, but with history.
"I'll be quick," Kael said, clipping the Starborn Cube to his belt. It was dim now, pulsing slowly like a resting heart.
"BEWARE THE SHADOWS," Ignis rumbled through the ship's comms. "THEY HUNGER FOR MOMENTS."
"Cryptic as always," Kael muttered. He hit the airlock release.
The ramp hissed open, and Kael stepped out onto the surface of the Rogue Planet.
The view took his breath away. It was a graveyard of civilizations. To his left lay the ruins of a gothic stone cathedral, its spires crumbled by centuries of wind. To his right, fused directly into the cathedral's flank, was the wreckage of a chrome-plated cyber-train, seemingly from a future that hadn't happened yet.
The sky was a swirling vortex of grey clouds, silent lightning arcing between them without thunder.
Kael began to walk, following the ping of the distress signal on his wrist-comp.
Every step kicked up clouds of grey dust. As he passed a rusted tank, the air shimmered. For a split second, the tank wasn't rusted. It was brand new, roaring with an engine noise that wasn't there, firing a shell at an invisible enemy. Then, snap, it was a rust bucket again.
"Did you see that?" Kael whispered.
"Temporal Echo," Elis's voice came through his earpiece. "The planet remembers its history, but it keeps forgetting the order of events. Just keep moving."
He walked for a mile, the silence pressing in on him. The signal led him toward a massive crater in the distance. In the center of the crater stood a fortress—a jagged spire of black metal that looked untouched by the decay around it.
"That's the source," Kael said. "The signal is coming from inside."
Suddenly, the hair on Kael's arms stood up. The temperature plummeted. It wasn't a natural cold; it was the void-chill of deep space.
Movement.
From the shadows of the ruined cathedral, shapes detached themselves. They weren't solid. They looked like silhouettes cut from static, glitching and stuttering as they moved. They didn't walk; they skipped forward, teleporting a few feet with every flicker.
"Elis," Kael said, his voice trembling. "What are those?"
"I... I can't lock onto them," Elis panicked. "They don't have mass. They're reading as... missing time."
"CHRONO-WRAITHS," Ignis growled in his ear. "THEY EAT THE FUTURE. RUN, STARBORN."
The lead Wraith let out a shriek that sounded like a distorted radio broadcast. It lunged, closing the fifty-meter gap in a single glitch.
Kael threw himself to the side, rolling in the ash. The Wraith's claw—a blur of static—swiped through the air where his head had been. The rock behind him turned to dust instantly.
"It aged the rock!" Kael scrambled to his feet. "If that touches me..."
"You turn into a geriatric puddle!" Elis supplied helpfully. "Shoot them!"
Kael drew the blaster he'd scavenged from the ship's armory. He fired three shots of plasma. The red bolts passed harmlessly through the Wraith's smoky body.
"Physical attacks don't work!" Kael shouted. "They aren't fully here!"
Three more Wraiths emerged from the ruins, surrounding him. They moved with jerky, terrifying speed. Kael backed up, his boots slipping on the loose ash.
The Light, the voice in his head whispered. Anchor them to the Now.
Kael dropped the blaster. He didn't have time to think. He grabbed the Cube from his belt.
"Hey! Glitch-face!" Kael yelled.
The Wraiths turned toward him.
Kael thrust the Cube forward and channeled his fear into it. "STAY!" he screamed.
The Cube flared. A wave of blue energy exploded outward, washing over the Wraiths.
The effect was instant. The static stopped. The Wraiths solidified, turning from smoky shadows into grotesque, skeletal creatures made of black bone and rotting flesh. They were forced into physical form.
Kael didn't wait. He channeled the energy into his right hand, condensing the blue light into a sphere of volatile magic.
"Eat this!"
He hurled the orb. It struck the lead Wraith in the chest.
BOOM.
The creature didn't just explode; it was erased. The blue fire consumed it, burning away its existence. The shockwave knocked the other two Wraiths back, shattering their newfound bone forms.
Kael stood panting, his hand smoking. "I... I did it."
"You solidified their timeline and then blew them up," Elis said, sounding impressed. "Not bad for a scavenger."
Kael didn't celebrate. He turned and sprinted toward the black fortress. He didn't want to find out if there were more of them.
He reached the heavy blast doors of the fortress. They were sealed tight, covered in centuries of grime. But as Kael approached, the Cube in his hand pulsed.
Access Granted.
The ancient gears groaned. Dust poured from the frame as the doors slowly ground open.
Kael stepped inside.
The interior was starkly different from the outside. It was pristine. Lights hummed along the walls. The air was clean and cold.
In the center of the vast hall sat a single chair. And in that chair sat a figure.
He was massive, clad in armor that looked like it was forged from dragon scales and star-metal. A heavy cape lay draped over his shoulders, thick with dust. A helmet rested on his lap.
His face was scarred, his beard grey and matted, his eyes closed. He looked like a statue of a forgotten god.
Kael approached slowly. "General... Valerius?"
Silence.
Kael reached out to check for a pulse.
Before his fingers could touch the armor, the man's hand shot up, gripping Kael's wrist with the force of a hydraulic press.
Kael yelped, trying to pull away, but the grip was immovable.
The man's eyes snapped open. They weren't human eyes. One was blue, the other was a swirling vortex of gold.
"You," the man rasped. His voice sounded like gravel grinding together. "You are late."
Kael stared at him, wincing at the pain in his wrist. "Late? I just got here!"
Valerius stood up, towering over Kael. He didn't look like a man who had been waiting for five hundred years. He looked like a man who had been fighting for every single second of it.
"The Vorthax," Valerius growled, releasing Kael and grabbing the helmet from his lap. "Do they still draw breath?"
"Yes," Kael rubbed his wrist. "They run the galaxy."
Valerius jammed the helmet onto his head. The eyes of the helmet glowed a fierce, hunting green.
"Then we have work to do," Valerius said. He walked past Kael toward the door, his heavy boots clanking on the metal floor. "Is that ship outside yours?"
"Technically it's the dragon's," Kael said, hurrying to keep up. "Wait! Who are you really? How are you still alive?"
Valerius stopped at the doorway, looking out at the grey wasteland and the dead Wraiths.
"Time is a river," Valerius said, turning to look at Kael. "I learned how to swim upstream. But swimming makes you hungry, boy. And I haven't eaten a decent meal in four centuries."
He drew a sword from his back—a blade that hummed with a vibration that made Kael's teeth ache.
"Lead the way, Starborn," Valerius commanded. "Let's go kill some machines."
End of Chapter 4