Alarms pulled Aiden out of unconsciousness.
A sharp ringing filled his ears.
grrrkKrrAAANG!
The first thing he felt upon waking was the ship shuddering, followed by rising heat and smoke that burned his throat when he tried to breathe.
"Khh—khh." He coughed hard, his chest tightening as the smoke forced its way in.
Worse, the hull emitted a strained, uneven sound, as though the ship was close to breaking apart. Everything was not looking too good, the more Aiden assessed his situation.
He coughed several more times from the smoke, his chest burning, and when he tried to swallow, he tasted blood. As if on cue, a flat, emotionless system voice cut through the chaos.
"Critical alert. Reactor containment failing. Core stability compromised. Immediate intervention required."
Aiden tried to sit up. Pain flared everywhere at once. His vision narrowed. He clenched his jaw and forced himself to move anyway. One arm. Then the other. He dragged himself across the deck, boots scraping against the warped plating of the ship's cold floor.
This was a research-class vessel. It wasn't armed, nor was it built for battle. But the reactor at its heart was no toy. If it went, it would not matter that this ship was meant for study and discovery. The blast would be enough to erase everything nearby. Enough to rival weapons no sane government admitted to owning.
His hands shook as he reached the control console.
Focus!
He forced the words through his head as if speaking them aloud.
Aiden forced the ship's system into manual override and cut adaptive flow in one smooth motion, ignoring the pain screaming through his body as he watched the feedback loop settle, then isolated the secondary coils with steady hands.
He did not rush. Rushing killed people.
His fingers slipped. Sweat stung his eyes. The ringing grew louder. He blinked hard, fought the blur, and keyed in the next command.
Pressure spike was now within tolerance. Barely.
Mechanical latch release. Left panel. Red tab. Pull.
Pain roared up his arm. He grunted but did not stop. He leaned his weight forward and slammed his palm onto the final control.
The alarms cut off mid-tone.
The ship fell quiet.
Aiden stayed where he was, chest heaving, waiting for the explosion that did not come.
Stable.
He let out a breath that shook.
"How long…," he muttered. How long had he been out?
The answer came together piece by piece. The frozen readouts. The heat, still clinging to the air. The numbers didn't lie. He had been out cold for just over forty minutes.
His stomach sank.
If he had stayed conscious, even barely, he could have stabilized the systems early. He could have prevented the worst of the power decay and stopped the emergency drains before they chewed through the reserves. He knew exactly how fast a ship bled energy when everything went wrong.
Forty minutes was enough for the damage to compound.
Too long to stop it cleanly.
Only ten percent of the energy levels remain.
Ninety percent gone. That was enough energy to power a full city for a year. Burned away while he was unconscious.
His hand curled into a fist. Then he forced it open.
Anger would not bring it back.
He took stock of himself instead. There was a more pressing matter to address.
The pull of gravity felt steady beneath him. His suit hissed quietly as it fed him air. A crack spread across the chest plating, but the seal indicator remained green, showing that the suit was still sealed.
Something else weighed on him. A sense of wrongness that refused to fade.
He had been in space just a few moments ago.
There should have been no gravity. No weight. No pressure holding him down.
That made no sense.
The realization hit him all at once.
He tried to sit fully upright. Pain speared through his ribs once again, sharp enough to steal his breath. He coughed and spat blood onto the deck, then wiped his mouth with the back of his glove.
"J.E.M., check body vitals."
Silence.
He frowned. Aiden tried again. But louder.
"J.E.M., check my location."
Nothing.
The AI was down.
"What the hell is happening?" he couldn't help but click his tongue.
He slowed his breathing. In through the nose. Out through the mouth. Counted each breath, trying to calm himself.
Looking around, Aiden discovered the med kit, laying half buried under some debris. He pulled it free and popped it open. Using the reflective glass from a cracked panel, he checked his pupils. Reactive. Pressing his stomach area. State: Uneven bruising along his side. Painful. But not immediately fatal.
Good enough. At least for now.
The ship still was not safe.
He pushed himself up and moved through the control room, shutting down anything not essential. Lights dimmed. Labs went dark. Comms powered off. The hum of systems faded until only the reactor's low, steady thrum remained.
He limped toward the reactor containment area and reached the secondary mechanical cutoff. If the main systems failed, this was what manually stopped the reactor from running out of control.
He pulled it. Even though the core was stable, it was never a bad idea to be cautious. This was about keeping himself alive.
Then he grabbed the manual suppressant, a last-resort fire control canister meant to be triggered by hand. He yanked the pin. The canister went off with a sharp hiss, flooding the compartment and smothering the fire.
Cold flooded the room. Fire vanished instantly as the agent filled the air, choking off every reaction it touched. The temperature dropped. Sound died with the flames.
The heavy silence felt unbearable. The ship felt like a tomb.
Aiden leaned against the wall.
The adrenaline drained away.
His legs gave out.
He slid down.
Sat.
Breathing slowed.
Too slow.
His head tipped forward.
Thus, he lost consciousness again.
-------
Aiden woke to silence.
Real silence.
No alarms. No vibration. Just his own breath inside the helmet.
He didn't bother checking his vitals. The fact that he was still alive told him enough. His body ached, but it was more manageable now.
Checking the timestamp made his stomach drop. Two days. He had been unconscious for two full days.
Two days.
The thought sat heavy in his chest. Fear crept in, slow and cold. Too much could have gone wrong at that time. Systems could have failed. Damage could have spread. Anyone still alive could be gone.
He tried restarting the system with a voice command.
"J.E.M., boot."
Nothing.
"Damn it."
The curse slipped out before he could stop himself. That was bad. Most of the ship's systems ran through J.E.M. Doors, sensors, and internal controls. Even with manual options available, they were slow and limited. In his condition, there would not be enough.
His body was battered. Every movement hurt. He could not manage the ship like this on his own.
No. He needed to do something.
Gritting his teeth, he rerouted power by hand, fingers clumsy as they fumbled with the connections, and jammed a spare battery pack into the AI port.
The system flickered.
"...environment… unknown."
"Power critical."
"Protocols… restricted."
Then the screen went black again.
Aiden swore under his breath for the uptenth time.
He moved to the communications panel and brought it online. It was the system meant to send and receive signals across deep space, his only link to anything beyond the ship.
He ran a wide sweep first, broadcasting an open distress call in every direction. Then he narrowed it, focusing the scan and repeating the signal, pushing for any response at all. Finally, he triggered the emergency ping, a high-priority beacon meant to force an answer.
Nothing came back.
No signal detected.
That should not have happened. This system could listen across several light-years. It had never come back empty before.
Before Aiden could even form another thought, his stomach growled.
The sound was loud in the quiet. It reminded him of something basic. Something he had been ignoring since the alarms woke him.
He had not eaten for days.
No wonder his hands kept shaking. No wonder his head felt heavy. His body was trying to heal, and it had nothing to work with.
He forced himself up and half-walked, half-dragged his way to a storage locker. His legs did not want to cooperate. Every step pulled at his ribs. He found a strip of intact rations shoved behind a bent panel. It was still sealed, still marked as safe.
He tore one open.
Space-grade nutrient paste.
It was thick and bitter, packed dense on purpose, made to keep someone alive when there was no real food. Aiden did not bother tasting it. He squeezed the tube into his mouth and swallowed in one go.
He grabbed three more and stuffed them into a pocket. If he had to move later, he would not have the strength to come back.
Then he slid down the wall and sat.
The control room was wrecked. Panels were dark. Wires hung loose. The air still carried smoke and hot metal. He ate another tube, slower this time, staring at the damage like the ship might explain itself if he looked hard enough.
Think.
He needed a plan. Not a big one. Just the next actions.
Exit the ship.
External conditions.
What happened.
What comes next?
Aiden needs to do things step-by-step. That was the only way.
He looked toward the viewport.
It was not a normal window. It was a reinforced viewing port with an armored shutter over it, a thick cover designed to seal the glass during impacts, radiation events, or debris storms. Right now, it was cracked and half-jammed in its frame, stuck between open and closed.
Aiden reached for the shutter handle and forced it.
The metal resisted. It scraped. His shoulder screamed. He adjusted his grip, used his weight, and shoved again.
"Haah...ahhhh... haaaa.."
Aiden sucked in a sharp breath as the shutter finally gave way, his chest burning from the strain. He leaned against the frame for a second, breathing through the pain.
He squinted as unexpected light spilled in, forcing the shutter open just wide enough to see outside. He needed to check the surroundings first. If the ship was drifting near debris, near a star, or near anything dangerous, he had to know before making his next move.
He lifted his gaze....and then froze.
Outside was no space.
There was no endless black. No stars scattered across it. No slow drift of debris. No distant glare of a sun.
It was open sky.
A vast landscape stretched beyond the hull, dark and quiet under the night sky. The ground rolled in long stretches of grass and unfamiliar growth, their shapes barely visible in the dim light. Trees rose in uneven forms, tall and strange, their silhouettes broken and irregular. Where the moonlight touched them, their surfaces appeared smooth and segmented. Not bark. Not anything he recognized. Some stood rigid and layered, like plates stacked together. Others curved at unnatural angles, shaped by growth rather than design.
Aiden stared, trying to force his mind to accept what his eyes were showing him.
This was wrong.
He had been in space. He remembered it. He was sure of it. The last clear memory before everything went to hell was stars and void and the ship on course.
So how could there be a horizon?
How could there be wind-brushed leaves?
He tilted his head back, slow, like he was afraid the answer would change if he moved too fast.
Two moons hung in the sky.
Not one. Two.
Different sizes. Different colors. Both too clean and too close to be a trick of light.
His eyes narrowed.
He said nothing.
Behind him, the ship creaked softly, cooling metal shifting under stress. The sound felt small compared to what he was seeing.
The realization settled in, heavy and steady.
This was not a station. Not a nearby colony. Not anywhere on his charts.
His throat tightened.
"This… where the hell am I?"