The shuttle shook like something alive, trying to tear itself apart.

  At first, it was just a deep vibration through the deck, the steady growl of engines pushing against gravity. Then the nose hit the edge of Nemea Nine's upper atmosphere, and the world turned into turbulence and heat.

  "Atmospheric interface," the pilot said over the intercom. "Hands inside the ride, folks."

  The hull screamed as friction wrapped around the shuttle, a rising shriek that threaded through every bolt. Vega felt it in her teeth. Her harness dug into her shoulders and chest, but the squad remained steady, trusting their training as artificial gravity fought the violence outside.

  The forward display showed only red and white bands of reentry plasma. For a moment, it looked like they were diving into the sun.

  "Helios Three, this is Zheng He," Admiral Szeto's voice cut in. Faint static bled into the channel, the first taste of interference. "Your trajectory is within acceptable margins. Storm intensity at the target is… increasing. You have a narrow window."

  "Copy, Zheng He," the pilot replied. "We will be there before the door closes."

  Vega watched the numbers ticking on her display. Altitude. Velocity. Outside temperature is climbing like a bad dream.

  To her right, Ito's helmet rested against the padded support. His eyes were hidden behind polarized glass, but the angle of his jaw was pure focus.

  "Status?" Vega asked on the local squad channel.

  "Alpha green," Park answered from the rear. No tremor in her voice. "Weapons locked. Armor seals holding."

  "Bravo green," Watson added. He sounded more awake than in the cryobay, tension sharpening his tone. "Systems nominal. My stomach hates you."

  "Stomach is not in the chain of command," Vega said.

  A few low chuckles answered.

  The shuttle jerked hard to port, then snapped back. Warning glyphs flared amber on everyone's displays, then settled to green as the guidance suite compensated.

  "Crosswinds," the pilot grunted, voice tense. "Storm cells are doing a dangerous tango out there. We're nearing the top layer now."

  The red glare on the forward screen thinned, broke, and they punched out into roiling darkness.

  Cloud swallowed them. Thick, churning bands of gray and black slammed against the hull. Lightning spidered across the viewports, close enough that Vega could see each branching bolt before it vanished.

  "Electromagnetic intensity climbing," Ito reported. "Shields at eighty percent efficiency and dropping as we descend. We do not want to stay in this soup longer than necessary."

  "Noted," the pilot said. "Trust me, Sergeant, my survival instincts agree with you."

  The shuttle nosed down, engines throttling to stay inside the precomputed approach corridor. Outside, the cloud grew darker, charcoal and bruised purple, shot through with flickers of sickly green that did not look like natural lightning at all.

  Vega leaned forward against her restraints as if a few centimeters would let her see more. "Can we get a visual on the ground?"

  "Working on it," the pilot said.

  For several long seconds, there was nothing but cloud and light. Then the sensors fought through enough interference for a grainy overlay to appear on the inside of the forward screen.

  Contours emerged. Faint heat traces of industrial complexes. The hard angles of artificial structures. Their target, Landing Zone Kappa, blinked steady blue at the edge of a jagged cluster of buildings.

  The refinery hub dominated the view.

  Even through haze and electronic noise, it was enormous. Cylindrical towers rose in a dense forest, connected by skybridges and pipes the size of train lines. Storage domes hunched at the outskirts like half-buried moons. Conveyor runs stretched toward open-cut mines, pale scars in the crust.

  Something was wrong with the color.

  Patches of the complex glowed too hot, too uneven, as if it were smoldering under its own skin. Dark holes gaped where towers had collapsed, and one processing stack was visibly bent, hinting at recent destruction and danger.

  "Storm cell center is right over the refineries," the pilot said. "That is not a coincidence."

  "Any signs of active air defense?" Taggart's voice cut in from another shuttle on the squad net.

  "Negative," the pilot replied. "If anybody on the ground is shooting, they are not aiming at us."

  "Good," Taggart said. "I will be the one yelling if that changes. Captain Vega, once you hit dirt, I want a clean perimeter sweep and an open route back to the pad."

  "You will have it," Vega said.

  A hard jolt slammed through the shuttle. The deck bucked. For a moment, gravity faltered, making her stomach lurch.

  "Apologies," the pilot grunted. "We just kissed an updraft. Hold on, we are dropping into the final approach."

  A fresh wave of turbulence hit as they crossed into a lower band of storm. Rain hammered on metal, sounding like gunfire, heightening the sense of chaos and threat outside.

  "Rain reads as high in particulates," Ito said. "We are not going to like what that does to exposed systems topside."

  "We are not here to enjoy the weather," Vega said. "How is our link to Zheng He?"

  "Degrading," Ito replied. "Signal strength is bouncing. We still have voice for now."

  "Helios Three," Szeto's voice came again, thin and warped by static. "You are entering the blackout envelope. There is a real possibility we lose stable contact the moment you are under the main storm. You are authorized to make ground-level decisions without waiting for confirmation. You know the parameters."

  "We know them," Vega said.

  A beat of crackle answered. Then, more softly: "Bring as many of them back as you can, Captain. Szeto out."

  The channel clicked dead.

  For the first time since waking from cryo, Vega felt the true distance between herself and the rest of the Fleet. Up there, beyond the storm, Szeto and the Zheng He could only watch crude sensor readouts and wait. Down here, everything that mattered would happen in one circle of mud and metal no bigger than a footprint on the planet.

  "Final approach," the pilot called. "Landing Zone Kappa in sight. We are coming in hot."

  The clouds thinned, then tore away like curtains, and Nemea Nine finally showed them its face.

  The ground rushed up, drenched and ugly.

  Landing Zone Kappa was a slab of reinforced ferrocrete carved out on a rise east of the refineries. It had once been a proper shuttle pad, with painted guidance lines and active beacons. Now the paint was mostly gone, scoured by grit and weather, and the beacons were dead stalks in the rain.

  Beyond the pad, the central complex loomed.

  From this angle, the damage was obvious. Whole panels of cladding had been peeled back or blown out, exposing skeletal lattice. A conveyor line lay in a twisted, half-melted heap, as if something massive had torn through it rather than simple collapse. Fires burned in several places, low and stubborn, choked by the rain but not killed.

  Rain hammered the shuttle's nose, streaking the view with dancing threads. The sky churned, torn by constant lightning that arced from cloud to structure in jagged white lines.

  The author's narrative has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.

  "Helios Three, stand by for touchdown," the pilot said. "Three, two, one…"

  The shuttle hit the pad with a bone-deep impact. Struts groaned. Gravity punched down as the engines flared in a final braking burn, then dropped to a low hum.

  For a heartbeat, there was only the storm drumming on the hull.

  "Contact," the pilot said. "We are on the ground. Exterior conditions: heavy precipitation, electrical activity extreme, visibility low. Sensors read elevated background radiation and trace airborne corrosives. Your armor will hold. I recommend you do not take your helmets off for a walk."

  "Understood," Vega said. She unlatched her harness. "Ramp, now."

  The rear ramp lowered with a hydraulic whine.

  Cold air slammed in, wet and dense, carrying the smell of metal, burned plastic, and something bitter underneath she could not name. Rain came in sideways, a gray curtain driven by stiff, swirling wind.

  "Helios Three, move!" Vega shouted.

  They poured out of their seats and down the ramp.

  The first step onto Nemea Nine felt like planting a foot on another world in more than the literal sense. The ferrocrete under her boots vibrated faintly with distant machinery and thunder. Rain sheeted off her armor, running in rivulets down the black plates.

  The storm turned distance into fog. The refinery complex was only a kilometer away, but through the rain it looked like a shadow made of broken lines and occasional gouts of flame.

  "Alpha, left sector," Vega said. "Bravo, right. Secure the pad. Eyes open."

  "Alpha moving," Park said.

  She led her fireteam out in a low, purposeful jog, rifles shouldered, visors sweeping. Their boots made dull, wet impacts on the pad. Rain rattled on their helmets.

  Watson and Bravo split the other way, fanning toward the edges of the landing zone. Ito stayed close to Vega, a small sensor unit snapping out on his forearm like a metal flower.

  "Reading… a lot of noise," he said. "Ground clutter from the storm, thermal from the fires, static all over the place. I cannot get a clean long-range picture."

  "Focus close," Vega said. "Anything moving within two hundred meters."

  He adjusted the settings. "Nothing on legs yet," he said. "But I am not going to swear there is nothing there. Too much interference."

  The other shuttles were coming down in staggered sequence. One flared hard and slammed into its pad with an ugly crunch, but its landing gear held.

  "Nice of them to roll out the welcome mat," Watson muttered. "All this weather for us."

  "Focus, Private," Park said.

  "Focused as hell, Corporal."

  Vega walked to the edge of the pad.

  Below, the ground dropped away in a shallow slope. Mud churned under the rain, streaked black where refinery runoff had soaked the soil. A few hardy, dark scrub plants clung to the incline, leaves shivering in the wind. Beyond that, the terrain flattened into a rough apron of compacted spoil and gravel around the main complex.

  "Visual check," Vega said. "Anyone see movement? Lights? Anything that suggests someone is home?"

  One by one, the answers came back. Negative. Negative. Nothing. Just storm and ruin.

  Vega keyed a line to Taggart. "Landing Zone Kappa secure for now," she reported. "No immediate hostiles or friendlies on scope."

  "Copy," Taggart answered. His voice carried a faint metallic echo from his helmet. "First perimeter will be established here. You have a green light to proceed to refinery control. Watch yourselves, Captain. I do not like the feel of this place."

  "Neither do I," Vega said.

  She turned back to her squad.

  "Bravo, you are with me to refinery control. Taggart will hold the pad with Charlie.

  They gathered at the eastern edge of the pad, rain-slick armor turning them into dark, anonymous shapes against the storm-washed landscape. Watson fell in behind Ito, whose sensor rig glowed faintly as it tried to make sense of the mess around them.

  "Nemea Nine," Watson said, almost under his breath. "You are ugly."

  "Then we will not miss you if you try to kill us," Ito replied.

  They stepped off the pad and down the slope.

  Mud tried to grab Vega's boots, sucking and slipping. The armor sealed against the wet, but she felt the sink and pull in every step. The wind hit harder away from the shelter of the shuttles, pushing at their shoulders, trying to turn them sideways.

  Ahead, the refinery complex loomed larger with every meter, its damaged towers disappearing into low cloud. Sparks leaped occasionally from exposed lines, brief, violent stars against the gray.

  "Keep your spacing," Vega said. "We do not know what the ground is hiding."

  "Copy," Park said. "I have a lot of… junk… on thermals. Puddles. Hot metal. Fires. Nothing that looks like a person."

  They reached the flat apron around the complex. The ground here was a mix of compacted soil and poured flooring, cracked and buckled where something had heaved it from below. Pools of standing water had collected in every low point, surfaces trembling under the constant rain.

  A cargo hauler lay on its side near the access fence, half buried in mud. Its cab was peeled open like a can, the interior blackened with fire.

  Vega slowed and lifted a hand.

  "Park," she said, "see if anyone tried to crawl away from that."

  "On it."

  Park ghosted ahead, light on her feet despite the conditions, weaving through debris. She circled the hauler, then crouched briefly near the broken cab.

  "No bodies," she said. "No drag marks. No footprints in the mud I can see."

  "They could have died in the fire," Watson suggested.

  "They could have," Park said. "But then there should be something left."

  Vega's suit gave a soft chirp. Ito cursed softly.

  "What?" she asked.

  "Radiation spike," he said. "Localized. It is not enough to hurt us through the armor, but something is bleeding power around here in a way it should not."

  "Source?" Vega asked.

  He rotated, watching his display. "Dead ahead. Refinery control area."

  "Of course it is," Watson said.

  The access fence that ringed the refinery perimeter had partially collapsed, sections bowed outward as if something had pressed from the inside. In other places, it was simply gone, posts sheared off at the base.

  They passed through a gap where the mesh had been torn away.

  Inside the fence, the air felt thicker.

  Vega knew that was nonsense. The atmosphere outside her armor was the same on either side of the line. But the way the structures loomed, the way the storm's noise echoed differently off dense pipes and towers, made the world feel closer.

  "Eyes up," she said quietly.

  The main access road led them toward a broad plaza at the base of the refinery control tower. Graphics still showed on some of the overhead information boards, half burned away by whatever heat had swept through. Warnings scrolled in distorted loops. Emergency beacons blinked weakly.

  Bodies lay scattered across the plaza.

  Vega felt the squad slow.

  "Do not bunch," she said. "Move in. Check them."

  The first corpse lay face down near a support column, one arm outstretched as if reaching for the interior doors. Civilian clothing: gray work coveralls, scorched and melted where intense heat had washed over them. The back was a mess of blackened material and fused flesh.

  Park knelt beside the body. Her gauntlet scanned, feeding details into the shared net.

  "Male," she said. "Mid-thirties, maybe. Spine is gone from mid-back up. Burned out. Entry marks from… something… on the front. Small, clustered punctures."

  "Let me see," Ito said.

  He stepped closer, angling his sensor unit.

  Vega joined him, looking down.

  Whatever had hit the man had punched several neat, thumb-sized holes through his chest. Around each puncture, fabric and skin had melted inward like wax under a candle. The flesh had then fused again in places, warped by heat into hard, gnarled ridges.

  "What does that look like to you?" Watson asked quietly.

  "Not bullets," Ito said. "Too clean through. And bullets do not melt everything on their way through."

  "Acid?" Park suggested. "Some kind of jet?"

  "Maybe," Ito said. "The residue reads as… complex. Organic and synthetic. I will need a lab to say more."

  "Taggart," Vega said, opening a line back to the pad. "We have multiple civilian casualties near refinery control. Wounds are consistent. Clustered punctures through the torso, extensive thermal damage around the entry sites. It looks like something acidic or energetic that is not in my book."

  "Copy," Taggart replied. His voice was tighter now. "Any live ones?"

  "Not yet," Vega said.

  There were more bodies ahead.

  Some lay alone, others in small clusters, as if people had tried to rush the doors together. Three corpses huddled near a security booth, arms tangled as if they had clung to one another at the end. All bore similar wounds: multiple punctures, scorched clothing, the stink of burned meat that seeped through armor filters.

  "Where is the rest?" Watson asked under his breath. "Thirty-two thousand people do not fit in one plaza."

  "They might not all be dead," Vega said. "Or they might be inside. Remember the habitats."

  She forced herself to keep moving.

  At the base of the control tower, the main entrance doors gaped open. One hung from broken hinges. The blast shield above was stuck halfway down, frozen at an angle. Scorch marks radiated from the threshold.

  "Inside will be worse," Park said, almost conversationally.

  "Probably," Vega said.

  She stepped through.

  The interior corridor was lit by emergency strips along the floor and ceiling, throwing a dull red glow over everything. Water leaked in at a dozen points, running down walls and collecting in wide puddles. The air smelled less of rain, more of old smoke and machine oil.

  "Helmets stay on," Vega reminded them. "We do not know what is in the air."

  The corridor bent left, then right, and opened into a broad lobby. Furniture had been overturned. A reception console lay on its side. A glass partition had been shattered, glittering shards scattered across the floor, ground into the metal by hurried boots.

  And there, on the far wall, someone had left a message.

  It was written in a spray of dark, dried fluid that flaked at the edges. The letters were large, ragged, as if the writer had rushed. The words spanned almost the entire wall.

  DO NOT GO BELOW

  The squad went quiet.

  Watson swallowed audibly. "Well," he said at last, "that is not ominous at all."

  Vega stared at the words a second longer.

  "Photos and scan," she said. "Then we find the control room."

  "Captain," Ito said, voice lower, "you understand what this implies."

  "They were afraid of something under their feet," Vega said. "We assumed equipment failure. We may be dealing with something else."

  She did not say what. Options skittered through her mind anyway. Indigenous species disturbed by the mining. Biotech gone wrong. Illegal experiments breaking containment.

  Whatever it was, it was down there.

  She looked around at her people.

  "Remember the Admiral's orders," she said. "Hardware comes second. Lives first. We get as much information as we can from control, then we decide whether we obey that warning or see what they were running from."

  Watson hesitated. "And if going below is the only way to save anyone who might still be alive?"

  Vega did not answer immediately.

  Rain drummed somewhere above them. Distant thunder rattled the tower's bones.

  "Then we go," she said at last. "But we go with our eyes open."

  Park's gaze shifted from the writing to Vega's face, then back again. If she had an opinion, she kept it behind her visor.

  "Let us find the nerve center," Vega said. "Then we will see how deep this hole goes."

  They moved deeper into the tower, boots leaving wet prints on the metal floor, the warning on the wall fading behind them as the emergency lights drew them toward the heart of Nemea Nine.