ices lingered in the air as we laid the food on the table, bowls clinking softly, steam rising like whispers from each dish. The kitchen, though small, felt like a rare hearth in this cold, unknown world. Moments later, Jurgen, Raj, Runge, and Grimmer walked in, toweling off the sweat from their bodies after another intense workout. Raj didn't wait, he pulled out the nearest chair with the hunger of a man starved by purpose and piled his plate as if food might disappear any second.
We all settled in, the chairs scraping lightly, voices low but steady. It felt...almost normal.
Runge, as always, didn't let silence settle too long. With that weight he always carried in his voice, he began revisiting what we already knew, laying out facts on the table as plainly as the food in front of us.
Then Alexander, between slow bites of his supper, looked at Runge and spoke his tone soft but thoughtful.
Alexander:
"Runge, when you think about it, we all look somewhat alike. Evolution plays strange games. In most planets, the changes are skin, height, tone, little things like that. You got denied by your own people just for not looking the way they expected. Isn't that absurd?"
Runge (gritting his words):
"Don't talk to me about those people who chose ignorance over blood."
Alexander:
"Alright, cool, brother. But think, on the Kellian planet, they had greyish skin but similar minds. Their physiology and thinking weren't far off from ours. Maybe it's just the flow of evolution."
Runge set his spoon down. His eyes narrowed, not in anger, but in deep, heavy knowing.
Runge:
"If it were just evolution, Alex... then their language would've diverged. Their culture, their signs, their words, they would've evolved differently. But what I saw on that island... the scriptures, the symbols, they were too close to ours. Not even the people of Btell share that kind of resemblance."
He paused, his voice lowering almost into a whisper.
Runge:
"There's a clan living in isolation on an island near the Blacklight Belt. They look like us, live like us. I saw it during an off-route journey with Taki. That place wasn't recorded in any star maps."
We all fell silent. The air around the table shifted. I could feel it, something about his words cracked through the fog in my head. He wasn't guessing. He knew.
Jurgen leaned forward slightly.
"Where's Taki now? She's our trainer. She should be here with us."
Runge:
"She's gone. Captured. Right before the ambush was planned. She was our best tech tactician. No one on this planet could handle Plazie tech like her... and they knew that."
Her absence dropped like a stone in our hearts. Taki wasn't just a trainer, she was the only one who believed in our strength before we even knew we had it.
Alexander:
"I get it now. I didn't see it before. But you've opened my eyes, Runge. Something's wrong. Deeply wrong. Still, I don't understand why the government fears your mission. What are they so desperate to keep hidden?"
Runge:
"Ever since my parents died during that sanctioned mission, the government has blacklisted that expedition route. They never authorized any journey to that sector again. And now that we plan the same, they're ready to hunt us."
Bjorn (sitting straighter):
"But why wait this long? Why let us train for two months if we're traitors in their eyes? Why not stop us at the start? Why play this long game? Unless... they're watching us. Studying us. Trying to shape us for something."
Runge:
"You're not wrong. And that's why we can't go through the wormhole the usual way. They'll track us instantly. The only way to reach that planet undetected... is to steal the wormhole codes."
The room stilled again.
Jurgen:
"The codes... they're in the King's Palace, right?"
Raj:
"Exactly. It's the only place on Elizes where even the most advanced tech fails. No surveillance. No backdoors. A fortress buried in elegance."
Grimmer (with a shrug):
"Even if we manage to break in, how do we escape with the codes? What if we're trapped?"
Anna (with a calm, unsettling smile):
"Our mission is to retrieve the codes. Destroying them... that's my part."
Her voice carried a weight I didn't expect. I turned to look at her, and so did Jurgen. She didn't flinch.
Bjorn:
"How...?"
She didn't answer. Just smiled again, quietly, like someone who had already buried her fear somewhere far away.
And with that, we moved on from dinner our minds not on the food anymore, but on the mission that now had a name, a target, and a storm waiting to be unleashed.
After supper, as plates lay half-empty and spoons rested on ceramic silence, Runge leaned back in his chair and turned to Alexander with a firm gaze.
Runge:
"Do you still have any blueprints of the King's Palace?"
Alexander wiped his hands on a cloth and leaned forward.
Alexander:
"No, brother. Only those who work inside the palace hold the full blueprint. I've never had direct access to it... but"
He paused, raising his brow.
Alexander (continued):
"I did work there once. Not for long. Long enough to observe things, like a security guard or a soldier, but now I am assigned to enter there to obtain the codes for the planetary expedition for my Shane's squad"
My ears perked up.
Bjorn:
"Really? What did you see? Were there any security systems we need to worry about?"
Alexander:
"Oh, absolutely. Every guard stationed inside has a chip embedded in their leg bio-coded, temporary. Even I had one during my assignment, but once the job ended, it was extracted and tossed away. Deactivated. But I kept the dead chip... as a kind of souvenir. And now to obtain those codes I am not injected with any kind of chips, just being checked with metal censors."
Runge stiffened.
Runge:
"So only soldiers with active chips can pass? If someone without a chip enters, they're flagged and caught?"
Alexander:
"Exactly."
I asked him to show me the chip. Something about its design felt important like I could breathe life into dead tech. But when I held it in my palm, the machine was unlike anything I'd seen. Advanced. Foreign. Alive once, now hollow. Far beyond simple replication.
We realized the only path forward was to get an actual guard, someone with an active chip and swap it. That was our way in.
Just as the thought settled, Raj, who had been quietly absorbing the conversation, looked up.
Raj:
"Hey... how does the palace look from above?"
I looked at him, suspicious at first. His tone carried something else. Like he was thinking of destroying the wormhole code. But Alexander answered calmly.
Alexander:
"From above? It's shaped like a giant plus symbol. Two additional wings stick out to the northeast and northwest, those are restricted sectors. The northeast wing houses the codes, locked and layered. The northwest... that's the judicial wing. A court of sorts, where accused citizens plead for their truth."
Raj:
"Hmm."
I suddenly had a thought, a clear vision, the kind that slides into place like puzzle pieces.
Bjorn:
"Guys, the palace sits in the exact center of the city, right? If we set up systems at each corner of the city, we can get a full 360-degree view, observe their rotations, their shifts. Let's start tonight. We'll log every pattern, every shadow."
Everyone nodded, silent but sharp.
As we stood and cleared the table, Anna, who had been sitting beside me leaned close to my ear and whispered words that chilled me.
Anna (softly):
"Sacrifices will come. Not from our side, but one will leave a mark deep in your heart. Be strong. Don't let your senses betray you."
I blinked. Her voice held neither fear nor drama. Just a cold certainty. I didn't know what she meant, but I felt it wasn't a warning.
Within two hours, while I was assembling my curved-lens cameras 180° arc views for each quadrant Jurgen and Alexander returned. They weren't alone. They had a Plazie soldier with them, unconscious, bound, and breathing slow.
"I think they knocked him out," I thought. Alexander and Anna laid him on a black sheet. Under Anna's supervision, Alexander worked with practiced precision injecting a numbing anesthetic and carefully removing the chip from his leg. Jurgen, ever ready, laid beside the unconscious man. The same procedure repeated. The chip was embedded into Jurgen's leg.
Alexander:
"He'll be unconscious for five days. That's more than enough."
I nodded and got back to work. The four identical cameras I'd built were ready to be mounted at four corners of the palace's surrounding quarters. The lenses gleamed like eyes, waiting to reveal secrets.
Runge stood behind me, arms crossed.
Runge:
"You're doing all this without a blueprint. Just Alexander's scraps of memory. Are you really sure we'll pull this off?"
Bjorn:
"Yes. We have no other choice."
Runge gave a dry smirk.
Runge:
"Do you... feel anything for the people we're about to deceive?"
His question caught me off-guard. Why me? I didn't answer directly.
Bjorn:
"I don't understand the question."
He nodded slowly, as if that was enough.
Meanwhile, Anna was fitting Jurgen with synthetic brows and a prosthetic nose, crafted carefully to match the Plazie soldier's facial structure. Her fingers moved with an elegance that almost felt tender.
Raj and Alexander exchanged a look. There was a hint of amusement. Runge and I, on the other hand, watched in silence, equally annoyed by the romance blooming in the middle of a covert operation.
Runge (sharply):
"Enough playing dress-up. Back to work."
I turned to Jurgen with a darker thought.
Bjorn:
"Jurgen, what if they find out? What if you're caught inside? What if you die and we're forced to run without you?"
He looked at me calmly as Anna finished applying the last prosthetic.
Jurgen (smirking):
"Don't worry, brother. I'm not a soldier. I'm a monster they built and forgot to leash."
His words made us laugh, but behind them, we all knew what was at stake.
Alexander:
"I almost forgot, Jurgen won't be stationed at the palace gates. He'll be in the back courtyard. That's where I saw the King enter once... not through the front, but like a shadow, a whisper. Disguised. The backyard is behind the palace without any protruding compartments for different purpose."
He paused, as if reliving the image.
Alexander (continued):
"He wore a white, metallic helmet. Smooth. Seamless. Covered by a light veil that hid his eyes but let him see everything. His cape flowed like a flag in slow wind. When he walked, people didn't look, they felt him."
Bjorn (with wonder):
"Your description makes him sound like a myth, not a man."
Alexander:
"He is both."
A quiet fell across us.
Bjorn:
"So Jurgen gets in through the conveyor. He destroys the codes but after Alexander give it to us. Mission done."
Anna:
"No. The destruction of the codes is my job."
Bjorn:
"What? You told me a sacrifice would come. I'm trying to stop that. That's why I'm stepping in."
She stood taller.
Anna:
"You think you can rewrite what's already written?"
We had a heated argument. I tried to change her mind; she tried to change mine. It got loud. Tense.
Until Raj stepped between us.
Raj (calmly):
"Fate doesn't bend for arguments. It's already walking beside us. We just haven't looked down to notice."
With that, he gave me a nod. He and Anna agreed on my plan. Still, I didn't know what he meant, whether fate had already chosen who would bleed.
They went to rest. I returned to my workbench.
The night was silent, but my hands kept moving. Somewhere, behind every wire and camera I built, I hoped we were preparing for truth.
By morning, officers had assembled at Alexander's house, where we'd managed to find some sleep. Their arrival startled us, boots heavy on the tile, voices clipped, but they weren't here for arrests. Instead, they handed down a command: all property or materials belonging to a convicted criminal, especially if tainted with forbidden messages, were to be seized and destroyed. This time, the law's shadow fell on Raj and Anna's mother, Elisha.
Once the four Plazie officers left, their footsteps echoing down the corridor, Anna and Raj rushed toward Alexander, as if the passing lawmen might return.
Raj, breathless: Please, read through the messages my mother left for us, before she's gone for good. Before… she is hanged, brother.
Bjorn appeared at his side, alarm tightening his features: What? Your mom… condemned to hang?
Raj nodded, voice strained.
Bjorn: Why didn't you say something sooner? We could have tried to save her. She's not just your mother, she's ours too, after all. She's skilled, smart. She deserves a chance.
Runge, massive and silent until now, leaned against the wall, arms folded: Orders are orders, Bjorn. When someone's marked, that's the end of it. Plazie women aren't punished, they're simply… removed, their souls shifted with a certain cold mercy.
Bjorn shot him a look: That's heartless, Commander. She's alive, and if we save her, we save ourselves too. She deserves the truth about her family, this planet, about all of us.
Raj, tears caught in his eyes, turned to me: Her time is done. Now the burden is ours.
Anna's voice broke through the silence, steady despite the storm around her: Some sacrifices are necessary. Otherwise, our fathers' deaths mean nothing.
Alexander nodded: Yes, Bjorn. When the expedition turned into chaos, the planet fell to this king, the one who took power after the fight. Many soldiers attempted expeditions, but nearly all were denied, vanished, or worse. We don't know what became of those who left. Sacrifice is part of surviving here.
Jurgen and Grimmer stood quietly; Jurgen sharp with curiosity, Grimmer lost in numb practicality until he finally spoke, voice blunt: They'll target Anna and Raj and all us "traitors." But this room is family. We hold together, to the last breath, right?
We all laid our hands together, a small act of unity, even as Runge rolled his eyes and busied himself prepping for the mission. We drifted to our appointed places in Alexander's safehouse, the machines I'd built humming quietly at each site. Anna worked from the palace's left corner entrance, three kilometers away from me. I watched from the left backyard, Grimmer took position straight across in the right backyard, and Runge settled into the far right, a full three kilometers from Anna. We fixed invisible metallic spheres to our windows, our square of silent communication. Each post had a computer system, screens flickering with our shared intent.
Jurgen's task was sabotage, stationed at the backyard, ready to destroy the king's precious code. Alexander, meanwhile, would try to retrieve it. The king's entrance to the palace was a spectacle poor and rich Plazies mingling without distinction, all given honor and protection by their own. It offered Jurgen and Alexander a perfect chance to slip inside, unnoticed.
As the King's ceremonial return commenced, the palace was crowded—rich and poor, all equal under Plazie rule, at least in appearance.
Alexander, dressed impeccably, moved freely. Inside, he was served exotic delicacies. His mic chewed louder than his words.
Grimmer(teasing): "Bring us some of that roast, brother. Your chewing makes me drool."
Runge(grunts): "Focus, Grimmer. This is not a picnic."
Suddenly, the backyard cameras crashed. All visuals and mics from Jurgen's side went dark.
Runge(frantic): "Jurgen! What happened?"
Jurgen(over mic, calmly): "Relax. King just entered from the backyard."
Bjorn(confused): "That's impossible! We saw him enter from the front!"
Jurgen: "What are you saying?! I watched him come in here... wait—shhh. I'll contact you later."
Then silence.
Inside the palace, moving among the guests, Alexander shook the masked king's hand. He made his way to the book locker, where codes for every planetary wormhole were kept, on the northeast edge of the palace. Golden stairs, winding, led him to the door. He flashed his ID, requested the right files. The "book" was heavy, metallic, pages of gilded memory.
The moment his finger brushed the page with Earth's code, nothing happened, no green signal of "truth" on Runge's system. He only managed to copy codes for his planet's squad, not the key to Earth. Signal loss, Runge's monitors crashed. Frustration built. We waited.
Runge: Guys, the mission's a failure.
Runge just entered into an uncontrollable emotion of frustration and Anna flung her caffeine cup at the wall in frustration.
Descending, Alexander moved to the court, just in time for Elisha's judgement.
King (grinning): I feel nothing for crimes committed against the planet or crown. She'll be hanged, even if she's only guilty by bloodline.
The judges murmured
before one barked: Any last words?
Elisha: (soft but unyielding) Honorable judges, king my husband's coworkers are the real traitors. He died a martyr. Why punish his children, and me?
King: My knowledge is beyond contest. This is my judgement.
The proceedings ended, then Alexander was summoned to collect Elisha's sparse belongings from court left. She, gently but firmly, was led away.
ALexander opened her book, reading lines for Raj and Anna. As his finger moved across the text, suddenly Runge's system lit green, the right code finally triggered. Then, almost immediately, an explosion shattered the quiet, the northeast extension, where Elisha was meant to die, went up in smoke. The codes, nearly all, were lost in the blast; only a handful survived, jealously guarded now by Runge's father, the general.
A strange joy surged in us. We'd gotten what we came for, though the price was unbearable. Runge demanded details from Alexander.
Alexander: Elisha is gone. The bomb took her.
Anna, voice trembling: Where's Jurgen?
I looked at her, bewildered. "You don't mourn your mother?" But her eyes were clear, her heart still steel.
Amidst the smoke and confusion that clouded the once-immaculate corridors of the palace, a chaos unseen in the long history of Elizes, something cracked through the silence.
From the glitching surveillance screen in the palace's backyard, Jurgen appeared.
He stood still, his expression torn between terror and realization. His eyes darted around like he had stumbled upon something half-revealed... something that didn't want to be known.
We all shouted through our comms, urging Jurgen and Runge to return. But just then, a wave of static tore through our mics and surveillance. For a few breathless moments, all signals failed.
In that flicker, just for a second, I thought I saw a foot... stepping out from the shadows behind the palace.
And then, everything snapped back. Calm returned, but it wasn't real. It was the eerie quiet that follows when something ancient has been disturbed.
We rushed back to Alexander's home, our safest point of contact in this Plazie-ruled city.
Bjorn (me): "We need to destroy everything we've set up. Burn it all. No traces. Not a wire, not a code."
Anna: "But Bjorn, the tech you built last night... it's revolutionary. These devices could help us in future missions. Even if we burn it, if someone scans the place, they'll trace what kind of equipment was used."
Runge: "She's right. We can't leave clues, but we also can't burn a path forward. We need to be smart."
Bjorn: "I said burn it. The rest… leave it to me."
There was silence, but not of protest. Everyone followed without another word. Even Runge stayed quiet, despite the doubt flickering in his eyes.
And in that moment, as we slipped away unnoticed through the smoke and rush of a burning city… I felt it.
The weight of command. The feeling of being ten steps ahead. A mastermind born in the fire.
Jurgen, who was earlier stationed at the palace's rear, escaped just in time, his face unreadable, like someone who'd seen a ghost inside the code.
And finally, one by one, we regrouped in the shadowed safety of Alexander's home.
Something had begun that night… something incomplete.
But we didn't know Jurgen saw that daylight.