The ship's galley was not a welcoming place. It was a stainless-steel operating room, cold and functional, designed to feed efficient crews, not to console survivors.
Leo stumbled in, leaning on the doorframe. His stomach was a black hole demanding tribute. Behind him, floating with a barely perceptible hum, the alien drone—now his drone—watched his back. The automaton's eye glowed with a loyal green, illuminating the dark hallways.
"Search," Leo ordered, pointing to the magnetically sealed cabinets. "Edibles. High caloric content."
The drone, which he had decided to simply call "Vigía" (Sentry), moved forward. Its limbs, which had previously looked like menacing spider legs, now moved with the precision of an expert thief. A manipulator arm extended, its tip transforming into a universal data key, and connected to the port of the first cabinet.
A click resonated. The door slid open.
Empty.
"Next," Leo growled.
Hunger was clouding his judgment. His hands trembled not from fear, but from the sugar crash. He had spent fifteen hundred calories in less than an hour. His body, or rather, Mathew Cole's body, was running on reserve.
Vigía opened the second compartment. Then the third. Nothing but empty containers and sterile dust.
"Inventory report," Leo demanded of the ship's AI, his patience wearing thin.
"Database error," the monotonous voice replied. "Inventory records do not match physical reality. Possible looting by the crew before evacuation or a logistics error."
Leo cursed. He slumped into a chair bolted to the floor, feeling his strength abandoning him. If he didn't eat, the System would shut down. Or worse, it would start consuming his own muscle tissue to stay on.
Then, Vigía emitted a sharp chirp.
The drone was floating near the ceiling, in front of a maintenance panel that didn't look like a pantry. With one of its arms, it ripped off the metal plate, bending the steel as if it were cardboard.
Inside, hidden behind a tangle of wires, was a small safe box.
"Personal stash?" Leo murmured. A weak smile crossed his face. "Good boy."
The drone lowered the box and deposited it on the table in front of Leo. It didn't have a digital lock, but a biomechanical one. Leo placed his thumb on the scanner.
*Access Authorized: Agent Cole.*
The lid lifted.
There was no gold or weapons. There were energy bars. Dense, heavy silver packets. Military-grade combat rations.
Leo tore one open with his teeth. He bit into the bar, ignoring the texture of compacted sawdust or the chemical chocolate flavor. To him, it tasted like pure life.
[CALORIC INTAKE: +1200 KCAL]
[STATUS: RECOVERING...]
He ate one. Then another. He stopped at the third. He stored the rest of the box with maniacal care. He counted the bars. He had enough for three days if he rationed strictly. Three days of life.
He took a deep breath, feeling the sugar flood his bloodstream, clearing the fog from his brain.
"We're alive," he said, looking at the drone. Vigía blinked its green eye, spinning on itself.
With his stomach full, Leo's mind sharpened again. He now had fuel. He needed answers.
He looked around the environment. This ship was advanced. Too much to be a simple freighter. And the AI had called him "Agent."
"Computer," Leo said, leaning back in the chair. "I need context. Where exactly are we?"
"Current location: Sector 001-Earth. High stationary orbit between the debris of the Moon and the planet's exosphere."
"Why did we survive?" Leo asked directly. "If those things… those harvester ships destroyed everything, why is this ship intact?"
There was a pause. The AI seemed to process the request, searching restricted files.
"This vessel, the USC Aether, possesses experimental phase camouflage technology, granted by the Cygnus Delegation. We are invisible to standard thermal and visual scanners."
"Cygnus Delegation?"
"One of the seven races of the Galactic Council," the AI explained.
Leo sat up straight. Galactic Council? In his time, in 2030, they barely dreamed of setting foot on Mars.
"Summarize the last hundred years of history. Briefly."
"First Contact occurred in 2080. It was peaceful. Humanity discovered it was not alone, and that the neighborhood was crowded. Multiple intelligent species exist. Some belligerent, others mercantile, others pacifist. Humanity was classified as a 'Grade 3' civilization: Capable, intelligent, but technologically primitive compared to galactic standards."
"We were the poor kids in the neighborhood," Leo interpreted.
"Correct. Agent Cole was assigned as the principal diplomat on a critical mission to the Cygnus territories. The objective was to negotiate a protection treaty and obtain planetary shield technology."
Leo looked out the window. Toward the gray void where a blue world once was.
"We arrived too late," he deduced.
"The mission was a diplomatic success," the AI continued, indifferent to the tragedy. "We returned at maximum superluminal velocity with the shield blueprints. We exited hyperspace 74 hours ago."
"Just in time to see the end."
"Exactly. The arrival coincided with the final phase of the 'Harvest.' Earth had already been fragmented. There was no atmosphere. No radio signals. Only the harvester ships finishing their work."
Leo felt a chill. Cole had raced across the stars to save his world, only to arrive at the exact moment there was nothing left to save.
"And Cole?" he asked softly. "What happened to him? The medical report said heart attack."
"Illogical question," the AI's voice hesitated. "You are Agent Mathew Cole. Biometric scans are 100% conclusive. Is this a post-traumatic dissociative episode?"
Leo shook his head, looking at his hands. These large hands, full of scars he didn't remember getting.
"I am not him," Leo said firmly. "I don't know how, or why. But I am not the original owner of this body. Cole died when his heart failed. I... I simply woke up here."
There was a long silence. The ship's lights flickered as the central processor tried to integrate this impossibility.
"Analyzing brain wave patterns…" the machine murmured. "Discrepancy detected in the frontal lobe. The neuronal architecture is identical, but the... 'signature' of consciousness has changed."
"I'm a tenant," Leo stated. "So tell me, what killed the former owner?"
The AI seemed to accept the premise, or at least, filed it as an anomaly pending resolution.
"The ship captured the last emergency transmissions before total silence. Agent Cole attempted to locate his family's beacon in the New York sector."
"And found nothing."
"He found that the North American continent had been reduced to mineral dust. The emotional shock caused a massive discharge of catecholamines. His heart, already weakened by the stress of superluminal travel, failed. Mathew Cole died of grief, technically. Immediately afterwards, emergency protocols initiated static cryo-preservation to protect vital organs, until his vital signs were restarted an hour ago."
Leo looked at the photo floating in the air. The family of a dead man. A man who had lost everything in a second.
He wasn't Cole. He didn't feel the love Cole felt. But he could feel the injustice. The magnitude of the loss. An entire civilization, billions of stories, erased because someone stronger needed resources.
"It was an execution," Leo said, his voice cold. "That's all. A farm being harvested."
"Predatory species exist," the AI confirmed. "Humanity was not prepared."
Leo stood up. He walked toward the galley window. The drone Vigía floated beside him, also looking out into the darkness.
"Well, Cole is dead," Leo said, erasing the photo with a sweep of his hand. "And his family too. And his world. But I'm here. And I have his body. I have his ship. I have his anger."
He touched the cold glass.
"I have three days of food," he said, tracing a plan in his mind. "I have a drone that can see what I can't. And I have this System that can rewrite reality if I have enough energy."
He turned to the AI.
"We are not going to die here lamenting. We are going to find out who those bastards are. And we are going to see if they bleed."
[NEW MISSION: SURVIVE AND ADAPT]
[REWARD: ENEMY FLEET DATA]
Leo smiled. It was a joyless smile, sharp as a knife.
"Guard those bars like they are gold. Tomorrow, we start the real work."