I looked at my hands. At the blinking vitals on my wrist display. At the tiny, creased photo of Mira—eight years old, gap-toothed smile, holding a toy spaceship.
Non-natural. That word sat in my gut like a stone. Magnus 10 was supposed to be dead—a molten, metal-cored brute with no history of life. But something down there was twisting the magnetic field into patterns.
The skeleton crumbled to dust. The astralidium heart floated toward me, warm as a second sun, and merged with my chest. Pain. Then light. Then a vast, cold awareness—a web of magnetic lines stretching from the planet’s core to the edge of the system. magnus 10
I sat on the throne. My limbs stretched. My skull smoothed. And I felt it —the silence, pressing against Magnus 10’s magnetic shell like a wolf against a fence.
The descent was like falling into a god’s lungs. The sky on Magnus 10 isn’t a sky—it’s a ceiling of bruised copper and black lightning. My ship, the Perseverance , groaned as gravity doubled, tripled, then crushed inward until my bones sang with the strain. The landing gear touched down on a plain of jagged, rust-colored glass. Silence fell. Then the wind started—a low, guttural hum that vibrated through the hull like a cello string. I looked at my hands
Abnormal , the AI replied. Its voice was calm, too calm. Interference patterns suggest a non-natural source. Depth: approximately ten kilometers.
Unable , the AI replied. The magnetic field has achieved cohesion with the ship’s core systems. Disconnection would cause a catastrophic feedback loop. Estimated yield: planet-cracker. Non-natural
“What question?”
