CHAPTER 1: THE DESCENT
The descent did not resemble falling; it felt like being wiped away.
Inside the Valkyrie landing craft, the quiet was profound, a dense, pressurized covering broken only by the regular, mechanical whoosh of the air purifiers. It was the sound of existence being offered back to them at a high price. Twenty people were seated in twin rows of ten, secured in strong carbon fibre seats that embraced them like pods. They were the chosen—the leading few, the healthy, the optimistic—but within the faint, crimson emergency lights of the compartment, they resembled spectres awaiting birth.
James Wee to his companions—clutched the supports of his seat until his knuckles appeared white through his flight suit. As a former search-and-rescue flier in Singapore, he was accustomed to turbulence. He was accustomed to the sky resisting, to the heavy rains attempting to knock his chopper into the South China Sea. He was used to the heat, the moisture, and the sound of a beating heart in the cockpit.
But this was unlike that. There was no atmosphere here to struggle against. They were dropping through a void toward a pale, lifeless sphere, sustained solely by the unseen, intensely hot plumes of the retro-thrusters.
Across from him sat Beatriz Santos. Her eyes were closed, her long lashes casting shades over her prominent cheekbones. Her mouth was moving—not in devotion, James realized, but in a quiet tune from her homeland in Brazil. Even in the harsh, intermittent red illumination, she held a lively, sunlit vitality that seemed entirely misplaced in this sterile metal container. James found himself observing the way her chest moved up and down, stable and measured. It was the sole element in the cabin that truly seemed alive.
A sudden, severe bump travelled through the deck plating, jarring James’s teeth inside his head. The Valkyrie emitted a low sound, the noise of metal protesting the stress as the landing gear extended. A woman’s voice, soft and artificially perfect, filled the space.
“Landing confirmed. Greetings to Mare Tranquillitatis. Welcome to Genesis Base.”
The pressure in James’s ears stabilized with a sharp, damp snap. The red emergency lights extinguished, instantly replaced by an intense, sterile white radiance.
“We have arrived,” an individual murmured. It was Caleb Walker, the Australian earth scientist seated two spots away. He released his restraints, his motions clumsy and unsteady in the unfamiliar one-sixth gravity. He nearly lifted from his seat before grasping a handhold. “May the divine favour us, we are genuinely here.”
James undid his own fastenings, sensing a peculiar, empty lightness in his core. It was not merely the gravity. It was the comprehension that the world he knew—the dampness of Singapore, the scent of street food, the quality of his mother’s tone—was now 384,400 kilometres distant.
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The Mark of the Mission
The transit through the docking tube was a rush of pressurized air and resonant echoes. The surfaces were cool, grooved with wiring and plumbing that pulsed with the base’s vital signs. They were guided not by greeters, but by automated rovers that floated at face level. The rovers moved with stealthy elegance, their azure sensors reading the arrivals’ eyes as they passed, logging their entry into a system designed to hold them permanently.
They were directed into the"Verification Section." It resembled a sophisticated medical suite more than a living area. The walls were a smooth, dull-white synthetic material, and the air carried the scent o
