The pale sun of Erebus-9 drifted higher into a silver-blue sky, its soft light filtering through haze-like cirrus bands that twisted unnaturally across the upper atmosphere. The planet’s subtle colors belied its alien nature—gold-tinged plains and indigo-shadowed rock formations painted a false familiarity. The three survey teams had left at dawn. Each moved through their designated region, charting an unknown world—one step at a time.

  Marta Solis — Western Forest Zone

  Marta’s boots crunched over needle-covered ground as she led her team beneath the towering canopy. The trees were vast, some rising nearly seventy meters high, with trunks wide enough to shelter a family. Unlike Earth’s hardwoods, these bore no rings when sampled. Their interiors formed concentric lattices, their fibers aligned like woven carbon strands. The bark had a faint resonance when tapped, as though hollow. The air beneath the canopy was dense, humid, tinged with a sharp citrus scent that came and went like breath. Broad-leaf ferns curled away from heat or motion, and Marta made a mental note: reactive flora, possible thermal sensitivity. She paused by a cluster of blue-veined fungi clinging to a fallen trunk. The caps pulsed faintly with bioluminescence. A low whir from a probe sounded as it collected a spore sample. “No known analog,” she muttered. “Could be symbiotic—maybe the forest breathes through these.”

  The hum in the air was constant, sub-audible, but present. One team member mentioned it; Marta waved it off. Just wind through the canopy. Probably. A little deeper in, the ground changed. Moss gave way to velvet-like growth in deep violet, soft and springy underfoot. Here, they found long claw marks carved into a tree trunk at shoulder height, five lines, sharp and deliberate but not random.

  The pattern repeated: three lines, pause, two more. “Something with cognition?” a team member asked, pale.

  “Or imitation,” Marta replied. “Either way, keep weapons charged.”

  They discovered hollow trees that echoed when struck, interiors lined with spiraled root-like fibers. Possibly a resonance network or a trap. By midday, Marta called a halt. “Pull back to the edge. Mark samples and tag every anomalous growth. This place is layered—and we’re not welcome yet.” Still, as they retreated, she couldn’t shake the sense that the forest had memorized their presence.

  Dr. Jia Huang — River Sector

  The river’s water was impossibly clear—so transparent that sediment patterns were visible even in its deepest sections. Jia deployed a mobile analyzer that slid silently across the current, drawing chemical data in real time. Readouts came fast: alkaline pH, low nitrate levels, trace metals well within tolerance. It wasn’t just drinkable, it was pristine, untouched, protected and that worried her.

  As they moved upstream, gravelly embankments gave way to fibrous reeds that clicked softly in the wind. The plants opened and closed with the sun, revealing tubular membranes that exhaled mist in slow, rhythmic bursts. Jia hypothesized a respiration mechanism, organic heat regulation tied to solar angle. They passed shelled mollusk-like creatures that pulsed with bioluminescent light and twisted to follow the signal from her slate’s magnetic processor. “They’re drawn to signal,” she murmured. “That’s… not ideal.”

  Rounding a bend, they encountered furrowed earth and deep three-pronged tracks. The prints were fresh, sunken evenly into the moisture-wicking soil. Two prints overlapped slightly.

  “Deliberate,” Jia whispered. “This thing walks like it has somewhere to go.”

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  Near the water’s curve stood a treelike structure with translucent vines wrapping its spindly trunk. The downward-arching branches dipped into the current, flexing gently. One of Jia’s team chuckled and dubbed it a “sentinel.” Jia didn’t laugh.

  Ethan Kaspar — Mountain Pass

  The ascent was brutal. Gravity near the ridge wavered, subtle, but enough to cause vertigo. Ethan chalked it up to magnetic interference, likely from the dense ore veins streaking the terrain. Metallic crystals lined the rock walls, many fused into perfect geometric forms. Some fractured in cube-like patterns that looked artificially milled. The wind was stranger still. It moved in spirals. Not eddies but spirals. Sometimes the gusts reversed direction mid-breath. Ethan set up an anemometer, it jammed, twice.

  At a ridge near the cave entrance, they found a swath of dark loam that didn’t belong. High silica content laced with hexagonal filaments. It was organic, but inert and no one touched it with bare hands.

  The cave itself lay just beyond a stone arch, its mouth perfectly circular, its surface smooth and dry. Too dry, no condensation, no insects and no echo. Ethan stepped in a few feet but his breath didn’t fog. The rock was cold and silent. Then he saw them: markings etched at chest height, running parallel to the cave’s curve. Glyph-like, precise and spaced like writing. He reached out and felt the stone was warm. “Mercer,” he whispered into his comm. “This place is not a cave. It’s a door.”

  The ship’s staging bay had become a command hub. Lanterns hummed. Projected maps glowed with terrain overlays. Outside, the sun dipped low, casting gold through the open ramp. Mercer stood over the table, hands braced. One by one, the reports came in.

  Marta’s voice crackled first. “Resource-rich, yes. But the forest… it’s observing us. Something lives in the canopy. Something patterned. I want drone overflights immediately.”

  Then Jia. “Water’s too good. Something’s filtering it—possibly naturally, possibly not. There’s evidence of intelligence near the banks. Organic structures that don’t align with any known biology.”

  Then Kaspar. “The cave is artificial, metal-embedded stone carved glyphs and heat resonance readings—like a power source… or a signal repeater.”

  Mercer exhaled. They weren’t alone and this world, this haven, had layers they hadn’t begun to understand. “I’m activating the security crew,” he said quietly. He keyed the command. Cryo-pods stirred across the ship and systems engaged.

  Minutes later, Major Alec Vance awoke in med bay, sat upright, and blinked away the stasis haze. His shoulders flexed instinctively, his gaze tracking the tent’s overhead lights, then the map displays arrayed on the walls. He said just one thing: “Have we been watched?”

  Mercer didn’t answer because he didn’t know.

  The camp took shape beside the river, tents and prefab walls rising beneath a sky filled with slow-moving stars. A fire burned in a central pit, guards rotated the watch and drones patrolled the dark.

  Mercer stepped beyond the firelight to the riverbank. The surface shimmered like glass, disturbed only by the slow pulse of mist from Jia’s plants. From his coat, he drew a small tin of salt. He poured a pinch into the water. “For cleansing,” he murmured. He touched two fingers to his forehead and bowed to the riverbank. Behind him, the stars brightened.

  When he returned, Marta glanced up from a terrain map. “We should name the site,” she said. “Something for the records.”

  Mercer paused. Then, softly: “Hayashi Plain.”

  Marta nodded. No one argued.

  Inside her pod, Aiko Hayashi remained still, eyes closed, breath steady, body preserved in frost but neural patterns had spiked. Not randomly and not from distress. Rhythmic, climbing repeating. A faint pulse echoed inside the chamber, not an alarm, not a malfunction. A whisper of memory. A name: Erebus. Her hand twitched once. Then all was still.