I didn’t sleep the night before launch. Not because I was nervous. ---I don’t get nervous. ---Not like that. --- It was more like---stillness. ---Like the air around me knew something I didn’t. ---Like the stars were holding their breath. ---My name is Commander Dru Baldwin.-- Terran Federation. --Mission designation Echo Survey 9. We were tasked with charting the Delta Quadrant in the Andromeda Constellation.--- Long-range survey. ---Deep cryo.--- Six crew. ---One ship. ---The Callisto. ---She wasn’t big, but she was beautiful---sleek, responsive,---and mine. ---My first command. I remember the moment they handed me the slate. My name etched in the manifest. ---I ran my thumb across it like it might vanish.-- It didn’t. --I was ready. --I’d trained for this.-- I’d earned it. --But still--there was that stillness. We launched on a Tuesday. I remember because Lieutenant Voss hummed an old Earth country song during ascent. ---Said it kept her hands steady.--- I didn’t ask which one. I just listened. ---Cryo was clean. ---Woke up six months later, orbiting a red dwarf with two moons and a dust belt that shimmered like powdered glass. ---We ran scans. ---Logged anomalies. ---Ate rehydrated stew and told stories in the mess. ---Rafiq played harmonica. --Badly. --But we loved it. --Then came the Eltanin Rift. --We were passing through the outer edge when the alarms started. --Debris. --Magnetized shards. --Moving faster than light. --The A-I core couldn’t track them. Shields failed. --Hull integrity dropped. --We lost power. --Then gravity. --Then everything. --We crashed.-- I don’t remember the impact. Just the silence after. --The kind that hums in your teeth. --The kind that makes you wonder if you’re still alive. I crawled from the wreckage with blood in my mouth and static in my ears. The ship was torn open like a wound. The comms were down. The memory banks were fractured. --But I found a working recorder. --Started logging. --Because someone has to remember. --The crew--gone.-- Voss. --Korrin.-- Reeve. --El-Sayeed. --Captain Halden. I buried what I could. The rest--scattered across the crater like broken glass.-- This planet--no designation. --No signal.-- Just dust, heat, and silence. --A desert with twin moons that never sleep. --I ration water. --Stitch hides from the creatures I hunt. --Whisper stories to bones that can’t answer. --I keep the rock from home in my pocket. --Smooth now. --Familiar. --I don’t know how long I’ve been here. The days run together in the heat and loneliness. --But I’m still breathing. --Still listening. --And then--something changed.
