Front Runner

22,690 AD

On Lunar Settlement

Rosco, Amadeus, Inez, and Roland stood outside the settlement, their vacuum suits sealed tightly as they stared at each other, shock still rippling through their minds. Invictus was gone. Destroyed. It didn’t seem real. The silence of the moon, broken only by their breathing, seemed to mock the enormity of the loss. A silence that now carried the weight of impending death.

"Whoever destroyed Invictus... they’re going to come for us next…" Amadeus said, his voice trembling through the comms. His eyes flickered to the sky, scanning the dark void as if waiting for a sign of the end. "We’re just sitting ducks down here."

Inez nodded, her tone steady but taut with tension. "We need to get everyone to the shuttlecraft and off this moon. We can’t wait for them to find us. It’s only a matter of time."

Rosco remained quiet, his thoughts racing. There was a truth in what Inez and Amadeus were saying, but his mind gravitated toward the worst-case scenario. He finally spoke, the worry clear in his voice.

"And what happens if they shoot us down before we even leave orbit? If they detect us, we’re done.” He paused, thinking about their options carefully.

Inez turned toward him, her brow furrowed behind her visor. "Wait, I think I know how to get out of here.”

All eyes shifted to Inez as she went on to reveal her plan. “We’ll enter cryosleep. Let the Intelligence Protocols pilot. We’ll cut the engines once we’re in space—no signals, no heat for them to pick up. We might be able to slip past them unnoticed."

Roland, who had been pacing in growing agitation, suddenly stopped. His voice came through with an edge of defiance. "That’s suicide. Going up there, with that thing hunting us?" He gestured wildly toward the sky. "No. We’re better off staying down here. We’ve got the underground bunker. If they hit the colony, the bunker might survive."

Inez shook her head in disbelief. "Survive? Roland, you don’t know what kind of weapons they have. They vaporized Invictus like it was nothing. What makes you think the bunker would hold?"

Roland’s voice grew sharper, defensive. "We’ve got the fabrication machines down there. Even if they destroy the settlement above, we could still rebuild—start again once they leave."

"No." Rosco’s voice broke through the tense conversation, more resolved this time. "We have no idea what they’re capable of. What if they decide to level the whole moon? You’re gambling with all our lives on a chance."

Roland’s eyes flashed behind his visor. "It’s not gambling, it’s surviving. What’s your plan, huh? Run into space like rabbits and hope they don’t shoot? We’d be slaughtered."

Inez stepped closer to him, her voice hardening. "You can’t know that, Roland. But staying here? That’s a death sentence. We have to try. The shuttle’s our best shot."

Before Roland could respond, a shadow passed over them, blotting out the dim light of the stars. They all looked up simultaneously, their breath catching in unison.

A massive black shape loomed over the horizon, slowly revealing itself as it descended toward them. The vessel. It had found them. And it was enormous—larger than anything they had ever imagined, stretching across the sky like a predatory titan.

Amadeus swore softly. "It’s here."

Panic surged through their veins as they saw the truth: time had run out. The mysterious vessel had found their settlement, and there would be no escape if they didn’t act now. They watched as the colonists began running toward the underground bunker, some already retreating into its depths in desperate haste.

"Let’s go!" Roland barked, his voice filled with urgency. "The bunker’s our only chance now. We can ride this out!"

"No!" Inez snapped back, her voice shaking. "I’m going for the shuttle."

Amadeus nodded, taking a step toward Inez. "Me too."

Rosco hesitated for a fraction of a second, then made his decision. "I’m with them."

Roland’s face contorted with anger and disbelief. "You can’t—" He lunged toward Inez, grabbing her arm. "You’re being stupid! You need to listen to me for once, Inez!"

"Get off me!" Inez shoved him back, her eyes wide with fear and fury. "Let go, Roland!"

"You’re going to get yourself killed!" Roland yelled, gripping her tighter. "I won’t let you—"

She struggled against him, trying to pry his hands off her suit, but in the scuffle, her foot caught on a jagged rock.

She stumbled, falling backward.

Crack.

The sound echoed through their comms like a death knell. Her helmet struck a sharp outcrop of stone, shattering the visor in an instant.

"No!" Rosco screamed, his heart freezing in his chest as Inez’s suit rapidly decompressed.

Inez’s eyes widened in horror as the air inside her suit rushed out, her skin blanching as the vacuum of space began to tear her apart. Her mouth opened as if to scream, but there was no sound—only the desperate reaching of her hands as her body began to contort in agony.

Amadeus and Rosco stood paralyzed in horror, watching helplessly as her eyes bulged and her skin twisted under the pressure of the void. Her lifeless body collapsed to the ground, her final breath never escaping her lips.

Roland staggered back, his hands shaking uncontrollably. "I... I didn’t mean to... I—" His voice broke into sobs, collapsing onto his knees as the reality of what had happened washed over him. "Oh God, what have I done?"

Amadeus’s grief morphed into rage. He lunged at Roland, knocking him to the ground. "You killed her! You murdered her!" He screamed, landing blow after blow, fists fueled by anguish.

"Stop!" Rosco yelled, trying to pry Amadeus off of Roland, but the fury was too great. "Amadeus, stop!"

Amadeus pulled back, chest heaving, tears filling his eyes as he cursed at Roland.

"Stay here. Stay with your fucking bunker!"

Above them, the looming vessel began to glow—a harbinger of destruction preparing to unleash its power. The ship was going to fire.

Rosco looked toward Inez’s lifeless body, his heart breaking all over again. "We don’t have time. We can’t take her. It’s too late."

Amadeus, still seething, nodded, but the pain in his eyes was clear. He wanted to scream, to rage, but he couldn’t. Not now.

"Let’s go." Rosco’s voice was hoarse, thick with the weight of their loss. He turned toward the shuttle, his feet feeling like lead, his emotions buried under the raw urgency of survival.

They ran, leaving Roland sobbing over Inez’s body, as the glow of the vessel above them intensified. The shuttle loomed ahead, their only lifeline in this nightmare.

Rosco and Amadeus stumbled into the shuttlebay, gasping for breath, their hearts racing with adrenaline and dread. Every step felt like a struggle, the weight of what had just happened pressing down on them as heavily as the vacuum of space itself. Behind them, the vessel in the sky cast a monstrous shadow across the moon's surface, its glow intensifying as it prepared to fire.

"We… we don’t have time." Rosco choked out, rushing toward the shuttle. His hands trembled as he activated the bay door, the metal grinding open with an agonizing slowness.

Amadeus remained silent, his face pale and expressionless, but his movements were frantic. His eyes were glassy, still filled with the image of Inez’s death, the horror of it replaying in his mind over and over again. He couldn’t speak. He couldn’t even process it. There wasn’t time to grieve—only survive.

The shuttle door slid open, and the two men scrambled inside, the cold interior feeling almost alien after the chaos outside. Rosco immediately moved to the control panel, trying to calm himself as he began programming the Intelligence Protocols. His mind was swimming, struggling to focus through the emotional fog.

"Turn off… engines…" Rosco muttered to himself, entering in commands.

"Set course for deep space… no signals, no heat… no trace…"

Amadeus stood behind him, fists clenched. His knuckles were white, trembling with barely-contained rage and sorrow. The silence between them grew heavier, almost suffocating. Finally, Amadeus broke the quiet, his voice hoarse and barely above a whisper.

"We left her."

Rosco flinched at the words. He closed his eyes, the guilt surging up like bile in his throat.

"I know."

"We left her…" Amadeus repeated, more forcefully this time, his voice cracking. "We left her out there, and now she's gone. Just like that."

Rosco stood silently over the console, his chest tightening. He didn’t have the strength to look at Amadeus, couldn’t bear to face the raw grief in his friend’s eyes. He felt his own tears threatening to spill over, but he swallowed them down, pushing everything into the back of his mind.

"We didn’t have a choice." Rosco finally whispered, his voice hollow. "She’s gone, Amadeus. There was nothing we could do."

Amadeus stared at him, eyes wide with disbelief. "Don’t… don’t say that. We should have done something. We should have… I should have—"

Rosco slammed his hand down on the console, his voice sharp as he cut Amadeus off. "Stop. Just stop, okay? We can’t do this right now."

Amadeus recoiled slightly, his face crumpling with the weight of his emotions. He opened his mouth as if to argue, but the words wouldn’t come. He bit down on his trembling lip, turning his gaze away, trying to choke back the tears.

Rosco exhaled shakily, his chest tight. He continued programming the shuttle’s systems, though his mind was a haze of guilt and sorrow. There was no time to process what had just happened. No time to fall apart.

"Let’s just get out of this alive." Rosco said, his voice quieter now, more fragile. "We’ll deal with everything else later."

Amadeus nodded silently, though his fists remained clenched. His mind was buzzing with anger—anger at Roland, at Rosco, at himself. But he knew Rosco was right. This wasn’t over yet.

"Activating cryopods." Rosco announced, trying to keep his voice steady. "We need to get into them now if we’re going to make it."

He stood up from the console, moving toward the cryochambers at the back of the shuttle. Amadeus followed, his movements robotic, drained of life. The two men slid into the pods, the cold metal sending a shiver down Rosco’s spine as the chamber closed over him.

Rosco’s last sight before the pod sealed was Amadeus, his face twisted in anguish as he lay back in the neighboring chamber. Then, the cold hiss of the cryosleep gas filled his lungs, and the world began to blur around him.

As his consciousness faded, Rosco’s mind screamed with everything he was trying to suppress. The sight of Inez, reaching for him in her final moments. The horror on Roland’s face. The overwhelming feeling of failure.

His vision darkened, the heavy weight of sleep pulling him under.

The shuttle ascended silently from the moon’s surface, its engines shutting down almost immediately after breaking the atmosphere, just as programmed. Now it was a drifting object, invisible in the vastness of space, with all systems powered down except for the faint hum of the Intelligence Protocols guiding it forward.

The only movement came from the hulking shape of the mysterious vessel above the moon. Its glow grew brighter, a gathering storm of energy as it prepared to unleash its power upon the fragile settlement below.

Without warning, a concentrated particle beam shot down from the ship, slicing through the moon’s surface effortlessly. The beam impacted the colony in a single, devastating instant, obliterating everything. There was no sound, but the light from the explosion was blinding—a brilliant flash that consumed everything in its path.

The entire visible surface of the moon was torn apart, debris scattering in all directions, and in the center of it all, the bunker that Roland had so desperately believed in was incinerated.

The fabricators, the remaining colonists—everything vanished into dust.

But the shuttle, now a silent, invisible speck against the void, remained untouched. Drifting further from the moon, it passed unnoticed by the massive vessel as it circled its prey, inspecting the destruction it had wrought.

Inside the cryopods, Rosco and Amadeus slept. Safe, for now.

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