There was no ‘next’. Finding the last diin was the mission. Only knowing the seedling’s fate would ensure there was a future for anyone. Linuka sat on the bunk, exhaustion heavy in her bones. Then Cha said it—the words that cracked the silence: ‘We returned… with a sphere drive array.’

Clouds of yellow dust puffed out of the surface. Blue static ran along towering vines. Then the ground shook. A blinding beam erupted skyward, leaving behind a smoking crater. At its bottom, half-hidden in charred plant-matter, gleamed the hull of something impossibly old.

“Strange,” said Cha, squinting upward. “And I don’t like strange.” The marines dealt with the prospect of danger and death with crude, defiant humor. ‘Sick shit’ is what they called the wavy semi-planet wide ecosystem, and it endeared them to Linuka even more. Yet the Remnants’ insistence that humans scout the surface first made it clear: this green world was beautiful, yes—but also dangerous.