The device kept slipping, and I had to clamp my jaw just right to avoid either swallowing the thing or cracking a molar.
"You come here to mate?" asked the first slug that had latched onto me.
"Uh… no," I drawled.
"Mate here now?" chimed in another.
"Listen, folks," I backpedaled, "I’m just visiting. Maybe we could, uh, trade snacks instead? Souvenirs?"
"We not want trade," rumbled the largest slug. "Want mate. We wait galaxy-head to save planet from extinction."
"Right. Crystal clear." I shifted in my clunky suit, calculating the sprint back to Eliot’s ship. "So… any local hobbies? Besides, y’know, population revival?"
"If no mate, then GO!" The creatures flushed violet, bodies swelling like overfilled balloons about to burst.
I bolted for the ship, the spurned residents of Micronda hot on my heels—or rather, their glossy slime trails—in what was now the Galaxy’s most humiliating chase scene.
Turns out fertility wasn’t limited to the soil here.
As Eliot’s ship began its ascent, a couple of stubborn slugs clung to the windshield. I flicked on the external mic, deciding to try diplomacy one last time.
"Please disembark," I said, as politely as one can while fleeing an amorous mollusk mob. "This takeoff will be fatal for you."
"Give back device!" the slugs wailed in unison, their gelatinous bodies quivering. "We lend! Not gift!"
"Whoops. My bad," I muttered, not sounding particularly sorry.
"That ‘device’ is a xenotech artifact, Ethan," Skyla’s hologram materialized beside me just as the ship’s windshield jets activated with a hiss.
The slugs screeched—a sound like nails on a chalkboard made of mucus—as the cleaning fluid blasted them off the glass. They plummeted to the ground in a series of wet splats.
"We can't return the device. I'll improve it—someday it'll help you negotiate with other planets."
"Sorry again!" I shouted into the mic at the creatures below, now swollen and blackened with rage.
As Eliot's ship surged upward, I could've sworn the Microndians kept shrieking about mating rituals even after we vanished from sight—their shrill demands echoing through the void like a cosmic wrong number.
"Horny little bastards," I shuddered at the thought of staying any longer. "Why didn’t the other creatures come out? How do they even survive there?"
"Don’t dwell on it, Ethan." Skyla’s hologram flickered. "The data I gathered during the landing… isn’t encouraging."
"Meaning what? What did you see?"
"The other lifeforms don’t last long on Micronda. They’re used as incubators. Once they can’t provide what the Microndians need anymore, they die."
"Damn," I exhaled. "So these grubs are hellbent on becoming Kallinkorian butterflies."
Chapter 6. The Heart of Heliosar
Quantity in your hands means nothing—
only the buyer’s face matters.
"You’ve been given a chance most only dream of. This isn’t just an object—it’s a cog in a vast machine, which itself is but one piece of a greater puzzle. Find it, and the client will reward you beyond measure. Wealth enough to rewrite your destiny."
"This device matters more than you can fathom. This letter has been sent to a thousand corners of the Galaxy, and any ship could claim it next. One opportunity. One gamble. For those bold enough to take it."
"Seize it. A life of fortune lies one step away. Good luck."
I read the decrypted letter aloud again and again, while Skyla silently analyzed the text, saving the translation to her database.
By the time the words on the paper began losing clarity in my vision—then devolved entirely back into meaningless symbols and scribbles—I crumpled the sheet and hurled it to the floor.
"Well, would you look at that," I raised my brows. "Turns out decryption isn’t a permanent service."
"You deciphered the text, but its meaning remains… blurred," the hologram finally spoke. "You’re to retrieve some device across the breadth of the cosmos—yet the letter omits its appearance, even its name. A task without parameters is impossible, Ethan."
"That’s because you’ve got no imagination, sweetheart," I said, stretching out the lingering stiffness from my frozen chase—though the scrape on my arm had healed, my muscles still spasmed like a faulty engine. "The letter said copies went out across the Galaxy. Hell, I figured that much out myself."
Tevin’s puppy-dog eyes, frozen mid-plea, flickered at the edge of my memory. I shoved the image aside.
"Bet the intel’s been split into pieces. Others probably got the missing details."
"We can’t chase fragments across a hundred parsecs hoping to stumble upon answers," Skyla droned, her tone like she was lecturing me at sixteen again. "Even if you find a few other letter-holders, the odds they decrypted theirs are zero. And surely"—her hologram flickered with sarcasm—"you don’t expect Eliot to ferry you back to the Astral Sisters?"
"What can I say? I kinda liked them. Maybe I want another visit?" I joked. Neither the hologram nor the ship appreciated the humor—the latter froze in space, autopilot disengaging with a judgmental click.
"Oh, come on," I sighed. "We’ve spent years chasing crumbs. Time to bag the whole damn feast. Didn’t freeze my ass off on Blokays for nothing."
Then, turning to Skyla—whose glow behind me practically vibrated with suppressed strangulation urges—I added: "Speaking of… you analyze that gun I brought back?"
"I can’t repair it," she stated flatly.
"Lately there’s a lot you can’t do, sweetheart. Getting rusty?"
"I don’t rust. Unlike you." Her hologram flickered. "And I don’t age."
"Alright, don’t get your circuits in a twist," I grumbled. "What did you learn about the Coldborn weapon? That thing’s been a pain in my ass since day one."
"The bullets contain cryo-embryonic powder—nanoparticles designed to leach ambient cold from the air. Each round accumulates ice mass mid-flight, growing heavier before impact. They travel so fast the friction makes them glow like colored tracer lines… which is why the ship initially misread the Coldborn’s attack as laser fire."
"Upon penetration, the powder releases a hyperlocalized cold wave. Flash-freezes tissues, organs, even cerebrospinal fluid in nanoseconds."
"Like a cryo battery," I scratched the back of my head. "Can we weaponize the bullets as an energy source? Trigger the release manually?"
"Attempted. Outside Blokays, their efficiency drops by 87%. Ambient temperatures are too high—the powder can’t saturate enough to replicate the crew-freezing effect."
"Probably for the best," I shrugged. "That thing’s a nightmare in a magazine. But y’know what occurred to me?"
"All auditory receptors primed."
"We need weapons too, Skyla. That last landing? Made it crystal clear."
"You always refused protective measures before."
"Yeah. Now I’m refusing to die. Got any bright ideas?"
"Since we haven’t jumped far," her hologram flickered, "we could visit the Galaxy’s premier arms bazaar. Pick your poison."
"Blokays? I’d rather walk barefoot on broken glass!" My whole body recoiled at the thought.
"No. To the other half of the planet."
"Baby, be more precise. I don’t get it."
Skyla appeared near the observation window, and Eliot slowly began raising the protective panels, revealing the endless expanse of space.
"Look, Ethan," commanded the hologram, its glow shifting to pink.
That glow meant it was burning with an unbearable desire to amaze me. For the Kallinkorians, this was akin to gambling fever.
I approached the glass and peered out the window with feigned disinterest. My indifference shattered the moment my gaze locked onto the distant round planet. One side was dark and ashen, its mere sight dragging me back into the abyss of that lethally frozen surface—while the other half burned a vivid orange, glowing fiercely, bathing everything around it in a warm, radiant embrace.
"The planet is static," I whispered.
"There is rotation, extremely slow and barely perceptible. That's why Heliosar continuously heats this side, while the Blokays side remains perpetually in shadow," the hologram replied excitedly.
"You mean the Kallinkorian sun?"
