The Wolves of Arcturus (eBook)

Casey N Toth (Autor)

eBook Download: EPUB

2025 | 1. Auflage
600 Seiten
Publishdrive (Verlag)
9780001119383 (ISBN)

Infos

Captain Rhea Voss and her elite Vanguard-3 squad arrive at a remote frozen moon to reactivate a research station's failing systems. But they discover that the once-silent world is alive, communicating through neural resonance and enigmatic signals buried in the ice. As howling winds shred reality, haunted whispers prey on the crew's fears and dreams. Trust fractures and sanity frays as they confront an alien intelligence at the edge of perception. Facing psychological fragmentation, Rhea must lead her 'wolves' through darkness and survival. In a nightmare of first contact and cosmic horror, one question remains: can they escape with their minds intact?

Textauszug

Chapter 1: Cold Drop

 

Obsidian-4 cut a jagged line through the violet-black methane clouds that clung to Arcturus like a shroud. The plasma thrusters hissed, then roared, and the hull shivered against a wall of ionized particles. The entry was a violent slam; the outer skin sang a high-pitched whine as electric blue flashed in the cockpit for a heartbeat before the storm reclaimed the darkness. The descent timer glowed a sterile green, counting down to impact while external sensors painted a chaotic picture of shear forces, ion flux, and a tidal gravitational gradient that seemed to pulse in time with the ship’s own heartbeat.

Inside, the lights flickered in rhythm with the turbulence. Captain Rhea Voss rested her hands on the flight-control yokes, eyes narrowed on the endless sea of methane. Around her, the squad moved with ritual precision, each motion rehearsed in simulators that now seemed pale against the raw storm outside. The air in the cabin was thin, scented faintly of ozone and the metallic tang of ionized air, a reminder that they were not merely flying through a vacuum but through a living, breathing atmosphere.

Lt. Kael Draven leaned forward, feeling the hull’s low thrum through his boots. A discordant whisper rose from the intercom: “Maintain vector delta-nine, compensate for shear stress.” The phrase froze him. He had heard that exact loop before, word for word, in a training simulation that never existed—a phantom etched into his subconscious. The memory was sharp, as if a forgotten instructor had spoken it directly into his ear, and now the words echoed back from the ship’s speakers, a ghost of a lesson he never took.

Rhea’s voice cut through the static, low and even. “Steady. Keep the descent vector. No deviations.” A sudden gust of super-heated gas slammed the nose, and the instruments spiked, showing a gravitational pull that threatened to yank the craft off course. The hull seemed to inhale, a slow, deep breath that resonated through every panel, reminding them they were entering a body that might be aware of their presence. The sensation was uncanny: the ship’s skin flexed like a lung expanding, the vibration traveling up through the floor and into the crew’s bones.

Dr. Mira Sato’s console lit up with neural readouts. The tiny electrodes in each crew member’s cranial implant pulsed in synchrony, their waveforms spiking twenty percent above baseline. “Shared dream signature detected,” she whispered, watching the graphs rise and fall in a motif that matched the low hum from the hull. The data suggested their minds were resonating together, intertwining like strands of a single rope. She felt a faint tug at the edge of her own consciousness, a whisper of a memory that was not hers—a fleeting image of an icy plain under a violet sky.

Ion Harker, the heavy weapons specialist, cracked a grin that didn’t reach his eyes. “The planet’s got a pulse,” he muttered, tapping the console. The hull vibrated with a rhythmic expansion, as if the shuttle were inside a living organism that inhaled and exhaled around it. The vibration was measurable, a low-frequency oscillation that matched the beat of the ship’s life-support pumps. He could almost hear a faint, melodic thrum beneath the mechanical noise, like a heart beating beneath a ribcage.

Sergeant Lila Renn’s fingers danced over the comms panel. “Command, this is Obsidian-4. Requesting status update. Over.” The static crackled, then a voice answered—her own. “Obsidian-4, this is Obsidian-4,” the recording looped back with eerie precision. Lila’s eyes widened. “I’m hearing myself,” she whispered. “The line’s echoing. It’s not a transmission. It’s the planet speaking back.” A chill ran down her spine, not from cold but from the uncanny feeling of being heard by something that should be silent.

Rhea felt a sudden thump in her chest, a beat that matched the hull’s pulse. Through the reinforced viewport she saw a sliver of light on the ice below—a thin column of luminescence that brightened and dimmed in perfect synchrony with her heartbeat. The light was cold, blue-white, breathing with the planet. It seemed to pulse from within the ice itself, as if a vein of frozen crystal were alive, each flash a sigh of the world beneath.

“Everyone, focus,” Rhea commanded, steadier now. “We’re breaking through. Hold the line.” The shuttle’s nose pitched forward, plasma thrusters flaring brighter, and the craft surged through the last of the methane storm. Turbulence peaked, then fell as the clouds thinned. Below, a frozen expanse of glassy ice stretched out, illuminated by a dim violet aurora that rippled like a living curtain, its colors shifting in slow, deliberate waves that seemed to respond to the ship’s passage.

Base lights flickered into view, a constellation of dim, dying embers scattered across the horizon. They pulsed irregularly, as if each were a dying star fighting the cold. The squad exchanged glances, each face a mask of concentration, fear, and shared awe. The descent had tested metal and mind; now the true test would begin.

“Landing gear deployed,” announced Ion, his voice a low rumble that blended with the ship’s sigh. Hydraulic pistons hissed, extending struts into the icy crust. The shuttle settled with a muted thud, the hull absorbing the impact like a lung taking a breath. A thin frost brushed the outer hull, and for a heartbeat the world was silent except for the vessel’s rhythmic breathing.

Mira’s eyes never left her console. “Neural sync at ninety-two percent,” she reported. “Dream signature stable. No acute psychotic deviation.” The data suggested that, despite hallucinations, the crew’s minds were holding together, their shared experience becoming a binding thread that might prove essential in the alien environment.

Kael exhaled, fogging his visor. “I swear I heard that exact comm loop in the training sim,” he said, voice husky. “The same static, the same echo.” He glanced at Lila, still staring at the comm panel. “Maybe the planet’s remembering us,” she whispered, half-joking, half-serious, the words trembling like the hull itself.

Rhea turned back to the pulsing light. It still beat in time with the faint thrum of the base’s generators, aligning with her own pulse. “We’re not alone,” she said, more to herself than anyone else. “Whatever this place is, it’s alive and it knows we’re here.”

A pre-recorded message crackled over the intercom. “Obsidian-4, you have entered the atmospheric envelope of Arcturus. Proceed to designated landing zone. Maintain operational readiness. This is Commander Orin Vance, signing off.” The words were sterile, as if the planet itself were speaking through a human mouth.

Rhea pressed her palm to the glass, feeling the cold seep through her suit. The ice reflected the violet aurora, casting a ghostly glow across the shuttle’s interior. The hull’s breathing matched her heart, blurring the line between machine and organism. “Prepare for extraction,” she ordered. “We move as one.” The squad nodded, each step forward tempered by the strange communion they felt with the planet.

The shuttle’s doors hissed open, releasing a plume of frost that drifted like a veil over the base’s dim lights. Boots crunched on the crystalline surface, each footfall echoing the pulse they had felt seconds before. The base’s corridors stretched ahead, lit by flickering panels that sputtered like dying embers. The planet seemed to inhale, the hull vibrating softly, a reminder that every step was heard.

Inside the half-buried lattice, air was thin but breathable, filtered through nanofiber layers that stripped lingering methane. Diagnostic screens displayed temperature gradients, seismic activity, and a scrolling feed of neural sync percentages. Mira lingered at a terminal. “The shared dream signature is sustained,” she said. “It’s as if our subconscious minds have been woven into a single tapestry. If we can map it, we might use it as a communication channel that bypasses static.”

Rhea considered the implication. “Make it a priority. If the planet is responding, we need to understand how.”

Ion moved to the armory, his boots leaving shallow gouges in the frost. He opened the reinforced locker, revealing plasma rifles, kinetic hammers, and experimental pulse grenades. He lifted a rifle, feeling its weight, aware that silence here was louder than any gunfire. The weapons felt oddly out of place amid the soft, rhythmic breathing of the world outside.

Lila approached the communications hub, still unsettled by the echo of her own voice. She placed a hand on the main transmitter. “If the planet is talking back, maybe it can carry our words too.” She opened a diagnostic channel, isolating the echo that had mimicked her speech. The screen resolved into a jagged waveform that rose and fell with the same rhythm as the pulse on the ice.

“Do you see that?” she asked, voice low. “It’s not random. It’s patterned.”

Kael stepped beside her, visor reflecting the waveform. “It’s a resonance,” he said. “The atmosphere is acting like a giant acoustic chamber. Our transmissions are being refracted, amplified, and fed back to us. Like shouting into a canyon and hearing your own voice return, but alive.”

Rhea joined them, eyes scanning the data. “If we modulate the frequency, we might send a clear signal through the storm—our lifeline back to Command, or a probe of the planet’s response.”

A sudden tremor rippled through the base. Lights flickered, a low hum rose from the structural supports, growing louder. Mira’s console spiked; neural...

Produkt-Details

• Erscheint lt. Verlag: 4.12.2025
• Sprache: englisch
• Themenwelt: Kunst / Musik / Theater ► Malerei / Plastik
• ISBN-13: 9780001119383 / 9780001119383