The dream began the same way it always did.

Flicker Oliver Wickerson stood in the orange-tinted fields of Regula-8, the synthetic wheat and grass rippling in waves against the artificial breeze. The twin suns hung low in the sky, one amber, the other a dying crimson, casting long shadows that stretched like skeletal fingers toward the horizon. The air smelled faintly metallic, a reminder of the colony's biosphere regulators humming somewhere out of sight.

I was a boy again—thin, freckled, and filled with boundless curiosity. I held a small wooden drone, its wings battered from use, its paint chipped away in places. “Don’t go too far, Flicker,” my mother’s voice called from behind me. Her silhouette stood near the simple picnic blanket she liked to keep for days when the park was open to the public, her face always obscured in these dreams.

But Flicker ignored the warning, as I always did. I wound the drone’s key and let it take off into the sky. It soared higher and higher, its silhouette shrinking against the amber backdrop. I laughed, running after it as it dipped and weaved, my bare feet kicking up dust.

Then came the sound.

A low rumble that grew louder, a sound that didn’t belong in the peaceful park of Regula-8. Flicker stopped, my laughter dying in my throat as the sky darkened. The twin suns flickered unnaturally, an explosion, and then silence as the park vegetation became flattened by a pressure wave.

The shock wave, having knocked out my hearing, made me cry out for my mother. In the process of trying to find her, I looked up at the drone I had just sent sailing. It was now impossibly large, looming above me. Its wooden surface had transformed into the same black alloy that haunted the Mammut, pulsing with faint light.

The drone’s wings flapped once, and its eyes—eyes like miniature suns—opened, staring down at me with a red-hot, alien intelligence.

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Flicker woke with a gasp, the sound of his own breathing filling the small control room. His skin was damp with sweat, and his heart hammered against his ribcage.

The ship’s lighting had dimmed to a deep red, a clear sign that the Mammut’s systems were no longer functioning as they should. I rubbed my temples, trying to shake off the remnants of the dream, but its unease clung to me like static.

Sliding out of the narrow cot, I pulled on my boots and made my way to the corridor. The air felt heavier, and there was a faint hum—a vibration I could feel in my bones.

I didn’t need to look far to find the source. The black alloy had spread overnight.

Where it had once reached like grass roots covering some surfaces, it now coated almost half the corridor outside, its glossy surface reflecting my warped image as I approached. Veins of pale, pulsing light ran through it, like the glow of something alive. I crouched, running a gloved hand over the surface. It was cool to the touch, unnervingly smooth, and seemed to thrum faintly beneath my fingers.

“What are you?” I whispered.

I grabbed the handheld scanner from my belt, flipping through its settings as I pointed it at the alloy. The screen displayed fragmented readings—temperatures fluctuating wildly, energy signatures I couldn’t identify, and a faint, rhythmic pulse that almost mimicked a heartbeat.

The alloy was spreading in a deliberate way, as if it were consuming the Mammut.

After getting my EV suit on, I followed the blackened trail deeper into the ship, passing rooms now entirely overtaken by the substance. The hum grew louder the further I went, and my unease grew with it. In the engineering deck, where the alloy had first appeared, I found something new.

A symbol, etched into the black surface.

It wasn’t random—it was precise, geometric, and distinctly alien. Circles intertwined with angular lines, forming a pattern that seemed to shift subtly when viewed from different angles. My breath hitched as I crouched to examine it.

“What the hell is this?”

The pattern pulsed faintly, responding to my presence. My scanner buzzed in my hand, overloading with data before it abruptly shut down. Frustrated, I slapped it against my thigh, but the device remained dead.

The Mammut creaked, a groaning sound that echoed through the deck. For a moment, I thought I heard something—a whisper, faint and unintelligible, like a voice carried on a distant wind. I turned sharply, but the corridor behind me was empty.

I stared back at the symbol, my mind racing. This was no random infection or malfunction. The alloy was trying to communicate.

Somewhere deep within the Mammut, I realized, lay the answers I needed. But if the alloy was alive, then the Mammut itself might not be on my side anymore.

And that terrified me.

Walking onward, I saw more and more of the symbols, glowing faintly, their alien geometry leading me like a trail of breadcrumbs. They all pointed me toward one place.

The warp core.

It must have assimilated with it, drawing power, feeding on the energy. That was what made the alloy pulse, what gave it life.

“Time to find out what this thing has done to my ship,” I muttered, the words sounding hollow in the stillness.

And with that, I stepped into the belly of the beast.