Chapter 1 

A Phantom Signal 

“Seven hundred meters?” Catch McCallister was on the hunt for the Omega Throne when her path dead-ended on the edge of a cliff. Now, she stood atop her mechanical companion’s shoulder like a parrot, and contemplated her next move. “I’d hate to fall down there.” She regarded the shadowy abyss with a sharp whistle.

Sure, she could have zigged down one side of the cliff and zagged up the other, but there was no telling how far down it went and Catch was pressed for time. To Catch, the fastest path was always forward. “You think the thrusters will make the jump?” 

Her mechanical ally gave a dismal groan.

 “Come on, girl. If there’s anyone who can make it, it’s us.” She flicked the bottom of her nose. “Besides, what’s the worst thing that could happen?”

A deeper groan reminded Catch of what happened last time.

“Yeah, well. It won’t happen again,” Catch said. “For a guardian, you’re awfully opinionated,” she muttered.

Catch tightened her gloves. “Come on. It’ll be fun.” She leaped into the air. Her guardian’s visor opened, swallowing her in one bite, and Catch sank into her baleen jumpseat. The canopy closed overhead. Her guardian’s virtual intelligence knew what came next.

“Nightwish? Nice choice, Athena.” Catch preferred new-alternative music. Especially the female vocalists who sounded like they’d been out partying all night, mostly because they reminded Catch of her own voice.

“Alright, ready?!” 

A reluctant metallic groan.

“Okay–Great!”

Wild laughter bubbled up from Catch’s belly and released at the top like a cork in a champagne bottle as she pulled the yoke to her chest. Her seven-meter mech became a purple streak rocketing into the sky. She threw her mech’s arms over her head for a little more acceleration. The gorge underfoot became a thin gray hair.

“Hell yeah!” Catch cried. She loved when it felt like her intestines were compressing into her pelvis. Her 6’9’’, two-hundred kilogram body sank into the baleen tentacles that made up her jumpseat. One hundred meters and no signs of slowing down. 

Two hundred meters and counting. Whenever she launched, she liked to see if she was strong enough to overcome gravity by lifting her arms, each of which had become as heavy as a car. While she never succeeded, one day she might.

Four hundred meters. The climate control kicked in and she pretended it was the outside air rushing past her. It brought back so many memories. Dragging a long breath into her lungs, she let the real-world melt away, the music fading somewhere into the background, and from behind closed eyes, she recreated the memory of a world that once brought her peace … 

Five hundred meters. As her hangtime crested, her intestines shifted back into position. Catch bit her lip in anticipation of what came next. She creased her brow. Like a racecar igniting a nitrous furnace, her thrusters jolted the two of them forward. 

Six hundred and fifty meters!

“I think I see it!” A red diamond illuminated on her mech’s heads-up display, enclosing a steely glint. Her target. She typed into the console at her fingertips, mapped her trajectory just past the edge. She’d slide to a halt on the other side of the gorge. She just had to nail the landing this time. 

Easier said than done. The crest of her arc came prematurely. 

“Umm, Athena?!” 

Darkness closed around the bottom half of her visor as she headed for the ashen abyss. The feeling of her intestines returned, like the mix of anxiety and excitement from the first sip of coffee. Catch’s palms went slick on the yoke as part of the mountain where she intended to land calved like a melting glacier. It was at this point she realized it wasn’t excitement. “Yeah, no – This is anxiety!” 

The stalactites below fed coal to the steam-engine that was Catch’s heart. She gulped. “Athena, ready the grapple!”

Using what energy replenished, Athena’s thrusters puffed them into a somersault. And like some web-slinging superhero, Athena fired. A direct hit! The ball in Catch’s throat remained as Athena reeled in to the falling boulder and stood atop like a surfer on a surfboard.

“This is fine. This is fine. It’s like a game of chicken.” She tried to calm herself down. But the faster the earth approached, the more she realized her head would never be harder than the earth. “Athena, harden the shields!” 

Catch gritted her teeth.

Of Athena’s own accord, a second grapple ejected from her wrist. The boulder left her feet and disappeared into the darkness. Catch dangled like a dreamcatcher blowing in the wind on the side of the cliff. 

Catch swallowed and her heart returned to her rib cage. “That wouldn’t have been so bad.” The clack of the boulder breaking vibrated in her teeth. Imagining Athena crushed like a tin can disgusted Catch. “Maybe this was the right move.” Athena gave a metallic groan so as to say, You think?

“Hey, take a look at that.” Catch gave a knowing smirk when fireworks celebrated in the corner of her HUD, Jump Length: 718m. “I knew you still had it in you.” 

Athena turned the fireworks into exploding hearts.

“Now how are we going to get out of this …”

Catch gritted her teeth as she pulled herself onto solid ground. She doubled over, sucking in long drags of air. It had been a year since she piloted Athena last and nearly forgot how much of a workout it was. 

“Is your broken autopilot part of the punishment too?” She picked herself up and the two of them continued over the dried rim of an extinction-level impact structure.

The climate control kicked in with a clunky whirl as the sweat beaded on Catch’s chest. Strings of chestnut hair clung to her chin. She pulled the hair out of her eyes.

At the bottom of its bowl, a lake of gray matter surrounded by charred grasslands and crooked trees. Fumes poured from dying volcanoes, turned the horizon into a creamy curtain hanging over craggily terrain. 

“This thing–this Omega Throne–my father wants must be pretty important if it’s brought us to a dying world,” she said. Athena replied with a slow groan. Catch tapped the HUD and placed a location tag at the tip of the stone monument before her. “Just a thousand meters?” A smile stretched up her cheek. “And it looks like Princess McCallister will be the first to uncover that secret!” 

Catch’s grapple struck like a viper but glanced off the rock and returned to Athena’s wrist. A cartoonish tutorial of how to use the grapple effectively displayed on her visor; Athena jostled as if she was laughing. Catch’s smile brimmed as well. 

“It’s good to have you back, Athena.” 

Athena’s wrist opened and a pike ejected. Like an olympic javelin thrower, Catch lodged the tip into the rock, jumped on the hilt, and trampolined herself onto another ledge. 

Why would the Earth Defense Force reinstate her guardian after her court-martial, anyway? She would never forget the austerity the court possessed as they burned the charges into her mind: Criminal negligence and recklessness. 

Bullshit …

Athena’s gears snapped Catch back to reality. She drove the next pike into the cliff with Herculean strength.

Catch’s father had something to do with overturning the court’s decision–she knew it. She could hardly bear the thought of that man without grinding her teeth. It was his way of saying sorry, without confronting the real issue. 

Volcanic spew impeded the view of the cliff’s top. Catch toggled the infrared and her target came into view like a mist of salt-and-pepper particles. 

Why did her father convince the court to give Athena back? So that she could explore this planet? No doubt he told them it would be considered a punishment for what happened on Waypoint. Did her own father seriously believe she deserved this?! 

She thrust another pike into the rock. The staff splintered.

Her father tried convincing her this was the only way she could clear her name and rejoin the Pioneers (EDF-P). Truth be told, Catch didn’t give a damn about the program anymore. 

Whether to provide evidence to Catch, or to manipulate her, her father played the S.O.S. signal he received on Waypoint. There was a woman. Somewhere towards the end of the recording she sounded like she resolved herself to die. Her father knew all too well that if Catch could help someone in need, she would. 

Catch wondered if her father was bold enough to fabricate the message; her blood boiled at the thought.

Few things put Catch’s mind at ease. But there was one that always seemed to do the trick: the Polaroid of a young boy. She plucked the photo from the corner of her dashboard, held it with tender care. The boy was no older than ten, his mid-length hair faded from her constant handling of the photo, and his crooked teeth … well, at least his smile never faded. 

Just focus on finding the Omega Throne, she chided herself. Then you can put this all behind you. She replaced the photo.

Through breaks in the clouds, Catch gathered glimpses of the top of the structure and saw a metal glinting at its summit; her mouth felt as dry as the rocks in Athena’s grip and her stomach clenched.

She was so close.

Something in the chasm? 

Catch pulled the details of the notification on the side of her visor. Amid the mess of red squares, a heat variation–like so many others she’d come across. She double-checked her thermal-sensors: Offline. Her instruments flickered. Ribbons attached to the vents of the climate control collapsed like exhausted butterflies. 

“Must be target-tracking?” She garnered a closer look. “But what could be alive on this planet?” Something moved among the debris. The rocks in the bowl shuddered. “What the hell?” 

And in the next moment, something like a shoot sprouted from the rock beside her. She studied it like a child looking through a magnifying glass. She shrieked when two antennas sprouted. Athena’s flamethrower turned a colossal cockroach into a spray of boiling guts. 

She shuddered away goosebumps. “God I hate bugs!” 

The only thing she hated more than bugs was being ridiculed. The side-splitting crackling on the other end of her comm made her roll her eyes in anticipation of what came next.

“What’s’a matter, love?” asked Barrett. “We’ya runnin’ from some widdle bugs again?” Barrett’s thick Australian accent made it difficult to understand half of what he said. 

Catch objected. “Little?! That thing was the size of my fucking arm!”

Her brother’s laughter transformed into wheezing. “Oh, god! Oh, god … Please, I can’t … Another embarrassing photo for the collection.” A photo of the moment her expression became marred with horror appeared on Athena’s viewer. “I can’t wait to show Alfredo." 

“Alfredo?” For a week she’d had her suspicions that someone was making fun of her behind her back. Of course it would be her brother. “I fucking knew it! You’ve been showing the crew embarrassing photos of me!”

“I showed a few people, yeah.”

“A few?! Scott, a crew member I’d only just met, showed me a photo taken ten years ago. You’ve shown more than just a few people!”

“I will neither confirm, nor deny anything. I can only admit, last time was a little out of line. But– come on– you had your hand in your underwear–And the drool coming off of your chin. It was a masterpiece.” He blew a chef’s kiss.

Catch hated it when her eye started to twitch. “Scott?”

“Ya-huh?” Scott replied.

“I’m going to kill you …”

"Everyone, stay focused.” The hair on Catch’s neck stood on end; it was the Commander. The Commander’s voice could make a charging bull think twice; it mirrored the man he was. “The sooner we activate these Thrones the sooner we can go home.” 

“Yeah–alright. Home sounds pretty good right about now, anyway. We could all use some R&R. Time flew by after what happened on Way–” Despite being separated by thousands of miles, the air between them disappeared, sucked into outer space. “Shit, I’m sorry, Cat. I didn’t mean anything by it.”

Catch didn’t take offense because of what her brother said–he said a lot of stupid things. There was no escaping the memory of Waypoint. “Forget it,” she replied. “Just remember, the first person to find their Throne gets to have the others tattooed. And I hope you can explain Princess McCallister as she rides into battle on her trusted unicorn.”  

***

Scott McCallister saw the fire burning in his sister’s eyes. He shuddered at her challenge. Catch bailed Scott out of more situations than he could count. Each time, he saw the relentlessness with which she overcame obstacles. He was just glad he only felt the brunt of her lectures.

What he said –or didn’t say–about Waypoint– he felt like a cement truck ran over his insides. Seeing the look on his sister’s face. That dejection. He knew a year wasn’t enough time to heal the guilt that she felt. 

Sometimes he wanted to kick his own ass.

Scott and his reconnaissance mech, Helios, sat on the edge of the caldera and gazed over the gray sea, watching the waves lap against the rocks below and push congealed matter onto the shore. The islands in the center of a bay were similar to the ones in the Mediterranean back home–but more ashy, and distinctly less alive. 

Helios swung his legs over the side of the cliff like a five-meter tall metal child sitting on the edge of oblivion while Scott studied the hollow ruins of the civilization that once occupied this land. His contemplation guided his thoughts to a metaphor for how he felt about his own home life. The biggest difference: the children that lived in these homes probably had fathers more compassionate than his own. He pushed his resentment deep down and started his descent. 

Helios’ autopilot took the reins and he plodded as he descended through knee-deep rubble, sinking further with each step. Scott laid back into his baleen seat, snatched the latest issue of Mad Jugs from behind his seat, and proceeded to “read the articles.” Helios soon trekked through rubble like a first generation scuba suit on the ocean floor.

Scott’s incessant need for stimulation made it a burden to keep his mouth shut. A leaf floating in the wind one time turned into a story about Star Wars Episode XX: The Wanted Jedi. But he couldn’t help it–he always had something important to say. 

“They’re dead, you know,” Scott interjected. “The person who sent that S.O.S. signal that dad received–They’re definitely dead.” When Scott heard a valuable blip on the HUD, he brought his nose up from his magazine, typed into his multitool, and the autopilot shifted accordingly.

Stolen story; please report.

Objections met his cavalier tone—as was to be expected. 

“I won’t believe that,” Catch interjected. “She could still be alive. We’ll find her.”

“I think you mean ‘find her remains.’ You’re so hopeful. Yet, so naive,” Scott said.

Catch rejected this. “Hopeful? Funny, coming from the guy who’s only hope of getting ahead relies on the failure of others.”

“Catch, given the circumstances, your brother is probably right,” the Commander started.” Scott stuck his tongue out at his sister. “But the sooner we locate the source, the better this person’s chances of survival.” His sister poked her tongue back at him. “Just remember, our main concern is the Thrones.”

“Yeah-yeah,” said Scott. “You know, I guess I don’t really care either way. Money’s still the same for me.” He pinkied the wax from his ear and flicked it somewhere in the cockpit. “Catch, did you say something?” 

The objections from the fools who volunteered for this job were becoming music to his ears. “Whoa, don’t hate the guy with a plan. Hate yourself because you didn’t think of one. You thought I’d come to this planet to look for some magic box on the wishes of a narcissist? I need cold hard cash because I’ve got bills to pay. If they catch me.” 

While his father wasn’t directly paying him for the mission, he was leading him to a trove of untapped mineral deposits. His target: The island in the center of the ashen bay–an iridium deposit. 

He could already taste the prostitutes’ lips on his and the top-shelf booze. All he needed was a little fast, easy–

When a rock wall broke away from the mountain he rode it down like a regolith slip-n-slide, careened into the water, and he lay there at the bottom, pebbles dinging against his visor. 

Scott played it cool as the multitool on his wrist populated with the biggest iridium deposit he'd ever seen. Inside, he was foaming at the mouth. 

Hands folded behind his head, he kicked back in the water. Just wanted a minute to enjoy the warmth. "Mute the comm, Helios. A billionaire can’t relax with all this chatter. And--uh--if my sister calls, answer on the third attempt, would’ya.” 

Helios rising out of the water was his way of saying, “We need to keep moving so no one becomes suspicious.” Scott rolled his eyes, but there was a reason he modified his programming: sometimes he needed guidance. It was one of the only adult decisions he’s made in his life. 

He sloshed ashore and continued through a decayed tropical paradise.

“Cat, do you remember the time we were working on the gerry-box and dad told me to get the mod strips? I feel like this is then. You know, us running around on a wild mermaid chase, looking for something that doesn’t exist.”

Catch scoffed. “That’s not how it happened. If my memory suits me well--which it does--you opened the toolbench, shrugged, and walked out. You didn’t even look for them!”

Scott placed a pike into the rubble. “Oh, I looked. They weren’t in there.” 

“You mean they weren’t in plain sight!” 

“Exactly.” His pike slid into the rubble as smooth as glass.

“I was trapped in there for six hours! And you didn’t even apologize.”

He was certain the mineral deposit was somewhere around here. “Yeah-yeah-yeah.” He wiped sweat from his brow. "You know, I bet dad's listening to us, right now. He’s probably put a transmitter in Helios." 

The Commander chuckled. “Your father's got enough on his plate as it is; he doesn’t need to be looking over his kids’ shoulders too.” 

“Besides, he doesn’t need microphones or trackers in Helios.” Catch’s tone seemed to lower over him like a puppeteer making a marionette come to life. “Haven’t you wondered how he always knows where you’ve been? When we were fifteen, dad and I snuck into your bedroom and clipped one right. Into. Your. Neck.”

Scott gulped.

“And for the record: mermaids do exist. You just need to believe hard enough."

Scott derided her account like a boy dismissing the promises of a used-guardian salesman. “I only believe in one thing–”

Scott’s pike gave a dense thunk on something just beneath the surface; Scott’s heart pounded in his throat. By the armful, Helios scooped rocks and threw them aside. Closer, he used a more delicate technique. His finger scraped against something metal; Scott ejected, raked his hands across the debris. But to his surprise, it was not the largest chunk of iridium he’d ever seen. 

Steel vines wrapped around what looked like the trunk of a tree. Atop, something like a glowing interface.

He’d found it…

*** 

Barrett Coleman used his arms like cannons as he tossed palm trees over his shoulder and muscled his way through a charred forest, intently following the silver veins snaking across the ground. The sweltering heat trapped between the gray ocean and the ever-bleak horizon, turned his power armor into a steam room, which helped to loosen his joints, but he could only stand it for so long and stripped himself to his Jockeys and the gauntlets of his power armor. 

Like a bear searching for his prey, he sniffed the forest floor, his breath uncovering the silver glint beneath a layer of ash, and he continued to stalk the trail. Anyone meeting Barrett would be surprised to learn he was seventy; the man could still–literally– tango with anyone half his age. He just creaked and popped a little more. 

A tree collapsed like an ashen umbrella, dusted his already gray dome, and he shook it off as he focused on his task at hand. “Come oh boy, where are ya?”

It was like his legs were literally pulling him through the forest, bushes flattened under his heavy frame. He paused as he came to a clearing and gave a sigh of relief equal to finishing a day’s worth of garden work in the sweltering sun.

“ ‘Ermes, where the hell ya been. I’ve been lookin’ for ya for hours.” Hermes was Barrett’s dusty blue guardian with a similar body type of the pilot and only enough room for one person in the cockpit. “Who would’a thought a piss break would leave me runnin’ ‘round the island, lost like a blind pig. At any rate, ya should be done with that prototype.”

Barrett had turned Hermes into a workbench when he first arrived. He’d found his Throne hours ago—before the bet was even announced—on an island that looked like the aftermath of hurricane Maria. But recently, he’d learned to enjoy the little things, and gained more pleasure out of watching the kids compete. Besides, he could use a new tattoo to cover the ram skull and crossbones on his shoulder. 

Hermes’ chest opened up and unveiled the house of his weapon, green Omega streaks glowed through it. His teeth removed the gauntlet from his typing hand and held the house in his leathery mitts as he navigated updates with his omnitool. 

“The boss’ll wanna get a load of this. Good work, bud.” 

The upload was severed when the silver shell fractured—shattered—and fell between his fingers. He cursed and knew he’d have to start over. “All part of the process.”

His omni-driver was six turns from completion when a message from Scott flashed on Hermes’ HUD. Help, it read, which Barrett responded to like a contestant hitting the buzzer on Family Feud. 

“What is it, mate?! Where are you?! I’m comin’!” 

A boomerang opened with Scott uncrossing his arms to give the finger as he leaned against the Throne he’d uncovered, captioned with his signature in the corner and a FirstMotherF****rs.

“Plain sight just like it should be. Now, what am I going to have tattooed on your forehead?!” 

Catch cursed.

Barrett did too, held his chest as if to stop his heart from attacking. “That ain’t funny mate. You coulda been hurt. But you might be when I getta holda ya!”

“Yeah-Yeah. So, these things are like … super-computers? Or something like that, right?” Scott asked.

“Not quite, mate. That’s just the best way your father and I think people will understand them. They’re their own technology.”

“Omega Technology,” Catch corrected. “You know, like the Tether. That thing that allows you to travel from planet to planet fucking anything that moves.”

“Oh, yeah. Now I remember.”

“That still ain’t quite right, girlie. Now, ‘ow bout I have a go with the old selfie-stick.” Barrett couldn’t help but take a selfie with his Throne. All the hip youngsters were doing it, after all.

***

An image appeared on Jupiter’s HUD: Barrett standing beside the second Throne, his foot atop the house of his chaingun and the Pioneer's Earth's Defense Force  (EDF-P) flag fashioned into a cape flapping heroically around his shoulders. A second photo captured him tripping on his way to collect his multitool.

“Barrett, you’re not a Pioneer …” Catch’s tone was ready to scold. “So where’d you get that flag, then?” Barrett joked that he would never tell.

Commander Brayley had his own theory …

Disgusted, he discarded the image of Barrett into the trash. When a doctored version of Barrett wearing lipstick and long blonde hair re-appeared, the twins laughed. Brayley’s lips remained furled tightly.

Jupiter and Brayley trudged through murky waters, following the location of one of those things in the distance. Black matter spider-webbed up Jupiter’s creamsicle legs, into his blood-moon chest piece.

Three times … That was how many times Marc McCallister had explained the importance of the Thrones to him. A fourth, and he’d have cursed his memory. Then again, he didn’t need to know how they worked. He just needed assurance they would work.

He ignored the figures manifesting behind a curtain of fog as he sloshed through the waters. Like shadow puppets playing games on drying bed sheets, he dismissed them as the arms of rotting trees swaying in the wind.

In the corner of his cockpit, sitting just above his instruments, a picture of a woman with dark skin. Her long brown hair flowed mid-whirlwind. Her smile radiated a happiness that made Brayley smile too, however fleetingly. For the life of himself, he couldn’t remember if she loved the image because he took it at the wrong moment, or at just the right one.

Each step felt like escaping the grip of a hungry tarpit. He continued onto mossy lands whose velvet surface crawled like the goosebumps rising over his skin. Dense fog closed in around him, like a hand around his throat.

Asphyxiating stillness. He swallowed hard. Behind the drying bed sheets, a silhouette. From beyond the veil: Her voice?

His massive stride carried him as fast as a dragster. Scum clung to Jupiter’s feet and branches lashed out at him, snagging his legs like a fishing line on drowning trees. Brayley stumbled, but he was too close to let her slip away. He crawled. Reached. At the feet of her silhouette, he held her ankles–anything to keep her tethered here. When the silhouette evaporated, his hands plunged into the murky waters. 

His exhale brought with it: “Elizabeth …”

Brayley found his Throne sitting under the surface of the water, lodged in the muck. Its obsidian body, made of metal. Its face, a holographic interface lit with glowing icons. Trapped beneath the glass, something like eels beckoned him to swim below the surface. They called out to him like a whisper …

Jupiter’s visor opened; Brayley’s envirosuit formed around his body as he crossed the cockpit’s threshold; and he stretched out to touch its obsidian face. 

All he wanted was to help people …

***

Catch huffed as she pulled herself over the final ledge.   

The Throne was larger than she imagined it would be, about twice her frame. Its outer shell, petrified, and its base like a twist of vines reminded her of a bowthorpe oak back home. The nasty scars on its trunk led her mind to the memories of the Koh bear on Waypoint. She shook off the chill that ran up her spine. 

When she disturbed the ash on its surface, her hand left a wake of illuminated keys. Each Throne is like the pin inside of a lock. Once they’re all lifted, they’ll unlock the Omega Throne, she could hear her father say. The key to each pin is your guardian’s V.I.. Plug them in. They’ll do the rest. Emerald light rolled over its surface as she dunked a hexagonal cuff into the keyframe. Her Throne came to life like lighting up a Christmas market, and in the center was an initiation button that manifested in a culmination of green light. She cursed in wonderment.

“Alright. Everyone ready?” Brayley confirmed with the team before they began initiation. “Scott?… Catch?… Trinity?”

“Oi! I told ya, I ain’t workin’ for Trinity no more! I’m ready…you bastard…” Barrett mumbled some other obscenities.

“Ready,” Catch replied.

“Born ready!” said Scott.

“Remember to prepare for hazardous ejections once they’re initiated. Alright, let’s sync count.”

“After one, Barrett,” Scott teased.

As the two bickered back and forth about rock-paper-scissors shoot, Athena picked up something in the valley. Vapor distorted the surface, but to her surprise there was no atmosphere density disparity or temperature variation. A translucent figure on the edge of the lake became the main fixture across her visor, running across the bottom of the valley, its long arms and legs gangly and moving in impossible directions. 

“Alright. Three–”

Based on the landscape, the figure had to be eight feet tall. It waded through the waters frantically, like it was searching for something precious. It subsided– 

“Two–”

And she realized, like a chameleon locked-on to its prey, it was looking right at her. 

Stay away, if you know what is good for you, human. 

“One–”

It was like someone was leaning over her and whispering into her ear, but there was no one there. The water parted, and the creature disappeared beneath the surface. 

“Initiate.”

Catch dismissed the chill that ran up her spine as a wave of ethereal light raced across the land, chased by a rumble in the earth. Like a blackhole sucking her into its hungry maw, a blackness was consuming–but only if she let it. 

She wouldn’t. 

She couldn’t. 

“Hold on, everyone!” Brayley commanded over howling winds.

Suddenly, the world felt cold. 

Time froze in a charcoal-glitter dreamscape. Eventually, the windstorm subsided and the four of them found themselves trapped inside this otherworldly realm. They were equally separated in a rhombus shape outside of their guardians and standing in their underwear. Catch’s tank top flowed loosely around her chest and her shorts stopped well-short of her fingertips. 

“Barrett, where the hell are your pants!” She exclaimed, averting her eyes.

“Oi, I didn’t know I’z gonna be in front of all of ya!”

“I think it’s liberating. Good for you, Bare.” Scott interjected.

As their surprise waned, they came to grips with … wherever they were. Brayley watched the center of the nothingness like a raptor; he knew someone was standing before them. A woman, staring at the ground.

“Omega-particles?” Barrett muttered.

Pixels floated like bubbles before them, an illusion manifesting in the form of a woman with sandstone skin and fuchsia hair that fell down the middle of her back. The gaze held in those pine-colored eyes, made Catch feel like she could see the woman standing in the rain, cold and alone. For a moment, it felt like the woman was suspended in time.   

Catch’s insides felt like sparklers. She wanted to reach out to the woman, but all she mustered was, “Hello?”

A long bang swooshed across the woman’s face as she stared at Catch. The look in her eyes registered fear–as if she’d seen a ghost–then turned to disbelief.

“Someone’s finally come,” said the woman.

“Who the hell is that?” Scott asked.

“It’s probably a recording rigged to activate with the Thrones,” Brayley replied.

“Barrett, I thought you and my dad were the only ones who understood this technology?” Catch asked.

Her question went unanswered when the woman’s spicy words shot back, “I am not a recording!” She held her hands on her hips and tapped her sabatons impatiently. 

“She’s alive?” Catch muttered.

The woman was royally beautiful. She flipped her hair, threw her bang behind her ear, revealing her high cheekbones. “I’ve been trapped here for a million years and I’d like to be rescued! Thank you very much! And that's not hyperbole! It’s been a very long time! So get me the hell out of here!”

“Whoa-whoa-whoa! I’m out!” Scott said, looking for a way out of this place. He couldn’t go forward towards the woman because he hit a glass wall, so he looked for some invisible door behind him. “She sounds like a handful. I’ll see you guys on the ship.”

“Oh, come on, mate. She ain’t angry.” Barrett looked her over. The knitted eyebrows. The pursed lips. “Well, maybe a little. But a real man has to learn how to cope with a venting woman. You’ll learn. An’ey, she ain’t bad lookin’.” 

The woman gave Scott the cold shoulder–which Scott had seen many women give him–and said, “I didn’t think you were up for the challenge anyway.”

“Up for the challenge?!” he repeated. “I’ll have you know I love challenges. Alright! I’m back in!”

“Yeah, until you give up because it’s too difficult,” Catch teased.

“It’s not because it’s too difficult. It’s that–you know–I like to know that my charm is working so I can keep pursuing.”

The woman and Catch shared an identical eye roll and folded their arms. It was like they were standing in front of a mirror. 

As the blackness began to deteriorate the woman looked at Catch, but before she could speak, like shattering glass, the dreamscape fell apart and she was brought back to the real world.

Athena’s sensors went haywire as an aurora erupted from the cracks in the ground. A perfectly timed dampener, light broke over Athena’s body like she pulled a blanket over her head. But it couldn’t protect her from the rocks buckling beneath her feet.

Diagnostics and warning lights created a cacophony in Athena’s mouth as debris slid past her, spiraled at the bottom of the crater like water circling a drain. From the center of the whirlpool, a stone citadel emerged.

Catch cursed. “Who the hell would come to a dying world anyway?!” She was on the move, dodging the boulders carried on the shoulders of roaring winds.  

Among the hundreds of specks strobing across her HUD, only two interested Catch: a cave, and the camouflaged creature hanging from its lip. As the ground fell away, she followed him, using the boulders as stepping stones.  

Once again, there was his voice. Turn back if you know what's good for you! His voice was like that of a war-torn Nigerian; every hair on her neck stood on end. 

Normally, she would have locked away any fear she had. But right now, fear is not what she felt. Whoever this person was, he was going after the woman who sent the S.O.S. signal too; he was attempting to steal Catch’s only chance for redemption. And she wouldn’t allow that. 

“I’m not leaving here without that woman.” 

The visor of Athena’s cockpit opened and Catch ejected, her envirosuit forming around her body as she caught the lip of the cave, mid-way up the side of the citadel. She rolled inside as Athena was swept away with the winds. On the upswing, Athena’s jets kicked in and she hooked around the rising structure. 

“Maintain standby, Athena.” Catch’s visor divided, retreated into the base of her neck revealing strings of sweaty hair clinging to her face, and mud-colored eyes sprinkled with flecks of amber. Her persistent smirk and thick eyebrows beset a permanently mischievous look about her. 

First, she needed to find the Omega Throne. Then, she’d teach that guy a valuable lesson about invading someone's personal space.

Catch pulled her hair into a ponytail and she proceeded into the citadel.