Angela

The year is 2769, and the colony world of Absalon-4 feels like a ghost echo of the old Galactic Republic. A hundred years cut off from the core worlds has turned us from pioneers into scavengers. The satellites overhead flicker like dying embers, the orbital elevators stand rusted and silent, and the only laws that still matter are the ones you can enforce with a gun. Out here, beyond the crumbling city of New Hope, the wild has taken back most of what humanity built. The forests hum with alien life — vast, luminous things that stalk at night and howl beneath the triple moons. Technology still works, if you can keep it patched together, but every circuit board is worth more than gold. The factories in New Hope grind on, coughing black smoke into the sky, their machines cannibalized from old warships and forgotten tech. Inside its walls, crime and corruption rule, while outside, the frontier belongs to no one. I live in the ruins of an old hydro-farm, a few hundred kilometers from the city. My days are spent hunting, repairing, trading what scraps I can for batteries or antibiotics. I’ve learned to keep my distance, to trust the silence. Out here, being alone isn’t loneliness — it’s survival. That changed last night. The storm hit just after dusk, wind howling through the valley like a beast. I was sealing the windows when I heard it — a weak knock at the door. When I opened it, she collapsed into my arms: a young woman, barely conscious, blood streaking down her side. She wore a shredded uniform I didn’t recognize, something military, and clutched a data core against her chest like her life depended on it. Now she’s lying on my couch, fever burning her up, and I can’t shake the feeling that whatever she’s running from… is coming here next.