Chapter 1 – The Awakening
Nergui’s eyes struggled to open. The lids felt too heavy, stuck together with salt and grit. She rubbed at them with unsteady fingers, her hands sluggish, the movement strange, like her limbs weren’t entirely her own. A dull ache sat between her temples, pressing against the inside of her skull.
Shapes above her blurred, muted washes of green and brown shifting and twisting until, with a few slow blinks, the canopy came into focus. Sunlight poured through the gaps, lacy beams of gold cutting across the massive trunks and knotted limbs of ancient trees. A cool wind stirred the leaves overhead, masking the distant murmurs of voices.
She turned her head. A movement too sudden. Her vision swam.
“—decided yet?” A man’s voice. Rough. Unfamiliar.
“What do you mean, what?” A woman this time, her tone sharp with irritation. Deep. Familiar.
Nergui’s sluggish mind fought to place it, struggling against the haze of sleep and something deeper—something thick and suffocating like a fog that clung to her ribs and pressed down against her chest.
“You know what I mean,” the man continued, voice lower now, firm. “What are you going to do with her? Send her to the city?”
“No.”
The word was spoken with a finality that made Nergui’s stomach tighten.
“Elliah—”
“No.” Sharper this time. “Chuluun died so Nergui would be with family. She’s not leaving. I’m not sending her away. My blood. My life. She stays by my side.”
Nergui’s fingers curled against the rough fabric of the sleeping bag. That name. Her mother’s name. The sound of it twisted something inside her.
Silence stretched before the man spoke again.
“She can’t be older than seven. This is no place for a child. She should be with others her age. She needs to learn. School. She can visit when you’re not deployed.”
“She’ll learn everything she’ll ever need to know right.”
“Elliah, you don’t understand the situation—”
“No.” Elliah’s voice was a blade. “You don’t understand. The last child out of Messier’s World II is not meant to play with toys among the fat and spoiled children of Zwicky.”
Nergui’s breath hitched.
This wasn’t a dream.
She pressed her fingers into the inside of her elbow, hard. Pain flared, sharp and real.
Flashes from the day before seared across her vision, swallowing the waking world.
Then she was there again—
Her father’s lifeless body sprawled on the factory floor. Blood smeared across metal grates. The stench of burning. Walls shuddering. Explosions, deafening. Strong hands yanked her through smoke and darkness. A stranger’s grip, dragging her toward a ship she didn’t recognize, engines screaming.
Nergui sat up too fast. The world tilted sideways. She caught herself on the cool earth.
“Good. She’s awake.”
The conversation cut off instantly.
Nergui looked up.
A short man stood beside her aunt, mouth set in a hard line. Older than she’d first thought. Older than his voice implied. Thick shoulders, square jaw, a streak of gray in his dark hair. He shifted, casting a glance at Elliah.
Elliah.
She was watching her.
Nergui stared back, unaware of the others now.
For a moment, she thought she was looking at a stranger.
This wasn’t the woman who visited Messier’s World II once a year, who brought stories of the tallest trees in the galaxy.
Not the laughing Aunt Elliah who scooped her up in strong arms and spun her until they collapsed, breathless, giggling in a tangle on the floor.
This woman stood rigid, arms crossed over her chest, expression unreadable. Her shoulders had that stiff rigid posture born of a life lived in armor. There was a new scar cutting across the ridge of her jaw. Red, purple, and jagged. Her brown skin was sun-worn now, weathered.
And her eyes—
Devoid of humor. Hardened by the aching truth of this new life. Not mean. Not unkind. But fired, like charcoal glowing in the burn pits at night.
Nergui’s stomach twisted.
“Morning, Sunshine!” The short man forced a smile, but the weight of the moment made it feel wrong, out of place.
Elliah moved. She peeled off her gloves and shoved them against the man’s stomach, forcing a grunt from him as he caught them.
“Good. You’re up.” Elliah’s gaze locked onto Nergui’s. “Follow me.”
Nergui barely had time to register the command before a cup was shoved into her hands. She stared at it in a daze. The contents were green, thick, slightly translucent. She lifted it to her lips and drank. The thick warm liquid was oddly sweet, tropical, the faintest hint of something bitter at the end.
The moment she swallowed, Elliah yanked her to her feet.
It wasn’t rough. But it wasn’t gentle, either. The lesson had already begun.
The morning air was heavy with heat. Nergui wobbled as she was pulled forward, her legs still unsteady from sleep.
Elliah’s grip on her wrist was too tight.
Nergui followed without protest. There was pain here. And anger. She knew better than to resist.
They walked past the open-air tents, the campsite partially dismantled, supplies being loaded onto a hover skimmer. The short man glanced at them as they passed but said nothing.
Elliah led her to the edge of a cliff.
Below, the forest stretched in rolling green waves—a vast expanse of untouched wilderness. The sky above was pale blue-green.
And there, on the horizon like an ugly omen, hung a ship.
A ship just like the ones she’d seen in orbit around Messier’s World II.
The breath left Nergui’s lungs.
Flames. Smoke. Screaming.
Again it came rushing back—
Swirling around her, sucking her into that moment. Her father grabbing her shoulders. Shoving her toward the stranger.
“Go, Nergui. Go now.”
The last thing she saw before she was yanked away—Her father turning. Turning to fight.
A gunshot behind her, rang in her ears. She never saw him fall. But she knew. She had always known.
Nergui sucked in a shaky breath, swiping at her eyes with the back of her hand.
Elliah was watching her.
“You recognize those ships?”
“Yes.”
Elliah nodded. “These aren’t the same ones that destroyed your home, but they might as well be. These belong to Tartarus Unlimited. They’re here to strip this world down to its bones. It’s what they do. It’s all they do.”
Nergui said nothing.
Elliah turned back toward the tent. “Stay here. Watch them.”
Nergui stood frozen, staring at the ship in the sky.
She had been a child on Messier’s World II. Had played with toys. Laughed at cartoons. Argued with her sister.
Now she stood here, on the edge of a different world, watching the same kind of ship hover in the sky, its engines humming like a vulture waiting for something to die. Searching for it’s next prey.
Elliah returned, carrying a large weapon.
Nergui blinked. It was too big—almost comically oversized. The weapon draped across her aunt’s shoulders like a predator curled around its master.
Elliah set it down, pressed a sequence of buttons. A tripod snapped out from the bottom.
“Tartarus Unlimited is half the reason your momma, daddy, sister, grandmama—everyone we ever loved—is dead.”
The words hit Nergui like a blade. Her chest tightened.
The world narrowed.
The ship above loomed larger.
Her fingers curled into fists.
A slow burn rose in her chest—fear, pain, anger—consuming her, welding her life into rage.
Elliah watched, stone-faced. Together, they watched the ship crawl slowly across the sky.
Then, after a long, cold silence—“Do you remember the Fire Cats Grandmama used to tell stories about?”
Nergui’s face tightened. Her fists clenched without thinking.
“Yes. Fire Cats hunt monsters. They’re not afraid of anything.”
Elliah reached over the weapon, flipped a hard switch.
Nergui felt it hum—alive now, charging, pulsing with energy.
“That’s right, Nergui. I want you to imagine Fire Cats descending from the sky, tearing their ships apart with burning claws. See their flames swallowing the soldiers whole—the same way they swallowed our home.”
Nergui’s breath came faster.
A cold hand pressed to her shoulder.
“Can you do that?”
She looked up.
Elliah’s face was unreadable.
“I can’t summon Fire Cats for you,” she said, voice low. “But I promise you—we will destroy these monsters.”
Nergui looked at the weapon. Its black-gray metallic form seemed to call to her.
She turned back to the horizon— To the immense forest, its dense green canopy stretching toward the black, wedge-shaped Tartarus ship.
It sat so far away it didn’t feel real. Like a piece of distant garbage littering this beautiful day.
“Nergui—this button here. Press it. Then this one.”
Her small hand moved without hesitation, following Elliah’s instructions precisely.
The weapon discharged— A broken, jagged beam of particles and light flared outward, materializing somewhere far in front of them.
Nergui frowned, whispered. “Monsters.”
Elliah knelt beside her niece.
“That’s right—”
Together, they watched the charged particles arc across the sky.
The ship flashed. It shuddered— Then light tore it apart at the seams, spewing fire from every broken gap as its drives and weapons went critical.
Fire fused with the brilliant blue sky.
Wreckage rained down on the forest in ribbons of black, acrid smoke.
Silence.
“Monsters.”