They'd said they were ready for anything- but Ryder had a feeling that their current scenario might be the exception.

Once they'd convened on the bridge, the full team had been assembled; Ryder, Cora, Liam, Dr. Carlyle (the team medic), and several other members whom he hadn't been fully acquainted with yet. These included a few names like Greer, Kirkland, and Fisher, but he hadn't had the chance to associate any faces to said names- the situation had been far more urgent than they'd first realized.

Captain Dunn had explained to his father that Habitat 7- the designated planet for human colonists of the Andromeda Initiative- no longer matched the initial scans taken of it back in the Milky Way. It had been a 'golden world' then, a category reserved for only the most optimal conditions of viability. Now, it looked dead and gray, storms coating its atmosphere relentlessly.

On top of that, the jarring impact on the Hyperion had been caused by a seemingly solidified form of dark energy that branched off into tendrils and clusters all throughout the space around them. Navigating out of it had been difficult- its network of deadly tentacles was quite expansive. Whatever had happened in the last six hundred years, the Hyperion was the one paying for it now.

At the insistence of his father, Captain Dunn had reluctantly agreed to let them investigate further and see first-hand whether Habitat 7 was still a potential living space or not. So after gearing up and meeting in the hangar to board their two allotted shuttles, they were finally en route to the planet.

Ryder stood near the back of the ship's port-side, Liam standing next to him. Both of them gazed out the window into the void, marveling in both awe and apprehension at the crystallized appearance the dark energy took on.

"Wow, will you look at that?" Liam breathed, his voice barely above a whisper.

"Whatever it is, it stopped the Hyperion in its tracks," Ryder agreed, his voice matching his companion's tone almost identically.

"It appears to be an unstable mass of dark energy," SAM provided redundantly, causing him to roll his eyes. He was well aware of the cloud's composition- he was more curious as to why it was there- had it been a defensive network? A weapon? And who created it?

"Steer clear of it," he heard his father call out from the other shuttle, evidently having listened in on the comms.

"Getting some chop here," Fisher, their shuttle pilot, called out.

"Gravity Anomalies detected."

"I'll see if I can even it out-"

"My stomach would appreciate that."

After a few moments, the rocking of the ship faded away. "We're clear. Accelerating to cruising speed."

"Hard to believe we're finally doing this," Liam said quietly. Though Ryder could definitely detect anxiety in his voice, it was overridden by the sheer amount of excitement also present.

"Sure beats reading the brochures," he joked, hoping to alleviate some of the tension. What followed next ensured that his effort was in vain.

"Hang on, initiating atmospheric entry!" Kirkland yelled over the rising noise outside the shuttle.

"Flight guidance is scrambled!"

"It'll pass!"

"The controls are fighting me-"

"Adjust approach vector three degrees to starboard."

The clouds in front of the shuttles viewports finally dissipated, and everyone was able to see clearly what they were dealing with exactly.

"We're through- holy …"

"Shuttle-2, are you seeing this?" Ryder heard Cora whisper over the comms. He thumbed his omnitool to respond.

"Copy that. Doesn't look like a golden world from here."

The skies were a dull gray, punctuated by streaks of intense lightning. He couldn't see the ground from here due to a thick layer of fog or mist that coated the surface and rose high into the air, only allowing the peaks of what were likely mountains to remain visible.

"Ionization levels are rising-"

"Stay on course to the landing zone," came the commanding voice of his father, urging them forward in spite of the apparent danger.

"Oxygen levels are below minimum human requirements," SAM declared, further driving home the truth that they already knew, but refused to acknowledge; Habitat 7 was dead.

"Is this the right planet? I thought we had this all worked out …" Fisher muttered, trailing off in obvious disappointment to what they'd been faced with.

"Keep it tight, Shuttle-2."

Liam noticed something outside the viewport, and tapped Ryder repeatedly with the back of his hand to get his attention.

"Uh … the mountains are floating."

As ridiculous as that sounded, Liam was right- large chunks of rock and mountain-sized cliffs were suspended in the air without any apparent means to do so. Ryder could only assume that there was something interfering with the gravity-

"Look! Port Side!"

Everyone turned their attention to the left and drew a collective gasp. The ground was finally visible, but only due to what sat upon it- in the distance, they could see a massive black superstructure glowing with blue light and energy. Its exterior was angular and precise, more along the lines of an artificial artist's vision rather than an organic.

"That has to be advanced engineering," Cora blurted out, unable to contain her wonder.

"Hyperion, this is the Pathfinder," he heard his father transmit, "We've got evidence of an alien civilization."

At the revelation, the tactician in Ryder couldn't help but be brought to the surface. "Has anyone seen us?" he muttered, wondering whether they should be concerned about stealth at this point.

"What if they're not friendly?" Liam asked, apparently mirroring his thoughts.

"We stick to contact protocol," his father ordered firmly. "No use of deadly force unless hostile intent is clear."

An incessant beeping at the front of the ship drew his attention away from his father and towards the pilot console. Fisher noticed it too. "Shit! Ionization just spiked-"

He never got to finish his sentence. A bolt of lightning appeared to strike the port-side of the shuttle, and the next thing Ryder was aware of was a gaping hole where the window had once been. Parts of the floor and roof had been blown apart as well. He frantically assessed the damage only to see Liam struggling to hang on to the edge of the hole as the air pressure threatened to suck him out completely.

"LIAM!" he yelled, hanging onto what he could as he stepped forward and tried to reach the other man.

"RYDER!" Liam yelled back, crying for help. The situation had drained them of all rational thought as fear coursed through their veins and reduced their vocabulary to each other's names. Ryder extended his hand, now only a few inches away. Liam did the same, wrapping his arm around Ryder's wrist and trying to-

Something erupted in the ship itself, and the two were wrenched apart as the entire shuttle tore itself in two. The last thing Ryder saw was Liam shooting off into the sky to parts unknown, and a flower of orange blossoming from the remains of the shuttle before his gaze turned downward and he saw the several thousand foot fall that awaited him.

He screamed in panic as he desperate tried to activate his armor's thrusters to slow his descent- no luck.

"Acceleration increasing."

"NO KIDDING!" Ryder yelled at SAM, the AI's nonchalant tone only increasing his anger and anxiety in the situation.

"Your thrusters are malfunctioning."

"Get them working!" he ordered, calming down enough to begin thinking of various ways to survive this.

"Approaching terminal velocity."

"SAM!"

As he flipped again in the air, he caught what looked to be a somewhat stable ledge several hundred feet below him. Hurriedly, he tried over and over to ignite his thrusters …

Finally, something sparked and his thrusters came to life for a few precious seconds. Using them to guide himself over a few feet until he was close enough to reach out and touch a rock wall, then immediately aimed them downward. It wasn't much, but it slowed his descent enough to avoid being killed by the impact.

Even still, the slam against the rock jarred his skull enough to render his vision bleary and unclear. He became aware of not much else other than the faint sensation of sliding down the sheer face and tumbling a few times once he reached the bottom before coming to a rest on his back. The next stimuli was far more frightening- the hiss of air escaping.

He blinked rapidly, trying to clear his vision, and saw that the front of his helmet's faceplate had been broken. There were cracks running in a spiderweb pattern over the surface, something that would likely mean death with what SAM had said of the planet's atmosphere composition earlier. No oxygen, no more Ryder.

"Ah, shit …"

Forcing himself to move slowly and carefully rather than panicking and making the situation worse, he reached his left arm up and brought up his omnitool. Using his spare reserves of omnigel, he began to spray it over the visor and layer it on until it sealed the cracks and the hissing finally came to a stop.

Once he was sure that the apparatus was no longer in danger of failing, he let himself breathe deeply and lie flat on the ground in relief.

His desire to be a part of all this was decreasing with every new encounter Heleus threw at them.

Groaning, he rolled over and pushed himself up onto his feet. Now standing, he took a moment to simply look out at the landscape and observe just what kind of hell they'd walked into.

A few plants around him seemed to be dried out and brittle, their branches stretching from their base like inverted roots. Ahead of him, he could see the floating rocks and mountains that so oddly seemed just as comfortable in the air as their counterparts were on the ground. And above, the sky remained dim and foreboding.

"This is Ryder. Come in."

He received no answer.

"Hyperion? SAM? Anyone there?"

Again, nothing but static accompanied his distress call. He was so focused on it, he almost didn't hear the crashing of footsteps from behind him. He spun around while fully expecting to see a hostile, but relaxed when he saw it was only Liam. Miraculously, it appeared that he'd survived.

"Save … your breath … Ryder," Liam gasped out, drained of his energy from running. "Comm link's trashed. I'm surprised … we aren't too."

He was glad Liam was alive, but that was no guarantee that anyone else would be as fortunate. "Did the others make it?"

"I don't know, it was all a blur," Liam choked out. "Shuttle split in two … this is like some nightmare."

Ryder swallowed hard, and stood with him as they looked out at the horror before them.

"Yeah. No way this is home."