"Huh, what do we have here?"

Sensor operator (third class, freshly promoted) Ekram Dirios looked at the screen, trying to match the detected silhouettes to anything in his database. Given the quality of their equipment and the distance between the ship and the detected object, it proved to be much more challenging than expected

"Piece of trash." Ekram muttered angrily, and decided to do the only rational thing left.

Apply percussive maintenance.

"Hey Ekram, be careful! If you break it, we'll have to haul it back to Earth for a replacement!" Another crew member shouted from the other side of their ship; granted, with most space taken up by cargo haul and the 'advanced debris collection system,' even the farthest points of the ship felt relatively close.

Of course, much like everything else on this budget-built ship, the 'debris collection system' appeared as a collection of salvaged (and rusted) parts from an ancient excavator, cobbled together and bolted onto the ship.

"Not my fault this thing is so useless. I'm amazed it even works at all." Ekram answered without looking back, nodding to himself with satisfaction as his screen became a little bit less blurry. "Now, what do we have here?"

"Hopefully some better salvage." The other crew member answered, focusing on his own job. He was operating the collection system, slowly putting some salvage into their mostly-empty cargo hold.

It's been few years since the Benerit Group was dissolved, and things were slowly stabilizing. Earth had enough time to invest freshly-gained assets and money into building factories and improving standards of living on the surface, and while things were far from perfect, there was hope.

In contrast, Spacians had their hands full. Multiple corporations that lost all their assets tried to sue Miorine and Earth, but it proved to be much harder than expected. The Benerit Group's charter actually granted Miorine the right to sell these assets, and the old law forbidding company owners from acting against the interests of their company was repealed years ago — ironically thanks to Benerit Group's own lobbyists.

With the Space League Assembly absolutely despising all former Benerit Group members, the former weapon dealers suddenly had no allies and barely any money. They were fading into obscurity, especially with their media companies now controlled by Earthians.

The Space League itself was undergoing forceful reforms, marked by numerous simultaneous investigations launched every year. The fact that SAL actually built a weapon of mass destruction capable of vaporizing any colony in the solar system made every person, both on Earth and in space, very suspicious of them; to put it lightly.

As the turmoil slowly died down, newly established companies sought new frontiers and methods to boost profits, especially since the perpetual corporate-sponsored wars on Earth had mostly ceased. ne of these companies was the newly founded Sky Unlimited Corporation, specializing in salvaging everything abandoned during the fall of the Benerit Group.

This led them here, to a supposedly abandoned secret research facility belonging to one of the former top corporations, orbiting Jupiter.

"You know, I'm really happy that we can send this straight to the boss." Ekram said, smiling at the memory of the CEO growing pale the moment he saw the images sent to him. Thanks to Permet communication, he could see them the moment they were found. The sight of the arrogant little Earthian trembling, excusing himself, and closing the channel was precious. "Serves him right, sending us here for months just to check some stupid rumors."

Indeed, once they reached the coordinates supplied by the company, their salvage operation (which was extremely expensive) was already a failure. The facility was still there, orbiting Jupiter… or at least it's pieces were. It seemed like it either his an asteroid, or suffer some kind of catastrophic failure. Whatever the reason, it was now just a pile of rubble that they tried to salvage somehow.

"MASV reported finding a larger part of the structure left intact. They're checking it now." Ekram heard once again from behind him. They relied on reports from Manned Salvage Vehicle, a small shuttle used to check what rubble was worth hauling and what was worthless and could be left behind. They needed it even more now that their sensors were malfunctioning. "You know, I wonder what happened here."

"Who knows? Whatever it was, they didn't manage to report back; otherwise, we wouldn't be here Maybe their sensors were even worse than ours, and they didn't notice a huge asteroid, or something." Ekram looked at his screen angrily.

For some reason, multiple parts of the space station were showing up weirdly on the sensors, and nothing he did helped. It was as if they were much denser than they should be, and they were also following a weird trajectory, not matching the rest of the station.

One of these pieces was currently being placed in the cargo hold. Ekram was half tempted to go outside and check himself is there was anything unusual about it; fortunately, the radiation sensors were showing nothing unusual, so it wasn't depleted uranium or something equally unpleasant.

"Weird."

"What's weird?" Ekram asked, not paying attention to his coworker, focused on his sensors. Did that piece of debris just move? Impossible, it had no engine, or any other means of propulsions. The sensors must be acting up again, or…

A horrible scream sounded behind him, and Ekram jumped, turning around. "What…" he tried to ask, only to fall silent in shock at the sight in front of him.

His coworker – Ryner, that was his name – was screaming in fright, looking with terror and disbelief at his control panel. Shining, violet crystals were growing out of it rapidly. Ryner's hand was pierced through by few of them, pinning him to the panel as he screamed and tried to pry it off, only for his second hand to be caught inside a fast-growing crystalline structure.

Ekram jumped towards his coworker, trying to pull him off the console. Ekram jumped toward his coworker, attempting to pull him off the console. After a few moments, their combined efforts yielded results in the worst possible manner.

Ryner's hands shattered, as if they themselves were made out of crystal. No sing of blood, skin, or anything – just differently colored crystal. In fact, Ryner wasn't bleeding himself. They both looked in horror at his arms, now ending in crystalline stubs.

Ryner kept screaming, and Ekram did the only logical thing. Ekram did the only logical thing—he jumped to a nearby communications console, attempting to contact the MASV. "Hey! We have… something on board!" He shouted. No answer. He tried to reach Earth, only to notice that the console was showing no signal. What? It was impossible! Nothing could stop Permet signals!

He reached for the emergency radio button. He reached for the emergency radio button. He needed to warn someone—somehow!

His hand touched the button and started to press it.

Crystals exploded from the communication console.

Second scream joined the first, but soon they were both silenced.

"This is weird. Why is this part of the station intact?" Teris, one of the two crew members operating MASV, asked as they both entered the wreckage. In fact, it seemed to be barely damaged at all, as if it was just shared off. "It looks creepy." He shone his flashlight down a short, intact corridor. Not even a crack was visible on the shiny, metal walls.

"Whatever happened, it's good for us. It means more salvage, and if the plans are correct, this should be the computer core." his coworker moved forward, turning right toward the corridor leading deeper into the wreckage. "Let's not waste any time. The faster we get it done, the sooner we can start flying home."

"It's not like a few minutes are going to change anything." Teris muttered, looking around. Something wasn't right, he knew it, but what was it? For some reason, this place gave him creeps.

He called their ship. "MASV checking in, everything green." He reported, and waited for the answer. When none came, he sighed. Stupid malfunctioning equipment. He tried again; still no answer. Great. Fortunately, they had a spare communication device in MASV.

He grew much more worried when that one also didn't work. Was there a communication problem on the ship itself?

He tried contacting his coworker; still nothing. That made no sense. Neither communicator could get any signal at all, which was impossible with Permet communications. He noticed his coworker coming back, and switched to their short-range emergency radio. "I think there is something wrong with the ship."

His coworker didn't answer. He was slowly floating in his direction, arms spread wide as if he was trying to hug him, and smiling serenely. "Hey, can't you hear me? We may have a problem here! It's not the time for smiling!"

Too late, Teris realized that something was very, very wrong

His suffering did not last long.

Suletta opened her eyes slowly, confused. It was early morning, too early even for her; the sun was still hiding behind the horizon, the sky barely lit up yet. She woke up too early, again. At least this time it wasn't another bout of pain or this weird, unexplainable discomfort she felt a lot nowadays; this time, it was just some weird dream.

Why was she dreaming of crystal flowers?

Weird.