The first thing to come back was pain.

  Not sharp pain, but a crushing ache in every joint, a slow thaw that felt like molten lead coursing through Isabel Vega's veins, while icy silence filled her ears, heightening the sense of disorientation.

  She tried to breathe. Her chest would not move.

  The pod did it for her. A mechanical pulse compressed her ribs, forcing a ragged breath into her lungs. Lights bled in through her eyelids, blue and white. She tasted metal and the sour afterburn of cryo gel in the back of her throat.

  "Unit Helios Three, stand by. Final phase resuscitation," a calm machine voice said somewhere above her.

  Vega dragged her eyes open.

  The world was a rectangle of frosted polymer inches from her face. Condensation ran in thin rivulets, catching pulses of emergency lighting. Her reflection looked back at her, blurred, pale, eyes like dark stones sunk deep in her skull.

  She swallowed and felt nothing. The pod's life support still owned her throat, her breath, her pulse.

  "Vega, Isabel. Captain. Status: viable," the voice went on. "Neural function at ninety-one percent. Musculoskeletal at sixty-three. Preparing for decant."

  Her hands tingled. She realized they were pinned at her sides, encased in the pod's retention foam. Try as she might, she could only flex her fingers a few millimeters. Pins and needles bloomed in her arms and legs.

  The clamps released with a series of metallic clicks.

  Coolant hissed. Gravity asserted itself with a lurch. The pod tilted and then split down the middle with a deep, hydraulic sigh. Warm, wet air washed over her, rich with recycled oxygen and the faint antiseptic tang of the cryobay.

  She fell forward.

  Reflex woke a fraction of a second faster than strength. Vega caught herself on shaking hands, bare knees skidding across the cold deck plating. Cryo gel sloughed off her in thick, translucent sheets, splattering across the grated floor.

  She stayed on all fours, head hanging, hair dripping, lungs working like bellows.

  All around her, the bay came to life.

  Pods unsealed with a synchronized exhale, revealing a chaotic scene of men and women tumbling out, gasping and cursing, their cries echoing in the tense silence of the cryo bay.

  Forty pods in two staggered rows. Thirty-seven marines, all waking up together, sharing this moment of chaos and resilience.

  "On your feet, Helios," someone growled. "Let us pretend we are professionals."

  The voice was rough as gravel and amused despite everything. Vega knew it without looking.

  "Sergeant Ito," she rasped, forcing herself upright.

  Kneeling felt like balancing on rusted bolts hammered into bone. She pushed through it. The foam-induced numbness slowly retreated, leaving her limbs prickling and heavy. She brushed freezing gel from her arms and torso, fingers leaving smeared tracks across her skin.

  The Fleet did not waste mass or worry about modesty. No one in cryo wore anything that could bind, tear, or interfere with the pod seals. Vega, like everyone else in Helios Three, woke in nothing but standard-issue black boy shorts. The rest of her was bare, slick with thawing gel and sweat, each breath steaming faintly in the chill.

  She got one foot under her, then the other, and rose.

  Across from her, Sergeant Kenji Ito hung half out of his pod, gripping the vital line with trembling hands, tearing it free with a wince, then ripping the IV from his forearm and collapsing onto the deck, shoulders shivering against the cold, hair plastered to his forehead as he gasped for air.

  He looked up and met her eyes, and for a second, the corners of his mouth twitched.

  "Captain," he said, voice raw. "You look like hell."

  Vega wiped a smear of gel from her face and flicked it aside. "Check a mirror before you talk fashion, Sergeant."

  He gave a hoarse, broken laugh that turned into a cough. "Mission?" he croaked when he could breathe again.

  "I am awake," she said steadily. "That's the first step. We'll handle the rest from here."

  Around them, Helios Three was assembling itself out of chaos. Marines staggered to their feet, some using the pods as support, others just rolling to their backs and sucking air. Nobody bothered to cover themselves; after years of Fleet service, there was nothing they had not already seen.

  Private Watson, whose callsign Gearhead was a permanent stain on his records, managed to stumble straight into another marine, both of them skidding in a puddle of gel.

  "Shit, sorry," he started.

  "Watch your feet, Watson," Lena Park said flatly, sidestepping them.

  Park moved with eerie economy for someone fresh out of cryo. Her long, dark hair hung in damp ropes down her back, and her pale skin was mottled with the gooseflesh of sudden waking. She did not bother to wipe the gel from her body; she stripped the sensor leads off her chest with quick, precise motions, dropped them into the reclamation bin, and started walking.

  "Park," Vega called.

  "Ma'am."

  "Walk it off, do not run it off. I do not need you pulling anything before we even see the planet."

  "Yes, ma'am."

  No protest, no sarcasm. Park's eyes, always a little distant, met Vega's for half a second and then flicked away. Behind that controlled gaze, there was the same post-cryosleep exhaustion, the same faint disorientation everyone wore, but she held it on a tighter leash.

  "Helios Three, muster in Shower Bay One," the ship's voice ordered, crisp and indifferent. "Decontamination cycle in five minutes. Medical scan stations are active. Hydration required."

  "Five minutes?" Watson croaked from the floor. "Tell the AI my legs are still on ice."

  "The AI does not care," Ito said, pushing himself upright. "And neither does Major Taggart."

  At the mention of the name, the noise in the bay dropped a notch. Even half awake, everyone recognized the weight attached to it.

  Vega rolled her shoulders, ignoring the stab of protest from underused muscles. "On your feet, Marines," she said, voice carrying farther this time. "You heard the lady. Shower, then gear. We hit briefing in twenty."

  Heads turned toward her. Forty sets of eyes, bloodshot and heavy-lidded, focused on their captain. There was no ceremony, no formal salute, just an instinctive straightening of backs and a slow, grudging order to the chaos as they limped toward the hatch.

  Vega started walking.

  Bare soles slapped on cold metal as Helios Three filed out of the cryobay. The corridor outside curved with the ship's spine, low ceilings packed with piping and bundled cables. Frost still clung to some of the bulkheads, sublimating into thin veils of fog that trailed after the moving bodies.

  The air was warmer out here, more humid, laced with the smell of coolant, lubricant, and old metal. The Hecate was an assault carrier, not a luxury liner; everything seemed just slightly too cramped, too worn, too utilitarian.

  They moved in loose formation, still shaking life back into their limbs. A few muttered under their breath about the cold, the AI's timing, the unfairness of being woken for another rock in the middle of nowhere. Nobody suggested going back to sleep.

  The door to Shower Bay One opened at their approach, its segmented plates sliding aside with a tired pneumatic sigh.

  Inside, steam billowed.

  The bay was a rectangular vault, lined with showerheads along both long walls, with drains running like gutters between them. No stalls, no curtains, just exposed pipes and gleaming fixtures under harsh white light. The room was already warming as the water cycled up from standby, a low mechanical rumble vibrating underfoot.

  "Decontamination sequence begins in sixty seconds," the ceiling voice announced. "Please remove all remaining medical attachments and deposit them in marked receptacles."

  There was some grumbling, but no one hesitated. Electrodes, IV lines, and monitor clips clattered into the bins. Someone cursed as adhesive pulled at chest hair. A few marines moved more stiffly than others, evidence of older injuries etched in subtle limps and the twist of scar tissue.

  Vega stepped into the line of showers, feeling the grate bite into the arches of her feet. Her skin prickled with the temperature contrast as stray currents of cooled air slid around her thighs and ribs.

  This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it.

  Beside her, Ito rotated his shoulders, joints popping. "Remind me again how this is supposed to be better than just staying frozen?" he said.

  "Frozen, you do not get hazard pay," Vega replied.

  "Frozen, you do not have to listen to Taggart's prep speeches."

  "Hazard pay," she repeated.

  He snorted once. That was as close to agreement as he got before cryo fully wore off.

  Across the bay, Watson planted himself under a shower head before it had even turned on, head tipped back, eyes closed. "Come on, come on," he muttered. "Just give me something that is not recycled pod snot…"

  The water hit.

  It came down in a sudden, punishing sheet, hot enough to shock a shout out of more than one throat. A few marines flinched back, then leaned into it, letting the force of the spray hammer at tight muscles, beat the last of the cold out of their bones.

  Gel sliced away in milky rivers, vanishing into the grated floor as the drains gurgled. The sound of water striking skin and metal filled the bay, accompanied by low groans of relief and muttered curses. Steam rose and blurred edges, turning solid bodies into moving silhouettes.

  Vega set her jaw and stepped fully into the cascade. Heat blasted across her scalp, down her neck, over her shoulders. She closed her eyes and let it soak in, scrubbing gel and cryo residue from her face with the heels of her hands. Sensation flooded back with a vengeance, too hot, too bright, too loud, each nerve ending suddenly reminded it existed.

  For a few breaths, there was nothing but water. No mission orders. No planetary designations. No casualty lists.

  "Helios Three," the ship's voice cut in over the silence, "current location: High orbit, Nemea System, object designation Nemea Nine. Mission briefing in Tactical Two at oh seven hundred ship time. Projected time to atmosphere insertion: three hours, sixteen minutes."

  The name slotted into place in Vega's mind like a round into a chamber.

  Nemea Nine. Mining world. Terraforming in preliminary stages. Thirty-two thousand civilians under Fleet charter. Last she had seen, it was flagged as a routine deployment, orbital security, patrol sweeps, maybe the odd ground exercise to keep the troops honest.

  Nobody woke a full Helios company from deep transit for routine.

  She opened her eyes, water coursing over her brow, and glanced down the line.

  Park stood under the spray two heads over, face tilted up, eyes closed. Steam beaded on old, pale scars that tracked along her ribs and shoulder, reminders of a mission on Draconis Three that had killed everyone in her previous squad but her. She washed the gel away with methodical, almost dispassionate movements.

  Further along, Watson had finally found his voice.

  "Hey, anybody want to trade planets?" he called out, running a hand through his hair. "I will take a nice, quiet ice moon. No atmosphere. No surprises."

  "You want quiet, ask for a discharge," someone answered.

  "I tried. They lost the paperwork."

  Laughter rolled along the bay, not loud but genuine. It bounced off metal and tile, got into the steam.

  This was the point. Vega knew. Not hygiene. They could have been decontaminated with sprayers in their pods. This was a ritual. Waking in front of each other, stripped of everything but rank and scars, reminded them they were just people before the armor, before the drops, before the body count started.

  "Decontamination sequence complete," the AI announced. "Rinse cycle disengaging. Please proceed to Locker Bay Two for uniforming and loadout."

  The water cut off with brutal suddenness, leaving an echoing hiss and the drip of cooling pipes. A few marines swore as their bodies complained about the temperature shift again.

  Vega ran a hand down her arm, sweeping off the last of the water, then stepped away from the line, steam wisping from her skin. The air felt colder now, but the deep chill had fled her muscles. Strength was coming back, one breath at a time.

  She caught Ito's eye as he stepped out of his shower.

  "Walk, do not limp," she said.

  "Yes, ma'am," he replied, then added more quietly, "You ever heard of Nemea Nine doing anything interesting?"

  "Not my job to speculate."

  "Yeah. But you do it anyway."

  She allowed herself the ghost of a smile. "Later. Lockers first."

  They moved out with the rest of Helios Three, crossing from the shower bay into the adjacent locker room.

  Locker Bay Two was wider, lower, and crowded with rows of vertical storage units, armor racks, and weapon mounts. There were no divisions by gender, no special sections, just alphanumeric labels and the smell of gun oil and sealant. The floor was dry here, and the air hummed faintly with the environmental controls that kept the armor at ready temperature.

  Each marine drifted toward their assigned unit the way a magnet finds true north, muscle memory guiding feet.

  Vega stopped before Locker VT Zero Three.

  The opaque door recognized her biometrics and slid aside with a soft thump, revealing the compact shrine of her professional life: folded underlayers, cleaning kits, spare boots, field rations, and a few personal tokens tucked into the upper shelf. And, hanging in pride of place on the internal rack, the black uniform that had become synonymous with Helios.

  The field suit looked almost alive.

  At rest, it was a sleek, close-fitting shell of matte black material, halfway between armor and second skin. Segmented plates hugged the chest and spine, sculpted not for aesthetics but for optimal deflection angles, anchored to a flexible undermesh that extended down into seamless black trousers. Reinforcement bands wrapped the joints, knees, hips, and shoulders and were designed to redirect kinetic energy away from fragile bones.

  The boots waited on the floor of the locker, open and ready, their soles a web of magnets and grips for whatever terrain waited below. On the interior of the door, her weapons hung in their designated holsters: the compact hand blaster, squared lines softened by years of use, and the sleek, translucent sheath of the energy knife.

  On her left forearm section of the armor, the recessed projector for the buckler shield sat like a polished black coin, inert for now.

  Vega took a breath, then reached out and lifted the chest segment from its mount. The armor was lighter than ceramic, heavier than fabric, and warm to the touch, where the ship kept it at operating temperature. Tiny control surfaces along the inner rim responded to her skin with a soft, chiming activation tone.

  She stepped into the lower half of the suit first, drawing the black material up her legs. It clung as it went, sealing around muscle and sinew, reshaping itself to match the contours of her calves and thighs. There was a brief, unpleasant moment of constriction, then the fabric relaxed a fraction, finding equilibrium, a snug, supportive pressure that would distribute blunt force across a wider area.

  She had worn variations of this suit for fourteen years. The first time, she had felt like she was vanishing into someone else's skin. Now it was just putting on clothes.

  The upper half took a little more finesse. She guided the breastplate into place against her chest; hidden magnets and micro locks aligned with quiet clicks and a faint hum as the internal systems synced with the ship's tactical net. Status glyphs flickered across an invisible display in her right eye, then faded back to standby.

  Her world narrowed. The air against her face felt cooler now that most of her body was sealed in the suit. She rolled her shoulders experimentally. The armor moved with her, a fraction of a second behind because of inertia, then remembered her dimensions and settled.

  "Helios Three, armor sync check in three minutes," the AI said. "Please secure all seals and report any malfunctions to Technical."

  Ito swung his own locker door shut a few feet away. He had already donned his suit, save for the gauntlets. The armor hugged his frame just as completely, black plates absorbing the light. Scars that had been visible minutes ago, old shrapnel trails, surgical seams, were now ghosts, hidden under Fleet composites.

  He flexed his left forearm, and a translucent, circular shimmer unfolded from the projector unit there, blossoming into a buckler-sized disc of pale blue energy. It hung in front of his wrist for a heartbeat, then snapped back, leaving a faint ozone smell in the air.

  "Still got it," he murmured.

  "Do not fry my locker," Vega said.

  "Would not dream of it."

  Park tightened the seals at her neck ring, then holstered her knife with a smooth, familiar motion. She did not say anything, but she did not need to. The way she checked each buckle and connection, twice, spoke loudly enough.

  Across the bay, Major Taggart made his entrance.

  He did not raise his voice. He did not have to. The simple weight of his presence drew attention, the way mass bent orbit. He wore his armor already, helmet tucked under one arm, the silver bars of his rank gleaming dully on his collar plates.

  "Helios," he said, looking down the rows.

  Conversation thinned and then stopped.

  "Some of you are wondering why we woke you early," Taggart went on, gaze tracking across faces and helmets. "You will get the full brief in Tactical, but here is the short version: Nemea Nine went dark. Six hours ago, the terraforming controllers started spitting nonsense, then went offline. No contact with the ground. No acknowledgment from local security. Just thirty-two thousand people and a lot of Fleet hardware dropping off the board."

  A stillness settled over the locker bay.

  Dark colonies happened. Everyone in the room knew that. Communications could fail, solar flares could scramble or fry relays, and shoddy construction could trigger cascading infrastructure failures. But the way Taggart said it, the precise flatness of his tone, made it clear this was not just a glitch.

  "Our job is to go down there, find out what went wrong, and make sure it does not stay that way," Taggart said. "Standard drop, full combat load. Until we know otherwise, assume compromised ground and a hostile environment. We are not," his eyes locked with Vega's for a moment, "I repeat, not treating this as a training exercise."

  Vega inclined her head a fraction. Under her breastplate, her heart picked up speed.

  "Captain Vega, you and Helios Three will spearhead surface recon," Taggart said. "You will get the finer points in Tactical Two. Right now, I want you sealed, synced, and in the bay in ten minutes. Questions?"

  There were none. If anyone had them, they could wait until the briefing, where there would be maps, feeds, and more than just cold guesses to work with.

  "Good," Taggart said. "Move."

  He turned and strode back out the way he had come, boots striking the deck in measured, unhurried steps.

  The silence held for one more second before Watson exhaled loudly. "Well," he said, "that sounds non-routine as hell."

  "Language, Private," someone chided him automatically.

  "'Hell' is in the manual," Watson protested. "Section on waste management."

  Someone chuckled, and the tension loosened just a bit.

  Vega snapped her gauntlets into place, and the contact points sparked brief status icons on her display. She slid the hand blaster into its holster at her right thigh; it clicked into place with a comforting magnetic click. The energy knife went to its place on her left hip, nestled in its sheath. She could feel the faint hum of its dormant edge through the armor.

  She palmed the locker door shut and stepped back.

  In the polished metal's reflection, a black-armored figure gazed back at her, helmet cradled at her side, dark hair still damp where it lay around her neck. There was nothing of the half-numb, shivering woman who had crawled out of the pod fifteen minutes ago. The suit did that. It turned individuals into components, soldiers into parts of a larger machine.

  She felt the familiar duality settle into place: Isabel Vega, the woman, shrinking behind Captain Vega, the commanding officer of Helios Three.

  "Helmets," she called.

  Visors lowered, seals hissed. Her own helmet slid over her skull with a soft, enclosing sound, and the external world faded into filtered feeds and display overlays. Her breathing sounded louder in the confined space, accompanied by the soft ticking of suit diagnostics.

  "Armor sync check," the AI said. "Helios Three, report."

  One by one, call signs chimed in over the local net, each accompanied by a green icon winking to life on Vega's overlay. Thirty-five, thirty-six, thirty-seven. Losses from the last campaign had already thinned their number. Reinforcements were scheduled, but Fleet schedules were rarely aligned with ground reality.

  "Helios Three, all units green," the AI concluded.

  "Copy that," Vega said quietly. "Helios Three, form up. We are going to see what is waiting down there."

  They filed out of Locker Bay Two in double column, black armor moving as one, boots striking a steady rhythm into the bones of the Hecate. The corridor to Tactical Two ran along the ship's spine, lined with status displays showing orbit tracks, energy budgets, and hull integrity in calm, impersonal numbers.

  From a narrow viewport, the curve of Nemea Nine hung against the scattered stars, a sullen ball of cloud streaked with gray and muted rust, faint lightning flickering in its upper atmosphere. It did not look like much. Planets rarely did, from orbit.

  Vega glanced once, just enough to etch the sight into the back of her mind, then looked away.

  Rocks by themselves did not kill people.

  Whatever had gone wrong down there had help.

  She tightened her grip on her helmet and walked faster.