The First Artefact
A distress signal from a long-lost explorer lures the Nomad to the edge of the Dark Galaxy, where Eve and her squad must confront a Thalerian splinter group that has not only survived the sector's horrors, but seeks to weaponize them.
The signal belonged to the Wanderer, an archaeology vessel that vanished a century ago. Piloted by a cartographer. She was a legend, obsessed with precursor artifacts.
The IC records of her work spoke of strange things. Her last twenty years she chased an alien artifact. Nadia, Kai and Salam read her files and reported to Eve.
Nadia told Eve that an artifact wouldn't just record history. It might even hold the key to understanding the primordial nanotechnology that powers her systems like her core. The very power Razmos spoke of.
The signal was being suppressed by a powerful, localized energy field. A Thalerian field.
The Soul Drifter detaches from the Nomad, a silver dart plunging into the inky blackness. The journey is hell.
Eve's prior knowledge and Vayne's piloting skills saved the day. The team landed on planet Kaal. A whole lot of terrifying alien mutants welcomed them and the battle began.
The horde never seemed to end. The squad was trying to reach the cave from which they were emerging but they couldn't even get near. Eve saw her squad was exhausted.
She snaps a small capsule in her hand. A fluid mists over her fingers and instantly absorbed by her skin. A chain reaction starts, nanites crawl out from her cell. She was beginning to look like a nuclear reactor, electricity crackling all around her.
Her skin hardening to a metallic sheen, bluish-white hair crackling with energy. She doesn't fully transform, but the power is undeniable. She moves like a blur.
She charges through the horde like a bullet train, clearing the path to the cave, finally landing a grand slam punch. The cave collapsed. Now the only monsters crawling the field were the ones already out.
The Xenomorphic burst fades. Eve stumbles, catching her breath.
Squad moves into action. Jax's heavy fire, Kai's drone attacks bombard the creatures. Hannah wipes away anything that comes close to her friends. Anya also fires non stop. Vayne uses her interface to remotely fire Soul Drifter's missiles upon the swarm. The area was finally cleared.
They move on.
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The cavern stretched wide beneath the planet's crust—natural stone fused with ancient machinery. Giant support ribs lined the chamber, half-organic, half-metal, pulsing like arteries under low violet light.
In the center stood the alien artefact—a monolithic structure of obsidian alloy, shaped like a square building emerging from the floor. Ten stories high, its smooth panels flickered with ancient glyphs that shifted between dimensions.
Clustered around the Core was a Thalerian encampment—modular towers, shield emitters, bio-reactor tanks. And at the center, flanked by guards and tamed Bonefiends, stood Virex—the war-forged Kaal Leader. His body was a fortress of old cybernetics and bone grafts, six mechanized tentacles twitching behind him, each tipped with energy blades.
As Eve stepped into the chamber, Virex raised his head.
"The Daughter of Andromeda," he rasped. "We knew you would come. Drawn to your origin… like a moth to a dying star."
He raised a claw.
The swarm moved. Thalerian foot soldiers surged forward in tight formation, followed by bone-armored fiends—hulking mutants wired with obedience rigs.
Jax dropped low, pulse cannon spinning up. "Light 'em up!"
Explosions rocked the perimeter. Anya and Kai dropped behind makeshift cover, twin consoles glowing as they scrambled the Thalerian shield grid. Hannah vanished into the smoke—reappearing only to silence enemies with twin mono-katanas. Axel's sniper fire pierced through armor like paper, each shot a kill.
Through the chaos, Eve moved like a storm, waving her plasma blade. Her speed left shimmering afterimages, a dance of fists and kicks that broke bodies mid-air.
Then Virex intercepted.
His tentacles cracked with white-hot energy, each one a blade in motion. They clashed—metal and plasma. He was fast, unnaturally so, drawing power directly from the artefact.
"This artefact doesn't just reveal the past," he growled. "It commands the primal tones of the galaxy— even your seed of power. They all sing the same song!"
A tentacle struck Eve. She flew backward, slammed into the pillar which cracked under her spine.
She gasped, coughing, blood bright against her lip. Her fingers curled into the stone as she forced herself up.
"You don't want control it," she said, eyes blazing. "You want to unleash it."
She takes out the last Xeno-Grenade from her pocket and snaps it. This time, the surge is stronger. Her eyes blaze with pure, untamed light. She charges Virex with overwhelming force, rips one of his cybernetic arms off, smashes another, and drives her fist through his chest plate.
He collapses, his glowing eyes flickering.
Virex gurgles, "you think you've won… but when you touch it… you will see the truth… you are one of us… a monster…"
Eve leaves Virex to breathe his last and moves towards the alien artifact places her hand on its cold, humming surface. The glyphs flare.
Her mind is flooded with a torrent of images—not of history, but of a chilling, impossible future. She sees the ancient machine civilization Razmos described, but they are not creators; they are fleeing from a darkness, a consuming void. She feels a terrifying presence, the true intelligence behind "The Threat!" The stream of semi-subconscious data-thoughts didn't stop their. Her machine core began responding, she couldn't keep her conscious alive between the rush of two alien interfaces talking to each other. The overflowing visions accelerated. Eve became faint, the artifact overloads, cracking. The cavern begins to collapse.
Axel shouted on comm, "Commander! The structure is destabilizing! We must evacuate now!"
The squad retreats, dragging a stunned and silent Eve with them. They board the Soul Drifter and blast away just as the entire cavern implodes, taking the artefact with it.
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Eve's quarters, Nomad Section One. She sits on the edge of her bunk, staring at her own hands. Mira enters quietly, holding a cup of tea. She says nothing, simply sits beside her.
Mira: We made it back. The intel you retrieved on the Covenant is invaluable. The IC is… grateful.
Eve said in distant thoughts, "It wasn't an artifact. It is not what we think it is. There is something else in the dark. Something ancient and awake. And my power… my Xenomorphic core… it doesn't belong to me. It belongs to it."
She clenches her fist, the metal of the bunk groaning under the pressure.
"Mira, remember when you were a child and I suddenly woke up from stasis with strange visions and I left. The artefact showed me how those visions made sense. Something is happening Mira. I was destined to reach that artefact. My fate was sealed the minute I stepped on that planet."
"I don't know what's happening Eve. But I am here."
"The artefact was just a beginning. It was dormant until I stepped on that planet. It almost feels like the Dark Galaxy is the way it is, just to keep me away. It did for long enough. I don't know how fate works, I know what I must protect. My xeno core isn't just a weapon, it is also a key… unlocks something we just don't understand. I trust my genes, but on Kaal they betrayed me the very first time. I felt like a toy, my machine core shut me off from peeping deep into whatever it was doing with the artefact."
Mira wrapped her arms around Eve.
"You are the only one I trust more than myself. Things will be different now. A time will come, that I will desperately need your help, you will have to make decisions for me. I don't know what that is or what it means, I just can't look past it until it's happened and everything is clear."
"You can trust me Eve. Can't tell what's happening inside your head. Just promise me you won't disappear or do something stupid. Just promise me whatever happens, you won't go solo again."
"I can't even if I wanted to. It involves all of us. You, me, Nomad, Andromeda. The entire universe. Mira, just know, whatever you decision you make, whether I survive past that point or not, have no regrets cause I wouldn't do things differently if it meant leaving you with a scar that won't go away… sometimes to protect the one you love, you let it go, rather be your own person than the guardian that destroys you."
Mira stayed with Eve a little while. Then she left. She didn't understand Eve's premonitions but she trusted her discretion. Something was about to happen, Mira had to watch over Nomad and 50 other spaceships under its command. She could tell no one about what Eve said to her, she could only prepare and hope for the best.
She hadn't seen Eve like this ever. Like a fear beneath her skin was drying her empty and she was powerless against it. Next few weeks, she tried her best to bring the squad together and unconsciously prepare them for chain of events that hadn't happened yet.