swallowing space

Tyren marked the final reading on the digital sketchpad, dragging a dusty hand across his brow. "To power Nox-4 for five minutes of full combat mode, we'd need about four liters of that Kaiju juice."

Kael stared at the numbers on Specter's shared screen. "That's about eight mid-sized Kaiju drained dry."

"And that's just to fight," Oris added. "If we want to get airborne… double it."

The weight of it all settled in.

They had scavenged one corpse. They needed ten times more. This wasn't a salvage op anymore. This was becoming a full-scale war for survival.

Kael folded his arms inside Ravager's cockpit. "Then it's time we stop chasing corpses and start pulling Kaiju in."

Oris looked up. "A trap."

"We know how they hunt. We've seen them chase movement, respond to heat, and react to sound. If we could rig a sonic emitter tied to a metal bait structure..."

"Lure one, kill it, drain it, repeat," Tyren finished with a grim nod. "I like it."

They began building the blueprint, carving designs into dirt, plotting placement of emitters, vibrational mimics, and structural restraints made from scavenged Kaiju bone.

Just as Oris started outlining fuel processing routes, the world shook.

---

The tremor wasn't natural.

Not the slow, thunderous pulse of a giant creature moving underground.

This was explosive.

A shockwave boomed across the valley, echoing off the cliffs. For a moment, light broke the dim sky — a white-hot bloom beyond the western ridge.

All three mechas snapped to full alert.

"Was that…?" Tyren started.

"Not Kaiju," Kael said. "That was tech."

Oris pinged the source. "Roughly 6.4 kilometers west. Near the opposite slope of the gorilla-Kaiju range."

"Let's move."

---

It took an hour to carefully traverse the route. The mist was thinner here, though colder — biting, as if whatever had burned through the sky had cut through the atmosphere itself.

When they reached the summit, the sight made all three of them stop.

There, in a clearing blasted clean by kinetic impact and heat, lay a white spacecraft.

Unlike anything they'd seen before.

---

It was elegant — sleeker than their boxy military transports, with curved panels and ribbed flanks. Burn marks stretched from nose to tail, one wing sheared clean off.

And it was big.

Big enough to house at least five mechas.

Kael frowned. "That's not from the Caligari fleet."

"No way," Oris muttered. "The curvature, engine design — this isn't Earth-manufactured. Not ours. Not even military."

"Explains the white," Tyren muttered. "Only engineers or explorers paint their ships like wedding cakes."

They circled the wreck cautiously. No Kaiju signatures. No heat. No movement.

Kael dismounted and approached on foot, boots crunching through ash and scorched soil.

The ramp was halfway open.

Inside was worse.

---

The interior had been ripped apart — not by Kaiju claws, but by implosion. Control panels melted. Screens shattered. Circuit lines ran black with fused silicon. Something overloaded from the inside.

But the strangest thing?

It was empty.

No bodies.

No signs of a fight.

No blood.

And… no mechas.

Kael stood before the mech bay — five neatly aligned charging ports and foot clamps. The kind used for long-range scout walkers.

All empty.

Not a scratch on the clamps.

Like the mechas had never docked.

Or worse… they had launched and never returned.

---

Oris ran a forensic scan. "Data drives: melted. Core engines: ruptured from internal surge. Whatever happened here… it wasn't a crash. This ship landed. Then it died."

Tyren's voice was low. "Where the hell is the crew?"

No one answered.

---

They scouted the area around the ship for kilometers.

Nothing.

No drag marks. No tracks. No fallen tech. No heat trails.

It was as if the crew had simply vanished.

Kael stood atop the remains of the main thruster, staring out toward the jungle beyond.

"It's recent," he said. "That blast didn't happen days ago. That was today. Whatever did this might still be nearby."

Tyren looked up at the dim sky. "Or maybe they triggered it themselves. Self-destruct?"

Oris shook his head. "Too contained. The cockpit's intact. If they'd wanted to wipe data, the bridge would be dust."

"Then they didn't want it destroyed," Kael muttered. "They wanted it found."

---

Back at the cave, the mood had shifted.

Their blueprint for the Kaiju trap still lay on the cave floor — forgotten for now.

Oris sat silently, trying to reconstruct a 3D model of the white ship using fragmented scans. "Structure's unfamiliar. Not from known factions. Whoever they were… they weren't part of our war."

Tyren had taken up position near the cave mouth, Pulse Fang's claws resting on standby.

And Kael stood beside Nox-4 again.

Watching it sleep.

Thinking.

What if they weren't the first crew here?

What if the planet wasn't random?

What if Unit 404 wasn't sent here by accident… but as part of a test?

He turned to the others.

"We're not alone."

---