Luca's hands shook as he approached the SpectraForge Analyzer. His elbows were still bleeding from the crawlspace, sweat and gri streaking his face, his shirt torn from dragging himself through tal grating for what felt like hours. But none of that mattered. What mattered was the vial of purple powder clutched in his trembling fingers and the six people dying three decks above him.
What if I'm wrong? What if this kills them faster?
The thought had been circling his brain like a vulture since he'd found the powder. He wasn't a doctor. He wasn't a scientist. He was a twenty-year-old captain, and his crew trusted him to make the right choices. Emily trusted him. Zoe trusted him. They all did. And now their lives hung on whether he could figure out an alien machine and synthesize the right cure.
Six people. Six lives. And you're about to gamble with all of them.
He'd led them to Midnight Veil. He'd made the call to explore without proper quarantine protocols. Now his friends were paying the price.
Move. They don't have ti for you to stand here feeling sorry for yourself.
Luca slapped the power toggle on the Analyzer.
The machine humd to life, displays flickering as the system booted up. Text scrolled across the main screen, and Luca's jaw dropped.
"Are... you kidding ?"
Perfect English. Clean, readable interface. User-friendly icons and clearly labeled functions. The System had normalized everything, like it did with weapons and equipnt. What should have been incomprehensible alien technology looked like sothing Danny could have designed.
Okay. I can work with this.
He activated [Predictive Modeling], feeling the ability settle into his consciousness, its logic intuitive. The machine's interface layout beca clear: input protocols, analysis paraters, output formatting. It was designed for efficiency, built to take biological samples and break them down into their molecular components.
Simple workflow. Sample goes in, data cos out. Even an idiot can handle this.
Please don't let be wrong about that.
A small aperture slid open on the analyzer's surface, revealing a flat glass plate. It extended exactly like a phone's SIM tray, waiting for input.
Luca uncapped the vial with shaking hands. The purple powder caught the light, each grain looking impossibly small and fragile. How much was enough?
Danny would know exactly how much to use. Emily would have calculated the optimal ratio. But they're both unconscious and he was working with best guesses.
He tipped the vial, letting a few grains sprinkle onto the analysis plate. His hand trembled so badly he nearly spilled the entire contents.
Please be enough. Please be right.
The plate retracted smoothly into the machine. A low hum began, and the machine went to work. The process was agonizingly slow. Seconds stretched into an eternity. The displays lit up with scrolling data, molecular diagrams spinning and resolving, but it was all incomprehensible technobabble to him. All he could do was stand there, watching the progress bar crawl across the screen at a glacial pace.
10%... 20%...
Is it working? Did I put enough in? Did I put too much in?
40%...
He kept checking his own watch. Every second the machine spent analyzing was a second his friends didn't have. He felt a frantic urge to bang on the housing, to scream at it to go faster. Pixel seed to sense his distress, rubbing against his leg with a soft, rumbling purr. Luca reached down and absently stroked her fur, the simple, living texture a strange comfort against the cold, inert machinery.
80%... 95%...
It chid.
The main screen cleared, displaying results in cold, clinical language that made Luca's stomach clench:
[Molecular Analysis Complete]
Compound Class: Anti-invasive cytobiotic
Behavioral Profile: Seeks out parasitic filant growth; neutralizes toxin-diated cellular hijack
Secondary Effect: Accelerates vascular regrowth mitochondrial efficiency
Tertiary Effect: Rapid organ system stabilization under systemic assault
Synthesis Recomndation: High-yield production viable. Compound stable under standard atmospheric conditions.
The precise, dry language made Luca's stomach clench. "Parasitic filant growth." "Cellular hijack." It was the language of a horror movie, not a dical report. But the secondary and tertiary effects... those gave him hope. Accelerated healing. Organ stabilization. The kind of rapid recovery that could bring his crew back from the edge. That had brought him from the edge.
This story is posted elsewhere by the author. Help them out by reading the authentic version.
This is it. This has to be it.
His interface exploded with notifications.
[System Company Achievent]
First TL9 Molecular Discovery from Level 60 Portal Flora
Award: 40,000,000 credits
Triumph Initiative Company Recognition Upgrade Unlocked
The achievent was almost an insult, bright colors and celebration, while his crew lay dying. Forty million credits felt aningless when Emily couldn't stand up and Ryan was drowning in his own blood.
[Reward Package]
[Item Acquired: Programmable Molecular Cartridge Schematic (TL9)]
[Item Acquired: dical Nanites Schematic (TL9)]
[Item Acquired: SpectraForge Bio-Catalyst Matrix Schematic (TL9)]
Luca dismissed the notifications with an angry swipe. He didn't care about credits or achievents. He needed dicine.
The SynthCrafter beside him humd to life, its interface detecting the completed analysis. The screen lit up with options:
DELIVERY THOD SELECTION:
CARTRIDGE / CREAM / PILLS
Cartridges made the most sense, fastest absorption, and easiest to administer through the dical pods to unconscious patients. He tapped the option.
A port slid open in the side of the machine, ready for a cartridge. A ssage appeared: INSERT PROGRAMMABLE MOLECULAR CARTRIDGE.
Shit.
Luca sprinted to the cargo containers, frantically searching for the PMC case Joey had found in Midnight Veil. His hands shook as he rifled through equipnt, ti slipping away while his crew's lives hung in the balance.
There. A sealed case labeled "Programmable Molecular Cartridges."
He grabbed a bunch of those cylinders and ran back. Taking one of the small, silver cylinders, he jamd it into the SynthCrafter's port. The machine accepted it with a satisfied click.
"Co on, co on, co on..." he whispered, slamming his palm against the large green activation button. "Work."
The SynthCrafter ca alive.
Beneath its white tallic cover, motors whirred. Pressure vessels hissed. Complex chemical processes began inside the machine's housing, humming and hawing as it did its thing. The status display showed synthesis progress: 15%... 30%... 50%...
Finally, with a loud chi, the top of the SynthCrafter slid open.
Luca stared.
The top of the machine retracted, revealing a retrieval tray containing a neat row of sixteen small canisters. Each one was labeled "Anti-Invasive Cytobiotic Cartridge - Dosage: Standard Adult - Expiration: 72 Hours."
[Item acquired: Anti-Invasive Cytobiotic Cartridge]
Sixteen. Holy shit. Sixteen.
From a single PMC.
Luca's knees nearly buckled. He'd expected maybe one or two, enough to treat a couple of crew mbers if he was lucky. Instead, the machine had produced enough dicine to treat his entire crew multiple tis over, with doses to spare.
Emily. Ryan. Zoe. Joey. Chris. Danny.
He wouldn't be able to administer the dicine directly. He'd have to use the dical pods for proper infusion, and that ant...
One at a ti. Thirty-minute cycles. tabolic load requires pod stabilization.
The technical requirents scrolled across his mind as he processed the implications. Six people needed treatnt, but he could only treat one every thirty minutes. Three hours minimum to get everyone dosed, assuming nothing went wrong.
Who goes first? Who dies while waiting?
The relief lasted only a second before a cold knot of dread ford in his gut. He had the cure, but administering it would be a nightmare of logistics and life-or-death decisions.
Okay. Okay, think. Who first?
Chris and Danny. They were already in the dical pods. He could administer their doses without moving them, saving precious minutes. That was the easy part. But then what?
Pull Chris out, put Emily in. His brain supplied the answer instantly. She was the most lucid before she collapsed. If he could get her stable, she could help him. With her dical knowledge and her calm head, she could double his efficiency. It was calculated and strategic—choosing her because she could help, not because he loved her.
Then Zoe. The image of those green-black tendrils spreading across her face burned in his mind. Her symptoms were the most aggressive, the most alien. She was deteriorating the fastest. She had to be next.
That left Ryan and Joey. Ryan was coughing up blood, a catastrophic internal symptom. Joey had collapsed from fever and exhaustion. Who was in more imdiate danger? Ryan. The blood ant active, uncontrolled damage. Joey was stable, for now.
So that was the order. The death list. Chris, Danny, Emily, Zoe, Ryan, Joey. A neat, orderly queue to survival, and God help anyone if the person ahead of them took too long.
You're ranking your friends by who gets to live first. asuring their lives in thirty-minute incrents.
His hands shook as he reached for the cartridges. They were warm to the touch, freshly synthesized and ready for use. Each one contained hope. Each one could save a life. But the clock was ticking, and he had impossible choices to make.
He grabbed ten of the cartridges, stuffing them into his pockets and clutching the rest to his chest. Behind him, Pixel chirped and sprang into motion, a blur of midnight blue as she raced across the hangar deck.
But as Luca started to follow, the weight of the cartridges in his hands made him pause. He looked down at his blood-stained fingers, gri from the crawlspace still caked under his nails, scratches covering his forearms. The cartridges felt impossibly fragile in his shaking grip.
I can't drop any of these. Not a single one.
He glanced around the hangar and spotted an equipnt cart locked against the far wall. Ryan's doing. He was adamant that people not steal his carts.
Luca sprinted over, fumbling with the code Ryan had programd. His bloody fingers slipped on the keypad twice before the lock disengaged with a click.
He grabbed the cart and wheeled it back to the SynthCrafter, carefully placing the entire output tray into the cart's padded compartnt. Sixteen cartridges, nestled in their custom slots, each one a lifeline.
Pixel appeared beside the cart and, without hesitation, hopped onto the lower shelf like she'd been planning to ride shotgun all along. Her purple markings pulsed steadily, and she settled into a comfortable crouch, ready to go.
Luca gripped the cart's handle, ready to sprint for the infirmary. But sothing made him pause for three seconds. He turned back to look at the hangar.
The SpectraForge Analyzer humd quietly, its displays still showing molecular diagrams. The SynthCrafter sat beside it, steam still rising from its cooling vents. Impossible, alien TL9 hardware that had perford miracles. Technology that had turned a handful of purple dust into sixteen doses of life-saving dicine.
"This is what we're supposed to be doing," he whispered. "This is why we're here."
Not just to survey asteroids or catalog planets or run missions for corporate sponsors or punch their ticket to bigger ships. They were supposed to be pushing the boundaries, finding the impossible, bringing back the kind of discoveries that could change everything.
The crawlspace. The fear. The desperate race against ti. All of it had led to this mont, standing in a hangar bay with alien technology that could save lives.
Pixel chirped once, as if agreeing with his revelation.
Luca turned the cart toward the exit and ran.
He burst into the infirmary and did a quick headcount.
Five people in the pods or beds.
The sixth, Zoe, whose symptoms had been the most aggressive, was gone.
Pixel hissed.
Reviews
All reviews (0)