Chapter 1: Layer Six
Transport Meridian Runner, Phase-Shift to Layer 6 — Day 1 (1847 hours)
Veyra Krost had learned to trust her gut a long time ago, even when every instrument, every gauge, every blinking light said she was wrong.
Right now, her gut was screaming.
She sat in the passenger hold of the Meridian Runner, one hand gripping the armrest of her seat, the other pressed flat against the bulkhead beside her. Through the metal hull, wrongness thrummed in the ship’s vibration, a rhythm slightly out of sync. The hum that permeated every vessel during phase-shift pulsed unstable. Jagged at the edges.
Around her, the other passengers were oblivious. A man two rows ahead slept with his mouth open, head lolled against the window. A woman across the aisle read from a datapad, occasionally swiping to the next page. Three seats down, a pair of off-duty soldiers played cards on a fold-down tray between them, their low voices punctuated by occasional laughter.
Normal. Everything was normal.
Except it wasn’t.
Veyra closed her eyes and focused on the sensation. She’d worked as a phase-shift engineer for six years before mustering out, six years of feeling the subtle dance between layers, the way reality bent and stretched as ships carved paths through the boundaries. You learned to read it in your bones: the gentle pressure as you crossed from Layer 2’s dense atmospheric compression into Layer 6’s crystalline expanse, the momentary vertigo as the ship’s frame adjusted to new physical constants.
This didn’t feel gentle. This felt like nails on slate, like gears grinding when they should have been meshing smooth.
She opened her eyes and glanced at the status display mounted on the forward bulkhead. Green across the board. Transit stable. Estimated arrival at Layer 6 in fourteen minutes.
The instruments saw nothing wrong.
Veyra’s fingers tightened on the armrest. Maybe she was being paranoid. Maybe civilian transport just felt different from military haulers.
The ship shuddered.
Just a tiny tremor, barely perceptible. The card players didn’t even look up. But the ripple traveled through the hull beneath her palm, the disturbance spiking like a blade of ice between her ribs.
“No,” she whispered.
The layer fabric was destabilizing. She didn’t know how she knew, she just knew, the same way you knew when you were about to fall, that split-second of certainty before gravity claimed you.
She hit the release on her safety harness.
“Ma’am?” A flight attendant appeared at her elbow, all professional concern and polite authority. “We’re still in transit. You need to remain seated.”
“Something’s wrong with the shift.” Veyra was already moving toward the forward cabin, the attendant trailing after her.
“The instruments show normal readings.”
“I know what the instruments show.” She shouldered past a beverage cart, ignoring the attendant’s protests. “The instruments are lagging. By the time they register the problem, it’ll be too late.”
The ship lurched hard to starboard.
Someone yelped. The sleeping man jerked awake. Cards scattered across the aisle as one of the soldiers caught himself against the overhead compartment.
And then the alarms started.
The sound was deafening in the enclosed space, a deep, pulsing klaxon that made Veyra’s teeth ache. Red lights strobed along the corridor. The status display flickered and died, then came back showing a cascade of amber and red warnings.
Phase-shift destabilization detected. Boundary breach imminent. Emergency protocols initiated.
“Everyone remain calm!” The flight attendant’s voice cracked on the last word. She grabbed a handhold as the ship bucked again, harder this time. The hull groaned, a deep, protesting sound that no ship should ever make.
Veyra ran.
The cockpit was thirty meters forward. She covered the distance in seconds, years of muscle memory overriding conscious thought. Around her, passengers were screaming now. Someone was crying. The soldiers were shouting orders to each other, trying to herd people back into their seats, but the ship was shuddering like a wounded animal and people didn’t want to sit still while reality tore itself apart around them.
Because that’s what was happening. Veyra sensed it in every cell of her body, the Meridian Runner was caught between layers, trapped in the boundary space where the fabric of one reality ended and another began. Ships weren’t meant to exist there. The dimensional shear would rip them apart, scatter their atoms across the spaces between spaces.
She reached the cockpit door and slammed her palm against the access panel. Locked.
“Open the door!” She pounded on the reinforced metal. “I’m a phase-shift engineer. I can help!”
No response. Through the door, she could hear voices, the captain, the pilot, shouting over each other and over the alarms. Another violent shudder threw Veyra against the bulkhead. She tasted copper. Her vision swam.
The ship was dying. Everyone on it was dying. And she was the only one who knew exactly how little time they had left.
Veyra pressed both palms flat against the cockpit door and felt the disturbance surge through her, a physical sensation like broken glass in her veins, like breathing vacuum, like falling forever.
The instruments would show critical failure any second now. The captain would see the numbers, see the impossible stress readings, see their trajectory spiraling into catastrophic dimensional collapse.
But by then it would be too late for the standard abort procedures. By then, emergency protocols would just accelerate their disintegration.
Veyra pulled back her fist and hammered on the door.
“LET ME IN!”
The door hissed open.
A wild-eyed pilot stared at her, one hand still on the release. Behind him, the captain was hunched over the controls, hands flying across interfaces as proximity alarms shrieked. The viewscreen showed a sight that made Veyra’s stomach lurch: a writhing chaos of color and non-color, Layer 2’s amber skies bleeding into Layer 6’s crystalline fractals, both realities trying to occupy the same space.
“Who the hell are you?”
“Phase-shift engineer, six years, military haulers.” Veyra pushed past the pilot. “Your boundary alignment is collapsed. If you try to abort now, the dimensional snap will tear the ship in half.”
The captain’s face went white. “Then what do we do?”
“Let me see the manual override.”
For a heartbeat, the captain just stared at her. Veyra could see the calculation in his eyes: trust this random passenger who’d just burst onto his bridge, or follow protocol and hope the instruments knew something he didn’t.
The ship screamed. Metal tearing. Someone in the passenger hold was still screaming too, high and desperate.
The captain stepped aside.
Veyra lunged for the controls.
The manual override panel was a relic, physical switches and analog dials that most pilots never touched in their entire careers. It existed for exactly this kind of catastrophic failure, when the automated systems were worse than useless.
Veyra’s hands moved across the interface with a certainty that surprised even her. She wasn’t thinking. The ship’s death spiral sang through the tremors in the deck plates, through the pitch of the alarms, through the dissonance that rattled her bones.
“What are you doing?” The captain gripped the back of his chair. “Those controls are locked for a reason.”
“Phase resonance is out of sync with the layer boundary frequency.” Veyra’s fingers flew across the panel, rerouting power flows. “Your tertiary emitters are collapsing. The power distribution is creating a feedback loop.”
She didn’t know how she knew. The diagnostic readouts were a chaos of red warnings, meaningless static. But it pulsed through her: the ship caught between Layer 2’s dense atmospheric compression and Layer 6’s crystalline structure, both realities grinding against each other with the Meridian Runner trapped in between like grain between millstones.
“The automated abort sequence will stabilize us.”
“It’ll rip us apart.” Veyra killed power to the primary phase array. The ship shuddered harder. Someone behind her swore. “The dimensional snap would tear us in half. Hold on!”
The Meridian Runner dropped.
It wasn’t falling, not exactly, you couldn’t fall in the space between layers. But it felt like falling, like the bottom dropping out of reality itself. Veyra’s stomach lurched. The viewscreen went completely white, then black, then showed impossible colors that human eyes weren’t meant to process.
Her hands kept moving.
Reroute power to the weakest field points. She channeled everything from the starboard array to shore up the collapsing tertiary emitters. The ship’s frame groaned as stresses redistributed. Not enough. Not nearly enough.
The phase frequency was still wrong, a note sung flat, grating against her awareness. The ship was vibrating at one frequency while the layer boundary demanded another, and the mismatch was tearing them apart molecule by molecule.
Veyra’s fingers found the manual frequency controls. Ancient technology. Dangerous technology. You didn’t adjust phase frequencies by hand unless you wanted to scatter your atoms across three layers of reality.
But she knew the right frequency. Somehow, impossibly, she understood exactly where it needed to be.
She started to turn the dial.
“Wait!” The captain grabbed her wrist. “If you overcorrect, we’ll phase into vacuum.”
Veyra met his eyes. Hers were steady. His showed too much white, pupils blown wide, rapid blinking betraying the terror he was trying to suppress. “Trust me.”
She didn’t wait for an answer. She turned the dial, feeling for the resonance like a musician tuning a string. When she found it, the ship screamed.
Everything that wasn’t bolted down went flying. The pilot slammed into his console. The captain hit the bulkhead hard enough that Veyra heard the impact over the alarms. She held onto the manual controls with both hands, knuckles white, as the Meridian Runner bucked like a wounded animal.
The frequency was right, but the transition was violent. The ship wasn’t meant to change its resonance mid-shift. The phase fields were collapsing and reforming, collapsing and reforming, each cycle putting impossible stress on the frame.
It spiraled toward catastrophic failure.
So she made a choice no sane engineer would make: she created an oscillation.
Her left hand stayed on the frequency control, making tiny adjustments. Her right hand worked the power distribution, cycling power through the emitter arrays in a deliberate, controlled rhythm. Not trying to force the ship into stability, trying to ride the instability, like a surfer on a wave, using the chaos itself to carry them through.
The ship stopped screaming. Started to hum instead, a deep, resonant tone that thrummed through her chest.
“What are you doing?” The pilot had pulled himself back into his seat, was staring at her like she’d sprouted wings.
Veyra didn’t answer. She was counting heartbeats, waiting for the exact moment.
There.
She slammed the power distribution back to normal configuration and locked the frequency control.
For one terrible heartbeat, nothing happened.
Then the ship sang.
It was the most beautiful sound Veyra had ever heard, all the phase fields harmonizing at once, the boundary resonance aligning perfectly, the transition completing in a single smooth surge. The dissonance that had been tearing at her senses since before the crisis began suddenly vanished, replaced by the clean, stable hum of a successful phase-shift.
The viewscreen cleared. Crystalline structures stretched to infinity, massive geometric formations of impossible complexity, catching light that came from no visible source. Layer 6. Beautiful. Stable.
Safe.
The alarms cut off one by one. The red lights faded. The status board flickered, recalculated, and started showing green.
Phase-shift complete. All systems nominal. Welcome to Layer 6.
Veyra’s legs went weak. She caught herself on the edge of the console, breathing hard, suddenly aware that her hands were shaking.
Behind her, someone started crying: relief, not fear this time. The captain was pulling himself upright, one hand pressed to his ribs where he’d hit the wall. The pilot just sat there, staring at the viewscreen like he couldn’t quite believe they were still alive.
“How did you do that?” The captain stopped. Started again. “That’s not possible. What you just did. That’s not possible.”
Veyra turned to face him. Saw the way he was looking at her, the way the pilot was looking at her. The way, through the open cockpit door, a flight attendant stood frozen in the corridor, staring.
They’d all seen it. Seen her do things with the phase-shift controls that shouldn’t work. Seen her feel her way through a crisis that should have killed them all.
“I…” Her voice came out rough. “I used to be a phase-shift engineer. Military haulers. I’ve seen malfunctions before.”
It was the truth. Just not all of it.
The captain’s eyes narrowed. He was still shaking, they all were, but he was also thinking now, analyzing. “Military engineers follow protocols. Emergency procedures. You didn’t follow anything. You just… knew.”
Veyra had no answer for that. Because he was right.
She had known. Had felt the exact resonance frequency they needed, had sensed the collapsing field geometries, had intuited a solution that no training manual would ever teach because it was too dangerous, too unorthodox, too dependent on variables that couldn’t be quantified.
She’d done things that should have required sensor data and computational modeling and careful calibration.
She’d done them by instinct.
And now everyone in this cockpit, everyone who’d watched her work, knew she was more than a standard engineer with standard training.
The captain opened his mouth. Closed it. Seemed to reconsider whatever he’d been about to say. Finally, carefully: “We owe you our lives. All of us.”
Veyra nodded slowly. Managed a wan smile.
But the questions blazed in his eyes. They showed in the pilot’s white-knuckled grip on his armrest, in the way the flight attendant still hadn’t moved from the doorway.
The ship’s automated systems chimed cheerfully. Approaching designated coordinates. Layer 6 traffic control contacted. Landing clearance requested.
Everything was normal again. They were safe. The crisis was over.
But Veyra’s heart was still racing.
The layers spoke to her in ways they didn’t speak to other people. They sang through her awareness, their boundaries navigable with an intuition that went beyond training or experience.
She’d always known she was different.
She just hadn’t planned on showing the whole damn ship exactly how different.
The captain was still watching her. “When we land, I’m going to have to file a report. About the malfunction. About… everything.”
“I understand.”
“They’ll have questions.”
“I know.”
She could already imagine it. The investigation. The interviews. Questions about how she’d known, what she’d felt, how she’d done what every regulation said was impossible.
Questions she didn’t have good answers for.
The captain held her gaze for a moment longer, then nodded and turned back to his console. “All right. Let’s get this ship docked. And somebody check on the passengers, make sure no one’s hurt.”
The pilot scrambled to comply. The flight attendant disappeared back into the corridor, already speaking in soothing tones to the frightened passengers beyond.
Veyra stood alone at the manual controls, hands still resting on the panel, and stared out at the impossible beauty of Layer 6’s crystalline expanse. Through the viewport, crystalline spires caught the light, their surfaces singing a harmonic resonance just at the edge of hearing. The air tasted sharp and clean, mineral-cold even through the ship’s atmospheric processing.
The crash hit her all at once.
Her hands were still trembling on the manual controls, fingers locked tight enough to ache. The adrenaline that had carried her through the crisis drained away, leaving her legs weak, her breathing ragged. She pressed both palms flat against the console, needing the solid contact, the thrumming hum of stable systems beneath her touch proving they’d survived.
Forty-three people. Forty-three lives that had been seconds from scattering across the boundary space, atoms lost in the dimensional shear.
Her throat closed. Forty-three people who would have died if she’d been seventeen seconds slower to move, seventeen seconds less certain of the impossible frequency she shouldn’t have known. The number sat heavy in her chest, precise and terrible. Not abstract casualties. Specific people. The sleeping man. The card players. The mother with the datapad. Thane. Mira. Oz. Kael. All of them.
The viewscreen showed Layer 6’s crystalline beauty, stable and safe, the distant harmonics of its fractal structures a reassuring counterpoint to the silence inside her head.
But her hands wouldn’t stop shaking.
Her secret was out.
When Veyra stepped back into the passenger hold, silence hit her first.
Not quiet—the ship was still humming with background ventilation, the distant thrum of engines, the occasional ping of systems recalibrating post-crisis. But the people were silent, and that silence had weight. It pressed against her skin like physical pressure, forty-three people’s attention focused on her with an intensity she could feel in her spine.
The air hung thick with the smell of fear-sweat and recycled atmosphere, warmer now than the controlled cockpit climate—body heat and adrenaline aftermath making the hold feel close, almost suffocating after the technical clarity of the bridge. The temperature difference made her aware of how cold she’d been, how her hands were only now beginning to warm, fingers tingling as circulation returned.
Forty-three passengers who minutes ago had been screaming or praying or crying, now watching her. Some smiled, eyes bright with thanks, hands moving like they wanted to reach out but weren’t quite sure how. Others leaned back in their seats, arms crossed, studying her like a puzzle they didn’t quite want to solve—wariness mixing with gratitude in expressions that shifted as she passed. A few leaned forward, unabashedly staring, mouths slightly open, processing what they’d witnessed in the cockpit or heard through open doors.
The deck plates beneath her boots felt more solid than they had any right to, the ship’s vibration smooth and stable now—alive where it had been dying—but the contrast between the crisis and this weighted silence made her hands tremble harder. She tucked them against her sides, trying to hide the shaking.
She kept her eyes down and headed for her seat.
“Hey.”
The voice was gruff, male, and directly in her path. Veyra looked up to find a man blocking the aisle, tall, broad-shouldered, maybe mid-forties with close-cropped gray hair and the kind of weathered face that came from years in harsh environments. Military bearing, definitely. Everything about him screamed veteran soldier, from his straight-backed posture to the way his eyes tracked her movements.
“Yeah?” Veyra tried to step around him.
He didn’t budge. “Just wanted to say thanks. For keeping us breathing.”
“You’re welcome.”
“You move like someone who knows what they’re doing. Military?”
Veyra hesitated. “Was. Phase-shift engineer. Mustered out two years ago.” She paused, still processing the whiplash herself. “Got recalled to active duty three months ago. Field promotion to captain with the breacher program.”
“Huh.” Something shifted in his expression, recognition, maybe, or reassessment. “Thane Drovek. Combat specialist, 77th Breacher Company.” He extended a hand.
She shook it automatically, processing. Breacher Company. That was… her assignment. Her new assignment. The one she’d been trying not to think about during this whole nightmare transit.
“Veyra Krost. Also 77th, apparently. Engineering specialist.”
“Well then, Krost. Looks like we’ll be working together. Assuming the brass doesn’t ground us all for surviving this clusterfuck.”
He stepped aside, finally, and Veyra made it three more steps before another voice caught her.
“Excuse me, are you all right?”
The voice was soft, concerned. Veyra turned to find two people approaching together—a woman with warm brown skin and her hair in a practical bun, and a man with solid build and kind eyes. They moved with the coordinated efficiency of people who’d worked together before, both carrying the calm, observant presence of medical professionals.
“I’m fine.” Veyra corrected herself when the woman’s eyebrow arched. “I will be. Adrenaline crash.”
“Mm.” The woman pulled a small scanner from her belt, ran it over Veyra’s vitals without asking permission. “Elevated heart rate, minor shock response, but nothing critical.” She glanced at the man, who nodded in confirmation—his own assessment matching the instruments. “You should hydrate and rest when we dock. I’m Mira Shen. Scout and empath, 77th Breacher. This is Oz Kerrigan, our medic.”
Of course they were.
“Veyra Krost. Engineering.”
“I know. You just saved forty-three lives, Krost.” Mira’s gaze held genuine warmth. “We all know who you are now.”
The knot in Veyra’s stomach tightened. Oz touched her arm briefly, grounding, the gesture of someone who understood shock responses. “You did good work,” he said quietly. Then he and Mira moved on together to check on other passengers, their coordination seamless—empath tracking emotional states, medic handling physical responses.
Veyra finally made it back to her seat and collapsed into it, fumbling with the safety harness. Her hands were still trembling.
“That was insane.”
The voice came from the row behind her. Veyra twisted to look and found a young man, maybe twenty-five, sandy hair sticking up in about six directions, leaning over the seat back with an expression of barely contained excitement.
“What you did. The manual frequency adjustment during active phase-shift? That’s impossible. I mean, it’s theoretically possible, but the margin for error is like point-zero-zero-three percent, and you did it by feel? Without sensor confirmation?”
Veyra blinked. “You were watching?”
“I pulled up the cockpit instrument feed on the passenger display. Wanted to see how bad it was.” He grinned, completely unabashed. “Got to watch you work instead. I’m Kael, by the way. Kael Rivas. Comms and sensor specialist, 77th Breacher.”
“Let me guess. You’re also assigned to FOB Meridian.”
“Aren’t we all?” Kael’s grin widened. “This whole section is headed to the same posting. Guess the brass decided to save on transport costs by shipping us out together.” He paused. “Though I’m betting they’re regretting that decision right about now, given we nearly got atomized mid-transit.”
Despite everything, a faint smile tugged at her mouth. “You always this cheerful about near-death experiences?”
“Only the really spectacular ones.” Kael settled back into his seat but kept talking over the headrest. “Seriously, though, what you did with the oscillation pattern? I’ve never seen that technique in any manual. Did you develop it yourself, or is it some kind of classified military procedure?”
“It’s not classified. It’s just…” Veyra trailed off, unsure how to explain. “Instinct, I guess.”
“Huh. That’s either the most impressive thing I’ve ever heard, or the most terrifying. Possibly both.”
Veyra managed a tired smile and turned back to the viewport. The conversation had left her simultaneously energized and exhausted—Kael’s enthusiasm was infectious, but also overwhelming after everything she’d just been through.
Through the crystalline viewport, Layer 6 was coming into sharper focus. The geometric patterns hurt less to look at now, her eyes adjusting to dimensions they weren’t quite designed to process. Beautiful and alien and home for however long this assignment lasted.
Three squadmates met. Three out of how many total? She’d lost count of how many people had been watching her in the cockpit, how many faces had turned toward her when she’d stepped back into the hold.
This is really happening, she thought. Back in uniform. Back in the military. Leading a squad of specialists I just met while saving them from a phase-shift malfunction.
What could possibly go wrong?
The ship’s intercom crackled to life.
“Attention all passengers. We are beginning our final approach to Forward Operating Base Meridian, Layer 6. Current local time is 1847 hours. The temperature outside is a brisk negative-fifteen degrees Celsius, with clear crystalline formations extending to the horizon. We apologize for the earlier… incident,… and thank you for your patience. Landing in approximately ten minutes.”
Around the hold, passengers began moving, collecting belongings, straightening uniforms, securing loose items. The two soldiers who’d been playing cards earlier stood and stretched, their faces still showing traces of the fear they’d felt during the crisis. The woman with the datapad closed it and tucked it away. Everyone preparing for arrival, for whatever came next.
Veyra stayed in her seat and looked out the viewport beside her.
Layer 6 stretched below them, impossible and beautiful. Crystalline structures rose from the surface in geometric patterns that hurt to look at directly, perfect mathematical forms that existed in dimensions her eyes weren’t quite equipped to process. The light came from everywhere and nowhere, refracting through the crystal lattice in cascades of color that shifted and changed as the ship descended.
FOB Meridian came into view, a dark cluster of angular structures nestled in a valley between crystal formations the size of mountains. Military vessels dotted the landing pads, transports, fighters, heavy haulers with weapons arrays that gleamed in the fractured light.
This was it. Her new assignment. Her new life.
The 77th Breacher Company.
She glanced around the passenger hold, cataloging faces. Thane Drovek, the gruff combat veteran who’d thanked her first. Mira Shen and Oz Kerrigan, the medic pair who’d worked with seamless coordination. Kael Rivas, the enthusiastic data specialist who’d watched her save the ship through instrument feeds.
Three squadmates met. How many more waited at FOB Meridian?
People she’d just saved. People she’d be fighting alongside. People who’d already started forming opinions about her based on what they’d witnessed in the last thirty minutes.
Veyra closed her eyes and pressed her forehead against the cool viewport.
Here she was, right back in it. With a squad that apparently specialized in being “broken in interesting ways.”
The ship shuddered slightly as landing gear deployed. Through the bulkhead, she registered the descent, smooth now, stable, no trace of the instability that had nearly killed them all.
“Touchdown in sixty seconds,” the intercom announced. “Welcome to FOB Meridian.”
Veyra opened her eyes and stared out at the crystalline landscape.
Whatever happened next, whatever questions they asked, whatever scrutiny came, she’d deal with it. The same way she always had.
By trusting her gut, even when everyone else said she was wrong.
It had kept her alive this long.
The ship touched down with barely a tremor, perfectly executed. Around her, people began unfastening safety harnesses, standing, moving toward the exits.
Veyra stayed seated a moment longer, watching the crystal formations catch the light.
Then she stood, grabbed her pack, and followed her new squad toward whatever came next.
The disembarkation ramp descended with a hydraulic hiss, and Veyra’s first breath of Layer 6 air hit her like a physical thing.
Cold. Sharp. Wrong.
Not wrong the way the phase-shift malfunction had been wrong, this was different. This was the alien quality of a reality operating on fundamentally different rules than the one she’d grown up in. The air tasted metallic, almost electric, and when she inhaled it felt like breathing light.
Around her, the other passengers were experiencing the same disorientation. Thane stumbled slightly on the ramp, caught himself with a grunt. Mira’s hand went to her temple, eyes unfocused for a moment. Even Kael, who’d been chattering excitedly the entire descent, fell silent as the atmosphere hit him.
Only Sora Vex seemed unaffected, walking down the ramp with the same fluid grace she’d shown on the ship, her pale eyes already scanning the base perimeter.
Veyra forced her legs to move, following the others down onto the landing pad. Her boots hit crystalline-composite deck plating with a dull thud that sounded… off. Sound traveled differently here. Refracted differently through Layer 6’s unique atmospheric density.
Layer 6 thrummed beneath her feet—the solid deck plates and deeper still, the substrate of this reality itself, pulsing with an energy that made her skin prickle. It was like standing on the surface of a vast, living crystal, every step sending out ripples she sensed but couldn’t see.
“Welcome to paradise.” Thane pulled his jacket tighter. “Negative fifteen and dropping. This is the warm season.”
FOB Meridian sprawled before them, a study in military pragmatism carved into impossible terrain. The base occupied a natural depression between crystalline formations that rose like frozen tsunamis on either side, geometric structures hundreds of meters tall, their surfaces catching the omnipresent light and fragmenting it into cascades of color. The base itself was all sharp angles and reinforced composites, built to withstand dimensional stress that would tear apart standard construction.
Veyra’s engineering eye catalogued the details automatically. Phase-stabilization arrays ringed the perimeter, massive emitters that anchored the base to Layer 6’s reality, preventing it from sliding between layers when the boundary instabilities hit. The defensive fortifications were substantial: automated turret nests, energy barriers shimming faintly in the cold air, hardened bunkers dug deep into the crystal substrate.
This wasn’t a forward operating base. This was a fortress.
“All personnel from Transport 447, form up!”
The voice cut through the cold air with parade-ground authority. Veyra turned to see a sergeant striding toward them, a compact woman with iron-gray hair and the kind of weathered face that suggested she’d been stationed on Layer 6 longer than most people survived it. Her uniform bore the insignia of the 77th Breacher Company.
Forty-three passengers began organizing themselves into rough formation. Some moved with military precision, veterans like Thane, who fell into position without conscious thought. Others, like Veyra, were rustier but competent. A few civilians destined for support roles clustered awkwardly at the edges.
“I am Sergeant Torval. You are now standing on Forward Operating Base Meridian, Layer 6, under the jurisdiction of the Unified Coalition Defense Force. For those of you assigned to the 77th Breacher Company, welcome to your new home. For everyone else, personnel from Base Operations will be along shortly to direct you to your respective postings.”
Her gaze swept across them, sharp and assessing. “I’m going to be direct with you: Transport 447 nearly didn’t make it here. We received the distress signal, monitored the crisis, and watched your instruments go critical. According to standard survival estimates, you should all be dead right now.”
A murmur rippled through the formation. Eyes shifted toward her.
“The fact that you’re standing here breathing means someone on that ship did something extraordinary.” Torval’s eyes found Veyra unerringly in the crowd. “And in case you’re wondering, yes, Captain Herridan filed his incident report. Command has already read it.”
Veyra’s stomach dropped.
“Engineering Specialist Veyra Krost, you’ll report to Commander Yathos for debriefing at 1930 hours. That gives you forty minutes to get settled in your bunk, grab a meal, and remember that saving forty-three lives means command is very interested in having a conversation with you.”
“Understood, Sergeant.”
Torval held her gaze a moment longer, then moved on. “The rest of you: 77th Company personnel, follow Corporal Dane to the barracks. You’ll be assigned bunks, issued cold-weather gear, and given a basic orientation. First briefing is tomorrow at 0600. Get rest while you can. Once operations begin, sleep becomes a luxury.”
A young corporal stepped forward, beckoning. The group began to move, breaking formation as they grabbed their gear and followed.
Veyra shouldered her pack and fell in with the others, trying to ignore the weight of what she’d just heard. Commander Yathos. Debriefing. Very interested.
“Hey.” Kael appeared at her elbow, slightly out of breath. “At least they’re not arresting you, right? That’s got to be a good sign.”
“Or they’re just waiting until after the debriefing to decide.”
“Wow. You’re even more pessimistic than me. I’m impressed.”
Despite everything, a faint smile tugged at her mouth. “Give me time. I’m just getting started.”
They passed through the outer security perimeter, an energy barrier that made Veyra’s teeth ache when she stepped through it—a high-frequency vibration that set her molars buzzing and left a metallic taste on her tongue—and into the main base compound. Up close, FOB Meridian was even more imposing. Personnel moved with purpose between buildings, their breath misting in the cold air, voices clipped and efficient. Equipment was being moved, weapons maintained, supplies loaded onto transports. The base hummed with activity, the kind of controlled chaos that spoke of ongoing operations, every movement purposeful.
But there were also signs of strain. Scorch marks on exterior walls—black carbon scoring in patterns that spoke of energy weapons, not conventional fire. The marks were still warm when Veyra passed close enough to feel residual heat radiating from scorched composite. Freshly welded patches on building facades, the metal still bright and unweathered, seams visible where emergency repairs had been made quickly rather than elegantly. The smell of welding compound and sealant hung in the cold air, acrid and chemical, mixing with the ozone scent of active phase-stabilization equipment working overtime.
An entire barracks that looked like it had been recently rebuilt—the walls too clean, too new, the phase-shielding arrays not yet integrated into the base’s overall defensive grid. The building sat like a fresh scar, conspicuous in its newness against the weathered structures surrounding it.
Evidence of combat. Recent combat. The kind that killed people and required rebuilding infrastructure after you’d buried the bodies.
“Rough neighborhood.” Thane fell into step beside her. His eyes tracked the same details she was noticing. “Wonder what they’re breaching that’s hitting back this hard.”
“Breaching. They keep using that term.”
“You don’t know what it means. Neither did I, when I got my orders. They’ll brief us tomorrow. All I know is that breacher units have a forty percent casualty rate.”
Veyra stopped walking. “Forty percent?”
“Over a six-month deployment cycle. Could be worse. Could be a tunneler unit. Those poor bastards have a sixty percent rate.”
“Comforting.”
“Wasn’t trying to be comforting. Was trying to be honest.” Thane nodded toward Corporal Dane, who was gesturing them toward a low, reinforced building. “Come on. Let’s see what kind of accommodations we’re getting for our probable deaths.”
The barracks were utilitarian but solid—bunks arranged in neat rows like military precision made architecture, personal lockers bolted to the floor, shared facilities at the far end. The walls were thick composite, probably shielded against layer instabilities, and when Veyra pressed her palm against the nearest surface it felt reassuringly solid, cold but stable, anchored to Layer 6’s reality through engineering rather than hope.
Heating vents pumped warmth into the space with a steady mechanical hum, fighting back the Layer 6 cold that seeped through every crack and seam—the temperature differential creating a strange sensation, warm air on her face and neck while the floor beneath her boots conducted chill straight through military-issue soles. The air tasted recycled but clean, carrying the faint chemical tang of atmospheric processing and the musty smell of bunks that had housed too many soldiers in too short a time.
“Find a bunk, stow your gear,” Corporal Dane announced. “Mess hall is Building Seven, marked on your orientation packets. Showers are functional, water’s recycled but clean. Don’t drink the local supply, it’ll make you sick until your body adjusts. Stick to the bottled stuff for the first week.”
Veyra claimed a bunk near the middle of the room, not too close to the door but not isolated in the back—tactical positioning instinct she didn’t quite remember developing. The mattress compressed under her hand when she tested it, military-standard foam that would be uncomfortable but functional. Her pack hit the bunk with a dull thud that felt final, somehow. This was her space now. Her bunk in a barracks on Layer 6, surrounded by squad members she’d met by saving their lives.
Mira took the bunk beside her without comment, movements still carrying that efficient grace despite the exhaustion visible in the set of her shoulders. Kael grabbed the one across the aisle, immediately pulling out a datapad and flopping onto his back with the boneless relief of someone whose adrenaline had finally crashed. Thane, predictably, chose a position near the emergency exit—Layer 7 instincts putting him where he could see threats and control egress even in supposedly safe shelter.
Sora Vex was nowhere to be seen. Veyra wasn’t sure when the woman had disappeared, but it didn’t surprise her.
“Ninety minutes until your debriefing.” Mira unpacked with efficient movements. “You should eat. And hydrate. You’re still running on adrenaline.”
“I’m fine.”
Mira gave her a look that probably worked wonders on stubborn patients. “You saved forty-three lives today. The least you can do is take care of yourself before command starts asking uncomfortable questions.”
Veyra opened her mouth to argue, then closed it. Mira was right. And honestly, the thought of food, solid, normal food,was suddenly appealing.
“Fine. Anyone else hungry?”
“Starving. Near-death experiences always make me want to eat everything.”
Thane grunted agreement. Even Mira smiled faintly.
The mess hall was crowded but not chaotic—a low roar of conversation bouncing off composite walls, metal trays clattering, boots on industrial flooring, the background hum of food processing equipment. The air was warm compared to outside, almost oppressively so after the cold, carrying smells of reconstituted protein, recycled cooking oil, and the universal military scent of too many bodies in too small a space. Personnel from various units filled the tables, some in full combat gear still carrying the ozone smell of recent phase-shifts, others in duty uniforms, a few looking like they’d just rolled out of bed after long shifts, eyes hollow with exhaustion she recognized.
The food was standard military fare: protein bars with texture like compressed cardboard, reconstituted vegetables that had been green in some previous geological era, something that might have been meat in a previous life. But it was hot—the heat radiating through the tray into her hands, almost painful after the Layer 6 cold—and it was plentiful, and when Veyra took the first bite she discovered she was hungrier than she’d realized. Her body demanding fuel after the adrenaline crash, hands steady enough now to hold utensils but still carrying a fine tremor she tried to ignore.
She ate mechanically, jaw working through food that tasted like salt and protein and nothing else, half-listening to Kael’s enthusiastic speculation about what breaching operations might entail, while her mind spun through what she’d say to Commander Yathos. How did you explain doing the impossible? How did you justify instincts that had no basis in training or procedure? The food settled heavy in her stomach, grounding but not comforting, each swallow reminding her that her body was still functioning on autopilot while her brain tried to process everything that had happened in the last two hours.
“You’re thinking too hard.” Thane didn’t look up from his tray. “They’re going to ask questions. You’re going to answer honestly. That’s all you can do.”
“And if honest answers aren’t good enough?”
“Then they’re not, and you deal with whatever comes.” He finally met her eyes. “But you saved a ship full of people, Krost. Command isn’t going to throw you in the brig for that. They’re going to want to understand how you did it. Whether they can replicate it. Whether you’re an asset or a liability.”
“That’s supposed to make me feel better?”
“No. It’s supposed to prepare you.” He pushed his empty tray aside. “You’re different. You can do things other people can’t. You proved that today. Now the question is whether you’re going to try to hide it or accept it.”
Veyra stared at him. “You don’t even know me.”
“Don’t need to. I’ve seen enough unusual people in my career to recognize one when she saves my life.” He stood, collecting his tray. “Accept it, Krost. You’re not normal. Neither am I. Neither is half the 77th, from what I hear. That’s why we’re here.”
He walked away before she could respond.
Veyra sat in silence, Mira and Kael exchanging glances across the table. Finally, Kael cleared his throat.
“For what it’s worth, I think what you did was amazing. Terrifying, but amazing. And I’m glad you’re on our team.”
Mira nodded. “We all are.”
Something tight in Veyra’s chest eased fractionally. “Thanks.”
She finished her meal, cleaned her tray, and made her way back outside. The temperature hit her like a wall—Layer 6’s negative fifteen Celsius after the mess hall’s oppressive warmth. Her breath misted immediately, the cold sharp in her lungs, carrying that strange metallic-electric taste that made breathing feel almost like drinking. The base was quieter now as the local evening settled in, though “evening” was a relative term on Layer 6, where the ambient light never truly faded, just shifted in quality and color. The crystalline formations surrounding the base glowed faintly, luminescence trapped in their geometric structures like captured starlight, casting everything in soft prismatic illumination that had no single source.
Veyra checked her datapad. Twenty minutes until the debriefing. Enough time to clear her head.
She wandered toward the edge of the base perimeter, keeping inside the security barriers but getting as close to the raw Layer 6 landscape as she could. Her boots crunched on crystalline-composite ground, each step sending tiny vibrations through the substrate that she felt more than heard. Up close, the crystalline formations were even more breathtaking—perfect mathematical constructs that seemed to exist in more dimensions than her eyes could properly process. The surfaces sang faintly, a harmonic resonance just at the edge of hearing, frequencies that made her teeth ache and her skin prickle with awareness. She could see patterns in them, fractal repetitions that went down to scales too small to perceive and up to scales that vanished into the horizon, each iteration perfect, each containing all the complexity of the whole.
The light refracted through the crystals in cascades, breaking into colors that shifted as she moved, some wavelengths her eyes recognized and others that registered as wrongness, as impossible hues her visual cortex tried and failed to process. Beautiful. Alien. Mathematics made physical.
And beneath it all, through the soles of her boots and the palms of her hands when she reached out to steady herself against the security barrier’s support strut, she perceived the pulse. The fundamental rhythm of Layer 6 itself, vibrating through substrate and atmosphere both. It wasn’t like Layer 2’s steady, reliable beat—the comfortable thrum of a reality that knew its own rules. This was more erratic, more wild, syncopated and unpredictable, like the heartbeat of a living system that might be dreaming, not entirely stable, held together by physical constants that were more suggestions than laws.
“Beautiful, isn’t it?”
Veyra spun. Sora Vex stood a few meters away, so still and silent that Veyra hadn’t noticed her approach. The woman’s pale eyes reflected the crystalline glow.
“You can feel it. The instability. The way this layer wants to fracture. It’s held together by rules that are barely rules at all. More like… suggestions.”
“How did you—” Veyra started, then stopped. “You feel it too.”
“Not the way you do.” Sora stepped closer, her gaze moving to the crystal formations. “You sense the technical aspects. The phase resonances, the boundary stresses. I sense… something else. Patterns. Probabilities. The shape of what’s going to happen before it happens.”
Veyra’s pulse quickened. “You knew the ship was going to malfunction.”
“I knew something was wrong. Not what. Not how to fix it. That’s why I didn’t go to the cockpit. I would have been useless. You weren’t.”
There was a pause. Around them, the base hummed with activity, but here at the perimeter it felt isolated. Private.
“Why are you telling me this?”
“Because you’re wondering if you’re alone. If you’re broken.” Sora finally looked at her. “You’re not. The 77th specializes in people like us: people who can do things that don’t fit the manual, who see things others can’t, who survived things that should have killed them.”
“People like us. Is that what Thane meant?”
“Probably.” The faintest hint of amusement touched Sora’s expression. “You’ll meet the others tomorrow. Some are more obvious than us. Some hide it better. But we’re all here because normal soldiers can’t do what needs to be done.”
“And what needs to be done?”
“Breaching. You’ll find out soon enough.”
Veyra watched her disappear into the shadows between buildings, then checked her datapad again. Five minutes.
Time to face Commander Yathos.
She took one last look at the crystal formations, at the impossible beauty of Layer 6, at the base that would be her home for the next six months, assuming she survived that long.
Then she turned and headed for the command building.
Whatever questions they had, whatever they wanted from her, she’d deal with it. She’d survived the phase-shift crisis. She’d survive this too.
Veyra reached the command building and paused at the entrance, her hand on the door. Through the reinforced composite walls, she registered the faint hum of phase-stabilization equipment, the base’s technological heartbeat keeping them anchored to Layer 6’s unstable reality.
She took a breath of cold, electric air.
Then she opened the door and stepped inside.