135 YEARS PRIOR...

Alterica was a peaceful place—made of green valleys, buttes with gentle slopes, small spread-out woods, and majestic mountains.

Cal Treggor was surprised when he heard the exploration team had deemed this place unfit for colonization.

“Why?” he had asked Gandor.

The man had shown him their recordings.

“It looks heavenly, but appearances can be deceiving. The place is plagued with frequent and extremely violent storms. Not a single structure we’ve built, no matter how strong the material, has withstood the blows.”

“So that’s why you moved your base of operation into the mountains?”

“It’s part of it. But we also have the wurms to put up with.”

“The wurms?”

“Giant worm-like creatures that burrow underground. They’ll eat anything. Wood, metal, humans... They don’t come near the mountains, though, so we’re safe here. Honestly, if it weren’t for that drill, we’d already have left. It’s not worth the trouble.”

Treggor now stood in the cave, staring at the egg-shaped device. It was black as night, with only a few patches of color here and there. Red and blue marks, both in a darker tint. He wondered what they meant.

The thing did not glow, nor did it emit any sounds. It just hovered there, taunting him. Underneath was a pit, though you could barely see the opening along the edges of the egg.

People had tried to move the device to access the opening, but it wouldn’t budge, no matter how hard they pushed. They’d even tried tying ropes to the damn thing and pulling them with machines. The ropes had broken.

He moved closer and reached out. His fingers grazed the surface. It was rough, as if covered with billions of minuscule bumps that were not visible to the naked eye. He felt warmth, too, which intrigued him as the cave was chilly.

“So what do you think of the Gandoran Drill?” asked a woman’s voice from behind.

He turned and saw a tall blonde with a mischievous smile. She wore the same white uniform with the Imperial wreath that all the scientists here wore.

“The Gandoran Drill?”

She held out her hand as she approached. “Alana Gorim.”

He shook it. “Cal Treggor.”

She nodded and pointed at the alien device.

“John isn’t too fond of the term, but we thought it only fair to name it after him, since he’s the one who discovered it.”

Treggor looked back toward the egg as the woman stepped up next to him, both of them staring at the black surface.

He rubbed the back of his head.

“I don’t know what to make of it,” he muttered.

“Welcome to the club.”

Treggor glanced at her. “I’m sure you must have a theory, no?”

She smiled and shrugged. “Oh, we all do. There is no lack of theories here. It could be anything from a digging tool to a transportation device. Who knows?”

“A weapon, maybe?”

She gave him a strange look. “Is that why they sent you?”

It was his turn to shrug. “The government wouldn’t be doing its job if it didn’t consider all angles, including the more nefarious ones.”

“I think the word you’re looking for is especially.”

He chuckled. “Either way, it’s above my pay grade.”

“Oh?”

“I’m just here to move the damn thing.”

She frowned. “And how the hell are you going to do that?”

“Sorry, but that’s above your pay grade.”

“I see.”

“Nothing personal.”

She smiled. “I’m a scientist. I know the drill.” She giggled when she realized she had just made a pun. “Well, if you pull it off, we might be able to finally explore the pit.”

“How do you know it’s not just two feet deep?”

She smirked as she pointed at the opening between the edge of the hole and the egg’s surface.

“There’s enough space there that we could wiggle a camera through. It got yanked away by something and we had to cut the cable before it took the whole installation down. The feed broke off after a couple of minutes, but we got enough footage to know it’s deep.”

“Yanked?” She just nodded. “You think there’s something down there?”

“Some of the guys think whoever built that machine must live in underground cities. That pit could be a tunnel leading back to them.”

Treggor had brought some of his own men with him. Over the next few days, they placed connectors—small, round, yellow alundil plates—all over the black egg. Making them hold was the tricky part. On a smooth surface they would have held in place easily enough, but because of the bumps, every once in a while one of them would fall. They had to keep sticking them back on, until one of his men thought of using elastic glue that would fill the gaps between the bumps.

They had asked Gandor’s team to stay away. In part because of the secrecy that surrounded this technology, but also because Treggor didn’t know what would happen. They were in uncharted territory. This thing was so much bigger than anything they’d ever displaced before. For all he knew, the whole cave could blow up... or be displaced at the same time as the device.

Best everyone stayed at the base.

He and his men, however, were required to be there so they could monitor the proceedings and make any required adjustments. They all understood the risk and accepted it.

When everything was ready, they sat behind the makeshift control desk, and Treggor pressed the button that would set the machine off.

At first, nothing happened.

Then they heard a distant buzz. It slowly grew. And as it did, he thought he saw bits of the egg blur. The sound continued to rise in pitch and volume. The walls trembled and the ground shook. Pieces of rock fell from the ceiling.

There was a loud clap, and all of a sudden the device was gone.

The men all laughed and cheered, but Treggor did not.

He still had to make sure the Gandoran Drill had gone where it was supposed to go. As his fingers ran over the controls, he looked around with a frown. Something was off. While the high-pitched whistling had stopped, it was now replaced by another sound.

Rocks fell into the no longer covered pit. Each produced sparks and a flurry of light as they bounced around and tumbled further down the shaft.

The others finally noticed, and some ventured closer to the opening.

“Stay away!” yelled Treggor.

But it was too late. One of them got hit by a rock and fell into the hole. His screams echoed for a long time as his body was thrown back and forth between the surfaces as it dropped deeper and deeper.

There was another sound, too, though it was more distant. How long had it been there? Like piercing shrieks that resonated through the tunnels.

“Can you hear that?” whispered someone.

Despite the noise of the falling rocks, the shrieks grew louder. It sent shivers down their spines and curdled their blood.

They all turned to look at the tunnel—the one that led outside. It was their only way out. A swarm of small and deadly creatures rushed out from it and jumped on the closest men, tearing through flesh and bone, like a thousand famished monsters.

Treggor stepped back toward the pit, horrified by the scene. How was he going to get out of here? The only exit was cut off. And he was not about to jump into that hole!

Then he saw one of the yellow plates lying on the ground. Without thinking, he reached down, stuck it against his skin, then hurried to the controls and hit the button.

This, too, had never been done before.

The alien technology had only ever been used to displace inanimate objects.

But it was too late now to stop it.

The scientist looked down and saw his feet disappear, then his hands... And then everything went dark.

Cal Treggor was never heard from again.