126 YEARS PRIOR...

The Gandoran Drill was a mystery wrapped within a mystery. It hovered above the ground without emitting a single sound, or light, or any sign of power.

With the disappearance of Cal Treggor, Del Ammar had been appointed as the new Secrets Senior Officer and, as such, oversaw all research involving alien devices.

But the Drill was his main concern. It fascinated him.

In the nine years they had studied it, they had failed to breach it, break it, or open it. The surface couldn’t even be damaged. It remained clean and shiny as on the first day it had arrived. They had also tried to look inside, using various technologies—from X-rays to quantum physics, but none of it had worked.

And yet, it seemed made of a simple metallic substance. There was no reason they couldn’t pierce through.

One thing, however, had become clear. The Drill somehow affected the weather. Soon after moving it, the storms on Alterica had worsened and snow had fallen continuously ever since.

Ammar might have thought it a freak coincidence if the weather hadn’t started going weird around the secret base where the device had landed.

“Shouldn’t it be the other way around?” had asked a confused scientist from his team. “It obviously was making things better on Alterica, so why is it making them worse here?”

Ammar had no answer—no one did. But they could not just do nothing. This was bound to draw unwanted attention to their activities.

So he decided to move the device again—this time to an isolated asteroid that had no weather to affect.

He stood in front of the egg now, staring at it.

“Why can’t I break you open, damn it?”

Though the shell was made of metal, it was of a type they could not identify.

“Sir...”

“What?” he asked distractedly, his eyes still focused on the device.

“Two engineers are asking permission to come through the gateway.”

He blinked and looked at his assistant. “Engineers?”

“They say they’ve come to fix the conveyor.”

“Ah! Yes. I called them yesterday. That was quick. Let them in.”

“I didn’t realize the conveyor was broken.”

He quirked a brow. “Must I tell you everything, then? Is that how it works? Am I the assistant now?”

The younger man grumbled and shook his head.

“No, of course not. I’ll go take care of it.”

“You do that.”

He watched him walk away for a moment, then looked back at the egg.

What was its secret?

Was it truly a drill? A transportation mechanism? A communication conduit? Or did it only control the weather? But even then, how did it do it? And was it all it could do?

Was the Emperor right to fear this thing, to think it could be a weapon or a spying device?

He did not think the latter likely. There hadn’t been much to spy on in that cavern on Alterica, after all. You’d think they’d have picked a more strategic spot had that truly been its nature.

And who, exactly, were ‘they’?

Too many questions, not enough answers.

Clinking sounds drew his attention. He looked back toward the door and saw the two engineers come through. The assistant led them to the conveyor and they began to work.

Ammar sighed as he walked back to his desk. It was in the same room as the device, in the back, where he could keep an eye on things. He had wanted to make sure he wouldn’t miss any important discovery—let alone any activity from this thing.

He sat and tapped on his TriVid screen. Data scrolled until he stopped it with a swipe of his fingers. He read through the text and grunted.

Nothing they tried was working. It was as if they’d thrown nine years down the drain.

Ammar was about to load up a different report when he heard a high-pitched whistle, followed by a shriek, followed by a series of thuds.

His head shot up, looking toward the conveyor.

One of the panels had broken, and a beam of raw thilium energy had shot out of it, piercing through his assistant and various equipment on its way to the alien device.

He jumped out of his chair, shouting.

“Shut it down! Now!”

The engineers hadn’t waited for him. Even as the last word came out of his mouth, the ray disappeared.

A dozen scientists ran around in panic, as papers flew everywhere. Chairs and tables were toppled. A sickening smell of burned flesh and melted metal lingered in the air.

Ammar looked down at the lifeless body of his assistant. Then at the materials the beam had touched. It had gone through all of them, piercing wide and fuming holes. No matter the metal, none could resist the power of raw thilium.

Then he stared at the Drill.

It hovered quietly, as if nothing had happened.

Amidst the chaos, he walked slowly toward the device and circled it, looking for any sign of damage.

There was none.

Not a single scratch.

Not a single burn.

He frowned.

It was as if—

His eyes went wide.

He spun around and hurried toward the conveyor.

“You two!”

The engineers looked up.

“Now don’t go blaming this on us!” started one of them. “Can’t help it if you’re using selite panels. That stuff is too brittle for an installation like this. You really should—”

“Enough! I don’t care about that. Do you have a cutter?”

The man blinked. “Of course. We need it to—”

Ammar held out his hand. “I need to borrow it.” When the other hesitated, he shouted. “Now!”

The engineer grunted but complied.

With the cylinder in hand, Ammar walked back to the egg. This was one thing they had never thought to try.

Keeping the cutter far enough from the surface that he could see the beam, he pressed the button on the side and watched as the ray came out and disappeared into the black shell.

“Ha!” He turned off the cutter and turned back to his team. “It absorbs thilium energy!”

Having finally come back to their senses, the scientists gathered around him, gaping at the Drill.

“What does it mean?” asked one of them.

“It means...” Ammar frowned. “I don’t know what it means, but it means something. Oh! I need to see that report again.”

He ran back to his desk and pulled up the analysis he had run a couple of years ago in an attempt to identify the material the device was made of.

“It’s an alloy!” he cried out after a few minutes of reading. “Why did I not see this before? Damn it! So much time wasted. Of course, it’s an alloy!”

Dr. Dena Dermuth was one of the youngest scientists on his team.

“What are the components?” she asked.

“That’s a good question.” Ammar leaned back in his chair with an awed expression on his face. “It’s made up of two metals. One of them remains unidentified. But the other? It’s thilium.”

“But that’s impossible!” said Dermuth. “Thilium is pure energy, it’s not a metal.”

“And yet...” He pointed at his screen. “It is. Whoever made that thing somehow managed to turn thilium into a solid and used that to create one of the most resistant metals I’ve ever seen. And as a plus side, it can even absorb raw thilium.”

“We don’t know that. For all we know, it went inside and—”

“Then why didn’t it come out the other side? Raw thilium cannot be stopped and will slice through anything that comes in its way. It should have come out the back. It did not. Because it was absorbed. That’s the only possible explanation.”

He stared at the device, his eyes going wide.

All those who were looking at him at that moment saw the color drain out of his face.