135 YEARS PRIOR...

A persistent thump in his head woke him. He drowsily recognized that someone was trying to call. Only then did he notice the muffled hum of his wristpad.

Cal Treggor sat up in his bed and stared at the small display. A text scrolled on a loop: “Pick up the damn call. Now!”

He pressed two fingers against the temple of his head and the growing migraine instantly faded as a face appeared against his retina.

“About damn time!” grunted the man.

Treggor glanced at his wife, who was still sound asleep next to him. He quietly slipped out of bed, put on his slippers, and tiptoed out of the room.

“I was sleeping, Ked,” he whispered. “Do you know what time it is?”

“Don’t care. We have an emergency. You need to get your ass down here right away.”

“What? I can’t just—”

“It’s an order, Cal. From above.”

Treggor had almost reached the living room when he froze in his steps.

“Really?”

The other nodded gravely.

There weren’t too many people ‘above’ Ked Ambrose. In fact, there only was one. Which made this a very special moment.

“Alright,” he said. “Give me ten minutes to change and transport.”

“You have five.”

The link was broken, and Treggor cursed as he rushed back into his room. His foot hit the edge of the door and he stifled a shout. But it was too late. He saw his wife stir in the bed. She turned and looked at him with sleepy eyes.

“What are you doing up, honey?”

“Work,” he muttered as he grabbed clothes from the closet and started changing. “I have to go.”

She sat up in the bed, wide awake, and stared at him.

“I hope you’re kidding.”

“Do I look like I’m kidding.”

“And you couldn’t say no?”

Treggor laughed and shook his head. “You don’t say no to the Emperor, dear.”

Her eyes went wide.

He hurried over to the bed, leaned to kiss her, then rushed back out of the room. As always, the portal waited for him in his office. He opened the floating door and felt himself sucked through the opening.

A second later, he stood at the heart of a spacious, round room with gold walls and ceiling. A red carpet covered the entire floor.

Looking around, he saw guards posted at every entrance. Through one of these, Ked Ambrose appeared. He wore the Imperial wreath on a purple robe with red rims that marked his role as the Emperor’s visor.

“Glad you didn’t make me wait longer than I already had,” grumbled the man as he approached.

“How long had you been ringing?”

“At least thirty minutes. You’re a damn heavy sleeper, Cal.”

Treggor gave him an apologetic smile.

“What can I say? I need my beauty sleep.”

Ambrose snorted. “Stop being an ass and follow me.”

The visor turned and headed back toward the door he had just come from. Treggor hurried after him.

“What is this about?” he asked.

“Have you heard of John Gandor?”

Treggor frowned as he tried to remember where he’d heard the name before. “Wasn’t he a teacher at the Ran-Holton University?”

“He was indeed, though I’m surprised you would know about that.”

“My older sister studied there and had only good things to say about him.”

“Ah, yes, of course.” Ambrose pondered this as they went through a dozen halls. “Before working there, he was a renowned scientist. Though he was always more fond of echion energy than thilium.”

“Nobody’s perfect,” he joked.

The other answered with a grunt as they walked through yet another hall and finally entered the visor’s office. Despite its smaller size, it was just as richly decorated as all the other rooms in the palace.

“I can’t imagine you’d have heard of this,” resumed Ambrose as he sat behind his desk, motioning for Treggor to take the other seat, across from him, “but Gandor found something... special.”

Treggor quirked a brow but remained quiet.

“Since leaving the University, he leads a small team of scientists that studies new worlds to gauge whether they are fit for colonization.”

“I take it he’s found something troubling?”

“You can say that again!”

Treggor could see the visor was irritated and wondered if it was because of how long he had taken to answer the call.

Ambrose frowned as he continued. “He found an alien device.”

Treggor straightened in his chair, eyes lighting up. As the Imperium’s Secrets Senior Officer, all such discoveries fell under his jurisdiction.

“It has been a while since we’ve found one of those.”

“This one’s egg-shaped and floats in the air above a pit.”

“So it is active?”

Ambrose shrugged. “It emits no sound, produces no light, nothing. We can’t even pick up any traces of energy. And yet, it floats.”

“How long ago was this found?”

“Two years ago,” Ambrose said, jaw clenched.

“What?”

The visor struck the desk with his fist.

“Two freaking years! That’s what you get when everything has to go through a thousand channels. Damned bureaucracy. Too much filtering will kill us.”

No wonder the man was furious.

“When the Emperor found out about it, he grew concerned it might be a spying device, or even some sort of weapon. He wants us to study it so we can pierce its secrets in case there’s an alien invasion coming. Which means we need to move this thing right away.”

“So why am I here? I can’t do anything until it’s in our locals.”

Ambrose sat back in his chair and sighed.

“It’s in a cave. The tunnels are too narrow to move it out—that’s assuming we could even budge the damn thing, which we can’t.”

Treggor frowned. “How did it get in there?”

“How the hell would I know?” He grabbed a holofile that sat on his desk and threw it on the scientist’s side. “Gandor and his team have theories, but they’re all over the place. Though all suggest it likely came from out of that pit. Gandor thinks it drilled through the rock and formed the pit itself.”

As he was about to ask again why he was here, Treggor paused, realizing what this was about. They wanted him to move that thing. He also knew how they expected him to pull it off, and it made him uncomfortable.

He shook his head as he swiped through the holofile.

“This is not a good idea, Ked. You know we’re still studying the technology and it’s fickle as hell. Plus, we’ve never tried to displace anything bigger than a wristpad.” He tapped at a picture of the egg-shaped device. “This thing is big.”

“There’s a first time for everything. Consider it an opportunity to go further in your research.”

“A lot of things could go wrong—”

“That’s not my problem. You have your orders.”

Treggor frowned as he looked back up at the visor.

“This is what the Emperor wants?”

“That’s what I said, isn’t it?”

He sighed as he closed the file and stood. “Alright. So long as I don’t take the blame when this all blows up in our faces.”

Ambrose squinted. “You think I’d take the blame?”

Treggor grimaced. He knew the answer. And if not the visor, it certainly wouldn’t be the Emperor. So unless he found someone to take care of it, this was bound to bite him in the ass.

Only problem was, he couldn’t trust anyone else with this technology.

“Damn you, Ked,” he grunted as he walked out.