Read Dust and Starlight free: the opening chapter

Echoes of the Void (Book 1): Dust and Rust

The static crackled in my headset, a familiar lullaby against the black velvet of space. “Stardust to cycle three wreckage, do you copy? This is Rostova.”

Nothing. Just the hiss and pop of dead comms. Expected. Most of the wrecks out here were picked clean years ago, or worse, guarded by scavengers who’d happily turn your ship into scrap metal for a handful of credits.

I nudged the Stardust’s throttle, bringing us closer to the debris field. It wasn't much, just a scatter of hull plating and twisted metal, the remains of a freighter caught in a micro-meteor shower, according to the system registry. Probably stripped bare, but I needed the synth-alloy. Lena was running low, and repairs were piling up.

“Anything, Kai?” I asked, glancing at the navigator, who was hunched over his console, fingers flying across the controls.

“Mostly dust and regret, Captain,” he replied, not looking up. Kai always had a quip ready. Annoying, sometimes, but I’d take his humor over silence. “Though I’m picking up a faint energy signature on the largest chunk. Could be a life support system still cycling, or… something else.”

“Something else is usually trouble,” I muttered, adjusting the ship’s magnetic clamps. “Static, run a full scan. Let's see what our little ghost ship is hiding.”

Jax Kael, our engineer, grunted from his station. “Already on it. Signature's weak, erratic. Definitely Precursor tech. Probably fried, but worth a look.”

Precursor tech. Now that was interesting. The Precursors, a vanished civilization, had left behind relics scattered across the Kepler-186f system, technology so advanced it was barely understood. Valuable, dangerous, and always attracting the wrong kind of attention.

“Lena, prep the boarding team. Standard procedure.”

“Acknowledged,” came the crisp reply from the security officer. Lena was all business. Ex-military, she didn’t waste words or movements. A solid rock in a chaotic universe.

---

The boarding shuttle shuddered as we docked with the derelict. The airlock hissed open, revealing a corridor plunged into darkness. I activated my helmet’s floodlights, cutting through the gloom.

The interior was a mess. Cables hung like severed veins, consoles sparked erratically, and a fine layer of metallic dust coated everything. It smelled like burnt ozone and decay.

“Stay sharp,” I said, my voice tight in my headset. “This place feels wrong.”

We moved cautiously through the ship, Lena leading the way, her pulse rifle raised. Jax followed, tinkering with a scanner. Kai brought up the rear, constantly monitoring our position on his holographic display. I covered the front, my own pistol drawn, scanning for threats.

The energy signature led us deeper into the ship, to what had once been the crew quarters. Most of the cabins were empty, stripped bare. But one door was sealed, its hatch reinforced with emergency bulkheads.

“Well, that’s new,” I said, raising an eyebrow. “Looks like someone didn’t want anyone getting in here.”

Jax approached, running a diagnostics scan. “The seal is Precursor-grade. Whatever’s inside, they really wanted to keep it hidden.”

“Breach it,” I ordered.

Jax worked quickly, bypassing the security protocols. The hatch groaned in protest, then finally popped open, revealing a small, cramped compartment.

The room was surprisingly intact. A single console hummed softly, its screen displaying a complex series of glyphs. In the center of the room, suspended in a stasis field, was a figure.

A woman.

---

Lena was the first to react. “Life signs are minimal, but present. She’s alive.”

I approached cautiously, my pistol still raised. The woman was young, maybe early twenties, with long black hair and pale skin. She was wearing a uniform unlike any I’d ever seen, sleek, black, and adorned with strange symbols.

“Who is she?” I asked, my voice barely a whisper.

“No idea,” Kai replied, studying the console. “The language on that thing is… ancient. Not even a match for known Precursor dialects.”

“Try to access the stasis field controls,” I said. “Let’s get her out of there.”

Jax fiddled with the console, but the controls were unresponsive. “The system’s locked down. It’s like someone intentionally disabled the release mechanism.”

“Override it,” I ordered. “Now.”

Jax swore under his breath, but his fingers flew across the controls. After a tense few minutes, the stasis field flickered and died. The woman slumped forward, unconscious.

Lena immediately moved to administer first aid, checking her vital signs. “Pulse is weak, but steady. She’s been in stasis for a long time.”

I knelt beside the woman, studying her face. There was something familiar about her, a haunting echo of a memory I couldn’t quite grasp. It was unsettling.

“What do you think, Captain?” Lena asked, her voice concerned. “Who is she, and why was she hidden away on this wreck?”

“I don’t know,” I admitted. “But I have a feeling we just stumbled into something a lot bigger than a salvage job.”

---

Back on the Stardust, we settled the woman into the ship’s medbay. Lena worked tirelessly to stabilize her, while Jax and Kai attempted to decipher the data from the Precursor console.

“I’ve managed to extract some fragmented files,” Kai announced, his brow furrowed. “It’s mostly garbled, but I’m picking up references to… a project. Something called ‘Resonance’.”

“Resonance?” I repeated. “What kind of project?”

“The files are too corrupted to say for sure,” Kai replied. “But it seems to involve manipulating energy fields. And… a weapon. A really big weapon.”

My gut clenched. Precursor technology was rarely about peaceful applications.

“Anything else?”

“There’s a recurring name,” Kai said, hesitating. “Councilor Theron Vahl.”

Vahl. The name sent a chill down my spine. He was a powerful figure in the Core Worlds, a ruthless politician with a reputation for getting what he wanted, no matter the cost.

“Vahl is involved?” I asked, my voice tight.

“It’s just a possibility,” Kai said quickly. “But the name keeps popping up in connection with the Resonance project.”

The pieces were starting to fall into place, and the picture wasn’t pretty. A hidden woman, a mysterious project, a dangerous weapon, and a ruthless politician. We’d stumbled onto something far more complex, and potentially far more dangerous, than we could have imagined.

---

The woman stirred, her eyes fluttering open. She looked around the medbay, confusion clouding her features.

“Where… where am I?” she whispered, her voice raspy.

Lena gently raised her head. “You’re on my ship. You were found in a derelict.”

The woman’s eyes focused on me. “Who are you?”

“Captain Eva Rostova,” I replied, studying her carefully. “And you are?”

She hesitated, her gaze drifting around the room. “My name is Zara. Zara Volkov.”

“Zara,” I repeated, testing the name on my tongue. It felt… familiar. Like a half-forgotten dream.

“Do you remember how you ended up on that ship?” I asked.

Zara shook her head, a flicker of pain crossing her face. “Fragments. Flashes. A lab… experiments… someone chasing me.”

“What were they experimenting on?”

Zara’s eyes widened, fear replacing the confusion. “The Resonance. They were trying to control it.”

“Control it?” I pressed.

“It’s… a power source,” she said, her voice trembling. “An incredibly powerful one. But it’s unstable. Dangerous. They wanted to weaponize it.”

“Who ‘they’?”

Zara’s gaze locked with mine, her eyes filled with a chilling realization. “Vahl. Councilor Theron Vahl. He’s the one behind it all.”

I felt a cold dread creep over me. We weren’t just dealing with a salvage job anymore. We were caught in the middle of a conspiracy that could tear the Kepler-186f system apart. And Zara Volkov, whoever she was, held the key to unraveling it all.

The comms panel beeped, breaking the tense silence. It was Kai.

“Captain,” he said, his voice urgent. “We have a problem. A NovaTech cruiser just dropped out of hyperspace. They’re scanning for our signature.”

NovaTech. Vahl’s private security force. They’d found us.

“They know we have Zara,” I said, my voice grim. “Prepare for evasive maneuvers. We’re running silent.”

The hunt had begun.

“They know we have Zara,” I said, my voice grim. “Prepare for evasive maneuvers. We’re running silent.”

The Stardust shuddered as Kai initiated the dampening fields, masking our energy signature. Lena was already sealing off the medbay, reinforcing the already sturdy bulkheads. Every second counted. NovaTech cruisers weren’t known for their polite requests.

“Dampeners are holding, Captain, but they’re persistent. They’re running a tight grid pattern,” Kai reported, his fingers flying across the console. “They’re not just looking, they expect to find something.”

“They’re expecting us to run,” I said, already plotting a course through the asteroid belt that ringed Kepler-186f. “Let’s give them a show. Kai, lay down a scattering of false positives. Old comm buoys, derelict drones, anything to clutter their sensors.”

“Aye, Captain.”

The Stardust plunged into the asteroid field, a chaotic ballet of rock and metal. I pushed the ship to its limits, weaving through the dense debris, relying on years of instinct and the ship’s responsive handling. Salvage work wasn’t about pristine navigation; it was about knowing how far you could push a ship before it became another piece of space junk.

I glanced back at the medbay monitor. Zara was sitting up, her eyes fixed on the readings flickering across the screen. Even through the grainy image, I could see the fear hadn’t left her, but there was something else there now… a spark of defiance.

“You’re a pilot?” I asked, keeping my voice level.

“I used to be,” Zara replied, her gaze meeting mine. “Before… before everything.”

“What did you fly?”

“Mostly freighters. Long hauls, between the Core Worlds and the Rim. Nothing fancy.” She managed a weak smile. “But I knew my way around a cockpit.”

“Good. Because you might be flying again soon.”

“What are you planning?”

“Survival. We’re going to lose them in the belt, then jump to the outer colonies. Somewhere Vahl won’t be looking.”

“And then what?”

“Then we figure out what the Resonance is, and how to make sure Vahl doesn’t get his hands on it.”

The comms crackled. “Captain, they’ve locked onto a heat signature. It’s one of the false positives, but they’re investigating.”

“Keep feeding them distractions, Kai. And prep the countermeasures.”

The NovaTech cruiser, a sleek, intimidating vessel bristling with weaponry, appeared on the tactical display, its scanners cutting through the asteroid field like a knife. They were closing in.

“They’re not falling for it,” Kai said, his voice strained. “They’re using advanced sensor arrays. They’re cutting through the clutter.”

“Damn it.” I swore under my breath. This wasn’t going to be easy.

I initiated a hard turn, sending the Stardust spinning around a massive asteroid, using its gravitational pull to slingshot us forward. The ship groaned in protest, but held.

“Lena, status report on the medbay shields.”

“Holding, but they’re taking a beating. Another direct hit and they’ll buckle.”

“We can’t afford to take another hit. Zara, I need you to do something for me.”

Zara looked up, her eyes questioning.

“I need you to access the ship’s security systems. There’s a hidden compartment near the engine room. It contains a few… modifications I made during my salvage days. Override the automatic targeting system and reroute it to the decoy launchers.”

“What are you asking me to do?”

“I’m asking you to turn our decoys into a swarm of guided missiles.”

Zara hesitated for a moment, then nodded. “I can do that.”

Her fingers danced across the console, bypassing security protocols with surprising speed. Whatever she was before, she was clearly more than just a freighter pilot.

“Done,” she said, her voice tight. “Decoys are armed and ready.”

“Good. Kai, on my mark, launch the entire decoy payload. Let’s give them a swarm they won’t forget.”

The Stardust unleashed a torrent of decoys, each one emitting a false heat signature and mimicking our ship’s energy profile. The NovaTech cruiser paused, its sensors overwhelmed by the sudden surge of targets.

“Now!” I yelled.

The decoys, guided by Zara’s modifications, swerved and accelerated, converging on the NovaTech cruiser like angry hornets. The cruiser’s gunners opened fire, but the swarm was too dense, too chaotic. Explosions rocked the NovaTech vessel as the decoys detonated, creating a dazzling display of light and debris.

It wasn’t enough to destroy the cruiser, but it was enough to buy us time.

“They’re disoriented, Captain! Their scanners are scrambled!” Kai shouted. “We have a window!”

“Take it! Engage the hyperdrive!”

The Stardust lurched forward as the hyperdrive engaged, pulling us into the swirling vortex of hyperspace. The asteroid field, the NovaTech cruiser, and the Kepler-186f system vanished behind us, replaced by the infinite darkness of interstellar space.

We were safe… for now.

I slumped back in my chair, exhaustion washing over me. It had been a close call. Too close.

“You did good, Zara,” I said, turning to the monitor.

“I just did what I had to,” she replied, her voice quiet.

“You saved our lives.”

“We all did.”

The silence stretched between us, punctuated only by the hum of the ship’s engines. I knew we still had a long way to go, a dangerous path ahead. But for the first time since finding Zara, I felt a flicker of hope.

This wasn’t just about salvage anymore. It was about fighting back against a powerful enemy, protecting a dangerous secret, and maybe, just maybe, making a difference in a galaxy that desperately needed one.

My work as a salvage pilot wasn’t glamorous. It was scraping by, living on the edges of known space, taking jobs nobody else wanted. I found what others discarded, broken ships, lost cargo, forgotten technology. I rebuilt, repurposed, and sold it for a pittance, enough to keep the Stardust flying and my crew fed.

It was a hard life, filled with risk and uncertainty. But it was my life. And I wouldn't trade it for anything.

I took a long swig from my ration pack, the metallic tang doing little to quench my thirst. Looking out at the starfield blurring past the viewport, I knew one thing for certain: this job, this salvage run, was about to become something else entirely.

Dust and Rust ended here.

The sample ends here.