The inertial dampeners groaned with the dull, ringing clunk of overstressed silver-steel as the corvette Aethelgard cleared the lunar gravity wake. Beyond the heavy quartz watching ports, the Shattered Pearl pulled back into a shimmering crescent of rainbow-bright regolith and silver-blue aether dust. Ahead lay only the inner solar void: an unbroken gulf of black empty pocket wildly lit up by the expanding, blazing bright fire of the Sun.
Arthur Vance stood at the main outside console of the lower lab deck, his bare forearms resting against the cold brushed steel of the test table. The ship’s tracking data readouts hummed in crisp amber monospace against his sight magnifying glass: INNER HELIOSPHERE TRANSIT / ZONE 6 ASI: 252 PPM / Sun-fire WIND Speed: 480 KM/S. Surrounding cosmic heat wave was already climbing, ticking against the hull’s triple-layered lead-baked-clay shielding like fine desert sand thrown against a window.
To his left, Grimm lay sprawled across Arthur’s heavy magnetic work boots. The hound’s black glass-plated chin rested directly on Arthur’s right steel-toe cap. It anchored the tamer to the deck with forty-eight hundred pounds of tightly packed crushed-star mass. Every few minutes, Grimm’s lone scarred right ear twitched at the faint clockwork hum of the coolant pumps. His left ear, clipped to a ragged notch during their first bloody months in the Ironfang cull pens, remained flat against his skull. Arthur shifted his weight to check a pressure gauge. Then, Grimm let out a low, gravelly huff of canine annoyance. He refused…
