>>96031660
>Orbital Defense Log — Earthspace, High Orbit 20XX

We spot it on the far edge of the heliopause, just past the dark rim where the long-range buoys fail to transmit. A ghost station, hulking and slow, barely powered. The old transponder code flashes once, then flickers out: Twilight.

The name sends a chill through the command deck.

Twilight had vanished two cycles ago on a deep-space terraforming survey, presumed lost to drive failure or raider incursion. No distress signal. No beacon flare. No survivors.

And yet here she is, a drifting necropolis limping home.

We hail the station. Standard channels. Emergency frequencies. No response. Not even static.

Then the cameras go live.

And we see it.

Twilight is no longer a ship. Not in any way that matters. What once was sleek alloy is now gnarled and bloated, covered in tumors of rot and blackened bloom. Great masses of fibrous growth spill from the airlocks like ivy overtaking a corpse. And speaking of corpses, figures twisted with fungal spires shamble around her soiled corridors.

One of the techs vomits.

Fleet Command doesn’t wait. The order comes down hard and fast. No boarding. No recovery. No salvage.

Cleanse.

I lead the strike wing in.

We make no calls. No last warnings. The thing drifting before us is no longer a vessel. It is a vector. A threat.

The first missile hits amidships, a blossom of fire in the void. The second breaks the aft hull in half. The third burns straight through the fungal core, where the cryopods were housed.

And as Twilight tears open, something writhes in the bloom. Just for a moment. A flash of movement. A glimpse of limbs.

Then it’s gone - shattered, scattered, left to drift across the stars in a million smoldering cinders.

Silence.

The admiral doesn’t speak. No one does. We just watch the debris scatter like ash.

Twilight is gone. Whatever it had become...whatever it carried...did not reach Earth.

I cough wetly. Strange, didn't feel sick before.