Chapter 44 - The Signal

"There must be a beginning of any great matter, but the continuing unto the end until it be thoroughly finished yields the true glory."

—Sir Francis Drake

Luca hadn’t slept well.

It wasn’t Zoe shifting in her sleep or Emily’s warmth pressing against him, though that had its own challenges. Something was moving outside the Peregrine.

Scratching and poking around their gear, which shouldn't have happened, because they had their shield up and all that. Luca made sure to remind Ryan of that as they peered out the window at the critters.

At first, Luca thought maybe they were finally about to get their first system-registered encounter, some kind of night predator or scavenger-type mob. Something to fight, something to prove the System existed here.

But every time he used [Analyze], the results came back the same: just local fauna, no beast classification, no level, no System signature, and that was fucking weird.

Back in the Solar System, everything that moved had a System tag. Even the harmless critters that scurried around planetary outposts had some low-tier classification: vermin, scavengers, background noise. Here, though, the System wasn’t touching them, like it had never arrived.

They stood watch for a while. The creatures were small and quadrupedal, with sleek bodies and tails that flicked constantly at the air. Their eyes caught the low light the way a cat’s would, curious but not aggressive, and they just sniffed at the equipment and moved on.

Ryan had considered shooting one just to see if it would drop loot, but nobody pulled the trigger. It felt wrong somehow, shooting something the System didn't even care about.

If the System wasn’t touching them, then what did that mean? Was it because they weren’t threats? Or because this world didn’t have System interference?

Back on Earth, after the System arrived, it hadn’t just affected people. It had changed everything.

Animals that survived those first brutal months, the ones that fought off low-level mobs, leveled up and evolved; some of them had abilities, some had stats, and some were even teetering on the edge of sapience. Humanity had kept them from getting too high-level, apex predators weren’t going to overtake civilization anytime soon. But level 30-40 beasts? That was a real thing.

Even in controlled zones, you didn’t just wander into the wild alone. Here, though, these creatures didn’t even register, like they weren’t part of the System at all. That should’ve been a relief, a world where you weren’t constantly fighting for your life, but instead it left Luca deeply unsettled.

And if Alpha Centauri had never been integrated into the System’s grand, universal game of survival, then this trip would suck. Sure, this planet was ripe for an outpost, but then what?

They didn’t just come here to plant a flag and farm potatoes. They had come here because this was supposed to be the next step. The key to breaking the level cap.

At some point, exhaustion won out, and Luca had given up on watching the strange, unregistered creatures.

---

Luca stirred to actual sunlight. Not the Triumph’s fluorescent wake-up cycle, not an alarm blaring at oh-six-hundred. Real light, warm and gold, slanting through the Peregrine’s small window and turning the metal walls into something that almost looked cozy.

He squinted against it, still half-asleep, and that’s when he realized he was sandwiched between Zoe and Emily. Their warmth pressed against him on either side, the weight of Emily’s arm across his chest keeping him pinned like a human burrito.

How the hell did I end up in the middle? He distinctly remembered agreeing to sleep on the edge last night. Emily had practically commandeered the space beside him, and Zoe had curled up on the other side. Somehow, between the night scavengers and the chaos of sleep, they’d all shuffled around, and now here he was, stuck.

Luca carefully slid out of bed. The floor was cold enough to remind him exactly where he was. He glanced back at the bed, watching Zoe and Emily, still cocooned in sleep.

---

In the cramped kitchenette of the Peregrine, he found the guys already stirring. Early light slanted through the small windows, casting sharp shadows across the metal floor. Ryan and Danny sat at the tiny dinette with their hoodies pulled low, each nursing a cup of coffee. The burnt-grounds smell hit him the moment he walked in.

Ryan glanced up first, his lips quirking into a sly grin. “Morning, Captain. Sleep well with your women?”

Luca smirked, grabbing a packet of oatmeal from the counter. “Like a baby,” he replied, tearing it open and pouring the dry contents into a mug.

Danny snorted, leaning back precariously in his chair, legs kicked up on the table. “Right. A baby,” he echoed, his grin broadening. “Must’ve been so rough keeping the two of them warm all night. We were over here, freezing our asses off in the bunks, while you had your pick of prime company.”

Luca poured boiling water into his mug, watching the oatmeal puff up and swirl. “Yeah, real cozy,” he said dryly. “You try sleeping between those two. Zoe kicks like a mule, and Emily…” he paused, catching himself. “Let’s just say I got about two inches of mattress to myself.”

Ryan barked a laugh, nearly spilling his coffee. “Uh-huh. Sure. And what’s your excuse for that stupid grin you’ve been wearing since you walked in here?”

Luca shrugged, stirring the oatmeal with deliberate nonchalance. “What can I say? Some of us are apparently just morning people.”

Danny rolled his eyes, though the teasing light in them hadn’t dimmed. “Right, because that’s why you’re blushing like a schoolboy.”

Luca shot him a look but couldn’t keep a grin from tugging at his lips. “You’re just mad it wasn’t you stuck in the middle.” They were jealous, the dorks.

Ryan leaned back, crossing his arms with a mock-serious expression. “That’s true. I wouldn’t mind being the meat in that sandwich.” He was probably serious.

Luca snorted into his coffee. “Keep dreaming, Romeo.”

The laughter faded. Outside, the sky was bruised purple and orange where the sun was still working its way up.

---

"Alright, here’s the plan for today," Luca said, louder than necessary in the tight space, and all eyes came to him. Zoe and Emily shuffled in from the room, still shaking off sleep but alert, while Joey and Chris appeared from the storage area in the back, their expressions turning serious as they gathered around.

They were all looking at him, waiting for instructions.

"Em, wanna do the honors and assign objectives?" he asked.

Ryan handed her the tablet with their survey requirements. "Got it," she said as her eyes glazed over, likely focused on her interface and the Triumph Initiative menu.

Luca turned to the map of their surroundings, projected on their large screen, the planet’s terrain flickering in shades of red and purple.

"First priority is water." He pointed to the nearby stream, already mapped from their descent.

"Ryan, Danny, and Zoe, you’re on water analysis. Test for potability and microbial contamination. Basically, figure out if we can drink this stuff without growing a third arm."

Objective Assigned: Water Source Survey (0/40)
Task: Analyze a minimum of 10 unique surface water sources, with 4 samples per site (surface, depth, sediment, microbial).
Tests Required: pH, salinity, heavy metal content, DNA/RNA sequencing
Contribution Reward: 75,000 CP

"Ten water sources Em? Isn't that a bit excessive?" Luca asked, raising his eyebrow.

"That's what the Charter requires to mark the planetary survey a success," she replied, shrugging.

"Fine. Joey, you and Emily are on core sampling." Luca continued, pointing to a marked rock formation near their site. Something exposed and jagged, maybe some weathered sediment deposit.

"Check for mineral composition, trace metals, anything interesting." If they were lucky, they’d find something valuable. If not, well, at least they’d look professional chipping away at rocks.

Objective Assigned: Collect Core Samples (0/12)
Task: Collect a minimum of 12 geological core samples from 6 biomes (2 per biome).
Requirements: At least 10 meters deep. Include stratified layers. Log coordinates, soil temp, magnetic signature.
Contribution Reward: 75,000 CP

Chris turned toward Luca, waiting for his assignment.

Luca smirked. "You and I are doing a microbial life assessment. We need a baseline on the ecosystem before we can even think about a long-term outpost." Which was, Luca thought, a fancy way of saying: poke at plants, scoop some dirt, and try not to catch alien parasites.

Objective Assigned: Alien Biosignature Detection (0/40)
Task: Conduct microbial sweeps at 8 sites, including caves, aquifers, crater lakes, thermal vents, petrified forests, and anomalous zones.
Samples per site: 3 solids, 1 liquid, 1 airborne particulate.
Tools: Particle analyzer, gas chromatograph, biosignature scanner
Contribution Reward: 100,000 CP

Chris arched a brow, arms crossed. "And by 'we,' you mean me, right?"

"Obviously. I’ll be supervising."

"Naturally."

"I'll add the rest of the objectives so we can check them off as we go," said Emily.

Objective Assigned: Flora Sample Collection (0/150)
Task: Catalog 30 plant species per biome across 5 biomes (150 total).
Tests: Cell imaging, photosynthetic analysis, genetic sequencing.
Contribution Reward: 75,000 CP

Objective Assigned: Fauna Sample Collection (0/75)
Task: Observe and sample 15 animal species per biome across 5 biomes (75 total).
Requirements: 5 blood/tissue samples. 5 scat/molt samples. 5 behavioral logs with video.
Contribution Reward: 75,000 CP

"That’s 150 plants and 75 animals total, across five biomes, Emily said. "Let’s not miss anything with teeth."

Danny rolled his eyes. "Great, so we're about to rack up what, four hundred thousand CP sitting in escrow until we find more suckers willing to join this outfit."

"That's the plan," Luca said. "We come back with proof of a portal and a habitable world, and suddenly everyone's going to want to join the Triumph Initiative."

"Think of it as motivation," Emily said. "Do the work now, spend the points later when we actually have an HQ established somewhere."

Luca was already moving toward the gear. "Right, enough talking. Gear up. We’re heading out in ten."

That gave him exactly enough time to choke down the rest of this god-awful coffee Ryan had made. Seriously, Luca was going to forbid him from making coffee ever again.

Before they scattered to gear up, he glanced toward the weapon rack near the Peregrine’s storage compartment.

“Grab a weapon,” Luca said, keeping it casual. “Just in case.”

Emily was already ahead of him, reaching for one of her energy blasters. She strapped it to her thigh, the sleek weapon clipping snugly against the curve of her leg.

He was staring before he realized he was staring. She noticed and smirked. Yeah, she definitely did that on purpose.

Luca cleared his throat and looked away.

Ryan slung his scatter rifle over one shoulder, lightweight but with enough punch if something decided they looked tasty.

Chris grabbed his energy blaster, giving it a quick check before sliding it into his belt holster.

---

Before they all scattered, Luca wandered over to where Ryan was hunched over the Peregrine’s main console, deploying their local antenna.

Chris stood beside him, watching the screen.

Luca leaned over Ryan’s shoulder as he flicked a switch. The vehicle hummed, low and mechanical, the sort of sound that usually meant expensive equipment was doing its thing.

Outside, the Peregrine’s antenna extended, unfolding segment by segment.

“Alright,” Ryan said, adjusting the controls. “We should have a 50-mile comms network now.”

Chris nodded. “That’ll cover most of our initial survey zone. Let’s see if we pick up anything weird.”

Ryan threw another switch, and a green light blinked on as the console confirmed a link with the geostationary survey satellite overhead. The display flared to life and the map stretched out across hundreds of miles in sharp detail.

This was the moment that mattered: if there were portal signatures on this planet, they’d show up now.

Luca’s chest tightened. He kept his face neutral, because captains didn’t stand around looking nervous while their scanning equipment booted up, but his pulse had other ideas. Everything they’d risked to get here, the hyperspace jump and the weeks of travel, all of it came down to what this screen showed in the next thirty seconds.

Ryan fine-tuned the filters, dialing in for energy distortions, unstable rifts, anything portal-shaped, and the whole compartment went still enough that nobody seemed to move or breathe.

Then a blip hit the display. One second, maybe less. A flicker of something, and then nothing.

“Hold up.” Luca leaned in closer. “What was that?”

Ryan’s fingers moved fast over the controls, refining the scan. The blip vanished. He adjusted the sensitivity and scanned again, and got nothing.

Luca’s stomach dropped. "Zoe! Get over here."

Zoe hurried over, her laptop already in hand. "What is it?"

“Take a look at this,” Ryan said. “Had a signature for about a second. Then it vanished.”

Zoe opened her laptop, pulling up their flight data before Luca could even sit down. “What kind of signature are we talking about?”

“A flicker,” Ryan said. “Barely registered.”

Zoe scrolled through the data, then stopped. “Wait. I’m seeing something here. From our hyperspace transit on the Triumph of Darron.” She turned the screen toward them. “Look at the energy signature we detected on our way to Alpha Centauri.”

Luca leaned in. “Is it a match?”

“Same pattern.” Zoe’s hands moved faster now, pulling up comparison overlays. “Same frequency, same energy dispersal. This is the same signal we picked up in hyperspace.”

That should have felt like a win, and part of Luca knew it was, but it also meant the signal was real and they still couldn’t pin it down.

Ryan frowned. “Can you pinpoint where it’s coming from?”

Zoe shook her head. “The signal’s too weak to triangulate. It was barely a bleep.”

“But it came from the planet,” Ryan said, tapping the console. “The directional sensors are clear on that much.”

Luca stared at the screen. They had gotten one signal, one lonely flicker, and it had already vanished. “So we know it’s here, but we can’t track it down?”

Chris looked between them. “If it matched your hyperspace readings, it’s not interference.”

“The signature’s real,” Ryan said. His jaw stayed tight even as he leaned back from the console. “It’s just faint. Whatever’s generating it is either very far away or buried deep.”

The readout ran another pass. The screen stayed empty.

Ryan exhaled. “No more signatures. Not from this position.”

Chris rubbed a hand over his jaw. “I don’t get it. Even in Earth’s dead zones, there’s ambient System interference. Here, the whole planet’s clean except for one ghost signal.”

One signal that lasted less than a second. Luca wanted to slap the console. They didn’t cross four light-years for a maybe.

He pushed off the console and turned to face the crew. “First sweep shows we’re onto something. That signal matched what we picked up in hyperspace, which means it’s not random. We just need to get closer to find the source.”

Ryan laughed, short and flat. “Sure, Cap. Whatever you say.”

Chris folded his arms.

Luca grabbed his gear. “Alright, team. Let’s get out there and see what this place has to offer. Big payday ahead if we prove this world’s worth colonizing, so let’s make it count.”