The sound of the ship’s engines pulled her back. She blinked several times and waited for it to land and rescue her. It closed in. But something was wrong. Why wasn’t it slowing? The pilot should be braking by now.

“Down here!” she screamed again. This time her voice was nothing more than a squeak, the desperate sound of a dying animal. A tear crept down her cheek as the craft roared above her, racing away into the distance. She dropped to her knees.

“No!” she cried, choking.

The ship disappeared over the horizon, but the roaring sound in her ears grew louder. Was her mind playing tricks on her?

A sonic boom knocked her on her stomach.

No, this was something else.

She rolled onto her back and saw the blue glow of another craft racing after the NTC ship, its design unlike any she had seen. It was curvilinear, like a disc, but not perfectly round. Its blue sides pulsated and rippled as it moved. Inside, a bright glow throbbed like a miniature heart. Was it the ship’s engine?

The craft glided silently across the landscape, which meant it was using new and advanced technology—technology she had never seen. NTC had been developing anti-gravity engines for some time, but they still hadn’t been able to master the technology. She knew because she’d watched two of the test ships explode within minutes of takeoff. The longer she watched the strange ship crawl across the sky, the more she doubted humans had crafted it.

Dozens of stars danced across her vision, mixed with a tint of red. Her brain was shutting down. She had only seconds of consciousness left.

But she couldn’t die yet; she needed a better look at the ship, and she wanted to see it with naked eyes.

Her hands rose to her neck and clawed at the two fastening devices that separated her from the poisonous air. She pressed down on the metal, and with a faint click, she removed her helmet.

The poison gases immediately raced into her deprived lungs, prompting her to gag. Coughing, she lurched forward. She tried to blink, tried to see the blue craft, but the gases were already busy eating her insides, and her vision was fading.

Then it was gone. Only darkness remained.

She could feel the tears flowing freely down her face.

What had she seen? A new NTC design? Or something else?

She had to know. Her eyelids struggled to stay open, blinking over and over, her dying eyes fighting for vision. And for a second, her right eye worked again. The strange craft was directly above her. Inside, the glow of its blue heart throbbed furiously.

One more desperate breath before her mind shut down and her vision went black again.

What had seemed like minutes had, in reality, only been seconds, more than enough time for the atmosphere to eat her insides and boil her skin—more than enough time to kill Dr. Sophie Winston.

“Sophie, wake up!” a voice screamed.