We Were Sent to Explore an Earth-Like Planet. The Sun Doesn't Move Here.

I've been through a lot of atmospheric entries, but nothing quite like Kepler 442B. The descent felt different from the start, smoother. Somehow. Our transport cut through those blue skies like they were made of silk instead of the usual turbulence you'd expect on a new world. Dana was running through the mission brief while I pressed my face against the porthole.

She had that formal tone she always used for corporate assignments. Primary objective remains resource assessment and environmental cataloging, she said, checking something on her tablet. Orbital scans confirm no immediate threats. I figured she was being careful with the language corporate speak for. We're here to see what we can strip mine.

That's how these expeditions usually went, but the view below had me distracted. Rolling green forests stretched out in every direction, broken up by rivers that looked like someone had drawn them with a crystal clear pen. The trees reminded me of redwoods, except bigger. Way bigger. Some of those things had to be 300 feet tall.

No dangerous wildlife detected, Dana continued. Atmosphere remains stable at 21% oxygen, 78% nitrogen. Lincoln was hunched over his communications array running final checks. The guy always looked nervous during landings, but his equipment never failed. All systems green.

He called out contact with orbital station confirmed. That was good. Victoria Hughes was up there coordinating from the main vessel, and losing contact would have meant we were on our own down there. Not something you wanted on a first planetary survey. Robert was already eyeing the terrain through his porthole, probably thinking about soil composition and geological formations.

The guy lived for rock samples. Landing zone looks stable, he said. Good drainage, solid ground. Kennedy had her medical scanner out, double checking atmospheric readings, even though we'd already confirmed them three times. That's just how she worked, thorough to the point of obsession.

No biological contaminants detected, she reported. Bill was practically bouncing in his seat. The botanist got excited about new plant life the way other people got excited about winning the lottery. Look at that diversity, he kept saying. Those tree structures are incredible.

Elaine sat across from me, quiet and alert like always. Security officers learned to watch everything during landings. Her hand rested near her sidearm, but I could tell she was relaxed. The orbital scans really had shown nothing threatening. The landing went smooth as butter.

Our pilot set us down in a clearing that looked like it had been waiting for us. Perfectly flat, surrounded by those massive trees, with a small stream running along the eastern edge. The kind of spot you'd pick for a camping trip, if camping trips involved $1,000,000 corporate expeditions. Within an hour we had base camp established.

That's what eight people can do when they know their jobs. Dana coordinated from the center while the rest of us handled our specialties. I helped Elaine set up the perimeter sensors, motion detectors, heat scanners, the basic early warning stuff that keeps you alive on new worlds. The air smelled clean, really clean. Like after a thunderstorm back home.

I've been expecting something off about it, some hint of alien chemistry, but it just smelled like Earth forests, maybe a little sweeter. Communications array is online. Lincoln announced, adjusting something on his headset. Signal strength to orbital is optimal. He was good at his job, I had to give him that.

The guy could make a tin can, talk to satellites if he needed to. Right now his equipment was humming quietly, maintaining our link to Victoria and the main ship. That connection was our lifeline. Robert had already started collecting soil samples near the stream. He worked methodically, filling containers and labeling them with that careful handwriting of his composition.

Looks standard. He called over carbon based organics mineral content within normal ranges. Kennedy was taking atmospheric readings every few minutes, building a baseline for environmental changes. Her scanner beeped softly as she moved around the perimeter. Everything's stable, she reported to Dana.

No fluctuations in air quality. Bill had disappeared into the tree line with his collection kit. I could hear him talking to himself, probably naming things. The botanist had a habit of giving unofficial names to new species before the scientific classification got worked out. Made him happy.

Perimeters sweep in 10 minutes, Elaine said, checking her rifle. She'd already done a visual scan of the area, but protocol called for a full walkthrough before dark. I nodded and grabbed my own gear. The sidearm felt familiar on my hip. Military habits die hard.

We started at the northern edge of the clearing and worked our way clockwise, staying about 50 meters out from base camp. The forest was quiet except for small sounds in the underbrush, rustling leaves, maybe some kind of small animals moving around, nothing that seemed interested in us. The trees were even more impressive up close.

Their bark had this reddish tint that reminded me of sequoias, but the texture was different. Smoother movement at 2:00. Elaine said quietly. I followed her gaze and saw them. Small creatures about the size of rabbits with Gray fur and oversized ears.

They watched us for maybe 3 seconds before bolting deeper into the forest. Fast little things, harmless. I said. Elaine nodded but kept her weapon ready. That was her job, assume everything was a threat until proven otherwise.

But these things were clearly prey animals, the way they ran, the way they've been feeding on what looked like berries near a fallen log. Nothing predatory about them. We completed the circuit without finding anything more dangerous than those rabid things. The clearing really was isolated, protected by the massive trees in the stream.

Good defensive position if we needed it, though the Orbital scan suggested we wouldn't. Back at base camp, Dana was setting up the main command station. Solar panels were already charging our equipment and the shelter modules were configured for an extended stay. Everything looked professional and organized. First day assessment, Dana announced as we gathered around the command station.

All departments report Lincoln checked his screens. Communications optimal. Full contact with Orbital maintained. Robert held up a soil sample container. Geological Survey initiated.

Preliminary results show standard planetary composition. Kennedy consulted her medical scanner. Environmental condition stable, no health concerns detected. Bill emerged from the forest carrying an arm load of plant samples, grinning like he'd found treasure. Botanical diversity exceeds expectations.

These species are fascinating. Elaine and I exchanged glances. Perimeter secure. I reported local wildlife appears non threatening. Dana made notes on her tablet.

Excellent progress. We'll maintain standard watch rotation tonight and begin detailed surveys tomorrow. The sun was starting to set, painting the sky in shades of orange and purple that looked almost exactly like Earth sunsets. That surprised me. I'd expected alien skies to look, well, more alien.

As darkness settled over the clearing, our equipment hummed quietly and the forest grew peaceful around us. Those rabbit things had stopped moving around, probably bedded down for the night. Everything felt safe and normal, maybe too normal for a world 47 light years from home. Those first three days, they felt like vacation. Honestly, I'm not kidding.

The whole team just kind of fell into this routine where everything worked exactly like it was supposed to. Donna had us up at dawn for equipment checks, but even she seemed more relaxed than usual, less of that tight lipped thing she does when she's stressed. Lincoln was practically bouncing around Camp Guy loves his gadgets, and every single piece of equipment was reading green.

Perfect atmospheric pressure, ideal temperature ranges, soil composition that made Robert actually smile for once. I caught Bill taking photos of some purple flowers that looked like Earth daisies but weren't quite right, just different enough to be interesting. This place is going to make us rich. Kennedy said on Day 2, she was running water samples through her portable lab setup.

Same routine she done on six other worlds, except this time everything came back clean. No toxins, no weird minerals, no bacterial nasties that'd kill you in 12 hours. Early retirement bonus. Elaine agreed. She was cleaning her sidearm, but I could tell she was just going through the motions.

Nothing to secure against here. Those rabbit things kept their distance, and the biggest predator we'd spotted was some kind of bird about the size of a house cat. I figured they were right. This was the kind of discovery that it Get your name in the textbooks. Perfect human, compatible world, 47 light years from home.

The corporate guys back on Earth would lose their minds over the terraforming savings alone. Lincoln kept his regular schedule with orbital contact every morning at 800 hours. Every evening at 2000, Victoria's voice came through clear as day. No interference, no lag beyond the usual lightspeed delay. He'd rattle off our daily findings in that fast way.

He talks when he's excited. Base camp established Day 2. All environmental readings Nominal atmospheric oxygen at 20.4%, nitrogen 78.1, surface gravity 0.97. Earth standard. Team morale high.

No medical issues reported. Victoria always sounded pleased on the other end. Professional, but you could hear the satisfaction. This was exactly the kind of mission that made careers. Donna even started letting people have coffee with dinner instead of sticking to the regulation schedule.

Small thing, but it meant she was comfortable. When Dana's comfortable, everybody's comfortable. I should have known it wouldn't last. 4th morning, I was doing my usual patrol route around the perimeter. Dawn was just starting to break, those twin moons still visible as pale ghosts against the brightening sky.

I always check the stars first, thing old habit from my service days. You Orient yourself by what's above before you worry about what's around you. That's when I saw it. Orion was wrong. Not gone, just moved.

The whole constellation had shifted maybe 30° to the east. I stood there, squinting up at the sky like an idiot, trying to figure out if I was remembering wrong. But you don't forget Orion. Three bright stars in a line that distinctive hourglass shape. I'd used it for navigation on too many night OPS to mess up something that basic.

The Big Dipper was off too, still recognizable but tilted at an angle that made no sense. And Polaris wasn't even close to true North anymore. I kept walking the perimeter, but my eyes kept drifting up. The more I looked, the worse it got. It wasn't just a couple stars out of place.

Whole sections of sky had rearranged themselves overnight. Dana was running diagnostics on the atmospheric sensors when I found her. She had that focused look she gets when she's trying to solve a problem. Wire rimmed glasses sliding down her nose. We've got an issue.

I said she didn't look up from her tablet. Define issue. Star patterns moved overnight. Major constellations are in the wrong positions. That got her attention.

She glanced up, then went back to her screen. Disorientations normal on extended deployments. Your circadian rhythm's probably off. This isn't disorientation. Orion shifted 30° E.

She set down the tablet and gave me that look, the one that said she was being patient with someone who didn't understand science. Peter, stellar positions don't change overnight. The physics doesn't work that way. I know what I saw. Fine, we'll check it.

She pulled out the portable astronomical unit. Thing was about the size of a briefcase loaded with sensors that could map star positions down to the arc. Second professional grade equipment that cost more than my annual salary. Dana powered it up and ran a full sky survey. Took about 15 minutes.

I watched her expression change as the data came in, started confident, got puzzled, then went completely blank. This is impossible, she said. She ran the survey again, same results. Every major constellation we've been using for navigation had moved. Not drifted slowly like they should over centuries, but jumped to completely new positions overnight.

The astronomical unit was cross referencing its database and throwing error codes because the star patterns didn't match anything in its memory. Equipment malfunction, Dana said finally, but her voice didn't sound convinced. By midday, things got worse. I was helping Robert catalog soil samples when I noticed the shadows hadn't moved at all. The sun had been sitting directly overhead since around 1100 hours, and it was stuck there, just frozen at zenith, like someone had hit a pause button on the whole solar system.

Hey, I called to Lincoln. He was setting up the afternoon communication array. What time you got? He checked his watch. 1430 son's been in the same spot for three hours.

Lincoln looked up, squinted at the sky, then checked his watch again. That's not right. We all gathered around Dana's equipment station. She had every sensor we'd brought pointed at the sky, trying to make sense of readings that violated basic physics. The sun wasn't moving, the star patterns were wrong, and according to her instruments, our planet had somehow stopped rotating entirely.

This is temporary, she kept saying. Has to be temporary. Planetary rotation doesn't just stop. But it had stopped. We were stuck in perpetual twilight, the sun hanging overhead like a bright coin someone had glued to the sky.

Temperature was holding steady, but that wouldn't last forever. Without rotation, half the planet would freeze while the other half burned. Lincoln tried to raise Victoria for emergency contact. Standard procedure when things go sideways. Nothing.

He adjusted frequencies, boosted signal strength, tried backup channels. The orbital communicator was working fine according to its diagnostics, but all he got back was static, not even the usual carrier wave. That meant someone was listening on the other end. Victoria, this is Ground Team, do you copy? His voice was getting tighter with each attempt.

Emergency contact priority Alpha, please respond. Just electronic noise, the kind of interference you'd get if you were trying to talk through a solar storm, except the equipment wasn't showing any storm activity. Lincoln worked at it for two hours, tried everything in the manual and a few things that probably weren't. By the time he gave up, his hands were shaking and his voice had gone hoarse from repeating the same call over and over.

We're cut off, he said finally. That was it. No ship overhead, no way home, and a planet that had apparently forgotten how to spin. We were stuck on a world where the laws of physics had taken a coffee break and nobody was coming to help us figure out why. Donna called the meeting that afternoon.

Emergency session, she said. All hands. I figured it was about the communications blackout, maybe some new plan to get our systems back online. Should have known better. We gathered in the main habitat module around that fold out table we've been using for meal planning.

Donna had her tablet out, scrolling through data that probably didn't mean much anymore. Lincoln was there, looking kind of pale but alert. Robert had dirt under his fingernails from his morning soil samples. Kennedy sat with her medical kit beside her chair. Like always.

I'm going to be direct, Dana said. She didn't look up from her tablet. Our situation has become critical. That got everyone's attention. Donna never used words like critical unless things were really bad.

Lincoln shifted in his chair. What about the backup transponders? Dead. All of them. Dana finally looked up.

We're effectively stranded on this planet. The silence that followed felt heavy. Not the comfortable quiet we'd gotten used to over the past few days, but something else, something that pressed down on your chest, made you think about how far 47 light years really was. I've been in bad spots before, desert ambushes where the extraction bird couldn't find us, mountain positions cut off by weather for weeks.

But this was different. Those situations had endpoints. Radio checks every six hours. Command knew where we were. How long?

Robert asked. Unknown, Dana said. Could be days, could be longer, could be forever. I thought she didn't say it, but we all heard it. That was three days ago.

Since then, things have gotten weird. Not the planet itself. The planet's still perfect. Still those rolling hills and weird rabbit things and air that tastes like spring morning. But Lincoln started acting different.

First thing I noticed was the cough started on day 4. Just a little dry hack every now and then. Nothing dramatic, but it had this quality to it that bugged me. The sound echoed wrong in the still air, like it was bouncing off something that wasn't there. You getting sick?

I asked him On day five. We were doing equipment inventory outside the habitat modules. Nah, he said, then immediately coughed twice. Just dry throat. But his fingernails were what really got my attention.

Lincoln always kept them trimmed short for equipment work. Good practice when you're handling delicate electronics. By day six, they were long enough to click against his tablet screen. When's the last time you cut those? I asked.

He looked down at his hands like he'd never seen them before. Yesterday morning, same as always. That didn't add up. Nobody's nails grow that fast. I've seen guys let them go for weeks and not get the length Lincoln was sporting After one day, Day seven, I watched him trim them with his field scissors.

Clean cuts, neat and precise. Next morning they were long again. Not just long, thick, kind of yellowish. Kennedy noticed it, too. She pulled Lincoln aside for a medical check while Robert and I were setting up the atmospheric monitors.

Elevated temperature, she told me later. 99.6 pupils dilated, but no obvious signs of illness. What about the fingernails? Abnormal growth rate. I've never seen anything like it.

She paused, adjusting her glasses. His breathing sounds clear though. Heart rate normal, blood pressure normal. Robert had theories. Of course he did.

Robert always had theories. Planet's environment might be affecting our biology, he said. That evening, we were sitting outside, watching those twin moons rise over the horizon. Different atmospheric composition, unique mineral content in the soil and water. Our bodies could be adapting.

Adapting to what? I asked. Unknown variables. This world's been isolated for millions of years. Could have biological factors we've never encountered.

Lincoln coughed again. That same weird echo doesn't feel like adapting, he said. His voice sounded scratchy. Feels like something else. Day 8 brought the storm clouds.

I saw them first during my morning patrol. Black mass building on the eastern horizon, maybe 30 miles out. Not normal storm clouds either. These moved wrong too fast and too organized, like they had purpose. We need to secure everything.

As said when I reported back, if that system hits us, we could lose equipment. So we spent the day battening down. Move the sensitive electronics into the reinforced habitat modules, tied down the atmospheric processors. Double check the seal integrity on our living quarters. Lincoln helped, but his movements were getting jerky.

That cough was almost constant now, and every few minutes he'd stop working to scratch at his arms. I caught sight of his fingernails while he was coiling cable. They looked more like claws. The storm hit around 1800 hours. First thing that happened was the electrical interference spiked through the roof.

Every piece of electronic equipment we had started throwing error messages. The communication array went completely dead. Even the basic environmental sensors inside our modules started acting up. We're completely cut off now, Lincoln said. Then he doubled over, coughing.

But this wasn't the same dry hack from before. This was something deeper, violent spasms that shook his whole body when left him gasping for air. The sound echoed in our sealed habitat, like metal scraping against stone. Kennedy was on him immediately with her medical scanner temperatures spiking 103.8. What's happening to him?

Robert asked. I don't know. Kennedy's voice was tight, professional but scared. His respiratory system's under stress, but I can't identify the cause. Outside, the storm was building.

Lightning flashes lit up our reinforced windows every few seconds. The wind howled against the module walls with a sound like something alive and angry. Lincoln's coughing got worse. Each spasm seemed to tear through him from the inside out. His fingernails had grown another half inch since morning, thick and yellowed like old bone.

When he tried to speak, only raspy gasps came out. We need to get him isolated, Kennedy said. Whatever this is, we can't risk exposure. But looking at Lincoln writhing on that fold out cut, listening to those wet grinding sounds coming from his chest, I had the feeling isolation wasn't going to help. Whatever was happening to him had already started and the storm outside was just getting stronger.

The thing about violence is it happens way faster than you think it will. One second Lincoln was sitting there picking at his fingernails, making those weird little whimpering sounds. The next second he was across the room with his teeth in Robert's throat. I mean, literally across the room, like he jumped or something, but I didn't see him move.

Just that wet sound of contact. Then Robert making this surprised choking noise. The blood hit the wall behind them in this perfect arc, bright red against the beige polymer panels we've been staring at for days. Robert's hands went to his neck automatically, the way you'd grab a cut finger. Except this wasn't a cut.

This was Lincoln's mouth locked on his throat like some kind of animal. I just sat there for maybe 3 seconds. My brain kept trying to process what I was seeing. Like when you're looking at one of those optical illusion pictures and it suddenly flips into something else. Lincoln attacking Robert.

That was the new picture, but it didn't make sense with anything else I knew about either of them. Robert went down hard, his knees hitting the floor with this hollow sound. The habitat module wasn't that big to begin with, maybe 12 feet across, so when he fell, he was right there in front of me.

I could see the puncture wounds in his neck, four of them, clean and deep. Lincoln had let go by then and was backing away, but there was blood on his mouth, fresh blood still moving. What the hell? I said, not a question, just stating the obvious. Lincoln looked at me with these wide eyes, like he was as surprised as I was.

His mouth was working, but no sound was coming out. Then his head started doing this thing. It's hard to describe what I saw next. I've been in combat zones, seen guys take shrapnel to the face, watch the Humvee roll over a landmine. But this was different.

This wasn't damage. This was change. Lincoln's skull was getting bigger, Not swelling like an injury, but actually expanding, like something was pushing out from the inside. Little bumps appeared along his forehead, then got bigger, then turned into these Ridge like things that kept growing. His scalp was stretching to accommodate whatever was happening underneath.

He started screaming then, Not words, just this sound that went way higher than a human voice should go. It filled up the whole shelter, bounced off the walls, made my teeth hurt. Through the storm noise outside, you could still hear it, this endless whale that sounded like machinery breaking down. Robert was on the ground next to me, both hands pressed to his neck, blood seeping between his fingers.

He was trying to say something, but it just came out as bubbles. I should have helped him, should have grabbed the medical kit or called for Kennedy or done something useful. Instead, I kept watching Lincoln turn into whatever he was turning into. The rest of his body started following his head's lead. His shoulders got broader than his chest, like he was inflating from the inside.

I heard bones crack. Not breaking, exactly, more like they were reshaping themselves to fit whatever new architecture his body had in mind. His arms stretched longer, fingers too, until his proportions looked all wrong. His clothes didn't keep up. The standard issue jumpsuit tore at the seams, fabric splitting along his expanding frame.

Underneath, his skin had this weird modeled look, like it couldn't decide what color it wanted to be. That's when I finally got my act together and went from my sidearm. Military training kicked in, I guess. Identify the threat. Neutralize the threat.

Lincoln had become a threat. Whatever was happening to him, it had already killed Robert and didn't look like it was planning to stop there. I had my Beretta M9 in a shoulder holster under my jacket, standard issue 15 round magazine, one in the chamber. I'd cleaned it that morning out of habit, even though we weren't supposed to need weapons on a peaceful survey mission.

The gun came out smooth, muscle memory taking over. Lincoln was still screaming and growing, now maybe 7 feet tall and getting taller. I aimed center mass the way they teach you. 2 handed grip, steady breathing, squeeze, don't pull. The shot was louder than Lincoln's screaming in that small space.

It felt like getting slapped in both ears at once. The bullet caught him in the chest, right where his heart should have been. That's when things got really weird. Instead of dropping or bleeding or doing anything a normal person would do when shot, Lincoln's body started reacting to the bullet like it was some kind of catalyst.

The entry wound bubbled up, flesh moving and reshaping around the impact point. His chest expanded even faster, ribs crackling as they stretched. I fired again, same result. The bullets weren't stopping him, they were making him worse. His face was barely recognizable now, The features were still sort of there, but stretched and distorted, like someone had taken a photo and pulled it in all directions.

His mouth had gotten bigger, full of teeth that look too sharp and too many. Through that twisted mouth, he spoke. Peter. His voice was all wrong, too deep and with this weird resonance, like he was talking through water. Peter, you don't understand.

I kept the gun trained on him, but didn't fire. He was still growing, had to be 8 feet tall now, but something about hearing my name made me pause. The planet, he said, each word taking effort like he was pushing them through broken machinery. It's alive Peter, it's been hunting us since we got here.

Shut up, I said. Just shut up, it gets inside you, Lincoln continued. His eyes were still his eyes. I realized. Same brown color, same shape.

That was the worst part. Changes you from the inside, makes you into something you can use. I emptied the rest of the magazine into him. 12 more rounds, each one hitting center mass, each one making his transformation worse instead of better. His body absorbed the bullets like they were food, using them to fuel whatever process was rebuilding him.

Finally, he stopped moving, stopped growing, stopped screaming, stopped talking. Just collapsed in a heap that didn't look like Lincoln anymore, didn't look like anything that had ever been human. The silence after all that noise felt weird. I could hear the storm outside again, wind rattling the habitat walls, could hear Robert's breathing, which had gotten real shallow and wet sounding.

I looked over at him. Dana was there suddenly, must have come in during the shooting. She had the medical kit open and was working on his neck, but I could tell from her face it wasn't going well. Too much blood loss, too much damage. Stay with me, Robert, she was saying.

Keep your eyes open. But he wasn't keeping his eyes open. They'd rolled back, showing mostly white. His breathing stopped while I was watching. That's when Kennedy made this sound.

Not a scream like Lincoln had done, more like all the air leaving her lungs at once. I turned around and she was standing in the doorway, staring at what was left of Lincoln. Her face had gone completely white. She grabbed her chest with both hands, right over her heart, took two steps backward, hit the wall and slid down.

It just sat there on the floor, looking at nothing. Kennedy, Dana said. But Kennedy was already gone. Heart attack, I figured. Too much shock, too much fear.

Her body had just decided it was done. So that was it. Three of us dead in maybe 10 minutes, the storm still howling outside, and me standing there with an empty gun wondering what the hell had just happened to my team. The thing about digging graves is you don't realize how hard it's going to be until you're already doing it.

I mean, I figured it would suck, obviously, but the ground on Kepler 442B turned out to be this weird mix of clay and something that felt like wet sand, and every shovel full just kind of oozed back into the hole. Dana found us some emergency shelter tarps to wrap them in. Robert Lincoln, Kennedy.

We didn't have much choice about where to put them. The storm was getting worse, and we needed to stay close to the habitat, so we picked this spot maybe 50 yards out where the ground looked a little more stable. Bill helped me dig. Guy's stronger than he looks, probably from all that field work he's always talking about.

Elaine stood guard, which seemed kind of pointless since we were the only things moving for miles, but I got it. She needed something to do with her hands. The rain kept coming down sideways. Not normal rain either. This stuff felt heavier, like each drop weighed more than it should.

It soaked through my shirt in about 10 minutes and just stayed there, cold and clingy. How deep? Bill asked after we've been at it for maybe an hour. Deep enough, I said. Military standard was 6 feet, but we weren't exactly working with ideal conditions here.

Dana kept checking her instruments while we worked, that little handheld scanner thing she'd been carrying around since day one. Every few minutes she'd frown at it and shake her head. Still nothing? I asked during one of our breaks. The magnetic readings are completely wrong, she said.

I mean completely. Like we're not even on the same planet anymore. That's when it hit me. Standing there with mud on my boots and rain running down my face, looking at 3 tarp wrapped bodies and holes I just dug. This whole thing had been planned.

The perfect weather those first few days, the cute little rabbit things hopping around like we'd landed in some kind of nature documentary, the way everything had felt so safe and normal. It was bait, all of it. I kept digging, but my mind was racing now. The creature that used to be Lincoln had said something before I shot it.

Something about the planet hunting us. At the time, I figured it was just crazy talk, the kind of thing you hear when someone's brain is melting. But what if it wasn't Peter? Elaine called out. She was pointing up at the sky with her rifle.

Look at that. I followed her gaze through the rain. The storm clouds were thick, but there were gaps, and through those gaps I could see stars. Wrong stars. I done enough navigation training to recognize basic constellations.

Orion, the Big Dipper, stuff like that. These weren't them. These were completely different patterns, different brightness levels, different everything. That's not our sky, I said. Dana looked up from her scanner.

What do you mean? Those constellations? They're not the ones we should be seeing from Kepler 442B. She stared up for a long moment, rain streaming down her glasses. That's impossible.

We can't have moved. The transport dropped us exactly where it was supposed to, but we had moved somehow, some way. We weren't where we'd started, maybe not even in the same solar system anymore. The sun that hadn't moved in four days. The magnetic readings that made no sense.

The stars that belong to somebody else's sky. We were lost. Not just communication. Blackout. Lost.

Actually, physically, impossibly lost. I finished covering Robert's grave while that thought settled in, shovelled the wet alien dirt over the tarp and packed it down tight. The rain washed the mud off my hands almost immediately. How far do you think we are from home? Bill asked quietly.

I looked at those foreign stars again, far enough that it doesn't matter. Dana was still running calculations on her scanner, probably trying to figure out how this was possible, but I'd already done the math. No communications. Half our team dead, stuck on a planet that apparently like to play games with visiting crews, and now we find out we're not even in our own corner of space anymore.

We weren't getting home, ever. That's the kind of realization that should hit you like a punch to the gut, should make you panic or scream or breakdown crying. But standing there in the rain, with three fresh graves at my feet, it just felt like one more fact to file away. We'd come here expecting to survey a new world and catalog some plants.

Instead, we'd walked into a trap that was way bigger and way stranger than anything we trained for. We should get inside. Elaine said. She was shivering, rifle still ready. This storm's getting worse.

She was right. The wind had picked up again, and I could hear something creaking in the habitat structure. We needed to secure our gear and figure out what came next. The four of us trudged back through the mud. Dana, Bill, Elaine, and me.

That was it. Now that was our whole crew. Four people in a world that had spent the last few days pretending to be paradise while it set us up for whatever this was supposed to be. Inside the habitat, I toweled off and checked our supplies. Food for maybe two weeks if we were careful.

Water recycling was still working, which was something. Weapons were down to Elaine's rifle and my sidearm, plus whatever makeshift stuff we could put together. Not exactly a lot to work with. We need to make contact with the orbital station. Dana said.

She'd spread her equipment out on the table and was going through it piece by piece. Victoria needs to know what happened here. With what? I asked. Lincoln destroyed our comms array when he went crazy, and even if we could fix it, we're not where we're supposed to be anymore.

She looked up at me, water still dripping from her hair. We have to try something. I got that. The need to do something, anything, instead of just sitting around waiting for the next bad thing to happen. But I'd seen enough combat to know when you were past the point where trying harder was going to help.

This planet had played us, lured us in with perfect conditions and harmless wildlife, then flipped some kind of switch that turned our teammate into a monster and transported us God knows where. And according to that thing that used to be Lincoln, this was just the beginning. The storm hammered against the habitat walls, that grinding, wet sound that didn't quite sound like normal weather.

I could hear pieces of debris hitting the exterior panels, but nothing big enough to punch through yet. I'm going to check the perimeter. Elaine said she cleaned her rifle and was loading a fresh magazine. Stay close, I told her, and if you see anything that looks wrong, anything at all, you get back here immediately.

She nodded and headed for the airlock. Bill was sitting at the far end of the table, staring at some plant samples he'd collected that first day, back when we thought this was going to be a normal mission. They're all dead, he said quietly. What? The samples?

Every single one. They were healthy this morning, but now they're just gone, like something sucked the life right out of them. I looked at the brown withered stems in his collection containers, more evidence that this world wasn't what it seemed. Everything here was connected somehow, part of some larger system that we didn't understand.

Dana was still fiddling with her broken equipment, but I could see the frustration building in her shoulders, the way she kept trying the same tests over and over, hoping for different results. We were in survival mode now, had been since the moment Lincoln went crazy, but it was starting to sink in for all of us.

This wasn't a research mission anymore. It wasn't even a rescue situation where we just had to hold out until help arrived. This was something else entirely. The planet had shown us its real face, and we were stuck here with it. No way home, no backup coming, and no idea what it was planning to do with us next.

I checked my watch out of habit, then remembered it didn't matter anymore. Time wasn't working the same way here. The sun hadn't moved in four days, and now we were under stars that belong to somebody else's sky. The storm kept pounding the habitat, that wet organic sound that made it seem like the weather itself was alive, like it was testing our defenses, looking for weak spots.

I sat down across from Bill and his dead plants. How long do you think we have? He looked up at me with tired eyes. Before what? Before this place decides it's done playing with us.

He was quiet for a long moment, listening to the storm. I don't think it's done. I think this is just the first round. Yeah, that's what I figured, too. Whatever had happened to Lincoln, whatever had transported us to this wrong part of space, it was all connected, all part of something bigger.

That we'd stumbled into the perfect world had been a lie, a carefully constructed trap designed to make us comfortable before the real game started. And now we were stuck here, four people against an entire planet that apparently haunted visiting crews for entertainment. Staying alive was going to be the hardest thing any of us had ever done.