Outer Rim: Signal from Veyra-7

The sky over Veyra-7 was wrong. Twilight had come early, but instead of stars, the heavens were filled with spirals — black whirlpools spinning across the violet clouds. Out of them burst the Mawborn, three this time. One gold and bladed, gliding like a predator over coral reefs; one the color of corroded steel, legs slamming into the ground with seismic force; and a smaller, spiked pink terror that darted between them like a hunting drone. From the balcony of the terraforming control station, Ensign Kai Yorr stood frozen. In one hand, his comm-link trembled. In the other, his datapad captured every frame of the nightmare. The gold one screamed — not sound, but a vibration in the bones, a call that made the sky itself shiver. The steel one spotted him, its mouth splitting wide, drool sizzling as it hit the ground. “Kai to Earth Command,” he said, forcing the words through a dry throat. “We have a breach. Repeat: the Mawborn are here. Sending visual feed now.” Below, the planet’s new rivers glimmered in the distance, fed by weeks of climate work. They would not last. The creatures weren’t here to hunt him — they were here to tear apart the sky. As the datapad’s transmission icon blinked, the steel Mawborn crouched, pistons of alien muscle flexing. It was going to leap. And somewhere, light-years away, Earth Command would soon see exactly what was coming for them.

(Hand drawn in Procreate) 2024