Commander Yara Levin arrives at the derelict mining station Virex-6 to complete a simple recovery mission—retrieve the AI core and final logs from a dead orbit above a lifeless planet. But the orbit is stable when it shouldn’t be. The lights still work. The air is clean. And there’s a warm cup of coffee waiting in the medbay.

Something is wrong with this place.

The deeper Yara explores the station, the more familiar it becomes—like stepping through scenes remembered from a dream. Her name is etched in strange places. Doors open before she can touch them. And the logs she’s meant to recover seem to have already heard her voice.

When she finds evidence of past missions that were never logged—and versions of herself that should not exist—Yara begins to question everything she believes about memory, identity, and the nature of command.

As reality fractures and the station tightens around her like a loop, Yara must confront the most terrifying possibility: the mission isn’t to retrieve the past—it’s to relive it.

But how many times has she already tried?

And what did she sacrifice to forget?

Ellis R. Grave