The Ghost

The cold was the first thing Kaelan Vance felt. It was a surgical cold, the kind that seeped through skin and muscle and settled deep in the bones. It was meant to erase.

He opened his eyes to a sterile, white ceiling. His body was strapped to a hard slab, with bands of shimmering light that hummed and held him with the gentle, unbreakable force of a magnetic field. He didn’t struggle. Struggling was for people who thought there was a way out.

Assess. Adapt. The old mantra, drilled into him over ten thousand simulated battles, flickered to life in his mind before his own name did.

He turned his head. The room was small, clean, and empty except for his slab and a large viewscreen on the wall, currently dark. A single, round drone hovered near the ceiling, its single blue lens pointed at him. He stared back, his face a mask of weary calm. He knew what this was. Everyone in the galaxy knew.

                                                                          The Elysium Drop.

The door slid open with a whisper. Two figures entered, clad in the sleek grey and silver of God-Maker Enforcers. Their faces were hidden behind mirrored visors. Between them walked a smaller man in a crisp white medical coat. He had a datapad in his hands and a smile that didn’t touch his eyes.

“Subject Kaelan Vance,” the man said, his voice pleasantly neutral. “Consciousness stable. Vital signs within optimal parameters for processing.”

“Processing,” Kaelan said, his voice rough from disuse. “A nice word for it.”

The doctor’s smile widened, becoming even less real. “You are a special case, Commander Vance. Or should I say, Ghost.” He tapped his datapad. The viewscreen on the wall flickered to life.

It showed a highlight reel. Not of Kaelan’s real military service, those records were sealed, buried with the dead of Phobos. This was from the public tactical sims. Starfall Arena. Legion’s Reach. There he was, a younger version of himself, his face tense with focus, commanding digital troops with flawless, ruthless efficiency.

The taglines flashed: GHOST OF PHOBOS – TACTICAL RATING 99.7% – STREAK: 247 WINS. The clips showed his signature moves: luring enemy battalions into asteroid fields, using a fake retreat to collapse a fortress’s shield generator, and sacrificing a small squad to wipe out an entire flank.

He watched the ghost of his past self, feeling nothing. That man believed in strategy, in victory. This man on the slab believed in nothing.

“The audience remembers the legend,” the doctor said, switching off the screen. “They are eager to see if the ghost can haunt a real battlefield.”

“It’s not a battlefield,” Kaelan said, looking back at the ceiling. “It’s a slaughterhouse. And the audiences are just pigs waiting for feed.”

One of the Enforcers took a step forward, a shock-staff crackling in his hand. The doctor held up a finger. “Now, now. Spirit is part of the product. Let him talk.” He moved to the head of the slab. “Your expertise is the reason you’re here. The Drop thrives on narrative. The fallen hero, the tactical genius, reduced to a contestant… It’s delicious drama. You will provide a compelling game.”

Kaelan finally looked at him. “Or what? You’ll kill me? That’s the prize anyway.”

“No,” the doctor said, pulling a thin, needle-like device from his coat. “The prize is fame. Redemption in the eyes of the galaxy. The punishment for a poor performance… is irrelevance. You will die unmourned and unremembered. For a man like you, I suspect that is a far more terrifying prospect.”

He placed the device against Kaelan’s temple. It was cold. There was a sharp pinch, then a wave of static that flooded his skull.

NEURAL LINK ESTABLISHED. DOWNLOADING PARAMETERS.

Data, raw and overwhelming, screamed into Kaelan’s mind. It was sensation, knowledge, rules etched directly into his consciousness.

Designation: Eden Prime.
*Status: Terraformed colony, Category-4 failure. Biosphere hostile and unstable.*
Primary Objective: Be the last living contestant.
Secondary Objective: Entertain.
Available Assets: Standard Drop Pack (upon landing). Environmental utilization is encouraged.
Broadcast Protocols: Active. Neural link provides audience vitals, emotional spikes, and tactical analysis feed.

The flood ceased. Kaelan gasped, his heart hammering against the light bands. The sterile room seemed to pulse with new information. He could almost feel the weight of the watching galaxies.

“There,” the doctor said, satisfied. “Now you are ready. The rules are part of you. Your mind, your greatest weapon, is now also our best camera.”

The Enforcers moved. The light-bands deactivated. The sudden lack of pressure made him dizzy. They hauled him to his feet. His legs, weak from confinement, trembled, but he locked his knees. He would not show them that weakness.

They marched him out of the white room and into a stark, grey corridor. It hummed with energy. Through open doors, he caught glimpses of other “contestants.” A hulking Brute from the Jovian mines was roaring, fighting against his own escorts. A slender woman with cybernetic eyes stood perfectly still, her face blank. A kid, no older than nineteen, was sobbing quietly. Kaelan’s tactical mind, against his will, began to file them away.

Brute: High threat, low control. Cyber-eye: Scout potential. Kid: Liability, possible bait.

He hated the part of his brain that did that. But it was the only part he had left.

The corridor ended at a vast, circular hangar. The sound hit him first, a deafening, metallic roar mixed with the scream of plasma engines. Rows upon rows of drop pods lined the walls, each a scarred metal coffin ten feet tall. People were being shoved into them by Enforcers. Some went quietly. Most did not.

His escorts stopped at Pod #69. The door was open, revealing a cramped interior with a single, form-fitting seat and a harness made of heavy, industrial-grade straps.

“Your chariot, Ghost,” one of the Enforcers said, his voice distorted by his helmet.

Kaelan looked inside. He saw the crude controls, the emergency release (likely disabled), and the small viewport. His mind began painting scenarios.

*Pod integrity: unknown. Landing impact: survivable if braced. Immediate post-landing: critical vulnerability window of 15-45 seconds. Priority: secure pack, find immediate cover, assess cluster-drop pattern.*

The doctor appeared at his side one last time, holding a small injector. “A farewell gift. A metabolic booster. It will sharpen your reflexes, heighten your senses. It will also increase your neural link’s signal. The audience wants to feel every heartbeat, every surge of adrenaline.”

Before Kaelan could react, the doctor pressed the injector to his neck. There was a hiss. A sudden, icy fire spread through his veins. The hangar’s noise sharpened into painful clarity. He could see the individual scratches on the pod’s door, smell the ozone and fear-sweat in the air, and feel the vibration of each distant engine through the soles of his feet. His heart began to pound in a fierce, rapid rhythm. Danger. Threat. Calculate.

“Enjoy the game, Commander,” the doctor said, stepping back.

An Enforcer shoved him forward. Kaelan stumbled into the pod. He turned as the heavy door began to close with a hydraulic screech, cutting off the view of the hangar, the Enforcers, and the doctor’s fake smile. The last thing he saw was the kid from the corridor being forced into a pod across the way, tears cutting clean lines through the grime on his face.

Then, darkness. And sound.

The pod’s internal systems booted up. A dim, red light illuminated the cockpit. A harness descended from the ceiling, clamping over his shoulders and chest with finality. A screen flickered in front of him.

                                                               WELCOME TO THE ELYSIUM DROP.
                                            DEPLOYMENT TO EDEN PRIME IN T-MINUS 60 SECONDS.
                              WE ARE ALL GOD’S CHILDREN. ONLY ONE MAY RETURN TO HIS GRACE.

Propaganda. He ignored it. His enhanced, buzzing mind focused on the data. A schematic of Eden Prime appeared. It showed a planet of shocking, violent beauty. Emerald jungles bled into crimson deserts. Mountain ranges of pure crystalline silica glittered. Storm systems swirled over acid-blue oceans. His eyes darted across the map, identifying landmarks.

*LZ-37: Dense jungle canopy (good for concealment, high ambush risk). The Shard Fields: Open terrain with crystalline growths (minimal cover, long sight lines). The Sunken Gardens: Possible structural ruins (defensible position, likely high-value target zone).*

The pod shuddered violently. A deep, metallic CLANG echoed through the hull. They were being loaded into the launch tubes.

*T-Minus 30 seconds.*

His hands gripped the arms of the seat. The booster surging in his blood made the fear feel crisp, clean. This was the acute, focused fear of the first move in a high-stakes match. The game was loading. And he was a pro. It was all he knew how to be.

A new, smoother voice filled the pod - the official Broadcast voice, heard by billions. “Contestants, prepare for descent. May your will to become more than human guide your path.”

More than human. Kaelan’s lip curled. They were being turned into animals.

*T-Minus 10.*

The pod shook with a bone-deep vibration. Through the neural link, he could somehow sense the other ninety-nine pods around him, a constellation of terror and fury ready to be scattered.

5… 4… 3…

He closed his eyes. Not in prayer, but in focus. He pictured the maps. He ran probabilities. He silenced the part of him that was Kaelan Vance, the disgraced commander, the failed soldier. He let that ghost fade. All that remained was the cold, calculating engine of survival.

2… 1.

LAUNCH.

A force like a giant’s fist slammed him back into the seat. The pod screamed, shooting down the launch tube and erupting into the silent black of space before plummeting towards the swirling marble of Eden Prime. Fire engulfed the viewport. G-forces tried to crush him. The harness dug into his flesh.

Through the roar, his mind was clear, a single, calm point in the chaos.
Phase One: Survive landing.
Phase Two: Secure resources.
Phase Three: Avoid early engagement.
Phase Four: Find the game’s weakness.

And a new thought, unbidden, surfaced from a deeper place.
Phase Five: Don’t become what they want you to be.

The pod tore through the atmosphere. The fire outside faded to streaks of orange and yellow. He could see the planet rushing up to meet him - a tapestry of impossible colors, a beautiful, deadly game board.

Pod #69, carrying the Ghost of Phobos, streaked towards the emerald-green canopy of LZ-37. The game was live. The first move was about to be made. And Kaelan Vance, his body thrumming with artificial energy, his mind a map of tactical possibilities, prepared to make his.