Episode 6: UNI’s Warning

The Secret Feast

12 September 2300, 11h00 — Pioneer-12, External Cargo Containment Sector

Pioneer-12 has retrieved one of the debris fragments from the field. It now floats inside the External Cargo Containment Sector, suspended in a magnetic containment field. The sector is cold, sealed behind heavy isolation doors — no decorations, no music, no coffee scent, nothing like the rest of the ship. Only metal, low temperature, magnetic locks, and the unknown object at the center.

The fragment is approximately twenty meters long. Not an asteroid. Not human-made. Part of it resembles dark gray metal, another part stone compressed by heat and time. Broken edges carry architectural planes. Some areas look like mechanical components, twisted and frozen together. No visible entrance. No thrusters. No cockpit. Chief scientist Reina and Seb examine it with every instrument available. The readings do not fit any known material classification.

Pioneer-12 is still in secondary power mode — non-essential sectors dimmed after the communication blackout. It is in this atmosphere that Vera appears at Evie’s cabin door holding ten boxes of sushi and her brown-and-white cat Mello tucked under one arm. She announces that the situation calls for food. Evie, Anaïs, Seb, and Firo gather around the table. Salmon. Eel. Tamago. Premium cultured sea-urchin sushi. Mello lies in the corner of the sofa, tail swaying slowly, completely unconcerned about the unknown debris or the power problem — only interested in the smell of fish.

It is not a solution to anything. It is one small act of resistance in the dark: five people around one table, sharing food, speaking softly, occasionally laughing, temporarily recovering a little warmth against the cold. Outside, the ancient debris continues drifting silently in the containment field. But inside the cabin, the darkness outside the window feels, for a moment, slightly less absolute.