CHAPTER 1

THE ABYSS

The Centurion 1 wasn’t descending. It was being dragged.

The entire hull groaned like a wounded beast, and a violent jolt rippled through the ship from bow to engines as the bridge lights shifted to red. A side panel spat a shower of blue sparks. The ship tilted to starboard. Castor Pollux was already on his feet when gravity faltered for a second, throwing him against the console before snapping back with brutal force. He steadied himself with one hand and grabbed the manual controls with the other.

Aurora appeared beside the main panel. Her translucent form flickered more than usual, though her voice still cut through the chaos with icy precision.

“Accelerated descent. External pressure rising beyond safety parameters. Uncatalogued abyssal currents.”

Another jolt struck the Centurion 1, this time from below. It wasn’t a collision, but a push. As if something massive had placed an invisible hand beneath the ship and was pressing it downward with monstrous calm. Lotus let out a grunt and planted his feet firmly. With both arms, he held onto a metal casing that threatened to tear loose from the wall. Further back, Bellatrix kept her balance with one hand on the back of a seat, her eyes locked on the forward viewport.

There was no sky, no horizon. Only a vast, green and black immensity where layers of water crushed against each other, silent whirlpools spun, and massive currents wrapped around the ship.

Castor forced the stabilizers. No result. He redirected lateral thrust. No response. He overloaded the descent correctors, pulling the ship upward with every ounce of available power. The Centurion 1 barely reacted with a useless shudder.

“Aurora, give me full control of lateral propulsion.”

“It’s already in your hands,” she replied. “We are not losing lift. We are being redirected.”

Castor clenched his jaw. Every correction met an opposing force. The ocean wasn’t receiving them. It was absorbing them.

Another tremor, deeper this time, shook the structure. The sound no longer resembled metal under strain, but the hull itself yielding under immense weight.

“Structural integrity at eighty-eight percent,” Aurora reported. “Microfracture detected in sector three. Automatic sealing engaged.”

Professor Quintus was bent over an auxiliary console, his hands moving at high speed.

“They’re taking us toward a trench,” he said at last. “If this continues, the hull won’t hold.”

Lotus turned toward him, incredulous.

“And your brilliant solution is what, Quintus? Ask the ocean to be less savage?”

Quintus didn’t even look at him.

“We don’t have a good solution. Only a less bad one.”

The ship suddenly spun, and a secondary alarm began shrieking in a higher pitch. Castor reacted instantly, countering the spin with a crushing maneuver that forced the Centurion 1 into a partial spiral before barely regaining balance. The entire bridge trembled, and a ceiling plate warped with a metallic groan.

Bellatrix stepped forward, eyes fixed on the darkness outside.

“That world doesn’t want us inside. It’s pulling us down on purpose.”

Castor didn’t respond. He kept fighting the controls.

Aurora projected a new reading into the air.

“Depth unverifiable. Environmental density is distorting sensors. Structural integrity at eighty-two percent.”

Lotus moved toward the main console.

“Tell me you’ve got something better than falling like a rock.”

Quintus barely glanced up.

“Yes. Abandon the ship.”

The silence that followed was brief but heavy, broken only by the groaning hull and the relentless hammering of alarms. Lotus turned toward him, a mix of fury and disbelief on his face.

“Leave? Here? In the middle of this?”

Aurora answered before Quintus could.

“Emergency capsules are available. They will allow temporary respiration underwater.”

Bellatrix frowned.

“How temporary?”

“Eight hours,” Aurora said.

Castor did the math. Staying meant dying inside. Going out into the water meant a chance. However slim. To find out what or who was dragging them, and why.

Another deep, brutal tremor shook the Centurion 1 from bow to stern. The bridge lights went out for half a second and came back dimmer, while the main display showed a descending red curve.

“Seventy-nine percent,” Aurora announced.

Castor made the call.

“Prepare for external exit.”

Lotus muttered a curse under his breath but didn’t argue. Bellatrix was already moving toward the emergency compartment. Aurora initiated evacuation protocol, and a row of small metallic cylinders slid out from a side panel.

Quintus remained still, eyes fixed on the console. Something in his posture made it clear. He had already run the numbers.

Castor noticed immediately.

“Quintus.”

The professor looked up for the first time. He was still pale, but there was no fear in his eyes. Only calculation. Behind him, a new warning flashed across the auxiliary console.

“Internal compensation system degrading,” Aurora said. “If the bridge is left empty, pressure equilibrium will collapse in one hundred twenty seconds.”

Castor turned toward the AI projection.

“Explain.”

“The ship can maintain partial seal if someone manually stabilizes the compensation circuit from inside,” Aurora replied. “Without intervention, the Centurion 1 will lose integrity too quickly. Structural survival probability drops below seven percent.”

Lotus looked at Quintus, then at Castor.

“Then we get out now and leave this tomb behind.”

Quintus shook his head once.

“If no one stays, the ship won’t be there when you come back.”

The statement weighed more than the alarms. Castor held his gaze.

Aurora completed the analysis.

“Survival probability of Professor Quintus if he remains onboard: thirty-four percent.”

Lotus muttered something under his breath. Bellatrix turned her head toward Quintus but said nothing.

Castor grabbed a breathing capsule and closed his fist around it.

“Keep the ship alive.”

Quintus held his gaze and nodded once.

“That’s the plan.”

There was no more ceremony. The hull groaned again, deeper and darker, as if the entire ocean had pressed its face against the metal to remind them time was running out.

Bellatrix took her capsule. Lotus did the same, still muttering under his breath, and Castor activated his, feeling the metallic taste spread through his mouth before sliding down his throat like artificial cold.

Quintus handed them already-activated timers, eight hours counting down.

“If you’re not back at the ship by then…”

Lotus cut him off.

“That’s assuming there’s still a ship to come back to.”

Aurora opened the side hatch.

The water didn’t burst in like a wave. It entered as a dense, crushing mass. The airlock filled instantly with a black-green substance that felt heavier than liquid. Castor moved first, feeling the brutality of the pressure in his chest even before fully crossing through. Bellatrix and Lotus followed, immediately reduced to small, slow figures inside an immensity that dwarfed them.

The Centurion 1 remained behind them, tilted, trapped in the abyssal gloom like a wounded beast that still refused to die.

Inside the ship, alone on the creaking bridge, Quintus braced both hands on the auxiliary console and began redistributing pressure while Aurora projected data into an increasingly dense atmosphere.

Outside, in the oppressive green vastness, Castor lifted his gaze and sensed movement in the depths. Not a single creature, but several. Massive, silent shapes rising from the abyss, as if the entire planet had just opened its eyes.

The water did not behave like water. It didn’t flow like any ocean Castor had crossed before, nor did it yield naturally to movement; it was dense, heavy, almost viscous, as if every motion had to carve its way through an invisible resistance.

Breathing wasn’t natural either. The capsule Quintus had designed worked, but the air didn’t come in lightly. Every inhalation carried a slight delay, a metallic sensation scraping the throat before settling in the lungs. It didn’t hurt, but it wasn’t comfortable. It was borrowed.

Castor stabilized himself with a slow, controlled motion, conserving energy. Around him, Bellatrix moved with precision, adapting faster than anyone, while Lotus struggled to impose strength in a medium that did not respond to strength.

“I don’t like this,” Lotus muttered over the internal comm. “No ground. No direction.”

Aurora maintained the link, though her signal flickered.

“Capsules operational,” she reported. “Estimated breathing time: seven and a half hours… and decreasing.”

Castor nodded. The pressure still crushed every movement, but there was something worse: the constant sensation that the ocean was counting them.

A movement in the distance confirmed it. At first, it was only a shift in the gloom. A shadow moving faster than the rest of the environment. Then another. And another. They didn’t attack or come close enough to define their shape, but they were there, watching.

Lotus slowly turned on his axis, trying to lock onto one of the silhouettes.

“I see it. Something big. Very big.”

“Not one,” Bellatrix corrected. “Several.”

Castor studied the pattern. The shadows traced wide circles, maintaining a constant distance, evaluating, measuring. Like predators… or like guardians.

The water vibrated slightly, a current that didn’t push but enveloped. Castor extended a hand, feeling the pressure shift just enough to indicate direction.

“They’re guiding us.”

Lotus let out a dry laugh.

“That supposed to make me feel better?”

“No,” Castor said. “But it’s better than being ignored.”

Another shadow passed beneath them, closer this time. Close enough for Castor to perceive volume. It wasn’t agile, but massive, slow, carrying an ancient power… and it didn’t attack. That was the unsettling part.

Bellatrix adjusted her position, placing herself slightly ahead of Castor.

“If they wanted us dead, we’d already be dead.”

“Or they’re waiting,” Lotus replied.

The silence that followed was tense, alive. In the distance, the Centurion 1 remained a tilted silhouette, partially swallowed by the abyssal gloom and shifting currents. Its lights flickered irregularly, a reminder that it wasn’t a safe refuge, but a fragile point inside an unforgiving environment.

Then, from below, something changed.

It was a presence.

A mass even larger than the others began rising slowly from the depths, displacing the surrounding water so subtly it barely generated current. Yet enough to alter the balance of the environment.

Castor felt it before he saw it: a different pressure, a different attention, as if the entire ocean had decided to focus on them.

Lotus clenched his fists.

“That one’s coming for us.”

Bellatrix didn’t respond. Neither did Castor. The three of them remained still, suspended in a world that wasn’t theirs, as the ascending shape grew within the green-black until it filled the entire darkness.

They were being evaluated.

The massive silhouette stopped just beneath them.

And then it moved.

The current exploded in every direction.

It didn’t push them. It tore them apart.

Castor barely had time to tense before the mass of water completely destabilized them, shattering the fragile orientation they had managed to maintain. The gloom spun around him. Up ceased to exist, down as well, and only movement remained: violent, directed.

Lotus was the first to lose position. His mass, useful in combat, became a liability in that environment. The current dragged him sideways, separating him by several yards in an instant. Bellatrix reacted with precision, adjusting her posture and correcting her trajectory with minimal movements, but even she had to yield to the force of the flow. Castor spun, searching for a reference point that didn’t exist.

And then he saw them.

From the depths, aligned with impossible precision in such an environment, the first defined shapes emerged. No longer diffuse shadows. They had form, intent, and direction: giant seahorses, each the size of a light assault craft. Their elongated bodies moved with crushing elegance, as if the water propelled them instead of resisting them. Their eyes emitted a faint glow. Not aggressive… but aware.

Riders.

Humanoid. Their bodies were sleek, adapted to the environment, with elongated limbs and armor that didn’t look built, but grown. They carried long spears of organic design, pulsing in sync with the surroundings.

There was no attack. There was formation.

In seconds, the riders surrounded the team with a precision that erased any chance of escape. They didn’t close the circle violently; they did it with exactness. Castor felt the space around him stop being free.

Lotus tried to push toward one of them, driving forward with force. But he didn’t reach it. A barely perceptible shift in the current diverted him, pushing him back without physical contact. It was enough.

Bellatrix watched the movement closely.

“They’re not reacting. They’re anticipating.”

Castor kept his gaze fixed on the nearest figure. The rider did not raise his weapon or make any gesture. He simply watched him. The seahorse beneath him shifted a few inches, just enough to adjust its position within the formation. The entire group moved as a single will.

The flow of the water stabilized abruptly. It stopped behaving erratically and settled into a constant, controlled pattern.

One of the riders moved slightly forward, breaking the symmetry of the circle. Its mount descended a few yards, then rose again, positioning itself directly in front of Castor at a distance that was no longer comfortable.

The rider inclined his head just slightly.

Castor held the gaze. There was no way to communicate in conventional terms. But it wasn’t necessary.

He knew who was in command.

To his left, Bellatrix tensed. To his right, Lotus tried to move forward again, this time more cautiously.

The response didn’t come from the rider.

It came from the environment.

A downward pressure struck Lotus from above, forcing him down with controlled strength. Enough to immobilize him for a long second. Just water.

And it was enough.

Lotus stopped trying to advance.

“We’re not fighting them,” he muttered through clenched teeth. “We’re fighting all of this.”

Castor didn’t answer. His attention remained locked on the rider in front of him.

And then he felt it.

A subtle pressure, directed. Like the water itself was trying to convey intent. It wasn’t aggressive, but it wasn’t neutral either. It was selective.

The rider moved closer, enough to remove distance as an option.

Behind them, far off, the Centurion 1 flickered once more in the green and black, barely visible. A reminder of how fragile all of this was.

The moment tightened.

The rider in front of Castor extended his spear—not as an attack, but as a signal.

The circle adjusted instantly.

The seahorses began to move in perfect synchronization, closing the space even further, reducing any margin of action to almost nothing.

Bellatrix stepped forward.

Castor raised a hand, stopping her.

“This isn’t a capture,” he said, his voice low and firm. “It’s a decision.”

The rider didn’t react. He didn’t need to.

The current shifted again.

The entire ocean seemed to close in around them.

Without warning, without transition, one of the seahorses lunged forward with impossible speed for its size.

The impact against Lotus came before Castor could process what he was seeing.

The Harmock’s body bent violently, as if the weight of the world had chosen that instant to break him. The shockwave expanded through the water in a violent distortion, dragging everything around it.

And then he was gone.

Torn away.

Swallowed by the green-black in less than a second.

The planet had opened its eyes.

And it had chosen who to keep.

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Sobre esta serie:

Relatos cortos pulp dentro del universo Imperium.

Cada libro es una aventura autoconclusiva protagonizada por Castor Pollux en un planeta distinto, enfrentando nuevos enemigos, peligros y misterios. Puedes comenzar por cualquiera.