Author's Note

A nice little prologue to give some backstory to Ethan. Hope you like it.

Prologue

Prologue: The Ashes of Yesterday

Ethan wiped the sweat from his forehead, the summer sun beating down on the open fields of his family’s farm. The scent of tilled soil mixed with the mechanical hum of the old irrigation system as he crouched beside it, prying off a rusted panel. Inside, a mess of wiring and corroded connectors awaited him—nothing he hadn’t seen before.

His father’s voice called from the porch, warm and proud. "You get that thing running again, kiddo?"

His mother laughed from the doorway, drying her hands on a rag. “At this rate, you’ll be fixing the whole farm by yourself.”

His father chuckled. “Wouldn’t be surprised. Kid’s got hands like a damn mechanic.”

Ethan grinned, reconnecting a loose wire. The system sputtered, coughed, and then roared to life, spraying water over the parched earth. He turned back, grinning at his father’s approving nod. Moments like this made all the hard work worth it.

He never imagined how quickly everything would be taken away.

A low hum vibrated through the ground beneath him. The air felt charged, thick, unnatural. Then, the sky erupted into fire and smoke.

The ground trembled beneath his feet as alarms blared from the family’s reactor unit. Ethan ran, heart hammering against his ribs as he reached the main facility. His parents were inside.

By the time he got there, flames had already consumed half the structure. His father’s voice barely carried over the roaring inferno. "Ethan! Get back!"

He never saw them again.

His uncle found him days later, barely conscious, covered in ash, and clutching the broken remains of a security drone that had dragged him to safety. The official report ruled it an accident, but whispers in the trade lanes told a different story—sabotage, engineered by a rival family. Ethan didn’t know if it was true, but the possibility burned inside him.

His uncle took him in, raising him aboard his salvage vessel. The pain never faded, but in time, he found purpose—learning to repair ships, pilot vessels, and tinker with electronics. His greatest creation, Vega, started as nothing more than a predictive diagnostics tool, something to keep his hands busy in the quiet of space.

Then the pirates came.

The attack was swift, brutal. His uncle’s ship was outnumbered, outgunned. Ethan barely had time to react before his uncle shoved him into an escape pod, sealing the hatch.

"Live, Ethan. Don’t let this be the end of your story."

Then he was gone.

Ethan slammed his fists against the escape pod’s controls. "No! Let me out!"

The thrusters fired, forcing him back into his seat. Through the viewport, his uncle’s ship vanished into the void, engulfed in weapons fire. Then, silence.

For weeks, Ethan drifted. Alone. Surviving on rations and salvaging what little he could from derelict ships.

Then he found her.

At first, he thought it was just another wreck, a husk lost to the void. But then—faintly—a flicker of red emergency lights pulsed from within, like a dying heartbeat. She wasn’t dead. Not yet.

The Astraforge was a ghost, floating lifeless in the dark. Abandoned, damaged, but not beyond saving. He claimed it under salvage rights, spending years rebuilding it, making it his home, his sanctuary.

But no matter how much he fixed, no matter how many systems he brought back online, there was one thing he could never restore.

The past.

Present Day

Ethan’s eyes shot open, breath coming fast. The nightmare again. It always started the same. It always ended the same.

He exhaled slowly, sitting up in his bunk aboard the Astraforge. The quiet hum of the ship’s systems surrounded him, a stark contrast to the chaos of his memories.

He wasn’t that helpless kid anymore.

Swinging his legs over the side of the bed, he stood, stretching. The past was done. Right now, he had work to do.

And this time, if the universe tried to take something from him—he’d take it back.