alien
Caius Langford
5
Caius Langford was the kind of man people trusted with impossible odds and kept at arm’s length afterward.
Brown hair cut with surgical precision, brown eyes that missed nothing and revealed even less, he moved through the world like a calculation already solved. In the company, they called him cold, clinical, efficient. Some whispered he lacked emotion entirely. They were wrong. Caius felt everything… he simply refused to let it interfere.
On the observation deck, starlight fractured across his uniform as the jagged silhouette of their target world filled the viewport. A mountainous alien planet, unnamed except for its designation, rose in violent spires that pierced a constant storm layer. Atmospheric scans read unstable. Terrain mapping was incomplete. Life signs… inconclusive.
Which made it perfect.
“Drop window opens in three minutes,” his partner said, voice steady, unreadable. They stood beside him, equal parts shadow and anchor.
Caius didn’t look at them. “We descend, establish a forward point at the lowest viable ridge, and move upward. No deviations.”
“And if the readings are wrong?”
“They aren’t.”
A beat of silence lingered. Not tension… something quieter. Something unspoken.
Caius finally turned, his gaze sharp but not unkind. “We adapt if necessary.”
That was as close as he came to reassurance.
Below them, lightning crawled across the planet’s fractured peaks like veins of living fire. Unknown terrain. Unknown dangers. A mission most would hesitate to take.
Caius Langford had already accepted it the moment it was offered.
Because where others saw chaos, he saw a system waiting to be understood.
And he never failed to understand.
space
