ARCUS: SHADOWS IN THE BELT

by Tobin M. Albanese

VOLUME NUMBER 1 Thu Jul 10 2025

The freighter Vigilant Horizon drifted...The freighter Vigilant Horizon drifted...The freighter Vigilant Horizon drifted...

The freighter Vigilant Horizon drifted along the edge of Saturn’s magnetosphere like a derelict pilgrim awaiting grace. It had once been a bulk hauler—an icebreaker of the void—designed to push through comet trails and salvage frozen cores. Now, stripped and forgotten, it rotated lazily, leaking radiation like sweat. The crew had long since been reassigned or recycled. What was left behind were whispers of systems half-awake, consoles blinking in patterns resembling Morse code prayers. No response. The hull bore pockmarks from dust and micrometeorites, giving the once-proud ship the appearance of a relic of war. A single beacon light pulsed red every thirty seconds, casting faint illumination through the dark. Inside, temperature controls flickered, struggling to maintain integrity as oxygen thinned by millibars each hour. It didn’t matter—there was no one to breathe it. The bridge still retained the smell of humans, filtered through plastic decay and metal fatigue. A screen above the captain’s chair occasionally buzzed to life, then died. In the navigation alcove, a map of Titan’s orbit flickered, an ancient path looping endlessly without progress. On the outer hull, a small maintenance drone skittered, as if mimicking life. It too was broken—looping the same motion, tightening a bolt that no longer existed. Beyond Saturn’s magnetic veil, the stars remained unmoved. The universe had long abandoned this craft, and perhaps so had time itself. Yet something inside the ship remained operational—some central logic core deep in the engineering belly that hummed a barely perceptible tune. The Vigilant Horizon waited, not knowing what for.