Maps of Destiny (Return to Destra #1)

Chapter 1

Maya

The thing I liked about geology is that it doesn’t lie to you.

Rock formations tell you exactly what happened over millions of years with no sugarcoating, no politics, and no hidden agendas.

Unlike people. Unlike management at LunarLink Surveys, who’d assured me this would be a straightforward three-month survey.

Unlike my mother, who, until recently, called twice a week to ask when I was “coming to my senses” and reconciling with Thomas.

I’d taken this assignment specifically to get away from those conversations.

At thirty-four, I was apparently “too old to be throwing away a perfectly good relationship” with a man my parents adored, and “too stubborn to compromise” on a future that had felt more like slow suffocation than partnership.

Four years with Thomas had taught me that some relationships don’t end in dramatic fights or betrayals.

Sometimes they just…fizzle. And then you wake up one day and realize you’re living with a stranger.

Three months on this distant moon, cataloging geological formations and losing myself in work I actually enjoyed, had seemed like exactly what I needed.

No family dinners where Thomas’ empty chair prompted pointed looks.

No well-meaning friends asking if I was “putting myself out there” yet.

Just me, my team, and rocks that had stories to tell without judgment.

I crouched beside my deep-core scanner just outside my mobile base.

The gravity on this moon was strong enough to keep me on the ground without using the stabilizers in my boots, and the new gloves I’d been issued with my suit were snug and tapered, making it easier to use equipment outside on the surface.

I adjusted the scanner’s frequency as I watched the readout scroll across the display.

The crystalline formations jutting from the desert floor around the Destran settlement were unlike anything in my geological databases.

We weren’t yet sure what they were, but they definitely weren’t supposed to be here, according to the initial planetary surveys.

This was the part of the job I’d always loved—the moment when familiar instruments encountered something completely unknown, when years of training met discovery.

For the first time in months, my heart beat fast with the thrill of curiosity, rather than the hollow weariness that had followed me from Earth. This was why I’d become a geologist in the first place—for moments when the universe revealed something unexpected and beautiful.

“Maya, you’ve got to see this atmospheric data.

” Zara’s voice crackled through my comm unit, breathless with excitement.

Dr. Zara Rivers was brilliant, but she had a tendency to talk a lot, and very fast, so I preferred her to deliver her findings in the form of a report.

Those were dense and filled with footnotes, but at least I could take it all in.

Unlike when she spoke. “The pressure variance around those crystal formations is completely inconsistent with standard geological processes. If the variant of—”

I held up a hand. “Write it down, please.”

She huffed out a breath that I could hear through the comm. “Fine. But this is good stuff.”

I had no doubt about that. I glanced up at the nearest crystalline spire.

The translucent blue-silver structure twisted upward like frozen lightning.

There were dozens of them scattered around this sector, which was located at least five kilometers from from the Destran city.

Some were as tall as buildings. Others were barely knee-high.

The Destrans had built their community in harmony with the formations, keeping their enormous living ships rooted well away from the crystals, rather than removing them.

“Cleo, what’s your structural assessment?” I asked into my comm.

“The crystals are integrated into the bedrock in ways that shouldn’t be physically possible,” came Dr. Cleo Vasquez’s crisp reply.

She was my seismic engineer, and if Cleo said something was structurally impossible, you listened.

“It’s like they grew from deep under the moon’s surface, but the mineral composition doesn’t match the surrounding geology.

Also, they’re warm. Ambient temperature is consistently fifteen degrees higher within a fifty-meter radius of each formation. ”

I frowned at my scanner. “Warm how? Geothermal activity?”

“Negative. No seismic indicators of geothermal sources. The heat signature is too uniform, too…controlled.”

Controlled. That was an interesting word choice.

I stood, brushing sand from my surface suit as I surveyed the landscape.

The Destran city was visible in the distance.

The enormous, sentient Solas they lived inside of had chosen this barren, atmosphere-less moon to—literally—put down their roots and grow a new world.

This was exactly the kind of discovery that made every awkward family dinner worth it.

My parents would never understand why I’d chosen a career that took me to distant worlds instead of settling down in the suburbs with Thomas and his plans for matching furniture and scheduled date nights.

But watching an alien species build their lives around geological mysteries? This was where I belonged.

It had been eight years since the lords of Destra and their living ships—their Solas—had chosen this moon after being attacked in space.

Eight years since they’d been scattered across the desert, rebuilding their civilization from seven different locations as their Solas slowly healed and regrew their bio-ship forms. This was where they’d all eventually converged, the central hub of their new society.

And apparently, near one of the most geologically impossible crystal formations I’d ever encountered.

“Maya.” Zara’s voice had shifted from excitement to confusion. “Are you getting any biosignatures on your scans?”

I paused. “Biosignatures? Zara, these are mineral formations.”

“That’s what I thought, too, but the atmospheric composition around them suggests organic processes. Almost like…like they’re breathing.”

I looked down at my scanner display and felt something cold settle in my stomach.

The readout was showing trace organic compounds, complex molecular structures that had no business existing in a geological survey.

I increased the scanner’s sensitivity and aimed it directly at the base of the nearest crystal formation.

The readings that came back made me sit down hard in the sand.

“Cleo, Zara, I need you both to return to base camp immediately.”

“Maya, what is it?” Cleo’s voice sharpened. She’d worked with me long enough to recognize my emergency tone.

“These aren’t mineral formations.” I stared at the scanner display, double-checking the readings, triple-checking them. “They’re showing cellular structures. Complex, organized, living cellular structures.”

There was a moment of silence on the comm, then Zara’s voice, pitched higher with excitement: “Living crystal formations? That’s impossible. That’s—that’s a completely new form of life. Maya, do you understand what this means?”

I understood exactly what it meant. It meant our simple geological survey had just become a xenobiology discovery that would attract attention from every research institution, energy corporation, and military organization within fifty light-years. It meant complications.

“Cleo, I need you to pack up your seismic equipment. Zara, secure your atmospheric monitors. We’re returning to the mobile base to reassess.”

“Maya, we can’t just pack up. This is the discovery of a lifetime. These could be—”

“Zara.” I cut her off, using the tone that reminded her I was team leader. “We pack up. We reassess. We follow protocol.”

Protocol. Right. Because there was definitely protocol for discovering living crystal formations that had somehow integrated themselves into an alien moon’s geology while seven lords of Destra built their settlement within sight of them.

I began disconnecting my deep-core scanner from its ground interface, but something made me pause. The readings on the display were changing. Not fluctuating—changing. As if the biosignatures were responding to something.

Responding to the scanner itself.

“Oh, shit,” I whispered.

The crystal formation to my immediate right pulsed with soft light.

I jerked backward, nearly dropping my equipment. The light pulsed again with a gentle glow that seemed to emanate from within the crystal’s core. Then the formation to my left began to glow. Then another.

Like a slow wave of awakening, the crystalline formations around me began to illuminate, one by one.

“Maya?” Zara’s voice was tight with concern. “Maya, the atmospheric readings just spiked. Massive energy discharge from your location.”

I scrambled to disconnect my scanner, but the ground interface wouldn’t release.

The connecting cables, which touched the crystals closest to me, had somehow fused with the crystals’ surface.

The scanner itself was beginning to emit the same blue-green glow.

Sweat broke out on my back, sending a cold line trickling down my spine.

“Maya, respond. What’s your status?”

But I barely heard Zara above the panic swelling in my chest. The crystal formation towering over me pulsed brighter, and suddenly I could feel it. Not just see it, not just measure it with instruments—I could feel its presence in my mind like a vast, ancient consciousness stirring from deep sleep.

A voice—no, not a voice—an essence seemed to come from everywhere and nowhere, resonating through my bones rather than my ears. I tried to step backward, but my legs wouldn’t obey. My scanner was fully integrated into the crystal now. Its display screen flickered with symbols I didn’t recognize.

So long… So long in darkness… So long alone…

They weren’t words, but that was how I interpreted the feelings that pushed into my consciousness.

The emotions that flooded through me weren’t my own.

I dropped to my hands and knees on a gasp as centuries of loneliness, aching isolation, and a desperate hope for connection threatened to overwhelm my human mind.

I ground my teeth together and dropped my head into my hands as memories that were not mine flooded my consciousness.

Stars. The vast emptiness between worlds. A journey that lasted eons. A crash. Darkness. Waiting. Waiting for someone to find them, to wake them, to need them again.

You have awakened us, small one. You have given us hope.

“Maya!” Cleo’s voice seemed to come from very far away. “Emergency response team is en route to your location. Stay conscious, stay with us.”

I tried to respond, but the ancient presence in my mind was growing stronger, more insistent. Images flashed through my awareness: a vast living ship, corridors that pulsed with organic life, beings with color-shifting skin who communed with their vessel as if it were a beloved companion.

A Sola. This wasn’t just a crystal formation—it was a Sola. An ancient one, older than the seven that had arrived here eight years ago. It had been dormant beneath the surface, crystallized by time and isolation, waiting for someone to wake it.

And I had.

The scanner’s display exploded with light, and I crumpled as the Sola’s full consciousness slammed into mine with the force of a cosmic storm.

Every cell in my body burned as alien thoughts and emotions flooded through me.

I was dimly aware of screaming—my own voice, raw and desperate—before the world dissolved into brilliant, overwhelming light.

Then darkness.