# THE OUTER BANDS 2: THE WEB SERIES
## VOLUME ONE
### EPISODE I — THE FREIGHT WARS
---
## PROLOGUE — THE BAND CONFLICTS
Before the harvest…
Before the disappearances…
Before freight lanes began returning empty—
There were the Wars.
Not glorious wars.
Not cinematic ones.
Industrial wars.
Slow wars.
Ugly wars fought over shipping corridors, printer cores, asteroid refineries, and orbital tax grids.
The Corporate Grid Authority claimed the inner lanes.
Pirate Swarms bled the middle sectors.
Engineer Clans fortified outer refinery systems.
Printer Guilds sold weapons to everyone.
Convoys burned for decades across Band 1 through Band 6.
Capital ships cracked open like tin.
Freight towers drifted forever.
Nobody noticed when entire routes went quiet.
At first, they blamed pirates.
Then insurgents.
Then internal sabotage.
But freight wasn't being stolen.
It was being erased.
Ships went missing without debris.
Stations went dark without distress.
War fleets entered sectors and never exited.
Something moved through the conflict like a patient god.
Not fighting.
Waiting.
And in the middle of it—
A hauler captain vanished.
---
## EPISODE I — THE FREIGHT WARS
There is no music in the Outer Bands.
Only engine hum and radiation hiss.
The Lone Traveller's ship drifts through the carcass field of Freight Corridor 77-B.
Old war zone.
Old corporate battle.
Hull fragments rotate in slow, permanent orbit.
Dead escorts.
Burned cargo towers.
A printer refinery split clean in half like something folded it.
No bodies.
Just absence.
His cockpit lights flicker in low-power mode.
No heroic stance.
No triumphant entrance.
Just a man and a cracked windshield staring into a graveyard.
The HUD scrolls quietly:
> SHIELD: 82%
> AMMO: LOW
> DRONES: 2 ACTIVE
> HEAT: STABLE
Then—
A distorted freight ping.
Old.
Encrypted.
Family code.
His father's transponder ID.
It pulses once.
Then dies.
He doesn't speak.
He kills idle thrusters and drifts toward the source.
---
## THE CONTAINERS
Freight containers the size of apartment blocks float in formation.
Some are ruptured.
Some opened carefully.
Too carefully.
Metal peeled back in smooth arcs.
No blast scoring.
No pirate marks.
His scan pulse rolls across the hulls.
Nothing.
Then—
Movement.
Inside one container.
A vibration.
Not mechanical.
Organic.
The container door bends outward from the center.
No explosion.
Just pressure.
The metal stretches like skin.
And something unfolds.
It doesn't crawl.
It rearranges itself into visibility.
Bone lattice.
Glass membranes.
Black wet geometry.
Its surface ripples as if undecided.
The Traveller fires immediately.
Railcarbine recoil jolts the cockpit.
Rounds punch through the thing.
It adapts mid-impact.
Dense plating blooms across its torso.
The next shot ricochets.
No roar.
No scream.
Just a wet harmonic vibration that rattles his console.
His left monitor flickers.
> STATUS: SIGNAL CORRUPTION
> PROBABILITY DRIFT DETECTED
His targeting reticle splits in two.
Which one is real?
He launches a drone.
The drone fires.
Its bullets curve.
They bend mid-flight and miss.
The alien does not move.
The space around it adjusts instead.
A thin line of light snaps outward.
The drone halves cleanly.
Silence.
Then the container walls implode inward.
The creature folds back into shadow.
Gone.
No warp signature.
No debris.
Just an empty freight box.
His shields are at 49%.
He doesn't curse.
He doesn't shout.
He reloads.
---
## THE DERELICT HAULER
He docks with the largest surviving freight ship.
Industrial Rebirth-class carrier.
The hull is intact.
Too intact.
Airlock cycles with reluctant hydraulics.
Inside—
No corpses.
No battle damage.
No looting.
Rows of cryo-pods stand open.
Clean.
Organized.
Neural extraction rigs line the walls.
Printer cores ripped out surgically.
Data drives missing.
Cargo manifest terminal still flickers.
He powers it.
The screen stutters to life in dim green text.
> SHIPMENT: HUMAN SKILL MATRICES
> DESTINATION: OUTER BAND 7 — DEAD ZONE SCAR
> STATUS: TRANSFER COMPLETE
Crew list scrolls.
Engineers.
Architects.
Fleet tacticians.
Industrial designers.
His father's name appears.
Designation: STRUCTURAL SYSTEMS ARCHITECT.
Status: TRANSFERRED.
Not killed.
Transferred.
There is a difference.
He touches the screen.
The terminal glitches.
Audio file begins playing automatically.
Distorted.
Low.
"…we thought they were raiders… they let us fight each other… they waited until we were weak…"
Metal scraping in background.
"…they don't need territory…"
A pause.
"…they need structure."
A scream cuts the feed.
Not from pain.
From understanding.
---
## LOW ORBIT INTERCEPT
His ship undocks.
Heat signature spikes.
Three pirate cutters drop from asteroid cover.
Low-budget war machines.
Improvised plating.
Mismatched weapons.
Desperate men.
They fire immediately.
No communication.
No intimidation.
Just hunger.
The Traveller dives hard left.
Rail rounds chew through vacuum.
A missile streaks past his canopy and detonates against a drifting cargo tower.
Shrapnel peppers his hull.
Heat climbs.
He toggles EMP scatter.
Fires.
Blue pulse expands outward.
One pirate cutter spasms and tumbles lifelessly.
The other two close in sloppy formation.
They overshoot.
Too aggressive.
Too close.
He spins and fires plasma cutter through cockpit glass of the nearest ship.
The hull glows white.
Then ruptures.
Flame in vacuum flickers and dies instantly.
The last pirate tries to flee.
Engine flare bright.
Panicked.
The Traveller doesn't chase.
He watches.
The fleeing ship crosses into the darker region of the corridor.
The Dead Signal zone.
Its engine trail distorts.
Space warps.
The pirate ship folds inward like crushed paper.
No explosion.
No debris.
Just erased.
The Traveller lowers his weapon.
That wasn't his shot.
---
## THE DEAD SIGNAL
His console crackles again.
The same alien frequency.
Stronger now.
It overlays every channel.
Every faction frequency begins to distort.
Corporate fleet chatter turns to static.
Pirate swarm signals dissolve.
Engineer clan encryption flickers and dies.
Something is mapping the lanes.
Mapping conflict.
Mapping infrastructure.
Not invading.
Indexing.
His radar pings once more.
Vector: OUTER BAND 7.
The Dead Zone Scar.
Where war fleets vanished.
Where freight manifests ended.
Where his father was transferred.
He sets course.
Engines burn quiet.
No heroic score.
No triumphant speech.
Just drift into darker space.
---
## FINAL FRAME — EPISODE I
Far behind him—
The freight graveyard rotates.
Containers begin opening one by one.
Slowly.
Deliberately.
Inside each—
Movement.
The Wars were never about territory.
They were cultivation.
And the harvest has only begun.
---
### END EPISODE I