# THE OUTER BANDS 2: THE WEB SERIES
## VOLUME ONE
### EPISODE II — DEAD ZONE SCAR
---
## NO ENTRY ZONE
Outer Band 7 does not appear on most civilian maps.
On corporate grids it is marked:
> ECONOMICALLY UNVIABLE
> NAVIGATION UNSTABLE
> INSURANCE VOID
Pirates call it the Scar.
Engineers call it a fracture event.
Printer Guild archivists call it **the Quiet Fold**.
No one calls it safe.
The Lone Traveller crosses the boundary at 14% thrust.
The stars change.
Not visually.
Structurally.
They feel misplaced.
Constellations bend a fraction inward, as if something massive presses from the other side of reality.
His instruments jitter.
> GRAVITY VARIANCE: +/- 0.3%
> TIME DRIFT: UNSTABLE
> SIGNAL INTEGRITY: COMPROMISED
The engine hum drops in pitch without input.
He reduces power.
The hum drops further.
He increases power.
The hum drops again.
Cause and effect are no longer loyal.
He continues forward.
---
## THE WAR FLEET
The first corpse appears twelve thousand kilometers ahead.
Corporate Capital-Class.
A battleship meant to enforce tax compliance across entire systems.
Its bow is intact.
Its stern is intact.
The middle third is gone.
Not destroyed.
Removed.
Like a section of reality cut and extracted.
Escort frigates float nearby in perfect formation.
No scorch marks.
No hull breaches.
All power dead.
He drifts closer.
Docking clamps still extended.
As if they were preparing to receive something.
Or surrender to it.
He boards one escort.
Interior lighting flickers in dim emergency red.
No decompression.
No blood.
Weapons racks empty.
Control chairs occupied by nothing.
But the consoles remain active.
Frozen mid-command.
He scrolls the last recorded combat log.
> UNKNOWN VESSEL DETECTED
> NO PROPULSION SIGNATURE
> NO HEAT SIGNATURE
> NO MASS READING
Pause.
> SHIPBOARD AI: "OBJECT DOES NOT REGISTER AS OBJECT."
Then—
> CREW STATUS: TRANSFER IN PROGRESS
Transfer.
Not kill.
Not destroyed.
Transferred.
He disconnects.
Leaves the ship as it drifts forever in ceremonial posture.
---
## THE ORBITAL RING
Band 7's primary planet rotates slowly below.
A dead industrial world.
Ringed by a broken orbital refinery.
Half the ring still functions.
Half is crystallized.
Not frozen.
Crystallized.
Metallic structures transformed into geometric glass spines jutting into vacuum.
His scanners refuse to label the material.
He descends.
Low orbit.
Low thrust.
The planet surface is patterned in grids.
Old city blocks.
Old factory zones.
But something has redrawn the grid.
Perfect hexagonal structures overlay former streets.
Gigantic.
Organic-metallic towers pulse faintly in violet spectrum.
They are not buildings.
They are processors.
He sees movement between them.
Columns of light rising from surface to orbit.
Not beams.
Transfers.
---
## THE GROUND
He lands beyond the nearest structure.
The soil crunches under boot.
Not sand.
Not rock.
Compressed ash and fine metallic dust.
The air tastes wrong through filtration.
Electrical.
He moves toward the nearest hex-tower.
No dialogue.
No dramatic vow.
Just walking.
The tower surface ripples like oil.
Inside the translucent walls—
Shapes suspended.
Humanoid outlines.
Dozens.
Hundreds.
Not floating in liquid.
Suspended in structured lattice.
Neural threads extend from skull to tower core.
He scans.
> LIFE SIGNS: PRESENT
> CONSCIOUSNESS: UNKNOWN STATE
One face rotates slowly toward him inside the structure.
Eyes open.
No blinking.
No panic.
Just awareness.
The face is older.
Grey beard.
Familiar.
His father.
Embedded.
Integrated.
Alive.
The surface of the tower reacts.
A fracture opens.
Not a door.
An invitation.
---
## THE INTERFACE
Inside the tower is silent.
No wind.
No hum.
Just vibration beneath bone.
The walls display images.
War footage.
Freight battles.
Pirate ambushes.
Corporate bombardments.
Engineer sabotage.
All layered together.
Accelerated.
Over decades.
Then overlaid with another layer—
Alien structures mapping conflict density.
Mapping infrastructure hubs.
Mapping neural complexity of individuals involved.
The Wars were data collection.
The Wars were a sorting algorithm.
His father's image appears across the inner wall.
Not physically.
Projected in structured light.
His mouth moves.
No sound.
Text forms beneath.
> ARCHITECT REQUIRED
> SYSTEMS INCOMPLETE
> STRUCTURAL INSTABILITY AT SCALE
The hex-tower vibrates.
He sees it now.
The planet is not being harvested for biomass.
It is being redesigned.
They are building something using human neural architecture.
Human system thinking.
Engineers.
Architects.
Fleet tacticians.
They are integrating minds into a planetary processor.
Not enslaving.
Utilizing.
His father's eyes shift.
Recognition flickers.
For half a second.
Then the lattice tightens.
The recognition fades.
---
## CONTACT
The alien presence manifests behind him.
No footsteps.
No arrival.
Just sudden existence.
A taller lattice-form than before.
Denser.
More resolved.
Its surface shifts between bone, glass, and starlight.
It does not attack.
It extends a filament toward the tower core.
The interior walls display schematics.
A structure spanning multiple Bands.
Freight corridors converted into conduits.
War zones converted into energy sinks.
Entire star systems aligned into geometric precision.
The Outer Bands are raw material.
Human conflict was pre-processing.
The alien tilts its head.
As if curious.
He raises his railcarbine.
Fires.
The round freezes midair.
Hangs suspended between them.
Probability bending again.
The alien extends another filament.
This time toward him.
His HUD explodes in static.
> NEURAL COMPATIBILITY: HIGH
> ARCHITECTURE POTENTIAL: SIGNIFICANT
His father's face flickers.
More intense now.
Text forms again.
> DO NOT RESIST.
> STRUCTURE REQUIRES STABILITY.
> WAR IS CHAOS.
> WE CORRECT CHAOS.
The filament inches closer to his helmet.
He triggers EMP scatter at point blank range.
The pulse detonates inside the tower.
Energy cascades.
Lights fracture.
The suspended forms flicker.
His father's eyes flare with awareness.
Pain.
The alien recoils.
For the first time—
It destabilizes.
Surface ripples violently.
The suspended rail round drops and embeds into the alien's torso.
No blood.
But the lattice misaligns.
The tower begins to fracture.
He runs.
---
## COLLAPSE
Outside, the hex-structures begin pulsing irregularly.
Energy columns destabilize.
The orbital ring shudders.
One of the crystalline spines snaps.
Falls toward the planet.
Atmosphere ignites along its descent.
He sprints across ash toward his ship.
Behind him—
The tower he entered collapses inward.
Not exploding.
Imploding into a precise singular point.
Then vanishing.
A hole in the skyline where structure once stood.
His ship's engines roar alive.
Heat spikes redline.
He lifts off as shockwaves ripple across surface grids.
In orbit, fragments of the refinery ring begin drifting apart.
But not all towers collapse.
Most remain stable.
Most continue pulsing.
The system adapts.
Corrects.
Continues.
---
## FINAL ORBIT FRAME — EPISODE II
From high orbit he sees it clearly.
The hex-grid stretches across continents.
Interconnected.
Expanding.
Band 7 was not destroyed.
It was Phase One.
His father's tower is gone.
Signal lost.
But new towers ignite deeper within the planet's night side.
The harvest is not over.
It is accelerating.
His console flashes a new alert.
> ALIEN STRUCTURE DETECTED
> VECTOR: BAND 5
> FREIGHT CORRIDOR 32-A
They are moving inward.
Toward populated lanes.
Toward war-torn sectors still fighting each other blindly.
He sets course back toward the conflict.
Not to stop the war.
To weaponize it.
If they want structure—
He will give them chaos.
---
### END EPISODE II