Attrition

Special Agent Callum Ivy is pulled from a coveted leave and thrust into the most routine‑looking assignment of his ten‑year Interstellar Security career: a missing crew aboard the survey starship GSS‑231, vanished over an unnamed Earth‑type world. The briefings are sterile, the paperwork repetitive, and his superiors treat experience and expendability as interchangeable. Yet the planet—dubbed Epsilon‑Terra—lies on the frontier of humanity’s expansion, where survival depends on adapting faster than any alien competitor.

Chased through a lunar complex, Ivy meets a cadre of efficient, almost clinical colleagues and is handed a terse dossier that hints at a series of unexplained accidents. The narrative blends procedural grit with a wry, introspective voice, as Ivy questions whether the danger lies in the alien terrain, the silent probes, or the very institution that dispatches him. As he steps onto the outbound ramp, the story sets the stage for a tense investigation where every rule may be broken by the planet’s hidden threats.