2026-01-11 14:42:08The Reckoning Wave
The moon was called Serene Reach, a forgotten pearl in the Outer Volumes where the oceans glowed faint turquoise at night from bioluminescent plankton, and the only sounds were waves on black sand and the occasional cry of seabirds. We had been there for three months—longer than anywhere else since the war ended. Long enough to build routines. Long enough to almost believe the quiet was permanent.
I woke before dawn, as always. Kessa was already up, standing on the balcony of our cliffside cabin, wrapped in a thin blanket, watching the horizon where the first sun would rise. Her silhouette was sharp against the pre-dawn indigo, hair loose and wild from sleep.
I joined her without speaking. We had learned silence was sometimes better than words.
She leaned back against me when I wrapped arms around her waist. Her skin was warm despite the cool breeze.
“Dream?” I asked quietly.
“Memory,” she corrected. “Varn’s voice. Telling me I’d come back.”
I tightened my hold. “You didn’t.”
“Not yet.”
We watched the sun breach the sea, turning the water to liquid gold. Another perfect morning.
Then Crab chirped from inside—urgent, repeating.
We moved as one.
The drone had been dormant in a shielded case since Eclipse. We’d agreed: no networks, no signals, no risk of tracing.
Yet its lenses blazed crimson now. A holo bloomed above the table—raw data burst, no encryption, no signature.
Just coordinates.
Deep Core. Restricted Federation space.
And a single line of text:
> RECKONING WAVE INITIATED
> 96 HOURS TO CRITICAL MASS
> YOU ARE THE ONLY ONES WHO CAN STOP IT
> COME ALONE
Kessa’s face went still.
“Reckoning Wave,” she whispered. “That was Varn’s last contingency. The one he never committed to paper. A self-propagating quantum cascade. If the uploads failed, if Revenant failed, if everything failed—he’d salt the earth.”
I felt the old cold settle in my gut. “How?”
“Seeds. Micro-relays hidden in every major quantum grid node across the sector. Dormant. Waiting for a trigger pulse. When activated, they chain-react. Entanglement collapse on a galactic scale. Every FTL drive, every comm array, every AI core—bricked. Permanently. Civilization fractures into isolated pockets. Billions die slow.”
“Ninety-six hours?”
“From trigger to full cascade. After that, no reversal.”
Crab projected a starchart. Red dots pulsed—seed locations. Hundreds. From Core Worlds to Rim outposts.
One dot glowed brighter: origin point.
A black-site station in the forbidden Nepharis Void—dead zone where nothing lived, sensors failed, ships vanished.
Varn’s cradle.
The message ended with a final line:
> HE LEFT IT FOR YOU, KESSA
She stared at it until the holo faded.
I waited.
Finally: “We can run. Deeper Rim. Off-grid forever. Let the galaxy burn or save itself.”
I took her hand. “You know we won’t.”
“No,” she said. “We won’t.”
We packed light—tactical rigs, weapons, Crab. The cabin we left as it was: bed unmade, coffee cooling on the counter. We didn’t look back.
The nearest port with a fast ship was six hours by skimmer. We stole a sub-orbital hopper from the resort field—apologies left in credit chits for the owner—and burned atmosphere.
En route, Crab sliced black-market channels. No chatter about Reckoning. No warnings. The trigger had been silent.
Whoever sent the message wanted only us to know.
Seventy-two hours left.
We bought a ship under false IDs: a sleek courier runner, *Night Raven*, stripped for speed, armored for trouble. Crew complement: two. Perfect.
Jumped FTL toward Nepharis.
The Void lived up to legend.
Sensors went blind two light-years out. Nav stars vanished. Only dead reckoning and Crab’s inertial plotting kept us on course.
Space here felt wrong—too quiet, too dark, as if light itself hesitated.
The station appeared suddenly: a jagged monolith of black alloy, no lights, no emissions, orbiting a rogue planet shrouded in perpetual storm.
No defenses visible.
Too easy.
We docked at the only open bay.
Airlock cycled. Gravity artificial, heavy.
Corridors stretched endless, lit by faint red guides.
No bodies. No signs of life.
Just echoes.
Crab scanned: quantum seeds active, pulsing in rhythm.
Sixty hours.
We moved deeper.
First chamber: gestation labs—empty tanks, shattered glass. Upload remnants.
Second: server farms—slagged, deliberate.
Someone had been here before us.
Footprints in the dust—recent.
Kessa knelt, touched them.
“One set. Light. Female gait.”
Her own?
Trap.
We pressed on.
Central nexus: massive spherical chamber, walls lined with seed relays—thousands, glowing soft blue.
In the center: a single console.
And a figure.
Back to us.
Female silhouette.
Short black hair.
Kessa’s height. Kessa’s build.
It turned.
Face: Kessa’s.
Eyes: winter cold.
Varn’s.
Upload in her cloned body.
Perfect replica.
Voice: hers, but layered with his cadence.
“Hello, daughter.”
Kessa’s rifle rose instinctively.
The clone smiled—Varn’s thin, cruel smile on her face.
“You won’t shoot yourself.”
“Watch me.”
She fired.
The clone flickered—holo projection.
Real body elsewhere.
Voice echoed from speakers.
“Clever. But predictable.”
Bulkheads slammed.
Gas hissed—neural agent.
Suits sealed, but vents pumped faster.
Crab countered—deployed neutralizer.
We ran.
Corridors shifted—moving panels, false turns.
Maze.
Traps triggered: monowire, plasma bursts, gravity wells.
We fought through.
Lost time.
Forty-eight hours.
Deeper levels: seed core.
Massive chamber—relay obelisk towering thirty meters, pulsing faster.
The real clone waited there.
No holo.
Flesh.
Scars matching Kessa’s exactly.
She held a trigger device.
“Welcome home.”
Kessa circled. “You’re not me.”
“I’m what you could have been. Unburdened by sentiment. By weakness.”
I scanned for exits—sealed.
Crab jacked into wall ports—fighting ICE.
The clone lunged.
They clashed—mirror fight.
Same training. Same speed. Same lethal grace.
Knives flashed. Fists. Elbows.
Blood—whose?
I couldn’t intervene—too fast, too intertwined.
Crab chirped progress: 40%.
The clone gained upper hand—blade to Kessa’s throat.
“You hesitate because you see yourself.”
Kessa headbutted—bridge of nose shattered.
“No,” she gasped. “I see him.”
She disarmed, reversed.
Blade poised.
The clone laughed—Varn’s laugh.
“Kill me and the cascade completes. The trigger is biometric. My death pulse.”
Kessa froze.
Crab: 60%.
I moved—slowly.
“Options?”
Kessa’s voice steady despite blood: “Crab needs ninety seconds. Stall.”
The clone’s eyes—Varn’s—flicked to me.
“The mule. Still clinging.”
I raised empty hands. “You built all this for revenge?”
“For legacy. Humanity wasn’t ready. You proved it—tearing down order for chaos.”
Kessa shifted grip.
Crab: 80%.
The clone sensed it.
Lunged again.
Final clash.
They rolled—near the obelisk.
Kessa on top.
Blade raised.
The clone whispered: “Do it. Become me.”
Kessa drove the blade—not into flesh.
Into the trigger device in the clone’s hand.
Shattered it.
Biometric failsafe bypassed.
Crab hit 100%.
Kill pulse broadcast.
The obelisk shuddered.
Seeds dimmed—chain broken.
The clone screamed—digital death throes as upload severed.
Body went limp.
Kessa stood, shaking.
I caught her before she fell.
Twenty-four hours remained—but the cascade was dead.
We dragged the body to an airlock—ejected it into the Void.
No burial.
Station scuttled—charges planted.
We launched as it bloomed behind us.
*Night Raven* jumped blind through the Void.
Emerged into normal space.
Stars again.
Real.
We set course for nowhere specific.
After a day, Kessa spoke.
“It’s done. Really done.”
I nodded.
She took my hand.
“Take us back to the moon.”
We returned to Serene Reach.
The cabin was as we left it.
Coffee cold.
Bed unmade.
We made new coffee.
Slept properly.
Months passed.
No messages.
No chirps from Crab—powered down forever this time.
We swam.
Fished.
Built a small dock.
Learned each other’s silences.
One year later.
Dawn.
Kessa on the balcony again.
I joined her.
She held a small stick—two lines.
Positive.
I stared.
She smiled—real, unguarded.
“Think we’re ready?”
I pulled her close.
“For this? Yeah.”
The suns rose.
The ocean glowed.
The galaxy spun on—scarred, healing, vast.
And for the first time,
we weren’t saving it.
We were living in it.
Previous Chapter
Latest Chapter
Chapter 7
The Reckoning WaveThe moon was called Serene Reach, a forgotten pearl in the Outer Volumes where the oceans glowed faint turquoise at night from bioluminescent plankton, and the only sounds were waves on black sand and the occasional cry of seabirds. We had been there for three months—longer than anywhere else since the war ended. Long enough to build routines. Long enough to almost believe the quiet was permanent.I woke before dawn, as always. Kessa was already up, standing on the balcony of our cliffside cabin, wrapped in a thin blanket, watching the horizon where the first sun would rise. Her silhouette was sharp against the pre-dawn indigo, hair loose and wild from sleep.I joined her without speaking. We had learned silence was sometimes better than words.She leaned back against me when I wrapped arms around her waist. Her skin was warm despite the cool breeze.“Dream?” I asked quietly.“Memory,” she corrected. “Varn’s voice. Telling me I’d come back.”I tightened my hold. “Y
Chapter 6
The Long ShadowThe liner *Stellar Drift* was everything the war hadn’t been: soft lighting, live music in the lounges, passengers in vacation silks sipping cocktails under simulated starlight. Kessa and I had boarded at Port Meridian under false names, carrying nothing but two small duffels and the kind of bone-deep exhaustion that no shore leave could fix in a week.We had cabins on the promenade deck—adjoining, doors left unlocked between them. For the first three days we did what civilians do: slept twelve hours straight, ate real food, walked the observation ring hand in hand like any other couple escaping the grind. No one looked twice at us. No alarms. No gunfire.It felt alien.On the fourth day, Kessa found me in the gym at 0400 ship time, pounding a heavy bag until my knuckles bled through the wraps.“You’re going to break your hands,” she said from the doorway.“Better than breaking my head thinking.”She stepped in, closed the door. “Nightmares?”“Memories.” I stopped, bre
Chapter 5
Ashes and AftermathThe *Ebon Sparrow* hung in the void like a black needle against the starfield, cloaked and silent, three light-days out from the smoldering ruins of Obsidian Keep. For forty-eight hours we had done nothing but watch the sector unravel.Every major feed carried the footage Crab had uploaded in the final seconds before the fortress detonated: the Directorate’s faces, their voices, their plans laid bare. Names that had been myths—admirals, CEOs, intelligence chiefs—were now splashed across emergency broadcasts. Arrest warrants flew faster than light. Bank accounts frozen. Private fleets seized at dock. Entire governments teetered as compromised ministers fled or were dragged from offices in restraints.But wars do not end when the head is cut off. They convulse.Concordance cells—dozens, maybe hundreds—went dark or went loud. Some surrendered. Most fought. Suicide charges on Federation outposts. Assassinations of investigators. Sabotage of orbital infrastructure. Thre
Chapter 4
Ghosts in the VoidThe *Driftwind* ran dark for three days.No running lights, no transponder, minimal emissions. Captain Hale plotted a wandering course through the nebula fringes of the Elysara Sector dense gas clouds that scattered sensors and hid us from long-range scans. Inside the ship, the mood was funeral-quiet. Crew spoke in murmurs, if at all. The newsfeeds we dared to skim painted a picture none of us wanted to look at for long.Calyx Station destroyed. Over four hundred thousand confirmed dead, countless more missing in the debris field. Official story: catastrophic fusion cascade, cause under investigation. Unofficial channels screamed the truth everyone was afraid to say aloud someone had deliberately overloaded the cores.Markets were still frozen. Trillions in wealth evaporated overnight. Governments declared emergencies. Fleets mobilized. Fingers pointed everywhere: terrorism, corporate sabotage, foreign powers. No one named the Concordance publicly. They were too dee
Chapter 3
StationfallThe *Driftwind* dropped out of FTL with a shudder that ran through every deck plate, the kind of jolt that told experienced travelers the nav computer had just shaved margins too close for comfort. Captain Hale’s voice came over the intercom, calm but edged with steel.“Calyx Station in thirty minutes. We’re running hot and quiet. Concordance cutter is still limping somewhere behind us, but station traffic control just pinged us twice routine, they claim. Stay sharp.”Kessa killed the intercom and looked at me across the cramped smuggler’s nook. Her face was drawn from lack of sleep, the scar along her jaw standing out pale against olive skin.“Thirty minutes to dock. Forty-three hours total until the second canister arrives became twenty-nine while we were dodging that cutter. We’re cutting it thin.”I checked the flechette pistol’s magazine for the third time. Full. Safety on. “What’s the plan once we’re inside?”“Calyx is a hub three hundred thousand permanent residents
Chapter 2
Into the GreenThe jungle swallowed us whole.One moment we were standing in the small clearing where Kessa had parked the van; the next, the fern-trees closed ranks behind us and the night pressed in from every side. Elysara’s twin moons hung low, filtering silver light through layers of canopy, but down here on the forest floor it was all shadows and bioluminescent flickers—fungi glowing soft blue along fallen trunks, insects tracing lazy green spirals in the air.Kessa moved like she’d been born in this darkness. No flashlight, no hesitation. She adjusted the straps of her reconfigured backpack—the spider-drone now compacted into a slim tactical rig—and set off along a trail that wasn’t a trail at all, just a subtle parting of undergrowth that only someone trained to see it would notice.I followed, duffel slung cross-body, trying to keep my footsteps quiet on the springy humus. The air was thick, warm, heavy with the scent of sap and decaying leaves. Every few seconds something l
You may also like
Strixes
RWForsyth4.1K viewsThe weapon dealer's son
amr silver3.1K viewsThe Garden of Sinners
Crimsade2.1K viewsThe man they couldn't Arrest
Dennis4.1K viewsVibranium: Agent 007
Author Sparrow1.5K viewsNew ERA Saga
Demian Dementor2.8K viewsAll Things I've Done To Save You
Handi Yawan2.5K viewsThe Special People
Feyonce8.6K views