2025-09-27 15:10:14The skiff rattled like it was seconds from tearing apart, alarms screaming with every shake. Tim Watt held the controls steady, jaw locked tight, eyes on the glowing red blips swarming the radar. The Syndicate interceptors were gaining.
Jax gripped the comm, his voice rough with panic. “We can’t outrun them, Tim. We need—”
The comm crackled alive again, clearer this time.
“Unidentified vessel, hold course. This is the Nomad. We’ve got eyes on you.”
Tim blinked. Relief and suspicion tangled in his gut. Out here, ships didn’t just appear. Especially not ones offering help.
The interceptors fired again. Plasma bolts ripped past, close enough to light the cockpit in blinding flashes.
“Nomad,” Tim growled into the comm, “if you’re going to help, now would be a damn good time.”
A calm voice answered, steady as stone. “Copy that. Brace yourselves.”
Out of the black came a shadow. Then another. The Nomad emerged from the void—sleek, armored, and bristling with turrets. Its cannons roared, spitting bright lances of energy that cut straight through the lead interceptor. The Syndicate craft spiraled into pieces, flames snuffed out in the cold silence of space.
Jax whooped. “Beautiful!”
The other interceptors wavered, breaking formation. One darted away; the other angled back toward the skiff.
“Nomad to scavenger skiff,” the voice crackled. “That last one’s on you. Let’s see what you’ve got.”
Tim cursed under his breath. “What I’ve got is a broken bucket of bolts.”
But the artifact in his chest pulsed hotter, veins glowing faintly beneath his skin. The failing engine hummed back to life, steadier than before. Tim felt it—not just power, but connection, like the skiff itself was listening.
He yanked the controls hard. The skiff spun, plasma fire grazing wide as he dove straight at the interceptor. Jax yelled something wordless, hanging on for dear life.
Tim squeezed the trigger on the forward cannon. The skiff spat a burst of fire, half the rounds sparking uselessly into space. But one shot landed. The interceptor’s wing shattered, spinning the craft into the asteroid belt.
Tim exhaled, his chest blazing like fire.
The comm buzzed again. This time, there was a note of approval in the stranger’s voice. “Not bad. Dock with us before you burn out completely.”
The Nomad swung alongside, its docking bay opening like the jaws of some ancient beast. Tim guided the skiff in, his hands steady despite the adrenaline tearing through him. The docking clamps locked, sealing them in the dark bay.
For the first time since the colony burned, silence filled the cabin.
Jax slumped back in his chair, sweat dripping down his temple. “We’re alive,” he muttered, half laughing. “By the stars, we’re alive.”
Tim didn’t answer. His eyes lingered on the glow fading from his veins. Whatever had just happened out there, it wasn’t luck. It was the artifact.
The skiff’s hatch hissed open. Heavy boots clanged against the metal ramp. A figure stepped into view—tall, armored, with a scar cutting across one cheek and eyes sharp as blades.
“You’re a long way from Mars,” the man said, voice low but commanding. “Name’s Captain Rhys. Welcome aboard the Nomad. Now—” His gaze fixed on Tim, narrowing at the faint glow still tracing his skin.
“—let’s talk about what the Syndicate wants with you.”
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Chapter 25: The Voice Between Worlds
The sound of Korr’s distorted voice still lingered in the air, crackling faintly through the intercom before fading into a silence that felt alive.Elara stood frozen. Her pulse thundered in her ears, her mind racing faster than she could breathe.Then she turned toward Tim.“What did you just say?”Tim didn’t answer immediately. His eyes stayed fixed on the console, the faint blue veins pulsing beneath his skin like lightning trapped under glass.“Tim,” she repeated, sharper this time. “You said that voice was Korr. That can’t be right.”He looked up slowly, his expression unreadable. “It’s him, Elara. I’d know that frequency anywhere.”Jax swore under his breath. “That’s impossible. Korr was on the Omen’s Reach. That ship’s been offline since—”“Since we blew it out of orbit,” Elara finished. Her voice was steady, but her hands trembled. “You told me there was nothing left of him.”“I thought there wasn’t,” Tim said quietly. “But he’s alive. Or something wearing his voice is.”Elara
Chapter 24: After the Light
Silence.Not the clean, peaceful kind that follows sleep, but a thick, humming stillness that pressed against the skin.Elara blinked, vision blurred by the ghost of the light that had swallowed everything. Her ears rang; her body felt weightless, as if gravity itself were reconsidering its duty.The deck beneath her tilted once, then steadied. The faint red of emergency lights flickered back to life, staining the corridors in crimson haze.“Tim?” Her voice cracked.No answer.She pushed herself upright, pain blooming across her shoulder. Every console around the bridge had gone dark; holographic panels hung frozen mid-display. A curl of smoke drifted from a ruptured conduit.Then she saw him.Tim lay a few meters away, motionless, his skin faintly luminous in the dark. The glow wasn’t like before—no longer confined to his veins but radiating through the air around him, a soft aura that bent the light itself.Elara crawled to him, heart hammering. “Tim! Wake up—come on!”Her fingers b
Chapter 23: The convergence
The hum of The Horizon’s Edge had changed.It was subtle — barely noticeable at first — but Elara heard it. She had spent enough years aboard this ship to know every sound it made, every vibration in its bones.Now, the rhythm was wrong.She stood in the control room, surrounded by flickering consoles. Systems glitched in and out, lights dimming, then flaring again in patterns that made no technical sense.“Diagnostics are looping,” Jax muttered, hammering commands into the main terminal. “It’s like the ship’s rewriting its own code.”Elara frowned. “Run a full system lockout. Power down the secondary grid.”“Already did. Twice. It reboots before I can—”A sharp crack split the air as one of the holoscreens overloaded, sending a cascade of sparks across the floor.Jax cursed and ducked back. “That’s new.”Elara stared at the display — symbols were burning across it now, faint glowing sigils that pulsed in perfect sync with the ship’s hum. They weren’t any language she knew.“What the
Chapter 22: The Fracture Within
The hum of The Horizon’s Edge was softer now — almost soothing, like a lullaby sung to a restless child. But beneath that calm, Elara felt something shifting, an unease that clung to the air.Days had passed since the encounter at the Rift. The bruises on the ship had begun to fade, but not the ones it left on her crew.Especially not on Tim.He had stopped sleeping, though he insisted he did. His hands trembled when he thought no one was watching, and the faint blue light beneath his skin had grown brighter, threading up his veins like living circuitry.At first, Elara told herself it was just residual energy. Trauma. Something that would fade with rest. But deep down, she knew better. The Rift had not just touched him — it had rewritten him.---She found him in the cargo bay, shirt half undone, sweat glistening along his shoulders as he struggled to lift a containment crate that should’ve weighed half a ton. The crate hovered, then dropped with a metallic thud that echoed through t
Chapter 21: The Shadow that Watches
The command bridge of The Omen’s Reach was a cathedral of steel and silence.No voices rose above the low hum of power coursing through its walls. No footsteps echoed on the obsidian floor without permission.Here, every breath belonged to Varyn Korr.He stood at the center dais, his uniform immaculate, his face carved in cold precision. Around him, the Rift’s holographic projection spun like a ghostly storm — its luminous core throbbing in slow, steady rhythm.Korr’s gaze was fixed on it. There was reverence in his stillness, but also calculation — the kind of measured obsession only a man who had seen gods die could carry.“The connection remains faint,” said Drav, his tone cautious. “But stable. Whatever link the boy shares with the artifact, it’s… self-sustaining.”Korr tilted his head slightly. “Self-sustaining,” he echoed. “Like a pulse.”Drav hesitated. “A pulse implies something alive, sir.”Korr turned slowly toward him, his eyes pale and unreadable. “Exactly.”He descended f
Chapter 20: Echos of Light
Silence settled across The Horizon’s Edge like dust after a storm.The hum of the ship’s engines was the only constant sound — a low, steady heartbeat in the void.Kael stood by the forward viewport, hands clasped behind his back. Beyond the reinforced glass stretched a blackness so deep it seemed to swallow the stars. He had seen war, mutinies, and the Syndicate’s cruelty — but this, this quiet aftermath, felt far heavier.Elara’s reflection joined his in the glass. She’d changed out of her bloodstained uniform, but exhaustion still clung to her like a shadow. “He’s stable,” she said softly. “Vitals are normalizing. Neural patterns… not so much.”Kael didn’t look at her. “He’s connected to that thing now.”She nodded. “In ways we can’t measure.”For a moment, neither spoke. The hum of distant machinery filled the space where words should have been. Finally, Elara broke the silence. “You think we did the right thing — saving him?”Kael exhaled slowly. “Right stopped mattering the mome
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