2025-09-27 15:13:22The docking bay of the Nomad was nothing like the patched-up garages back on Mars. It was vast, clean, and humming with power, its walls lined with polished ships and mechs waiting like silent predators. Every step Tim and Jax took echoed against steel floors.
Captain Rhys walked ahead of them, his stride steady, his presence commanding. Soldiers in dark uniforms lined the catwalks, their weapons cradled but ready. The way they watched Tim sent a chill down his spine.
Jax leaned close, muttering under his breath. “Friendly bunch.”
“Shut it,” Tim whispered back. The last thing they needed was to look weak.
Rhys led them through narrow corridors until they entered a briefing chamber. The walls curved inward like a half-sphere, the center dominated by a glowing holo-table projecting maps of star systems Tim had never seen. Dozens of them—worlds beyond Mars, names he couldn’t even pronounce.
“Sit.” Rhys gestured toward the chairs.
Tim stayed standing. “You saved our lives. For that, I’m grateful. But if you think we’re prisoners—”
“You’re not prisoners,” Rhys interrupted smoothly. “But I don’t bring strangers aboard my ship without answers.” His gaze sharpened. “What happened on Mars?”
The words hit like a blade. Tim clenched his fists. “The Syndicate happened. They burned everything. Everyone.”
“I don’t doubt that,” Rhys said. “But they don’t level entire colonies for scrap. They were after something. After you.”
The room seemed to shrink. Tim’s chest burned faintly, the artifact pulsing like it knew it was being discussed. He fought to keep his voice even. “I’m just a scavenger. Nothing more.”
Rhys’ eyes flicked to the faint glow still tracing Tim’s veins. “Scavengers don’t light up like reactors when Syndicate ships are on their tail.”
Jax shifted uncomfortably. “Look, whatever’s going on, Tim didn’t ask for it. He saved us back there. Isn’t that enough?”
Rhys studied Tim for a long, heavy moment. Then he tapped a command into the holo-table. A new image bloomed above the map: a sphere, black as obsidian, veined with glowing cobalt.
Tim’s stomach dropped. It was the artifact.
“You’ve seen this,” Rhys said. It wasn’t a question.
Tim swallowed hard but said nothing.
Rhys leaned forward, voice low. “That’s not Syndicate tech. That’s older. Ancient. And it’s been missing for centuries. Some call it a weapon. Others call it a key. The Syndicate calls it property. Whatever it is—it bonded to you.”
The artifact flared hot in Tim’s chest, as if in agreement. He winced, clutching his shirt.
Jax’s eyes darted between them. “Bonded? You’re saying he’s… stuck with it?”
Rhys nodded once. “For better or worse.” His gaze hardened. “Which means you’re not just some scavenger anymore. You’re carrying something people will kill entire planets to claim.”
The silence that followed was suffocating.
Tim finally found his voice, low and hoarse. “Then I guess running isn’t an option anymore.”
Rhys allowed himself the faintest of smiles, though it didn’t reach his eyes. “No. It isn’t.”
The door hissed open. A woman stepped in, tall and lean, with a medic’s armband glowing faintly on her sleeve. She carried herself with the same quiet authority as Rhys.
“This is Dr. Elara,” Rhys said. “She’ll make sure you’re not dying from whatever you just picked up.”
Elara’s gaze lingered on Tim’s glowing veins, curious but not afraid. “Follow me. We’ll start with scans.”
Tim hesitated, glancing once more at the holo of the artifact. Its cold blue glow seemed to follow him as he stood.
For the first time, he realized the truth gnawing at him.
The Syndicate wasn’t his only problem.
The universe itself might come hunting.
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Chapter 30: The Space Between Voices
The hologram wavered, caught between flicker and form. Blue light pulsed across the bridge in rhythmic waves, breathing life into the spectral outline of Korr.He didn’t move, not in the human sense. He vibrated — as though reality itself strained to contain him.Elara’s breath came slow.“Tim,” she whispered, “don’t engage.”But Tim was already staring back, eyes wide, lips parting.“He’s not broadcasting… he’s projecting.”Korr’s gaze turned to him — calm, deliberate. “You’ve grown stronger, Tim. The Rift bends for you now.”Tim’s fingers twitched at his side. The artifact, slotted into its containment ring, pulsed once, syncing with his heartbeat. “You’re inside my head,” he said evenly.“I’m beyond it,” Korr replied, voice smooth as water. “I see what you see. I feel what you fight to hide. The fear, the doubt. The guilt that you survived when others didn’t.”Elara’s hand hovered over the emergency override. “We can cut the power feed to the comm relays. It’ll destabilize his form
Chapter 29: Before the Storm
The hum of engines broke the silence first. Then came the flicker of emergency lights across the deck — cold blue washing over steel. The Horizon’s Edge was alive again, trembling like a living thing sensing danger.Elara stood at the center of it all, gaze fixed on the holomap. Dozens of red signals bloomed across the grid — ships that shouldn’t exist, signatures that defied known physics.“They’re aligning in formation,” Jax said, his voice tight. “Each one’s transmitting the same pulse frequency as Tim’s readings.”Kael leaned in closer. “He’s syncing them through the artifact. Like a hive.”Elara’s throat felt dry. “Then we cut the frequency before it reaches us.”Tim’s voice came from the corner — calm, steady, too steady. “You can’t. It’s not transmission anymore, it’s resonance. He’s using the Rift’s energy to bind them. Cut one signal, and he’ll rebuild it through me.”That silenced the room.Elara turned toward him. His outline looked frayed — faint threads of blue flickering
Chapter 28: What Wakes in the Dark
At first, there was only stillness.No sound. No light. Just the black, endless ocean between stars.Then the void rippled.Something vast stirred beyond the edge of perception — a distortion so faint it could’ve been mistaken for a trick of light. But it wasn’t. Space itself bent around it, warping gravity into spirals that hummed like distant thunder.A fragment of wreckage drifted past: a Syndicate beacon, long dead, its surface cracked and scorched from the Rift. As it floated closer, the beacon flared back to life for a single pulse. A signal—ancient, impossible, alive.And from the center of that pulse, Korr opened his eyes.---He was no longer flesh.No longer bound by bone, blood, or even time.The void clung to him like mist, his outline flickering between human form and a storm of data and energy. The artifact had not consumed him—it had rewritten him.The memory of pain was gone.The memory of defeat was gone.All that remained was the signal, humming through his veins.He
Chapter 27: The Silence That Follows
For the first time in days, the ship was quiet.No alarms, no tremors, no screaming metal tearing against the void—just the soft hum of the oxygen filters and the faint crackle of static from damaged speakers.Elara sat beside the med cot, watching the slow rise and fall of Tim’s chest. He was breathing evenly now, though his skin still shimmered with faint bioluminescent veins, pulsing softly in the dim light.She hadn’t moved in hours. Every time she tried to stand, something in her made her stay.Across the room, Jax was half-asleep against the bulkhead, arms crossed, muttering through his dreams. The medbay smelled of ozone and burned circuitry.When the silence finally broke, it was with Kael’s voice, low and hoarse from exhaustion. “What’s his status?”Elara didn’t look up. “Stable. Physically, at least.”Kael stepped closer, the weight of command etched into his every movement. He studied the monitors — all clear, except for one line of unreadable alien code flickering faintly
Chapter 26: Through the Signal
At first, there was no sound—only a pressure, heavy and endless, like the universe had drawn in a breath and refused to let it go.Tim floated in the glow, the ship fading away beneath him. Threads of data, memories, and alien light twisted through the dark, forming constellations that pulsed in rhythm with his heartbeat.Then he heard it.A voice—his name—cut through the silence.“Tim Watt.”Korr’s voice. Low, resonant, and cold as steel.Tim turned toward the sound, but there was no body, no figure—only shifting outlines that flickered between human form and digital storm.“You should’ve stayed away from the gate,” the voice continued, echoing inside his skull. “Now you’re mine to unmake.”Tim clenched his fists. The currents of energy responded, bending and tightening around him like armor. “You lost the moment you tried to use the Starborn tech for yourself.”A chuckle rippled through the void. “And yet, here you are, drowning in it. You think you’ve mastered the link—but it’s fee
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
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