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 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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