2025-09-27 15:20:41The medley of the Nomad was a cathedral of glass and steel. Transparent walls shimmered with faint energy fields, keeping the air sterile, while consoles hummed in rhythm with the ship’s core. Rows of diagnostic pods lined the room, their interiors glowing faint blue.
Tim sat on one of the exam tables, trying not to look as uneasy as he felt. The artifact’s faint pulse echoed in his chest like a second heartbeat, and every time Elara passed her scanner over him, it flared in response.
“Relax,” Elara said, not looking up. Her voice was calm, but her eyes were sharp as the device in her hand painted glowing lines across Tim’s torso. “The more tense you are, the harder it is to get a clean read.”
“Sorry,” Tim muttered. “It’s not every day you get told you’re carrying a piece of alien history.”
Jax sat slouched in the corner chair, arms folded. “I told you, you’ve got terrible luck.”
“Not helping,” Tim shot back.
Elara’s scanner beeped. A projection burst to life above Tim: an outline of his body, veins and organs glowing in shifting hues. But in the center of his chest was a swirling knot of blue light, branching outward in fine, lightning-like strands.
Tim’s stomach dropped. “That’s… me?”
Elara nodded. “That’s you. And that—” she zoomed the projection in on the knot “—isn’t supposed to be there.”
The artifact pulsed, as though offended. Tim flinched, pressing a hand to his sternum. “It’s alive.”
“Not alive,” Elara corrected softly. “Integrated. It’s rewriting you at a cellular level.”
Jax sat forward, unease breaking through his usual sarcasm. “Rewriting? Like—making him into what?”
Elara hesitated. “That’s the question. Your blood is carrying traces of energy I’ve only ever read about in classified files. It’s not just keeping you alive—it’s adapting you. Strengthening you.” Her voice dropped. “Or preparing you.”
“Preparing me for what?” Tim demanded.
Before Elara could answer, the door slid open. Captain Rhys entered, his presence filling the room. Behind him came a wiry figure in a grease-stained jacket, goggles perched on his forehead—the ship’s engineer, judging by the smell of oil and sparks that followed him.
“Report,” Rhys said.
Elara straightened. “The artifact is bound to him on a fundamental level. Separation is impossible without killing him.”
The engineer whistled low. “Lucky kid. Most folks who touch relics like that get fried into ash.”
Tim scowled. “Yeah, I feel real lucky.”
Rhys ignored the sarcasm. His gaze bore into Tim. “The Syndicate will come. They won’t stop until they have you. And they won’t care who they kill in the process.”
“Then throw me out the nearest airlock,” Tim snapped, anger boiling through his fear. “I didn’t ask for this. I didn’t want any of it.”
The room went quiet.
Finally, Jax stood and clapped a hand on Tim’s shoulder. “Too late for that, mate. You’re stuck with us now.” His tone was lighter, but his grip was firm.
Elara studied Tim again, her voice lower, more personal. “You’re not just a target, Tim. You’re connected to something old. Something that’s been waiting.”
The artifact throbbed in his chest like a drumbeat. Waiting.
Tim shivered.
Rhys turned on his heel, already heading for the door. “Get some rest. Tomorrow, we plot our next move. If the Syndicate wants war, they’ll get it—but we’ll need to know exactly what our ‘scavenger’ can do.”
The door hissed shut behind him, leaving Tim with Elara’s scans still glowing in the air.
He stared at the light inside his chest, the alien knot twisting like a storm beneath his skin.
Not a scavenger anymore.
Something else. Something dangerous.
And deep down, he wondered if the artifact wasn’t just protecting him—
but using him.
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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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