2025-09-27 15:28:30The Nomad’s training deck was a cavern of steel and light. Holographic panels flickered to life along the walls, projecting shifting terrains: deserts, ruins, asteroid fields. At its center was an open floor plated with alloys designed to withstand starship cannon fire.
Tim stood there, palms sweaty, staring at the endless space around him. His stomach knotted tighter with every second.
“Relax,” Jax said from the control booth above, grinning through the glass. “You’ll be fine. Probably.”
“Probably?” Tim shouted back.
The doors behind him hissed open. Captain Rhys strode in, flanked by Elara and the ship’s engineer, Milo. Rhys’s presence made the deck feel smaller, heavier.
“You carry a weapon the Syndicate would raze worlds for,” Rhys said, his voice like iron. “If you can’t use it, you’ll be dead before we reach the next system. Today, we find out what you’re capable of.”
Tim swallowed hard. “And if I’m not capable of anything?”
Rhys’s gaze didn’t waver. “Then you’re a liability.”
The floor beneath Tim shifted. Holographic pillars rose from the ground, forming jagged ruins. The simulation flickered to life around him—an abandoned city, its skyline broken and burned.
Then the drones appeared. Sleek spheres with glowing red eyes, wings snapping open as they hovered above the ruins. Weapons unfolded like steel fangs.
“Targets are non-lethal,” Elara said into her comm, though her voice carried tension. “But don’t underestimate them. They’re fast.”
The first drone dove. Tim ducked instinctively, the plasma bolt searing past his ear. The smell of scorched metal filled his nose. He stumbled back, heart pounding.
“Do something!” Jax yelled from above.
Tim raised his hands uselessly. Another drone fired, and he threw himself sideways. Pain flared in his ribs as he hit the floor.
The artifact pulsed.
A heat rushed through his veins, electric and alive. His vision sharpened, the drone’s movements slowing as though time itself had bent. His muscles thrummed with alien strength.
When the next drone swooped, Tim’s hand shot up—faster than thought. Blue light exploded from his palm, a beam of energy striking the machine dead center.
The drone shattered in midair, fragments raining down in sparks.
Tim froze, staring at his own hand. The artifact pulsed again, brighter, hungrier.
The remaining drones circled. He didn’t think—he moved. Bolts of alien light surged from his fingertips, precise, devastating. One drone crashed into a pillar. Another disintegrated mid-flight.
The last came in low, blasters blazing. Tim leapt higher than humanly possible, flipping over its body, and with a single strike, drove his glowing fist into its core. The machine collapsed in a heap of molten steel.
Silence.
Tim landed hard, panting, smoke curling from his fingers. His chest burned with every heartbeat, the artifact’s glow visible through his shirt.
Above, Jax’s jaw hung open. “Bloody hell.”
Milo slapped the console. “Did you see that? Kid’s a walking power reactor!”
Elara’s eyes weren’t celebratory. She leaned toward Rhys, whispering urgently, “He shouldn’t be able to channel that much energy without burning out. The artifact… it’s overriding his limits.”
Tim doubled over, coughing. The blue light dimmed, retreating back into his chest. Sweat soaked his skin, and every muscle trembled as though he’d just run for miles.
Rhys’s boots echoed as he crossed the deck to him. The captain’s face betrayed no emotion, but his eyes were sharp, calculating.
“You’ve just proven one thing,” Rhys said. “You are not ordinary. You are not safe. And from this day forward, nothing in the galaxy will stop hunting you.”
Tim tried to speak, but his throat was raw. “I—I didn’t want this.”
“No one cares what you want,” Rhys replied coldly. “Survive long enough, and maybe you’ll get the luxury of choices again.”
Elara rushed to Tim’s side, scanning him with trembling hands. “His vitals are spiking. He needs rest before the artifact pushes his body past the point of recovery.”
Tim met her gaze. Behind her concern was something deeper—fear. Not just of what the Syndicate might do to him.
Fear of what he might become.
The artifact pulsed once more, faint but insistent.
And for the first time, Tim wasn’t sure if it was protecting him—
or claiming 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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