2025-09-27 15:35:55The Nomad hummed with quiet tension. Engines thrummed beneath Tim’s feet as he sat strapped into a chair in the mess hall, a cup of untouched water trembling in his hands. His muscles ached from the training deck, every nerve raw as though the artifact had scraped him hollow.
Across from him, Jax tore into a ration pack, pretending not to notice. Finally, he said, “You ever gonna drink that, or just stare it to death?”
Tim glanced down. The water rippled faintly—not from the ship’s vibration, but from the subtle pulse in his chest. He pushed it away. “Doesn’t feel real. Any of it.”
Jax leaned back, kicking his boots onto the table. “Welcome to the void, mate. Nothing’s real out here. Not the stars, not the rules. Only thing that matters is surviving long enough to see the next sunrise.”
Before Tim could reply, the ship’s intercom crackled. Rhys’s voice cut through:
“All hands to stations. We have a tail.”
Jax swore and sprang up. “Of course we do.”
Tim followed, heart pounding as they raced to the bridge. When the doors slid open, the sight on the main screen turned his blood cold.
A Syndicate frigate loomed in the void, its jagged hull glinting with weapon arrays. Smaller hunter craft flanked it, their wings angled like predatory birds. The ship’s emblem—a serpent coiled around a burning star—glowed blood-red against the black.
“They found us,” Elara whispered.
Rhys stood at the helm, hands steady on the controls. “They always find us.”
Milo’s fingers flew across his console. “They’ve locked scanners. If they tag us, we’re fried.”
Tim’s throat tightened. “We can’t fight that. Not with this ship.”
Rhys shot him a look sharp enough to cut steel. “Which is why we run.”
The Nomad lurched as engines roared. Stars streaked across the screen, but the frigate’s hunters surged after them, firing bursts of plasma. The ship shook violently, alarms blaring.
“Shields at sixty percent!” Milo shouted. “One more direct hit and we’ll be space dust.”
Tim gripped the railing. The artifact pulsed harder, syncing with the rhythm of his heartbeat, as though urging him to act.
“Don’t,” Elara hissed, catching his expression. “You’re not ready. It nearly killed you last time.”
“Tell that to the Syndicate,” Jax muttered, strapping in.
A plasma bolt slammed into the hull. The lights flickered. Milo cursed. “They’ve got us pinned. I can shake the small ones, but the frigate’ll chew us alive.”
“Options,” Rhys demanded.
Elara bit her lip, staring at the readings. “There’s an uncharted debris field two sectors ahead. Dense. Dangerous. But it could mask our signal.”
Rhys didn’t hesitate. “Plot it.”
The Nomad veered sharply, engines screaming. The Syndicate frigate followed like a predator scenting blood.
As the ship hurtled toward the debris field, Tim felt the artifact burning brighter, hungrier. His vision blurred, and for a heartbeat, he saw flashes—alien glyphs, vast structures in the void, a voice whispering through static:
They are coming. You are the key.
He staggered, clutching his chest.
Elara was at his side instantly. “Tim!”
“I’m fine,” he lied through clenched teeth, though the glow beneath his skin betrayed him.
The Nomad plunged into the debris field. Shattered remains of ancient ships drifted like corpses, their hulks colliding with sickening crunches. Hunters darted in after them, but the field tore at their wings. One crashed against an asteroid, blooming into fire.
Milo whooped. “Ha! One down!”
But the frigate didn’t falter. Its bulk tore through the wreckage, cannons spitting fire.
Tim felt the artifact’s pressure mount, begging him to unleash it. His body trembled under the weight of the power pressing against his veins.
Elara grabbed his wrist, her eyes fierce. “Listen to me. If you push now, it’ll burn you from the inside out.”
“But if I don’t—” Tim began.
The ship shuddered as another blast grazed the shields. Rhys barked, “Hold it together!”
Jax leaned across the railing, eyes locking on Tim. “Mate. If you’ve got something that’ll keep us breathing, now’s the time.”
The artifact pulsed so hard Tim thought his chest might shatter. The whispers grew louder, threading into his mind. Awaken. Defend. Become.
Tim’s hands shook as blue light crawled across his skin. He felt the ship around him, the hum of its engines, the fear of its crew. The artifact wasn’t just inside him—
It was reaching for the Nomad.
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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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