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.
Previous Chapter
Latest Chapter
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
You may also like
Liumira - The Awakening
Ocean Ed Fire4.8K views2050
Dina Sylvia5.3K viewsDAWN OF THE COSMOS
Abbey3.0K viewsThe Max Level Hero: Strike Black
John Smith7.2K viewsZombies Territory: A place of no return
Favyhm231.9K viewsWorld Rejector
Harusaki822 viewsEVO-VERSE 1: the beginning
Yusuf I. Jnr6.4K viewsThe Echo War
Nessah 216 views