The Darkstar Sentinel limped through the void, systems frayed at the edges, its hull hissing with the memory of escape. The hum of the core, once smooth and steady, had grown uneven—like the breathing of a wounded beast.
Tienerra sat rigid in the pilot's chair, one wing crimped against the seatback, the other twitching slightly every time a vibration passed through the deck plating. Her fingers moved with controlled urgency, sliding over cracked panels and blinking diagnostics. The Soul Crest on her forehead pulsed faintly beneath soot-smudged scales.
Behind her, Rhyx muttered under his breath as he tweaked the hyperspike regulator. His silver fur looked scorched at the edges, his coat stained with grease and impact foam. The AR glasses feeding him ship data flared green, casting faint shadows across his face.
"Status check complete," LYNX said dryly, filtering into the cockpit speakers. "Jump alignment's as good as it's going to get. And by 'good,' I mean 'probably won't atomize us on entry.'"
Rhyx snorted without looking up. "Comforting. Should I start my will now or after we destabilize?"
"Oh, please do. I need fresh content for my obituary playlist. Working title: 'We Died for This?'"
Tienerra's eyes stayed on the nav. "LYNX, shut up."
"Affirmative. Muting all existential dread protocols. Temporarily."
Rhyx flicked through a cluster of datafeeds. "Jump vector's locked. Jurael Station still holding a drift corridor. We're close to the Dark Zone's bleedline."
"Of course we are," Tienerra muttered. "Every jump lately feels like daring the abyss to blink first."
Silence thickened around them—the kind that stretched before every jump, like the ship itself held its breath.
Tienerra's tail coiled under the console. Her left hand gripped the control stick, knuckles white, while her right hovered over the throttle—tense, steady. She slammed it forward, pushing the Sentinel into final velocity, and her thumb pressed the embedded ignition node.
A low-to-medium hum rose beneath them as the quantum engines engaged—deeper than standard drive noise, like space itself grinding open. Her jaw clenched. She didn't blink.
This wasn't just a jump. It was a challenge to whatever was waiting on the other side.
"FTL in three… two…"
Velora had been awake for hours.
She floated half-curled in the medbay's zero-G cradle, restraints gently wrapped around her torso and legs. The usual artificial gravity had been disabled for jump prep. Loose medical tubing and scattered surgical wrappers hovered like ghosts in slow orbit. The ambient blue lights flickered occasionally—power fluctuations rattling the conduits.
The pain was still there, thudding beneath her sternum. Her bandages itched. Every breath pulled at the scar where Tienerra had burned Aether straight into her chest to restart her heart.
Aether still flickered beneath her skin—not light, but sensation. Pressure. Memory. Warning. Her fur bristled with static energy, reacting instinctively to the ship's tension.
Through the viewport near her bed, space twisted. Stars bent. The hull beneath her vibrated with a deep-bellied growl. She could hear the faint hissing of overworked coolant lines, and the groan of the Sentinel's bones—those internal reinforcements straining against FTL stress.
Then came the jump.
And with it—Compression.
Her body felt threaded through a collapsing needle's eye. Claws clenched involuntarily. Her ears flattened against her skull. The medbed creaked beneath its struts as the ship stretched thin across reality. The sounds amplified: coolant pipes rattling like old bones, the groan of metal plates shifting, and the core's low-frequency hum deepening with every second.
She didn't scream. Didn't flinch. She just stared through the viewport, whispering to no one, "This is going to be bad."
The ship dropped out of FTL like a wounded animal crashing through tree canopy.
For a moment, there was stillness. The void opened back around them, stars returning in sharp, cold patterns. But the peace was an illusion.
Alarms erupted across the cockpit.
"Warning," NYX intoned. "Quantum core temperature spiking. Coolant pressure dropping. Structural breach detected in engine casing."
Red lights flooded the control panels. Steam hissed from vents above. One of the aft coolant lines burst open behind the engineering bulkhead, trailing mist like a dying breath.
Tienerra's claws clenched the throttle. "How bad?"
"Redline approaching. Containment integrity compromised. Cascade failure imminent."
Rhyx swore, snapping his harness into place. "We have to eject it. Now."
"Already executing," NYX replied, her tone clipped and urgent.
A deep metallic groan echoed through the ship, followed by the muffled clunk of separation. The quantum engine dropped away from the hull—a glowing orb of unstable energy drifting like a wounded sun.
"Impulse, full power," Tienerra ordered, slamming the throttle forward.
The Sentinel surged ahead on flickering impulse drives, rattling as the core screamed beneath them.
Then—
A bloom of white light.
The quantum engine detonated behind them. There was no sound—just a flash, then a pressure wave that hit them like the backhand of a god. The ship bucked violently, the frame howling in protest as internal lights flickered and bulkheads groaned.
In the medbay, Velora was flung sideways, caught only by the zero-G restraints as surgical tools and tubing spun around her like shrapnel.
The lights dimmed. Then steadied.
Silence returned, stretching long and thin.
"Well," LYNX finally said, "that's another explosion we survived. At this point, I'm considering a punch card system—fifth blast is free."
Tienerra exhaled hard, scales twitching. "Same."
It took nearly half a day on impulse power to reach Jurael, and Velora felt every moment stretch across her skin.
Artificial gravity hadn't fully re-engaged, leaving the medbay in an unstable drift. She floated with her back braced against the padded cradle, surgical straps keeping her anchored in a gentle sway. IV lines danced like lazy serpents. Tools still clattered softly in their holsters every time the ship groaned or shuddered under its own weight.
Sleep had come in fits. Memories of pain, heat, and screams looped in her head like corrupted data. She'd tried humming once—an old Kitsurai lullaby her mother used to sing—but the sound died in her throat.
When NYX chimed that visual range to the station was within moments, Velora opened her eyes.
The medbay's side screen lit up, switching to external cam feed. And there it was:
Jurael Station.
She twisted slightly, enough to glance through the narrow viewport near her bed. From here, it looked like a relic carved from a giant's ribcage. She recognized the central docking ring and the broken comms towers—but there were more ships now. Many more.
Too many.
She narrowed her eyes. Freighters, patrol craft, old assault cruisers—some were flying patched Alliance colors, others unmarked. Half were on standby, engines still warm. She could feel it. A quiet pressure in the back of her head, like a song waiting for its chorus.
She'd been here before. This wasn't normal.
"That's not just resupply," she muttered.
Her claws curled into the side rail as she watched the fleet drift, silent and wide-eyed. Jurael didn't just feel tense. It felt ready.
And that made her fur bristle.
"Something's changed."
Jurael grew larger in the forward canopy, the curve of its fractured hull casting uneven shadows across space. The station looked worse up close—scarred metal, scorched ribs of alloy, scaffolds stitched with scrap. Old docking pylons jutted like broken teeth.
And orbiting all around it—ships.
Rhyx leaned forward in his seat, mouth twisting slightly. "That's… more than last time."
Tienerra didn't answer. Her hands moved across the controls, locking the Sentinel's approach vector with care.
A click, then a voice crackled through the comms:
Dockmaster: "Unidentified vessel, this is Jurael Station Traffic Control. You look like you're held together with hopes and dreams. We'll start docking clearance and inspection once you're moored."
Tienerra keyed her comm. "This is the Darkstar Sentinel. We've got wounded aboard. Any medical clinics open for guest access?"
Dockmaster: "Under normal circumstances? Sure. But we're maxed. Every medbay's full up—overflow from a skirmish three jumps out. Real messy. Still active as of an hour ago."
Tienerra's wings flexed slightly, tension stiffening along her spine. "Conflict that close?"
Rhyx's fingers paused mid-keystroke. His ears angled sharply back. "That explains the cruiser formations… but this isn't a battlefield resupply. It's an exodus."
"Three hours FTL from here. Eastern fringe. They're calling it a holding action, but with that many bodies showing up here... it feels more like the line's already bleeding."
A beat of silence.
"We can send medkits and personnel drones to your bay. I'll prioritize repairs on your MedBay systems."
Tienerra exhaled slowly. "We'll take it. Thank you for the accommodation."
Rhyx's tail flicked uneasily. "We shouldn't be seeing this much traffic here unless command thinks Jurael's next."
He glanced sideways at Tienerra. "This is supposed to be neutral ground. A fallback, not a frontline."
Tienerra narrowed her eyes at the fractured ring ahead. "Yeah… and this close to the Dark Zone?"
She exhaled, slow and deliberate, her claws tapping against the throttle in rhythm with her thoughts. "No one parks this much steel unless they're preparing to bleed."