It took a good half a minute from stepping through into the next room for Niall’s body to begin to let go of the coiled-spring tension—the same bracing your body does when it’s expecting to be punched in the mouth—that came from thinking you were walking into an ambush. But, seeing as the room didn’t immediately explode into a storm of pulse-fire or similar, he was at least able to say that it would not happen right away.

  Bakare and Fitz quickly joined him in the quaint pleasure of realising you were not yet dead, and Niall could stop scanning for the telltale movement of enemies in order to fully take in their location.

  Their assumption that this was the location of the ship’s engine core had been dead on. The room was dimmer than most of the other spaces they’d passed through, their handheld lights no longer able to cope with the amount of space that needed to be lit. Instead, the beam of silver lancing from the attachment on his pulse rifle sliced through the murk, illuminating whichever dark corner of the large space he aimed it toward.

  His team’s beams quickly joined his own, scanning the room as best they could but it was quickly clear that at the very least, anybody else in the room was expertly hidden. Around the edges of the room, engineer’s workstations and storage spaces sat abandoned, tools and scrap suspended in space around them.

  Once immediate threats had been ruled out, the trio began edge further into the room, Bakare and Fitz sweeping to the left and right respectively, whilst Niall pushed down the centre, where the true point of interest lay. The ship’s engine core was colossal; a dim, obsidian sphere in the direct centre of the space, taking up most of the room from floor to ceiling.

  When actually working, Niall was sure it would be lit up in vivid fluorescence, instead of the hollow and empty shell it now was. As he grew closer, Niall paused in his approach. The core wasn’t suspended by anything. Where in UGC ships, he would have expected to see a support structure built around the core, complete with cooling systems and a multitude of other ancillary devices, this had nothing at all.

  Low gravity might have kept it in the air, but given the drift of all the other objects in the ship, he would have expected the core to have shifted at least a little in several centuries. Instead, it floated exactly where it had when the ship still ran. He leaned in, aiming his light at the spaces between the core and the floor, and narrowed his eyes. There was something there, he just needed to—

  “Oh, Gods…” Bakare’s strangled gasp broke him from his focus, and Fitz’s stark follow up had him standing ramrod straight and moving to his team as fast as the low gravity would allow him.

  “Captain, we’ve found the crew.”

  His team had circled around to the other side of the core—the only place in the room they hadn’t been able to visually check as they entered—and he followed, only for his blood to run cold the moment his eyes traced the silver beam of Bakare’s flashlight upward, almost to the ceiling.

  There, entire strips of thick metal had been torn from the wall like peeled fruit, bent and contorted in inhuman, jagged shapes, overlapping and interlocking in a way that Niall was certain could only have been intentional. The stripped away sections of the ship came together to create a singular woven structure, the patterns of metal so intentional that it was difficult to believe it had been accidental. However, that was not what really drew their eyes, holding them in a kind of sickening trance.

  Instead, it was the shadowed shapes protruding from between the winding, ruined metal. His mind refused to accept what he was seeing for the briefest of moments until the cruel reality hit like a piston. Dotted debris drifting at the apex of the structure was not chunks of ship at all. Niall’s own torch revealed the blackened crimson of uncomfortably large frozen chunks of blood. His light shifted and quickly found the source.

  An arm, protruding from between two twisting rods. A torso—just the torso—propped up by two shards of metal piercing right through either side of its ribcage in a cross. All the way across the structure, parts of the Clarke’s crew were strung up and skewered, brutally dismembered and left as what only could be a message to the next people to come here.

  Fitz was the first to move, raising his weapon and turning away from the grisly display to re-scan the room. “Ambush it is, then,” he grunted.

  “But why this?” Bakare asked. “Why not just attack us? Why do that with the bodies and give themselves away?”

  “Seems so, Fitz,” Niall said, tearing his eyes away from the people he came to save, and reaching for the distress beacon at the base of the structure and switching it off. “Bakare, take a record of this and immediately begin a looped broadcast request for Starbound assistance. Your instincts are good, Kehinde. This isn’t normal.”

  “Starbound, Sir?” She asked, already setting about taking pictures of the structure—and the bodies.

  “Aye. From my experience, this is either one of two things. One: an incredibly well-equipped group or individual with gear capable of doing that to this ship in a relatively short time, that also happens to be—to use a medical term—supremely fucked in the head. Or, two: our fucking scanners weren’t working properly at all, and have missed a rift. Either way, this is above our—”

  The ship violently shuddering cut him off, and they were all sent staggering to one side by the force of it, the strange, spongy metal of the floor the only thing allowing them to keep their balance without using their stabiliser thrusters. Niall’s wrist suddenly began vibrating suddenly, and as he raised it he saw the other two do the same in order to see what their suit’s in-built scanners were picking up.

  The narrative has been illicitly obtained; should you discover it on Amazon, report the violation.

  A blue line that had remained steady the entire time they’d been aboard had spiked suddenly at the same time the ship had keen—a sudden surge of Celestial energy that wasn’t fading.

  He licked suddenly dry lips, and his own grey eyes met the blue of Fitz’s, a moment of understanding passing between them as only it could between two people that had spent most of their lives fighting side by side. They both knew well enough what those readings meant.

  “Number two it is, then,” he said with a half sigh. “Bakare, listen carefully. You have new orders.”

  Cross-legged on the floor, Malan frowned at the heap of scrap tech on the floor of his appointed Nexus quarters. Even with his helmet off, his [Battlefield Synthesis] skill picked out the usable components and base material from the heap. He had been worried he’d need to learn each and every complex design and composition for what he wanted to synthesise—specific materials and alloys, technical circuitry and the like.

  Instead, his ability seemed to reduce an object’s design to a broad set of general components. The pile in front of him, for example, could be reduced to a simple list of alloys, pure metal, polymers and adhesives. These base materials could then be put towards his synthesis of an item.

  At Lvl 1. the list of potential items was paltry, though absolutely functional. The menu flickered in front of his eyes, as the skill recognised his desire to use it.

  Recipe: Flash Canister

  Produces a loud bang, and harsh light, blinding and disorientating organic targets.

  Cost: 5 Metal, 3 Polymer, 1 Component

  Recipe: Shardburst Mine

  Proximity shrapnel mine. Intuitively responds to threats. Can be manually detonated.

  Cost: 5 Metal, 5 Polymer, 3 Component

  You have enough resources for synthesis.

  Would you like to craft one of your recipes?

  Focusing, Malan chose the Flash Canister to begin with and extended his hand towards the pile of spare material placed on his floor. Celestial energy washed over it, picking out the resources needed for the synthesis. Those selected trembled and dissolved into Celestial dust. The dust drew back toward his hand, and coalesced, swirling, into the small can-shape that he had been expecting. He saw it complete, a dull, silver cylinder that fit perfectly into his palm, before it disappeared in a small flash of light a moment later.

  He blinked, gazing at his empty hand as the synthesis skill deactivated. Had it failed right at the end?

  Negative, Starbound, came a quiet voice in the back of his mind.

  Tanwen? He asked, unable to hide his own surprise. I didn’t think I’d be able to directly hear you outside of the Ship.

  We are always bonded, Pilot. When you depart my shell, my spirit accompanies you no matter how far you stray.

  He touched a hand to the crystal beneath his groundsuit. How could I not hear you before?

  Our connection is at its strongest when you are piloting me directly, allowing for direct conversation. However, our bond strengthens as you grow in power, allowing for me to speak with you at greater distances. The Synergetics skill, in particular, will benefit this, among other things.

  Other things?

  There was a pause at this question, a hesitancy not there before.

  The version of me you speak with now is a greatly reduced version of myself. I am…limited in my speech and actions. The more you invest in our bond, the more of me that will be allowed through.

  You talk as though that is a bad thing, Tanwen.

  The Starbound are as varied in nature as humans themselves. For many Pilots, that presents a risk they are unwilling to bear. Their bond is neglected, in favour of the more tangible strengths and advantages.

  What is your nature, then? Do I need to be wary of you?

  I…Do not remember. I am unable to access those parts of my own memory banks. Only you can achieve that.

  “Fan-fucking-tastic. Another vaguely ominous thing to worry about,” he said aloud to the empty room.

  I apologise, Pilot. I did not intend to increase your burden. Would you like me to answer your original query?

  Malan waved a hand. Forget it. It’s not your fault. And yes—what the hell happened?

  Your synthesis attempt was successful. The Flash Canister was transported to the ship’s storage. You can retrieve items from your storage at any time through the means of Celestial Energy, not unlike Jump Drive technology in human ships. Like activating any skill, focus on your need for the item, and the system will transport it to you.

  Convenient. Let’s give it a go.

  He extended a hand and, as Tanwen said, white light fizzled into existence in his palm, gathering into the shape of the Flash Canister, and disappeared, leaving said object behind. He grinned, turning it over, before giving the same command in reverse, and the canister disappeared in a singular flash of light.

  Just as he was about to turn back to his pile of scrap, an alert flashed on his desk monitor, revealing a message from Tarai.

  UGC Command are requesting our presence in Briefing Room 6 within the hour. They’re telling me it is urgent.

  Malan grimaced. His time on the Nexus had been a mixed bag in the week since the Hall of Severance. Both Vos and Kain had left well enough alone, barring semi-regular dinner invitations from Kain that Malan had continued to politely refuse. Instead, Malan had been inundated with Scribes and UGC instructors sending him here, there and everywhere to learn about every, rule, protocol and directive under the sun—both for the Starbound specifically, and for the UGC as a whole.

  On the one hand, Malan understood the need. Most new Starbound these days, rare as they might be, were pulled from the Nexus Academy. They spent their lifetimes training to be tested, working and studying themselves to the bone just for the chance to try for compatibility. Each academy graduate had a thorough grounding in UGC protocols and systems, as well as combat, tactics and a myriad of other areas.

  Malan only had a fraction of the training required to even be tested, and had stumbled his way into becoming Starbound. From their point of view, he was critically unprepared.

  On the other hand, there were only so many urgent procedural briefings he could take. Just as he was contemplating ways he might be able to avoid this one and continue practicing with his synthesis skill, another message flashed across his monitor’s screen, again from Tarai.

  With Vos now. Distress signal received from UGC personnel. Possible Abyssal activity. We’re the closest available crew. Get here fast, Mal.

  The words ‘Abyssal activity’ seemed to ring around his mind for a moment before the full weight of the message really sunk in and he scrambled to his feet, reaching for his helmet and slamming it onto place over his head as he hurried for the door, his suit enhancing his stride into a powerful sprint as he hit the corridor.

  Well….Fuck.