The silence of space pressed against the escape pod like a held breath. No hum of engines. No chatter of the ship's systems. Just the soft hiss of environmental stabilizers and the faint tremble of metal settling into its new, terrifying freedom.
Rourke sat strapped into the forward seat, knuckles white around the harness. Seren slumped behind him, breath thin, armor cracked. The pod drifted through the void, spinning slightly as it cleared the shattered Dominion vessel.
The Vigilant Crown was no longer a proud battleship—
it was a wounded carcass bleeding sparks into the darkness.
Rourke could barely look at it.
Vehr was still on board.
His chest tightened painfully. "We should've waited for him."
Seren coughed. "If we waited, you would be in their hands."
"That's not a good enough reason."
"It's the only reason that matters."
A shard of guilt twisted deeper. Rourke stared through the front viewport at the drifting stars, unable to escape the gnawing sense that he'd abandoned the one person who actually believed he wasn't a monster.
Seren closed her eyes for a moment, steadying her breath. "Rourke, Vehr made his choice. He bought you time. Don't waste it."
Rourke didn't respond. Couldn't. Not when every part of him screamed to turn the pod around, crash back into that ship, and drag Vehr out with his bare hands if he had to.
But the Hunter would be waiting.
He knew that much already.
The pulse inside his chest throbbed once—hot, cold, and strangely mournful.
Seren's voice softened. "He wouldn't blame you. You know that."
Rourke shook his head. "That doesn't make it easier."
"It's not supposed to."
The pod drifted farther from the Dominion vessel. The ship looked impossibly small now, swallowed by the void. Then a flash blossomed along its midsection—blue, bright, spreading like a ripple through water.
A surge of gravitational distortion.
The signature of a Hunter.
Seren gripped the side railing. "Stars help us… it's marking the debris."
"What does that mean?" Rourke whispered.
"It means the next Hunter will follow the trace," she said quietly. "They're never alone. They move in networks, like neurons sharing signals. If one finds something interesting…"
"…the others come for it," Rourke finished, throat dry.
Seren nodded.
The pod drifted further, thrusters dead, fuel nearly exhausted. The only functioning system was the emergency beacon—an automated distress signal that pinged into the void every fifteen seconds.
Rourke frowned. "Can we shut that off?"
"No," Seren said. "It's hardwired. Designed to signal Dominion rescue ships."
"We don't want Dominion ships," Rourke said. "We want anyone else."
Seren looked at him with tired eyes. "Do you honestly believe anyone but the Dominion will help a man with your abilities?"
Rourke didn't answer.
The truth wasn't comforting.
A Quiet Pulse
For a moment, the only sound was the pod's thin whisper of life-support systems.
Then Rourke felt a shift.
A faint tug.
A gentle hum.
A vibration underneath the floor plates.
He stiffened. "Do you feel that?"
Seren frowned. "Feel what?"
The hum grew stronger. Rourke pressed his palm against the bulkhead.
The metal was vibrating—slightly, irregularly—like something brushing against the pod from the outside.
Seren tensed. "Is it the Hunter?"
"No," Rourke murmured. "It's… something else."
A flicker of blue washed across the viewport.
Then another.
Like faint headlights through fog.
Seren stiffened. "Rourke, get away from the window."
He didn't.
Because something inside him recognized the pattern.
Not the Hunter's cold, predatory signature.
Something warmer. Softer. Like gravity without malice.
A faint sphere-shaped distortion drifted into view—glowing slightly, like a star compressed into a marble. It hovered inches from the pod's hull, brightening and dimming in a rhythmic pattern.
Seren swore. "That's impossible."
Rourke whispered, "What is it?"
"A micro-singularity," Seren said, astonished. "A natural one. Those shouldn't form outside collapsed star fields."
Rourke leaned closer. "It's… watching us."
Singularities didn't watch.
But this one pulsed, as if responding specifically to Rourke's presence.
The hum in his chest answered the pulse outside.
The two rhythms synced.
Seren stepped back. "Rourke—stay still."
"I'm not doing anything."
"That's what terrifies me."
The singularity pulsed again.
Rourke felt a pull—not from the outside, but from the inside, from the thing beating under his ribs.
The pod jerked suddenly.
Seren grabbed the frame. "It's pulling us—Rourke, what is it doing?!"
"I don't know!"
The singularity drifted under the pod, its glow intensifying.
The stars around them warped.
Space bent.
The pod lurched violently as gravity folded around it—
not crushing, not crushing—
but guiding.
Like being caught in a cosmic current.
Seren looked pale. "It's generating a slipstream. Rourke, nothing in nature makes slipstreams—this is engineered. Controlled."
"But by who?" Rourke asked.
She stared at him.
"You."
The pod shot forward, swallowed by a tunnel of warped starlight as the singularity dragged them through space.
Rourke felt the pulse in his chest align perfectly with the distortion.
And in that moment—
he understood something horrifying.
He wasn't being kidnapped.
He was being summoned.