The pod hurtled through the slipstream like a stone flung across a cosmic river. Colors Rourke had never seen—spectrums that didn't exist in any known star chart—whirled around them in spiraling ribbons. The metal frame groaned in protest, bending but not breaking, as though the laws of physics had loosened their grip for just a moment.
Seren clung to her harness, knuckles bloodless. "This—this isn't a natural singularity! Nothing natural bends a ship like this without tearing it apart!"
Rourke couldn't argue.
He could barely breathe.
The pressure inside him resonated with the slipstream, pulsing in time with every distortion that rippled across the pod's hull. It didn't hurt. If anything, it felt like a tether—pulling him toward something familiar. Something he didn't understand but somehow… recognized.
"Rourke," Seren said through gritted teeth, "if you can stop this—do it."
"I'm not doing this."
"Then something connected to you is!"
The pod shuddered violently. Sparks flew from the ceiling panel. The controls blinked erratically, cycling through colors like a panicked heartbeat.
Rourke pressed his palm to his chest. "It wants something."
Seren stared at him. "Gravity doesn't want. It's a force."
"Then why does it feel like it's calling me?" Rourke whispered.
Before Seren could reply, the slipstream dissolved.
The stars snapped back into place with a thunderous boom—silent in the vacuum, but felt deep in Rourke's bones. The pod tumbled through open space until stabilizers finally fired, slowing its spin.
Seren gasped, chest heaving. "Where did it take us…?"
Rourke looked out the viewport—and felt his breath freeze.
Space outside was wrong.
Too still.
Too empty.
Too… quiet.
A single structure floated in the void:
A colossal sphere—half machine, half ruin—its surface fractured like an eggshell. Vast metallic plates drifted around it like broken moons, held in place by faint threads of gravitational energy that shimmered blue in the darkness. The sphere itself glowed faintly from within, as though something inside pulsed with life.
Seren's voice cracked. "That… is not Dominion architecture."
"No," Rourke whispered. "It's older."
"How do you know?"
He didn't answer.
Because the hum in his chest had already answered for him. It quivered with a strange sense of familiarity—almost relief.
The pod drifted closer, guided by invisible gravitational hands.
"Rourke," Seren warned, unbuckling herself despite the tremor in her limbs, "if that thing is a nest of Hunters—"
"It's not Hunters."
"How can you be sure?"
"Because…" Rourke pressed his hand to the window, pulse aligning with the glowing sphere. "Whatever this place is… it feels like me."
The pod slowed as it approached a massive breach in the sphere's surface—a rent torn open long ago, edges charred and warped. The gravity stream nudged the pod through the opening with gentle force.
Inside was a cavernous expanse of dark metal, illuminated by drifting orbs of blue light that floated like lanterns above an ancient sea.
Seren exhaled shakily. "This place shouldn't exist."
Rourke nodded. "But it does."
The pod settled on a floating platform inside the sphere. The platform's metal was etched with patterns—spirals that flowed into geometric curves, shapes representing gravitational harmonics. Seren reached for her sidearm but winced, clutching her ribs.
"Stay behind me," she said.
Rourke took a breath. "No."
"What do you mean 'no'?"
"I think… I need to go first."
Seren grabbed his arm. "Rourke, you don't know what's in here."
"I think whatever's inside knows me."
The hum inside him pulsed—once, twice—as if agreeing.
The pod door hissed open.
Cold air swept in—thin, metallic, carrying a faint echo like distant whispers vibrating through stone. Rourke stepped out onto the platform. Seren followed reluctantly, gun raised.
The blue orbs drifted closer, circling Rourke like curious insects.
Seren tensed. "Don't move."
"They're not attacking," Rourke said softly.
The orbs pulsed gently, casting ripples across the platform—ripples that resonated with the hum inside his chest.
"Just like the singularity," Rourke murmured. "They're reacting to me."
A voice echoed through the chamber.
Not spoken.
Not mechanical.
Not human.
"—child of the fracture—"
Rourke froze. "Did you hear that?"
Seren shook her head. "Hear what?"
The voice came again—like a whisper woven into the fabric of gravity itself.
"—you return to the void your kind abandoned—"
Rourke swallowed hard. "Something's talking to me."
Seren turned slowly, scanning the chamber. "There's no one here."
The metal beneath their feet glowed suddenly, lines of blue energy spreading outward like veins awakening. The light converged at the far side of the platform—coalescing into a shape.
A figure.
Tall.
Radiant.
Human… but not.
Its body was composed of swirling gravitational filaments wrapped around a faint humanoid core. Its face was featureless, but the flowing energy patterns suggested awareness—intelligence.
Rourke stepped back.
Seren raised her pistol. "Stay behind me—!"
The figure spoke without a mouth, its voice vibrating inside Rourke's bones:
"You carry the spark of the Wielders. The last echo of a dead lineage."
Rourke's pulse roared.
"My kind?" he whispered. "What are you talking about?"
The figure tilted its head.
"You do not know yourself.
You do not know your origin.
You do not know what sleeps beneath your ribs."
Rourke shook his head. "Then tell me."
The chamber dimmed.
The figure raised a hand made of starlight.
"Very well, Rourke Talon."
"I will show you what you are."
The sphere trembled…
…and the past began to wake.