The Stellar Nymph didn't shudder when the first warning chimed.
It hesitated.
That alone set Jimmy on edge.
He was in the galley—if you could call a corner with a heater coil and three nutrient dispensers a galley—trying to convince his stomach that algae paste counted as "food." Sparky hovered nearby, projecting a diagnostics spiral that looked far too smug for Jimmy's liking.
"Why does the ship sound nervous?" Jimmy asked.
"The ship is not nervous," Sparky replied. "The ship is anticipatory. We have been scanned."
Jimmy froze mid-bite. "By who."
"Unclear," Sparky said. "But the scan was narrow-beam, adaptive, and polite."
"…Polite?"
"Yes. Which is far more concerning."
The lights dimmed slightly as the Nymph rerouted power. Somewhere deeper in the hull, a panel snapped open, then sealed again.
Vex appeared in the doorway a moment later, already armored, blasters locked to her hips. Her tattoos were subdued, low-glow, the color they took when she was thinking several moves ahead.
"We've been bracketed," she said. "Not attacked. Yet."
Jimmy swallowed. "Hunters?"
"Not the usual kind."
She stepped closer, lowering her voice. "These scans weren't looking for a ship. They were looking for you."
Jimmy felt it then—a faint tug behind his eyes. Not hunger. Recognition. Like something far away had just said his name without sound.
"That's new," he muttered.
Sparky rotated, lens narrowing. "Correlation confirmed. The energy signature you absorbed in the lab—whatever it was—it's broadcasting now. Not loudly. But clearly."
Vex exhaled through her nose. "The Collectors."
Jimmy looked at her. "You keep saying that like it's a curse."
"It is," she said flatly. "They don't conquer. They curate. Civilizations, anomalies, living weapons. They don't care what you are—only what you might become."
Jimmy smiled weakly. "That's flattering in a deeply horrifying way."
She didn't smile back.
"We can't outrun them," she continued. "Not in this condition. And if they're sending scouts, it means they're confirming something before committing."
"Which is?"
Her gaze flicked briefly to his eyes. "Whether you're worth the trouble."
Silence stretched between them.
Then Jimmy said, "Okay. Hypothetically. If I am worth the trouble—"
"Jimmy."
"—do I get a rating? Like, 'dangerous but manageable' or 'oh stars we messed up'?"
Despite herself, Vex snorted.
"One of the reasons they're dangerous," she said, "is that they train what they hunt. Push it. Stress it. Force it to evolve faster."
Jimmy's stomach twisted. "That sounds like a bad gym membership."
Another chime echoed through the ship—closer now. More focused.
Sparky projected a tactical overlay. Three incoming signatures. Small. Dense. Purpose-built.
"Scouts," Sparky confirmed. "Humanoid frames. Phase-anchored. They will attempt capture, not elimination."
Jimmy rolled his shoulders. "Good. I'm better when people try not to kill me."
Vex turned to him sharply. "You are not fighting them head-on."
"Wasn't planning to."
"You are listening to me," she corrected. "You let me direct you. You do not improvise."
Jimmy hesitated. "I improvise a lot."
She stepped closer, close enough that he could feel the hum of her energy field again. Her tattoos brightened—not flaring, but firm.
"Jimmy," she said quietly. "If they take you, you don't die. You disappear. Piece by piece."
His joking smile faded.
"…Okay," he said. "No improvising."
A beat.
Then Sparky chimed, "Addendum: improvising while supervised may be permitted."
Vex shot the drone a look. "You are not helping."
Jimmy cracked a grin anyway. "See? Team effort."
The ship lurched—not violently, but decisively—as Vex took the controls. The stars outside twisted as the Nymph slipped into a low, broken orbit around a debris field.
"Visual training isn't over," she said. "You're about to get a practical exam."
Jimmy nodded, eyes already beginning to sharpen—not slipping, not sliding, but focusing. Controlled.
"Hey, Vex?" he said.
"Yes?"
"If I mess up—"
She glanced at him, expression unreadable.
"Then we survive anyway," she said. "And I yell at you later."
Jimmy smiled.
Somewhere in the dark between stars, the hunters adjusted their trajectory.
And for the first time, Jimmy felt it clearly—
Whatever he was becoming?
It was no longer just his problem.
It was the galaxy's.
Just then, the silence ended.
Not with an explosion. Not with alarms.
With a knock.
A polite, measured thrum rippled through the Stellar Nymph's hull, as if someone had tapped it with a knuckle the size of a shuttle.
Jimmy blinked. "Did… did space just knock on our door?"
"Yes," Sparky said grimly. "And I regret to inform you, Jimmy, that whoever it is did not bring snacks."
The tactical display flared to life. Three shapes peeled themselves out of the debris field, no engines firing, no heat bloom—just there, like thoughts that had decided to become real. Their silhouettes bent subtly, refusing to settle into a single geometry.
Vex swore under her breath. Her tattoos brightened, tracing sharper lines along her arms and down her ribs. "Collectors' Vanguard Frames. Phase-skimmers. They're anchoring to us."
"Anchoring sounds bad," Jimmy said.
"It means they're about to board without damaging the asset," Sparky replied. "You. You're the asset."
Another thrum. This one closer. The deck plates vibrated beneath Jimmy's boots, and his vision twitched—
—not slipped—
expanded.
He saw them.
Not just outside the hull, but through it. Three figures unfolding themselves from higher-dimensional overlap. Sleek, pale armor grown rather than built, etched with glyphs that hurt to look at directly. Inside the armor were… things. Once-humanoid, maybe. Now rearranged. Reinforced. Emptied of anything inefficient.
Jimmy sucked in a breath. "Oh. Yeah. Nope. Don't like that."
"Eyes on me," Vex snapped.
He tried. He really did.
But the ship's power spiked as the Collectors began phasing in, energy flooding the conduits—and Jimmy felt it instinctively. Like flexing a muscle he'd just discovered.
The Nymph responded.
Lights surged brighter. Cannons charged without being told.
Jimmy staggered, grabbing the back of Vex's chair. "Uh—Vex? I think I'm… plugged in again."
She glanced at the console, then at him, then back at the console. "You're feeding the weapons grid."
"Accidentally!"
"Keep doing it."
The first Vanguard punched through the hull in a ripple of silver distortion. It landed soundlessly on the deck, unfolding to its full height—taller than Jimmy, broader than Vex, head tilting as it looked at him.
Jimmy's heart hammered.
Then the ship's dorsal cannon fired.
A lance of white-blue energy tore through space, screaming straight through the Vanguard's chest. The thing convulsed as half its body disintegrated, armor atomizing in a glittering spray.
Jimmy yelped. "I did that!"
"Yes," Vex shouted, hauling the Nymph into a sharp roll as a second Vanguard phased in near the starboard hatch. "Again!"
Jimmy focused—not on hunger, not on fear—but on flow. He felt the ship like a nervous system. Power surged from him into the capacitors, through the cannons, out into space.
The second shot clipped the incoming Vanguard, frying half its arm and sending it spinning into the debris field.
"Ha!" Jimmy laughed breathlessly. "Okay, that one was on purpose!"
The third Vanguard didn't charge.
It watched.
Its head cocked slightly, glyphs shifting. Jimmy felt something press back against his awareness—not an attack, but an evaluation.
Then it moved.
It blurred forward, bypassing the hull entirely, snapping into existence inside the cockpit.
Right behind Vex.
"VEX!" Jimmy shouted.
He lunged without thinking—too fast, too focused—and his vision flared.
For half a second, the world peeled back.
He saw the Vanguard's internal lattice. He saw Vex—
too much of Vex.
The energy pathways beneath her skin glowed brilliant white, her tattoos blazing in response, heat and motion and—
Jimmy tripped.
Hard.
He slammed into a console, the power surge stuttering. The Vanguard's blade-arm swept forward—
—and Vex pivoted, furious.
Her blaster discharged point-blank, overcharged by the energy Jimmy had already fed into the system. The shot blew the Vanguard's head clean off in a burst of incandescent fragments.
Silence slammed back into place.
Vex rounded on Jimmy, eyes blazing brighter than her tattoos. "WHY did you stop?"
Jimmy scrambled upright, face burning. "I—okay—so this is going to sound bad—"
"Jimmy."
"I might have briefly seen through your armor and possibly your—"
She grabbed him by the collar and yanked him close.
"If your vision slips again," she hissed, voice low and dangerous, "and it gets me killed—"
"I know! I know! I'm sorry! It's not intentional!"
She froze.
Because her tattoos had shifted.
Not to anger-white.
To something warmer. Brighter. Unsteady.
Jimmy noticed.
His heart skipped in a way that had nothing to do with adrenaline.
Sparky cleared his speaker. "For the record, Jimmy, this would be an excellent time to not comment on that."
Vex released him abruptly, stepping back. "Control it," she said sharply. "Or I swear I will blindfold you myself."
"Yes, ma'am," Jimmy said, a little too quickly.
Outside, the debris field drifted quietly again.
But Jimmy could still feel it—that distant pressure. The Collectors hadn't retreated.
They'd learned.
And next time, they wouldn't knock.