[Oliver’s PoV]

  “Mayday. Mayday.”

  The message repeated, distorted by static, the sound of a dying broadcast echoing through the cabin.

  “We’ve published our coordinates. Rebel One is in descent. An unidentified object has struck us. Repeat, we are in descent. Requesting assistance from any Imperial vessel.”

  The officer at the communications station looked up. “We just picked this up, sir. It’s broadcasting on an open Imperial frequency.”

  The voice was faint and broken, but Oliver recognized it instantly. Astrid.

  He stood slowly, his expression tightening. The static made it difficult to discern all the words, but there was no mistaking that tone. Astrid and Isabela had been part of the strike group pursuing Khan’s fleet.

  “Keep tracing that signal,” Oliver ordered. “Do not lose it.”

  “Already on it,” Pyro said. His eyes flickered with light as he accessed the ship’s data feeds directly, his neural interface linking with the Red Citadel’s navigation systems.

  “Coordinates confirmed,” he said after a moment, but his brow furrowed. “But… it doesn’t make sense.”

  Oliver turned toward him. “What do you mean?”

  “There’s nothing there,” Pyro replied. “No planets. No moons. No asteroid fields. Not even a star. By all known charts, that sector is empty.”

  Oliver frowned, pacing slowly across the command deck. The Red Citadel’s main viewport displayed a faint holographic projection of the region.

  “Then it’s not empty,” he said quietly. “It’s unmapped. Something’s there. We just don’t know what.”

  He stopped, his gaze hardening.

  “Prep three intercept craft,” he ordered. “Once we reach the outer perimeter, they’ll make contact with whatever’s out there. The Citadel will hold a position at a safe distance. If we lose them, we call for reinforcements.”

  “Yes, sir,” Pyro said, turning to relay the order. “All personnel, prepare for deployment. Three intercept ships launching on standby.”

  Oliver turned back to Pyro. “I want four Hoplites on each ship. Fully armed. No exceptions.”

  Pyro nodded, his mechanical fingers flicking across the controls. “Understood.”

  “I’ll be on one of them,” Oliver said.

  The command hung in the air for a heartbeat.

  “Sir?” Pyro turned, his synthetic eyes flickering faintly. His voice carried a tone that was as close to human worry as his programming allowed. “There’s a significant risk in you personally responding to the distress signal.”

  Oliver stood firm. “Risk or not, we don’t have time to waste. We need to find Khan and resume the search for the Unique Crystals.”

  He paused, his gaze fixed on the holographic star map projected before them. “Besides, I need to be there to use [Insight]. If anything happens, Command can teleport me out.”

  Pyro’s internal processors whirred, his expression still calculating. Finally, he nodded once. “Understood.”

  “Coordinates set, sir,” one of the navigation officers reported from his console. “We’re ready to initiate jump.”

  Oliver gave a single nod. “Execute.”

  The Red Citadel, still hovering near Jupiter’s orbit, started to accelerate. Its engines flared with a deep, resonant hum that vibrated through the deck plates. The stars outside the viewport blurred into streaks of white and blue as the ship’s jump engaged.

  Space itself began to fold.

  The universe twisted and rippled around them, light bending and stretching as the ship tore a path through the fabric of reality. The sensation wasn’t like teleportation. It was heavier, more violent. The crew felt their bodies compress, as though gravity itself was crushing them, only for that pressure to reverse an instant later, expanding outward in a rush of relief.

  It lasted only seconds.

  Then, with a soundless snap, the Red Citadel emerged from the warp.

  The stars reappeared, but the view before them was anything but normal.

  “What the hell is that?” one of the officers whispered.

  Before them hung an enormous sphere. Black, featureless, and vast.

  “A Dark Star?” another officer murmured.

  “No,” Pyro said immediately, his voice low, his sensors glowing brighter as he analyzed the readings. “There’s no radiation emission. None of the signatures is consistent with a dark star. It’s not emitting… It’s storing.”

  Oliver’s brows furrowed. “Storing what?”

  “Energy,” Pyro replied. “A massive amount.”

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  Oliver stepped closer to the viewport. Even without instruments, he could feel it. The unnatural density of Energy radiating from the anomaly.

  “Keep us at this distance,” he ordered quietly. “Don’t move closer. Something’s wrong. We should be seeing Khan’s fleet here, but…”

  He trailed off. The sensors showed nothing. Not even debris.

  Oliver turned to Pyro. “Let's move.”

  Pyro nodded, his metallic voice steady. “Yes, sir.”

  --

  At the far end of the bay, a small reconnaissance craft waited.

  Four Hoplites were already aboard. Each sat in silence, their helmets sealed, their posture rigid.

  Oliver approached without a word. His uniform was plain, stripped of anything that set him apart from the others.

  He climbed aboard and took the seat nearest the hatch.

  “All systems green. We’re ready to launch,” the pilot’s voice crackled through the internal comms. “Remember, this is a recon vessel. We’ve got minimal offensive and defensive capabilities. At the first sign of trouble, we pull back. No heroics.”

  Oliver gave a curt nod, though the pilot couldn’t see it.

  The hangar doors began to open, the heavy blast shields retracting with a deep metallic groan. Beyond them stretched the infinite black of space.

  “Engaging thrusters,” the pilot announced.

  The ship shuddered once, then shot forward.

  Two other reconnaissance craft followed, fanning out into a wide formation. They stayed well apart from one another, their trajectories designed to minimize the risk of losing all three in a single strike.

  Despite their size, the ships were fast. The Dark Star grew larger in the viewport with every passing second, its sheer scale becoming more apparent the closer they came.

  Oliver could feel it even before they entered the anomaly’s outer field. His skin prickled, and his stomach turned as the ship crossed into the swirling mass of dark clouds surrounding the object.

  The air inside the cabin seemed to thicken. The lights flickered.

  'So much Energy,' he thought, gripping the armrest. It wasn’t just power. It was raw, unfiltered, chaotic. The kind that bent reality around itself.

  He swallowed hard, forcing the nausea down.

  “Visual contact!” the pilot called out suddenly. “We’ve got something ahead, large.”

  Oliver leaned forward, his gaze snapping to the viewport.

  Through the haze of dark Energy, a massive silhouette emerged, a cruiser. Its hull was scorched, its engines flickering weakly, flames licking along its fractured armor. The ship was descending fast, spiraling toward the surface below.

  “That’s no debris field,” one of the Hoplites muttered.

  Oliver narrowed his eyes. The insignia on the cruiser’s flank was faint, but he recognized it. “That’s a Republic ship.”

  The pilot adjusted their course, bringing them closer.

  Oliver tapped the comms panel. “Red Citadel, this is Recon One. We’ve located a downed cruiser near the anomaly’s surface.”

  Static answered him.

  He frowned. “Citadel, do you copy?”

  Nothing.

  “Pilot, we’ve lost communications. We should return,” Oliver ordered, his tone clipped but calm.

  “Understood.”

  The pilot’s hands moved across the controls, the hum of the ship’s engines rising. Yet before they could turn, something struck the hull.

  The impact was soft, almost imperceptible, but the sound that followed was not. A sickening thud reverberated through the cabin, followed by the faint hiss of something sticky dragging across the metal.

  Oliver turned toward the viewport in time to see it.

  A smear of black ooze spread across the glass like oil. It pulsed, alive, its surface rippling as though it were breathing.

  “What the hell is that?” one of the Hoplites muttered, stepping closer, his hand hovering near his weapon.

  No one had an answer.

  The sound came first, a wet, bubbling hiss. Then the metal along the ship’s side began to deform, sagging inward as if it were being eaten away. The air pressure shifted instantly, alarms blaring through the cabin. Red lights flashed, and the air filled with the sharp scent of burning alloy.

  “Hull breach!” the pilot shouted.

  Oliver barely had time to react before the black substance punched through the wall. It didn’t break it. It slid through, eating away the metal. The ooze moved across the interior of the ship, forming thick, writhing masses that clung to every surface.

  “What’s happening?!” the pilot yelled, his voice cracking.

  “We’re losing altitude!” another Hoplite shouted, gripping his seat as the ship lurched violently.

  “Weapons, fire!” Oliver barked.

  The Hoplites obeyed instantly, drawing their sidearms. The cabin filled with flashes of blue and white as Energy Pistols discharged in rapid succession. Beams of laser seared through the air, striking the black masses. However, the goo didn’t burn. It didn’t even slow.

  The bolts hit, hissed, and vanished.

  The slime absorbed the shots like light swallowed by water.

  “Prepare—!” Oliver began, but the words were ripped from his mouth as the ship hit the ground.

  The impact was catastrophic.

  The world turned into chaos. A deafening roar, the shriek of tearing metal. The ship split apart mid-crash, its pieces scattering across the blackened terrain. Oliver was thrown forward, his body slamming against the restraints before being hurled clear through the wreckage.

  He hit the ground hard, the world spinning around him in a blur of smoke and flame. Instinct took over. He activated his Ranger Armor, the blue plating materializing around him in a shimmer of Energy in time to absorb the worst of the impact.

  Even so, pain lanced through his body. His ribs ached, his vision swam, and every breath burned.

  He forced himself to move.

  The ground beneath him was unlike anything he’d seen, dark, cracked, and dry as ash. The soil looked like charred stone. The wreckage of the ship burned around him, jagged pieces of its hull scattered across the wasteland.

  Smoke rose in thick black columns, mingling with the faint, unnatural mist that hung low to the ground.

  Oliver staggered to his feet. “Status!” he shouted, his voice echoing in the emptiness.

  A few of the Hoplites were moving. Some crawled from the wreckage, others stumbled upright. But one of them was already standing.

  At first, Oliver thought the soldier had recovered faster than the others. Then he saw the black ooze creeping up the man’s arm.

  It pulsed and writhed, sliding up his neck like a living shadow. The Hoplite’s movements were jerky, unnatural. His head tilted back, his helmet splitting apart as the slime forced its way inside.

  “No…” Oliver whispered, his blood running cold.

  The Hoplite turned toward him.

  Half of his face was still human, eyes wide with terror. The other half was gone, consumed by the black substance that now pulsed where his skin had been.

  When he opened his mouth to scream, the sound was wrong. Distorted, layered with something that wasn’t human.

  And then, impossibly, the goo smiled.

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