On the view screen, a black spine of the rift began moving, reaching for the Wayfarer like a ragged claw of nothingness.

  “What happens if that thing touches us?” Roarke asked.

  “Unknown,” ELIOT replied. “No interactions between the Rift and an INA vessel are on record.”

  “What about Cassie’s ship?” Hale said. “There must be some records.”

  “Negative,” ELIOT said after a brief pause. “No records exist.”

  “They covered it up,” Hale said.

  “Of course they did,” Carrick said. “And they’ll do the same to us if that thing touches us. Fire up the FTL.”

  Hale turned toward him. “Why? We can’t plot a course. We can’t go anywhere.”

  “I’m not talking about a jump.” Carrick nodded toward the display. “The Haldane field. It’ll engage the null-space envelope. It might decouple us from whatever that is doing to the hull. Give us a buffer.”

  Mavik’s head snapped up. “You don’t start the drive with people awake.”

  Carrick’s mouth tightened. “I know how the ship is designed.”

  “Then you know what it pulls,” Mavik replied. He looked at the captain. “It’ll divert the power from life support. Stasis during FTL exists for a reason.”

  Roarke’s gaze moved between them. The vibration increased.

  “Elliot,” Roarke said. “If we energise the FTL core without initiating a jump, how long could the crew survive?”

  “Reduced atmospheric cycling. CO? scrubbing compromised. Thermal regulation degraded—”

  Mavik didn’t raise his voice.

  “How long?” he insisted.

  “Projected safe window: six minutes,” ELIOT answered.

  “That doesn’t give us much time. Hale, how long have we got before that thing reaches us?”

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  “At current acceleration, the Rift should contact the Wayfarer in four minutes.”

  “Then we wait.”

  “Captain,” Carrick said. “We don’t know what kind of radiation it might be emitting. It could already be affecting us.”

  “We wait.”

  The black spine lengthened, extending, slow and deliberate, a jagged filament of absence stretching toward the Wayfarer.

  Hale’s fingers tightened on the console. “Three minutes to contact.”

  Carrick didn’t look at her. “Captain.”

  Roarke held his nerve.

  On the screen, the spine split once along its length, edges fraying into branching shards like serrated tentacles.

  Hale swallowed. “Two minutes.”

  The vibration underfoot deepened, resonant now, as if the ship were being tuned.

  Cassandra pressed her palm to her temple.

  “It’s accelerating,” Hale said, breath quickening despite herself. “Thirty seconds to contact.”

  The black filament widened, its edges resolving into hard, faceted lines. Hale felt a vertiginous tug, as if it was not reaching toward them but they were falling toward it.

  “Energise FTL-drive,” Roarke said.

  Carrick’s hands moved at once.

  Deep within the hull, the core answered.

  A heavy hum rolled outward, smoother than the Rift’s resonance, layered atop it. The deck vibration faltered, wavered, and then shifted frequency entirely.

  “The Haldane field is active,” Carrick said. “Null-space envelope established.”

  The approaching spine did not slow.

  Mavik glanced at his display. “Life support diverted. Six minutes until we start dropping.”

  The hum intensified.

  Outside, the space immediately surrounding the Wayfarer bent.

  A faint, colourless distortion formed around the ship, subtle at first, then sharpening; a boundary without surface, a curvature in vacuum.

  The Rift’s fracture-lines drew into clean, hard edges, as if the ship’s field had given the wound a boundary to manifest against. The impossible spectra tightened into narrow bands. The dark spine at its centre flexed, and for a heartbeat Hale thought she saw it align, like a needle finding a groove.

  The view screen went black as the Rift closed around the ship.

  “Haldane field harmonics shifting.”

  The hum inside the hull changed again.

  “And oxygen levels are falling,” Mavik said.

  Carrick’s eyes flicked to the readouts. “It’s coupling with the Haldane field. That isn’t possible. It’s null-space.”

  “Void calls to void,” Cassandra said.

  Outside, the spine pressed closer, no longer reaching but resting against the invisible curve of the null-space envelope.

  The ship shuddered, almost gently.

  Thin black veins flickered across the clinical white bulkhead of the bridge, spreading like spilled ink, edges writhing in ever-changing spectra.

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  The Chronicles of Heraldria, is available on Amazon