Chapter 62. The Stars Remember Everything
The Wraith sliced through the thick dark like a ghost-ship lost between dimensions. On every screen, the Architect Nexus loomed ahead: a colossal cluster of latticed spires orbiting a dying star gravity-bent and dripping with cold light. Beneath its webbed scaffolding shimmered anomalies that defied physics, like memories caught mid-dream.
Inside the ship, the hum of anticipation of something final vibrated through its decks.
Nova was in the engine bay, elbow-deep in a coolant leak that shouldn’t exist. She was swearing at the console like it owed her money. Damien, nearby, offered moral support in the form of pretzels.
"If I vent one more plasma coil, I swear I’ll rewire the ship into a cappuccino machine," Nova growled.
"I mean... priorities," Damien said, tossing her a wrench. "I’d take a mocha over being atomized."
"You say that like those two things are mutually exclusive."
They laughed but not loudly. Not really. Laughter now was something you did in defiance of dread. It had to sneak past the grief lodged in their bones.
In the forward observation deck, Elara stood motionless.
Not in command mode. Not in armor.
Just Elara.
She wore a faded t-shirt from her days in the civilian sector one that read "Ask me about my trauma." Someone once gave it to her as a joke. It didn’t feel like a joke anymore.