There was something wrong with the silence.
It didn't hum it roared. A stillness so thick, so abrupt, it devoured the usual rhythm of systems Atlas had long grown numb to.
The pre-jump vibrations the quiet undertone of charging capacitors, the faint whir of gravity inertial dampeners were all gone.
It wasn't silence, it was absence.
Atlas blinked. Once. Twice.
Then the stars outside twisted.
Not moved, twisted. Like they were dragged on invisible strings, stretched and warped like paint smeared across glass. A cold chill lanced through his spine.
"EVA?"
Silence.
Atlas reached forward, fingers trembling, and tapped the manual override on his command console. It didn't respond. Then the emergency lights blinked on faint crimson veins glowing against steel.
He floated.
Gravity had failed. The ship's artificial stabilizers were down. Atlas wasn't falling, yet his gut told him everything was falling down, out, inward, like the ship was spiraling into something it wasn't meant to touch.
"EVA, report!" he barked, but there was still nothing. Not even static.
Then came the first alarm.
A high-pitched, sharp tone pierced the command deck like a nail through the skull. Red lights began to strobe.
The diagnostic holo flared to life in jagged, broken flashes.
[WARNING: HYPERDRIVE CORE FAILURE]
[ERROR CODE: 00-404—UNKNOWN ANOMALY]
Atlas's heart pounded in his throat.
"Disengage hyperspace sequence! Manual override Kael-3-Zulu!"
[OVERRIDE FAILED. CORE LOCKED.]
Another alarm. Then another. The ship was crying, bleeding warnings in a language meant for engineers, not a lone supply pilot.
The cockpit around him groaned.
Something outside just beyond the hull rippled like a mirage in a furnace. Space was moving, bubbling. Atlas saw a jagged tear in reality itself, a hairline fracture glowing pale blue. It wasn't natural. It wasn't right.
It was like staring into an eye that should never open.
"EVA, please respond!"
A flicker.
"...lat...Kas..."
Her voice. Garbled. Corrupted.
"EVA?"
"...un... anomaly... ejection... system... compromised..."
The final surge hit like a fist.
Light white and blinding erupted from the viewport as every system flared one last time. The ship bucked, and Atlas slammed into his harness hard enough to blacken vision. He gasped then the world turned upside down.
Stars vanished.
Everything went black.