CHAPTER 2-VALKYRIE IX
1428 Words
The docking bay of Vega Command Station shimmered with white-blue lights as the Valkyrie IX came into view—a sleek obsidian starship with silver ventral lines pulsing like a heartbeat. Even among the fleet’s most advanced vessels, Valkyrie IX looked different. Alive. A predator wrapped in metal and ion glass.
Commander Aria Kehlani paused on the walkway, taking in the familiar silhouette.
She’d flown on this ship only twice before—once in war, once in rescue. Both times, the Valkyrie had brought her back. Barely.
“This vessel has a 72% chance of structural failure if forced through the Rift,” Lumen said from her side, his tone clinically direct.
Aria smirked. “Only seventy-two? That’s practically optimism.”
Lumen tilted his head. “I do not experience optimism.”
“Trust me,” she said, stepping forward, “I know.”
As they approached, the ship’s hull rippled with identification lights. The ramp lowered silently, revealing the interior glow. Aria felt tension melt from her shoulders. This place—this ship—was home, no matter how temporary.
Inside, the air smelled faintly of ionized metal and coolant, with the soft hum of the core running at idle.
A voice called out from the upper corridor.
“Commander on deck!”
Aria looked up as Lieutenant Nova Ibarra, her lead engineer, jogged down the stairs. Small, sharp-eyed, with dark curls tied into a high braid, Nova moved with the pent-up energy of a star ready to explode.
“Aria—finally,” she said, slightly breathless. “We got your message. A mysterious anomaly, possible wormhole interaction, encrypted data? You brought me a gift.”
“It’s not a gift,” Aria said.
“It is if it’s dangerous,” Nova said brightly.
Lumen inclined his head. “Your definition of ‘gift’ remains concerning.”
Nova grinned at him. “Thank you, toaster.”
“That designation is inaccurate,” Lumen replied.
Aria raised a hand before the two could start their usual war of sarcasm and logic. “Where’s Captain Rourke?”
Nova’s expression dimmed. “Waiting on the bridge. And…let’s just say he isn’t thrilled. He thinks this mission is suicidal.”
“Perfect,” Aria said. “Let’s get it over with.”
---
The bridge of the Valkyrie IX spread out like the interior of a glass star, with curved panels of reinforced crystal offering a panoramic view of the cosmos. Navigation arrays floated as holographic rings around the central command chair.
Captain Elias Rourke stood at the helm—straight-backed, broad-shouldered, with a storm-gray beard and scars that weren’t just physical. Rourke was a legend: the kind of commander others whispered about in the academy halls. And until this moment, Aria had never seen him look…uncertain.
“Commander Kehlani,” he said, voice gravel-edged. “I hear you’ve brought us a problem.”
Aria stepped forward. “More like a trail.”
He frowned. “A trail into the Carthusian Rift? The place where sensors die and ships go missing? That trail?”
“Exactly that one.”
Rourke’s jaw tightened. “We don’t have the clearance to go anywhere near that zone. High Command sealed it for a reason.”
Lumen lifted a data chip. “We do now.”
Rourke blinked as Lumen slotted the chip into the bridge console. A soft chime sounded, followed by a projection of an authorization stamp bearing the seal of Admiral Nyx Hadrian—the highest-ranking officer in the Outer Systems.
Rourke stared. “Hadrian signed off on this?”
Aria nodded. “We’re to investigate the signal’s source immediately.”
“I read the preliminary data,” he said. “If that signal is real—and if it truly matches Dr. Selene Kehlani’s recording—then someone is playing a dangerous game.”
Aria’s eyes hardened. “No games. Not this time.”
Rourke studied her for a long moment, then let out a slow exhale. “Alright. But understand this: once we cross that threshold, there’s no guarantee we’re coming back.”
Aria didn’t flinch.
Rourke gestured to the helm. “Then take your post, Commander. Nova, prep the engines. Lumen, run full diagnostics.”
The crew scattered into motion.
As Aria settled into the navigation seat, her console lit up with star charts and quantum drift maps. The coordinates from Vega-3 hovered at the center of the display—cold, bright, unreachable.
Her heart kicked.
Her mother had gone missing somewhere past those numbers.
Nova’s voice crackled through the intercom. “Engine cores at seventy percent. Ion stabilizers warming. Warning: attempting to push the Valkyrie IX past ripple point could destabilize—”
“Just say it’ll shake us apart,” Rourke shouted back.
“Oh, in that case: it’ll shake us apart!” Nova replied cheerfully.
Aria allowed a rare smile.
Rourke eased into the command chair. “Everyone, strap in. Lumen, plot the safest course to the Rift.”
“There is no safe course,” Lumen said. “There is only the least fatal.”
Rourke rubbed a hand down his face. “Wonderful.”
Aria keyed in a sequence on her console. “Sending trajectory now. If we enter at the right angle and ride the magnetic swell, we’ll slip through the turbulence with minimal hull strain.”
“Minimal as in—?”
“Minimal for us. Not for the ship.”
Rourke sighed. “I’m surrounded by optimists.”
“Incorrect,” Lumen said. “I—”
“Shut up, Lumen,” both Aria and Rourke said at once.
---
The Valkyrie IX disengaged from the docking clamps with a low rumble. Aria felt the familiar shift—the moment when weightlessness took over and the ship became her second skin.
Outside, the command station shrank into the distance as the starfield expanded in brilliant arcs of white and indigo.
“Course laid in,” Aria said.
“Engage,” Rourke commanded.
The Valkyrie leapt into the void.
Stars stretched into luminous streaks as the ship entered glide-space, sliding along spatial currents like a blade through water. Vibrations rippled through the hull. Consoles flickered. The AI voice of the ship chimed:
Warning: approaching gravitational distortion.
Aria’s pulse quickened. “We’re close.”
The viewscreen darkened as swirling fog—more like cosmic smoke—filled the space ahead. It wasn’t a nebula. It wasn’t dust. It was…absence. A wound cut into the fabric of reality.
The Carthusian Rift.
Rourke leaned forward. “Every instinct I have is telling me to turn around.”
“Same,” Nova said from engineering. “Although that might be because three conduits just melted.”
Aria stepped closer to the screen.
The Rift pulsed. Slow. Rhythmic.
Like the signal.
Her breath caught.
Her mother had seen this.
And somewhere inside, she had vanished.
Lumen’s voice cut in. “Commander Kehlani. The encrypted data cube from Vega-3 is reacting.”
Aria turned sharply. “Reacting how?”
A projection materialized in front of her—white lines, pulsing the same way the Rift did.
“It’s synchronizing,” Lumen said.
“Synchronizing with what?” Rourke demanded.
Aria didn’t answer.
Because the projection shifted—rearranging itself into a pattern she hadn’t seen since childhood.
A star map.
One that her mother used to sketch.
Aria whispered, “She left this for me.”
Before anyone could speak, the ship jolted violently.
WARNING: gravitational field increasing. Structural integrity compromised.
“Hold her steady!” Rourke barked.
“I can’t—it’s pulling us in!” Aria shouted.
The Rift yawned open, a spiraling void of light and shadow.
The signal hummed in her ears.
The same nine-second tone.
Only now…it sounded like a voice.
Lumen shouted, “Brace for breach!”
The Valkyrie IX lurched forward—
—and the universe tore itself apart.
---
When the light finally died, silence flooded the bridge.
The viewscreen flickered.
Aria blinked.
Because outside…
they were no longer in the Rift.
They weren’t anywhere she recognized.
Instead, the ship hovered above a colossal construct—an artificial ringworld spanning millions of kilometers, glowing with ancient power.
Nova’s shaky voice came through. “Um…Aria? Rourke? Anyone? Please tell me that’s just a hallucination.”
Aria stared.
“No,” she whispered. “It’s real.”
Lumen stepped forward, optics bright. “Commander. The structure is emitting the same signature as the signal.”
Aria’s heart pounded.
Her mother hadn’t disappeared.
She’d found this.
And now, so had they.
- Writer
