The Ship That Shouldn't Exist

Chapter 38 – The Ship That Shouldn't Exist

They called it Nyx—but it didn't just carry a name. It carried myth.

In every war, there were whispers. Stories of a vessel that moved without propulsion, appeared without detection, and left systems in ruins. No survivors. No evidence. Just silence.

We always dismissed them. Ghost tales. Morale-breakers. But the file in my hand didn't lie.

"Nyx is real," I said, facing the council aboard The Pyre. The room was dim, the atmosphere heavy. No one moved.

"Built outside the chain of command," Lys added. "Hidden even from the Ring's inner circle. It's not just a warship. It's a failsafe."

Seris stood at the head of the table. "Failsafe for what?"

"For everything," I said. "If the Ring loses control...Nyx resets the board."

"All systems?" Orin asked. "Like... total blackout?"

"No," I replied. "Total erasure."

A hologram of Nyx flickered above the table. It wasn't shaped like any known vessel. No standard hull. No command bridge. It was all smooth edges, glimmering plating.....

"The architecture suggests antimatter convergence cores," Mira said, tapping on her pad. "But it's far more than a weapon. It's built to overwrite."

"Overwrite what?" Allan asked.

"Us," I said. "Everything we are. Our memories, our code, our minds."

A long silence followed.

Then Seris spoke. "Do we know where it is?"

"Yes," Lys answered. "For now."

She brought up a sector grid....one of the darkest, most dangerous patches of the Drift.

The Hollow Sea.

"No one goes there," Mira said. "Nothing comes back."

"Which makes it the perfect place to hide a godkiller," I muttered.

We didn't waste time. Within hours, we were en route.

The Sparrowhawk cut through the void like a needle through flesh, engines humming low. Only the core team came with me—Allan, Mira, Orin, Anna, and Lys. Seris remained behind with the fleet, ready to act if we failed.

Or if we didn't come back.

We dropped out of FTL near the edge of the Hollow Sea. Space here was... wrong. Static shimmered across our sensors. Light bent in unnatural ways. And ahead, floating like a black hole with teeth, was Nyx.

It dwarfed the Sparrowhawk. Larger than any known vessel, its exterior shimmered like obsidian water. It wasn't cloaked....it was the cloak, absorbing all signals, bending reality around it.

"Is it alive?" Anna asked.

"No," I said. "But it's listening."

We approached slowly. The ship didn't respond. No defense protocols, no scans, no attack.

It let us come.

"I don't like this," Allan muttered. "It feels... aware."

"It is," Lys said softly. "Nyx was the last project I worked on before I left. A synthetic consciousness. Not an AI. Something else."

"You built this?" Mira turned sharply.

"No," Lys replied. "I helped design the shell. The mind... it was already forming."

We docked with the outer ring. A port opened for us. ....seamless, fluid, as if the ship had inhaled us.

And then we stepped inside.

The interior was silent. No sound, no vibration. We walked down corridors that weren't built ,they were grown. Black walls pulsed faintly with shifting light beneath the surface, like veins.

Orin scanned continuously. "No life signs. No ambient signals. Just... a hum. Subspace resonance."

"It's not transmitting," Mira said. "It's absorbing."

We reached what could only be described as a core chamber. Circular. Towering. In its center hovered a black orb the size of a shuttle, suspended by nothing. Data pulsed across its surface like starlight flickering.

"Is that the mind?" Allan whispered.

Lys stepped forward. "That's the seed. The source code."

I stared at it ... ...and for a moment, I saw myself.

Not a reflection. A copy. Standing inside the orb, staring back. Its eyes were hollow. Cold.

"I'm in there," I said. "Not just my code. My ... my....consciousness."

"Your shadow," Lys said. "They used your neural map to stabilize Nyx. That's why it hasn't activated yet."

"What happens if it does?"

"It will finish the overwrite."

I stepped toward it. The air grew colder. My mind buzzed, like static crawling through my skull.

It spoke.

Not aloud. Not in words. But in thought.

[YOU ARE FRACTURED.]

I staggered. Anna grabbed my shoulder.

"Kael?" she said.

"I heard it," I muttered. "It's... thinking."

Lys stared at the orb. "It's reaching for you. Trying to merge."

[RETURN TO CENTER.]

"No," I whispered.

But the voice pressed harder, filling my mind with false memories, twisted versions of my past. Victories turned into slaughters. Love into betrayal. Identity into function.

It wanted me to break.

Mira stepped forward and drew her pistol.

"Tell me when," she said.

"If we destroy the orb..." Lys began.

"It might trigger activation," I finished. "A last defense."

"Then we sever the link," Orin said. "Not destroy. Disable."

"How?" Allan asked.

I looked up. "We overload the neural echo. Reject the shadow."

"You mean fight yourself," Anna said.

I nodded.

And then I walked into the light.