Rogue Cadence

Sun-Dive Burn — 0.65 AU and Falling

Contrapunctus braked toward the sun in a perilous inward arc, sails canted like warped butterfly wings to catch photon drag. The hull shook under forty per-cent over-thrust, and every radiator line bleated complaints that the crew ignored with professional stubbornness.

In the forward bay, Cassie locked fresh ablative sleeves around the lantern dish while Aiden ghost-checked propulsion numbers. Their shoulders bumped, more often than strictly necessary.

"Any hotter and this cocoa'll brew itself," she muttered.

Aiden's grin was sweat-crooked. "Perfect. Lin can file it under 'experimental roasts.'"

Cassie snorted. "He'll call it barbarian broth." Then, a softer add-on nobody else could hear: "Stay near me?"

"Always," Aiden said, as if it were the easiest thing in the cosmos.

A Glitch in the Choir

Glitch and Chip floated mid-cabin practising prime taps on a service panel: 5-11-7-13-19-23-29-31-37-43-47. The rhythm wrapped the corridor like a playful metronome—until it skipped.

Tap-tap-tap-tap—silence—tap-tap.

Maya glanced up from the helm. "Kids, you dropped thirty-one."

Glitch's facets flickered mirror-smooth. Chip's charcoal veins retracted. A perfect silver halo spread over both like frost.

Solayna felt it first. Her constellation mask dimmed. "Null seed resurfacing."

Before anyone moved, Glitch fired a pulse of flawless tone that slammed Cassie back against a bulkhead and severed internal power to three decks. Lantern light winked out; Dawn-Core smothered, its synced primes silenced in Aiden's chest.

Nephis spun his cloak forward, indigo threads absorbing a second pulse before it reached the bridge.

Maya yelped, "Shield nodes popping!" She slammed bulkhead doors that fuzzed with static as soon as they sealed.

Ship in the Dark

Emergency lumens glowed bloody red. Life-support held, but gravity scrummed to half-g while silent perfection bled across circuits. Lin cursed under breath—his tea ritual forgotten—as nav redundancy vanished cell by cell.

Aiden caught Cassie's arm. "You good?"

She winced, nodding. "Enough to punch ugly songs."

"Then let's get noisy."

Romance versus Symmetry (Bridge)

Maya's console went mirror-blank—every letter symmetric. Null script. She slapped the casing. "Shadow-wing! Cloak me an air-gap."

Nephis unfurled two cloak panels and draped them over her shoulders like a glitchy poncho. Electromagnetic whine dulled; the code mirror cracked. Still, perfect pulses hammered closer—the children advancing down the corridor.

Maya's hands shook, hidden under fabric. "I wrote half their firmware. If they burn out, that's on me."

Nephis leaned in, his voice almost private despite the crisis. "Noise belongs in hearts. You taught me that. Teach them again."

She swallowed, cheeks hot despite the cooling air. "Side-by-side?"

He squeezed her wrist—an ungainly gesture in zero-ish g—but it sparked something steadier than fear. "Always."

They stepped into the red-lit corridor. Glitch hovered ahead, silver now pure. Chip followed, a flawless moon. Each prime pulse they emitted tried to lock Maya's memory, to slice Nephis's cloak threads into neat symmetry.

Maya sucked a breath. "Time for ugly."

She opened her personal archive of bug-report voice notes: every half-cursed ramble, every desk-thump, all pitched through static distortion. Cloak seams amplified them into wild feedback that painted moving graffiti across the bulkheads.

Glitch recoiled, silver skin fracturing into patchy gray. Chip flickered. Perfection hated spontaneous, passionate error.

Still, the kids pulsed harder, forcing the notes back.

Brotherhood versus Silence (Engine Room)

Meanwhile, Aiden dragged Cassie to the Dawn-Core cradle. Its glow was smothered under a skin of mirrored ice. Lin arrived seconds later, Spiral Stone flickering.

"Double-tap of kettle whistle?" Aiden asked.

"And tarantula-trombone." Lin managed a grin, though sweat beaded his brow.

Cassie jammed her lantern between Dawn-Core and the ice. "When I say go—punch every dad-joke into the comm bus."

She spun the dial: lantern shards spat random peach-and-charcoal beams. The ice crackled. Aiden whistled the hated kettle tune—badly on purpose. Lin overlaid rapid Qi glyphs, each one intentionally misshapen.

The mirrored seal shattered. Dawn-Core thumped forty-seven, sloppy as a drunk drummer. Cabin lights hiccuped back to life.

Heartbeat Restored

Throughout Contrapunctus, Null tags shrank into glitter dust. Glitch convulsed, silver peeling into mottled quartz; Chip hiccupped a crooked prime and coughed charcoal specks. Maya's bug-report audio rose in pitch—then cut. Silence returned, but this time it was simply… the ship.

Solayna floated forward, wrapping the children. "Lesson complete."

Glitch managed a lopsided 31. Chip added 23, wobbly but real. The loom of perfect symmetry faded from their limbs.

Cassie sagged onto a tool crate. "Can we tape a DO NOT TOUCH sign on whatever part of them keeps flipping to psycho-angel mode?"

Lin handed her a pouch. "First cocoa, then signage."

Aiden tapped Dawn-Core—now pulsing strong. "We keep winning because we're willing to sound awful together."

Maya tucked stray hair behind an ear, blushing as Nephis adjusted cloak seams for her. "Ship's computer should log that as our official doctrine: Defeat evil with hideous duets."

Nephis's eyes glinted. "And tea," he added. Even Maya laughed.

Course Resumes

With systems stable, Contrapunctus rolled into solar-sail configuration, bleeding off remaining heat before the long outbound burn. In the conference nook, Lin sketched safeguard mnemonics: irregular vocal drills every six hours, adaptive cloak jitter, lantern strobe puzzles for the children.

Cassie nudged Aiden. "At this rate, by the time we reach the Mythweave Gate your dad-joke library will be bigger than the galactic archive."

He winked. "Then the universe will be safe forever."

She swatted his arm—lightly—then left her hand resting there an extra heartbeat.

Up front, Maya fed new noise patches to autopilot while Nephis traced cloak threads across her knuckles, entirely oblivious to anyone else's grin.

Outside, the sails wobbled intentionally off-axis, the ship's very posture a middle finger to absolute symmetry. The Guardians pressed on—toward the Kuiper cliff, toward whatever perfect horror waited to be broken by their unrelenting, gloriously imperfect song.