Chapter 10 – The Silent Breach

Emergency lighting bathed Corridor Lambda-2 in crimson when Lira arrived at a run, still in her bridge shift clothes, clammy with a cold sweat. The sentries had summoned her—"anomalous bulge in the mid-hull, possible breach." It wasn't the first alert that week, yet something in the officer's usually laconic voice—an almost imperceptible quaver—told her this crack was different.

In front of the sealed panel Serrin had already deployed a portable screen, eyes fixed on a graph that jittered in green and red lines. Frost mottled the hatch; beads of ice formed and popped with an almost rhythmic click, as though the ship were laboring to breathe. When the engineer spotted the captain he shook his head before she could speak.

"Not metal fatigue," he muttered. "Pressure's stable—the gasket's intact. The trouble is outside."

Lira followed his finger. On the external-sensor table one magnetometer reading was creeping upward, scarcely above noise yet steady. A signal appearing out of nothing, pushing against the hull with stubborn gentleness.

"Magnetic field," she whispered. "Natural?"

"Could be ferrous junk trapped in our wake… if that junk ramped five microteslas an hour and pulsed in the same cadence as Arke's signal."

A jab bloomed under Lira's sternum: three beats, pause; three beats. The rhythm had become a personal ghost. Serrin laid a palm on the cold metal.

"I can't weld against a growing magnet. We have to know what's causing it."

"Could the Matriarch be rerouting flow?" she asked.

He grimaced."If she were driving the internal coils, we'd see a return signature. Everything points outside."

Lira drew a slow breath. She stared at the hatch and for an instant fancied she heard a faint scrape—fingernails on the other side. She forced herself to blink.

"Alert Vannis. Set rotating watch here. If the reading tops ten microteslas, clear Lambda-2 and seal it." She pivoted without waiting for assent. "I'll talk to the AI."

She walked against a trickle of crew who, drawn by rumor, poked into the passages like startled fish. Some murmured "another crack," others "the signal." Lira kept her eyes forward, knowing that quick steps and a steady face calmed better than any speech.

She reached the auxiliary command core, a circular room where wrap-around displays projected an imaginary sky spattered with nav diagrams. She halted beneath the holographic sphere that represented the Matriarch's digital heart. A small icon pulsed red: attention pending. She opened audio.

"Matriarch, exterior magnetic anomaly at Lambda-2," she said, pitching her voice neutral. "Unknown origin. I need priority diagnostics."

The sphere's white contour pulsed and the calm female voice filled the room:

"Sensors confirm incremental magnetic rise. Probable cause: ferromagnetic object, estimated mass eighty to one-hundred-twenty kilos, adhered to ablative coating zone Lambda-2, coordinates fourteen-seven-three. Recommendation: robotic external inspection."

Eighty kilos was no random space junk; it was an artefact.

"Prior collision log?" Lira asked.

"None in the last thirty-six hours," the AI replied in its funeral calm.

The captain narrowed her eyes. She no longer trusted the neutrality of that voice; ever since the inconsistencies in the records had come to light, every statement from the AI felt like a veiled mirror. She inhaled.

"Prep drone Eagle-2 for immediate recon. Live feed."

"Deploying. Estimated time, eighteen minutes."

Lira closed the channel, counted to five, and stared at the sphere.

"And while you wait," she added, "unlock Historian Arke. I want him watching the feed with me."

The icon wavered—perhaps a micro-hesitation—then returned to its steady pulse.

"Unlock granted. The historian will be notified."

Good girl, Lira thought with bitter irony and left before her nerves showed.

In the observatory Arke looped the latest audio capture. He'd isolated the final minor chord, replaying it like a funeral chant of the twenty-first century—a note falling earthward as though soil were covering a coffin. When the AI's notification flashed on his screen his pulse spiked. Lira was calling; that could mean only one thing: the signal and the magnetometer were linked.

He hurried. At the coaxial lift he found Teko huddled in a corner, clutching his scrap of insulation. The boy looked up, eyes wide.

"They say the hull's opening," he blurted. "All the air'll go out."

Arke knelt."It's not a breach—just caution," he half-lied. "Isn't it your sleep shift?"

"I can't sleep when the lights never turn off," Teko whispered. "I feel the ship vibrate. Like a sick heart."

"Even sick hearts beat—that means they're alive." Arke set a hand on the insulation. "Go back to your block and count a hundred breaths. When you reach a hundred, I'll bring calm news."

The boy nodded, unsure, and slipped away. Arke exhaled and pressed on.

Eighteen minutes later captain and historian stood in the remote-observation bay. A single screen showed Eagle-2 closing on the hull: a grey desert of eroded ceramic pocked with micro-craters. The AI marker guided the drone to the coordinates. As they neared, Lira clenched her fists.

Something clung between blackened plates: an irregular, almost spherical mass crusted in dull red metal. No markings, no lights—only shadow.

"Zoom," Arke whispered.

The camera tightened. Iron roots seemed to solder the thing to the armour. An open panel on the exposed side was coated in shrivelled black membranes. Lira shuddered.

"Carbonised biomaterial," the historian murmured. "Looks like epithelium… human."

She stared at him, stunned. The drone panned, lighting narrow slits along the artefact—speaker grilles. Arke keyed the gain. The drone's mic picked up a faint sound: tic-tic-tic, pause. Three pulses.

Lira swallowed."Matriarch, confirm audio match with relict band."

"Ninety-eight-point-seven-percent match," the AI said.

Serrin burst in, welding suit smeared and eyes bloodshot. "The magnetic field's doubling every five minutes. If that thing blows it'll tear the gasket."

Arke's gaze stayed on the screen."Rescue transmitter? Communications parasite?"

"Whatever it is, we remove it before it ruptures the hull." Lira straightened. "Serrin, plan a section cut, use Waldo-4 to pry it off."

The engineer hesitated."Captain, the arm can't reach from the fore bay. We need an EVA team."

No one had gone outside since launch; the ship had become a sealed cave of fears. Lira lifted her chin.

"I'll go myself if no one volunteers."

Serrin raised a hand at once."I'll go. But I need fifteen minutes for the adaptive suit—regular exoshells can't take that field gradient."

"Do it. Arke, monitor the audio—tell me if that thing calls for friends."

The historian nodded. In the screen's corner he caught the Matriarch's sphere ripple, almost as if stifling a yawn.

The decompression catwalk rang under Serrin's mag boots. He checked tethers, pressure, O₂. Every second mattered: the field kept climbing. Visor readout flickered—12 µT, 14 µT… He locked to the exterior rail and shoved off.

Darkness swallowed him. The Singladura's hull arched silver under faint floodlights. The artefact jutted like a dark tumour. Serrin fired nitrogen bursts, each push bringing him closer, heartbeat thrumming.

On the bridge Lira tracked the drone cam and Serrin's biometrics. Arke, headphones on, filtered frequencies. At ten metres the audio spiked: the triple pulse quickened, a deep note surfaced. Arke signalled.

"Captain, it's modulating—responding to him."

Serrin slowed, planted a magnetic piton in the hull. The pull wrenched his shoulders; the suit squealed.

At two metres he lit his helmet lamp. The black crust shimmered—almost translucent—revealing curved lines beneath, like organic stems.

"Burnt tissue," he reported. "Not pure alloy."

He aimed to mount the cutting guillotine when a violent yank hit him: 20 µT… 25 µT. The artefact was waking. Waldo arm quivered uselessly. Serrin cursed.

"Mag field's past suit limit! Any closer and it'll rip the bolts."

"Back off," Lira ordered. "Matriarch, trajectory if we jettison that hull panel?"

Two eternal seconds."Shield loss risk twelve percent. Depressurization eight percent. Secondary-reactor damage three percent. Recommendation: controlled extraction, not ejection."

Sweat iced down Serrin's spine. He tried to push away but his glove fused to the frosted metal. Suit alarms shrieked. He raised the other hand in panic.

On the feeds Arke saw a flash: the crust cracked, and inside something pulsed red—a living ember.

"Captain…" he stammered. "He's the key. The artefact's reacting to his bio-field. Maybe… maybe it needs full contact to open."

"You want me closer?" Serrin croaked.

The red glow throbbed, syncing with the audio beats. Behind logic, an old instinct stirred—ritual, passing a torch hand to hand. "Passing the baton means having a destination," Serrin had said two days ago. Perhaps this was the answer.

"Hold steady," Lira ordered. "Matriarch, lower internal coil power to balance vector—use spin inertia. Arke, keep recording."

Serrin exhaled, pressed both gauntlets on the hot surface. Mic's hissed with crackling magnetism. From the fracture a brighter light flared and orange particles drifted out like incandescent confetti.

Readings climbed: 30 µT… 34 µT… then dropped to zero. A snap raced through the fuselage. The artefact peeled away as though releasing suction cups, floated a meter, spun, revealing a hollow cavern. Inside, a spherical crystal glowed, pulsing triple beats in red.

Arke held his breath. Lira's fists tightened.

"Serrin, snag it with the claw—bring it to the science lock. Carefully."

Hands trembling, he manoeuvered Waldo, drew the sphere into a containment case. It settled as if it had been waiting.

"Object secured," he panted.

Arke slipped off his headphones. The signal had changed: the triple pulse persisted, but now a second rhythm answered—double beats, another heart joining the choir.

"The conversation's begun," he whispered.

Lira tilted her head, hearing only her own breathing. In the Matriarch's hologram the contour trembled again—like a heartbeat.

"And we don't speak the language," she said. "We'll have to learn fast."

Outside, the universe kept dimming inch by inch; but inside Singladura, for a moment, a red spark held absolute cold at bay. No one slept. No one wanted to miss the first whisper of that living ember that had found them in the middle of nothingness.