CHAPTER 4: THE OBSIDIAN THRESHOLD

  The rib-run didn't look like a graveyard anymore; it looked like an altar.

  Under the bruised purple light of the Krios-9 moon, the Aurora had fully emerged from the silt. It didn't look like any ship Jax had ever seen in the Corporate registries. There were no rivets, no exposed wires, no clunky thruster housings. It was a single, continuous shard of obsidian-glass, three hundred meters long, shaped like a jagged needle aimed at the throat of the stars.

  "It’s not reflecting the light," Koda whispered, his voice trembling as he stepped off the skiff. He held his scanner out, but the screen was a dead, flat grey. "The hull... it’s absorbing the photons. Jax, this thing shouldn't exist. Physics says this thing should be a black hole."

  "Physics doesn't live here anymore," Vex muttered. She kept her pulse-rifle leveled at the dark seam in the hull, but her hands were shaking. "Jax, the brand. It’s screaming."

  Jax looked down at his wrist. The star-shaped mark wasn't just glowing; it was burning. The silver liquid beneath his skin was racing toward his fingertips, turning his veins into glowing circuits of violet light. As he approached the ship, the air began to hum—a low-frequency vibration that rattled the fillings in his teeth.

  He reached out. His hand didn't touch cold stone. It touched something that felt like frozen electricity.

  The hull rippled.

  A seam opened in the obsidian, silent and smooth as a closing eye. A ramp of liquid metal flowed downward, hardening into solid stairs before it touched the sand. From within the dark maw of the ship, a scent wafted out—not the smell of ozone and oil, but the scent of rain on a cold forest floor. It was a smell that shouldn't exist on a dead world.

  “COMMANDER RECOGNIZED,” a voice echoed. It didn't come from a speaker; it vibrated directly inside Jax’s skull. “LOGIC-SYNC AT 0.04%. NEURAL ARCHITECTURE: PRIMITIVE. COMPATIBILITY: SUFFICIENT.”

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  "Did you guys hear that?" Jax asked, his voice a ghost of itself.

  "Hear what?" Vex asked, her eyes wide. "The door just opened, Jax. That’s all I saw."

  Jax realized then that the ship was only talking to him. He stepped onto the ramp. The moment his boots hit the metal, the violet lights of the interior flared to life.

  The bridge was a cathedral of glass. Thousands of holographic displays floated in the air like frozen embers, displaying star charts of galaxies Jax had never heard of. In the center sat the Command Throne—a chair made of the same shifting, liquid metal as the ramp.

  And standing by the console was the copper-shelled droid, his lens flickering.

  "Ah," Barnaby said, his voice echoing in the vast chamber. "Commander forty-eight. You’re late. I’ve already finished the inventory, and I’m afraid the news is grim. We are out of high-grade fuel, the secondary Blink-Drive is currently phased into a pocket dimension, and—worst of all—someone has left muddy footprints on my deck."

  "You're the droid from the logs," Jax said, stepping toward the throne.

  "I am Barnaby. Custodian, historian, and your future headache," the droid replied, bowing with a mocking flourish of his spider-legs. "You’ve brought the 'Rust' with you, I see." He gestured toward Vex and Koda, who were standing at the threshold, too terrified to move. "How quaint. Are they pets? Or just emergency rations?"

  "They're my crew," Jax said firmly.

  The ship hummed in response, the floor vibrating under Jax's feet. The brand on his wrist flared.

  “COMMANDER, THE CINDER-DECREE HAS BEEN FINALIZED,” the ship’s voice boomed in his mind. “CORPORATE ASSETS INBOUND. ETA: 300 SECONDS TO PLANETARY GLASSING. SHALL I INITIALIZE THE BLINK?”

  Jax looked at the throne. He looked at Vex, who was watching him with a mixture of awe and growing fear. He knew that once he sat down, the Jax Sullivan who dug for scrap would be gone forever.

  "Barnaby," Jax said, his voice hardening. "How do we fly this thing?"

  "Sit in the chair, Commander," Barnaby said, his lens glowing a bright, predatory violet. "And try not to let the Logic delete your soul on the first try. It’s a very messy process to clean up."

  Jax sat.

  The liquid metal of the throne rose up, coiling around his arms and neck like silver snakes. His vision exploded into a trillion points of light. He wasn't just in the ship anymore—he was the ship. He felt the vacuum of space against his hull; he felt the heat of the sun on his sensors.

  "Blink," Jax commanded.

  And Krios-9 vanished.