a ghost on the back of a world

A long, tortured, metallic scream was the only thing that broke the silence on the bridge. The ship convulsed as if it were a wounded beast, tearing itself from the grip of a reality that was not its own. The hull creaked, every beam and bulkhead protesting against forces that defied physics. Through the panoramic windows, the vision of distorted stars and impossible colors was replaced by absolute blackness.

They were out.

Korrin clung to the arms of his commander's chair, his knuckles white-knuckled. The frigid air of the bridge smelled of ozone and restrained fear. On his chest, under his uniform, the small crystal medallion his father gave him no longer glowed with the blue of hope, but a deep, angry red, a burning coal that pulsed to the rhythm of his racing heart.

Stabilizing inertia compensators! Pressure drop on deck seven!" said Elara, looking at her screen.

“Section seven isolated!” replied another.

Selene, with a calmness that seemed unnatural amid the chaos, ran her fingers over the holographic panels of her tactical station. Her amethyst eyes, fixed and focused, reflected no panic, only data. “We're out of the rift, Commander. Whatever that thing is, it didn't follow us.” She paused for an infinitesimal moment, her gaze fixed on a stray piece of data. “Or at least, not in a way we can detect.”

The silence that followed was almost heavier than the previous din. Only the sickly hum of the life support systems, the obsessive flashing of red alerts, and the muffled gasps of the crew broke the stillness. It was the sound of vulnerability.

Korrin soltó el aire que no sabía que estaba conteniendo. Su voz, aunque tensa como un cable de acero, era firme, un ancla en la tormenta. "Informe de daños. Sistemáticos. Sin histeria."Un hombre con el uniforme de ingeniero, el Teniente Jax, se acercó con paso tambaleante. Su rostro estaba pálido y cubierto de una fina capa de sudor, y tenía una mancha de grasa en la mejilla.

 "Commander... We barely made it. The main shields are at twelve percent. The electromagnetic pulse emitted by that... entity... fried half of our primary systems. We're operating on backups and praying.“ He paused, swallowing hard, as if the words that followed were physically painful. ”And worst of all... the main ship's thrusters are offline. Antimatter reactors in critical condition, we forced an emergency shutdown. Completely down."

A murmur of terror spread across the bridge. Drifting motionless in this new and hostile universe was a slow death sentence. They would be a coffin two kilometers long.

Korrin didn't blink. His mind, sharp and tempered by a hundred encounters with the unnameable, was already working, processing, calculating. His intense violet gaze fixed on the faint blue dot of a distant planet that glowed in the darkness like a suspended tear.

“Jax,” her voice cut through the panic like a knife. “Divert all power from the shields to the auxiliary thrusters. I want them operational in half the time.”

The order was so unexpected that even Selene raised an eyebrow. Lieutenant Jax paled even further. “Commander... The shields? We're at twelve percent. Without them, a flurry of micrometeorites could...”

“It could pierce us. I know,” Korrin interrupted, her voice low but unstoppable. "But a stationary, armored target is even easier to find for whatever inhabits this void. That thing... it hunts for energy, for disturbances in subspace. The shields, in this state, are like a bonfire in the night.“ His gaze drifted to the distant planet. ”There. We'll hide in its shadow. We'll synchronize our orbit to remain forever on its night side. We'll be a ghost clinging to the back of a world, invisible to anything watching from the darkness. It's a gamble... but gambling is all we have left."

Cold, ruthless logic prevailed. The silence that followed was not one of fear, but of understanding.

“How long will it take you to get the auxiliary thrusters to one hundred percent to reach that planet?” Korrin asked, his decision already carved in steel.

Jax straightened up a little, finding a fragment of courage in his commander's clarity. “Six hours, Commander. If we don't find any more surprises in the distribution panels.”

“Fine. Do it in five,” Korrin said, not as a hope, but as an expectation.

As Jax and his team plunged into the belly of the wounded beast, Korrin needed to feel the pulse of her people. “Selene,” she said, turning around. “Come with me.”

Both girls temporarily left the area to inspect the rest of the ship. 

The contrast between the bridge, charged with silent tension, and the residential districts of the Perseverance Infinity was stark. The air here was warmer, permeated with the smell of freshly baked bread from the shopping malls and humus from the hydroponic parks. Over the loudspeakers, a calm, automated voice filtered through the soft music.

“...the containment exercises have been successfully completed. We repeat, this was a routine exercise. Please continue with your activities. Perseverance is our path...”

News holograms showed idyllic landscapes of Utopia-7, interspersed with educational diagrams about water recycling. It was a veil of normality, delicate and fragile, woven over the abyss. Civilians, men, women, and children, strolled or played, their faces illuminated by artificial light that mimicked a daylight cycle. Only a trained eye would see the shadow of unease in their gazes, the way they clung a little tighter than necessary to the hands of their loved ones.

“We lie to them so they don't feel this fear that eats away at us inside,” Korrin murmured, walking alongside Selene down a vaulted corridor that simulated a tree-lined walkway. 

“It's a compassionate lie,” Selene replied, her voice a whisper beside her. “Without it, panic would kill them all before any monster from the Void ever could. This ship... Perseverance Infinity... sometimes I wonder if the name is a prophecy or a mockery.”

Korrin let out a sigh, a strange sound that only Selene deserved to hear. "It's the last thing we have left. The infinite hope of a stubborn species. That's why we never settled on a planet, Selene. Remember, we tried, twice. The first one had an atmosphere that corroded the hull in weeks. The second... harbored a microbial life form that nearly wiped us out with a fever we had no cure for.“ He looked at the twinkling lights of the residential districts. ”We became nomads out of necessity. This ship isn't just a refuge. It's our skin, our only ecosystem. To lose it is extinction."

Selene nodded, her gaze fixed on Korrin. “And you... you're the rock it stands on. But even rocks erode. I haven't seen you smile since... well, I can't remember.”

The question hung in the air between them. Korrin paused, her right hand instinctively clutching her left arm just above the elbow, as if an invisible scar burned there. Her eyes clouded over with an ancient pain.

“Utopia-7 wasn't conquered. It was torn apart,” he whispered, his voice breaking with a terrible memory. "The sky ripped open, and from that wound fell... things. They weren't ships. They were pure agony in physical form. That day, I learned something very important... Humans are nothing but specks of dust compared to them.“ His fist clenched the fabric of his uniform. ”Not only did I lose an arm, leaving me with this... thing, but it taught me human weakness... My smile... left me that day. That creature from the sky took it away, along with everything else."

Their path led them, almost by inertia, to the edge of the residential sector, where the corridors became more austere and the sound of training echoed off the metal. They looked out from an elevated gallery into a vast training room.

Below, a blonde woman with hair like a cascade of gold and blue eyes that cut like lasers scanned the rows of sweaty cadets. Liselotte. Her uniform, a more assertive variation on the regulation one, with a skirt that defied safety protocols and a tight jacket that left no doubt as to her authority, was as intimidating as her presence. 

“Hesitation is a luxury for the dead!” Her clear, sharp voice filled the hangar. “The enemy will not stop to admire your technique. He will tear you apart if you give him the chance.” An overconfident cadet approached with a clumsy smile, thinking he saw an opening. Liselotte moved with the speed of a snake. A twist, a lock, and her arm wrapped around the young man's neck, immobilizing him with apparent ease. “See? Arrogance has made you my prey.”

At that moment, his blue eyes rose and fixed directly on Korrin, as if he had sensed her arrival. A cold smile, laden with ancestral contempt, spread across his lips. He said nothing to the commander, but addressed the cadet again, his voice now a projectile aimed at the balcony.

“Remember, cadets. True strength lies not in blindly rushing into the darkness, but in having the clarity to know which shadows are worth challenging... and which are merely a hindrance to the survival of all.”

The hint was as subtle as a cannon shot. Korrin kept her face impassive. Selene, at her side, clenched her jaw.

Back on the bridge, the atmosphere had changed. Despair had given way to feverish activity. Jax approached them, and this time there was a gleam of triumph in his eyes, despite his exhaustion.

“Commander, Lieutenant Vaelis... We did it. Four hours. Engineer Novak found a way to bypass the burned-out regulators using the secondary life support conduits. It's a patch job, but it'll hold.”

“Engineer... Novak?” Vaelis asked, somewhat confused.

Korrin just nodded, a spark of that infinite hope that gave the ship its name briefly lighting up in his chest. The medallion now pulsed with a slightly less furious red.

“Everyone to your stations,” he ordered, taking his seat again. His gaze fixed on the main screen, where the planet grew larger, promising a hiding place in its cloak of perpetual night. “It's time to disappear.”

The Perseverance Infinity, with a renewed roar from its engines, began its slow and stealthy advance toward the shadows, seeking to become just another ghost in the immensity of the cosmos.