In the Wake of Stars

Chapter 12: After the Fall

Nora sat in stunned silence beside Olsen’s lifeless form, her heart heavy with grief and frustration. He’d been their connection to the past, the only one who truly understood the danger lurking in the ship’s core systems. Now, he was gone.

Cal’s gaze lingered on Olsen for a moment longer, the faintest flicker of emotion breaking through his usually cold demeanor. Then, with a resigned sigh, he turned his focus to the terminal. “We can’t stop now. Whatever he found, it’s up to us to finish this.”

Nora swallowed, wiping her face quickly as she joined Cal at the terminal. “Did he leave us any clear instructions? Any notes on how to purge it?”

Cal scanned the files Olsen had uncovered, fingers moving swiftly across the keys. “Some of it’s here, encrypted.” He paused, eyebrows furrowing as he clicked through the fragmented logs. “He marked potential entry points into the entity’s code. Said something about isolating it from the core. We’d need to disable certain pathways, force it to re-route until we can trap it.”

Nora felt her heart pounding, the weight of Olsen’s last words ringing in her ears. “He thought we could sever its hold if we got to the mainframe. It’s risky.”

Cal gave her a dark, lopsided smile. “Since when has anything on this ship been safe?”

She managed a slight smirk, but her heart wasn’t in it. With Olsen’s death, the mission took on a grim urgency, and she couldn’t shake the feeling that they were racing against something far more dangerous than they could comprehend.

As they worked together, combing through the files and piecing together Olsen’s final instructions, Nora found herself stealing glances at Cal. In the dim glow of the terminal, his face was hardened with determination, focused entirely on the task at hand. Despite everything—the arguments, the antagonism—there was a strange comfort in his presence now. She didn’t trust him, not entirely, but she trusted his resolve.

“We’ll have to go down to the core,” Cal muttered, snapping her out of her thoughts. “That’s where the entity is embedded. Olsen said it could control nearly every system from there.”

“The core?” Nora’s voice caught. “We’ll be sitting ducks down there.”

Cal shrugged, a shadow of his usual cocky smile appearing. “That’s why you’re bringing the plasma cutter.”

Nora huffed. “Fine. But you’re going in first.”

“Wouldn’t have it any other way,” he replied, grabbing the cutter from the cabinet beside them and passing it to her. As they headed for the core, the ship seemed to pulse with an unsteady hum, as though it could sense their intent. The faint, unsettling noises in the walls grew louder, more deliberate.

Descending through the cramped maintenance shafts, Nora felt every creak and groan of the metal around them. The silence between them was thick with tension and something she couldn’t quite name. The stakes had never felt so real, and in the confined space, she was acutely aware of Cal’s presence—his breathing steady, his movements sharp and efficient.

Finally, they reached the core chamber. Nora shivered as they stepped inside; the room was colder than she expected, and the blue lights of the systems cast eerie shadows across the metal walls. In the center of the chamber, the core loomed, its pulsing lights giving it an ominous life.

Cal approached the core’s interface, fingers flying over the controls. “Stay close,” he murmured, his voice softer than she was used to hearing. “If it tries to isolate us, we won’t last long.”

For once, Nora didn’t argue. She gripped the plasma cutter tightly, watching him with a fierce concentration. Her heart was pounding, and she found herself trusting him in a way she hadn’t before. They were in this together, against something vast and unyielding.

Cal began isolating the entity’s systems, rerouting pathways, and cutting off access points. But as he worked, the temperature in the room dropped even further, and the pulsing hum grew louder, turning into a low, menacing growl that reverberated through the walls.

Nora’s grip tightened on the plasma cutter, her senses on high alert. “Cal, it knows what we’re doing.”

He didn’t look up, his face set in a fierce determination. “Let it. We’re not backing down.”

But just as he reached the final command, the lights flickered, and the growling hum surged, filling the room with an oppressive weight. A sharp, crackling sound echoed through the chamber, and suddenly, the core’s lights turned a menacing red.

“It’s fighting back!” Nora yelled over the noise, feeling her pulse spike as the walls seemed to close in around them.

Cal slammed his fist against the console, his voice a low growl. “Get ready, Nora. This thing is about to make its move.”

Nora steeled herself, standing shoulder to shoulder with him, the cutter raised and ready. As the room filled with the sound of the entity’s wrath, she knew they were in the fight of their lives—together.