Fragmented Light

Chapter 8: Shot in the Dark

Space bent wrong around the medical transport Helios. Lyra watched colors that shouldn't exist dance across the inner hull, each one trying to tell her secrets she couldn't quite understand. The ship's systems pulsed with crystal energy that looked like tiny constellations being born and dying in heartbeats.

...find the... The voice faded in and out like bad transmission, more feeling than sound. ...become what you...

She tried to turn her head to track the voice, but her body had apparently filed for independence. Everything felt distant, disconnected, like she was floating in soup made of starlight and bad decisions.

...the light is... The voice struggled against static. ...waiting for...

'Great,' she thought to herself, watching her blood draw fractal patterns in the air. 'Now I'm hearing voices. Very helpful. Could you maybe be more specific? Like "hey Lyra, here's exactly what's happening to you" instead of this cryptic nonsense?'

The crystal-powered systems hummed in harmonies that kept trying to spell words. She watched them form and dissolve: DANGER. COMING. LIGHT. Each letter made of tiny stars that died too soon.

Through the viewport, reality rippled like bad reception. She thought she saw something moving out there – geometric shadows that folded space around themselves, hunting through the void with mathematical precision.

...they cannot have... The voice strengthened briefly before dissolving again. ...must find your way to...

'To what?' she wanted to scream, but her mouth felt full of golden stars. 'To where? Could you maybe give me some actual directions instead of trailing off dramatically?'

The transport's systems suddenly screamed warnings in colors she could taste. Red alerts tasted like copper and regret. Yellow alerts had a weird citrus thing going on. Who knew emergency protocols were so flavorful?

"Medical transport Helios." The comm system crackled with artificial pleasantry that looked like fractals made of ice. "Please hold position for routine inspection."

'That's not good,' Lyra thought distantly, watching frost patterns try to solve their way through the hull. 'That's probably really not good. Maybe I should do something about that.'

...now... The voice urged. ...burn....

'Oh sure, NOW you're clear about something.' She watched her hands sparkle with internal light, each finger trailing golden afterimages that tried to write equations in the air. 'But maybe some context about the whole burning thing? No? Just gonna fade out again? Cool. Cool cool cool.'

The transport shuddered as something vast and cold pressed against reality itself. Through fever-bright vision, Lyra saw the void-mathematics trying to cage them in recursive patterns that kept solving for hunger.

...BECOME... The voice suddenly rang clear as crystal song. ...THE LIGHT...

'Well why didn't you just say so?' Golden fire exploded from her skin, burning through calculation and corporate protocol alike. Reality screamed in harmonies that tasted like sunrise as she reached for something that had always lived in her blood, waiting to be understood.

The next few moments got a bit abstract.

She had vague impressions of space folding like origami made of starlight. Of corporate ships trying to catch them in nets woven from theoretical physics. Of herself burning so bright that mathematics itself had to look away.

When her vision cleared, Untia's blue-green sphere filled the viewport. It looked suspiciously smug for a planetary body.

'Nailed it,' she thought proudly, right before everything went sideways and her consciousness decided to take a brief vacation to wherever minds go when bodies do impossible things.

She floated in darkness that kept trying to solve itself into patterns. Golden light danced at the edges of whatever passed for reality here, writing stories in a language she almost remembered.

...find me... The voice whispered through dreams made of crystal song. ...before they...

'Before they what?' But consciousness was already pulling her back, dragging her toward a body that felt like it had been used to test mining equipment.

"...temperature spike in sector three..." Voices drifted in and out, each word leaving trails of light that tried to form constellations. "...bleeding again..."

Reality reasserted itself with all the grace of a drunk corporate executive trying to navigate low gravity. Everything hurt in new and exciting ways she hadn't known were possible.

...hurry... The voice faded one last time. ...the void is...

'The void is what?' she wanted to ask. 'Coming? Hungry? Really bad at finishing sentences?'

But there was only silence now, broken by the transport's systems trying to cope with whatever she'd done to local spacetime. Through gaps in her delirium, she felt their descent into atmosphere, felt gravity try to remember how it was supposed to work.

The last thing she saw before unconsciousness claimed her completely was her own reflection in a frost-covered panel. Golden light still swirled in her eyes like nebulae being born.

'Huh,' she thought distantly. 'That's new.'

Then darkness took her, and she dreamed of voices made of light and shadows that solved for hunger and a power that lived in her bones, waiting to burn bright enough to blind the void itself.

Probably metaphorically.

Hopefully metaphorically.

Actually, given her luck, probably not metaphorically at all.