Marcus cursed in Cantonese, "Ding nei go fei! What the hell does 'brought it along' even mean?"(Fuck! What do you mean by 'brought it along'?)
Ivan's hand was already resting on the weapon unlock switch—despite the strict ban on live firearms aboard ship, it was a reflex ingrained by ten years in the Marines.Deshui suppressed the nausea churning in his stomach.
"Lina," he said. "Explain. Clearly."
"Come see for yourselves." Lina's voice was taut.
The comms bay was barely large enough for four people to stand without bumping shoulders.Deshui, Ivan, and Marcus crowded in behind Lina, staring at the main display as data poured down like a waterfall.
"Look here," Lina said, pulling up a comparison chart. "On the left, deep-space background radiation spectra recorded before departure. On the right, data captured at the exact moment the jump completed."
She highlighted a region.
"There's an extra signal source—continuous emission, full-spectrum coverage. The encoding pattern matches the Gray Falcon's distress beacon exactly."
"Signal strength?" Deshui asked.
"Weak, but stable. Like… like a thread. One end stuck to our ship, the other disappearing back at the jump origin."
She zoomed in on the spectrum. The flickering points of light reflected in her pupils.
"What's stranger is the signal's entropy value. Normally, deep-space signals undergo entropy increase due to cosmic expansion and Doppler effects. This one's entropy is decreasing."
Ivan frowned. "Decreasing entropy violates the second law of thermodynamics."
"For fuck's sake, I know!" Lina snapped—rare profanity from her. Her fingers blurred across the virtual keyboard."But it's happening. The signal is self-organizing. Like it's… remembering a fixed form."
Marcus crouched to inspect the server cabinet. "Hardware issue? Jump shock cause something to resonate?"
"I've checked three times. Hardware's fine. This is a genuine external input."
She pulled up another dataset.
"And look at the timestamp. The signal started exactly during the 0.7 seconds when our jump field was at its most unstable. Like the spatial tear in that instant opened a… channel."
Deshui thought of the dark red planet from his vision.
He looked at Ivan. Ivan was already looking at him.
They had seen the same thing.
"You two," Sara's voice came from the doorway. She was holding a medical scanner, brows knitted."Adrenaline and cortisol levels are both elevated. What happened during the jump?"
"We saw something," Deshui said shortly. "Ivan saw it too."
"Visual hallucinations during FTL transition are not uncommon," Sara said, switching to English—the language she used when making clinical judgments."But shared hallucinations are clinically significant. What did you see?"
Deshui and Ivan spoke almost simultaneously.
"A red planet."
"A ship that was pierced."
Sara recorded rapidly, her expression tightening. "Details. Color? Motion? Any sound?"
Ivan closed his eyes."The planet's surface… pulsed. Like a heartbeat. The ship had the outline of the Gray Falcon, but it was penetrated by black, branch-like matter. No sound—but a sense of… pressure."
"Pressure," Sara repeated. "Physical or psychological?"
"Both," Ivan replied. "Like deep water crushing your chest."
She turned to Deshui. "And you?"
"The same," he said. "But the planet… it felt alive. Not biologically alive—more like… conscious."
The comms bay fell silent except for the hum of servers.
"Okay," Sara said at last, closing her tablet."We're calling a meeting. Everyone. Now."
The long table in the lounge felt heavy with tension, like frozen grease.
Lina projected the signal analysis onto the main screen. Twisted waveforms and impossible entropy curves made everyone frown.
"So," Professor Zhao Ming said, adjusting his glasses, lenses reflecting cold data streams,"we're facing three anomalies. First: artificial interference traces in the Gray Falcon's signal. Second: a homologous beacon now attached to our ship post-jump. Third: the shared perceptual anomaly experienced by Deshui and Ivan—possibly linked to the signal."
"Not an illusion," Ivan corrected. "A real perception."
"In the absence of a verifiable external stimulus, we'll call it a perceptual anomaly for now," Sara said calmly."I need to perform full neural scans on both of you to rule out transient jump-induced damage."
"Scan all you want," Ivan said. "But that wasn't something my brain made up. That red planet—I recognize that color."
All eyes turned to him.
"During a border conflict," Ivan continued, voice flat like a mission report,"we cleared a smuggler base. They ran a biological lab underground, cultivating precursors for an illegal neurochemical. The growth mats in the tanks were that same dark red. Pulsing patterns on the surface."
"That wasn't a heartbeat," he said. "It was nutrient flow through a mycelial network—periodic expansion."
Marcus shuddered. "You're saying… the planet's alive? Like a fungal world?"
"I don't know what it is," Ivan said. "I just know the red I saw would spectrally match that biomass."
Lina suddenly began typing furiously.
"Wait. When I processed the noise fractals in the 'Don't trust' signal, I extracted a secondary color dataset—pseudo-spectrum reconstructed from carrier frequency drift. Look."
The screen filled with a mosaic of tiny color blocks—blurred, distorted.But at the center—
"Dark red," Deshui murmured.
"And it fluctuates periodically." Lina zoomed in. "Like breathing. Close to the pulse frequency Ivan described."
The chain of evidence began to close—still full of gaps, but the ends now touched.
Hassan, who had been leaning silently in the shadows, finally spoke.
"So what do we do?"
A simple question.
Deshui looked around the table."Step one: identify the nature of the attached signal. Lina—can you reverse-track where it latched onto us?"
"I can try passive triangulation," she said. "By comparing signal strength across ship orientations. It'll take time, and precision won't be great."
"Do it."
"Step two: risk assessment. Sara—what level of… contamination can the isolation bay handle?"
Sara thought for a moment."Physical isolation works at molecular scale. EM isolation blocks most bands. But if this involves quantum entanglement or spacetime anomalies…"She shook her head. "My equipment is medical-grade."
"Better than nothing."
He turned to Marcus and Ivan."Jump engine status?"
Marcus tapped his pad."Cooling complete. Systems green. But microfractures in the flux coils expanded by 0.3%. A few more high-load jumps and it'll fail."
"So we're stuck?" Qiu asked softly. She'd been drawing complex geometric patterns on the tabletop with her finger.
"Not completely," Ivan said. "Conventional thrust still works—but only three percent of light speed. To fly back to base would take… twelve years."
Silence.
"Then we go forward," Deshui said calmly."How far to the Gray Falcon's last coordinates?"
"Three standard jumps," Lina said, pulling up a star map."But if each jump makes the signal stronger… or adds new ones…"
She didn't finish.
"Do we have a choice?" Professor Zhao sighed."The ship's damaged. We can't go back. Our only hope is finding the Gray Falcon—getting their nav data and engineering logs. Maybe we fix the jump drive. Or at least understand what we're dealing with."
Harsh, but logical.
Deshui nodded."Prepare for another jump. Target: the waypoint before Gray Falcon's last known location. We observe from a distance."
"ETA?" Marcus asked.
"Twelve hours."
He stood."Lina—signal analysis continues. Sara—run checks on me and Ivan. Marcus—reinforce the engine as much as you can. Professor Zhao—recalculate routes, avoid all known mass anomalies. Hassan—inspect the hull; no crack can widen further."
He turned to Qiu.
"You notice details others miss. Monitor all sensor readouts. Any anomaly—temperature variance of a thousandth of a degree, pressure shifts of a few pascals, light flicker—anything that feels wrong. Report immediately."
Qiu nodded. The pattern she'd been drawing resolved into a perfect nested hexagonal grid.
"Dismissed."
In the med bay, Sara connected neural scan electrodes to Deshui and Ivan.
"Relax," she said. "Recall the jump imagery. Don't force it."
Deshui closed his eyes.
The dark red planet resurfaced—clearer now. Vein-like patterns carried faint light, like a colossal circulatory system.The pierced Gray Falcon hung like a nail driven into a heart, black branches spreading from the wound…
"Stop," Sara said sharply.
Deshui opened his eyes. Sara stared at the screen, puzzled.
"Your brainwaves," she said, pulling up a comparison."During recall, your prefrontal cortex and hippocampus activity patterns are 87% synchronized. That's nearly impossible. Even two people watching the same movie don't exceed 30%."
Ivan stared at the data. "Meaning?"
"It means what you perceived wasn't a subjective hallucination," Sara said slowly."It was external information written directly into your brains. The same data, to both of you."
"The signal," Lina said over comms—she'd been listening in."That attached signal might not be just EM radiation. It may carry… cognitively readable information."
Deshui felt cold. "You're saying it's broadcasting those images?"
"Broadcasting is the wrong word," Lina replied."It's more like… it's remembering. And you received its memories."
Ivan tore off the electrodes. "What is it?"
"I don't know," Lina said quietly."But decreasing entropy, self-organization, perceptual data encoding—it reminds me of a theory paper from Information Warfare: On Post-Biological Civilizations and Non-Signal Communication.It proposes that fully digitized civilizations might transmit structured memory or consciousness fragments instead of signals."
"So we got memories from a digital ghost?" Marcus muttered over the sound of tools.
"I'm saying we should stop jumping until we understand this!"
"We can't," Ivan said calmly. "Reactor fuel is finite. Staying put is a slow death."
Voices rose. Chinese and English collided—technical jargon and fear mixing.
"Enough," Deshui said. "We jump in twelve hours. That's an order."
Silence.
Sara checked the scans one last time."I'll monitor both of you every four hours. Any anomalies—headaches, auditory hallucinations, time distortion—report immediately."
They left the med bay together.
In the corridor, the lights still flickered.
"Aren't you scared?" Ivan asked at the junction.
"Yes," Deshui said honestly."But I'm more afraid of freezing in fear, burning fuel until we become another coffin drifting in deep space."
Ivan studied him, then nodded."See you in twelve hours."
He headed toward the bridge, posture straight, steps steady like a parade ground march.
Deshui went the other way—to the storage bay. He needed to see green things, to touch living growth.
Hassan was there, adjusting nutrient ratios on the hydroponics rack. Chili plants were flowering—tiny white blossoms under LED light like miniature stars.
"They're doing well," Deshui said.
Hassan nodded, gently wiping dust from leaves.
"What did you grow back on the agricultural colonies?" Deshui asked.
"Many things," Hassan said softly. "Wheat. Corn. Modified soy. Flowers too—not for sale, but for the bees. Without bees, pollination efficiency drops."
"Why leave?"
Hassan paused."War came. Orbital strikes burned three years of harvest. Soil contaminated. Groundwater full of chemical leaks from unexploded munitions. The crops made people sick. Children were born malformed."
He looked at his hands.
"Farming couldn't save anyone. So I learned bomb disposal. Decontamination. How to find what can still live in ruins."
He gestured to the rack."Here, I can grow clean things. No radiation. Just light, water, nutrients."
He looked at Deshui."Will what we're jumping toward contaminate this?"
"I don't know," Deshui said."But if we don't jump, the reactor dies, the lights go out, the water stops—and these plants die anyway."
Hassan was silent. Then he opened a cold drawer, took out several fresh tomatoes, and handed them over.
"Eat. Vitamin C helps with stress."
They were cool, heavy—full of life.
The next ten hours turned the Old Bones into a bristling hedgehog.
Lina erected three layers of signal firewalls, each using different encryption protocols."If this thing tries to crawl into our systems, it'll have to chew through three kinds of hell."
Marcus reinforced the jump engine coils with high-temperature ceramic composites."Like taping a cracked pipe," he muttered. "It'll hold—until pressure spikes."
Ivan recalibrated all navigation sensors, manually inputting twelve backup routes."If the main system's compromised, we switch to manual. Two-person control—one on thrust vector, one on attitude."
Professor Zhao locked in three safest jump points, avoiding mass anomalies."Even so, local curvature fluctuations remain. Jump accuracy may vary ±5%."
Sara prepared three high-dose sedatives and an emergency neural blocking kit."Hope we won't need these."
Qiu organized meds by color spectrum—from ultraviolet to infrared."Light is ordered," she said. "But that signal… its colors are fractured. I can see cracks in the spectrum."
"Cracks?"
"In the information flow." She pointed at waveforms."Normal signals vary smoothly. This one has density shear points—torn, then roughly stitched."
Sara logged the coordinates. Weak points—or wounds.
Deshui toured the ship, checking valves, lines, emergency lighting.
In engineering, he found an old engraving on a bulkhead:
[I was here. If someone finds this later, remember: don't trust everything you hear. — K]
Oxidized. Years old.
He sent it to Lina.
She replied minutes later:"K = Kayla Walter. Contract engineer, four years ago. Logged unexplained quantum nav drift. Recommended full overhaul. Request denied due to budget. Didn't renew."
Another warning.
The countdown continued.
One hour before jump, everyone regrouped. Lina brewed real espresso—actual beans scavenged from storage. Bitter. Awakening.
"Signal localization results are in," she said."Source direction points back to our first jump origin. Distance indeterminate. Signal strength doesn't follow inverse-square law—nearly uniform everywhere."
"Like a hologram," Professor Zhao said.
"Or omnipresent," Ivan added. "Like background radiation."
Deshui finished his coffee."Final checks."
"Sara?"
"Medical systems ready."
"Marcus?"
"Engine status: barely acceptable. Two high-load jumps max. Third has 40% chance of catastrophic failure."
"Ivan?"
"Navigation calibrated. Manual protocols loaded."
"Lina?"
"Firewalls green. External signal strength rising. It knows we're about to jump."
"Professor Zhao?"
"Route confirmed. Error ellipse acceptable."
"Hassan?"
"Structural stress monitored. Any crack over 0.1 mm triggers alarm."
"Qiu?"
She looked up, eyes bright."I see them."
"See what?"
"Shadows. In the flicker gaps. Not ours."
Silence slammed down.
"Locations?" Deshui asked.
"Corridor D, near storage. Engineering deck B, reactor conduits.""They're faint. Blink and gone. But they're there."
Ivan stood. "I'll check."
"I'm coming," Deshui said.
They swept Corridor D with scanners and high-beams.
In one flicker, Deshui saw it—a thin, twisted shadow, like a tentacle's projection.
Light returned. Nothing.
Scanners showed nothing. No heat. No EM anomaly.
"Optical illusion?" Ivan whispered.
"Maybe," Deshui said. "Or information projecting itself into reality."
They found nothing—except the feeling of being watched.
Back in the lounge: ten minutes to jump.
"No实体," Deshui reported. "But Qiu's observation is valid. It's infiltrating in ways we can't detect."
Sara scanned Qiu."Neural activity normal. Visual cortex hyperactivation present. You saw something."
"They're not hostile," Qiu said, hugging her knees."Just… curious."
That was worse.
Final five minutes.
Everyone strapped in.
Deshui sat in the captain's chair. The red planet image rotated slowly on the main screen.
Are we closer this time? What will you show us?
Countdown began.
"Jump engine preheated," Ivan reported."Field generators ready."
"Reactor at 105%," Marcus said. "Coils at critical, but holding."
"Firewalls green," Lina said. "External signal rising. It knows."
"Neural fluctuations detected," Sara said. "Deshui, Ivan—stay focused."
Ten… nine…
"No gravity spikes," Zhao said.
Seven… six…
"Structural stress stable," Hassan reported.
Four… three…
"They're gathering," Qiu said softly. "Like seeing us off."
Two… one.
Jump.
Stars stretched. The low-frequency roar tore through the hull.
Deshui forced his eyes open, staring at the field geometry.
Distortion exploded. Red warnings flooded the display.
"Field deviation exceeds threshold by 50%!" Marcus shouted.
Ivan fought the controls, sweat on his brow."It's resisting—the space itself is resisting the jump!"
The images detonated in Deshui's mind—
The red planet, closer.Veins filled not with light—but data. Symbols streaming in pulses.
The Gray Falcon, magnified.Black branches writhing, digesting—or merging.
Then a new image:
A figure in a Gray Falcon uniform, standing on the planet's surface.They turned—
Jump complete.
The ship slammed back into normal space.
"Arrived near target," Ivan gasped. "Error eight percent. Field collapsed fifteen, but hull intact."
Marcus cursed loudly, then reported:"Coil fractures expanded by 1.2%. One more jump and it will fail."
No one listened.
On the main screen, long-range optics showed a dark red planet suspended among shattered rings.
Exactly as seen.
In low orbit, a ship wreck—pierced, wrapped in black branches—slowly rotated.
The hull number, faded but legible:
GS-77
The Gray Falcon.
Lina whispered over comms:
"It's been waiting for us."