“1H10 NATV,” whispered Kaelen, tapping the flickering screen. “That’s the nav point. A Class-3 singularity core, heavy as a moon, drifting through the Perpetual Wake. And we’re supposed to catch it.”
Rina took the controls. The UMS512 shuddered as she nudged it into the gravity well’s outer slope. “Kael, give me a trajectory. A whisper-thin one.”
Then they saw it.
“Then we become part of 1H10’s accretion disk,” Rina said flatly. “Suit up.” ums512 1h10 natv
Captain Rina Voss, a woman with a scar that pulled her left eye into a permanent squint, didn’t look up from the fusion torch’s pressure gauge. “Details, Kael. Not poetry.”
“Conduits hot,” Lina added, sweat beading on her forehead.
“Magnetic grapples armed,” Big Jo rumbled, his voice trembling. And we’re supposed to catch it
The time dilation stopped.
“It’s feeding on our actions!” Kaelen realized. “Every decision we make, it mirrors!”
The UMS512 was a salvage scow, not a hunter-killer. Its hull was a patchwork of stolen alloys, its engines wheezed like an asthmatic cyborg, and its crew—five debt-ridden souls—had exactly one thing going for them: desperation. A whisper-thin one
And they did. Silent. Cold. Invisible to the living horror of 1H10 NATV. For six hours, they floated, until the singularity’s gravity well sighed and shifted, searching for a more interesting meal elsewhere.
When the UMS512 rebooted, the core was gone. But the relay station—now unanchored—sent its distress call.
A wave of distorted space washed over the ship. Alarms screamed. The lights dimmed. And Kaelen’s goggles showed the truth: 1H10 NATV wasn’t a natural object. It was a trap —an ancient, dormant weapon that had just detected mass.
