Skif, orbiting Mercury.
Dim light spills across Jamal's quarters, casting murky shadows that twitch with every flicker from the control panel.
He sits motionless, like a ghost of himself, eyes fixed on the screen—
a snowfall of fractured black box footage from the Aspida station.
Moments, fragments, static.
"How many times have I watched this? Ten? Thirty?
What am I missing?"
Each frame carries a weight. A hint.
Something flits past—something he can't quite pin down, as if an unseen hand is smudging the answer just before his eyes can grasp it.
He rewinds again.
The explosion in the capacitor bay. Everything follows protocol.
And then—
a flash.
Collapse.
A betrayal of physics itself.
The screen jerks.
Distortion. Glitches.
Sound.
On the audio track: a high-pitched, unnatural whine.
Not interference.
A signal.
A whisper through the void.
He straightens, muscles taut like a bow drawn to its limit.
This isn't system feedback. This is something else.
Someone—or something—was already there.
He scrubs through the data, finds the moment, freezes it.
His fingers hover.
Chest tight.
Something inside him coils with the sense of an imminent truth.
Not an anomaly.
A presence.
"Found what you were looking for?"
Yulia's voice slices through the silence like a shard of ice.
Jamal flinches.
He hadn't heard her enter—
but he feels her.
Like prey senses the predator.
He spins, instinctively covering the console with his hand.
The mask of calm falters—but only for a heartbeat. He forces it back on.
"No," he replies flatly.
Even he hears the fracture in his voice.
Yulia moves without sound, like smoke slipping through air.
Her stride is graceful, feline.
Her gaze—sharp, cutting. She sees through him.
"What's wrong?"
Her tone is soft, almost sweet—
but laced with steel.
"The fearless general... suddenly trembling?"
"Not now, Yulia. Not now. I need to think. To understand."
He turns away, hiding the tremble.
Not from her—
but from the thing he saw.
Or worse, the thing he almost saw.
"Didn't notice you come in," he mutters, voice distant.
But Yulia hears more than his words.
She hears what he won't admit.
She steps closer.
Her presence—like the tide.
Slow. Relentless.
Now she's close enough for him to feel her breath warming his cheek.
"Tired?"
Her voice—
a velvet whisper across raw nerves.
There's playfulness in it.
But power, too.
Her fingers touch his shoulder, light as a string drawn across an instrument.
He exhales, long and shaky.
Inside, he's stretched tight.
A spring wound with fear, half-formed theories, gnawing paranoia.
But for one brief second—
something lets go.
"Just one second...
to forget.
Just one moment..."
"You're right," he admits softly.
"It's... all starting to feel bigger than I expected."
Yulia smiles—gentle, but with command beneath the tenderness.
She wraps her arms around him.
Her fingers trail down his spine, lower.
He doesn't move.
Only closes his eyes.
"I'll help you unwind," she whispers.
Her lips brush his neck—careful, searing.
His breath shudders out of him.
His hands find her waist, gripping her gently, as if afraid she'll vanish.
Seconds stretch into forever.
The images in his mind begin to fade—
the explosion, the signal, the station...
All of it slips away.
There is only her.
Only her breath.
Her touch.
Her.
He kisses her.
And in that kiss—
maybe salvation from reality.
Or maybe
its end.