5.2 AU — Approaching Jupiter's Night Side
Contrapunctus sliced through the frost-black reaches beyond the giant's terminator. Jupiter glowed below like a bruised lantern; its aurora crowned the pole in electric teal, dancing to an inaudible bass.
"Telemetry ping," Maya announced from the ops cradle. "Grav-anomaly exactly where the Quiet-Weave glyph said. Mass equals a five-kilometre rock but radar can't see it." She swivelled, visor ghost-lit. "Whatever it is—it's wearing a cloak."
Nephis lifted his real cloak in a half salute. "A kindred shadow, perhaps."
Cassie peered through the bow blister, lantern dim. "No sunlight out here. Perfect place for perfection to hide."
Aiden gripped the rail. The dual Dawn-Core ticked primes up his arm—5-11-7-13-19-23-29-31—then paused, as if the crystal sensed a missing beat. Lin floated beside him, Spiral Stone faint jade.
"Feels like the moment before a string snaps," Lin murmured.
Aiden answered with a crooked smile. "Then we pluck a different string."
1 The Cloaked Moonlet
Contrapunctus eased toward empty space, sails furled. At three hundred kilometres a smear of stars vanished—just gone, as though someone had punched a hole in the cosmos. Infrared showed nothing, LIDAR bounced back noise. Only Minuet's clear-thread antenna felt the outline: a sphere of silence.
Solayna drifted forward, constellation face tight. "A Null-Weave shell," she whispered. "Born of perfection, devours all discord."
"Council?" Cassie asked.
"An older script," Solayna said. "Ancestor of their creed."
Lin's brow furrowed. "Primeless symmetry."
On the main screen glyphs unfolded from Minuet: a single, smooth circle—no breaks, no Möbius twist. The Quiet-Weave's warning rune for Oblivion.
2 Echo from Within
Suddenly the comm channel erupted in a flawless, silver note—no harmonics, no breath. Every gauge flat-lined; Dawn-Core dimmed; even Cassie's lantern went dark. The ship drifted, powerless.
In the hush, a child's voice—perfect, hollow—spoke across every headset:
"Return to rest. Contrast is error. We will smooth you."
Glitch and the newer shard froze mid-air, bodies draining of colour. Solayna shuddered, her constellation flickering.
Aiden's heartbeat thundered in his ears. He remembered Titan's lullaby, Venus's lightning torus—amplified a thousandfold. This was the source.
"Lin," he hissed. "Give me noise."
But Lin lay motionless, eyes unfocused—mind snagged by the perfect pitch.
3 Aiden's Improvisation
Panic nipped Aiden's throat, then memory kicked in: Lin heckling him at open-mic, Titan tea jokes, the endless tug-of-war of brotherhood. Imperfect, messy, alive.
He slammed his boot into a bulkhead panel—clang!—and belted the worst kettle whistle he could muster, purposely flat. Sparks flew where metal dented. The note fractured; Dawn-Core fluttered; Cassie's lantern flicked peach.
Maya, half stunned, caught the cue. She flung a spanner against the deck—bang! Nephis tore cloak threads, rattling them like tin bells.
Sound returned. Lin blinked, shook his head, then barked a laugh. "That was hideous, barbarian."
"Works every time," Aiden gasped.
Power bars climbed; Dawn-Core reignited, now pulsing with a new prime—thirty-seven—hammering against the null shell.
4 The Mission Crystallises
Solayna steadied, voice a glass chord now edged with fear. "The Null-Weave sphere is bleeding perfect silence. If it swallows the Imperfect Cadence, the Loom will flatten—every dream, every mind forced to symmetry."
Maya pulled up the energy budget. "To crack that shell we'd need a sustained discord pulse from inside. But the entrance is invisible and radar-proof."
Nephis offered a coil of shadow-cloak. "Shadows sneak where light cannot."
Aiden's gaze swept the team. Titan's refugees hovered behind Solayna, waiting. Jupiter's aurora flickered—like a warning flare.
"Then we punch through, plant the loudest flaw we've got," he said. "Fifteen chapters' worth of chaos starts now."
Lin grinned. "And ends with tea."
Cassie raised the lantern, now sparkling with broken peach shards. "And cocoa."
Maya cracked her knuckles. "Prepare the Noisy-Boy torpedo."
Solayna placed her hand on Dawn-Core. "We weave in contrast—or fade into silence forever."
Contrapunctus rolled, sails snapping open misaligned on purpose, gathering solar wind into a ragged chorus of flap and creak. Ahead, the dark sphere waited—patient, hungry for perfection.
The Guardians dove toward the hole in the stars, laughing off-key into their mics, primes ticking, ready to shatter paradise one glorious flaw at a time.