Drift Phase — 30 Minutes After Shell Collapse
Contrapunctus hovered in the starlit quiet beyond Jupiter, sails slack while radiators bled the last of the Sun-heat.Inside, the crew floated in the mess bubble for a compulsory "decompress-or-explode" break. Lin had declared it doctrine after Titan, and nobody argued; even heroes need sugar.
Cassie's cocoa bulb hissed when she cracked the seal. "Caution," she warned, waving the pouch under Aiden's nose, "molten sweetness on approach."
"You owe me three ounces," Aiden shot back, snatching a sip and sputtering. "That's lava."
"Builds character," she teased, reclaiming the pouch.
Lin drifted over, flourishing a steaming sachet. "Meanwhile the civilised sip hojicha."Aiden groaned. "If by civilised you mean taste buds vacuum-burned…"
Maya, upside-down at the ceiling vent, laughed. "Pour it already, Tea-Buddha. We need hot liquid to dissolve the Sun dust out of our throats."Nephis added, deadpan, "And some for cloak rinse." He wrung a shredded panel; glittering ice crystals drifted free.
Newcomers in the Choir
Glitch and the freshly rescued Chip bobbed between them, tethered by a strip of shadow-cloth so they wouldn't drift into the recirculation fans.Glitch thumped out 5-11-7-13-19-23-29-31-37 on the bulkhead.Chip answered only the odd primes—5-7-19-31—its surface still too smooth, still seeking imperfection.
Solayna watched, brow knotted. "Chip's lattice clings to symmetry fragments. Must learn hint of randomness before we reach the dark moon, or Null-echo may reinfect."
"Easy," Aiden said. He flicked a blob of cocoa straight at Chip. The droplet splattered, leaving a lopsided stain. Chip shivered, drew the stain inward, and a tiny charcoal swirl appeared below the crystal skin—first flaw.Cassie clapped. "See? Cocoa fixes everything."
Lin sipped tea, eyes twinkling. "Proof my socks were never needed."
Ghost Byte #1
Maya's wrist-pad chimed a fault. Lines of code scrolled: a perfect palindrome subroutine rewriting status logs into mirror text—annoying but harmless.
She frowned. "Shell left souvenirs. Little null-worms crawling system memory."
Nephis pivoted beside her. "Cut them?"
"Too many," she said. "Better to feed them noise—replace logs with nonsense until they starve."Aiden grinned. "My joke database stands ready."Lin groaned. "No. Use kettle-whistle recordings; slightly less lethal.""Deal," Maya said, already piping corrupted audio into kernel buffers. The worms flickered, confused. Logs now displayed lines like:TEA IS NOT COFFEE BUT COFFEE TRIES / 123454321 / IMPERFECTION SAVES.
Chip laughed—an actual chime—from the tether. Glitch copied, their two imperfect tones blending into a small, stubborn melody that shoved the ghost bytes out of RAM. Logs cleared.
Cassie raised her pouch in toast. "To noisy tech support."Maya bumped hers. "And to not rewriting the ship mid-crisis."
Next Vector
Solayna projected the sky. One sector star-blanked—the hidden moonlet Umbra-Nine. The Quiet-Weave rune for heart suture pulsed atop it.
"We repaired surface wounds," she said, "but Umbra-Nine is where the Null-Weave anchors its root. We dismantle that, or Prime Cadence unravels."
Aiden spun Dawn-Core so the group could hear the new prime—forty-three—thud in its facets. "Then we tune up before the encore. How long to orbital insertion?"
Lin ran quick numbers. "Two standard days at sail thrust."Maya added, "Plenty of time to patch hull, debug ghost bytes, and brew catastrophic amounts of tea."
Nephis's cloak fluttered, scattering stray cocoa flecks. "Also time to practise cloak-needle manoeuvres—Umbra-Nine may be cloaked deeper than the shell."
Cassie elbowed Aiden. "And maybe time to fix somebody's guitar strings you snapped on Venus."
Aiden feigned innocence. "Artistic sacrifice."
Lin snorted. "Your art is criminal."
Brother Check-in
Later, while the others dispersed, Lin cornered Aiden near the avionics rack.
"Listen," he said softly. "Back in the shell—when you broke the silence with that awful whistle—you saved my mind from freezing."Aiden shrugged. "Best use of my talent.""No," Lin insisted. "Best use of brotherhood. You ever freeze, I'll clatter every tea cup in Jupiter orbit."Aiden smiled, ruffled Lin's hair. "Deal. Just not the socks again.""Even the socks," Lin said, mock-solemn.
Course Set
Contrapunctus rotated, sails unfurling once more—stitched patches obvious, ugly, perfect.Chip wavered in mid-air, charcoal veins spreading like playful cracks; Glitch applauded with lopsided taps. Dawn-Core glowed in counter-tempo; ghost bytes sulked in sandbox; kettle-whistle firewall blared at random.
And on the edge of sensors, Umbra-Nine—still cloaked, still silent—pulled them onward.