1.5 AU — 19 Hours to Insertion
Umbra-Nine—once a nameless Jovian moonlet—registered on instruments as nothing at all.Contrapunctus's telescopes saw star-fields ripple, then seal shut, like velvet drapes tugged across a window.At the centre of that absence: a disk of absolute night, 14 kilometres wide, orbiting Jupiter retrograde.
"Looks friendly," Cassie said, clicking her tongue against her visor mic.
Maya zoomed heat-cams; readouts flat-lined. "Even IR bounces off. We're staring at a hole in math."
Lin raised a tea pouch in salute. "Well then—cheers to reckless curiosity."
Aiden flashed a grin. "And to bad decisions made together."
1 Last-Minute Gifts
Hull: Nephis finished lacing new cloak ribs between clear-thread tiles—extra slack for sudden maneuvers."Shadow breathes, doesn't break," he told Maya.
Lantern: Cassie re-inlaid fractured glass with charcoal dust from Chip. Light now fractured into pinwheels of peach-and-grey. "Beautifully chipped," she declared.
Dawn-Core: Solayna coaxed the crystal into pulsing twin primes—forty-three and forty-seven—locked out of phase. "The beat will help you find the moon's heartbeat," she said.
Glitch and Chip practised call-and-response taps on the bulkhead: 5-11-7-13-19-… their imperfect duet filling the corridor like baby woodpeckers. Even Maya admitted it was "almost adorable."
2 Needle Recon
Plan: Lin and Aiden in a two-seat cloak "Needle" to probe Umbra-Nine's event horizon, tethered to Contrapunctus by a 40-km noise-infused filament.Cassie protested she should go—Aiden countered she had to keep the lantern hot for the breach.Maya threatened to program the autopilot to play Lin's tea lectures on loop if they bickered longer. That settled it.
Before launch, Cassie flicked Aiden's helmet. "Bring back data or don't bother docking."Aiden winked. "Data, souvenirs, and maybe a moon-shadow snow globe."
Lin rolled his eyes. "Just fly, coffee barbarian."
3 Crossing the Black Sheet
Needle drifted nose-first into darkness. Behind them the tether crackled with off-key static to keep the Null-echo worms dizzy.At 300 metres the star-field vanished; at 30 metres their suit HUDs dimmed, switched to inertial only.
Lin whispered, "Feel that? Pressure without mass."Aiden swallowed. "Like driving into a yawn."
Ten metres: Dawn-Core's dual prime beat vanished from Aiden's chest—silenced.Lin's Spiral Stone fluttered dim, but stayed lit.
"Core's muted," Aiden warned."Stone half-alive," Lin confirmed. "Null weave stronger than shell."
Aiden sucked a breath. "Time for brother-plan B."
He unhooked a tin whistle—gift from Cassie for "emergency ugliness." He puffed the worst two-note squawk he could muster. Sound shouldn't travel in vacuum; yet the blackness around them rippled like oil.
Lin grinned. "Effective. My ears hate you."
HUD flashed: Breath-Echo Detected—a micro-cavern 200 metres ahead, invisible pocket where systems blinked one green pixel.
They eased forward. Inside the cavity stars reappeared—wild constellations not from Jupiter's sky but some elsewhere lattice. At centre hovered a monolith: pyramid of mirror-silver segments, flawless.
Scanner spat coordinates, then died. Aiden snapped three image captures. Lin traced a broken Qi glyph in mid-air, letting data imprint on the stone.
Outside, the void roared—silent but violent. Black sheet convulsed, trying to spit them out.
"Got what we came for," Aiden barked. "Reel us!"
4 Tether Tango
Contrapunctus winched, sails reverse-trimmed. Needle shot backwards, black membrane slapping hull like tar. Alarms lit Amber-No-Signal, but Maya's noise pulses held. They popped free into honest starlight; Dawn-Core beat resumed, painfully loud.
On deck Cassie yanked them through the hatch. "Report?"
Aiden shoved the camera chip at Maya. "Big shiny pyramid, wrong stars inside."
Lin handed Solayna the Spiral Stone, glyph glowing. "Coordinates to the root. Null-Weave heart lives in there."
Solayna's gaze darkened. "That heart unravels dreams, not just here—everywhere."
5 Setting the Stage
Conference at the holo table:• Objective: Breach pyramid, inject triple-prime discord straight from Dawn-Core, Lantern, and Cloak, free whatever contrast seed it's crushing.• Problem: Extended exposure mutes Dawn-Core in seconds, fries suit comms, erases memory.• Solution: Cassie suggests using the children. Glitch and Chip can survive the field longer; their imperfect rhythms feed Dawn-Core inside.
Aiden balked. "We don't send kids into a nightmare."
Glitch chimed defiant 7-13-31, drifting into Dawn-Core's glow. Chip followed with a wobbly 5-19. Even Solayna looked surprised.
Lin patted Aiden's shoulder. "They volunteer. We just guide."
Nephis draped a small patch of cloak over each shard like capes. "Armor of noise."
Maya added whisper-beacons—tiny relay bugs—to keep comm threads alive for thirty seconds inside. "Enough to say hi, drop the bomb, say bye."
Cassie squeezed Aiden's hand. "We go as family. Parents, siblings, weird uncles.""Tea-flavoured uncles," Lin corrected.
Aiden exhaled, meeting each teammate's eyes. Fear flickered, but the teasing undercurrent held firm—thread stronger for its knots.
He nodded. "Family dive it is. At the next prime lull we crack the perfect heart."
Contrapunctus rolled, positioning for final approach. Lantern shards twinkled, Cloak seams bristled, Dawn-Core hammered forty-three-forty-seven in restless anticipation.
Outside, Umbra-Nine's eclipse waited—quiet, flawless, ready to be ruined.