Chapter Three: The Silent Storm
The stars outside the Zephyr-X streaked like tears across a black canvas, silent and eternal. But inside the ship, the air was far from calm.
The laughter and cheering from the takeoff had died down. Reality was setting in.
They weren't just flying through space.
They were flying into a war.
In the engine chamber, Coain sat cross-legged, sweat soaked and silent. His fingers trembled slightly as he tightened the last bolt on a coolant valve. The work was done for now but the ache in his bones told him the ship still had secrets.
The lights flickered once.
Twice.
He looked up slowly. Something was off.
"Power fluctuations?" an engineer asked, walking by with a datapad.
Coain didn't answer. He was listening.
The hum. The rhythm of the ship. It had changed again like a breath caught in a throat.
In the command deck, Captain Rhade paced back and forth, his arms crossed tightly. A dark-blue hologram of the galaxy floated above the table in front of him, with a single red signal pulsing near the outer rim.
Taiquim.
Their destination.
A communications officer looked up. "Sir, no response from Deep Space Array Alpha. It's… it's been destroyed."
Everyone in the room froze.
"What do you mean destroyed?" Rhade asked quietly.
"Ripped clean off its orbit. No survivors logged. Just static."
The room turned cold.
That station had over a thousand people. Scientists, explorers, families. And now nothing.
Rhade stared at the red pulse on the hologram again.
"He's already started."
Back in the hallway outside the engine room, Coain stood at a narrow window, wiping grease from his hands. His reflection in the glass stared back at him eyes hollow behind smudged glasses.
He'd dreamed of this moment.
To fly among the stars. To prove himself.
But not like this.
He whispered to himself, "We're not ready."
Clang.
The ship jolted. Lights blinked. Someone screamed.
"Shields just pulsed!" a voice shouted over the comms. "We hit something!"
The Zephyr-X groaned like a beast in pain. Coain sprinted toward the command deck, dodging crew and sparks as panels erupted from the walls.
He burst through the door.
"We're under attack?" the captain barked.
The pilot spun in his seat. "No enemy detected! It's not a weapon it's… it's a field. Some kind of gravitational interference."
Coain's eyes widened. "A Silent Storm."
Everyone looked at him.
"I read about it," Coain said, breathless. "Taiquim leaves traps in deep space. Dead zones filled with broken gravity and invisible distortions. They don't destroy ships immediately. They… bend them."
The ship began to tilt.
"We have to stabilize the core," he said quickly. "If the energy field bends it while in motion it could collapse the entire engine from inside."
Captain Rhade gave him a long, measured look.
Then nodded.
"Get to work."
The ship spiraled slightly. Alarms flared. But inside the walls of the Zephyr-X, Coain was moving again.
Back in the crawlspaces. Back among the wires, coils, and screaming circuits.
Outside, the stars twisted into strange shapes.
Inside, the heartbeat of the ship grew louder.
Coain whispered, "Not today. You're not dying today."
With every twist of the wrench, every spark that burned his fingers, he pushed back against the silent storm. The ship shook like it was alive thrashing, resisting but he held on, bracing himself as the walls vibrated with another deep groan.
He stumbled out of the crawlspace, covered in sweat and streaks of engine grease. His chest rose and fell with ragged breaths.
Then the alarm blared again louder this time.
A red light painted the halls like blood. The digital warning blinked across the central monitor:
DANGER RATE: 45% SYSTEMS UNSTABLE
Coain's stomach dropped. That number had never climbed so fast, not even during the high pressure simulations.
He sprinted back into the engine room where the other engineers were already scrambling over tangled cables and leaking fluid.
"This isn't normal!" Coain shouted. "We're still inside the gravitational trap. We need to stabilize the core stream and reinforce every outer shaft or we'll lose pressure!"
They listened. This time, they didn't argue. They saw it in his eyes the fire, the clarity, the knowing. And they followed.
The ship moaned again, the metallic cry echoing like the howl of a dying titan.
On the bridge, Captain Rhade's voice cut through the panic.
"Keep focus! You're trained for worse than this! Everyone not on mission-critical duty, buckle up! Engineers brace for secondary impact!"
The pilot's fingers flew across the controls, eyes wide.
"Captain we're heading straight into a rock cluster. Massive fragments. No way around them!"
"Estimate damage?" Rhade asked, calm but sharp.
"One hit could shear our ventral wing. More than that… we lose maneuver control."
Rhade didn't blink. "Call the engineers. I want hands on that wing before it tears. Move!"
A call rang through the speakers, echoing through the ship like thunder.
Coain heard it mid repair.
"You again," he muttered, grabbing his tools. His arms trembled from exhaustion. His vision blurred.
But he moved anyway.
He wasn't just an engineer anymore.
He was the backbone of this ship.
He arrived just before the impact.
The entire ship jolted violently as a sharp crack ran through the hallways like lightning through metal. Sparks flew. A panel burst open, spraying cold gas. The red lights turned orange. The alarm changed pitch something had shifted.
The numbers blinked.
DANGER RATE: 35%
They were slipping but not free yet.
"Coain!" a young engineer cried out. "The wing stabilizer's cracked! If the fracture spreads"
"Then we all die," Coain finished. He didn't raise his voice. He didn't panic.
He dropped to one knee, opened a panel, and worked like a man possessed. His hands moved faster than thought rewiring a bypass circuit, sealing the coolant leak with temporary foam, then guiding the repair crew to bolt metal braces into the fracture's edge.
Twenty minutes. That's all it took.
But it felt like a lifetime.
The lights shifted again.
DANGER RATE: 50% STABILIZED
The storm didn't vanish but it backed off. The ship straightened, its groaning subsiding into silence. A low hum returned to the core. The vibrations softened.
They weren't safe.
But they weren't dying anymore.
Coain sank against the wall, his fingers still shaking. His heart pounded like war drums in his ears.
A soft ding came from the side.
The food printer.
He didn't even remember activating it, but there it was a sealed ration tray, hot and ready. Nothing fancy. Just noodles and protein cubes. But it smelled like a miracle.
He took the tray, sat beside a flickering light, and finally finally took a bite.
The noodles were terrible.
But it was the best thing he'd ever eaten.
Around him, engineers continued patching up the ship. Soldiers stayed strapped in, silent and grim. The stars outside twisted back into their normal positions as they escaped the last curve of the Silent Storm.
But for the first time since launch…
…there was hope.