"Commander! It's too dangerous! There's a vacuum outside the airlock, and the target's energy field…" Leah tried to dissuade him.
"There's no other choice!" Kane interrupted her, his gaze resolute. "Only from the outside can we ensure the resonant waves are unaffected by the ship's hull and act directly on the target. This is the only chance."
He paused, looking at Leah: "If I fail… you know what to do." He was referring to activating the ship's self-destruct sequence at the last moment, preventing the Nightingale and its technology from falling into that thing's hands.
A complex emotion flickered across Leah's synthetic face, finally settling into a resolute expression: "Understood. I will monitor everything."
Kane said no more, carrying the prototype, he rushed out of the bridge and ran towards the third airlock on the port side.
The passageway was even darker than before, and some emergency lights had gone out due to energy shortages. Relying on his memory and the helmet's illumination, Kane traversed the ruined passageway. His footsteps echoed on the metal floor, sounding particularly lonely.
A few minutes later, he arrived outside airlock number three. The hatch was tightly shut, and the indicator lights were off. He tried to manually open the internal valve; fortunately, although somewhat sluggish, it could still be turned.
The heavy inner airlock slowly slid open, revealing a small transition compartment behind it. Kane went inside, closed the inner door, and then began operating the emergency opening mechanism for the outer hatch.
After a hissing sound of the hydraulic system struggling to operate, the outer hatch slowly opened outwards. A rush of icy vacuum instantly filled the air; despite wearing his protective suit, Kane could still feel the biting cold and absolute emptiness.
He carried the prototype and stepped out of the spaceship. Anchoring cables automatically deployed, securing him to the hull beside the hatch.
Before him lay the vast, boundless, dark universe, the stars like cold diamonds embedded in the eternal celestial canvas. In the distance, the red dwarf G-173 emitted a faint glow; the afterglow of the CME was almost invisible. In his field of vision directly ahead, a tiny point of light emitting an ominous grayish-white glow was clearly visible, and it was slowly growing larger at a visible rate over time.
It was coming. Like a dying comet, carrying a chilling will.
Kane secured the prototype to a relatively flat area beside the hatch, quickly connecting the power and data feedback lines. He knelt on the hull, like an ancient knight, watching over the approaching dragon.
Leah's voice came through the communicator, calm yet tense: "Distance 900 kilometers. Relative speed increased to 55 meters per second. Energy signature intensity continues to rise. Target form... still unanalyzable, but the energy field outline is stabilizing."
Kane didn't reply, but simply adjusted the prototype's aiming direction, focusing its focal module on the ever-approaching point of light. His finger gently rested on the rudimentary launch button he had soldered himself.
Seven hours of waiting were compressed into this tense standoff, each second ticking by.
He could sense a cold, chaotic, yet curious and greedy fluctuation of consciousness sweeping across the hull of the Nightingale like tentacles.
The final showdown was about to unfold in this cold void, beside this wrecked, lonely ship.