Public The Pulse That Ate the Stars

[Liin Terallo]

The holo-news feed stuttered again with voices overlapping, images fragmenting into ghosts of themselves before reassembling. It was strange. I did not realize that I had stopped breathing until I caught myself mid-breath. My fingers clenched tight around a mug of Lord Rellik's tea that I had not touched in an hour.

"…massive data packet duplication reported across the Commenor relays. Slicers are calling it a 'phantom loop' - every encrypted message from the past twelve hours is being resent randomly across multiple channels, and no one's sure how or why…"

I leaned forward ever so slightly. The light from the holo-projector cast a flicker across the metallic casing on the isotope shelf nearby. There sat the serum. The strand that I had created. My strand.

Another report buzzed in.

"…freighter droids in the Anaxes shipyards all attempted to take the same trajectory - into the nearest gravity well. Engineers suspect a corrupted navigation algorithm, but no shared software link has been found…"

I felt it again. A tug; subtle, but undeniable. It was almost like a loose thread catching in my ribs and pulling outward. Somewhere far from Bastion within one of my decoy laboratories, one of the biomass samples must have reacted.

They were gone however. I had abandoned them. I had abandoned the laboratories and had buried the files.

But we shared the same sequence now.

I pressed my palm flat against my chest, just beneath my collarbone. It did not ache exactly, but the air felt heavier - thick with static, like a storm preparing to roll in. This is how it feels when I am about to use one of the sybthetic Force abilities.

"…reports from Tython indicate a complete disruption of Force meditation networks. Sages are describing 'missing time,' fragmented visions, and one seer claims he was trapped inside someone else's body for an entire hour. No confirmation yet - "

A high-pitched whine pierced the audio, cutting the feed for several seconds. It returned with a new report already in progress.

"…and in a far more terrestrial development, numerous secure systems across the Mid Rim have started rejecting verified clearance codes. Whole security protocols are acting like their own encryption keys no longer exist. No signs of slicer infiltration. Not yet…"

When I rose to my feet I had stood up too fast. The room tilted slightly, like gravity had misfired somehow.

It was not me. It could not be because of me.

I turned off the projector, but the screen kept glowing faintly for a second too long.

Then came the chime. Someone was outside of my residence on Bastion. It was not the security team for I had not called them. At least not yet.

I stayed still for a moment with my heart ticking faster than it should have. I could tell myself a thousand times this was not all connected. That the anomalies were isolated, unrelated and pure chance.

But the synthetic strand in my blood knew better. And maybe… it was not the only one out there.

Tags: Diarch Rellik Wrathian Kell Delsin Shaw Ezorea Zethussaln OPEN