My chest tightens once, sharp enough that I feel it in my ribs, and I push it down immediately, forcing everything back into alignment.
Emotion later. Now I move.
“Plot intercept course,” I order.
“Warning,” the system responds instantly. “Required acceleration exceeds safe operational thresholds.”
“I didn’t ask for safe,” I say.
“Structural strain projected at?—”
“Do it.”
The engines respond hard, not gradually, not smoothly, and the ship shudders around me, the frame vibrating under the sudden increase in thrust, a deep, grinding resonance that travels through the seat and into my spine. The stars outside the viewport stretch into streaks as velocity spikes past what this vessel was designed to handle.
“Velocity increasing,” the system reports, though I can feel it without being told.
The pressure builds immediately, pressing me back into the seat, heavier with each increment, and the restraints tighten automatically as the ship compensates for the strain.
“Adjust stabilizers,” I snap.
“Stabilizers at maximum compensation,” the system replies.
Not enough.
I grip the controls tighter, manually overriding the dampening curve, forcing a sharper response, and the ship jerks slightly as it fights me before aligning.
“Come on,” I mutter. “Hold together.”
The hull groans under the stress, a low, protesting sound that vibrates through the entire structure, and I can smell it now—heated metal, circuitry pushed past optimal load, the faint burn of something not meant to run this hot.
“She’s ahead of you,” the system says.
“I know.”
“Projected intercept window narrowing.”
“I know.”
“Current trajectory risks?—”
“I know.”
I cut it off, my focus narrowing further as I track the signal, watching the distance compress in slow, incremental shifts that still feel too slow, too far, too much time between me and her.
I push harder.
The engines respond with a sharper surge, the vibration intensifying, the ship trembling like it’s on the edge of tearing itself apart, and for a moment the controls resist, feedback spiking through the interface as the system tries to reassert limits.
I override it manually, forcefully, and the response is immediate and unstable.
The ship lurches sideways, inertia dragging against the sudden change in vector, alarms flaring across the console as systems struggle to compensate.
“Loss of control detected,” the system warns.
“I’m still in control,” I growl, adjusting manually, fighting the drift, forcing the nose back onto the correct trajectory.
The stars smear across the viewport, the orientation shifting too quickly, and for a second—just a second—the ship doesn’t respond the way it should, and that’s enough to matter.
