Into the Voidheart

The derelict ship hung in the void like a forgotten tombstone, a colossal monument to a catastrophe Bodyguard could only guess at. It was the Voidheart, or what remained of it, a name whispered in hushed tones across the fringes of settled space, a place where the darkness seemed to have a tangible weight. He’d docked his scout ship with a jarring groan of metal against metal, the magnetic clamps biting deep into the hull’s scarred surface. Now, standing in the airlock, the silence pressed in on him, a heavy blanket woven from the absence of sound.

His boots crunched on a thin layer of crystalline dust as he stepped fully into the ship. The air was stale, tinged with the metallic tang of decay and something else, something acrid and faintly sweet, like overripe fruit left to rot. His helmet lamp cut a stark beam through the gloom, illuminating vast, cavernous spaces that had once teemed with life. Now, they were skeletal remains, hulks of machinery frozen in their final moments, consoles dark and lifeless, bulkheads buckled and rent as if by some titanic, unseen force.

“Voidheart,” he muttered, the word tasting like ash in his mouth. Director Thorne hadn’t lied about the location, at least. This was it. The last known transmission from this vessel had been a garbled scream, a plea for help that dissolved into static. Then, nothing. Until now. Until the whispers of the Void Lurker led him here.