The Void's Shadow

The residual hum of the Pocket dimension vibrated with a nervous energy. Static crackled from Kareem’s console, each blip a tiny shard of unease. Station Theta-X. A deep-space relay, now a ghost. The transmission had been raw, desperate, a final gasp swallowed by the void it had sought to warn them about.

“Non-coded,” Kareem repeated, his voice tight. “That means whoever sent it didn’t expect anyone to hear it. Or they didn’t care.”

Shift, or Malik as he was when his armor wasn’t a second skin, felt the familiar shift in his gut. The quiet victory over the Void Entity felt distant now, a temporary reprieve. Echo, his symbiotic partner, pulsed beneath his skin, a silent, watchful presence. *This is not over,* the symbiote seemed to whisper, not in words, but in a deep, resonating thrum.