"Contact in Sector 12." The voice crackled through the communication array, distorted by distance and interference but still intelligible. "Unknown signature. Not on any registry. Requesting immediate backup."
Harold Osborne set down his coffee and leaned forward in his chair, fingers dancing across the security console. The overnight shift in the monitoring station was usually quiet, the kind of assignment people either loved for its peace or hated for its monotony. Harry had never decided which camp he fell into. Right now, though, quiet had just become very interesting. He pulled up the scanner data from Sector 12, the outermost ring of Station Theta-7's operational space, where the docking bays and external maintenance platforms were located. The signature was there, all right. Solid. Definitely physical. Definitely not supposed to be there.
"Copy that," Harry said into his headset. "Can you get a visual?" He was already pulling up the external camera feeds, cycling through angles until he found the right one. Sector 12's docking bay three, normally empty except for the occasional supply shuttle, now had a visitor. The ship was small, maybe fifteen meters long, with a hull configuration he didn't recognize. Not commercial. Not military, at least not any military he was familiar with. The design was too smooth, too organic, like someone had grown it rather than built it. No visible weapons ports, but that didn't mean much. The most dangerous things rarely advertised themselves.
"Negative on visual," came the response. It was Tobias Mcconnell, one of the dock supervisors, a man who'd spent twenty years managing cargo transfers and had probably seen every type of vessel in operational space at least once. If he didn't recognize this ship, that meant something. "It's just sitting there. No communication attempts. No docking request. It's like it appeared out of nowhere."
Harry frowned. Ships didn't just appear. They came through established routes, followed approach protocols, announced themselves to station traffic control. Even pirates had the decency to make demands before they started shooting. This was different. This was wrong in a way that made his instincts scream warnings his conscious mind was still processing.
"I'm waking up security," Harry said, already keying in the alert codes. "Keep your distance. Don't approach until we know what we're dealing with."
"Wasn't planning on it," Tobias muttered. "This thing gives me the creeps."
Harry understood that feeling. He'd been on Station Theta-7 for six years, long enough to develop a sense for when something wasn't right. This qualified. He sent the alert to the security chief, marked it priority two—not quite an emergency, but close enough to warrant immediate attention—and sat back to watch the feeds. The ship didn't move. Didn't power up weapons. Didn't deploy anything. It just sat there in the docking bay like it belonged, like it had every right to occupy that space without permission or explanation.
Fifteen minutes passed. Security arrived at Sector 12, a four-person team led by Sean Osborn—no relation to Harry, despite the similar surnames—who was competent enough but lacked imagination. Good for handling drunk personnel or equipment thieves. Less good for situations that required creative thinking. Harry watched through the cameras as Sean's team approached the docking bay, weapons drawn but not raised, body language broadcasting caution. They set up a perimeter, established sight lines, did everything by the book.
The ship's boarding ramp deployed without warning, a smooth mechanical motion that made everyone flinch. Harry couldn't hear what Sean's team was saying, but he could read their body language. Nervous. Uncertain. Waiting for something to emerge from that open ramp, some threat they could identify and respond to. But nothing came out. The ramp just stayed extended, an invitation or a challenge, impossible to tell which.
"Should we go in?" Sean's voice came through the general channel, directed at whoever was listening in the monitoring station. Which, at oh-three-thirty in the morning, was basically just Harry.
"Negative," Harry said immediately. "Hold position. I'm calling this up the chain."
He should have called the station commander. That was protocol. Unknown vessel, potential security threat, wake up the person in charge and let them make the decisions. But Harry didn't call Commander Reeves. He called Dennis Knowles instead, because Dennis had worked with Haroon Dwelight more than most people, and if there was anyone who might have insight into whether this situation required that particular kind of attention, it was him.
Dennis answered on the third ring, voice thick with sleep. "This better be good, Harry."
"Unknown ship in docking bay three. Appeared without warning. Boarding ramp deployed. No visible occupants. Security is on scene but nobody knows what to do." Harry kept his voice level, professional, like he was reporting a malfunctioning air filter instead of a potential crisis. "Thought you might want to know."
There was a long pause. Harry could almost hear Dennis thinking, weighing options, considering possibilities. Finally: "Have you told Haroon?"
"No."
"Don't." Dennis's voice had lost its sleepy quality, now sharp and focused. "Not yet. Let me get down there first. If we need him, we'll call him. But if we don't..." He didn't finish the sentence. He didn't need to. Both men understood the unspoken rule: you didn't involve Haroon Dwelight unless absolutely necessary. Not because he wouldn't help. Not because he was unreliable. But because once you brought him into a situation, that situation changed in ways that couldn't be predicted or controlled. Problems got solved, yes. But the solutions came with a weight that settled on everyone present, a reminder that they'd witnessed something that shouldn't have been possible and now had to carry that knowledge forward.
"Understood," Harry said. "I'll keep monitoring. Let me know if you need anything."
Dennis disconnected without another word. Harry leaned back in his chair and watched the security feeds. The ship still sat there, ramp extended, silent and waiting. Sean's team maintained their perimeter, but he could see the tension building in their postures. People didn't handle uncertainty well. They wanted action, decision, resolution. Standing around waiting for something to happen was often worse than facing an actual threat.
Twenty minutes later, Dennis arrived at Sector 12, moving fast but not running, his expression carved from stone. Harry watched him approach Sean's team, exchange brief words, then turn his attention to the mysterious ship. Dennis stood there for a long moment, just staring at it, and Harry saw something in that posture he recognized. Not fear. Not exactly. More like recognition. Like Dennis was looking at something he'd seen before, or something he'd hoped never to see again.
Dennis moved toward the boarding ramp.
"Sir, I don't think—" Sean started, but Dennis cut him off with a raised hand.
"Stay here. I'm going to take a look."
"That's not protocol, sir. We should wait for Commander Reeves to—"
"I know what protocol says." Dennis's voice carried an edge that made Sean fall silent. "I also know that if we follow protocol, we're going to waste time we might not have. So I'm going in. You maintain perimeter. If something happens to me, seal the bay and call for backup. Clear?"
Sean didn't look happy, but he nodded. "Clear."
Harry watched Dennis climb the boarding ramp and disappear into the ship's interior. The camera feeds didn't extend inside, so all he could do was wait. He counted seconds. Thirty. Sixty. Ninety. His hand hovered over the emergency alert button, ready to flood the station with warnings if something went wrong. But nothing happened. No sounds of struggle. No weapons fire. No screaming. Just silence.
At two minutes and forty seconds, Dennis emerged. He walked down the ramp slowly, his face pale but composed, and when he reached Sean's team he said something Harry couldn't hear through the cameras. Whatever it was made Sean's eyes go wide. The security chief immediately began pulling his team back, creating distance between themselves and the ship, and Harry's instincts screamed that this was about to get much worse.
Dennis walked away from Sector 12, out of camera range, and thirty seconds later Harry's console beeped with an incoming private channel request. He accepted it immediately.
"Call him," Dennis said. No preamble. No explanation. Just those two words, delivered with the weight of absolute certainty.
"Dennis, what's in that ship?"
"Nothing. That's the problem." Dennis's voice was strained, like he was forcing himself to stay calm through sheer willpower. "It's empty. No crew. No cargo. No life support systems. No power source I can identify. It's just... there. Existing. And it shouldn't be."
Harry processed that. A ship that shouldn't exist, appearing in their docking bay without explanation. The kind of impossible thing that had only one solution on Station Theta-7. "You're sure?"
"I'm sure. Call him, Harry. Before this gets worse."
Harry disconnected and pulled up Haroon's contact information. His finger hovered over the call button. Oh-four-hundred hours. Haroon would be asleep. Or maybe not. Harry had never been certain whether Haroon actually needed sleep or just maintained the pretense for everyone else's comfort. Either way, this call would wake him up, bring him out to Sector 12, involve him in something that Dennis clearly thought required his attention. And once that happened, there would be no going back. Whatever this situation was, it would be resolved in a way that defied explanation, and everyone present would carry that memory forward like a scar.
Harry pressed the button.
The line connected immediately, no rings, like Haroon had been waiting. "Yes." Not a question. Not even a greeting. Just acknowledgment that someone had called and he was listening.
"Sir, we have a situation in Sector 12. Unknown vessel in docking bay three. Dennis Knowles has assessed it and requested your presence." Harry kept his voice professional, reporting facts without interpretation. Let Haroon decide what it meant.
"I'll be there in five minutes."
The line went dead. Harry sat back and exhaled slowly. Five minutes. Haroon's quarters were at least ten minutes from Sector 12 at a normal walking pace. But Haroon didn't operate on normal parameters. If he said five minutes, it would be five minutes. Harry pulled up the security feeds again, watching Sean's team maintain their nervous perimeter around the impossible ship, watching Dennis standing apart from the group with his arms crossed and his expression unreadable. Waiting. Everyone was waiting.
Four minutes and thirty seconds later, Haroon Dwelight entered the docking bay.
Harry had been watching the main entrance, expecting to see him arrive through the standard access corridor. Instead, Haroon simply appeared in the camera frame, already inside Sector 12, already walking toward the ship. There was no transition, no moment where Harry could track his movement from outside to inside. One frame he wasn't there. The next frame he was. The cyan suit stood out even in the dim lighting of the docking bay, a splash of color in a grayscale world.
Sean's team saw him and immediately stepped back, creating space. Not a conscious decision, Harry thought. Instinct. The same instinct that made small animals flee when predators approached. Dennis remained where he was, but his posture changed, shoulders relaxing slightly, tension bleeding out. Whatever happened next, it wasn't his problem anymore. He'd done his part. He'd called in the one person who could handle this.
Haroon walked up the boarding ramp without hesitation, without checking with security or asking for status reports or doing any of the things a normal person would do before entering an unknown vessel. He just walked in, disappeared from view, and Harry found himself holding his breath without quite knowing why.
Ten seconds passed. Then twenty. Then—
The ship vanished.
Not gradually. Not with a flash of light or a surge of energy or any dramatic effect. It was simply there one moment and gone the next, the docking bay empty as if nothing had ever occupied that space. Harry stared at the screen, his brain trying to process what he'd just witnessed. He rewound the feed, played it again. Same result. The ship existed, Haroon entered, the ship ceased to exist. Cause and effect, compressed into a sequence so brief it barely qualified as an event.
Haroon emerged from where the ramp had been, walking on empty air for a brief moment before his boots touched the deck plating. He walked past Sean's team without acknowledging them, past Dennis who nodded once in silent understanding, and exited Sector 12 through the main corridor. Normal pace. Normal movements. Nothing in his body language suggested he'd just erased an impossible ship from reality.
Harry's console beeped. Incoming message from Dennis: "Log it as a false alarm. Sensor glitch. Nothing to report."
Harry stared at those words for a long moment. Then he deleted the last hour of security footage from Sector 12, filed a report citing a temporary malfunction in the docking bay sensors, and marked the incident closed. By morning, when Commander Reeves reviewed the overnight logs, there would be nothing unusual to see. Just another quiet shift. Just another ordinary night on Station Theta-7.
Except Harry would remember. Dennis would remember. Sean's team would remember. They would carry this forward, add it to the growing collection of moments when Haroon Dwelight had made reality behave in ways it shouldn't, and they would never speak of it to anyone who hadn't been there. That was the unspoken agreement. You witnessed the impossible, you filed it away in the back of your mind, and you continued with your life as if nothing had changed.
Even though everything had changed.
Harry finished his coffee. It had gone completely cold, but he drank it anyway. Four more hours until his shift ended. Four more hours of monitoring empty corridors and quiet systems. Four more hours of pretending that what he'd just seen was somehow normal, somehow acceptable, somehow anything other than proof that Station Theta-7 housed something far beyond human comprehension.
He pulled up the duty roster for tomorrow. Haroon Dwelight was scheduled for maintenance work in Sector 6. Routine inspections. Standard procedures. Just another day in the life of a man in a cyan suit who could erase ships from existence with less effort than it took most people to tie their shoes.
Ordinary, Harry thought. Right. Ordinary.
He didn't believe it for a second.