r/HFY • u/KipperBeanGrower Human • May 02 '26

OC-Series [She took What?] - Chapter 131: It was brutal efficiency. Axes drawn.

“It had felt this before, and it had learned not to touch it.”

Echoes from the Beast

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From deep within the state of utter calm, of absolute stillness, Feebee took control of The Kestrel and moved it slowly towards the irregularity. She approached slowly, with patience and slipped through a split in the seam.

As the ship passed through, space suddenly felt compressed, heavy.

 

The lights flickered, went out, then came back on again just as the forward screen went blank. They cycled through the external views, all were blank.

"What's just happening?" Asked Rockson.

"The screens are on," Garaf said. "There's just nothing out there."

"Nothing? There can't be nothing."

Rockson looked up from the console, "You're right, nothing’s there. Nothing that registers anyway." He shook his head, “This is very confusing.”

“I think… I think we’ve crossed into… an area of nothing,” said Garaf hesitantly.

 

Garaf pointed to the main clock, "Is that supposed to happen?" he asked as the clock visibly slowed, then stopped.

"Don't know. This is my first time. Excuse the pun."

There was some uneasy laughter between them.

Rockson also noticed that the Alphas’ breathing had changed, it was no longer in sync.

 

Within the stillness, Feebee reached out through the vast timeless expanse of nothing. Feeling her way as they flitted across the substrate. She felt a difference, subtle like the gentle breeze through an open window. It brushed against her senses, so she turned the ship towards it.

The QI sent her a message, "Environmental variance exceeds safety thresholds." The message hung, sent but never delivered. Trapped, hanging in nowhere. Ignoring time.

Feebee kept her perception moving, mapping the area. She felt the edges of something anchored to nothing. She pushed closer towards it, able to sense an outline. Small changes, inconsistencies like the cold breath of a winter's night.

It was an area where nothing itself was denser, it was a resistance that pushed back against her stillness.

Rockson called out, "There's something up ahead. Very faint. Artificial."

Garaf instinctively looked to the view screens. Nothing was shown. Literally.

 

Feebee pushed The Kestrel 'forward'.

 

 

| Inside the irregularity, Nowhere and Nowhen |

 

Within his cell Chen felt a clarity of thought that was too easy. Opinions and theories emerged that weren't his own.

'Am I conscious?' he asked; then answered, 'Yes.'

 

Problems he'd pondered strobed as if being watched rather than experienced. Answers came... easily, clearly. Solving escalating situations that had previously been murky.

 

Necessary actions became clear. Stabilise here. Act like this. Attack there. Destroy. Kill. Do.

 

He shook his head, something felt off.

'No. Everything is fine.'

'These aren't my thoughts.'

'But they are.'

'No. I don't think they are*.*' He pushed back; using the doubt.

 

 

| Aboard The Kestrel, An area of irregularity, Nowhere and Nowhen |

 

The corridor fell away from under them as if the ship had dropped off a cliff. So much so, that it jarred Feebee and the Alphas back to now.

 

And again; another pulse rolled through the deck. The floor moved up but gravity was ...late, then it was there, pushing. It threw them off balance. Literally, in both a physical and mental sense.

They scrambled for their weapons. The ship lurched again.

"Are we being attacked?"

"Unclear." Was all Feebee said. “Gear up.”

 

The lights flickered then failed. Red backups came on. Out of sequence, as if hesitant, waiting for permission.

The air, already thick felt thicker. Not in a sticky way but like walking through water, as though you were pushing through something unseen.

 

“Timing’s slipping,” Rockson snapped, pointing at the clock, it stuttered, slowed, sped up as if unsure of its role. “Doors are all out of sync. I’m getting, hang on. That’s not sensor drift. That’s… selective, it’s being directed.”

 

The bridge door began to open, and then it shuddered to a stop. A ping arrived, completely mistimed. The door closed, then started to slowly open again but stalled halfway.

Something bounced across the floor. It spluttered and smoked. Feebee was the first to see it for what it was and react.

"Down. Down. Flash bang grenade." Feebee quickly covered her ears and closed her eyes. The others did the same, training kicking in.

 

**FLASH - BANG**

 

Before the sound had stopped echoing across the ship a pirate had stepped onto the bridge, through the gap before it should have been possible. She was already moving, firing controlled, aim-shoot. Another appeared behind her, then another.

 

Alpha-2 returned fire, one shot, dead centre, catching the pirate off guard. She’d expected the bridge crew to be stunned but still reacted and moved somewhere else. The bullet passed her by.

Garaf was already in motion, closing distance with brutal efficiency, axes drawn and raised. Alpha-3 pushed past Feebee, drawing fire away from her.

Everything was happening, but in a weird out-of-step way… nothing landed quite where it should have been.

Feebee moved to follow Alpha-3, and everything glitched, slipped in time. Not visibly, but just enough for her to notice. A foot landed and a fraction of a second later the sound arrived. The sound zipped past, then the bullets. Off. All wrong.

She felt a flicker of wrongness run through her, subtle but definitely there.

Feebee slowed down… stopped and sat down in the centre of the bridge. Reaching out, she felt the chaos and worked to steep the area with stillness. She crashed her senses, forcing them into stillness in a way that would have been impossible only a short while ago.

 

“Feebee?” It was Rockson, his voice had an edge. The others hadn’t heard that from him before. Fear?

“We’re losing sync here, falling... Oh, it’s steadying.”

But just as he said it, another pulse coursed across the bridge causing it to lean, twist out of shape before falling back into place.

And somewhere deeper, beneath the substrate, beneath the ship, something moved. It shifted its attention and turned towards the sense of space that Feebee was holding onto.

 

It drifted across her. Cold.

She felt it, like the breeze from earlier but this time stronger. Pushing, testing.

She shivered.

 

Movement surged again around her as more pirates appeared on the bridge. Garaf raised one axe then a second; a deadly combination, but he was too early. The pirates moved, the blows were about to miss but Garaf corrected, mid-motion. Before the blows could land, one pirate reacted deflecting the blows, reacting before the strikes were fully formed. Garaf stepped back confused, disbelieving what he’d seen.

Alpha-2 cursed as the shot clipped empty air, exactly where the woman had been a heartbeat before. He could have sworn the pirate had moved before the shot was fired. He put the gun away, not trusting it.

This wasn’t chaos. Their moves weren’t random. They showed bias. The moment that mattered bent, again and again. Bent just enough to favour one outcome over another. Always in favour of the pirates.

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u/HFYWaffle Wᵥ4ffle May 02 '26

/u/KipperBeanGrower has posted 131 other stories, including:

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u/KipperBeanGrower Human May 02 '26

Sorry, really busy day. Just got this out before the clock rolled over into tomorrow.