Chapter 24: The Tomb of Stars

The name itself sent a chill down my spine.

The Tomb of Stars.

Even Tor’Vek—who had faced down death a thousand times—shifted uncomfortably at the mention of it. The Narn were warriors, fearless in battle, but they also respected the whispers of the past.

And the Tomb of Stars was one of those whispers.

Sa’Kari sat across from me in the dimly lit war room, the holographic starmap flickering in front of us. “It lies beyond any known charted space,” she said, tracing her fingers over a swirling nebula. “A place where ships disappear. The few that have returned were ... changed. And those who went back a second time were never seen again.”

I leaned forward. “Changed how?”

Sa’Kari’s violet eyes met mine. “They spoke of whispers in the void. Of shadows moving where no light should be. And of a presence watching them from beyond time itself.”

Ny’Vara flicked her tail, skeptical. “Sounds like ghost stories.”

Tor’Vek grunted. “And yet your fur is standing on end, is it not?”

She shot him a glare but said nothing.

I exhaled, looking at the starmap. “If this is where we need to go, then we go. Whatever the Kha’reli are afraid of, we need to understand it before they decide to wipe out the rest of the galaxy.”

Sa’Kari nodded. “Then we must leave soon. The longer we wait, the more we risk being noticed.”

I turned to my crew. “Prepare for departure. Set course for the Tomb of Stars.”

A Descent into Darkness

Hyperspace travel had always been an eerie experience, but this was something else.

As we approached the Tomb of Stars, the ship’s systems began picking up strange anomalies. Gravity distortions. Power fluctuations. A sense of wrongness settled over the crew.

G’Lan, our chief engineer, frowned at his console. “This region ... it doesn’t behave like normal space. Something is interfering with our sensors.”

“Define ‘something,’” I said.

G’Lan hesitated. “Unknown. But whatever it is, it’s distorting reality itself.”

The G’Tarok emerged from hyperspace ... and we saw it.

A field of dead ships, drifting endlessly in the void. Hundreds, maybe thousands, spanning countless civilizations—some I recognized, others I had never seen before. Some were rusted husks, others still powered, flickering in the dark as though waiting for something.

Ny’Vara whispered, “It’s a graveyard...”

Tor’Vek gripped the railing. “No. It’s a warning.”

Then the whispering started.

The Echoes of the Past

At first, it was faint—like wind through the corridors of an abandoned city. Then it grew. Voices, overlapping, whispering in a dozen different languages. Some I recognized. Some I didn’t.

Some spoke in my own voice.

I clenched my jaw. “G’Lan, are you picking this up?”

He shook his head. “Negative, sir. The comms are silent.”

Ny’Vara’s ears twitched. “It’s in our minds.”

Sa’Kari remained calm. “This is the threshold. The edge of the Tomb. We are being watched.”

I turned to her. “By what?”

She pointed ahead.

At first, I saw nothing but the swirling darkness beyond the wreckage. Then, something moved.