The Meridian Collapse
At 0417 ship-time, the Solace receives one transmission: abandon the Meridian or die with it. Colonel Thane Voss has spent his career holding defensive lines in the void, but no order has ever cut this close. As tactical officer Kael Driswen pulls the encrypted message apart, communications specialist Sera Kint traces the signal back to its source, and finds nothing where the origin should be. The Meridian, a sprawling network of stations and patrol corridors that has kept the outer systems safe for a generation, is collapsing from the inside, and someone wants the Solace gone before the truth surfaces. Oren Vashk warns that retreat means abandoning thousands still sheltering within the Meridian's protected sectors. Lian Corveth begins mapping the structural failures and traces them to a design no one expected. Crew chief Dax Rool, weapons officer Orin Tash, and med-lead Elia Kresh prepare for a confrontation that may never arrive, or may arrive for all of them at once. Meanwhile, in the lower decks, a silent figure called Hollow moves with a purpose no one aboard has been cleared to understand. Voss can follow the order and preserve his crew, or hold the line and risk everything on a conspiracy that reaches deeper than the chain of command. The Meridian is falling. The only question left is who escapes before it does.