If there was one thing Jora had because used to, it was the silence. There were no ships or stars in the Rift. At times the outside world felt like a distant memory. He almost forgot what it was like sometimes. They were alone in the abyss, nothing but silence around them. No stars, no ships, nothing in site but themselves.

It was thus a shock to everyone when another ship appeared on their sensors.

Alarms blared across the ship, the crew scrambling to their stations. The bridge was already in chaos when Jora arrived.

"What’s the situation?" he shouted. At the sound of his voice the crew quickly snapped to a semblance of readiness, scurrying to their post.

The sensors officer was the first to respond. "We’ve detected an unknown object ahead of us, Captain. It looks like some kind of ship."

"Any ideas on what we’re looking at?"

They shook their head, "I'm having trouble getting a reading. The signal is pretty faint. It came out of nowhere, just popped up right in front of us."

Jora and Enrax exchanged a look. He checked their heading. It was too soon to be the probe, yet this ship was directly ahead of them, on the expected heading. Could this be what they were looking for? 

"Check for RSC signatures," Enrax ordered, echoing the Jora's own thoughts.

"It’s hard to tell. The signal is faint, we’re barely picking up any sort of power or heat readings. If there are any radio signals, they’re too faint to make out. Something's making it hard to get a lock. Looks like it's definitely a ship though."

The tiny speck of colour in front of them amongst the sea of darkness was the only visible indication of the vessel. Steadily they drew closer, towards whatever dangers were waiting in its wake. At the rate they were closing in on the vessel, it would be only minutes away.

Enrax slithered next to him, the officer’s tail waving nervously. "Think this is it?" he whispered.

"I don’t think so. Yet, this is too unlikely to be a coincidence. A ship right ahead of our planned course? It seems too suspicious to be a matter of chance."

"Maybe it’s the probe we’re supposed to be following?"

"It doesn’t seem right. Those things are small, and we should be picking up something from it."

"It could have just lost power."

"Or whatever this is is trying to hide from us." It hardly took much to hide here. Between the near total darkness and the constant sensor glitches, even basic stealth technology could almost completely mask a vessel. Though their research vessels generally preferred being found. There shouldn't be a reason to hide in a dead place like this.

The weapons teams had already been called to their stations. Though their vessel was one of exploration, it was not unarmed. Official reports still dismissed any threat of combat within the Rift, but he never would have dared to enter this place without some kind of defences. Their weapons were meagre - a combat vessel a fraction of their size could easily outgun them - but the reassurance was better than nothing.

"You don’t really think it’s something hostile, do you? Who could it possibly be? There’s nothing alive in this place except for our ships." Enrax’s confident grin barely concealed the underlying nervousness.

"I’d rather be prepared," he said before turning to his combat officer, "I want all weapon prepared to my fire on my mark."

The vessel drew closer, its faint echo like a lone star in the sky.

Silence fell over the crew, waiting for any sign.

His heart pounded, watching the sensor reading tick.

Then came a shout, breaking through the silence.

"We're getting a visual match," the sensors officer cried out in relief. "I’m having trouble making it out, but the computer’s confirming it. It's another RSC science vessel!"

The sensors officer was overjoyed with relief, and around them, the crew seemed to ease slightly.

"Any identification yet?" Jora asked, still tense.

"Nothing yet. It- oh no." Their face sunk with horror. "I-I thought it was static, Captain. I thought maybe there was some kind of problem with the image. But it's the ship. There's some kind of a debris field surrounding the ship. It's messing with the sensors. I can't even identify the class of ship from this distance."

Next to him, Enrax sighed in relief. "See, nothing hostile. There's no danger here we need to worry about."

"Then what destroyed the ship?" Jora wondered, staring into the darkness.