The maiden voyage of the Pathfinder

The bridge of the Pathfinder was a place of hallowed silence. Not the silence of emptiness, but the charged, brittle silence before a lightning strike. Captain Eva Rostova stood with her feet planted on the cool metal deck, hands clasped behind her back. Before her, the star field was a placid, infinite ocean of diamond dust.

"Final systems check," she said, her voice calm and even, betraying none of the thunder in her chest.

"Helm, green," Jian Li reported, his fingers poised over the drive-engagement plate.

"Navigation, green," came another voice.

"Life support, green," said Dr. Lena Hansen, her eyes flicking between her console and the captain.

"Engine core, stable and green," said Dr. Aris Thorne, the drive's creator. He was leaning forward in his chair, a manic, triumphant grin just barely contained. "The Thorne Drive is ready to sing, Captain."

Eva allowed herself a small, tight smile. "Let's give it a voice, then. On my mark. Initiate jump sequence."

The low hum of the ship deepened, a bass note that vibrated in their teeth. On the main screen, the target coordinates locked, a green vector line slicing through the black. This was it. Not a hop to Mars, not a slow boat to Alpha Centauri. This was the first time humanity would fold spacetime, crossing a dozen light-years in what Thorne had promised would be less than a second of subjective time.

"Sequence initiated," Jian said. "Ten seconds to engagement."

Eva looked at her crew. Jian, young and focused, the best pilot of his generation. Hansen, cautious and brilliant, the guardian of their fragile lives. And Thorne, the genius who had unlocked the universe, his eyes wild with the fire of a modern Prometheus.

"Five... four..."

Eva met Hansen's gaze. The bio-med officer gave a tiny, almost imperceptible nod. All vitals were perfect. Their biology was stable.

"...three... two..."

Thorne's grin finally broke free. "Welcome to the future, Captain," he whispered.

"...one."

"Engage," Rostova commanded.

Jian's hand pressed down onto the plate.

There was no lurch. No disorienting flash of light. No stomach-churning twist of reality.

For a fraction of a second, the universe outside the viewport seemed to... sharpen. The light from the distant stars grew hard, etched with an impossible clarity. A subtle pressure, less than a feather's touch, seemed to press inward on the ship. It wasn't a force; it was a presence. The presence of the entire cosmos, noticing them for the first time.

Dr. Thorne's triumphant grin froze on his face. His eyes went wide, not with fear, but with a look of profound, final surprise. A soft sigh escaped his lips, a puff of air surrendering to a sudden, overwhelming stillness. He slumped forward in his chair, his head coming to rest gently on his console.

On the other side of the bridge, Dr. Hansen's brow furrowed in confusion. Her own heart monitor, displayed on her screen, had just flatlined. She raised a hand to her chest, a question forming on her lips, but it never found a voice. Her hand fell, and she slid silently from her seat to the floor.

Jian Li, his hand still on the engagement plate, simply closed his eyes. His head tilted back as if in sleep.

Captain Rostova felt it last. A quiet, peaceful, and absolute cessation. The lightning in her chest didn't strike; it just vanished. The complex, quantum-driven machinery of her own body, the delicate folding of ten trillion proteins, had just encountered a law they had never evolved to handle.

She had just enough time for one final, crystal clear thought.

So that's the problem.

Then she fell.

The bridge of the Pathfinder was silent again. But this time, it was the silence of emptiness. Four bodies lay still, their last moments peaceful and uncomprehending. On the main screen, the starfield was gone, replaced by the swirling, impossible colors of spacetime in transition.

The ship, its mission a perfect success in the language of physics and a catastrophic failure in the language of life, hurtled onward. A ghost ship. A silent, speeding coffin, a monument to the one question they had forgotten to test.