Leanne soon realised that those lights in her vision were not stars. They transformed into sparks of connection, digital synapses in Valkyrie's blue mind. She soared through the artificial web, travelling through her memories which unravelled and lagged like a faulty screen. Leanne wanted to close her eyes at the sickening display but she forced herself to keep them open. She could still feel her body, sat in the Arcadia's heart, even if she could not make her limbs move. It was a waking paralysis, all to the view of Valkyrie's decaying brain.

And then it stopped.

Leanne was thrown from the technological cosmos back into the Arcadia's cockpit. She looked down from a point on the ceiling, seeing familiar spaces with a new angle. And more than the viewpoint, other things were different.

The cockpit was manned. Strangers sat at the console decks, riveted to the blinking panels before them. Leanne saw a warning pulsing on each one. She knew, even without looking and hearing the accompanying alarm, that something was wrong. She felt it, an imbalance in the ship, a cancerous growth right in her very core. Things had been set in motion that should not be.

Suddenly, the door peeled open and Stefania hurried in. Eyes turned towards her and Leanne realised these people were not strangers: they were the crew currently floating in the cryo tubes. A dark-haired woman rose to her feet, pulling off her headset. Leanne could hear the alert streaming from its speakers.

"We've tried to stop her from here, Commander," the crew member said. "She's not listening. We fear it's already started."

"Settle, Lieutenant Miyuki," Stefania responded. Her tone was steady but from where she watched, Leanne could see her hands twisting and squeezing behind her back. "I've accessed Valkyrie's power banks. I've tried to talk with her."

"Tried," a man said by the forward shield. "How do you mean 'tried'?"

"I'll not have that tone," Stefania snapped. "I mean that I have attempted to undo the process. And now I need you all to go to the centrifuge."

"Oh my god," the woman who must have been Kay Miyuki moaned, sinking back into her seat. "Can we even get into cryo fast enough? We're not meant to be awake for this."

"I'm aware. That is why all of you must evacuate to the centrifuge now."

"We're nowhere near the genesis point yet," Kay protested. "This is not the mission trajectory. If we are only a few co-ordinates off..."

"This is not a topic up for debate. You all knew the perils of this mission. And you know what might happen if you do not go now. I will see the ship into her next stage. All of you, to the centrifuge. Now."

There was one more moment of hesitation and then the man at the forward shield stood. He made his way to the door, glancing sidelong at the imperious commander. One by one, his fellows followed. Kay lingered beside Stefania, obviously fighting with her words.

"Are you...coming too?" she asked quietly.

Stefania paused. She gave a tiny nod.

And then she was alone. Leanne watched her walk carefully through the console decks, their blue light casting a ghostly glow over her. She reached the large windows and stared out into the abyss before the ship. Leanne could not see anything but the inky gulf beyond the shields, a black expanse devoid of familiar stars. Stefania tapped her fingers on the back of a seat, breathing slowly. Determination suddenly seized her body and she turned. Her gaze locked with Leanne's – and Leanne realised she was seeing how Valkyrie viewed the world.

"I'm sorry," Stefania said. Her lip trembled and her eyes flooded with tears. "I should have never let the BASE do this. They've corrupted you. I've allowed them to hurt you."

Valkyrie's voice reverberated around Leanne, consuming her. "You have not hurt me, Commander. I am incapable of feeling pain. My name is Valkyrie. My name is—"

VALKYRIE

The world ripped in half. The rift swallowed Leanne and she found herself falling into eternal light. Valkyrie's turmoiled mind was projected into the temporal scope, her blackened memories and amnesia swarming about Leanne's tumbling vision. Fragments of time and space sliced past her, each one more shattered than the next as though someone had stamped them into shards upon shards of glass. She reached for them and they fell through her fingers like sand. Faster and faster they streamed until their beginning became their end and their end their beginning.

The atoms of her body and of the Arcadia fought to stay together, dragged back and forth by this churning breach in the universe. She could not close her eyes, could only keep them wide open, assaulted by the celestial terror. The images ground down into their very foundations, microscopic molecules scattering like dust, sticking in her lungs. Back, back, she was going back, but the cosmos raced forward.

Someone was screaming, a high wail tearing through the void. It dragged her away, through the tunnel of the stars and of Valkyrie's mind, so quickly and yet so slowly that it felt she was not the one moving, but it was the bubble of the world pirouetting around her.

She gasped, lurching forward as her vision split. Her hands hit firm ground, her knees bruising in the fall. The headset rolled away from her with a thud. Gradually, the universe retreated, its innards spitting her back out into Valkyrie's chamber. Leanne groped to steady herself again. She saw blue: the colour of the Arcadia, the colour of its power.

Ryan's voice echoed.

"What the hell did you do to her?"

Hands gripped her arms, keeping her from falling again. Ryan's knees came into view and Leanne could not help leaning on them for support. Ryan touched her head soothingly.

"You should not be in here!" Ryan accused Stefania. "This place is malfunctioning. Did you... Did you make Leanne access Valkyrie?"

"She needed to see what the problem was," Stefania replied, the commander's tone permeating her words. "She would never have believed me otherwise."

"You could have given her permanent damage! What the fuck were you thinking?"

"I am the commander of this ship. Valkyrie is mine. I designed her and I am the only one who knows what is happening with her."

Ryan quietened. She turned Leanne's face up and peered into it. Gentle hands cupped her cheeks as she checked for injury. Leanne did not feel wounded, not in her body. Her head still throbbed, her eyes ached in their attempts to rid those bizarre images, but that was it.

"Can you stand?" Ryan asked.

"I... I think so," Leanne replied.

"Hold on to me."

Leanne obeyed, taking Ryan's hands. With ease, Ryan pulled her to her feet. Leanne staggered a little but Ryan looped her arm about her strong shoulders. She was surprisingly warm.

Stefania still stood by the seat, framed by Valkyrie's blue light. Ryan fixed her with a firm look.

"You say you're the only one who knows what is happening with Valkyrie?" Ryan pressed.

Stefania nodded.

"Then you better tell us."

Word count: 1198
Overall: 27,913

The shoutout for this chapter goes to itsmeimthevampire with two (!) ONCs, Dracula and her Bride and Can't Get You Out of My Head, both fast-paced and entertaining queer romances!