Hello and welcome back to The Art of Caesura!
I hope all is well! Today, we are picking up from last week where I acquainted you with Space Station Zero and the miniatures that I would be using for this game.
Today, I was going to launch into to the first of those miniatures, but...I got sidetracked. I was looking at my crew roster that I created like 4 years ago and realised that I had done it all wrong (I thought you could give each crew member 3 pieces of equipment, but it is actually 3 total across your whole crew) anyway, that's beside the point. While I was revisiting this roster, I started thinking about the story of my crew. I knew that they were on an Exploratory vessel and that their edge (their special rule in the game) is the very awesome "Time Masters". As I mentioned last week, I had figured out the models that I will use to represent each crew member, but I hadn't named any of them - or their ship - or come up with background for them (not necessary - just fun).
Anyway, just as the miniatures agnostic ethos of this game fired my imagination regarding which models I would use (see last week's post), all these thoughts about my crew led me to start writing a story involving my Time Master crew arriving at Space Station Zero. I had an awful lot of fun with this one. It was a nice departure from the Warhammer 40k narratives that I've written. It was fun writing in a more "pulpy" tone as inspired by Snarling Badger's opening in the Space Station Zero rule book. You might recognise a bunch of my inspirations for this piece: Star Trek, Mass Effect, Blackstone Fortress, and obviously Zombicide: Invader and Space Station Zero.
So I hope you enjoy this story even half as much as I enjoyed writing it!
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| Image Credit: Snarling Badger - Space Station Zero Rule Book |
***
The Relentless Astryx had a habit of arriving where it wasn’t expected.
Not because its coordinates were wrong, its Ace Pilot, Rhea Sol, was too precise for that, but because the universe itself seemed to hesitate around it. Sensors lagged. Signals echoed before they were sent. Clocks disagreed.
Captain Haarlock Varn, coat immaculate, grin irrepressible, and danger treated as a mild inconvenience, called it style.
“Exploration,” he often said, leaning on his cane as though addressing an invisible audience, “is simply trespassing with better manners.”
No one had proven him wrong yet.
***
They were not meant to be here.
The jump had been routine - clean vectors, stable fold, perfect execution.
Until it wasn’t.
Reality tore sideways. Not violently, not explosively, but incorrectly. Instruments screamed in disagreement. Time stretched thin-
-and then snapped.
Silence.
No stars. No radiation. No background drift.
Just…nothing.
***
“Contact,” said Rhea from the helm. “Unregistered structure. Dead centre of a stellar drift zone.”
“Derelict?” asked Chief Engineer Boros, already suspicious. He glanced at his assistant, Ship Engineer Topin Tal, who was gazing in wonder at the on-screen read-outs.
“Impossible to say,” replied Dr. Ilyen Quist, the ship’s Scientist, eyes dancing across streams of contradictory data. “It appears…intermittently.”
“Meaning?” asked the Soldier, Garrick Thorne, checking his rifle.
“It exists,” Quist said, “but not consistently.”
Captain Varn smiled wider. “Splendid. Helm, take us in.”
From the med-bay hatch, Medical Officer Sera Vale sighed. “One day, Captain, we’ll approach something that doesn’t actively defy physics.”
“Perish the thought.” Varn grinned.
***
The comms unit crackled. Every system aboard the ship - dead or alive - lit up at once. A voice, calm and ancient, spoke in perfect unison across every channel:
“Space Station Zero will accept you. Dock Zero is open.”
No one spoke for a long moment.
Then Boros muttered, “We didn’t hail anyone.”
Captain Varn smiled.
“Well,” he said, “how delightfully rude of us not to respond.”
***
It appeared gradually.
Not emerging from darkness, but resolving into it, an impossible structure, vast beyond scale, its geometry half-lost to perception. It did not orbit anything. It simply was.
Sleeping.
Waiting.
Even Rhea hesitated. “I…can’t map it properly. Every scan contradicts the last.”
“Take us in anyway, my dear. Spit spot.” said Varn.
The docking approach was lined with wrecks.
Not just debris, ships. Dozens of them. Hundreds, perhaps. Vessels of impossible design and unknown origin, all resting in eerie stillness.
“Every one of these missed their jump,” Quist whispered.
“Or made it,” said Varn with a wry smile.
Dock Zero yawned open before them; an immense bay, large enough to swallow cities.
The Relentless Astryx slipped inside.
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| Image Credit: Snarling Badger - Space Station Zero Rule Book |
***
They were not alone.
Beyond the docking struts, past improvised barricades and jury-rigged bulkheads, there was…life. Bustling life.
A shanty town clung to the inner edges of the bay - structures welded from ship parts, cables strung like vines, dim lights flickering against ancient metal. Creatures of every conceivable form moved through it: tall, insectile silhouettes; hunched figures wrapped in filtration cloaks; beings of soft light and shifting shape.
And somehow, impossibly, they understood each other.
Tal blinked. “Why can I- ”
“Language harmonisation,” Quist said, awestruck. “The station is…translating cognition.”
“Or rewriting it,” Boros grunted.
A bar - if it could be called that - sat near the centre. The smell of something brewed, something bitter, hung in the recycled air.
A figure raised a glass toward them.
No one smiled.
Sera’s voice was quiet. “They’ve given up.”
“Not all of ‘em,” said Garrick, watching a group gearing up near an airlock across the bay.
“No,” said Varn. “Not all of them, indeed.”
He tapped his cane.
“Explorers,” he said. “Just like us.”
***
They did not stay long in Dock Zero. At the threshold leading deeper into the station, the air felt…thinner. Not physically, but conceptually. Like something was being peeled away.
“Last chance to enjoy mediocre booze and existential despair,” Varn chuckled.
They stepped through.
Tal paused mid-step.
“Did anyone else just-” he frowned, “-remember walking in already?”
Boros stiffened. “No.”
“I did,” said Sera quietly.
Captain Varn tapped his cane against the deck. Once. Twice.
“Excellent,” he said. “Temporal instability. That’s our cue to proceed with confidence.”
Garrick muttered, “That’s usually my cue to leave.”
But they went in.
They always did.
***
The corridor beyond was pristine. Too pristine. No decay, no dust, just smooth alloy walls and a low hum like a held breath.
Quist moved ahead, scanning. “This place is maintaining itself. Power signatures are…recursive.”
“Speak plainly, Doctor,” Garrick grunted.
“It’s feeding energy back into its own past.”
Rhea frowned. “That’s not how time works.”
“No,” Quist agreed. “But it’s how this place works.”
Tal knelt at a wall panel, tools already out. “I can interface-”
“Don’t,” Boros snapped.
Tal didn’t listen. The moment his probe touched the panel-
-everything snapped.
A blinding pulse. A surge of noise. Garrick shouting. Sera reaching-
-and then-
***
They were standing at the airlock.
Dock Zero behind them. The pristine corridor ahead.
Tal froze mid-step.
“…I’ve already done this,” he said.
Captain Varn adjusted his gloves, utterly unfazed.
“Yes,” he said pleasantly. “We rewound.”
***
They all felt it now. A subtle dislocation. Like memory and reality were slightly out of sync.
Sera checked her vitals scanner. “We’re retaining cognitive continuity across resets.”
Quist’s grin was sharp. “We are outside the local temporal flow.”
“Or,” Boros muttered, “we’re trapped in it.”
Captain Varn turned to the crew.
“Our edge, ladies and gentlemen,” he said. “Time, quite literally, on our side. Let’s try this again - with refinement.”
Tal swallowed. “So…don’t touch the panel?”
“Correct,” said Boros.
They entered again.
***
This time, they moved cautiously. Rhea mapped their route in real-time, adjusting for minor inconsistencies. Garrick took point, weapon raised. Sera watched everyone for signs of neurological strain. And still, the station shifted.
Doors that had been closed were now open. Corridors extended further than before.
Quist whispered, “It remembers.”
“Of course it does,” said Varn lightly. “So do we.”
“No,” Quist said. “Better than we do.”
Tal stopped. “Captain…there’s a signal ahead. Origin point hasn’t changed between iterations.”
“Ah,” said Varn. “Progress.”
***
They reached it on the third attempt.
A chamber suspended in impossible geometry - walls folding inward, outward, looping through themselves. At its centre: a device, or perhaps a being, suspended in fractured time.
It flickered: alive. Dead. Alive again.
Sera stepped forward cautiously. “It’s…cycling.”
Quist was already scanning. “Not cycling. Sampling.”
“What?” Garrick asked.
The thing spoke, not aloud, but directly into their thoughts.
“You return.”
Varn tipped his head politely. “We do.”
“You change.”
“Yes,” he said. “We learn.”
A pause.
“So do I.”
***
The station reacted violently.
Time fractured.
Garrick fired at something that hadn’t yet appeared. Rhea shouted coordinates before the layout shifted. Boros dragged Tal back from a section of corridor that would collapse seconds later.
Sera grabbed Quist. “We need to leave - now!”
Quist shook her off, eyes wide. “No, this is it. It’s evolving through temporal recursion. It’s using us - our decisions - as data! Every rewind-”
A pulse tore through the chamber.
Tal screamed as his arm flickered - whole, broken, healed - all at once.
“Captain!” Garrick shouted. “We’re losing cohesion!”
Varn stood at the centre, calm amidst the chaos.
He tapped his cane once.
“Not ideal,” he admitted.
Then-
***
They were back in the corridor.
Before the chamber.
Before the damage.
Before the mistake.
***
Silence.
Seven crew members. Whole again.
Sera looked at Varn. “We can’t keep doing this. It’s learning faster than we are.”
Quist whispered, almost reverently, “Imagine what it could become.”
Boros growled, “Or what it already is.”
Rhea checked the path back. “We can still reach Dock Zero.”
Garrick nodded. “That’s my vote.”
Tal said nothing, staring at his hands.
All eyes turned to Captain Varn. He smiled - smaller this time. Less certain.
“Out there,” he said softly, gesturing vaguely toward the impossible emptiness beyond the station, “there is nothing for millions of light years in any direction.”
He tapped his cane gently against the deck.
“And in here…everything.”
A pause.
Then:
“Exploration,” he said, “is knowing when to leave something unexplored.”
He turned.
“Helm,” he said, to all and no one, “prepare for departure.”
***
Dock Zero received them in silence.
A few figures looked up as they passed. One raised a glass.
***
The Relentless Astryx slipped away from the station without resistance.
Behind them, there was only the station.
Always the station.
On the bridge, Rhea froze. “Captain,” she said slowly. “We’re receiving a transmission.”
Varn didn’t turn “Already? Efficient.”
Quist leaned over the console. “It’s…us.”
“Define ‘us,’” said Boros.
Quist swallowed. “It’s a recording of our mission.”
Sera frowned. “From when?”
Quist looked up. “From a version where we didn’t leave.”
Silence settled over the bridge.
Behind them, in the endless dark, Space Station Zero waited - vast, ancient, patient.
Captain Varn considered this, then gave a soft, almost impressed chuckle.
“Remarkable,” he said.
Then, after a moment:
“Delete it.”
***
But as they prepared for warp, the timestamp on the transmission flickered.
It hadn’t been sent yet.
Thank you for tuning in to another post of The Art of Caesura!
Reading: 100 Years of Solitude - Marquez
Next Week:
I am the law!
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