In the Void Passage, Rift physics stop being a curiosity and become the environment. The architecture looks like the frozen sectors above, recoloured violet, but nothing in it arrives on time.
# Environment
Optical and radio returns arrive out of order. A machine can appear on the carrier’s sensors a second before it rounds a rib, or a second after it has already struck. Sounds precede their causes. The C-9’s own telemetry reaches Asterion with timestamps jumbled, and some packets from the Passage arrived at the upper relay before the carrier entered it.
Marek reported hearing his own voice on the cockpit channel, reading out a floor number he had not yet reached.
# Machines
Mostly Runners and Tanks, fast and slow in alternation, which makes the timing errors worse.
# Guardian
The Void Phantom is a reconnaissance frame that disrupts sensor returns. Its apparent vanishing may be a timing fault in the carrier’s instruments rather than a real disappearance.
# Pilot notes
Fast-travelling projectiles reduce the cost of bad timing; lasers are favoured. Trust automatic targeting over the pilot’s eye.
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