We floated in a sea of light. It surrounded us, suffused us through and through. There was a strange sense of intelligence about the light as it, well, the only way to describe it is that felt like it was investigating us. It wasn’t invasive; it merely seemed… curious.

Harrigan looked at me. I shrugged and put my hands up as if to say, “I have no idea what’s happening.”

Vec called out, “Sir. Something’s happening to the computers again.” And indeed, as we watched code flowed across our screens again, but in reverse.

I put fingers to keyboard and set to work. They flew.

“What’ve you got, carto?” Harrigan barked.

“Access, sir,” I replied. “My cartography programs are back online and beginning to interface with ship systems again.” I turned to face the captain. “It appears that the invading code is backing itself out and restoring ship systems to normal.”

Harrigan looked about to reply, but then our screens blanked.

Twelve symbols appeared in the void. They matched no known language or syntax.