The first argument didn't start with shouting.
It started with efficiency.
Riven noticed it in the galley, long before voices rose. Two crew members reached for the same ration crate at the same time. One adjusted his hand mid-motion without thinking, letting the other take it. No apology. No acknowledgment. Just an automatic correction that felt rehearsed.
They exchanged a glance afterward—brief, uncertain—then moved on.
Riven watched from the doorway, saying nothing.
Efficiency without intent was still efficiency. But when it happened often enough, it stopped feeling like cooperation and started feeling like erosion.
"Captain," Mara said quietly behind him.
He turned. "You see it too."
She nodded. "They're not disagreeing anymore."
"That's not the same as getting along," Riven said.
They walked back toward the bridge together. The Blackwake glided with its new, unsettling smoothness, systems anticipating load shifts before they occurred. Doors opened half a second earlier than expected. Lighting adjusted to eye movement, not time of day. Everything worked.
Too well.
"Engineering wants a crew-wide diagnostic," Mara said. "Not medical. Behavioral."
Riven considered. "Approved. Keep it observational. No interventions."
"Because we don't know what we'd be intervening against," she said.
"Exactly."
On the bridge, Kade was already there, reviewing sensor logs. He looked up as they entered.
"Captain. I've been comparing crew inputs before and after the passage."
"And?" Riven asked.
"Decision latency dropped," Kade said. "Across the board. People are choosing faster."
"That sounds good," Mara said.
Kade shook his head. "They're choosing the same options faster."
Riven felt a chill that had nothing to do with temperature.
"Clarify."
"When faced with ambiguity," Kade continued, "the variance in responses is lower. Not zero—but reduced. The crew isn't thinking less. They're thinking… closer together."
Mara leaned against the console. "Groupthink?"
"Not exactly," Kade said. "It's more like shared weighting. Priorities align sooner."
Riven nodded slowly. "And conflict?"
Kade hesitated. "Still present. But it resolves itself before escalating."
"Or before being expressed," Mara said.
Riven looked back toward the corridor, imagining the galley again—the automatic adjustment, the lack of acknowledgment.
"Log it," he said. "No conclusions."
"Yes, Captain."
The first raised voice came an hour later.
It echoed down the corridor outside engineering—sharp, frustrated, human. Riven was already moving before the alert reached the bridge.
By the time he arrived, a small crowd had formed. Hale stood near an open panel, arms crossed tight against his chest. Across from him, Joss—one of the cargo specialists—looked flushed and rigid.
"It's not my fault," Joss said. "The readout changed after I checked it."
"It didn't change," Hale snapped. "It reweighted. You should've compensated."
"I did compensate."
"Not enough."
Riven stepped between them.
"That's enough," he said calmly.
Both men fell silent immediately. Too immediately.
Riven looked from one to the other. "Explain."
Joss took a breath. "The mass balance on the aft containers recalculated mid-shift. I adjusted for drift, but the system corrected again. I followed protocol."
Hale exhaled sharply. "Protocol assumes independent correction. That assumption doesn't hold anymore."
Riven raised an eyebrow. "Say that again."
Hale hesitated, then nodded. "The ship is correcting for us. Which means our corrections stack instead of offsetting."
"So we're overcorrecting," Riven said.
"Yes," Hale replied. "Because we're thinking in parallel when we should be thinking in opposition."
Silence followed.
Riven looked at Joss. "You did nothing wrong."
Joss nodded, but his expression didn't relax. "It still feels like I should've known."
Riven held his gaze. "That feeling is new."
Joss swallowed. "Yes, sir."
Riven dismissed the onlookers with a gesture. When the corridor cleared, he turned back to Hale.
"This is going to happen again," Riven said.
"Yes," Hale agreed. "Until we relearn friction."
Riven nodded. "Schedule drills. Deliberate disagreement. Redundant decision paths."
Hale blinked. "You want people to argue on purpose?"
"I want them to practice being different," Riven said.
Hale considered that, then nodded slowly. "I'll design something."
Later, alone on the bridge, Mara broke the silence.
"You're afraid we're becoming too compatible," she said.
Riven didn't deny it. "Compatibility without choice is just conformity with better marketing."
She studied the forward display. "The route didn't want us to fight it."
"No," Riven said. "It wanted us to stop resisting each other."
"That sounds… reasonable."
"Reasonable things can still cost too much," he replied.
The ship continued forward, unchallenged.
Hours passed. Then something else changed.
"Captain," Kade said. "External anomaly. Ahead."
Riven turned. "Describe it."
"It's not a wake," Kade said. "No trailing distortion. It's… stationary."
The display resolved into a region of compressed darkness, not moving, not expanding. Space bent inward around it, like a held breath.
Mara frowned. "It's not blocking our path."
"No," Kade said. "It's aligned with it."
Riven leaned forward. "Distance?"
"Closing," Kade replied. "But slowly. Like it's waiting."
"For what?" Mara asked.
Riven didn't answer immediately.
"Captain," Hale's voice came over comms. "Engineering's seeing a shift. Internal systems are prioritizing stability over redundancy again."
Riven straightened. "By how much?"
"Enough that if we push through another filter," Hale said, "we won't have as much left to give."
The words settled heavily.
Riven looked at the anomaly ahead, then back at his crew.
"This is the next toll," Mara said.
"Or the next negotiation," Riven replied.
She turned to him. "We don't know how to refuse."
Riven's jaw tightened. "We might have to relearn how."
He keyed the internal channel. "All hands. Prepare for controlled deceleration. We are approaching a stable anomaly. This is not a drill."
A ripple of tension moved through the ship—not panic, but anticipation. People braced themselves. Systems adjusted.
For the first time since the wake, the Blackwake slowed deliberately.
The anomaly ahead did not move.
It did not react.
It waited.
Riven watched the distance tick down, feeling the familiar pressure behind his eyes return—lighter than before, but unmistakable.
Whatever this place demanded next, it would not take it by force.
It would ask.
And the danger, Riven realized, was that answering might feel easier than resisting.
Riven remained still as the ship slowed, his attention fixed not on the anomaly ahead but on the subtle changes within his crew. They were quieter now—not subdued, but focused in a way that felt rehearsed. Decisions aligned too cleanly. Reactions arrived without friction. It made command easier, and that was precisely the problem. Ease was not trust. Ease was not choice. If the next toll demanded agreement without dissent, then survival would depend on something harder than endurance. It would depend on their ability to refuse what felt natural. And Riven was no longer certain how much resistance the Blackwake had left to give.