Between Stars

Eridoal leaned back in his cockpit chair, staring at the empty void ahead of him, as well as the other ships hanging around nearby. His eyes briefly glanced towards the clock. 14:26, Esian Time. It gave him a little under two hours to make two jumps and give his expert opinion. It wasn't the most high tech job, but it was easy and paid well enough. He'd have time to spare if the hyperlane was going to play nice this time. Not that he had any way of knowing if it was going to be a few seconds or an hour for the next window.
Luckily for him, the announcement came only about ten minutes later. "Group three, prepare for hyperlane jump." Eridoal sat up straight, idly wrapping his hand around the control stick. Sure, he wouldn't need control during the transit, but it could sometimes be a bit dicey when exiting the other side if the others didn't know how to keep tight control over their ships when coming out of a hyperlane. One by one, the ships ahead of him seemed to stretch forward before vanishing entirely, all within a matter of moments. And for a brief moment, he felt himself be stretched forward.
Only for it to stop. Sooner than it should have. A brief splutter of the engines and the sound of the hyperdrive whirring told Eridoal all he needed to know about what had happened. Another burnout, one he'd have to fix before he could line up for the next group. But as he started to get up from his seat, his ship lurched forward again, taking him through the hyperlane far after it was supposed to be breached.
This was far from his first hyperlane jump, so Eridoal knew something was wrong the moment his ship entered. The mild swirling of the outside world was long gone. He couldn't describe it as anything but anger and hate, the purples and greens of the void outside lashing at his ship. No, at him, protected only by the shields and hull of his own ship. Was it just hostile to everything, or was it after him specifically? The thoughts raced through his mind as he reached for the distress beacon button, slamming his hand against it. Only, nothing happened, every single system of his ship had no response, even as he frantically pressed buttons and flicked switches. Even yanking the control stick this way and that gave no response.
Closing his eyes and shaking his head clear, Eridoal took a few deep breaths, trying to dismiss it all as a bad dream. But when he opened his eyes, it was still there, his ship hurtling and spinning through the hostile void. Or was it coming closer and closer towards him? It didn't matter, there were far more important things to worry about, like the momentary cut of the artifical gravity, sending Eridoal into the air before crashing back down onto the floor. Pain shot through his body, groaning loudly as he picked himself back up, climbing into his chair and buckling himself in, leaving him safe for the next time the gravity cut out.
The swirling vortex outside shifted, pulsating with an unnatural weight to it. Each pulse sent a wave of memories and emotions into Eridoal's mind, none of which were his own. Vast forests, tinted red by the star. Endless twisting caverns with a sense of relief. Spires, vast and stretching far up into the purple sky, glowing with the millions that live within them, all of their fear focused towards Eridoal. Carving a name into stone, looking up at a faceless person, feeling proud of it all. On and on, more and more of those foreign memories and feelings swarming Eridoal's mind, leaving him gasping for air as he struggled to filter out what was real and what wasn't, until it suddenly stops, leaving him with a few moments of clarity, enough to gaze up at station, spinning through the vortex, impacting his ship and tearing it asunder.
Despite his ship being evicerated, Eridoal was unharmed, the impact having left him strapped to his seat and still inside part of the ship, although he was exposed to the unrelenting assault of the swirling vortex that threatened to tear him apart, body and mind. Without the protection of the hull, the noises of the void assaulted him, an endless drone that could only be described as a mixture of mechanical screeching and the noise one would imagine a supernova making in its earliest moment, never relenting. Pulses of psionic energy flooded Eridoal's body, wracking him with pain, nails digging into the cheap fabrics of his armrests, threatening to tear it all apart, much like how he felt like he was being torn apart.
Eridoal's only reprieve was a sudden wave of calmness that washed over him, as if there was something fighting back against the horrors that were assailing his mind. A pulse of energy rushed through both what remained of his ship and Eridoal's body, the slight ripples in the air pushing back against the hostile forces that worked against him. It was as if he was being protected by something far greater than anything he could comprehend, falling into the caring embrace of a a benevolent entity. The energy pushing outwards caused the part of the ship he was still within to spin, faster and faster, threatening to shake the whole structurre apart, Eridoal's mind struggling to keep up with the forces of it, his eyes rolling back mere moments before he blacked out.
Shakily reaching up, Eridoal took a deep breath as he gripped the control stick, giving it a slight turn to the left, his ship responding in kind. Was it over? His eyes turned from the control panel up towards the empty void in front of his ship, eyeing the two ships waiting to enter the hyperlane he had just exited. With a gulp, he pushed the thrust up, flying off towards the system's station. He needed something to help him forget what had just happened.