Futuristic ❖ M I R A I ❖ E T E R N U M ❖

[Lekiel]

Mirai eternuM​

 

[Lekiel]

❖ C h a p t e r . O N e ❖
- Promina NPCs: Vexianna. Andarta. -

"A25G, how does it look?"

Dressed in immaculate grey-whites of the Andlang Forward Expeditionary Force, the brunette turned briefly to regard the smooth featured automaton standing just off to the side. The glance was more out of habit, as common courtesies obviously did not affect working relationships with an Ancilla. Still, unlike most other Aurealates of her stature, Vexianna found that she functioned best when extending such trivialities to even the soulless synthetics. It was perhaps only her third rodeo as acting Captain of their Trailblazer class starship, a forward scout of a larger expeditionary force. A position in which she still felt a little out of place. She had brought it up during her initial apprenticeship, but her then mentor had simply dismissed it as first-timer nerves. Afterall, her genetic makeup was a fifth passage of the Arbiter template, hybridized with the Columbus multi sequences. Commanding exploratory forces into the unknown should be in her blood. She was literally made for this.

Nonetheless, she felt something must have gone wrong somewhere along the way. The Seed Curator must've made a mistake when deducing possible gene pathways from her parent's DNA. Vexianna let out a barely audible sigh, crossing her arms over her chest as she stared out the bridge's viewport at the sea of blinking lights peppered against the Void. It was an old doubt. One which she'd learned to turn the volume down to a minimum, but it never really went away.

"Beautiful..." The captain's thoughts were pulled back by the flawless mimicry of artificial voiceovers. Masculine and clear, yet subtly tuned such that its cadence was as inobstrusive as possible. Vexianna's brows arched in the direction of the ancilla as it stared out at one particular sector of the expanse of space. Its glassy eyeballs were shifting rapidly, glowing a digital blue hue, seeing across an impossible distance at things that not even Orion with his augmented sights could glimpse.

"Beautiful..?" Vexianna could've sworn the ancilla spoke with a tinge of wonder.

"Yes, indeed Domina Vexianna. The imminent collapse of singularity HDC76-C emits powerful and extraordinary waves across multiple spectrums, most notably are the Halokontar pulsewaves that form symmetrical fractallations only visible if you overlay multiple planes of vision over each other. The resulting colours and patterns ticks all the parameters on Gardeshiev's Artistry Score. Though from your tone, I suspect an aesthetic evaluation was not what you requested, am I correct?"

"Wha--?! Yes, that is correct." Vexianna almost caught herself staring with her mouth agape. She could almost hear a collective sigh of relief from all of humanity that at least for now, their synthetic helpers had not the ability to do something abstract like 'wondering'. At least not yet. She 'wondered' what the trio of obsidian clad galactic police thought about this latest display from the ancilla. Probably nothing, you overly jumpy fool. She mentally slapped herself, turning to catch the eye of Orion, one of the three Einherjar that had been assigned as security envoys. Vexianna afforded him a quick smile and nod before turning away. She knew him, along with the platinum-haired Andarta and the third Einherjar from her first trip as ship captain.

"Alpha Cassiopeia will go supernova in approximately two standard days. If we are to reach the solar core in time to temporarily stabilize it for the expeditionary cruiser to arrive, we have only two options. The safer option will be to take a slight detour and use Exigent Node δ47. We will then have a 45 percent chance of arriving within 1 standard hour to stabilize Alpha Cassiopeia. The probability of success for Solarcore Stabilization procedures decreases exponentially with every minute we arrive after the final optimal hour."

"And what of the other option?"

"We proceed towards our original course. Slingshot using Exigent Node σ25..."

"I imagine there is a huge 'but' somewhere..." It was Farqual, their resident Senior Tech Scientist. Vexianna detected more than a little concern in his voice.

"If we take the original route, we will have no choice but to pass within the red zone of HDC76-C. The distorted Graviton Threads, immense gravitational forces and energy waves could potentially fry our navigational computers..-"

"Sounds awesome."

"Don't interrupt, Farqual!"

"Apologies Domina."

"Please continue A25G..."

"--fry our navigational computers, which would leave us helplessly adrift in space. But being so close to HDC76-C, messing up our Graviton Drive and floating around would be the least of our worries. There is not enough available data for me to compute the consequences of such a conclusion; a rough postulate would take 1 standard day. There has only been one such encounter with a collapsing Singularity in the records by Domina Raefvlan. Even then, they barely skimmed the edges of the red zone."

"Why did we not detect HDC76-C sooner?"

"The Exigent Node sensors cascade in waves, Domina. We have terribly limited information on collapsing Super-singularities. What we do know, is that they phase in and out of the Graviton Plane. It is possible that HDC76-C's phasing coincided with the gaps in the sensor array cascade."

"I see... so it's a no-go?"

"On the contrary, chances of completing the mission is near one hundred percent, assuming we can navigate around the collapsing singularity. Domina Raefvlan has detailed what he called, the Raefvlan Maneuver. After slinging from Exigent Node σ25, we can prematurely release the Drive Anchors fifteen point four-two-five parsecs from optimal slingpoint and anchor towards HDC76-C in twenty short bursts, each lasting for point seven-five microseconds. By that time, we should be near enough to Exigent Node σ27 to shift our anchors to the new Graviton Thread."

"Probability of navigational success?" A frown creased across the captain's forehead. It was a difficult decision, but she was tired of her doubts about herself. She was not inferior to all the others. Success was paramount.

"Eighty four point five-six X percent."

"That's not too bad isn't it?" Vlacic, one of the pilots declared brightly.

"X?" Farqual, ever pragmatic.

"Computational unknown, Praetor Farqual."

"What do you think? Vexianna turned to the Senior Tech. There was a simmering excitement within her that she couldn't quite put a finger on. Something had ignited within her heart the more she heard about the enigmatic singularity. She thought she could almost feel all her doubts vanishing.

"That's a... pretty... uhm... scary unknown... Then again, by my own calculations, we could arrive a full day faster. Not to mention, being so close to the collapsing Super-singularity could provide us with never before recorded information about such... such... a rare and terrifyingly awesome event..." Farqual sucked on his bottom lip, looking at his superior out of the corner of his eye.

"It's your call, Domina Vexianna."

❖ ✢ ❖ ✢ ❖ ✢ ❖​

"I don't know what it is... But, she doesn't seem very... optimal." The platinum-haired Einherjar muttered in low tones to her dark-haired colleague, noting with mild annoyance when Vexianna glanced over to smile at Orion before turning back to the meeting at hand.

"It's a shame we can do nothing but sit-back for the ride..."​

 

[Purity]

❖ Chapter One ❖ Focus: Orion, Meres, Vexianna

“Considering that she’s quite literally calculating our chances of catastrophically detonating, I suppose I would be more comfortable with numbers that are a bit closer to 100%. But, what do we know? We’re soldiers, not navigators.” Orion had already noticed that Vexianna, who flashed him a nervous smile, seemed to be slightly too green for his taste. On their maiden voyage with her as captain, he was fairly certain there had been some kind of complication that had popped up due to her decision-making, but hadn’t been any the wiser until he’d heard of the incident. Hopefully her minor mistakes were just that: minor.

Orion chose to to remain impassive at Vexianna’s gesture. It would help neither of them to form friendly relations.

“Well, friends, if anything does happen, be sure to activate your Phoenix Protocols if you want any hope of ending up back at home.” Their third squad member, Meres, had stepped onto the bridge. His mask segmented itself before folding away into his suit, revealing parted brown hair and a rather strong brow line. He’d been performing a check-up throughout the ship, as per their agreed rotation every three hours or so. The Phoenix Protocol was a special mechanism in their suits that was supposedly something that let them revive after death. Rumors were that it replicated some condition of death in their pasts, but Orion was more convinced that the protocol was just some placebo.

Orion nodded in acknowledgement at Meres’ comment and continued to watch as the bridge performed their calculations and adjustments, bringing the ship into optimal position for the imminent sling.

“If I’m not mistaken, there’s six hours to go before it’s my turn in the rotation. In that case, I’m going to try and get some rest.” They didn’t exactly have their own quarters on the ship; rather, their own ship was docked onboard the larger expeditionary starship’s hangar bays.

Orion made quick progress down the metallic halls and through the fast lifts of the ship with his mask on, passing by scientists, officers, personnel, all of which gave him more than ample room to pass. Perhaps it was the insignia mounted on the forearm of his armor that designated him an einherjar, or perhaps it was the fact that his standard-issue hybrid tactical rifle was currently present in his hands.

Eventually, he reached the main hangar bay. It was impressively large, containing all the vessels necessary for venturing into unknown frontiers. Military ships by comparison would certainly sport significantly more volume, but the variety of ships on display was certainly nothing to laugh at. Orion moved into the only Dreamwatch ship in the hangar.

As the ramp closed shut behind him, he took off his helmet and shouldered his rifle, taking a moment to send a simple status report at the helm before entering his quarters. He set the helmet and rifle in his locker before allowing the automated closet to remove his outer armor, revealing a simple black jumpsuit.

Every time before he slept, Orion would try to remember just on more detail from the odd… visions that seemed to plague him. They had a hazy quality to them, as if he were looking through the eyes of another person, frozen in place and unable to act, yet he knew almost by instinct that they were significant in some way to him. Even now, as he lay down on the temperature controlled pod that served as his bed, jagged shards of colors and emotions pierced his head, taunting him as they remained just out of his grasp.

His psychological training asserted itself as he pushed the thoughts. Trying to remember these hallucinations wouldn’t help him rest appropriately, and being tired on duty might be fatal. He would need to do his best to ignore them, regardless of his interest in them. As his mind descended into darkness, he thought he saw a face.

 

[Lekiel]

❖ foreveR Twilight ❖​

- Promina NPCs: Vexianna. Andarta. -

The Trailblazers was the largest of the diminutive Corvette class of starships within the Aurealate's intergalactic fleet. Built from the blueprints of the ancient Genus Aurealate empire, it was large enough to possess a Graviton Drive capable of multiple rapid sequences of Graviton Slinging, yet small enough to limit the amount of Graviton Radiation it emitted; essentially allowing it to slip past the sensor arrays of enemies. But in the relative peace of the current time, the Trailblazers were modified to house more explorative equipment at the expense of a smaller crew. It was the ideal craft to remap Exigent Node points ahead of larger vessels.

Nonetheless, a crew of about two dozen was still two dozen too many to be put on the line.

"What happens if we don't make the eighty-four percent chance, A25G?" Vexianna quizzed, one finger tapping the tip of her nose thoughtfully.

"That specific theoretical outcome is difficult to model given the lack of information about collapsing super-singularities. In the best case scenario of failure, our Drive loses resonance with the Graviton Thread and we get instantly crushed by an insurmountable amount of gravitational force. At the rate your nerves transfer information to your brain, you won't feel a thing."

"Sounds like a super cool way to go! Instant non-existence..." One of their pilots, Vlacic, piped in. Vexianna rolled her eyes in his direction.

"On the bright side Vex, there will be nothing left of you for Legatus Cato to hold accountable for..."

"A25G, do we have any chance of aborting the warp before things get hairy?" Vexianna pressed on, ignoring Farqual's comment.

"Certainly Domina. Hence the reason why I stated our chances with a computational unknown. The closer we get to HDC76-C, the better I'll be able to compute our chances."

"If you prime the sensors Praetor, you should be able to get some readings from HDC76-C even if we abort, correct?" All things considered, her crew's lives were still in her hands. Though Farqual hadn't quite expressed it, she knew the significance of obtaining data from the collapsing entity. In an age of stagnation and reliance on the discovery of older technology, being able to observe something so remarkable upclose might be the catalyst for unprecedented progress. It was not something the average person would understand.

"I should yes... useful data? That depends..." Their tech specialist replied. She could hear the tinge of lament even despite the lack of severity in his tone. It was a pity. They'd do what they could and not an inch more.

"Then take us in A25G... take us out if it gets too dangerous. Set risk parameters to Cautious Blue... If failure means death, then we will avoid the possibility entirely. I'm counting on you A25G."

"Understood Domina."

"All hands, prepare warping procedures! Caution level... high." Technically, they weren't in any danger considering the setting she gave to the ancilla. But on the spur of the moment, Vexianna decided to order the extra safety measures. It was perhaps the only decision she did not regret.

It was all a blur of catatonic shifting images. The sound of the warning alarm hounded her consciousness, blotting out all sound with its constant wailing that pressed in on her head like a vice. It might've been a blessing in disguise, else the terrified screams of her crew as a section of their ship was ripped open would've filled the comms of the bridge. She remembered fading in and out of consciousness. Strapped into her seat as everything around her faded in and out, like a mirage of illusions shifting between dimensions. Looking down at her hands gripped tightly to the armrest, only to find that she couldn't tell which was her real hand out of the four. She remembered screaming at their Ancilla ordering it to abort the warp as it stood unmoving, somehow anchored to the floor of the bridge despite the violent shaking and tremoring that sounded like they were being crushed by an impossible amount of force. She could not forget the look on A25G's face before the viewing glass shattered into a million stars and the ancilla was snatched out into the viscous swirling void of the fifth dimension. It was the look of utter wonder... as if it'd just had a divine revelation from the cosmos. Beautiful... its words teased incessantly at her mind. Somehow, perhaps because of their precautionary measures, they'd survived. Though she'd later learn that they lost their entire research division, except for Farqual to the Void. Just before they crashed. Nobody knew what happened to them. It all went dark quickly enough.

"Domina Vexianna!" A haze of constant static.

"Domina Vexianna!" Something clicked within. Consciousness returned.

"Domina Vexianna!" Someone was shaking her. Her entire body ached, and there was a peculiar sensation of weightlessness. As if she were falling, only she wasn't. Vexianna opened her eyes, and immediately wished she hadn't. Her vision swam and she felt like her whole body had turned to liquid. Tears filled her eyes and she began to retch, doubling over to the floor at the feet of her chair.

"Yeah... that's how I felt as well." A cool alto cadence spoke up from her side, hardly empathetic despite the fact that its owner had placed a steadying hand on her back.

"Meres, find Orion. See if our ship's still intact..... I've a feeling we might need it." Vexianna recognized the voice now. Andarta. The silver haired einherjar. Slowly, she opened her eyes. She had to blink twice to make sure she wasn't dreaming.

The Trailblazer had crashed and a large segment of the bridge's wall had been ripped open. One of the warning lights still flashed, bathing the darkened bridge in a shifting orange, though the constant buzzing of the alarm had dwindled. Wiring hung exposed from the wall of the hull, still sputtering. Somehow, the straps to her chair had kept her in. Dimly, she was aware of Andarta moving over to check on the other still unmoving forms of her crew. She longed to check on them herself. To count their numbers to see if they'd lost any but the scene outside of the Trailblazer enthralled the Aurealate.

"By the Aurealus..." She heard Farqual's pained but bewildered exclamation.

The land before them stretched out as far as her eyes could see. Clear and flat for miles upon miles, it was nearly difficult to see where the land met the skies on the horizon, for the ground was the darkest black she'd ever seen. A deep umbral onyx that reflected nothing of the phenomenal sight in the skies. If asked right that moment, she could only describe it as seeing a thousand eclipses filling the sky. They seemed as a multitude of event horizons, each appearing larger than the average moon orbiting its home planet. Like fiery halos of brilliant white rings, they literred the sky, casting the land below in a peculiar state of forever twilight.

"What... is this place..."

 

[Purity]

❖ The Fall of Icarus ❖
Focus: Orion

Glass. Orion's peaceful sleep was shattered like glass. His eyes opened to see the world as a blur. Something was definitely wrong with his vision, although he didn't have the foggiest idea why. He was also no longer in his bed. In fact, he was... floating?

His brain wasn't able to process the events fast enough to understand before the ship around him came to a jarring stop, and he crashed into the wall behind him. Somehow, the sensation brought Orion back to his senses. He quickly reached up to his locker, which opened due to its proximity sensor and dumped its contents on him: his gear. It bound itself to him quickly, the helmet being the last part that he put on before once again, gravity took a break. This time, however, Orion was aware that the entire ship itself was spinning around, and that he was simply caught up in the momentum of it. When it came to a stop like it did before, he would have a chance to get out. He grabbed his rifle out of the air, and adjusted its settings to max.

The split second came, and Orion's senses were ready. He could feel that the wall to his left was about to become the ground. An explosion erupted around him as the energy round contacted the right wall, soon to be the ceiling, and Orion's propulsion system triggered. He cleared the ship through a screen of smoke.

Of course, he couldn't dream. But the scene that surrounded him in the hangar was something that one might describe as a nightmare. There were ships floating around everywhere, caught in a bizarre dance as they became high velocity obstacles in the space of the hangar. Parts of the hangar bay doors were missing, along with entire sections of the ship. An occasional scream would stream by Orion's ear as some unfortunate soul was sucked into the unforgiving vacuum of space. Orion paid no attention to any of it. His entire life narrowed down to the ships barreling by him, and his propulsion system. The jets on his boots and back were by no means strong enough to let him fly. Instead, he had to use them to jump to the next piece of wreckage large enough to support him, one after another.

The actual time it took for him to reach the hangar entrance (which was now above him, according to his sense of up and down) was mere seconds, yet it felt like an eternity of dodging the astronomical number of possible deaths to get there. His hand reached out and grabbed onto a pipe, before he slammed the control panel and pulled himself inside. Orion only had a couple seconds to enjoy stable ground beneath his feet before fire was suddenly all around him, and his vision went black.

❖​

"Oh, thank goodness. You're awake." Awake? Yes, he'd been asleep. That's right. Perhaps he'd overslept somehow, training completely forgotten in fatigue. But it didn't quite explain how relieved the person had sounded, or the infernal ringing in his ears...

Orion opened his eyes. What greeted them was extremely hard to comprehend. Countless bright stripes carved the sky into pieces, and yet no light cast down from above, rendering everything in darkness. His head began to throb, so he chose to look at the more familiar face of Meres, lit by whatever emergency light was nearby.

"We've crashed. By some stroke of luck, though, we're alive. Well, mostly, anyway." Orion has seen the deaths. He knew there were casualties. Through the haze in his mind, he could just make out his hoarse voice asking how many.

"Well, the three of us pulled through. Most of the bridge did as well, although I think the ancilla definitely went to meet its maker. I think all the casualties are from the lower departments of the ship."

Orion tried to stand, and was met by a wave of nausea that did a pretty good job convincing him to just settle for sitting up. Meres held a hand up to his headgear, as if he were listening, then nodded. "I've found him. He's alive. I'll bring him over promptly." Meres lowered his hand to stretch it out for Orion to grab. "C'mon, we still have a job to do."

 

[Lekiel]

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foreveR Twilight

[div class=miniBox][div class="miniText mini1"] [div class=bar][div class=title]Persona[/div][div class=barText]Vexianna[/div][/div] [div class=bar][div class=title]Promina NPC[/div][div class=barText]Vexianna, Andarta[/div][/div] [div class=bar][div class=title]Mentions[/div][div class=barText]xx[/div][/div] [div class=bar][div class=title]Location[/div][div class=barText]HDC76-C[/div][/div] [div class=bar][div class=title]░ ░░ ░[/div][div class=barText]░ ░ ░░[/div][/div] [/div][/div] [div class=bigBox][div class=bigScroll] [div class="textbox big1"][div class=title]░░ ░ ░░░[/div]

"You sure this is going to work?" All things considered, the evenness of which she spoke surprised the young Captain. Concern was evident, yes. But from the moment she awoke, something within her had clicked. Calm. Recollect. Take stock. Survey. Plot. Perhaps she was indeed made for this role.

"Humm... Let's see... We seemed to have crashed on a highly unstable dimensional singularity that had less than an o-point-one-percent chance of existing... and yet, here it is... here, we are. Theoretically, we should have been crushed into some form of protomatter of non-existence and stretched across the local galaxy scores of light years across... But somehow, luckily for us, we found out that our still functioning Graviton Drive particles have reacted in some way and created a forcefield of sorts... negating the gargantuan gravitational forces from turning us into some intergalactic spaghetti. That being said, we've unfortunately lost another... -" Farqual's voice trailed off as a low rumbling sound that exponentially grew louder until it sounded like some mega-earthquake rocked the remnants of their broken ship. Sparks sputtered and metal groaned around those gathered on the bridge of the Trailblazer. Vexianna instinctively looked out from between the gaps of their ruined hull to a spot about a score yards away from the ship. Nothing seemed out of the ordinary, a glassed plane of obsidian black, reflecting the fiery halos of event horizons in the sky.

She still couldn't quite believe it.

They'd quickly attempted to establish their surroundings and assess the extent of the damage to their ship. There was also the question of why they weren't sucked into a vacuum or choked on some poisonous foreign atmosphere, at least for those that survived the landing. Vexianna ordered for the ground surveillance drones to be sent out, and they noted that stable atmospheric pressure and gas composition extended for about twenty yards outside of their ship. An invisible bubble enclosed the crash site. The drones were ordered to cross the threshold.

Nothing happened.

Donning his full pressurized suit, Virtus Sorbel of the expeditionary team had volunteered to step outside into the alien terrain. He made it perhaps five yards over the threshold, before turning to give the rest of them the thumbs-up. That was their last image of him. He vanished into the obsidian plane the instant they experienced their first Surge; as Farqual had now dubbed it. A sudden overwhelming gravitational wave that blasted the warning sensors into oblivion and crushed the exposed Aurealate to nothingness in the blink of an eye. He was there one moment and literally gone the next. The weight of a thousand stars dropping on every atom of his body in an instant. She wondered if he felt anything.

"It's going to work." Vexianna's resolute tones cut the melancholic mood before they wallowed in the mire for too long. Her hand came down to pat Farqual's shoulder reassuringly.

"Let's hope so..." The Praetor sighed. He was strapped onto an interfacer unit, essentially a kind of bridge between the human mind and the ship's central systems. None of them had mentioned it, but the reason why Farqual was about to attempt to compute an impossible magnitude of navigational calculations still played at the forefront of Vexianna's mind. A25G, their Ancilla, had betrayed them.

No, impossible... She refused to accept the possibility. It was defective. It failed to perform according to its fixed parameters. But to override the ship's AI safety nets and countermeasures? That was surely something that required intent and no mere result of defect....

"Let's go over the process again shall we, Praetor?"

❖ ❖ ❖​

"Terrain scanners are up and running, good job Farqual!"

"So far so good. . . You should see a layout of the surrounding land soon enough. I will mark anything of note on the navigational screen." The Senior Tech's words were displayed on the screen of the ship's computers. Wired up as he was, he couldn't speak. Vexianna turned to look at the navigational map and at the single blinking green dot that marked their location. Nothing... were the sensors malfunctioning? Unsurprising consider..-

"I t ' s h u g e ." Falqual's text popped across the screen.

"Huge?" Vexianna muttered to her semi-comatose companion. "There's nothing on the map.... well, almost.." Vexianna corrected herself as another blip appeared on the terrain's display.

"Exactly. Huge expanse of nothing. . . Except for that dot. What you're looking at is likely the other Graviton Drive that broke up as we crashed."

Vexianna turned to the silver-haired Einherjar silently observing them. "Thanks... Andarta.." The austere woman merely waved it off. "Has Virtus Calder briefed you on what he needs you to retrieve-?" But the Einherjar cut in before she could inquire whether their ship engineer had briefed her.

"I am aware of what is required." Andarta cut in, turning to walk away. "I'll retrieve them myself... Orion, remain on deck and assist the Captain with whatever is necessary. Meres will remain in the hangers to oversee the upgrading of our ship." The metal doors hissed open and Andarta disappeared, likely to the hangers where she would take one of their upgraded landskimmers. Devastated as they were by their crash and initial loss to the foreign environment, the Aurealate nonetheless proved their ingenuity. One of which was determining that the Graviton Drive was the sole reason they had yet to be crushed. Nonetheless, every groan and rumble was a reminder that those powerful engines could only keep them safe for so long. They needed to get off this forsaken world pronto. They'd need two things. A powerful enough ship, which would be in the Dreamwatch's possession after the upgrades, and a navigational map for the Drives to latch on to an external gravitational source. The latter of which, was the harder part.

"Alright Farqual... you ready?" The insane amount of mathematical computations that would be involved was staggering. And since he was directly interfaced with the mainframe, Farqual consciousness would've no respite. But he was the only one out of all of them who had any chance of succeeding.

"If you mean ready to be literally killed by math. . . then, yes." Despite herself, the Praetor's dry humor finally got to her and she let out a snicker. Though she immediately sobered.

"I'm sorry..-" Vexianna rested a hand on his chest. She'd tried to shut it out for so long, but the niggling guilt was clutching at her. Eating her from the inside, threatening to swarm her thoughts with overwhelming emotion. They were all here because of her. She'd made the call.

"Not your fault Vex. . ." Seeing his reply nearly broke her, but by sheer will she held it together. "It's been an honor Domina Vexianna. . ."

Vexianna stepped back from the Interfacer for a salute. Turning back to the control panel, she keyed in the commands. She hesitated on the final button, but let out a sigh and hit it.

The mental overload happened in an instant. But perhaps he fought it with every ounce of his genetically engineered being. Struggling in violent convulsions as crimson life fluids leaked from his orifices. It was over in a matter of seconds.

"FARQUAL!!!"

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[Purity]

❖ ORION, VEXIANNA
% CHANCE: NULL

Orion solemnly watched as Farqual imploded from the strain of handling such powerful machinery, pay the price for Vexianna’s unwitting hubris. There was nothing to do but watch, bearing witness to his final moments as honorably and dutifully as they could. And when the inevitable finally passed, as Vexianna cried out, Orion simply closed his eyes and bowed his head. Of course, he didn’t really feel any sadness. If it wasn’t for the fact that he’d only known Farqual through the necessities of the mission, then it had to do with his training as an Einherjar. But Farqual had stepped up without hesitation for the greater good, and Orion could at least respect a man who knew the meaning of sacrifice.

He walked over and deftly unhooked Farqual from the Interfacer before laying the still body on the ground. Orion used a hand to close the still-open eyes.

“Closing profile, Farqual, Senior Tech,” Orion said quietly. It would inform his squad members of the senior officer’s death. After a moment of silence, Orion lifted himself off the ground to analyze the information that Farqual had managed to glean.

Chance of Navigation Success: Approx. 36.57%.

Orion typed in several more commands into the computer based on his rudimentary knowledge of the Trailblazer’s navigational systems and his approximated knowledge of their Dreamwatch ship’s systems, just to satisfy a guess.

New Information Received. Chance of Navigation Success: 23.63%.

He was about to step away from the command center when the terrain mapping caught his eye. The other graviton drive, they would likely be able to cannibalize parts from it to further the upgrade of what was now their escape vessel, thereby increasing their chances of a successful sling. But unfortunately, it was a short distance away from where the bridge had landed, a distance that Virtus had proven fatal. To successfully be able to cross over, they would need to somehow estimate when the next Surge would happen, and generate enough acceleration to…

Wait. There was another dot on the screen. Orion tapped it. Positive vital signs? That was impossible. All the graviton drives had been accounted for, and as far as they knew the gravitons drives were the only things able to counteract .

Without a word, which was pretty easy considering the atmosphere on the bridge was muted, at best, over Farqual’s death, Orion stepped out and went through the metal doors that Andarta had crossed moments before. He inputted a floor that he knew was blown off in the landing as his mask slid back into place.

Stepping out onto the safe zone that the drones established, Orion faced the direction of the anomalous dot and looked out, the metaphasium in his eye magnifying his view over several miles.

A ship. Or, at least, what appeared to be a ship. Possibly something that had fallen from the cargo bay? Orion didn’t really know.

“What do you see?” Vexianna had stepped out onto the safe zone behind him, wearing an environmental protection suit.

“An object. Ship-sized. And according to the computer, signs of life.” Vexianna looked at Orion in surprise, before her face settled into an expression of resolute determination.

“Then we need to find a way over.” Orion took a sideways glance at Vexianna. The statement, which might’ve sounded naïve, was said with a calm confidence that he hadn’t seen much of in her before now. Perhaps, if they survived this entire ordeal, Vexianna would become a great captain someday because of her one decision that had moored them here. The ultimate learning experience.

“As of right now, Captain, I theorize there’s only one way to safely cross the gap. The problem I see with this is as I’ve said, it’s a theory. Considering the alternative to success here is instant death, we don’t stand to gain very much from pursuing what could be just a faulty reading.”

“We’re here because of my choice, Orion. If there’s even a chance that someone else lived the landing over there, I’m taking the chance and the responsibility of testing your theory, whatever it might be.”

Orion had suspected as much, that Vexianna wouldn’t back down. Actually, he was rather curious to see what the reading was as well, against his better judgement. Just as before, he’d been curious about their chances of surviving the sling out, Orion had often found himself curious of things that he was probably better of not knowing or pursuing. He would have to make sure that Andarta didn’t find out about this little excursion of his. Dreamwatch squads were never really assigned a leader, as each individual was fully expected to fulfill their missions, but as the senior member Andarta was probably less inclined to let him go out in the middle of what was essentially a black hole.

“Very well. I suppose I’ll be accompanying you.”

❖​

Meres, and the scientists currently upgrading the ship for that matter, hadn’t really asked him many questions when Vexianna and himself took a landskimmer from the back of the ship. They’d probably assumed it was another of Andarta’s commands. Nevertheless, in not much time they were back outside, landskimmer fully charged and ready to go.

“In case this does end in catastrophic failure, I’ve left a log of what our purpose was.” Vexianna nodded. As the captain, she’d of course done the same, as similarly to Orion she hadn’t told any of the other officers of their intent.

Orion got on the landskimmer, which was really just something that resembled a cross between a fighter jet, a hover-bike, and a maglev car with the appropriate Dreamwatch styling and insignia. Orion typed in several override commands into the skimmer’s console, directing all of the fuel cells to expunge their contents simultaneously. Once they were on the other side, they would need to work fast to replace the cells with replacements that he was bringing along with them.

This also meant they had no form of shielding whatsoever. Not that an energy shield was high on the list of priorities in Orion’s mind anyways, with how strong the pull of HDC76-C was. Vexianna got on behind him silently. Orion could tell that the prospect of going across a singularity frightened her at least a bit. He couldn’t really blame her. If he valued his own life in some form, or he knew that others valued his life, he imagined that he’d be frightened too.

The cockpit closed over them and locked into place with a hiss. Orion ran some final diagnostics, and cloned the signal of the dot from the Trailblazer’s bridge to the skimmer’s computer.

“Systems ready. No errors or malfunctions. Firing engines at the next Surge…” It was a tense couple moments, waiting for the telltale shudder of the air that was indicative of the graviton drives struggling to keep the unfathomable amount of force being exerted on them at bay.

“Now.” The outside of the skimmer became a blur as it quickly accelerated past the sound barrier. The journey, despite only being seconds long, felt like an eternity as Orion awaited the same fate that had befallen Virtus and had likely befallen the countless crewmembers of the Trailblazer.

The vehicle rapidly slowed as Orion deployed the flaps, attempting to bring the speed under control before they reached the signal. Just before they reached the signal, Orion felt a massive lurch from the skimmer before it was inexplicably stopped hard, by some unknown force. Unfortunately, it also meant that he and Vexianna behind him also got to feel the full impact of a high-powered assault skimmer stopping from full speed, pitching them straight forward and straining their safety belts.

Once his vision stopped going in and out of focus, Orion unclipped himself and looked back at Vexianna. She was slumped forward in her seat, blood visibly dripping down her forehead inside of her environmental protection suit. He quickly undid her helmet and used his suit to check her vitals. Good. Nothing serious. She’d come to in a couple moments.

He used the skimmer’s computers to analyze the surrounding, or at least attempted to. The only thing he got out of it was that their current location was surrounded by the same kind of field as the ones the graviton drives produced, only far stronger. Puzzled, he directed the cockpit to open up.

“Did… did we make it?” Vexianna’s words slurred together as she tried to right her head. She was finally able to lock her eyes on Orion, only to find him staring up.

“What… oh….”

Whatever Orion had seen earlier, this was definitely not what he had imagined.