All four of the ship's crew stared at the display. It showed a vast starless section of space, an optical illusion caused by the twin black holes swallowing up all light. There was a single thing visible, a narrow span of space where light passed through. It shined and shimmered on what looked like a river of detritus just as described. It almost looked like a mirage. Deck was shocked by two things, how almost all of it was ships or other objects obviously created by sentient life. And how massive it really was. Though at this distance it looked narrow and long he knew just seeing it from here meant it might be easier measured in AU than any other units of measure.
"There is all the… everything we could ever need for sure." Deck finally spoke.
"Very astute assessment." Aln nodded.
The view zoomed in, it still was a rather distant view but they saw for sure there were not only ships but looked to be even entire stations in there. "That looks more like a treasure trove to me. I don't recognize any of the tech styles in there. I'm surprised it isn't crawling with scavengers and already picked clean." Nai shook her head, she had spent ten years running with the kind of people that would have picked that place clean.
"Well, there are a few issues." Aln started to add. As if on cue there was a flash of light and a section of the river flared up then winked out of existence. "Ah yes I was going to mention the various drives and reactors in there are left… well unstable. One never knows when they might detonate."
Deck frowned, that didn't sound safe for sure. "I should be able to monitor the local area once inside to allow us to avoid any objects that might be about to detonate." Eve added helpfully.
Something she said bothered Deck. "Inside?"
"That is the other problem." Aln added, wheezing loudly.
"While the space that makes up the um… River of Ruin is stable. To enter it involves navigating a narrow and fluctuating path through the gravity of two competing black holes. It also prevents most forms of scanning. The optical illusion you are seeing that seems to make it shimmer is the result of the light waves being affected as they pass through that narrow path." Eve sounded serene as she explained it.
"Uh, then how are we going to get in there?" Nai asked still gawking at the display.
"Eve will get us in there. I'm sure she can." Deck left unsaid that they probably didn't have any other choices. Without arms or armaments, they weren't going to make it very far. It was as if this arm of the galaxy was filled only with hyper aggressive species. Most of the "habitable" planets were classified as death worlds. That was probably the first clue this arm contained humanity's homeworld. Amongst the stars, there might be stronger, faster, smarter, or deadlier species. But none were as adaptive, stubborn, or downright hard to kill as a human.
It was how humanity had crawled back out of failed colony on a death world to become the dominant species. In the galaxy, humanity turned out to be the boogie men. The Mlkni was a silicone based species, one of the first sentients humanity met after crawling their way off New Terra.
When approached for first contact, the hulking rock looking aliens declared humanity a "Soft and Squishy" race. Beneath them. It was true, the huge aliens crushed the initial delegation sent to make first contact. But they found the horror that was humanity on their doorstep after that. Soft and squishy they may be, but the Mlkni found that humans could survive through a tremendous amount of trama. Lost limbs were replaced with bionics. The hard shockwave weapons they used to shatter their own kind ruptured organs on humans. Yet, instead of crumbling the mortally wounded carbon based life would simply fight on. Well past what was considered normal by the galactic standard at the time.
Oelions were a race of graceful sentient mammalian lifeforms, closely resembling deer. Only their antlers growing from their head weren't made of cancerous bone, but flexible limbs that function much like arms and hands. They choose to ignore humanity as aggressive carnivores. They lacked space travel but had developed civilization to a very high degree for such a species so integrated with nature. Their ability to grow vegetation rapidly and seeming to defy all traditional logic was considered valuable enough to start relations. When they refused it was deemed valuable enough to fight for. Ground combat was deemed necessary rather than risk damaging their homeworld's delicate and valuable ecosystem before humanity could fully research it.
The Oelions seemed unworried by such an assault. Humanity soon understood why they hadn't developed more advanced technology. Their planet produced a unique energy signal that seemed to simply shut down most forms of advanced technologies rendering any attack one of only the most primitive methods.
The Oelions were fast, incredibly so. Able to easily outmaneuver and outrun the invaders. They seemed content to simply continue their endless game of cat and mouse. But no matter how fast or how far they ran, the humans always showed up. Tirelessly they seemed to stalk them, unlike any attacker before. The Oelions were fast but like many such animals back on Earth, they lacked the stamina to maintain such a pace. Humans were in no rush. A tireless foe they stalked and hunted the Oelions until they were too exhausted to run let alone fight back. Never before had the peaceful race met such determined hunters. Soon humans became the nightmares that stalked them endlessly, showed up whenever they slowed. Now, Oelions serve humanity as caretakers on agricultural worlds. Content to serve out of fear of the tireless stalkers that would hunt them endlessly otherwise.
Beyond their physical abilities, there was the madness of humans as many of the other space faring races called it. Humans took risks and attempted feats no other sentient race would even consider. They would turn a wondrous creation of peace and harmony into a weapon of mass destruction. Or solve a galactic crisis using some terrifying destructive creation in a way that none could imagine. The fact that they had powered their first crafts pulling themselves from New Terra with nuclear reactors was considered one of their more notorious endeavors. Literally landing on alien planets flying on atom splitting bomb.
So if there was a section of space said to be filled with other like minded species, most avoided it. Humanity though, they wanted to explore it. No more than that, they wanted to conquer it.
"Shall we enter the River of Ruin?" Eve's voice was calm and peaceful as she asked.
Deck stared at the screen and despite his bold confident statement before grunted. "Let me eat one last steak before we fly in."