The expanses of space are infinite, and amidst this boundless darkness, myriad planets take shape around thousands of stars. Within this emptiness, among the multitude of planets, there was one surrounded by dozens of small spacecraft.
From the undersides of the ships, hatches began to open, and dozens of mechanical suits started descending. Ten machines, ablaze, approached the crimson-bordeaux planet, where one could easily spot hundreds of enormous dome structures on the verge of collapsing.
"Coordinates confirmed, we're almost at the target, the signal is getting clearer," a quiet mechanical voice informed all the pilots inside the Titans.
Through the planet's sparse atmosphere, the Titans landed with a thunderous noise not far from the massive domes. Violet-black frames and four FH symbols adorned the Tekug-class Titans. On their backs were huge rifles on one side and large sword-like objects on the other. At the bottom, on the spine, three enormous magazines, each containing thirteen projectiles with a diameter of 215 mm, were strapped.
Without exchanging words or cooperating unnecessarily, a group of two dozen Titans began moving towards the domes. They seemed to leap across the planet's surface, with the heavy machines' legs effortlessly lifting off the ground.
As they approached the domes, they began to notice a colossal gate—a hole in one of the domes. All the Titans started moving more slowly, trying to control the Titans as best as they could.
Inside, at that moment, a hatch opened at the neck of one of the Titans, and a huge hand of the 17-meter Titan reached towards the hatch. From there, a man easily flew out, connected to the Titan's cockpit by a semi-transparent cable.
He wore a helmet, a form-fitting suit, and on his back, there was a circle glowing blue, sustaining the Eden energy suit.
"Ha-ha-ha! Can't believe my own eyes!" the man laughed heartily. "No, there are hundreds of millions of marks here! No, even more, billions!" His gray eyes stared wildly at the ruined streets.
"Walls, domes, buildings, street structures—this is definitely the Alliance city!" The city around him lay in ruins, with hundreds of skyscrapers fallen to the ground, streets buried, and the once-intact and transparent dome barely holding together with numerous holes throughout its perimeter.
"Launch the drones!" He waved his hand, and, seeing the fallen city in front of him, began to return inside the Titan.
Plates fell from the Titans' shoulders, and about a hundred drones, the size of a human head, took off. This swarm of metal scattered throughout the incredibly vast city, so immense that even from space, it was difficult to comprehend the full extent of this truly significant place.
"Northeast, three kilometers, signal fading," one of the Titans pointed to a straight street strewn with parts of skyscrapers.
Grayish eyes surveyed the city streets, almost everything corroded, not a single intact building remaining, but even this was incredible. He had discovered the city of a fallen human civilization, and this discovery could not only enrich one person but also shed light on the reasons for the apocalypse of the past.
Approaching the signal, they encountered a "whole" building, relatively undamaged by time. This meant it was made entirely of Oin, an incredibly expensive alloy. Grayish eyes widened, and the corners of his lips lifted.
Five Titans opened hatches, and their pilots, all in violet suits except for one girl in black and white—Shaina White—exited. The man also emerged, his eyes looking at the star in this system, a white dwarf about to explode—calculations said the star would not live more than a century.
"Shaina, can you handle the Federation people?" Pierre stepped onto the floor of the huge building through a hole in the wall, accompanied by four armed individuals.
"For a decent fee, not a hair will fall from your head," she firmly held a rifle in her hands, her face hidden under the helmet, which switched from transparent to combat mode.
"Excellent," he moved, like everyone else, toward the signal, deeper into the building.
Their steps quickly led the group to the source of the faint signal, which until recently had been incredibly strong. Before their eyes lay a human corpse without a helmet, in a black uniform with a golden eagle on the chest, the right side of the person cleaved. The trajectory of the strike could be seen on the city behind the corpse. One blow had destroyed the right side of the person's chest and a significant portion of the city behind him.
"Oh God..." They all lowered their weapons, witnessing something unbelievable before their eyes.
Pierre approached the corpse and crouched down; he saw blood, crimson and bright, indicating a recent murder. "The corporation's database has information on the uniform – an old form of the Alliance, its precise origin within the country is unknown – likely, it's intergalactic classified data," these were the symbiote-crystal words in Pierre's body, his assistant.
"Let the corporation send the main fleet, we must sell everything here at any cost! Shayna, send a signal to the ship, let the second group of titans cordon off the city, and researchers arrive on the planet!" Pierre stood up and looked at the huge crater behind the corpse, which leaned against the wall.
"Shayna, if we're in time, I promise - we will cure your family!" The girl's eyes flickered under her helmet; she nodded and looked at the crater. It was immense, the further she looked, the wider it became, but it did not extend beyond the city limits.
"What in the devil is going on here?... The signal came from a recently killed 'citizen of the Alliance,' and something managed to kill him..." she swallowed.
Pierre started moving hurriedly back to the titan, and after a while, the others began to follow him. "Shayna, are you sure?" one of Pierre's escorts asked his personal bodyguard. - "This is serious, the Federation is not a joke, even if FH is the biggest corporation, but war?!"
"Bill, whoever we fight, the federation or that creature that destroyed the city and killed the 'human' - I'll handle it," the guy had nothing left but to end the conversation.
Shayna clenched her rifle in her hands and caught up to Pierre, who was silently counting in his head. It was easy to tell by his darting eyes inside the helmet...
Somewhere far away on the dome, in one of the holes, sat a girl in a white dress. Her red hair was incredibly long, floating as if in a breeze, which couldn't exist here.
"People from the 'Center'?" - her eternally closed gray-blue eyes opened, and she looked at the people and titans. "Never thought they would come to the 'dead part of space'," the girl smiled, calmly swinging her bare legs. - "Just a little longer, and they would have seen me, and there would have been no casualties."
Sitting tens of kilometers away from them, she saw everything incredibly clearly. When she looked at the corpse, the corners of her lips lifted.
"At what point in my life did people again manage to travel so far?" - she closed her eyes. - "This complicates things... But even so," - she opened her palm and looked at the semi-transparent rhomboid crystal. - "Now we know where the second 'key' is!"
The sound of a piano playing filled the surroundings of the city and reached the ears of the people. At that moment, the girl disappeared, and gradually, the sound of the piano faded away.