Looks like its time to get the rest of the crew up and ready for reentry. Standing up from my captain's chair I turned around to face the crew manning the vessel before making a quick briefing.
"All crew on deck! We less than 2 hours remain until exit into physical space so I'll make this short."
I said loudly, all of their attention now focused on me ensuring with all listening in and not zoning out."As most of you know by now, there has been a large signal of energy spike being detected from the region of targeted exploration. The signature of the energy pulse does not match anything we have seen ever. All here will do their own part in due diligence for the best outcome as we try to figure out what's cause. Now! Everyone get on your deck and get to your stations, this is a adventure into a field unknown. There is no knowledge available about what we might face so I suggest all of us here be on our best performance. I will not tolerate any slack. If I see any, do be expected to be put on D-Duty"
The people around me shuddered when they heard me saying I would put them on D-Duty. Admittedly would also prefer not to be the one in charge of the "waste". The short speech was enough to get everyone back out of their stupor of staying on the ship all this time doing the same repetitive things the entire time. The time for exit out of hyperspace was drawing near for us and it would be a lie to say that we were not enticed by what we might find on the other side."Ready the Ships to exit into physical space and get all systems up on loading. We're preparing for all scenarios. I'd rather not take any chances here with the unknown. I hope all of you explorers like me know exactly what happens with those who are careless."
Nobody spoke up against my words for they knew precisely what those words meant. They have seen enough terrible things that have happened to those who were careless thus they were not about to be that careless themselves and get themselves killed in such a stupid way.A ship wide broadcast started with the countdown still exiting hyperspace.
"-T-Minus 10 seconds"
"-T-Minus 9 seconds"
"-T-Minus 8 seconds"
"-T-Minus 7 seconds"
"-T-Minus 6 seconds "
"-T-Minus 5 seconds"
"-T-Minus 4 seconds"
"-T-Minus 3 seconds"
"-T-Minus 2 seconds"
"-T-Minus 1 seconds"
"-Exiting hyperspace-"A shudder runs through the hull of the ship as well zipped into system MW-YD-1MP-3RP-2AB. Appearing on the our rim of the star system we appeared incredibly close to the first asteroid belt within the system which did surprise us initially."Captain, We have arrive on the edge of the star system of interest commencing light scan and deep scan"
Not much was said as the stellar system-wide light scan was waiting to be completed, shouldn't take long to finish. Most of the crew sat in silence with the occasional chatter among some people which I don't particularly mind. Fiddling my captain's chair, I kept myself busy taking a look at the current ship status to pass the time.
I sat sipping my energy drink filled up with the latest formulas for brain activity enhancement. Expensive but it was worth every drop considering what we are doing. We're going to need every bit of brain power we need right now. A couple minutes passed and a soft beep came over my earpiece.
"Sir initial scan completed, we have the coordinates of the anomaly, plotting directions now. Activating primary engines and setting thrust to 2G of acceleration per a second constant acceleration for 2 minutes, countdown till acceleration 10 seconds"All of us got comfortable in our chairs and pressed the button to have our chairs turn and face the direction that the ship was accelerating to. I was already facing the front of the ship so I didn't have to do anything. A cushion of air inflated in all of our chairs and as soon as that was done the ship accelerated. I felt my back being pressed into the chair and even as our own bodies got used to the previous speed the ship was still constantly accelerating so it was just a constant feeling of having my entire body being shoved. It was quite uncomfortable to endure this for 2 minutes straight. The cameras handing us the view of the outside saw the asteroids at this point rapidly growing in size until they turned from a single pixel in size to grains of rice on the screen.
"Turn on shields and fire up those capacitors, direct the shield rods to send majority of shielding plasma crystal to the front"I barked the order out, the view in front of us was seen as space rapidly heated up around us with a frame of plasma materialized around the ship being concentrated to the frontal side. The plasma itself soon under the right conditions provided by the shielding system turned into a shimmering surface in front of the ship caused by the crystallization of the plasma into a glass like covering. Not too long before we finish passing through such a belt, making quick work of all that stands in our way."The anomaly will be visible in 10 seconds"A countdown began in all of our minds as we stared at the central electronic screen displaying the outer view. We can see the asteroid belt starting to thin and soon we were able to see what is beyo-."What the hell is that!?"Said one of the Navguide officers interrupting my thoughts, certainly the rest of us must be thinking the same considering what we are all seeing right now. A Colossal vortex of sorts with hundreds, no, thousands of massive geometric symbols orbiting it. The symbols themselves were already terrifying enough with each being half of the size of earth's moon yet the vortex itself was as big as freaking Jupiter itself.
"Captain, what are your orders, sir"
Said someone who I was not paying attention to at this moment. I was momentarily stunned by what I was seeing, however the words of the vice captain jolted me out of it.
"Launch all research drones we have, set their course to the symbols, Direct one fifth of them to the vortex itself."
I replied with haste.
"Direct ship away and get it into a wide orbit from the vortex itself, I would rather not find out what that thing is capable of."
The ship lurched as the thrusters pointed our backs against the vortex itself, before deceleration and preparing to get into a decentralized orbit of the vortex itself with it in position to blast away at any moment should the need come up.
"Weapons officers on your decks and begin pre-warm up on the primary shield surge capacitors"A rush of activity flooded the central command rooms and orders were launched across the room with frantic speeds. I kept my eyes on the Red vortex located in the middle between the second rocky planet and the inner asteroid belt.
I felt the thumps echo through the hull as the drones launched towards the vortex itself each to its own destination."Set all scanners and point them all at the vortex, delay deep stellar system scans and use all remaining system processing power to get us a better idea on what the vortex is doing to its surroundings. Get it on the main screen now!"
The order was immediately carried out as I slump down back into my chair deep in thought about what the next move should be. A Blurry live cam of the vortex appeared on the screen and with the computer rapidly taking in and processing the photo soon the video was clear as glass. Gasps were heard as we watched what was being shown. The nearby planet along with the nearby asteroid belt was being consumed at a rate visible to the naked eye, Entire continents were being lifted up and as for the asteroids? They were basically comets streaking towards the black center of the vortex.
"Captain, what are your orders?"I heard the second in command, Charles, speaking with a hint of anxiety. Can't really blame him we all were.
"Hm"
I thought to myself, stroking my beard I ran several possible courses of actions in my head. There were certainly no problems with our safety, well for now at least.
"Well Charles, we are split here, the ideal course of action to take right now would be to immediately depart from this system and that would be my decision right now."
"But we have already came so far we-"
I Interrupted Charles before he could continue further.
"And that's exactly the problem Charles, you, the second in command already have these thoughts about continuing, what about the rest?"I took a deep breath before continuing.
"Look, I bet ya a beer that most of the people here would rather continue researching this, thing, or whatever you might call it. Most of the people here are world class scientists, not including myself. While as much as I would like for continuation into researching something like this. My task as the leader here is to ensure that all of the people here return safely and that is much more important you hear?"
Charles has that look of disappointment on his face which he tried to hide quite fast. He looked like he wanted to object, however deep down inside him he also knew that I was correct. Charles, while great at leading others, would often prioritize adventure over all else. I still wonder to this day how those two traits ever managed to fit inside of that brain of his.
"Send out the central data command satellite, we'll have it continue to gather intel in our absence, cut energy usage on the shield and keep it running at half capacity, send the rest to warm up hyperspace drive, we're going home"
As I expected there were certainly boos and groans of disappointment with a hint of annoyance mixed in."Look here all of you, we have enough work on our hands with the information we have now, alright. We really don't need that much more, for all I care, I'd rather have us safe and get this info back on the main Stellnet. I'll patch us in with the rest of command before anything else alright. I should add the fact that again we have not a single clue what this damn thing is and safety is number one in my priorities."
This did the trick with other grumbling with reluctant acknowledgement. Can't blame them. I would rather do it too and adventure to my hearts content however just not today.
"Set course to system Epsilon Eridani, the high command there, they should have ideas on what we can do over here."
"All system checks completed Hyperspace drive online and ready. Awaiting your orders captain."
"Begin activation procedure, let get this thing over with"I said grumbling. Inputting the orders into the system software and soon the ship began to automatically orient itself towards the system Epsilon Eridani. Another countdown began for 10 seconds until Entry into subspace.
Soon the surroundings faded to black.
"Sir estimated time until arrival is calculated to be 56 days"
Groans of even more annoyance came all around, I would have too but I knew that getting to the Major planet Epsilon was much more important here.
I stared at the crew now scrambling into their labs and personal places in order to analyze the new data. Meanwhile I sat there, simply gazing into whatever is in the beyond.
What was that thing anyway? there seems to be no explanation for it.
"Something interesting is about to happen for the first time ever since FTL. Just didn't think that I, Arnold Keys, would be alive to witness it."
I chuckled to myself under my breath.
-In another place just not within earths plane of existenceIn a dimly lit chamber, itself a testament to the limits of imagination with grand murules of colossal creatures painted among it. To the far side of the room from the entrance there lies in the center a large throne sitting upon it the king of the Lucion empire. He sat clade in sharp gleaming red armor with his face obscured by the metallic headgear."How is the progress on the breach project going?"
The king ask to the head scientist and Runemaster of the project
"The project will be complete soon my king, The Artificers have been reporting that the breach should be complete soon. We should expect a successful passage into the new theoretical plane in about 1 year"
The Runemaster replied, speaking with great enthusiasm. The king sighed before reminding the Runemaster again
"If you can get the thing to work faster it would be of great appreciation here."
The Runemasters excited expression immediately turned serious as if a switch was flipped inside of him.
"Understood"
He responded.
"Do understand we are in a dire situation right now, there is no room for errors with that thing coming for us, this is our final shot at salvation, you've proven to us that this thing could work so don't let the rest of us down, you got it."
The Runemaster gave a solemn nod to the words of the king, both of them looking at each other understanding the goal here. King then gestured to the Runemaster for him to be dismissed to go back to the things he was doing and soon he left the room leaving the king all by himself.
"Maybe, still maybe, it looks like we have hope after all"
The king said muttering to himself.