Cranes dropped the Soul Drifter in the Nomad hangar. The squad looked at it, mesmerized. New modules and upgrades had made it heavier. Anya had done the paint job all over again. It looked stylized.
Eve wanted to go alone to the galactic center. That wasn't possible in Mira's presence, so she agreed to take the squad. Cesnas, Kinze, Elara, also joined the mission.
Eve set off, leaving the command of the Nomad and assisting high commanders in Mira's hands.
A hyperspace jump wasn't an option, so the all-new modified Soul Drifter, the fastest scoutship in the galaxy, raced through the treacherous void of the Dark Galaxy.
The Soul Drifter was loaded with all kinds of weapons. Eve didn't know what to expect, but she was prepared for anything.
Zara: "I've never been on a ship and watched stars pass by so fast."
Vayne: "She's built a speeding monster."
Two weeks into the odyssey, Eve was double-checking on weapons in the cargo bay with Anya and Kinze when her comm buzzed. "Commander, incoming transmission. Thelarians. They have us surrounded."
"Coming up!" she responded, heading back to the pilot's cabin.
A Thelarian general's hologram hovered above the pilot's consoles. "Eve, this is an infiltration of the truce."
Eve: "Relax, we are just passing by. It's just us." Eve knew why they were alerted. Their fortress was in close vicinity. "I would have taken another route, but this is the only shortcut."
General: "You are heading to the core?"
Eve: "That's the intent."
General: "Your funeral." The general laughed. "Our fighters will leave you alone now." The transmission ended.
Vayne: "What's down there, commander? What was he bragging about?"
Eve: "Turns out, even the Thelarians are not all the authority in the Dark Galaxy."
Zara: "Who is?"
Eve: "That's what we are here to find out." She thought about The Threat for a second.
Kai: "The scanners are picking up coordinates... they are changing. It's glitchy."
Eve: "Like you said, we won't find the monoliths on the scanner. These are ghost coordinates."
Week three. The heart of the galaxy, the clusters packing the central black hole, could be easily seen on the viewport.
Vayne: "We are close. Where are we headed?"
Eve: "Keep heading toward the center. We'll know what to look for."
It all looked normal. Nothing unusual. The stars. The planets. The worm-like gravitational maws. Suddenly, the radar went crazy.
Zara: "What's happening?"
Vayne: "Our mapping system is gone."
Eve: "Focus on the visuals. You're on manual now."
Vayne: "What's that cluster?"
Eve: "Watch out! Asteroids!"
Vayne used the viewport and flew the ship around the rock monsters like driving a car around curbs and zigzagging through traffic.
After a few intense minutes, they were out of danger.
Vayne exhaled, "What are asteroids doing outside planetary core?"
Kinze: "These are uncanny valleys, dude. Keep your eyes peeled."
A day later, most of the squad crammed into the pilot's cabin, observing the dark in awe.
The wide-open space was occupied by intricate asteroids and rocks. Comets with light-years of trails. Strange glowing orbs the size of the ship. And giant space creatures triple the Nomad's size.
Strange glowing phantoms that looked like giant jellyfish. Countless miles of free-floating glowing oceans. Creatures swimming inside the waters and at their surface. Mountains of large crystal rocks spinning around each other.
Elara: "Can we even explain this?"
Kinze: "Heavens fell on me. This is pure fantasy stuff."
Jax: "Remind me to come down here on vacation."
Anya: "I think we left science behind millions of years ago. Where in the hell are we?"
Eve: "This is not fiction, peeps. These creatures are native creations. The Dark Galaxy used to be a bright place before... everything else happened."
Anya: "But what explains their ginormous sizes? And what about those strange objects I have never seen before in my life? They do not seem created. They seem made."
Eve: "That's true. Nature in here had a secret hand. That's what we are about to figure out."
Hannah: "What are those shimmering fields?"
Axel: "Looks like stardust."
Kai: "I don't think we should pass through it. If the particles are dense enough, we would be shredded to pieces."
Vayne: "Good call!"