The final countdown was a silent one, a series of green lights on a console in the heart of a ship that, according to the world above, did not exist. The seven were strapped into their acceleration couches in the Icarus's darkened bridge, the only light the soft, cool glow of the holographic displays.
"All systems green," Jack Wilson said, his voice a low, calm hum from the pilot's seat. "Sealing the hangar. Let's try not to wake the neighbors."
Above them, a section of the Giza Plateau, a piece of desert indistinguishable from the millions of square miles around it, silently slid away, revealing the star-dusted night sky. With a barely perceptible magnetic hum, the Icarus lifted from its cradle, a ghost of a ship rising from a tomb.
It ascended through the atmosphere with an eerie, silent grace, its matte-black hull a perfect void against the stars. Below them, the Earth was a beautiful, sleeping giant, a tapestry of glittering city lights and dark, dreaming oceans.
"We're approaching the exosphere," Jack announced, his eyes fixed on his sensor display. "This is the moment of truth. If I light the main drive to break orbit, our energy signature will light up every military satellite in the sky. We'll have the entire world scrambling jets before we even clear the moon. We'll have started a panic, or a war, before our real mission has even begun." He turned his head slightly. "Sakura. The stage is yours."
In the ship's small, central meditation chamber, Sakura Miyamoto stood alone. She was the engine for their first, impossible leap. She closed her eyes, and the world of the ship dissolved. Her consciousness expanded, not to feel the veins of the Earth, but to perceive the very skin of reality. She saw the atmosphere, a thin, fragile veil between their world and the void. She was not going to punch a hole in it. She was going to create a fold.
She raised her hands, and the air around her did not shimmer or tear. It simply... thinned. She was not channeling energy; she was manipulating geometry. She took a point a hundred kilometers above the ship and another a hundred thousand kilometers out, in the deep, silent vacuum of orbit, and with an act of pure, unimaginable will, she pulled them together.
On the bridge, the crew saw it on the main viewscreen. The starfield before them did not part. The fabric of space itself seemed to pinch, to crease, creating a shimmering, vertical line of distorted light, a scar of impossible physics. It was a doorway where no door should be.
"Hold on," Jack breathed, his voice filled with a disbelieving awe. He aimed the nose of the Icarus at the shimmering fold and engaged the low-power thrusters.
The passage was not a journey. It was a transition. For a single, disorienting second, the world was a kaleidoscope of impossible colors and screaming, silent geometry. They felt a sensation of being turned inside out and right-side up at the same time.
Then, it was over.
The ship was floating in a profound, absolute silence. Below them was the breathtaking, beautiful, and suddenly very distant blue-and-white marble of Earth. They were in near-Earth orbit. They had done it. They had crossed the veil, a ghost slipping unseen from a locked room.
A sense of quiet, profound triumph filled the bridge.
"Alright," Jack said, his voice laced with the thrill of a pioneer charting a new sea. "Let's see what the ancients left for us."
He engaged the main drive, and the Icarus leaped forward, a silent, black needle stitching a new path through the stars. For two hours, they flew, their destination the coordinates Amira had pulled from the High Priest's mind.
"Approaching the target," Jack announced, a note of anticipation in his voice. "All sensors active. Magnify main viewscreen."
The crew leaned forward, their hearts pounding, ready to witness the mythical Furnace of the Gods.
The viewscreen showed... nothing.
Just the cold, clear, and utterly empty void of space, a field of distant, indifferent stars.
"Scan again," Ivan commanded, his voice a low growl.
"I am," Jack replied, his fingers flying across his console. "Nothing. No energy readings. No gravitational anomalies. No subspace distortions. There's... there's nothing here."