AnnouncementEnjoy this one shot I made a while ago and totally forgot about! It was originally for the HFY reddit, but I have rewritten this can am posting this here now <3

  I have spent a very long century and a half among the stars, seeking out the echoes of history etched into this gaxy’s bones. Each system I charted was a stone unturned, each discovery another thread pulled from the fabric of the past. I am an explorer, a scientist. The matebond of a loving Doctor and a doting Caretaker. A mother to eighteen children, all of whom have long since grown their wings and scattered among the stars to pursue lives of their own.

  My vessel is modest by modern standards—a small but stalwart research yacht retrofitted for long-term travel. Its bulkheads carry the fingerprints of decades, its walls humming with the quiet familiarity of home. My crew, though only a few dozen strong, have shared this life with me for most of that long voyage. They are not just colleagues, but family in the truest sense.

  Over the years, I have catalogued the full menagerie of stelr phenomena—blue giants roaring in their brief brilliance, crimson dwarfs smoldering in quiet eternity, and the haunting ghostlights of white dwarfs flickering in the dark. I noted my favorites like old friends, gave them names, and sent pictures back home—home, wherever that is now.

  With age, I grew braver. I began skirting the edges of the gactic core, lured by rumors and anomalies and instinct. The hypernes thinned there, bent and broken by impossible gravities. Most considered the region impassable—suicidal even. But the evidence kept pulling me closer: ruins untouched by time, fragments of technology still humming after tens of millions of years, materials that defied decay. The further in I ventured, the more the data aligned—everything pointed inward, to the core.

  Still, I waited. I knew the risks. I had responsibilities. I told myself the mystery could remain unsolved. But time... time has its own gravity. My joints ache in the mornings. My eyes adjust slower to starlight. My heart, though still full, beats quieter than it once did.

  And my crew? They age with me. My navigator, Krrkt, has survived over sixty Ruld Cycles—nearly unheard of for his kind. His carapace is a patchwork of cracks and faded color, his stride a little more uncertain with each docking. But still he jokes, still he waves off our concern with the pride of someone who refuses to go quietly.

  Yuvara, my engineer, is scarcely older than I am. She was a firebrand in our youth and remains one in temperament, though her body tells a different story. Her once-thick fur has thinned and dulled, her steps less spring than slump. But she still works circles around the younger techs, barking orders and leaping into vents no one else dares approach.

  We are aging relics, all of us, but relics with purpose. And so, when the call of the core grew too loud to ignore—when the st surviving data shards sang the same harmonic frequency from deep within the rift—we did what we always do.

  We packed our notes. We ran diagnostics. We plotted a course.

  We are all old, worn by time and the long inertia of starlight, and we are ready—ready for one final adventure. We’ve made peace with our paths, and with the end we know may be waiting. I’ve already given my goodbyes to my bondmates, my children, and the few friends who still live scattered across the spiral arms. So too have my crew. There were tears, of course, and ughter too—the kind that only comes from decades of knowing someone inside and out.

  We pooled our collective savings, salvaged favors from long-dormant accounts, and stripped old upgrades for credit. With care, we rebuilt and reinforced our Lightdrive, repcing its aging core with the most state-of-the-art singurity ttice we could afford. It hummed like a living thing, eager for its task.

  And so we sailed into the brightness of the gactic core—into myth, into danger, into what might be the closing chapter of our lives.

  “Uktri,” came Krrkt’s voice, resonant and calm in his high, wavering trill. “This one is prepared for the dive. We may jump when you give the word.”

  My chest fluttered, every nerve alight with trembling anticipation. This would be either our doom, or the beginning of something utterly new. I turned from the console to face the crew. All of them had gathered on the bridge for this moment—every one of them standing proud, aged, and unflinching.

  “My beloved friends,” I began, voice thick with emotion, “if this is to be our final voyage, then let the stars bear witness: I have treasured every moment of our journey together. We have uncovered wonders beyond imagining, made discoveries that have reshaped the sciences of entire civilizations. There is no crew in any corner of the gaxy I would have rather flown with than you.”

  My spines quivered—an involuntary show of sentiment I could not suppress. But none of them ughed. They only smiled, nodding solemnly. Yuvara gave a two-fingered salute. Krrkt bowed his antennae. No one needed to speak. We understood one another, down to the core.

  We each whispered our personal farewells. Then we engaged the Lightdrive.

  The dive into altspace was a sensation we had endured countless times before. The disorientation, the bending of gravity and time, the slosh of dimensions bleeding into one another—it had long since become background noise. But this time was different.

  We plunged into the tunnel and were immediately overcome. Vertigo came in a tidal wave. Lights that shouldn't exist danced at the edges of our vision—shapes and spectra no eye was meant to see. One by one, we fell or staggered. Krrkt colpsed sideways, his limbs twitching. Yuvara gritted her teeth and held onto a support strut with all her strength. I was the smallest aboard this vessel, but I stood my ground with sheer force of will, clinging to the center railing like it was the spine of the universe itself.

  We emerged violently into realspace. The ship shuddered with a wrenching groan, metal compining under the pressure of the transition. For a breathless moment, all was still. Then, one by one, we pulled ourselves upright and turned to the forward viewport.

  What we saw stopped our hearts.

  We floated at the edge of a paired star system, basking in a soft red radiance. A red dwarf, burning low and steady, loomed rge. Its companion—what we had thought was a white dwarf—was no star at all. It was a pnet. A rocky world, impossibly massive, nearly ten percent rger than my own Cradle. It circled the red dwarf in a tight orbit, far too close for any natural body to survive unscathed.

  And yet it gleamed. A shield—no, an envelope of light—surrounded it. Protective. Sustaining. Brilliant and untouched.

  We had done it. We had crossed a threshold that no living being had recorded passing in known history. For all we knew, we were the first in tens of millions of years to set eyes on this pce. Uuara guide us—we had made it.

  We set course immediately, our ship angling toward the anomaly. The questions came rushing in like an avanche. How long has it been here? How has it endured? What civilization built such an artifact, and why? Is the pnet still inhabited? If so... by what?

  As the ship accelerated, I withdrew to my quarters to think. I needed to be alone with my thoughts. Hours passed as I stared into nothing, theory after theory blooming and dying in my mind like the short-lived flowers of an alien spring. I felt awe. I felt terror. I felt the strangest sense of reverence.

  We were nearly at the edge of the pnet’s luminous shield when Gh’hutu, our aging communications officer, stirred from his long silence.

  “Uktri,” he rasped, his voice like wind across an ancient canyon. “We’ve received a communication... in Gactic Standard.”

  The room froze. Gh’hutu’s sagging jowls trembled with every sylble as he adjusted the audio. My hearts thudded in unison. The air seemed to thin, every breath caught on the cusp of revetion. For a moment, I felt young again—a fresh-faced fawn trembling at her first stelr map. I would have bounced in pce had my joints not protested the very idea.

  “Put it through!” I barked, louder than I expected, my voice crackling with excitement.

  The screen flickered. Static shimmered. Then, crity.

  A strange being appeared—unmistakably intelligent, but unlike anything we had ever encountered in our travels. It stood upright on two limbs, effortlessly banced, its bearing both regal and casual. Loose robes flowed around its form, soft and draped like fabric shaped by wind. Its skin was rich and dark like volcanic gss, smooth and unmarred. Only a thick mane of coiled hair and two tufts above its forward-facing eyes broke the surface.

  Then it did something startling.

  It bared its teeth.

  My crew flinched collectively. The scent of fear rippled across the room—sharp and instinctive. We were children again, staring down a predator.

  But then, it spoke.

  “Greetings, new friends,” the being said, its voice a melodic balm. Gentle. Measured. Every word curved with intent and crity. “We hope the transtion is current. Whatever time this is in, we have set the Guardian to listen and transte to whichever primary nguage it hears—if it ever hears one again.

  “Since you have made it here, we have a request. Please transmit a broad signal with the code 5414. The Guardian will open the shield for you. We invite you to nd and ask only that you follow the Guardian’s instructions thereafter.”

  Then, silence.

  Not a flicker of hostility. No blustering threat, no conditions, no commands. Just a polite invitation—spoken in our tongue, by a creature that radiated dignity and confidence.

  None of us spoke for long moments. The silence was not born of fear anymore, but reverence. This being—this person—belonged to a civilization so old and advanced it had reached out across eons and anticipated someone might one day arrive. And here we were.

  I turned, blinking away tears I hadn’t noticed forming, and snapped to Stars Bewildered, our pilot.

  “Transmit the codes. Now.”

  Stars Bewildered grinned sharply, her eyes alight with purpose, and tapped out the command with practiced ease. “Broadcasting 5414 across all civilian bands,” she confirmed, then angled our ship toward the pnet’s radiant shell.

  We watched as the pnetary shield—once seamless and blinding—rippled, then folded back like silk in a cosmic breeze. A tunnel of brilliant light opened for us, inviting us inward.

  And we flew in.

  The atmosphere embraced us like a lover, warm and dense. The viewscreen lit up with impossible vistas—vast oceans shimmering in hues of blue and soft grey, reflecting twin suns like spilled jewels. Towering forests bnketed entire continents, dense with foliage unlike any cataloged biosphere we’d seen. Lightning danced through the skies, followed swiftly by moments of crystalline calm, where the clouds parted to reveal sunsets of soft red and rose-gold.

  It was not just alien. It was perfect. A curated wilderness.

  Then we received new coordinates from the Guardian—no voice, just data, slipping seamlessly into our systems. We followed them.

  What awaited us was a city. No—the city. The only one.

  From orbit, it shimmered like a crown of gss and metal, hugging a coastal rise where sea met nd in gentle waves. It was vast but not sprawling, designed with an elegance that felt more like sculpture than architecture. We were guided to a colossal nding pad—so massive our ship looked like a child’s toy atop it.

  I pressed against the viewport, awestruck. “Stars above,” I whispered. “This wasn’t abandoned. It was preserved.”

  I scrambled into my environmental suit, clumsy fingers fumbling with csps as my excitement tangled with the straps. My horns made the seal awkward, as always, but I managed it with the help of Yuvara, who chuckled softly and gave my shoulder a squeeze.

  Everyone suited up—save for Krrkt. His carapace was too brittle now, his limbs too stiff. The effort of donning a full EVA shell would likely kill him. He smiled with his mandibles curled tight and waved us off from his chair.

  “I’ve done enough,” he said simply, and none of us could argue.

  We cycled the airlock and stepped out.

  The gravity was heavier than I expected—like walking through memory. But the air was rich and clean, fragrant with salt and something sweetly floral. The city rose before us in impossible detail—spires and arcways, buildings whose surfaces shimmered with light and nguage, shapes we couldn't yet parse. Something in every angle whispered of design that had surpassed utility and moved into philosophy.

  Beyond the nding pad, towering like a mountain forged by divine hands, stood a colossal statue. It clutched a spear nearly twice the length of our ship, the weapon itself a marvel of geometry and function, its shaft inscribed with spiraling etchings that caught the twin suns’ light in dancing glimmers. The figure wore the same loose, flowing garments as the being from the message—draped like memory across a body forged from the same strange, silvery metal that composed much of the city behind it.

  The statue stood sentinel—immobile, eternal, arms at rest yet unmistakably poised to defend.

  I approached it briskly, legs aching from the increased gravity but my mind too enthralled to care. The sheer craftsmanship of it sang to me. Every line of the statue’s face was etched with reverence, the anatomy both idealized and ancient. Its eyes, though unmoving, felt like they were watching me. Watching us all.

  Then it moved.

  A great metallic groan echoed through the clearing like a god yawning from slumber. Servos spun to life. Fingers twitched. The statue’s chest rose in a shuddering breath of machinery long dormant. And then it stepped forward.

  We all froze. My instincts screamed to flee. The hairs on my back rose with primal terror. But I held my ground. There was nowhere to run, not from something like this. The others clustered close behind me, no one daring to speak.

  The statue’s mouth opened with a series of harsh clicks, like granite being slowly carved away.

  “H-H-H-Hello... n-n-ew frie-nds.”

  The voice was rough, broken by centuries of disuse. Gears whined. Pistons hissed. But it was a voice—a greeting.

  The titan stopped, only a few hundred meters from us. The shadow it cast stretched long and deep, swallowing part of the nding pad and brushing the gleaming edges of the city’s outskirts. Its mechanical body stood still again, like a monument, but this time it radiated awareness.

  “I am-am the Guard-dian of Earth. You-you may refer-er-er to me as-as Freja.”

  I bowed low, lowering my antennae and spines in the manner of my people, overwhelmed with reverence for this living artifact. My companions followed suit, their gestures different by species, but no less respectful.

  “I am the Ultri of this vessel,” I said, choosing my words with care. “Yuhama of the Expanse.”

  Freja’s voice stuttered again, then began to smooth, like an old melody remembered after many years.

  “Ye-es. It is good to meet you, Yu-Yu-Yuhama of the Expanse,” she said, the distortion fading. “I am the Guardian of Earth—the cradle of humanity, the birthpce of life that seeded this gaxy. I am... overjoyed to meet new friends.”

  Despite her colossal size, she did not move threateningly. Her face remained fixed, sculpted in an expression of solemn serenity. Only her voice gave life to the stone.

  “Humans?” I echoed, blinking in confusion. “Is the being we saw in the recording... is that a ‘human’?”

  Freja inclined her massive head, the movement slow and deliberate, like a falling star changing its course.

  “Yes,” she said. “That was a human. One of many. But their time... has passed. Mine is not to expin all. I am restricted—by oath, by code, by design. There is something you must do first.”

  She raised a hand the size of a shuttlecraft and pointed with curled, cwless fingers toward the structure behind her. It shimmered like gss under pressure, every line of its surface faintly glowing with an internal pulse.

  “Behind me lies the Archive. Please, make your way inside.”

  We nodded solemnly, our hearts pounding, and began the slow trek toward the building. The gravity continued to pull at our bones like the weight of ages. My knees ached. My engineer Yuvara wheezed softly behind me, her shoulders hunched against the strain.

  Then Freja’s eyes fred a brilliant violet.

  A path before us lit up with gentle light—bands of soft blue and amethyst pulsing from beneath our feet. With every step, the weight grew easier to bear. My spine uncoiled slightly. Yuvara straightened. Even Gh’hutu’s gnarled gait loosened as we continued forward, the ground itself easing our burden.

  We passed through the Archive’s threshold, and what awaited us inside nearly dropped me to my knees.

  It was a museum—not of the past, but of wonder itself.

  Holograms shimmered like spirits caught between dimensions. Sculptures of impossible curvature floated midair, anchored by fields we could not detect. Models of spacecraft—elegant, sweeping, adorned with gilded carvings and curved hulls—circled overhead like sacred stars. Each was accompanied by strange symbols and swirling lines of light, slowly resolving into nguages we had never spoken... and yet began to understand.

  Here, a crystal globe dispying a human city suspended inside a sphere of water. There, a machine folding endlessly into itself, like a kaleidoscope dreaming in the fifth dimension. Everywhere was art, and logic, and beauty.

  I could have died there. Truly. My mission fulfilled, my curiosity sated, my soul at peace.

  But it was not the end.

  Overhead, Freja’s voice echoed through the museum, soft now, warm and resonant.

  “The console you seek is in the center of the chamber,” she said. “Approach it. Speak any greeting you choose. It will know you are here.”

  And so we moved toward the heart of the Archive, hearts racing, breath shallow, uncertain whether we were about to uncover a truth too vast to hold… or begin the next phase of a journey we never knew we were part of.

  I stepped away from my crew, leaving them behind as they wandered the gallery in silent awe, their bodies illuminated by the shifting, surreal lights of ancient human technology. I could hear their murmurs, their excmations of wonder—Yuvara whispering to Gh’hutu about a sculpture that seemed to twist space itself, Stars Bewildered chuckling at a holographic recreation of an extinct animal called a “cat.”

  But I had a task to complete.

  The console stood on a raised dais in the center of the chamber, unassuming in shape but undeniably ancient. Unlike the other artifacts around it, it bore no adornments, no ornamentation—only a smooth, dark surface, its edges soft and rounded, and a single indentation at its center, just deep enough for a hand.

  What should I say?

  Why ask me to speak at all? What would happen after?

  I leaned forward, my mandibles tight, my breathing shallow with anticipation. My spines fttened against my back in instinctive anxiety.

  “I am Yuhama,” I said, forcing the words past a dry throat. “Ultri of the Starbound Traveller. I offer my greetings to you.”

  For a moment, there was silence. Thick and absolute.

  Then, the console pulsed with soft amber light, and a new voice emerged. Not from speakers, but from the very air—rich and resonant, deeper than the one from the initial message, but no less melodic. If the first had been a warm sunrise, this voice was the hush of twilight on a still ocean.

  “We greet you, Yuhama.”“Please leave Earth, and make your way seven hundred and twenty-three light minutes from this pnet. The Guardian will provide the heading.”

  I stood frozen. I had just spoken to a voice from a civilization lost to time, unknown and forgotten, that had endured the fall of empires, the colpse of stars.

  I had just conversed—directly—with the first sapient species unknown to gactic science in four thousand years.

  Behind me, Freja’s voice rang through the halls once more, almost jubint.

  “Head outward from Sol, directly along this trajectory,” she sang. “And wait. You have been chosen.”

  My crew was hesitant. Their awe had barely begun to settle, and now we were to leave the paradise they had only begun to explore. I understood. I felt the same ache in my hearts. But something greater waited for us, and I told them as much. That this was only the beginning. That whatever mystery waited out there, it would be the culmination of our lives’ work.

  That was enough.

  Soon we were aboard the Starbound Traveller again, and Freja opened the massive shield to the sky. The breach yawned open like a divine eye blinking, and we slipped out, leaving the gleaming, impossible world behind.

  The coordinates led us beyond the far reaches of the pnetary system, just outside the orbit of the smallest gas giant. There, we waited.

  And waited.

  Minutes passed. Then hours. The glow of the twin stars behind us began to dim as distance grew. My nerves jittered. My hearts pounded like war drums. Every conversation aboard the bridge was a flurry of ideas and theories, like it was a century ago—back when we were young and starlit, chasing anomalies with boundless curiosity and foolish ambition. We spoke of myths. Of first contact legends. Of what might come through the veil.

  Then space broke.

  A tear opened in the firmament—not like a normal altspace tunnel, but a colossal, asymmetrical gash in the fabric of reality. It stretched open, wider than the entire sor system, a wound through which starlight bled in colors unseen and unimagined.

  And something came through.

  A ship—or something like a ship—emerged from the tear.

  It was spherical, a perfect orb gliding through the rip like a pearl surfacing from dark water. But no comparison could prepare us for its size. It dwarfed every celestial body we knew. Larger than stars. Its surface glittered with a thousand facets, and orbiting it were moons—not captured bodies, but forged companions, their artificial lights glowing like fireflies against the void.

  Several of us colpsed to our knees, overcome. I was among them.

  The mind does not easily accept the impossible. Not on this scale. Not when confronted with something that defies the known limits of energy, of matter, of engineering. It was a god’s eye, a pnet that dreamed.

  We struggled to our feet, still shaking, just in time to receive a transmission.

  The holo flickered on, and another human appeared.

  This one was different from the first. Older. Dressed not in ceremonial robes, but something simpler—grey fabric, worn and elegant. Its skin was creased with time, its eyes shining with unspoken stories. Fnking it were others—humans of every shade and shape, standing silently, hands csped.

  The central figure stepped forward, tears rolling freely down their cheeks. Saline water glinted under the light of unseen suns.

  “We greet you, travelers of the void.”

  Their voice trembled.

  “We greet you.”

  The others behind them broke down as well, weeping openly, some pcing hands to hearts or lips.

  For a long, long moment, I could not speak. None of us could.

  My throat closed up. My mandibles twitched with emotion too vast to name. Questions surged through me—an ocean of desperate curiosity and wonder. Why were they crying? Why had they waited? How long had they been watching?

  What were they now?

  But I said nothing.

  I just stared at them, tears I did not know I could cry welling in my lower eyes, hands trembling at my sides.

  All I could manage was a weak, trembling bow, my body heavy with the weight of disbelief and awe. The silence among us was profound—no words could stitch together the vast tapestry of emotions swirling within. Then, just as suddenly as the colossal ship had appeared, a smaller tear opened in space before us, shimmering and pulsing with alien light. It was only twice the size of the Starbound Traveller, but that was more than enough.

  Without exchanging a single word, we slipped through the tear. Time seemed to stretch and warp around us, the familiar hum of our engines fading into a strange silence that filled every corner of the ship. None of us spoke. We were lost in the maelstrom of processing what we had just witnessed—the enormity of it, the impossibility of it.

  When the tunnel spit us out, we found ourselves instantly docked within a vast docking bay that stretched on for kilometers, so enormous it was impossible for my failing quad of eyes to see the end. The ceiling arced impossibly high above us, veined with glowing conduits pulsing with an inner light. The cold metal underfoot hummed faintly, as if the very floor was alive.

  Suddenly, the Starbound Traveller gave a sharp jolt and came to a halt, causing us all to lurch forward slightly in our seats. We were perfectly still now, moored securely within this alien sanctuary. From my vantage point, I could see a gss tube—crystal clear and impossibly smooth—with a formless metal rim extending from the starboard docking port, gently csping the ship like a guardian’s hand. The connection hissed softly as it locked into pce.

  We gathered at the airlock, anticipation thick in the air. The hiss of depressurization was oddly comforting—familiar in a pce so utterly unfamiliar. As the door slid open, we stepped cautiously into the transparent tube, feeling the light hum of the station vibrate beneath our feet.

  Despite the immensity of this structure, the gravity here felt surprisingly normal. I expected a crushing force, something to press us into the floor like heavy weights. Instead, we found ourselves able to walk with ease, our footsteps echoing softly in the immense chamber beyond.

  Waiting for us at the base of the tube were a group of towering humans—figures so tall they brushed against the shadows cast by the dock. Each was adorned in a dazzling array of colors and styles, their garments flowing with fabrics that shimmered and shifted like liquid light. It was as if each had stepped out from a different world, carrying the essence of their unique cultures with them.

  One stepped forward, his presence commanding yet welcoming.

  “You may refer to me as Rehn,” he said, his voice steady and warm. “I am the ambassador for the Gss World.”

  Another followed, calm and serene, with eyes like polished jade.

  “I am Aurak of the Green World,” they announced quietly, voice smooth and measured.

  A third figure bounced slightly on the balls of their feet, excitement crackling in every movement.

  “I am Taya of the Metal World,” they said, their tone bright and eager.

  A whisper came next, soft and almost lost in the murmurs around us.

  “I am Hirin of the Craftworld,” they said, their voice lilting and delicate.

  Lastly, a towering presence emerged from the shadows, imposing and unreadable.

  “And I am Gragora of the Void World,” they intoned, voice deep and resonant, betraying no emotion.

  I nodded in return, carefully introducing my crew one by one. Some were shy in response, especially Gh’hutu, the usually brash Wurt, who seemed suddenly small and uncertain in the presence of these towering beings. The weight of the moment humbled even the most confident among us.

  Rehn smiled gently, his maw curving upward in a gesture of friendship.

  “If you wish,” he said, “you may remove your helmets. You will find the atmosphere breathable, regardless of species.”

  Relief and curiosity washed over us as helmets were slowly lifted, breaths coming easier and smiles returning.

  “Please join us in celebration for this wondrous moment,” Rehn invited warmly, stepping aside to lead us. “I will be happy to answer any questions you have as we walk, and after our celebration of course.”

  We exchanged gnces, a mixture of exhaustion, excitement, and cautious hope filling the air. This was more than a meeting—it was the dawn of a new chapter for us all.

  We walked through corridors bathed in warm, radiant light, the air humming softly with a subtle energy that seemed to pulse from the very walls themselves. Every surface was a canvas, spttered with a riot of colors—some wild and abstract, chaotic swirls of reds, blues, and golds, others so painstakingly detailed they looked like windows into distant worlds, capturing the essence of ndscapes and faces with uncanny realism.

  As we passed, humans bent over their easels or sculpting stations gnced up, their eyes—so familiar, yet distinctly alien—fixed intently on us. One by one, they dropped their tools, baring their teeth in broad, welcoming smiles and fpping their forelimbs in gestures that felt like greetings. A few abandoned their work altogether, falling into step beside us, their curiosity and warmth weaving into a swelling crowd that shadowed our every footstep.

  At the corridor’s end, we stepped into a cavernous chamber that took my breath away. Rows of massive booths stretched as far as I could see, each a gateway through reality itself. Inside each portal, humans walked freely in and out, their conversations weaving a tapestry of voices in countless nguages—nguages I didn’t recognize but could somehow understand perfectly. Words floated around me, each sylble ced with emotion, every inflection rich with meaning, painting vivid pictures of thought and feeling.

  A sudden crity struck me: though they weren’t speaking Gactic Standard, I comprehended every word as if it were my own mother tongue. Each phrase carried the weight of joy, doubt, longing, or amusement, and I could feel the very intentions behind their speech.

  “Are you wondering why you can understand our myriad of nguages?” The voice of the Gss World ambassador, Rehn, cut through my thoughts, as if reading the question forming on my lips.

  He smiled gently. “Our Super AI, Sona, manages Voidhome. It can manipute Neuralspace at will, weaving soul links with all aboard.” His eyes twinkled with pride. “You can choose to sever the link with a thought, but then we wouldn’t be able to understand each other.”

  I hesitated, curiosity prickling. “Are you... a hivemind?” My question hung in the air.

  Rehn’s ugh burst forth, loud and unrestrained, quickly joined by his companions’ varying vocalizations—barks, chirps, and hums that startled me enough to jump in pce. They immediately stopped, concern fshing across their faces.

  “I apologize,” Rehn said, his voice warm. “We are unused to other species and express amusement in... peculiar ways. To answer you—no, we are not a hivemind. But we are empathically linked. Have you felt it? The emotions that ripple through this pce?”

  I closed my eyes, letting the ambient hum wash over me. Gentle tendrils tugged at the edges of my consciousness: joy bubbling beneath the surface, fshes of anger, waves of deep sadness, contemptive stillness, and an overwhelming sense of wonder. It was as if every heartbeat, every breath around me was connected to mine.

  When I opened my eyes, a quiet awe filled them, and I nodded.

  “I—I can feel it,” I murmured, barely above a whisper, my voice nearly swallowed by the murmuring crowd around us. “It’s… it’s wonderful.” The sensation stirred something deep within me—a fragile, trembling hope I hadn’t dared to nurture for cycles.

  Rehn nodded thoughtfully, their eyes reflecting the soft glow of the nearby tears in reality. Without another word, they gestured for us to pass through the shimmering portal. On the other side awaited another nexus—an intricate web of glowing gateways, each pulsing softly like a heartbeat, stretching in all directions.

  As we moved forward, my mind raced, questions tumbling out faster than I could contain them.

  “How long have humans existed?” I asked, eager yet careful.

  Rehn paused, scratching their chin thoughtfully beneath a curtain of fine fur. After a moment’s contemption, they replied casually, as if stating the weather, “Sona is older than almost all of us, but she tells me we have existed for over fifty billion years, within a margin of about nine million.”

  I blinked, my mouth going dry. “I… I apologize, but did you say over fifty billion years?” I stammered, struggling to grasp the enormity of that span.

  “Yes,” Rehn said calmly, as if fifty billion years was no more remarkable than a morning walk. “We have journeyed among the stars for eons, most of that time aboard this vessel. Though this one you see is but a scout world—one of five worlds in total—and a popution of merely nine hundred trillion.”

  My breath caught, a shiver running down my spine. “There are rger craft than this?” I asked, awe and a hint of disbelief coloring my voice.

  “Indeed!” Rehn’s eyes sparkled with warmth and pride. “Many of us make a pilgrimage to the Eternity—a colossal ship that houses countless worlds, inhabited by untold numbers of humans. It boasts over forty thousand worlds within its hull. In my time there, I have visited more than a dozen. It is an experience unlike any other, and reaching it is far simpler than you might imagine.”

  The sheer scale of it all overwhelmed me—the endless stretch of time, the unimaginable scope of their civilization, the deep history etched into every corner of this vast vessel. I gnced at my crew, seeing their wide eyes, the same mixture of disbelief and wonder mirrored on every face.

  I decided not to dwell too long on that horrifying fact—how small and fragile I felt in this vast, indifferent universe. If I let myself sink into it, I feared my mind would unravel, and I wouldn’t be able to carry on.

  “I—I see,” I said, my voice trembling, wavering under the weight of it all. My old body, worn from years of travel and toil, seemed to sag with the effort it took just to keep standing. I had room for only one more question before my strength would give out.

  Rehn looked at me with gentle patience. “If I can answer it, I will be more than happy to.”

  I took a deep breath, steeling myself. “Why haven’t we seen you before?”

  Rehn’s eyes softened, and their voice lowered, almost wistful. “Ah, well… according to Sona, we scoured your gaxy—our first home—for every speck of life we could find. We were desperate to make new friends, to find new people to interact with, to share culture with. But we were so alone. So very alone.” A heavy pause hung in the air, as if the weight of that loneliness stretched across eons.

  “We found life everywhere, but at most, it was primitive—simple animals, tiny microbes. Nothing that could truly meet us as equals. So we pnted the seeds for intelligent life. We built starships capable of generating their own tears in space, and the majority of humanity made an exodus, scattering in all directions.”

  Rehn gestured subtly toward the vastness surrounding us. “We rebuilt our pnet—made it a paradise—and we protected it, then left it there, a quiet sentinel. In case our seeds bore fruit. In case they grew into something worthy. And then… we found Earth.”

  I let out a long, tired sigh, the weight of their story settling deep into my bones. I had one final question—one that cwed at my heart with cold fingers, terrifying to even voice.

  “What will you do with us… now that you know we are here?” The words escaped in a trembling whisper.

  Rehn’s eyes narrowed in confusion. “What do you mean, ‘do with you’?”

  “You have technology that is, quite frankly, impossible to us,” I said, my voice faltering. “If you wanted to dominate us, to control or conquer, you could do it without a second thought. So… why haven’t you?”

  Rehn bared their teeth in a slow sigh—not a threat, but a gesture of understanding and perhaps weariness. The unspoken answer hung between us, heavier than any word could carry.

  “The thought hadn’t crossed my mind,” Rehn said softly, their voice carrying a quiet conviction. “I don’t believe a single human would entertain such a thought.” Their eyes shone with something almost sacred. “We will be as present as your peoples want us to be. We will share technology—in arts and sciences, in medicine and philosophy. We could guide your peoples into transcendence, living as long as you choose. We could cure every ailment that has ever pgued you. We could be anything you want us to be.”

  A pulse of radiant hope seemed to flow from Rehn’s being, spreading warmth through the room like sunlight breaking through clouds. “The first gaxy we seeded,” they continued, voice trembling with reverence, “has become the first gaxy to bear fruit—or at the very least, the first to find a Jewel World.” Their words hung in the air, heavy with promise and potential.

  “The only thing humans have ever wanted,” Rehn added, their voice cracking just a little as if the weight of loneliness bore down on them, “was a friend.”

  The silence that followed was profound. It wasn’t just the quiet of absence but the weight of countless unspoken emotions, of hope and fear tangled together. I looked at my crew — all of us were silent, caught in the vastness of what we’d just been told. The scale of it all crushed us softly, like being swept beneath an ocean wave far bigger than anything we had ever imagined. We were mere motes of dust clinging to the face of a towering mountain range.

  Lost in my thoughts, I hadn’t realized we’d stopped moving. I bumped gently into Rehn and looked up, startled, to find we stood before a pair of ornate doors rising several metres above us, stretching up to the ceiling of the corridor like guardians of some ancient temple.

  The ambassadors nodded, their eyes glimmering with encouragement, and motioned with their forelimbs to proceed.

  Slowly, the gigantic gates began to part, their ancient hinges groaning beneath the weight of countless ages and the timeless artistry carved into every inch. As they swung open, it was as if a breath long held was finally released—ushering us into a vast, cathedral-like chamber so immense it swallowed the edges of my vision.

  Before me stretched a sea of faces—humans, each one unique and radiant, bathed in the gentle glow of soft, ambient light that seemed to come from nowhere and everywhere at once. Their eyes shone with a depth of emotion I could hardly comprehend—hope trembling alongside relief, joy mingled with a profound longing fulfilled at st.

  The air itself felt charged, thick with unspoken stories and a shared history that connected every soul in that room. Time seemed to stand still as I realized this was more than a gathering—it was a homecoming of hearts scattered through the void, reunited in a single, overwhelming moment.

  Then, rising like a wave crashing upon the shore, the crowd’s voices swelled and merged—thousands of voices blending into one, raw and trembling with emotion. It was a word filled with everything they had waited for, everything they had dared to dream through endless solitude:

  “WELCOME.”