“A soldier does not question orders, he obeys them! How many lives do you think were lost over your mindless pursuits? We serve the greater good here, Silmund, not mindless whims!”

‘But I had them! I almost had them, Sir,’ I’d wished to yell back. ‘And those lives were not lost because of me…’

𐫰 𐫰 𐫰

“We need to hurry up!” Mikayes called out, having just completed our group by coming over. Georgie was just sliding those last boxes onto our cart. “The gate is opening, and Jenna wants us up there sooner rather than later. Else, she’s worried we’ll get left behind.”

Above us, a more forceful crackle of energy had just passed through the mega structure looming over New Hub. Thousands of ships were already crowding the skies, heading for orbit. Being late now could set you back months of planning, forcing you to wait until the next time the gate was opened.

We were pushing it to the last minute.

“Then let’s get a move on,” Kassem confirmed, still holding that lead case high above his head, out of reach of Colors desperate hands.

The girl would constantly try to jump up and snatch it from his hands when she thought he was distracted. She’d yet to succeed. “We were just about done here anyway. Isn’t that right, kid?”

There’d been some sneered meaning in his tone just then, but my mind was not present enough to pick it up. It was busy elsewhere, reevaluating everything that I’d ever known.

Before that day, I’d found comfort in knowing that, once I had a better understanding of what was going on – with me returning to the past, the end of all life, and what’s not – the Stratos Apolytos would be there to back me up.

Now, I wasn’t so sure anymore.

𐫰 𐫰 𐫰

“For peace, humanity, and the greater good, in Emperor Salazar’s name, kill them all! Their cries are not ones for mercy, they’re trying to warp your minds. Kill! Kill them all!”

𐫰 𐫰 𐫰

The ship was far larger than the rental that’d once brought us to New Hub. Where that one had been sized like a house, this one was more akin to an apartment complex.

Not just a luxury one, and with far fewer rooms.

Besides the bare necessities to keep the ship functional, every square meter of the old XS-643 Transporter was dedicated to its loading bay.

Nearly two stories tall, you could’ve fit the entirety of our old rental in there with space to spare. Not that it felt the way with all the equipment, cargo, and extra faces surrounding us. It wasn’t just supplies that we’d been securing that morning.

Out of necessity, we’d been forced to go through the major guilds to hire our survey team, and even at the best of times, they weren’t known for charging fair prices to newcomers. We’d required speed and convenience.

Now, while the two crews we’d ended up with were not bad by any means, they’d been way over-prized for the services they provided. Mikayes had been grumbling about it all morning. Whenever he wasn’t bothering Jenna over the phone, at least.

The first crew was a company of thirteen stout Ruskel men — human in appearance though shorter, rounder, and with far more hair — there for ore retrieval and assessment. Half of the equipment crowding the space was theirs. Transport vehicles, heavy drills, sonars, crushers, portable refiners, and a whole lot of boxes with danger warnings all over.

Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon.

The one thing they lacked was any weaponry to speak of — a Ruskel guard cost extra — but that’s where me, Jenna, and the Slobber Knuckles came in. We were the muscle of this venture.

The other team was a cohort of walrus sized Gethrogs. Sewage-colored skin, blubber, large mouths and tiny limbs that weakly waggled into the air where they lay upon silky carriers – the result of generations of selective breeding, forcing them to constantly be carried around by their servants.

There were three Gethrogs, attended by nearly six times the number of servants, and they were there to take stock of any bio-readings of Mikayes’ virgin planet. Although they might not look the part, their species was a leading authority on genetic data.

“As expected, he’s gonna have us all share the same space for the journey…” Kassem sighed as we finished hauling the last boxes inside. Mikayes had already gone to join Edris and Jenna in the cockpit. “Well, nothing else to do but settle in.”

The vibrations of the engines were already noticeable through the ship’s hull, and it was getting worse by the second. We’d be heading for orbit within the minute.

While Colors and Georgie were still busy checking that the cargo was safely secured, however, Kassem just leaned back against one of the crates.

There were only the two of us there, and now, he lazily slipped his hat down over his eyes. “What happened to all your earlier spunk, by the way?” he huffed. “Did someone bite you, or did you finally realize to start acting your age?”

“Maybe I did…” I mumbled, only half present in the moment. My UI was constantly feeding me information: all the things I’d ignored, all the things I’d accepted as truth.

Memories that no longer looked quite the same.

I’d never been foolish enough to believe that the Stratos Apolytos was some bastion of absolute good — I’d seen too many things for that — but I’d at least believed we stood for something. That we served a cause.

Now, I wondered what that cause had been.

“What’s that?” Kassem asked, glancing over from underneath his hat.

I didn’t even have to pretend to listen.

A final rattle of the space around us, along with a lurching sensation in my stomach, had announced our last moments on solid earth.

In one instance, we’d been tucked away in the rusted hangar that Mikayes had rented, and in the next, the winding pathways and structures that was New Hub shrunk away beneath us. I could see it all on my interface, connected (with Jenna’s permission) to the Transporter’s system.

It wasn’t long before we’d joined the stream of ships speeding for orbit, and I could tap into the feed that was being transmitted to all participants of the New Expansion.

“…sanctioned beneath the Triumvirate’s light…your bravery will serve all of civilization…bring riches and prosperity…!”

I was only paying it half attention, my mind still elsewhere, but there must’ve been some timer associated with the message. Jenna was speeding up the Transporter with worrying intensity towards the end of it, at least, leaving a few of the less prepared to stagger for balance within the cargo hold.

Any ships around us, still not in orbit, were doing the same.

Then it came, a crackle of energy that would dim New Hub for days to come. Not from the gate itself being opened, but from the Dyson Sphere that powered it.

To the naked eye, it appeared as if it all happened at the same time. One of the two stars illuminating this solar system dimmed, a beam of energy shot across the void of space, passing through several relays before reaching the gate.

The rumble as it was opened would be felt across the entirety of New Hub, raising the weaker of its buildings from the ground and marking the first of several cold days down upon the planet.

There’d be anomalies, weather disasters, and countless deaths among the poor and ill prepared. Fortunately, there was more than one star in this system. New Hub would survive. As long as nothing else came creeping out of that gate…

The quaking of the ship around us was uncontrollable now, and I’d only just snatched hold of a nearby chain, holding some machinery in place, as we were abruptly flung forward. It was as if a slingshot had suddenly wrapped around us, sending us ripping through space alongside thousands of other ships.

The few who hadn’t found anything to grab hold of within our cargo hold, or simply weren't ready, were left helplessly tumbling across the floor.

Two of the younger Ruskel men thump straight into the wall, half of the Gethrogs’ servants fell over, and Colors smashed her nose straight into a box with enough force to start bleeding.

Their seniors could’ve warned them, but instead, their laughs and hollers — Kassem’s included — rose alongside the churning crescendo of our straining ship as everything began to twist and warp.

It was an initiation ritual for anyone traveling through a gate for the first time. Me and my comrades had done the same back at the Astral Fleet. Or at least the Astral Fleet I thought I knew.

Now, as I briefly glimpsed the massive Moon-eater pass alongside us, through the churning vortex that was gate travel, I wasn’t so sure anymore.

Why now, why here?

Too many coincidences were starting to pile up for me to ignore them anymore. All I knew in that instance – as I was ripped across lightyears of space in a few seconds – was that one day, I might have to go up against ships like that one. All by myself.

I needed strength. No matter the cost, I needed more strength than I’d ever imagined.

For the greater good.