“Alright, Crash, you're at the minimum safe distance. Far enough that if you rip a hole in the fabric of space-time, it should only cause minor, manageable catastrophes for Earth and her future endeavors.”
I managed a half-hearted grunt, maybe a chuckle. My nerves were too frayed for the usual banter with HQ. Seasoned test pilot or not, strapping yourself to the spaceship equivalent of a box of TNT with a "Probably Safe?" sticker slapped on it has a way of bringing your ego and confidence crashing back to earth.
I flipped several switches on my console, my hands moving through the well-practiced routine I’d rehearsed a thousand times in simulations. I was rewarded with a series of unsettling clunks and whirrs from somewhere deep within the ship. The display in front of me showed the connections from the standard Mark-3 engine shifting from green to amber, then to red. After a tense moment, the process reversed—lines representing the flow of electricity, fuel, and whatever other arcane science the engineers used to bend the laws of physics shifted back from red to bright green. Everything was now connected to the Strommäsk experimental drive.
My fingers drummed nervously against my thigh, the thick material of my suit muting the sensation. I despised these cumbersome suits. Here I was, sitting in one of the most advanced pieces of technology humanity had ever created, and I still had to put up with the limitations of a spacesuit designed for hard vacuum: bulkiness, restricted mobility, terrible peripheral vision, and the ever-present dread of having to relieve myself into what could only be described as an ill-fitting sleeve with a tube attached to it, despite its fancy name, probably something like “Personal Internal Sanitation System.” All that good stuff. But right now, poised to press the big red button that would ignite the metaphorical TNT strapped to my rocket, I was oddly grateful that most of the resources had been allocated elsewhere. Maybe, just maybe, it would keep me from becoming the centerpiece of a dramatic explosion replayed on the evening news.
“Systems check complete,” HQ squawked in my ear, yanking me from my thoughts. “The eggheads have crunched all the numbers again. Everything’s in tip-top shape. You’re good to go.”
“Copy that, HQ,” I responded, “initiating countdown to Strommäsk injection.”
“Roger, Crash. We’ll see you back in a few hours. Godspeed.”
I flipped up the protective cover on the engage button and pressed it without ceremony. A confirmation prompt flickered on my console screen, demanding a password. Redundancy upon redundancy. I quickly typed in my password: “Plzdontdie12!@” and, after a moment’s hesitation, hit enter.
The spaceship groaned and came alive beneath me. A rising static hiss filled my ears as the ship rumbled and prepared for the jump. Lightspeed, warp, faster-than-light, whatever term the scientists wanted to use, here I was, the first human to attempt such speeds, scared out of my wits.
A twenty-second timer illuminated the display and began its relentless countdown.
This wasn’t the maiden voyage. None of the unmanned tests had exploded on initiation; they just... vanished.
15 seconds.
The leading theory was that the tests, and the Strommäsk engine itself, were complete successes. The ships had achieved faster-than-light travel but failed to make it back.
10 seconds.
The speculation was that the onboard AI and navigation systems were unable to reverse course and re-engage the Strommäsk for the return trip. They couldn’t exactly phone home for instructions. And with a minimum jump range measured in light-years, the company wasn’t keen on waiting for a signal that might never arrive before moving to manned missions.
5 seconds.
I was on the brink of plunging into the unknown, teetering on the edge of a cosmic cliff. In my anxiety, I had bitten into my lip without realizing it, the metallic tang of blood sharp on my tongue as the timer hit zero.
The static reached a deafening crescendo, filling my head with a blaring white noise that seemed to swallow me whole. Outside the ship, the vast expanse of space, dotted with stars, suddenly flattened into a two-dimensional plane. It was as if the very fabric of space had been rearranged into a flat projection. My eyes darted around, taking in the strange new sight: Sol, and the distant planets of the solar system, once behind me, now laid out flat in front.
And then the ship began to move, slowly at first, inching toward this bizarre wall, but picking up speed with every passing moment. There was no parallax, no expected spreading out of stars. It felt like I was a bug hurtling toward a windshield, stars that were once mere pinpricks now swollen and immense, dominating my field of vision as I raced toward them.
I braced myself as we collided with the wall, smashing straight into the heart of a star. My vision was swallowed by blinding white as we plowed into the 2D plane, the star ballooning to an incomprehensible size.
Then… nothing. Utter darkness. We had flown through the barrier and into a void. No stars, no planets, nothing but an empty blackness stared back at me through the cockpit glass.
After a few tense moments, a tiny pinprick of light began to grow in the center of the darkness. It expanded steadily, revealing details as we drew nearer. Another plane loomed, a square of dim light. As we closed in, I saw it wasn’t just a source of light but a tapestry woven from billions, trillions of stars, their details becoming increasingly distinct, filling my view just as before.
We struck the plane again, but this time everything stopped. Instead of the universe outside dissolving into a blank nothingness, everything snapped back to normal with a suddenness I couldn’t comprehend. Space surrounded me again, stars on all sides, no longer a mere projection.
The static began to fade, and I felt the ship’s engines winding down. Blinking text on the console caught my eye. It read: Jump complete.
“What in the hell just happened?” I muttered, my voice muffled due to my incisors still digging into my lower lip. I released the tension in my jaw and prodded the bloody indent with my tongue.
As if responding to my confusion, my vision began to dim, sending a surge of panic through me. I reached up to touch my eyes, but everything felt normal, just my wet eyeballs under fingertips. I tried to blink away the encroaching darkness, but it continued to close in until my vision was entirely consumed. My breath quickened in short, sharp gasps. Was this some delayed reaction to the Strommäsk injection? Some kind of g-force blackout? The ship had accelerated, but other than slight pressure from standard acceleration, it wasn’t anything I couldn’t handle.
Dark red text appeared in the void before me, dead center in my 'vision,' unmoved by my frantic blinking or head movements.
INCURSION DETECTED.
...
INCURSION PROTOCOLS INITIATED.
...
COMMENCING.
----------------------------------------
White text began to flow past my vision, like the flickering lines of an ancient computer booting up. The data moved too quickly for me to make out, progress bars appearing, filling, and vanishing in an instant. It was relentless, and for what felt like an hour, all I could do was watch as the system processed whatever it was processing.
Finally, the text began to slow, the progress bars taking longer to fill before they, too, disappeared into the black void. One new bar lingered longer than the others, labeled: Balancing Technology. Its progress was erratic, starting and stopping randomly, teasing me with each stutter. When it finally completed, it was replaced by a new series of tasks: Reticulating Splines, Parsing Accumulated Experience, Building Skill Trees, Pathing Technology Upgrades. The list went on, each one more absurd than the last. My frustration grew, and just when I thought I might lose my mind, my vision cleared.
I was back in the pilot seat.
"What the hell is-" I started, but before I could finish the thought, another line of text appeared in front of me:
Incursion Stasis Initiated.
Without warning, an amorphous blob materialized before me. It swelled rapidly, swallowing both me and the ship whole. I couldn’t move. I couldn’t breathe. I couldn’t even blink. I felt like an insect suspended in amber, trapped in a droplet of some cosmic liquid. I could see the edge of the blob outside my cockpit, shimmering like a soap bubble, warping and bending the universe around me.
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Then, everything began to swirl. Stars, distant galaxies, the very fabric of space itself streaked and spiraled around us. It was a kaleidoscope of starlight, flashing past in an overwhelming display. Oddly, I didn’t feel the need for air. All the sensations I had been aware of moments before, my heartbeat, the weight of my suit, even the tension in my jaw, faded away. Only my mind raced, struggling to comprehend the sight of a million stars dancing before me.
Just as suddenly as it began, it stopped. The stars slowed, their light settling into a calm sea of twinkling points. The blob, this strange, alien thing, popped with a ridiculous, almost comical plop, fading into nothingness.
"...fucking going on?" I finished, the words stumbling out as if on autopilot, my brain still playing catch-up with my body. Somehow, my subconscious had decided that a second expletive was required to convey the absolute insanity of the situation.
I quickly unbuckled my harness and hopped out of the pilot seat. I’d been strapped into that thing for far too long, and before another round of alien blobs or cryptic computer screens showed up, I needed to get up and away. Unfortunately, "away" wasn’t much when your entire ship consisted of about a hundred square feet of cramped space crammed into a narrow hallway, housing all your supplies and what passed for living quarters.
I glanced at the airlock for a brief second, but as much as my mind was reeling, suicidal tendencies weren’t part of the mix, at least not yet. Despite whatever cosmic mind-bending trip I’d just been on, I was fairly certain I still had my sanity. Probably. I paced up and down the short galley area, not even thinking, just letting my mind chew through what had happened.
Then I stopped dead in my tracks, and stared down at my boots. Big, bulky space boots, designed for zero-g, firmly planted on the deck. With a disbelieving shake of my head, I hopped in place, just enough to confirm it.
“Yep. Full-on gravity. In the middle of space,” I muttered. Then, with a resigned sigh, I added, “Christ. Of course my ship has artificial gravity now. Sci-fi made real? Sure, why not?”
“Well, partner, it ain’t sci-fi, now is it? S’just science,” a slow southern drawl said behind me.
I’d like to say that I turned around, squared up, and threw a solid punch at this unexpected intruder. But, no, that’s not what happened. Instead, I let out what can only be described as a squeal, spun around awkwardly, and flailed as I tripped over my own bulky feet. I fell flat on my face in the narrow hallway, my cumbersome suit pinning me between two storage units.
My trespasser, to his credit, didn’t laugh. He just watched as I heaved and twisted until I managed to roll over onto my back, staring up at him.
It was a cowboy.
No, really. I mean an honest-to-god cowboy. He had a worn, dusty Stetson perched on his head, a button-up shirt beneath a faded vest, jeans, chaps, and beat-up leather boots. One of those boots was propped casually on an oxygen scrubber, and he stood there, an air of amusement and disdain playing across his weathered face.
His fingers absentmindedly rubbed at the edge of his mustache as he stared down at me, mouth slightly open like he couldn’t quite believe what he was seeing.
“Well, it’s been quite some time since I’ve-” he started.
“Nope!” I interrupted, struggling to get back on my feet in the cramped hallway. “Nope, nope, nope! You don’t just get to stand there and converse with me. Not while you’re… you’re just existing like that!” I waved my hands wildly in his general direction.
“Well, partner, I sure don’t—”
“No!” I cut him off again, pointing at him as if I were scolding a misbehaving dog. “You stop it. You can’t just be a cowboy, showing up on my ship after all that! After all this incursion bullshit, the weird blobby things, just no!”
He lowered his boot from the oxygen scrubber and stared at me for a long moment, arms crossed, his lips pursed in what looked like thought. Then, with a sigh, he uncrossed his arms and let them drop to his sides. “Oh, alright,” he muttered, defeated. “I was just tryin’ to have some fun.”
He flicked his hand in a small, dismissive gesture, and in an instant, the cowboy outfit vanished. In its place, he was now wearing a sleek, modern flight suit, a design I’d never seen before, but one that wouldn’t look out of place in any space crew’s arsenal.
“Better?” he asked, his tone pitched with condescension.
I narrowed my eyes at him and held my gaze.
He returned my stare for a moment, and then sighed, glancing up at the beat-up Stetson still sitting on his head. “Ugh, fine. You’re no fun,” he grumbled, and with another flick of his wrist, the hat disappeared, just like the rest of the cowboy getup.
“Thank you,” I said, trying my best to sound genuinely appreciative, even if I wasn’t entirely sure how much I appreciated any of this yet. “So what is this?” I asked, gesturing around. As soon as he opened his mouth to answer, I cut him off. “And don’t say, ‘It’s a spaceship,’” I added in a deliberately goofy voice. “I just need some answers. What the hell happened? What’s going on? Why am I here, and why did all that weird computery sci-fi stuff happen?”
“Alright, alright,” he said, holding his hands up in a placating gesture. “I am a construct of The System, and since your little incursion, I’ve had the pleasure of giving this same spiel to every single inhabitant of this dimension. You’ll have to forgive me if I add a bit of flair to it for my own sanity,” he continued, his tone shifting from playful to bored as he clearly went into autopilot mode.
“Your dimension has officially been incurred. Invaders from parts unknown have arrived, somehow skirting the rules set in place by The System. These rules were established eons ago, as wars raged across rifts in time and space, threatening infinite lives, galaxies, and dimensions. To allow these invaders to roam unchecked across your worlds would mean assured and complete destruction.
“But don’t lose hope just yet. You may be wondering, how are you, of all people, going to stop a highly advanced civilization, capable of bypassing The System itself? Fear not, for The System has ways of evening the playing field. A protocol has been established to allow the inhabitants of your dimension to gain power, both individually and collectively, to climb the technological tree, and to build a force strong enough to repel these invaders. Only when the very last of them has been destroyed will your dimension be safe again.”
He paused, eyeing me as if to gauge my reaction. I opened my mouth to interject, but he quickly continued.
“Additionally, as a bonus, since, you know, The System isn’t completely heartless, it has placed a one-time stasis upon the invading forces. You have exactly one year to prepare. After that, all bets are off. The System wishes you the best of luck in fending off the enemies that have landed on your doorstep.”
He stopped, arms crossed, exhaling loudly. “Yeah, that’s basically it. Didn't feel like giving you a personal speech, so just imagine I said, ‘you have invaded’ instead of ‘they have invaded’ and all that. You’re a smart guy. You can figure it out.”
I stood there, processing the flood of information, my brain tripping over the words, "one year to prepare," and, "invaders from parts unknown." Finally, I managed to ask, “So… you’re telling me I’ve accidentally triggered some sort of apocalyptic interdimensional war?”
The construct shrugged. “Pretty much.”
“But we didn’t invade!” I protested. “We were just experimenting with FTL drives, we didn’t mean to break into another dimension or start a war!”
He gave the smallest shrug imaginable. “Regardless, you broke through the fail-safes and triggered The System’s Incursion Protocol. It’s a done deal.”
“And… that blue blob thing... you’re telling me it kept me in stasis for a full year?”
“Oh yeah,” he said, chuckling. “You really got screwed over on that one. Honestly, you should have received the year head start. Now you’re way behind… not to mention the...” His voice trailed off, muttering something unintelligible.
“Not to mention the what?” I pressed.
He avoided eye contact, scratching his cheek with a finger. “Uh, the 50 percent damage bonus all denizens get against you, your ships, and anything else under your control.”
I slumped back against the storage unit I’d crashed into earlier. “Great. So I’m by myself, up against billions and billions of aliens-”
The construct coughed, raising a finger in a casual gesture.
“Trillions?” I guessed, feeling my stomach sink.
He avoided my gaze.
I stared at him in disbelief. “Quintillions?”
“It’s a whole universe, Crash,” he said, finally meeting my eyes. “But, hey, don’t worry too much, most of them don’t even have spaceships. Think of it like a bell curve. With The System leveling out the tech for everyone, most civilizations are right in the middle. Right there with you.”
“Which implies there are others on the other side of that bell curve, with way more advanced tech than my rickety test ship.”
“Well, yeah,” he admitted, scratching his chin. “But look on the bright side, you’ve got free anti-grav. Super cool, right?”
I stared at him blankly, my face still stinging from the earlier encounter with the floor. The skin felt hot and raw where anti-grav had so kindly introduced it to the deck. “Yeah. Super cool.”
A strange warbling noise suddenly emanated from the console behind me. It wasn’t a sound I had ever heard before, which immediately set off alarm bells in my head.
“Let me guess, that’s not good either?” I asked, cocking my head to the side.
“Oh, yeah,” the construct said casually, “standard upgrades include an assortment of minor improvements: proximity alarms, sensor arrays, that sort of thing.”
I sighed, already bracing for the worst. “I’m about to be boarded, aren’t I?”
“Most definitely,” he said, entirely too cheerfully. “You don’t happen to have, I don’t know, any weapons aboard, do you?”
“It’s a science vessel!” I shouted, my frustration bubbling over. “Why would I have weapons?”
“Yeah, that’s unfortunate,” he said, shrugging again. “Well, good luck with that!”
Before I could respond, the ship rumbled beneath my feet, an ominous groan echoed through the hull. I heard the unmistakable sound of metal screeching, as if something was latching onto the exterior of my ship, digging in like claws sinking into prey.