Morning mist burns in the rays of sunlight squeezing between the twisting spires above you. You shiver, hands seeking warmth within your deep pockets as your breath fogs the air. But, it is not just the chilly morning air that causes you to shake in place. It is finally the day you leave for the Gathering, and you are shivering in pure anticipation. You ball your fists within the confines of your parka, thankful to have had it ready for this day. Even though you have not yet set foot on the icy world of Ilum, you’re already making good use of it here on the landing pad.

A beast of durasteel sits ahead of you, landing lights on and blazing in the mist. You stare, bright-eyed, at the vehicle, drinking in as many details as possible. Angular sheets of metal are riveted across the ship, each several centimeters thick. Up and to your right is the glint of windows. Just small enough to avoid impact from most space debris, thick enough to shrug off anything that hits it, and wide enough to give the pilots some spatial awareness while navigating the spacelanes. The belly of this metal beast is narrow, however. There will be just enough room for traversal amongst the various cabins within, but not enough for a group of children to entertain themselves. Hopefully no one makes trouble to the point that your group’s chaperone, Master Fulier, threatens to turn the ship around.

Engine nacelles, each one taller than three of you stacked in a tower, sit high up on the squat wings of the craft. Grease and space dust coat the skin, only broken up by small stains where rust is starting to form. The exposed landing legs are stocky and wide, clearly able to handle the weight of the craft while also providing proper flotation such that the legs don’t break straight through the surface of the landing pad. Good. A tough little shuttle that’s seen use, but obviously built hardy enough to weather many a warp-storm despite its relatively small size.

You blink. Where did those thoughts come from? You’ve not ridden a spaceship before… right? After all, this will be the first time you’ve left the planet. Ever. You’ve been outside the Temple proper before of course, but traveled no more than three kilometers for educational events, and always under the watchful eyes of no less than three minders. Today, and for the next two or so weeks, it will be only you, your clanmates, a single chaperone, and a pair of pilots. This will be… interesting.

Before you have time to puzzle out the source of your own thoughts, Master Fulier calls out from his position just within the shadow of the ship.

“Younglings! Gather ‘round, please.”

The eight of you run up to him as he produces a datapad from his pocket. His eyes flick up and down, jumping from each of you in turn, then back to his datapad. After a second, he smiles in apparent satisfaction.

“Alright, looks like everyone is here and accounted for. Do you all have your equipment?”

A round of nods and noises of affirmation rise up with his question. You’ve packed and repacked everything more than a dozen times in the last twenty-four hours, ensuring that everything is in place. It’s primarily spare clothing, for you’ve been told that you will be thankful for all the layers once you’ve reached Ilum. Initiates like yourself do not have much more than that to your names. It’s just that all the repacking gives you the necessary assurance that you’re not forgetting anything and it seems to be the only thing that keeps you from running in circles in excitement.

You look up as you hear a whirring noise, punctuated by a snap-hisss! of pneumatics. A port opens at the bottom of the ship, the door folding outwards to make a convenient ramp. Master Fulier nods to himself, hoisting up his own baggage as he starts striding forward.

“I probably don’t have to say this, but follow me, please! Unless you would rather stay behind, that is.”

With that, you troop forward as well, your short legs pumping to keep up with the rest of your group. As you file up into the ship, you spare another glance at the exterior, wondering once again about the source of your errant thoughts. But, another step and you’re inside and you have no more time for idle thought. Your clan is split into two groups of four then shown to your quarters by one of the pilots. The pilots are both Twi’leks, beautifully professional in their bearing. And professionally beautiful too!

You and Tera throw your respective bundles of gear onto one bunk while Nyine and a human girl named Cho’an take the other. As you settle in, you hear the airlock sealing itself just down the hallway.

The air stills for a moment, then the ship’s atmospheric regulators kick in, cycling the air while keeping pressure. You listen to the whine of the fans, spinning away as they work. A deep thrum resonates within your gut for a second as the engines start up. It feels… familiar. But why?

“Take a seat, children. We’re about to lift!” squawks an intercom. You plop your butt upon your bunk just as the reverberations of the engines become more rapid. A series of clunking sounds echoes throughout the ship as mechanical interlocks detach, refueling hoses and conveyors falling away from the hull. Suddenly, you are driven into the mattress as the repulsorlifts kick in, shunting the ship directly upwards before the pilots smoothly guide the ship away from the landing pad.

The room is silent as you lift off, all four of you crowding around the small window in your cabin. The world falls away under you as the ship gains altitude, the Temple already a small speck in the distance. You pass through the layers of cloud cover, trailing moisture in swirling wisps behind you. As you look nadir, all you see is an endless ocean of metal, dotted with glimmering lights. This is a world of countless beings. This is what you, a Jedi, live to protect. A world inhabited by trillions of souls, so fragile as it hangs in the grasp of the void.

The center of the galaxy indeed.

≡][≡ ⬦⬦⬦ ≡][≡

You turn away from the window as the view shifts to a sidereal screen of stars. A wondrous sight, but one that you’ve seen a million times. Or, have you? You glance back. Darkness. A curtain of darkness populated with innumerable twinkling stars. The same as always.

You catch yourself as you begin to turn away again. Why does it feel so… monotonous? Like a humdrum part of life? This— Something is, not wrong, but obviously unnatural. This is something you should investigate.

And so, you turn away from the window fully, leaving your friends to continue marveling at the void. Shoving yourself against the bulkhead your bunk rests against, you fold up your legs, and sit up straight, resting your hands into your lap. Closing your eyes, you decide to begin to meditate.

Breathe in.

And out.

And in.

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And out.

This is… home. You feel at home here. It is a quiet place, the void. A place where the chaotic mess of minds is lessened. The constant clamoring in your thoughts is almost completely gone! Only the minds of your fellow Initiates, Master Fulier, and the pilots can intrude on you now. The white noise of countless sentient thoughts, something you did not even realize was there, is gone. It is truly relaxing. But, this is not the only reason why you feel at home. There is something about this place. Something about space. The void. An endless expanse of pure nothingness here, cold and unforgiving. Yet somehow, it feels warm, as if you belong.

What is it? Why do you feel as if this is where you belong? You open your warp-eye, aiming to give yourself another thorough look-over when you are jolted out of your meditation by a burst of static through the intercom. And then, through the static comes the voice of Master Fulier.

“Younglings, please sit down once again. We are about to enter hyperspace. Thank you.”

You remain seated since you are already complying. Tera hops up next to you, pushing her shoulder into yours in delight.

“Here we go! Here we go!” she squeals, smiling so wide that you can see almost all of her molars.

And then, emptiness. Not void. Not warp.

An emptiness that you cannot describe. You feel it everywhere. Absolutely everywhere. Outside the window, the stars are smearing into infinite streaks of blue-tinged light.

This is wrong! All your instincts scream at you. Your fingers clench down, straining the joints. Tera looks at you, worry written across her face and flashing in her cloud of emotions.

“Xena, what’s wrong? Are you feeling sick?”

“Fine. I’m fine. Don’t— don’t worry about it.”

Clearly not reassured, Tera begins rummaging through her gear before pulling out a disposable bag. She passes it to you, patting you on the back of your hand.

But, you are barely paying attention to her. The feeling of wrongness rocks back and forth through you. You sway along with it, matching it in hopes that it will cease with appeasement, but your concentration is too fragile to keep it up. Exhaustion reigns in your mind and body so you decide to lay down — unknowingly partially trapping Tera against the wall — and close your eyes.

And sleep.

≡][≡ ⬦⬦⬦ ≡][≡

A fearsome prow heralds the return of the ship as it breaches into the Materium. A massive golden ship, kilometers long and decorated for the baroque sensitivities of the Imperium, coasts through the space between stars, carrying with it thousands of oh-so-vulnerable souls. Skulls and macro-cannons alternate across the spine of the ship. Spires and arches, guns and aquilas, heraldry and hull, human lives and a battle-hungry spirit of the ship — is all that stands against the heretical forces ahead. And embedded within the dark halls of this metal world is you. The guide, the all-seeing-eye, the most critical component in the interstellar operation of this ship, is you, the Navigator.

This is what you were born to do. What you were made to do. The void is your home for there is nowhere else you belong. You are Voidborn.

≡][≡ ⬦⬦⬦ ≡][≡

Your eyes spring open, shining with starlight. You are laying in your bed, the blanket having been pulled over you by one of your roommates. The room is dimmed, your friends asleep. The sounds of soft breathing fills the room, and you relax as you affirm to yourself that no one is in danger.

Outside, the stars are still smeared across the canvas of space, but now you feel… not exactly good, but at least reassured that all is well. The dream helped. Somehow.

You’re not exactly sure what the Imperium is or what you were doing on the ship, but you get the feeling that it was important. You were doing something important for your people. You were a guide, somehow knowing the way between stars. The ship had sailed through… the warp? Not hyperspace?

But how? Why? How is it possible to breach into the Empyrean? How would it be possible for you to even enter it at all from the Materium, let alone carry a whole ship with you? And for what reason would you ever want to re-enter that sea of horrors ever again?

You sit up and look out the window as you frantically think.

These dreams… What are they? Visions, perhaps. Or memories. But whose memories are they? Questions for another time, you suppose. You do not have nearly enough information at the moment to even make a guess. As for why anyone would use the warp of all things to perform interstellar travel… well, there’s only two— no, three reasons you can think of for that. Firstly, if it were faster than hyperspace. Even though hyperspace is essentially equivalent to faster-than-light travel, you will still take nearly an entire week to reach Ilum from Coruscant. If taking a jaunt through the warp could take you there faster… well, you wouldn’t want to do that, but you could see why a naval ship — as the ridiculously heavily armed ship in your dream clearly was — would want to take such a risk. Maybe monsters don’t stand up well against lasers and lead? You’re pretty sure nothing would stand up too well against a shell from one of the absolutely enormous “macro-cannons” you saw. If a military craft could survive the warp, and it either didn’t rely on “roads” like hyperlanes, or was straight up faster, then it’s fairly obvious that it could grant a huge advantage in a military setting.

The second reason would be in an emergency. Perhaps their hyperdrive failed, so they resorted to traversing the warp. Not a great alternative, though. However, it definitely didn’t seem like the ship, or you, were in any sort of emergency.

The final reason, and probably the most likely one, is that whoever built or owned the ship didn’t have a hyperdrive at all. Or at least, didn’t have one that could handle a ship of that size. But, it’s more likely that the Imperium, whatever that is, just doesn’t have hyperspace technology!

You nod to yourself. This seems like the mostly likely reason. Anybody who actually wants to enter the warp of their own volition would be insane, but if that were the only way to travel long distances, then you have no doubt that billions of people would be willing to sell their souls for the opportunity.

What boggles your mind the most is your role in the whole thing. You, a Navigator. What is a Navigator? Obviously, they navigate. Navigate through what?

The warp.

Obvious! So incredibly obvious. Anybody can punch in coordinates into a nav computer. But, in the dream, you were special. Critical to the ship, almost a part of it. Only one person you know of has the ability to even perceive warp-stuff. Only one person has seen the warp. You!

If you were… bred to be able to do so. Made to have this ability, as the dream suggested, then it’s possible that others like you exist out there. Each one of you gifted with the capability to perform the impossible. But then, why were you left at the Temple? Wouldn’t you be such an incredibly valuable asset that no one would ever want to give up?

Ohhh… so many questions and so few answers. Who are you? Where did you come from? Whose memories are these? How and why can you Navigate the warp? How could such a gargantuan ship enter the warp? What is the Imperium? Why didn’t these people have hyperspace tech?

Coming back to yourself, you realize you’ve been staring out the window for at least an hour now, and you’re tired. As you lay back down, you keep your eyes looking out there — all three of them. Your “normal” eyes see nothing but streaking stars. Your warp-eye sees nothing at all.

No monsters. Well, then. You suppose you’d take hyperspace over warp-travel if possible, no matter how strange it feels.

“Goodnight.”