Captain Ayealla was bored out of her mind.  She had been given the command of the oh so imaginatively named Scout ship: “The Explorer” for her outstanding performance in the prevention of an Antillian Princess’s abduction from a rival faction. She had been assigned to the princess as light protection after graduating from the academy owned and operated by the clan her family served and operated in. What should have been a routine protection detail for low rankers like herself turned into a full on combat mission where she and the princess were the only survivors. She had done her duty and had gotten the princess to safety at the cost of her squad.  She later learned that the abductor had been outmaneuvered by the princess’s father and had become a laughing stock back home.

Which is what convinced the young nobleman that drastic action was required. In a move that was truly not expected he had decided to attempt to capture the king’s daughter and marry into the family forcefully. Which according to the princess was doomed to fail regardless of the outcome even though it was technically a viable method among her people. The tradition stemmed from their early history as a confederation, when rival factions were more at odds with each other. Even then it was rarely used as it was more or less a last resort that young lovers might take if they wanted to get around a decision from one of their clan’s leaders.  

As a result of this confrontation she had lost close friends and found that her personal power was laughable. The only good thing to come out of it was she had made great strides in coming close to breaking through a bottleneck in her own cultivation. Ayealla had been looking forward to being assigned to a more mana rich posting in the attempts to truly breakthrough and perhaps come to terms with her friend's death. Instead her reward was a leadership position she didn’t want and to be sent to the ass end of known space to observe and report on one of the many new galaxies that had been added to the ever expanding system. 

Already six months into this mission Ayealla was wishing she had turned down the promotion. Greed had overtaken her good sense when it was offered. Sure when she finished the mission she would have access to a small mountain of cultivation resources that would be chosen for her specifically from the clan elders out of the clan’s own vaults based on the merits earned during the mission. To date she had earned nothing but the bare minimum. No new spiritual minerals or biological materials had been found besides those that were already known. Sure she had taken the samples as her mission directives directed her to do but so far absolutely nothing interesting had happened. 

It had taken the better part of six months to get to the third arm of this galaxy. Good time by any account considering the new mana engine that was being tested. The four man team was a mix of scientists and engineers. Ayealla did her very best to not hate these people who thought every random thing in the cosmos was interesting and should be explored and scanned thoroughly. She was starting to hate scientists or perhaps it was just Crannus she hated. He was fully aware that her standing orders were to assist with he, and his team as much as possible with their research. The fact that every detour and random test they performed extended what was already a far longer mission  than was normal didn’t seem to occur to the man.  

Ayealla even understood that as this was a new prototype engine system and it was being tested; these pit stops were going to be needed.It didn’t stop her from slowly growing more and more displeased with this assignment. The only good part of this assignment was the captain’s quarters. It was obscenely large considering the overall mass of the ship. Almost three hundred square feet. she had more space than the rest of the crew combined. She also had her own magical shower and full control over the temperature of the vessel. She might have kept it a tad colder that was strictly necessary if only because Crannus always complained about it.

It was here she found herself more often than not these days using the extra space to meditate and practice the forms she grew up with and knew by heart.The forms that had resonated so deeply within her that she had chosen the martial path without looking back. She wanted power to rise through the ranks and have her own adventures. She wanted the power to choose her own destiny. The multiverse was infinite and once she paid back her family and clan she would leave to walk her path to power.

She was calm once again, her mind unclouded and focused only on the movement in her legs, her balance of her center when she moved. Each punch, kick and block moving at a glacial pace as her mind made sure every single muscle and movement was perfect in form. Her heart was steady and calm. Her movement was graceful and precise as she moved through the three lesser kata. She was just about to transition into the first middle kata where she would start to spread her mana through her body's twelve meridians when Alarm Bells went off throughout the ship. Eyes snapping open Ayealla grabbed her overcoat and threw it on as she ran out of her quarters. Flooding her leg meridians with chi she moved like the wind through the corridors to get to the center of the ship where the bridge was protected with the highest concentration of armor and shields. Her small crew was already at their station’s when she ran through the door.

“Report.” she ordered without stopping.

“We have been flying through  a sector of space that our sensors couldn’t penetrate ma’am. Even now our sensors are only operating at a hundredth of normal capacity.  Stated her navigation officer.

“Who gave that order? Ayealla” demanded.

“Ma’am the order came directly from Commander Crannus.”

“I will deal with that later. What is the emergency?” She snapped. As a bit of anger creeped into her voice. While Crannus was given the rank of commander he was not supposed to be making any major decisions like this without her input. His rank was political. He shouldn’t have been giving any real orders at all, much less to fly into a solar system that their sensors were either failing to penetrate or were being blocked which indicated counter measures.

“Engineering is reporting that ambient mana levels have dropped to unheard of levels and that the engines are still rapidly depleting our mana stones. Orders?

“Ensigne Get us out of this system now! Ayealla shouted.”

“Aye Ma’am” He responded as he started manipulating the magical crystal controls at his console.

She could feel it when the ship started to turn and it was then she realized that the gravitation runes must be malfunctioning as normally you couldn’t feel the ships inertia at all. A sinking feeling formed in her stomach as something was absolutely wrong.

Suddenly her sending stone vibrated and she answered without thought. What is it? She stated.

Captain we have a problem: the ships mana crystals are being drained of energy at a prodigious rate. If I wasn’t watching it with my own eyes I wouldn’t believe it was possible with C-grade mana stones.

“What is happening?” She demanded from the man on the other end.

“We don’t know. At this rate we will be out of Mana Stones in another hour and half or so.” he stated calmly, not a hint of the fear she knew he had to be feeling with that kind of wealth on the line.

Ayealla’s mind was in an uproar this mission had been given high priority and was equipped with enough C-grade Mana stones to scour three galaxies ten times over just in case there was a problem with the new engine. The hull had been given extensive rune crafting so that should the worst happen they could teleport out. What the hell could be draining them of power that quickly?

“Ma’am we are reading some kind of Structure two hundred fifty million miles out. The energy is being pulled to that location where it just disappears.”

“What do you mean disappears? Mana doesn’t just disappear. She asked.

“Checking now Ma’am. According to our sensors all of the mana being drained from our vessel is being directed to that device. Then the mana simply vanishes. I am not sure what is happening.

Ayealla checked the coordinates and brought up her system map, and zoomed out. So she could get a better perspective. Normally the system map was kept at the most minimal of settings as anything larger was generally not at all helpful. But in vast areas such as space or on oceans and the like the feature that allowed you to zoom out became very useful. The fact that the  system treated anything detected by the ship’s sensors as an area that you have also personally explored meant that she could pull up anything that was currently being detected. This allowed her to see on her map that there was indeed some kind of device directly in the center of the system almost at its apex if you imagined the whole solar system as a globe of planets and stars.  

“Good work, Ensign Tylar. How long till we are out of the field?”

“Thirty minutes Ma’am. Tylar responded, watching his instruments closely.” 

As soon as the Explorer exited the solar system the Emergency lights and alarm cut off. The feeling of the gravitation runes re-engaging took hold and the anxiety Ayealla had felt dissipated slightly. This was followed by anger. Grabbing her communications device she selected Crannus.

“You have twenty minutes to be in my office with a proper explanation!” she demanded before closing the connection without waiting for a reply. 

Walking into her office where she threw the stone on her desk. Ayealla sat down in her chair that was designed and created by someone who hated comfort and begane going through her system menus. Navigating to the ships page she started going through the automated damage reports that were now coming from each member of her crew and the ship itself. They had been inside that solar system for a little more than an hour and had gone through a staggering two hundred C-grade mana stones out of the four hundred C-Grade Mana stones provided by the clan at great cost. C-Grade Mana Stones were not cheap even for Middle C grade clan. Considering that their trip up to this point had utilized less than one full C-Grade mana stone this kind of energy drain was unheard of. The sheer amount of wealth wasted in one hour was shocking in the extreme. She needed to know what was happening. How was she going to explain the loss of this magnitude? The stones were approved for an emergency teleport of the whole vessel should the engine stop working. The ship had been equipped with enough C-Grade mana stones to make two jumps if needed. They were now down to half their supply which meant they could still make a single jump. The problem was that they now had a duty to determine what was out there and if it was a threat to the clan. If determined to be a threat to the clan then to find out as much as possible before reporting back.

Stolen from its rightful place, this narrative is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

Twenty minutes later Ayealla sat at her desk in her office attempting to stare through Commander Crannus’s skull to figure out what he was thinking. Due to deft political maneuvering the man had been posted to her ship as her first officer. Which meant that he was in command whenever she was not. If her attempt to stare through the man bothered him he didn’t show it. Crannus sat stoically in the opposite chair waiting for her to start.

As far as she could read he didn’t seem phased at all about the colossal waste of resources that was just used or the fact that he had used his authority to place the whole crew and the ship in jeopardy of being lost. Breaking the silence she asked the first and most important question. 

“Why? She asked.

“Why what? Please be specific. He stated in that condescending tone he used when he felt like he needed to provide a lecture.

“Why did you override the alarm protocols? Why did you give the order to enter that solar system when our sensor capabilities failed to penetrate the area? Why are you okay with putting every member of this crew’s life in danger while simultaneously burning through enough C-Grade Mana Stones that will wreck our clan for years to come? Ayealla asked in rapid fire. It was like a damn had broken and she couldn’t get the questions out fast enough. While they had never seen eye to eye they had always been on the same team. Different goals sure but on the same side. This felt like a betrayal to her and it came from her own clan member.

Crannus’s gaze never wavered throughout the tirade of questions. He waited calmly for her to stop speaking before he answered with to two words:

“Elder Tech.” he said simply.

Ayealla’s mind ground to a screaming halt. Elder Tech was in a word Elder. It was the colloquial name provided to the unknown civilization that created the system. All that was really known was that this mystery civilization had once controlled Hundreds of Universes and that their power was unmatched. Then the system was created and their civilization was destroyed and lost to time. Many theories existed, some stated that they as a whole ascended to some kind of existence beyond that of gods and have long since left reality as we know it. Some say that they were a collection of cultivators that tried to go too far and the gods removed them from existence for reaching far above their station. The only thing that people agreed upon was when an artifact showed up from that time period.  Each artifact was so spiritually imbued that just looking at the item was enough to break through bottlenecks or gain inspiration to reignite your path no matter how long it had been dead.  The artifacts found up till now  were always just small treasures: a painting, a cup and musical instrument, the most famous was a pillow that supposedly the current Emperor used to break through into S-Grade. The fifth one ever to do so as far historians were aware.

The idea that there was an intact and operational device from this civilization was the find of a lifetime. This could propel the clan all the way so A-grade maybe even middle A- Grade depending on the secrets they could unravel. Her greed ran wild for a second before reality crashed back down. If this was here how come a far more powerful vessel hadn’t already moved on it. She looked back at Crannus' suspicion in her eyes.

Without further prompting Crannus started to speak; “This device is known to the emperor and a select few researchers throughout the different clans and royal families. I am one such researcher. It is also known that this device somehow prevents the System from functioning within the sector it is located in. We don’t know how. During the initial scan of this galaxy we detected the energy emanations that these devices produce and per protocol scout ships were sent out to locate the sector that it inhabited. My team and I along with half a dozen others are aware of this device's existence and had orders for what to do if we ran across it. Normally this conversation was never to take place, you were never to know that this device existed at all. However This device seems to be different from the previous two times we have encountered it. 

“How is it different?" she asked in a whisper. Her mind still a bit dazed as she processed the insane information that had just been dumped into her lap.

“Well for starters this is the first time a device has been found in a system that was not utterly destroyed beyond all recognition. Both of the previous times these devices were found they were already basically destroyed along with every planet in the system. Nothing larger than a dagger was left over. It was believed that they were some kind of bomb utilizing a type of magic unknown to us. Neither had any traces left over when we discovered them. On top of that when anything above D-grade approaches these devices they immediately self-destruct to an even greater degree. It was theorized that D-Grade vessels might be able to circumnavigate this restriction as their creators had to have some way to approach it themselves without setting them off.  

“Okay, so these things self-destruct when anything or anyone in, at or above C-Grade  gets too close to them? Even if they are already damaged? If you are aware of what this device is and are only now revealing it to me there must be more going on. Does our clan have special orders for this scenario?

“Yes, it is to be brought back to the Emperor for study. Of course a generous gift will be given to the clan to discover such an important relic of a lost age.” he said smoothly.

Seeing that Ayealla was silent he continued. “The problem is this, with the last two devices, while there was a mana draining effect present, it was several orders of magnitude smaller than what we have experienced previously. This poses a very large problem as almost all of our tech relies on mana to operate.

“Stop talking. she interrupted him. First provide proof that we do have new orders.”  

“Alright captain, I am sending you the official documentation now. It contains your new orders and upon who gave them.

Ayella only had to wait a few seconds before an Imperial message with the proper encryption was sitting in front of her face. After running the proper encryption codes the message opened. The first thing she saw was the imperial seal. The sheer amount of magic she detected from the image alone was proof enough that this was not some kind of fake or forgery.With more than a little trepidation she opened the message.

Imperial Objective: Capture the device if possible, or destroy it at all costs. This device can not be allowed to fall in anyone else's hands.

Ayealla was floored. That’s it. she thought to herself. Two full sentences. That was all that could be said. She was supposed to risk her crew's life in an attempt to capture or destroy an elder tech device that when found previously, they were found surrounded  devices by nothing but rubble and this was all the information she was being given. 

“So do I have a choice in this? She asked.”

“No, he stated. We don’t. We must try to gain access to the device. For all of its power the device's actual size is roughly that of a large bed. If we can get to it, we should be able to collect it and hopefully disable it and take it back for study. 

“How do we do this? She asked.

Don’t worry, I have a plan. Crannus stated

Almost an hour later Ayealla and Crannus both moved back to the main bridge where her crew waited. They had been in her office for far longer than anyone had expected and when they emerged they had thought they would see Ayealla dragging Crannus’s unconscious form behind her. The fact that they had walked out together and with the same grim faces of determination did not do anything to lighten the mood the crew was feeling. 

“Helm, do we still have the exact coordinates of the mysterious device? She asked.

“Yes Captain.” The ensign replied.

“Alright we have been issued new orders. We are to attempt to take control of that device, if we are unable to do so then the device is to be destroyed. I can not offer any more information than that. Crannus believes that if we use the teleportation function built into the ship we can jump directly to the device and grab it before we run out of power.” 

“Commander Crannus here is confident that he can disable it before it disables this ship.” Helm prepare to jump”

The Ensign nodded and started up the teleportation sequence. The next five minutes were so quiet that she finally understood the phrase “you could have heard a pin drop.”

The Ensign at the helm finally turned and stated; “Ready on your command”

Ayealla took a deep breath and nodded. The magic of the teleport thrummed to life. bright blue runes lit up across the entirety of the hull before a tear in the fabric of space appeared and engulfed the entire ship. In an instant the space the small vessel had occupied outside the 

The solar system was suddenly empty. The ship reappeared a second later but not at the expected location. Instead of directly on top of the device the magical image of their location was showing a relatively small planet with large oceans below.

Then alarms started going off as the device that they had been tracking suddenly shifted to the visible spectrum and promptly imploded sending out a large shock wave only visible to those with magical sight or sensors using magic. The expanding ring of energy washed out in a perfect sphere encompassing the entire solar system in the blink of an eye.

 Every single magical function was utterly dispelled. The runes that were carved into the very hull went dark. As the wave hit the vessel it was launched toward that blue planet. As the wave went through the vessel it physically drained all of the mana out of every single person on board. Each and every person collapsed to the ground unconscious or dead depending on their own resilience as the mana was forcibly removed from their bodies. 

The ship was pushed into a decaying orbit around the small planet and would eventually crash on the ground below. It was at this time that the system asserted itself and claimed this sector for its own. Eleven billion people were about to have the very fabric of the lives altered on the most fundamental level and to make it worse no one besides a few lucky astronomers were even aware that an unidentified object had just joined earth’s orbit and that it was clearly some kind of ship.