Space had always been a mystery for Human Civilization and Humanity had just begun to move towards the path of being an Intra-System Civilization. The wonders of space and its mystery were always draped in a veil of adventure and fantasy.

Somewhere in this vast black abyssal space where the concept of day and night did not exist was a titanic spacecraft. Along the hull of the ship were two huge characters ‘CL’ followed by another word ‘Legion’. This sheer marvel was the flagship of the I-CA High Command, supposedly under the joint control of the Commercial League and the Legion.

Inside the cabin of the commander of the Flagship was a woman seated cross-legged on the ground. A black sheathed katana was placed on her lap. There was an atmosphere of tranquility and silence surrounding her but in a suffocating manner.

-Beep-

A notification sounded as the person opened her eyes.

[A message from the Captain.]

The person immediately headed towards her desk. She gently placed her thumb at one corner of the table and along with a soft click a small part of the desk turned transparent. There seemed to be a flashing icon on the upper right corner of the transparent part. The person tapped on it and immediately a message popped up on the screen.

After reading a message, the person was surprised but she hastily deleted the message and the screen vanished as the desk turned normal. Few seconds later she tapped on a communicator attached to her wrist.

“Connect to Admiral Sophie.” She said as after a few seconds a face appeared on the small communicator screen.

“Meet me in my cabin.” She said while the other person nodded in return without asking anything.

Minutes later another person dressed in a similar uniform entered the cabin. This person was the Vice-Commander of the flagship Admiral Sophie and sister of Commander Diane. In fact if one looked closely they would find that there were certain similarities in their facial structure, but the aura emanated was quite opposite.

If Commander Diane could be described as cold and aloof then Vice-Commander Sophie could be described to be happy and easy-going. Commander Sophie had a troubled expression as she gazed at her sister.

“Did something happen?” Previously it was Vice-Commander Sophie who had notified the Commander of the message.

“Captain and the rest are in trouble.” Commander Diane replied with a sigh.

Sophie too made a sour expression as she knew the plan they had meticulously prepared would be dropped.

“We need to follow the contingency plan. Use force if necessary but make sure to not destroy the carrier.” Diane instructed and soon Sophie went back.

Diane then gazed at the scene on the screen in the front and frowned. The screen depicted a huge black tower made of some unknown material surrounded by a cloud of unknown gas and its two ends seemed to pierce into some kind of portal. From within the cloud of gas silhouette of chains could be seen piercing at some place as if they were anchors holding the tower in place.

Their initial mission had been to unravel the mysteries of this place and that tower but alas things weren’t proceeding smoothly as they seemed to lack the technology to study or even approach that thing.

The training room of the Flagship, built with the latest technology and equipped with state-of-the-art devices that could accurately determine one’s strength. Within the training rooms, a middle aged man without a shirt was doing push-ups on his fingers wearing a heavy weight vest.

Beads of sweat rolled down his forehead on the ground, just then the door to the room opened and another man entered. He wore the standard issued uniform. Strangely enough he had a huge axe on his back, typically the people aboard the Flagship were not allowed to carry any weapons, but there were exceptions everywhere.

“Captain Tian, Vice-Commander, has ordered everyone to gather all the captains in the briefing room.” The man who entered spoke.

“I see. Shall we go then? Captain Randol.” Captain Tian stopped his push-ups as he donned a black and white cloak. The cloak was a custom made uniform for this person made from strengthened fabric capable of absorbing a certain level of kinetic impact.

Throughout the way, everyone saluted both of them as they made their way through the briefing room. As both of them neared the room, they met two other women as everyone nodded as greetings.

Entering the room, Vice-Commander Sophie could be seen seated on the upper seat and there was an additional seat beside her followed by four other seats down the line. The four of them sat on their seats respectively.

“Greetings everyone. I am sorry to bother you all, but have you guys come up with any methods to break through the black zone?” Sophie asked everyone.

Tian frowned at this question as his black and white pupils glanced towards Randol and then at the other two captains seated in front of him. He sensed something wrong but did not voice his dissatisfaction.

Meanwhile the woman with glasses coughed a little and spoke.

“Vice-Commander, it's not that we don’t want to but it's just that we cannot. Despite our attempts we cannot cross the black zone, unless someone volunteers to move into that zone.”

The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation.

“Vice-Captain Julie, I am just asking.” The Vice-Commander said with a smile.

“What crap!” The other woman spewed nonsense. Despite her beauty no one was bothered about it as everyone knew this was just her nature.

As this meeting was proceeding, in another corner of the Flagship, four women were seated in a cabin. They were discussing something important as everyone had a grave look on their faces.

“Are you sure, Lady Smith?” This woman who emanated an aura of beauty with blonde hair asked to which the old lady nodded.

“Yes, Rachael. It’s a mission given by the Commander herself. As for the details you don’t have to worry you will be briefed once you leave.” Lady Smith replied in a grave tone.

“When do we leave?” Rachael asked as she moved and gestured to them to follow.

“Right now.” Lady Smith replied as the trio’s face turned grim as they hurriedly followed her.

The Flagship was remodeled based on the design of the Ford class Carriers present in the world before the Reboot. It had a central command tower and instead of a flight deck it had a central port for battleships which utilized the central part and two small landing bays located to the left and right for dispatching small sized spacecrafts and dropships.

Lady Smith brought the trio towards the back of the central landing bay towards an airlock. Upon entering through the airlock trio frowned, as a part of the Legion the trio were quite famous within the Flagship yet they hadn’t seen something like this.

“Don’t tell me we will be using this ship?” The woman with short hair, Lucy, grumbled annoyingly.

Listening to her, Rachael and the other person wearing glasses named Carla also frowned as the ship in front of them was an outdated Escort ship issued by the I-CA. These types of ships were far too few in production due to their constraint in technology and were only used to ferry officers of I-CA from High Command to the planet, or the space station, in-fact they did not even possess a defensive system that would protect the passengers from the harms of space.

“The design is just a disguise. You will know once you board it, now hurry! The Vice-Commander is keeping the other Captains busy so this will be your only chance.” Lady Smith urged the trio as they boarded the ship in haste.

“Hopefully they will be able to return back alive.” Lady Smith mumbled under her breath as she watched them disappear.

The trio bored the ship from the back and were surprised. Despite the exterior the interior of the ship seemed quite different. There was hardly any space to move about as there was a huge device in front of them. There were tubes connected to this device from the top and bottom making it hard for them to move.

“What the hell is this thing!” Lucy shouted angrily.

[Welcome Captain Rachael.]

-Aghhh-

Lucy screamed in fright from the unexpected voice.

“Who’s there?” She shouted as dual blades appeared in her hands.

Rachael and Carla too turned cautious as they heard this unknown voice.

[Please move towards the command deck, Captain.]

The voice replied as the trio nervously moved towards the front, passing the central cargo hold they neared the command deck, the doors opened and they were greeted by yet another scene where a device albeit smaller in size was located in the center covered in tubes surrounded by seven chairs.

[Please be seated everyone.]

The voice instructed.

“Who are you?” The melodious voice of Rachael asked.

[Captain Rachael can refer to me as an artificial intelligence designed to pilot the ship as for my identity the Captain does not possess enough authority.]

The eyebrows of Rachael curved upwards in surprise at this response. The mention of an AI was not new as with the advancement of technology the production of quantum computers became easy and she had heard from the Commander that the I-CA itself was researching the development of an AI but still she never believed that she would be able to witness one. This must be the reason why the ship was hidden in the inner parts of the Flagship.

“This stupid piece of shit. Just let me slash once!” Lucy said angrily as she swung her blades as for the talks about AI, she didn’t understand any of it.

“Enough Lucy, don’t forget our mission. We are running out of time.” Carla parted her lips as a soothing voice calmed Lucy down. She too had heard rumors of it from Captain Rachael and was able to maintain her calm.

The trio did not ask anything else and sat on their seats.

[Please fasten your belts as we prepare to depart towards the destination.]

The trio felt something was fishy as their mission was stated as a rescue mission. Although the dangers of space travel did exist, their battle hardened instincts were warning them of something more dangerous. Still they fastened their seat belts.

-Woong-

A solid ringing sound pierced their eardrums and the device in front of them lit up in a purple hue. Strange characters started floating around them as the artificial air around them vibrated, meanwhile the device in the back also started glowing in a strange purple hue.

Just then, the metallic floor of the Flagship parted open and the ship moved in space strangely without the use of any propulsion. Gradually the ship started to glow in a purple hue and if one looked closely then they would notice that this purple hue emanated from the small tubes located all around the hull of the ship. Suddenly strange characters started floating around the ship. These characters looked similar to the one in the command deck, even the arrangement looked similar.

The presence of these strange rune-like characters encapsulated the ship within a strange purple bubble.

-Rumble-

The ship started trembling violently which startled the trio.

“What’s going on?” Lucy asked as a sense of dread filled her mind. Rachael on the other hand was barely able to stay awake as some horrifying pressure was making her faint. Carla on the other hand was not even able to voice any dissent as her consciousness faded.

The characters floating around the device in the command deck extended in a circular manner and covered the region where the chairs were located. As this same thing happened with the rune-like characters surrounding the ship. Now everyone on board the ship fainted from some kind of external pressure.

The bubble of rune-like characters encapsulating the ship suddenly surged outwards for a second and then

-Pop-

---the bubble burst. The ship along with the passengers disappeared from the region in space. Seated in her cabin Commander Diane observed the ship disappear and sighed.

Hopefully the method works.