The situation Ivan mentioned turned out to be a distress call from another ship.

Everyone was gathered on the bridge, Commander Grayson standing at the center of the room.

“Ivan, how long before we can reach the ship in distress?” Commander Grayson asked.

“Six minutes, sir,” Ivan replied.

“Robert, get on the guns just in case,” Commander Grayson ordered.

“Actually,” Robert spoke up, “how about we let Kai control the turrets this time? He did really well during training. Of course, I’ll shadow him.”

Commander Grayson paused, then nodded. “That’s fine with me.”

Eliana shot Kai an envious look, which Kai returned with an apologetic shrug. He reached up, grabbed the helmet above his station, and lowered it onto his head. The three-dimensional view flickered to life, surrounding him with the immersive battlefield of space.

“Mic check—can you hear me, Kai?” Robert’s voice came through his headset.

“Yes, Robert, I can hear you just fine,” Kai replied.

“Good. I’ll stay with you in remote view to shadow you, and I’ll take over if things get out of control,” Robert said reassuringly.

“Thank you Robert, for giving me a chance.” Kai tightened his grip on the controls, ready.

Not only could he hear Robert, but he could also hear what everyone else on the bridge was saying—every report, every instruction, adding to the growing tension.

Finally, Kai could see the ship in distress. It was a popular cargo ship model, one that could be found everywhere in human space. The vessel was smaller than the Black Swan, only about 20 meters long, primarily used to transport goods for small businesses.

Kai zoomed in, and the view sharpened. A circular hole gaped along the ship’s side, towards the rear.

“I’m guessing a pirate attack,” Kai said.

“Yeah, that’s plausible. There’s something strange, though,” Robert replied. “Pirates are after profit, so the hole should be big enough for the cargo to fit thought, yet the hole was only about human size, it's too small for a standard cargo container this kind of ship would use.

“And far too neat to be from an explosion,” Kai added. The hole was almost perfectly circular, and the edges didn’t bend inwards like a typical breach caused by explosives.

“Teresa, tell the ship in distress that we’re coming for rescue,” Commander Grayson said.

Teresa sent the message and waited.

“No reply, sir.”

Commander Grayson frowned, his expression darkening. “Looks like we’ll have to board that ship to find out what happened. Teresa, scan the ship for its cargo. Ivan, I want you to circle the ship and make sure this isn’t a trap.”

“Yes, sir,” Ivan responded as the Black Swan began a slow, deliberate sweep around the distressed vessel.

Kai’s eyes remained locked on the cargo ship through his headset display. Something about it made his stomach churn, he was afraid that it was a trap set up by pirates.

Kai looked around to see if he can find anything else out of the unusual. Surely, he found a small black circle on the edge of the three dimensional space. The shape was too small to be a ship but it was still an anomaly.

“Hey, Robert,” Kai said, still focused. “Do you see a black dot near the edge of the three-dimensional space?”

“Where?” Robert’s voice crackled through the comms, his tone alert.

Kai adjusted the turret controls, intending to point at the anomaly, but when he moved the top turret to aim, the shape was gone.

“Strange,” Kai muttered to himself. He stared hard, but the anomaly had vanished, as if it were never there. Doubt crept in—was it just a glitch? The targeting system could be overwhelming for someone new, and there was still a lot he hadn’t figured out yet.

Robert’s voice came through, breaking his thoughts. “You sure, Kai? Maybe it was a sensor flicker.”

“Maybe,” Kai replied, though the unease in his gut lingered. He couldn’t shake the feeling that something was out there.

“Alright,” Commander Grayson said, “let’s check the ship out.”

---

Kai helped Eliana with her suit. Together with Teresa, they were going to board the distressed ship. A preliminary scan had shown no life signals aboard, but that didn’t mean there weren’t dangers.

“You nervous?” Eliana asked, her voice coming through the suit comms. “Because I’m a little.”

“To be honest, I am too,” Kai admitted. “I saw something when I was in VR. It might’ve been a glitch, but it looked like something was out there.”

Eliana let out a nervous chuckle. “You’re not helping, Kai.”

“Sorry,” Kai said, finishing up with the seals on her suit. “You’re ready to go.”

“You two better hurry up, or I’m leaving without you,” Teresa’s voice crackled through their helmets, impatient but lighthearted.

Kai and Eliana quickly stepped into the airlock. The heavy door sealed shut behind them with a low thud. Kai felt his stomach tighten as the pressure dropped, the air being sucked out of the chamber. A deep, almost instinctive fear gripped him, but he forced himself to focus. Through the helmet, he heard his own controlled breaths as the vacuum of space pressed in.

The outer airlock doors finally slid open with a soft mechanical whine, and the endless void of space revealed itself. Stars sparkled against the blackness, and the faint silhouette of the distressed cargo ship loomed ahead like a ghost in the dark.

Kai took a deep breath, . This was his first time outside of the ship. “Calm down,” he muttered to himself.

“You good, Kai?” Eliana asked, glancing at him.

Kai forced a nod, his voice steadier than he felt. “Yeah. Let’s do this.”

Teresa’s voice crackled through the suit comms. “Since this is the first spacewalk for you both, there are a few things I need to explain before we proceed. First, let’s talk about movement in space.”

She took a few steps back, then explained as she ran forward, “There’s no gravity…” She leaped off the Black Swan toward the abandoned ship, her form controlled and graceful. “As soon as you leave the Black Swan, you’re working with momentum. You need to make sure you have the right amount of speed in the right direction.”

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A couple of small thrusters on the back of her suit fired, stabilizing her movement. “Your suit will help guide you, but it’s not going to save you if you’re completely off course. Use small adjustments.”

Teresa reached the hull of the cargo ship and pressed herself softly against it, her gloved hands making contact. “Okay, Eliana, you try. Control the speed of your launch. Too much, and you’ll hit too hard. Too little, and you’ll waste unnecessary fuel from the suit’s thrusters. Worst case? You’ll get stuck in the middle, out of fuel, and with nowhere to go.”

“Understood,” Eliana said. She turned to look at Kai, he could tell she's nervous.

Kai nodded back at her. “You’ve got this.”

Eliana took a steadying breath, took a few steps forward, and leaped. Her movement was precise, and her form nearly perfect. She glided across the space between the ships, the thrusters on her suit making small corrections. Within moments, she reached the cargo ship, where Teresa caught her by the arm and helped her land softly.

“Good job, Eliana. Smooth and clean,” Teresa praised. “Alright, Kai, you’re up.”

Kai mimicked Teresa’s launch, using the same form and speed. However, his added weight made him move more slowly than expected. For a brief moment, panic shot through him as he felt like he wasn’t going to make it. He instinctively flailed his arms, as if trying to swim through the emptiness, which earned a burst of laughter from Teresa and Eliana.

“Relax, Kai! You’re not in water!” Eliana teased.

Just as he started to drift, the suit’s small thrusters kicked in, adjusting his trajectory. With a sigh of relief, Kai reached the hull beside Eliana, who extended a hand to steady him.

“Yeah, Kai,” Teresa said with an amused tone. “You’re going to need a bit more speed on takeoff next time. You’ve got more mass, so you need a little extra push to compensate. Don’t worry—you’ll get the hang of it.”

Kai chuckled, his breathing finally evening out. “First time for everything, right?”

“Exactly,” Teresa replied, patting him on the shoulder. “Now, let’s get moving.”

Teresa pulled herself around the corner and entered the hole. Kai noticed how smooth and sharp the edges were—no burn marks, no jagged or uneven surfaces. It was as if a giant knife had sliced through the ship’s hull with perfect precision.

He let Eliana go next and followed in last. Before entering, he took a quick glance at the empty space where he had seen the black sphere earlier. Nothing. Just a void of endless stars.

Kai shook off the unease settling in his chest. You’re getting too paranoid, he told himself. The notebook he found had him on edge — "A scout had found us". What did that even mean?

He forced himself to focus. For now, the Black Swan and its crew would keep them safe. He inhaled deeply and pulled himself through the hole after the others.

Inside, the ship was eerily still. Apart from the perfectly cut opening in its hull, there appeared to be no other visible damage. Everything remained intact. The only sound was the faint static of their comms and the occasional hiss of their suit thrusters.

“What happened here?” Eliana’s voice broke the silence, echoing faintly inside Kai’s helmet.

Kai didn’t answer, but the same question gnawed at his mind. Something about this ship felt… wrong.

"I wanted to say this was a pirate attack, but nothing was taken from the cargo bay," Teresa said, placing her hand on one of the containers. The cargo bay was packed with them, stacked tightly in the dim, empty space.

"What’s this ship transporting anyway?" Kai asked.

"That’s the strange part." Teresa shook her head as she scanned the labels. "From what I can see, these are just cheap machine parts. I can’t think of a single reason why this ship would be the target of such an attack."

"Then maybe it’s the Empire," Eliana suggested. She was floating gently down the corridor toward the front of the ship. "Perhaps they targeted this ship for its data logs. Isn’t that important?"

"I doubt it," Teresa replied. "The Empire has far more advanced spy ships; they wouldn’t need to attack something like this for data." She paused, then added, "Well, there’s only one way to find out."

"The data log?" Kai guessed.

"Close," Teresa said with a faint smirk. "I was about to say the black box. It records everything—navigation, communications, and whatever happened to the ship."

They floated down the corridor, the silence of the weightless environment pressing in on them. Kai watched Teresa’s movements closely—she moved with care, gently gripping anything she could to push herself forward in the direction of the flight deck. Her fluid motions made it look effortless, almost graceful.

In contrast, Kai was struggling to keep himself upright. He mimicked her movements, taking each action slowly and deliberately. It wasn’t perfect, but after a few tries, he started to get a little better at maneuvering himself. He couldn’t help but wonder why the strange liquid inside him didn’t come to his aid. Maybe it only works when I’m in danger, he thought.

As he floated through the corridor connecting the galley to the cargo bay, Kai took in his surroundings. The galley was surprisingly intact, almost untouched. A few cups and food pods floated lazily in the air, drifting as if frozen in time, but everything else was perfectly in place.

Kai’s eyes caught the utensils still neatly laid out on the table. It was odd—no signs of a struggle, no chaos, nothing out of place except for the abandoned food. He frowned, estimating from the setup that the ship must have been run by no more than two people. The quiet eeriness of it all sent a chill through him.

Kai followed Teresa and Eliana into the flight deck. It was a neat and clean. However every console was taken apart, wires and parts cut with perfect edge just like the hole on the hull. Kai’s stomach sank as he took in the sight.

"Damn it," Teresa cursed under her breath. "Every component that might contain data—navigation systems, the comm relays… even the black box has been removed."

"Looks like we aren't going to find anything here," Kai said, his voice heavy with frustration.

"Yeah, this was just a waste of time," Teresa agreed, her tone sharp. "We’ll have to report this to the Federation. Let them figure it out."

The three of them pushed off from the wrecked ship, using their suits' thrusters to glide back toward the Black Swan. The silent void of space felt heavier now, the unanswered questions lingering like ghosts in Kai’s mind.

Once inside the Black Swan’s airlock, they stood quietly as the air cycle began. The hiss of pressurization filled the chamber, a warm welcome to safety and home. Kai glanced at Eliana, who pulled her helmet off with a sigh, her brow furrowed in thought. Teresa did the same, muttering under her breath.

Kai leaned against the wall, waiting for the cycle to finish.To Kai, finding nothing was worse than any other possible outcome. He had braced himself to see the aftermath of a conflict—no matter how gruesome it might be. Yet, there were no signs of struggle. No bullet holes riddled the walls, not even a single drop of blood. This absence of evidence unsettled him deeply. It was as if the culprit had gone through deliberate lengths to make the attack as clean as possible, turning the destruction into a meticulous piece of art.

The most plausible explanation was that the Empire had done this. Who else could pull off something so precise? Certainly not pirates. But it was still too early to draw conclusions, Kai reminded himself. This was the vast emptiness of space, a place where endless possibilities existed. He clung to that thought like a lifeline, attempting to calm the growing unease in his chest.

Once back on the ship, Teresa reported the situation to Commander Grayson. He agreed that the best course of action was to report the incident to the Federation and let them deal with it. Their priority remained uncovering the truth about the True Kin, and their only lead now was to find Mama Mo's in the Veyra system.

Kai was heading back to his room when Robert called out to him.

"Kai!" Robert’s voice echoed down the corridor.

Kai turned to see Robert waving at him. "Sorry, Robert, I’m not in the mood for training right now."

"It’s not training," Robert said, his voice carrying a spark of excitement. "You’re gonna want to see this."

Curious, Kai followed Robert into the training room, where a holographic display of the Black Swan was already set up, hovering mid-air with glowing outlines.

"What’s this about?" Kai asked, stepping closer.

"The black shape you saw," Robert said, pointing to a black sphere near the edge of the holographic field. "Look right here."

The realization sent a shiver down Kai’s spine. He wasn’t imagining things—there really was something out there.

"Could this just be a sensor glitch?" Kai asked, his voice tight, not wanting to believe it.

"That’s what I thought, too," Robert replied. He tapped a few commands into the control panel. "So I ran the data again, frame by frame. Check this out."

Kai watched as the frames advanced, one after another. The black sphere stayed in view, unmoving at first. Then, just as the final few frames played out, the shape shifted—it unfolded, opening up like a blooming flower before vanishing from the view entirely.

Robert rewound the frames and zoomed in, pausing at the moment the sphere began to change. Kai studied the object carefully. It wasn’t a glitch. It couldn’t be. The way it moved was deliberate, mechanical.

"Did you show this to the Commander?" Kai asked.

"Yeah, I did," Robert said, his excitement dimming slightly. "But he thinks it’s too much for us to deal with. He said it’s better to let the Federation handle it."

Kai left the training room with more questions than answers, his thoughts heavy. Whatever they had seen wasn’t natural. It wasn’t like anything Kai had ever encountered before. He walked the corridors of the Black Swan quietly, wishing they could reach Mama Mo's faster. Wherever she was, Kai hoped the answers waiting for him there would finally put his mind at ease.