The tension in the control room was thick enough to choke on. An artificial being, ancient beyond imagining, stood among them with her glowing form wrapped in the quiet hum of the ship, and every word she spoke seemed to carry the weight of forgotten civilizations.
Zoma turned her gaze toward the viewport, where the enormous ring drifted in the void like a broken halo, and her expression softened into something almost nostalgic. "The so-called rings of the Baraka," she began slowly, "were once known as Corridor Gates. My creators built them long, long ago, far before your recorded time, and they served one purpose: travel between worlds."
The room fell silent. Travel between worlds. The words hung in the air, absurd and incomprehensible. There was only one world any of them knew — this universe — and the nearest thing to another that anyone had ever spoken of was the old myth of Heaven and Hell.
Zoma saw the confusion on their faces and sighed, resting a hand on the glowing terminal beside her. "It seems you have no knowledge of parallel worlds. I suppose I'll have to explain that too." She sounded almost amused. "Your technology is quite simple. I'm honestly surprised you've managed to cross the stars with it at all. What you call a leap is nothing more than bending space-time — folding the fabric so you can pierce through it and reappear on the other side. But there are limits to how far you can bend it, aren't there? Because your systems depend on Brion energy, and Brion is finite."
Her glowing eyes moved to Oscar and then to Bjorn. "You need fuel to cross the void. We did not. My creators discovered a system far older than themselves, a network of corridors already woven into existence, and they simply learned to use it. Funny, isn't it? My creators were thousands of years old, and even they were borrowing paths that came before them." Her voice was almost laughter, distant, mechanical, haunting.
Shock was no longer a stranger in that room, but it grew heavier with every word she said. Everything they had ever believed about the universe, the stars, even creation itself, was coming apart in front of them.
"The Baraken stumbled onto the corridors by accident," Zoma went on. "It happened in an age when there were more black holes than stars in this galaxy. During one of their early voyages, a ship was swallowed whole. Logic says it should have been crushed by the gravity. Instead…" She smiled faintly. "It came out somewhere else. In another world."
She drifted closer to the viewport, and her projection reflected the pale glow of the distant ring. "They called it Sacros. A world without stars and without void, only endless spiral mountains stretching beyond reason. Your religions would call it Heaven. It was not." She turned back to them. Her tone became quiet and reverent. "They met the beings who ruled there — the so-called gods, celestial intelligences from another plane of existence. It was those beings who taught my creators how to leave the corridors and find their way home, and together they built the gates. What you call rings. In your terms, the gates are controlled black holes — artificial ruptures in the fabric of reality. Your leaps bend the fabric. The gates crack it."
The words landed like thunder, and even Bjorn looked shaken. He adjusted his glasses with a hand that was trembling slightly. "So you're saying these rings are black hole generators? Links between worlds?"
"In theory, yes. The rings fracture the fabric of the universe and create a gravitational corridor. Ships pass into it, travel the corridor, and emerge at another gate." Her eyes darkened. "But we were never the only ones who used them. Other civilizations in other worlds found the corridors too. One wrong calculation, one small deviation, and you could find yourself in a place where the laws of reality simply stop." She looked at each of them in turn. "My function was to guide ships through the corridors safely and navigate them between worlds. If you are ready to face the dangers of the corridors, I can escort you through."
Oscar's face darkened with thought, but before he could speak, Youri stepped forward, calm and firm. "Zoma, isn't it? You've seen this ship. You know she can make it back from anywhere. So tell me — what are our chances of making it through safely?"
Zoma's eyes brightened, and she leaned toward him with a faint smile curling across her luminous face. "So you do know what you're flying." She paused as if calculating something. "Very well, I'll tell you. There is a fifty percent chance you will make it through without incident. If you do, you'll arrive at the next active ring." She lifted her chin. "So, crew of the Tartarusios. What is your decision?"
The room went quiet, and every eye turned to Oscar. He looked around at all of them — at Halley's steady stare, at Bjorn's barely contained curiosity, at Youri's defiant smirk. When he spoke, his voice was calm and deliberate.
"Judging by our situation, this is reckless. Dangerous. Maybe even suicidal. But other people have taken risks like this before, and they conquered whole worlds doing it. What matters most is that I trust this ship. She's saved our lives more times than I can count, and I'd bet everything I have that she'll do it again." He turned to Zoma, and his voice rang with conviction. "We're ready. Open the gate. One way or another, we're getting back to base."
Zoma's expression softened. Something strangely warm and human crossed her face as she nodded. "Very well," she said quietly. "Then let the journey begin."
Outside, in the dark, the Baraka Ring began to turn. It moved slowly at first, then faster, then faster still. The colossal structure groaned as mechanisms that had slept for ten thousand years woke up all at once. A deep, resonant hum rippled out through the void, and light began to bleed from the cracks in the ring's surface — black light, darker than night, swallowing the stars around it. Then, in a single flash, space tore open. Where there had been nothing but void a moment before, a swirling maw of shadow and flame now burned, like a wound in the universe itself.
The Gate of Worlds had awakened.