Her words took time to sink in, but there was no escaping them. This was no coincidence; fate itself had a hand in it, and there was nothing any of them could do about that now.
Then, without any warning, the corridor began to crack. Lightning tore through the fog and seared the clouds of color that had been lighting their way. The whole ship shuddered violently as her metal bones groaned under some invisible pressure. Sirens wailed. Loose tools and panels clattered across the deck. Every man and woman aboard clung to their stations with their breath held and their hearts pounding. Then, just like that, it stopped. The tremors faded, the hum of the engines leveled out, and for a single heartbeat there was nothing but silence.
Through that silence, something vast began to take shape in the fog.
A ship emerged — wide and heavy, its triangular frame cutting through the corridor like the edge of a broken blade. It was several hundred meters long from its pointed nose to its broad, armored thrusters, and it had clearly been built for endurance rather than grace. Its hull was dark, battered steel, pitted and scarred, with armor plates overlapping in a crude symmetry that spoke of a people who valued strength far more than beauty. Faded runes and worn insignia ran along its sides. Clusters of old engines lined its flanks and pulsed faintly with a dull blue light, like the slow, uneven breathing of a sleeping giant. Broken docking arms jutted out from its open bays like the ribs of a skeleton. At its heart rose a bridge walled in thick glass and iron, its windows clouded with dust, the interior dark and still. There was nothing sleek about it. It was ancient and rugged, a vessel that had survived the impossible.
The Tartarusios drifted closer, and her crew stood frozen in disbelief. Bjorn was the first to find his voice. "There's no reading on it," he whispered. "No heat signature, no energy output that makes sense. It's like it isn't really here." Halley's hand had found the edge of the console and was gripping it hard enough to whiten her knuckles. Oscar realized he had stopped breathing and made himself start again.
"Get ready," Zoma said, and though her voice was calm, it was edged with tension. "We're about to exit the gate."
No one answered her. The sight of that ancient craft drifting beside them filled the bridge with a dread no one could put into words. Then the fog cracked open again, lightning flashed, reality split apart, and through the rift they saw the end of the corridor. The ship lurched, metal screamed, the lights flickered — and then there were stars. The endless black of ordinary space had returned. They had made it out.
But so had the other ship. It hung directly ahead of them, its colossal silhouette framed against the dying light of a black hole, while one by one the Tartarusios' systems flickered back to life — radar, communications, navigation — and the crew scrambled back to their stations with quick, uncertain movements.
Then came a sound — a faint, unfamiliar signal.
Bjorn leaned over his console with wide eyes. "Captain, the signal is on a completely different wavelength. It's almost ancient. But if I invert it, I might be able to relay it through our comms."
"Do it," Oscar said.
A moment later, a crackling, distorted voice filled the bridge, followed by a request for a visual link.
"They're asking to see us," Bjorn said.
Oscar hesitated for half a second. "Accept it."
The main screen flickered to life, and a man appeared on it. His presence was calm and commanding. His blond hair was swept neatly back, his ice-blue eyes studied them with unshaken composure, his uniform immaculate, pressed and tailored perfectly across his broad frame. He spoke firmly and deliberately, but none of them could understand a word.
Bjorn rose slowly from his seat, stunned. "He's speaking Baraken," he said, and his voice cracked.
Confusion rippled around the room. Then Zoma stepped forward, slowly and deliberately, her expression unreadable. When she answered the man, it was in the same tongue. Her voice matched his perfectly, ancient and clear, and the two of them spoke with complete ease, as though the centuries between them had never existed.
Oscar turned toward her, his voice low and edged with alarm. "Zoma, what is happening? Explain. Now."
She turned to face the crew, and though her expression softened, her eyes carried the weight of a revelation. "My dear wanderers," she said, and her voice rang through the deck like a verdict, "we have arrived at a place you may find difficult to accept." Every gaze in the room was locked on her. "Do you remember the second instance I told you about? The one that changed everything?" Her lips curved into a somber smile. "It has just happened."
Behind her, the screens flickered as streams of data shifted and recalibrated, as if the universe itself were adjusting to what she had said. She turned back to the image of the man in his military uniform, whose blue eyes had not blinked once. When she spoke again, her voice was low and steady, and each word sank like a stone into still water.
"This is the year 4832. The one hundred and eighty-second year of Imperial rule."
For a long moment, nobody on the bridge moved, and even the low hum of the engines seemed to fade away beneath the silence. Bjorn was the first to understand, and his lips moved silently as he did the arithmetic. Zoma had woken up believing it was 5047. The ring they had found was more than ten thousand years old. And the year she had just named came before both.
Youri, slumped in a chair at the back of the deck with his bottle forgotten in his hand, closed his eyes. He was the only one who