The year 4832 was the dawn of the Baraken Empire. It was etched into the bones of history as the age when humanity first bent light to its will, when the invention of the first light-speed engines shattered the ancient boundaries of distance, and worlds that had once seemed unreachable were suddenly within reach in the space of a few short years. But contact had brought chaos. Unknown planets answered back. Machines that drifted through the void descended on colonies, cracking open their skies and burning them. Worlds fell — not to gods, but to the merciless ambition of thinking steel. Out of the ashes of that disorder, unity had been forged, and the first intergalactic empire rose from the broken systems of humankind: the Baraka. Within three years of their founding they had conquered whole sectors and crushed every aggressor beneath their banners. Their expansion had only just begun.
Now, ten thousand years before their own time, the crew of the Tartarusios was face to face with that beginning.
The other ship drifted in front of them, silent and imposing. Zoma's words still hung in the air like the echo of thunder. They were in the past. Ten thousand years in the past.
Zoma's eyes gleamed faintly in the dim light of the control room. "Wanderers," she said, and her voice was calm, almost reverent, "I thank you. You have done what no one else could. You have brought me home to my creators." Her tone softened, but the weight behind it did not. "The reason for my existence is finally complete. My last mission has begun."
The words settled over them like dust in a tomb. They had resurrected something ancient, and now it had a purpose again.
Oscar slammed his fist against the console. "And what about us, Zoma? How the hell are we supposed to get back?"
She turned to him slowly, and her expression gave nothing away. "You have your ship," she said simply.
"What do you mean, we have our ship?"
Her gaze drifted down to where Youri sat slumped against the wall, half asleep with a bottle in his hand and apparently untroubled by the chaos around him, and she lifted a finger toward him. "Ask your friend. It isn't the first time he has walked out of a corridor stranded in another world."
The room went very still. Zoma turned to the communications panel and brushed her holographic hand across its surface. "I will update your translator so that you can speak with my creators," she said softly. "Consider it my final gift, for bringing me to my destiny."
Then the voice from the other ship came again, deep, steady and human. This time every word was perfectly clear. "You will follow us to the station."
With it came the cold understanding that they had no choice at all.
The Baraken space station loomed ahead of them, a massive, hulking structure orbiting just beyond the golden haze of Baraka's atmosphere. It was no marvel of design. It was raw metal and human grit, a fortress of rust and iron built for survival rather than beauty, its hull patched and uneven, its seams welded thick, its plates darkened by years of burns and corrosion. Docking rings turned sluggishly around its center. Giant mechanical arms reached out from it, some broken and some frozen in place, while the amber light of the planet below painted the steel in dim, dying colors.
Before they docked, Oscar gathered the crew in the hangar and told them as much of the truth as he could stand to say out loud. Most of them did not believe him, and the ones who did looked as though they wished they hadn't. "Nobody leaves the ship," he told them. "Nobody touches a weapon unless I say so. Nolan, you have the ship." Nolan nodded without a word, and that was somehow more frightening than if he had argued.
The Tartarusios and the other ship docked side by side, and their airlocks hissed open together. Oscar, Halley, Bjorn and Mario stepped out onto the station's cold deck with Zoma's flickering projection beside them. Waiting there for them was the man from the transmission. He was tall and broad-shouldered, with his blond hair brushed neatly back and his uniform pressed and pristine. His eyes were as clear and blue as frozen water. He radiated control — not arrogance, but the certainty of a man born to command.
"I am Captain Mahin of the Barbados, first ship of the Baraken fleet," he said, deep and formal. "Who are you?"
The crew exchanged glances, and before any of them could think of an answer, Zoma stepped forward. Her tone changed completely, becoming solemn, resonant, almost divine.
"We are gods," she said. "We have come to grace you with our wisdom."
Mahin froze. The word struck him like thunder. Only hours earlier he himself had escaped from the corridors — the very thing the old legends said belonged to divine beings — and for a moment he truly did not know what to believe. Could these strangers really be what the ancient texts described?
Zoma held his gaze. "We are not from Sacros," she went on, calm and commanding, "but from much further beyond. Will you grant us an audience with your High Council?"
Mahin hesitated. By every rule of logic, he should have had them detained on the spot. And yet he had seen too much to trust logic anymore. The corridors had opened in front of him. He had stared into that fog and lived, and common sense no longer seemed to apply to anything. He straightened his back, and though his tone was cautious, it was steady.
"Very well," he said at last. "Come with me."
As he led them through the echoing steel corridors of the station, the old metal groaned beneath their boots, as though the structure itself could sense the weight of what was happening.
Behind them, Zoma's light flickered once against the rusted walls. History had just met its own ghost.