Samir had to force himself to keep steady as he somberly walked through the halls of the Hyperion. Another battle. Another war. It seemed that his prayers had gone unanswered. He had hoped beyond all hope that this was it. That this was the moment where he could finally do something good.

When he saw that ship littered with damage from weapons fire, a part of him died inside. He wanted to come as a peacemaker, but it appeared that the Lord had ordained him a warrior. Forget about three star systems. Depending on how this mission went, he could lead the start of an intergalactic war.

You don’t know everything. Samir reminded himself. All that he had seen was a heavily damaged vessel. There were still questions left unanswered. Pieces of the puzzle still missing. He might still have a chance, but only if he uncovered the truth of what had happened.

“Shuttles have launched.” Erika read off from a data pad. “Three minutes until they reach the Andromedan ship.”

“Tell them to be careful cutting through the hull. I don’t like the look of those particle shields. Who knows what they are or how they work.”

Erika nodded and relayed the order. “Sir, I also had a team working on the interior mapping of the vessel through our sensors. They’ve identified the possible location of the bridge through mapping out conduit lines.”

“How about stasis pods?” Samir asked. He didn’t care about the bridge. “Have they found any traces of survivors?”

She shook her head. “Still working on that. Though who knows what’s aboard that ship. It could take time before we’re sure.”

Samir paused and turned around to Lt. Commander Terese. The woman stopped scrolling through the data and looked up at the Captain. “We don’t have time, Dr. Terese. Every moment we’re in the dark puts the Hyperion in danger. We need to find out what happened, and quickly.”

“Sir, there isn’t much reason to believe the Hyperion is in any danger. Our sensors haven’t detected anything for at least fifteen light years. Whatever happened to that ship—although a tragedy, happened quite a while ago. It’s been eight years, at least since it was damaged.”

“Dr. Terese.” Samir stepped forward. “While I appreciate your scientific expertise, you still have much to learn about military tactics. Ships don’t hide in gas giants for nearly a decade unless they think someone is still searching.”

He turned around and walked over to the door of the recon room. Punching a button, the metal doors slid open to a sleek black room. “Even on minimal power—especially on minimal power they should’ve gone into stasis and flown their ship back home or sub-light to the nearest habitable planet. And if all else failed, they should’ve put out a beacon loud enough for the entire galaxy to hear. We need to find out why that didn’t happen.”

It’s clear the beacon was a distress signal. A call for help directly to the Milky Way. All this time, we assumed the Andromedans were acting on a united front much like the Free Exchange. That they had established their own galactic system. Samir thought hurriedly as he stepped into the recon room. But it’s possible—no likely that there are several factions at play.

The entirely black room was outlined in orange lines to give the eyes something to track. The boxy space was not particularly spacious, only holding comfortable room for maybe ten people at most. Five grey circular pads were spread out across the black floor. Singh and Terese took their spots on two of them and waited for the ship to scan their forms.

An orange holographic screen opened up in front of Singh. He glanced up at Erika as a similar screen appeared next to her. “Take squad two and make your way to the bridge. I’ll conduct a general search of the ship.”

Erika nodded and tapped on her screen. Several holographic projectors opened from the floors and the ceiling. Immediately, her form was encapsulated by darkness. Samir turned to his screen, placing his thumb to connect with the marine shuttle. Immediately, his surroundings changed to inside the shuttle.

The cramped space was filled with fourteen soldiers standing at the ready. On one side of the shuttle was a hatch separating the main space from the cockpit, where two pilots were carefully aligning the side of the shuttle next to the Andromedan vessel. The wall of the main section contained a bulky circular aperture which was used to puncture through the toughest hulls.

All the soldiers were wearing black, streamlined space suits fit for combat. They were quickly taking combat rifles out of weapon lockers mounted on the walls and turning on gravity shields built into their suits. They were of a lesser quality than Singh’s, only capable of deflecting two, perhaps three shots at a time.

Singh took a moment to recover himself from the quick transition. The recon room connected with a spherical hologram generator on the other end. The sphere was held in the air by a small gravity drive and streamed a three-dimensional image of its surroundings to the recon room which recreated it for Singh. Meanwhile, the recon room streamed over Singh’s appearance, which took the place of the generator. The pad on the floor moved with his steps to make sure he remained stationary while the sphere reacted to his movements. The effect was that he could freely oversee operations in otherwise dangerous areas and react in real time.

“Sir,” Sergeant Barnes saluted as he saw Singh’s image appear in the spacecraft. All the other marines stopped what they were doing and waited at attention.

“I’ve assigned squad two to secure the bridge,” Samir informed them. “Squads three and four are tasked with securing the hanger bays and engineering. You are to perform a general sweep of the ship and identify potential threats onboard.”

Captain Singh nodded over to Sergeant Barnes and stepped aside, letting the squad leader take command.

“You heard the Captain.” The youth took charge. “Keep comm chatter to a mimumum. We keep this quick and quiet. We have four hours of air. Let’s make it count.”

There was an audible screeching noise behind the aperture as a plasma torch began cutting into the Andromedan hull. One of the soldiers closed the hatch to the cockpit and Barnes pulled a lever down. Immediately, the atmosphere adjusted to the detected interior of the Andromedan ship.

Singh felt audible distortions as the air of the shuttle drained out. He tweaked the settings of the holographic generator to compensate it. He crossed his arms and waited as the screeching continued on the other side of the aperture. Sergeant Barnes gathered his men at either side of the aperture, waiting to rush in once the opening was complete.

Samir observed the Sergeant carefully. Scott Barnes was one of the few men Singh had the opportunity to personally select from the crew. The black-haired man was young—actually young. His smooth angular face and pointed nose was not the result of life extension treatment. The twenty-three year old had barely seen some combat from pirates off the Helles Protectorate.

Some had questioned his decision, preferring more experienced men. But Singh could personally attest experience meant losing adaptability. And there was no telling what they would find aboard this ship. The screeching noise came to a stop, and there was a hushed moment of quiet as not a single person moved. Barnes raised his hand, holding three fingers up. Two. One.

The aperture shot open and a circular section of hull was thrown forward, revealing an entrance into the vessel. The metal thudded heavily onto the floor as the men raised their rifles and rushed through the opening. Samir remained behind just for a moment before he himself stepped through the opening.

They had entered a long, circular hallway. Emergency lighting was affixed to the floor, dimly emanating a soft orange light. It was dark. Samir himself had the luxury of advanced lighting processing from the holographic generator, but even he could only see so much. Bright flashlights from the soldier’s rifles pierced the darkness in all directions.

The marines quickly took up positions on either direction of the hallway, which extended in both directions. Bulky doorways stood at regular intervals. Singh noted a rectangular sensor pad. One soldier went forward and swiped his hand over it. The door automatically opened, revealing what Singh took as crew quarters.

Peeking inside, he saw a bed with sheets covered in a layer of dust. There were a few other amenities, too. A closet, some decorated lighting, and even a window looking out into space. It looked startlingly similar to some of the crew quarters on the Hyperion. It disturbed him that such a space was on the Andromedan vessel. It was a touch of humanity on an otherwise alien vessel.

Barnes led his men down the hallway, clearing each room as they made their way through the vessel. Each one was a near identical copy of the first room. Singh noted that none of the crew quarters looked lived in. All the sheets were perfectly tucked into the mattress. There were no personal affects or anything of the sort.

Making their way down, they took a left down another hallway. Singh quietly inspected the corridors of the ship as they passed by. There was an elegance to the bulky and often industrial design of the ship. It reminded him of vessels launched from dry dock before they were fully ready to fly. He had commanded a few of them in the past.

The skeletal structure of the design was all there, but often with the finer touches nowhere to be seen. He saw multiple components exposed to the open air that would normally be covered by metal plates or other decoration. Yes. He thought. That’s exactly it.

This vessel seemed incomplete. He could see evidence of a rush job all around him. One only had to keep their eyes peeled to notice the designs. He could imagine the components of the Andromedan ship being hastily put together, using cheap alternatives to the sleek machinery one could easily find in so many vessels in the Free Exchange.

This ship hadn’t been ready to fly, and it only added to the deepening mystery of the vessel.

Walking through the empty corridors was unnerving. The marines cleared room after room, but there was no one to be found. They went through storage areas, maintainance terminals, and even several bathrooms. It was all unsettlingly human, made even more so by the lack of any trace of life. Singh would’ve expected bodies—or at least some indication of people. But so far, the ship had looked untouched, albeit covered in a layer of dust that had built up over the years.

It was all too familiar, and yet this ship had once been in the Andromeda galaxy. It had traveled farther than any other vessel in recorded human history. And yet, it seemed to be just as human as any ship from the Milky Way. In a strange way, Samir was comforted by this notion. Perhaps the Andromedans would not be so alien as he thought.

The marines stopped at a single door. Waving a hand over it, the doorway opened up to a large interior space. Singh saw Barnes take a look inside, then hesitate. The man waited for a moment and then glanced over to Singh with a worried expression in his eyes. A second later and he motioned for the men to enter to the room.

Having his curiosity peeked, Singh quickly followed the men into the room. He was greeted with a massive dark space that dwarfed anything on the Hyperion. The circular chamber held a long walkway which ran around the circumference of the room. Industrial computers circled along the track with exposed wiring everywhere.

In the center was suspended a giant metal sphere perhaps fifty meters in diameter. Cables hung down from the ceiling and connected with loosely fitted metal plates, while strong supports held it from below. Exposed portions from within glowed strangely with a faint electric light. Strange machinery whirred and churned from various portions of the alien contraption. Even from the near vacuum conditions of the room, Singh could hear the faint emanations of humming coming from the device.

Singh could understand Barnes’ hesitation. It was utterly unlike anything he had ever seen before. The design and make didn’t fit any kind of technology that fit within his experience. This wasn’t a gravity core, or anything its analogue. Whatever this thing was, it was something completely foreign to the Milky Way.

The men quickly took their positions, but many couldn’t resist the urge to gawk at whatever this was. Singh himself couldn’t take his eyes off of it. The contraption simply made everything seem so small in comparison. As the marines waited for further orders, there was a slight increase in energy. Singh detected the machinery picking up pace. The ship around them began to shake.

The men snapped to attention, rifles pointed at all possible entrances. Barnes quickly ducked behind a terminal and waited for what was coming. Singh glanced around, watching the ship come to life around them. Then suddenly, all the lights of the room flared out, bathing them in sharp white light.