Interstellar Age

After closing his eyes, and focusing his mind on the distant past, Erich found himself once more leaping through time and space. After making it to the end of the Great Schism with his previous jump in time, Erich found it more easy to get there a second time.

However, progressing beyond the 750,000 year limit he had previously broken into was a difficult task. What was a rather passing of time before his very eyes, became much slower, rather than jumping 10,000 years with each passing second, time had begun to slow down, with ten thousand years, becoming 5,000 years, and five thousand years becoming 1,000 years, until finally Erich's mind couldn't take the stress any longer.

When Erich finally opened his eyes and took a deep breath, he found himself standing on the deck of a warship. Though luckily for him, nobody appeared to have noticed him yet. What was interesting, however, was that the windows displayed a dark void, without a single star in sight.

Curious as to whether they had entered a state beyond the galaxy, Erich quickly heard a feminine voice, one he intimately recognized as belonging to Lunaria, call out to her subjects.

"25,000 Years I have been here in the Maw searching for the little bitch! And not a single sight of her! Of course, how could one see anything in this infinite darkness? I don't even know what direction we are headed!

It would be a miracle if she hadn't already been torn apart by a random gravity well or worse, consumed by the mysterious dark energy that persists in this vast sub-dimension!

How much longer do my parents intend to have me look for the brat? She's clearly dead! And if we stay here any longer, we won't be able to prevent that darkness from seeping into our vessel! I don't care what my father says, make a course for real space. We are leaving this horrific subspace behind forever!"

It was moments after Lunaria had said this that one of the officers beneath her command called out to her with an almost terrified tone in her voice.

"Your highness! There is something ahead! It looks like an elven vessel!"

Exploring the maw had been prohibited by law for nearly 100,000 years. If there was an elven ship stranded in this dark sub-dimension, then there were two possibilities. One, it was Daelia who had been missing for 25,000 years. Or Two it was a much older vessel.

Either way, it needed to be investigated immediately. And Lunaria ordered this without hesitation.

"Well, what are you waiting for? Scan the ship, and prepare a boarding party. I need to know whose vessel that is, and if there are any survivors!"

The vessel was motionless, and the space around Lunaria's vessel was so dark that even her warships lights were having a hard time piercing the thick miasma of darkness. But there was indeed some visibility that could be displayed. And what the crew saw was mortifying.

Naturally, Erich stepped forward onto the bridge. He did not fear being detected by the crew for one reason, and one reason only. The nanites in his bloodstream were advanced enough that they could re-arrange his skin cells so that they were entirely transparent. Effectively making the man completely and totally invisible to the naked eye.

Because of this feat of Germanic engineering, Erich was able to seamlessly blend in the background while he gazed out the windshield of the warship's cockpit.

When he saw what made the Elven crew so Anxiosu, Erich too was stunned into silence. The Miasma had appeared to have manifested in a thick and viscous goo, which was crawling across the hull of the Elven vessel as if it were an actual living substance.

It penetrated through the armor plating of the Elven vessel and seemed to making its way inside. Which the sensors aboard Lunaria's own vessel detected.

"Your Highness, we have confirmed the registration of the ship to match that of Princess Daelia's personal exploration vessel. Although there are some signs of life detected on board the ship, they are faint. And we have no idea what state the interior of the vessel is in now that the darkness has pierced through its defenses!

Ordering a rescue mission might just very well be suicide!"

However, Lunaria cared more about retrieving her sister, even if it was just a corpse, than she did about the lives of her crew. After all, she was effectively in exile until she could recover a body.

Because of this, she recklessly ordered a boarding party to search the ship, which was clearly affected by the mysterious anomaly that persisted across the dark sub-dimension known only as the "Maw".

"I don't care about that! We are not leaving here without recovering my bitch of a sister! Whether it's alive or dead, we are taking her home! Now prepare a boarding party immediately!'

Though the officers on the deck of the ship were indeed worried by their Princess's orders, they were ultimately obligated to obey. And seeing this as a perfect time to find out just what happened to Daelia and the others on her ship. Erich silently infiltrated the boarding party, who entered a shuttle which quickly left the hangar of Lunaria's Elven Frigate.

The moment after they passed through the force field which sealed off the Frigate's hangar from the deadly space outside, Erich noticed the lighting aboard the un-damaged shuttle began to flicker. He instantly knew what was happening, because not a second later, the copilot reported it to everyone on board.

"Shit! It looks like we are going to be cutting this close. The shields on this shuttle are not meant to resist the energy of the maw! I hope you all have made your peace with the gods, because we might not make it back from this one!"

Despite the grim warning of the Pilot, the Banshees on board were more than prepared to throw their lives away for their princess. Such was the duty of an Elven Special Forces operative.

And thus they prepared themselves for the difficult journey ahead as the Shuttle breached through the dark, oozing miasma which surrounded Daelia's exploration vessel, forcefully landing in its small hangar.

If all went as planned, Erich would know the truth about what happened to Daelia after she went missing in the Maw.