As the Askillion plowed its way towards the edge of the system, its advanced fusion system barely strained to push the massive vessel on its way. Rear Admiral Linze thought back on the past fifty years of history while reviewing the latest batch of reports on her terminal. It had been a long but, at the same time, fast journey. The first leap towards faster than light had come in the very early twenty-first century with the development of the ion drive and the electrothermal engine. Within thirty years, the first faster than light experimental drive had been developed, but then things went horribly wrong. Testbed One had ripped a tear in the fabric of reality and, just as it had entered the roiling purple haze in space, shuddered and vanished. Moments later, Titan Base near Saturn reported that the warped and twisted remains of the vessel had appeared out of nowhere and slammed into the face of Narvi with horrific effect, sending the celestial satellite crashing into its mother planet. The first test was labeled a miscalculation, with twenty lives lost.

The second attempt was the Hyperion manned probe series. Fourteen probes later and more progress had been made in sublight drives. A mere decade after the Narvi Disaster, humanity could reach the orbit of Pluto in just a matter of days instead of weeks, months, or even years. The advances in communications had been equally impressive. Due to advances in quantum entanglement theory, real-time comms throughout the entire solar system was a reality. The bleating of said comms shook the admiral from her reverie and she opened the channel on a tertiary monitor. Her young comms officer popped up on the screen, a young red-headed kid with a dusting of freckles.

“What is it, Skip?”

He blinked a few times then said, “Ma’am, UEC is on the main comms. They want to know if you’re ready for the departure speech. We are approaching Pluto’s orbit and will be ready to enter the Oort cloud a couple hours after that.”

She grimaced. She hated speeches, always had. “Yeah Skip, I am ready as I'll ever be.” Linze shook her head, then drew her silvering hair back into a tight bun before saving her notes, and leaving for the bridge, making sure her uniform was prim and proper before she arrived.

----Several Minutes Later----

Linze stepped upon the bridge.

“Admiral on DECK!” bellowed the watch officer and the entire bridge crew snapped to, saluting her with panache. Their enthusiasm brought a smile to her face.

“At ease, ladies and gentlemen.” The bridge crew of thirty relaxed, with some resuming critical stations. “Ok. Let’s get this dog and pony show on the road.” Admiral Linze looked over at the comms officer. “Skip, open a broadcast channel to all bases in the Sol system, as planned.”

There were a few moments of silence prior to his reply. “All is ready at your order, ma'am.”

She gave him a nod. “Open frequencies.”

The main screen went live, with HQ and many other places being shown. The scene of the bridge was being shown to nearly one trillion people, from the near-solar observatories, all the way to Charon Outpost.

“Citizens of the Sol system, this is Rear Admiral Tierra Linze. I come to you today with a message of hope and a vision of the future. It has been a long, long time since we made our first steps into space. The early space race against the Soviet Union in the nineteen sixties, then there were the countless unmanned probes we launched before humanity finally landed on Earth’s moon.

“After that, the initial Space Force was enacted by at-the-time President Trump. All of this led to the breakthroughs we have achieved. Many lives were lost valiantly along the path, but their efforts were not in vain. Today shall be the culmination of this hard work. Today the UEC cruiser Askillion shall pierce the Oort cloud and lead our first manned endeavor into the space that lies beyond. Depending on what we find, we will decide our course once we arrive. If we find a system worth colonizing, then our sister ships which will soon be finishing construction.”

A holo image appeared, showing seven more vessels of a similar build that are almost done, along with an image of the Askillion.

“The Montagne, the Stiletto, the Revi, the Admiral Isakov, the Conquest, the Centaur, and the Redoutable.” She paused before explaining, “They will be escorting these ships.”

Two massive vessels that were well into construction appeared.

“The colony ships Giza and Zahirah.” She paused, then said, “Some of you may ask why we are building so many of what are obviously warships. I will be blunt. We do not know what is out there. If it is hostile and will not respond to diplomatic negotiations, then we fully intend to send a message that the Sol system is not to be trifled with. We will not be a sci-fi movie, be helpless in the face of an extraterrestrial enemy.” These last words left her mouth with a fervent passion as a fire burned in her steel-grey eyes.

A terminal beeped and she finished, “Ladies and gentlemen, with this, we of the Askillion must bid you farewell for now. We have reached the closest edge of the Oort cloud and must focus all our attention on our tasks at hand. From here, I and the over ten thousand strong crew bid you farewell and hope to return soon triumphantly.”

At that moment Command responded, “Good luck and godspeed, Admiral. The entire system looks forward to spectacular results from you and your ship and crew. United Earth Command, out.” The channel cut and, with a breath, the admiral sat in her chair before saying, “Okay boys and girls, arm the point defense guns and spin up the fold system. Once we’re past Charon, we’re gonna punch it and pray.”

People snapped to and moved to stations as a klaxon sounded. Info displays informed Linze that the point defence batteries were charged and ready and that the fold system was ready to engage. Several minutes later, the nav station piped up.

“Ma’am, we are at optimal coordinates and are dropping a comms buoy. Engaging Hyperion fold-drive now.”

Once again, a vessel ripped open the fabric of space-time and pushed its way through, though this time there was no terrible accident. This time, the vessel known as the Askillion, the newest and most advanced vessel humanity has ever made, slid into the fold-space and vanished.

Epsilon Terentus System Outermost Fringes - same time as Askillion fold jump

RS78GZ-Z let a sigh of electronic discontent. It had been a long time since it had been assigned to this observation station by its brethren. In all the ninety-seven thousand cycles of its abandonment here, nothing had truly happened. There had been some blips in the past, but they had never lasted long, nor been high in power. This part of the cycle, though, something changed, something major. Every display in the almost tiny broom closet went off the charts, with several exploding. Though the fragmenting ferro glass bouncing off the robot’s outer skin didn't bother it, the readings it saw did. It deeply disturbed it. It took sixteen pico cycles before it could formulate a response to the situation, gathering and collating all of the ancient files it had access to on this Class 9 Gamma Quarantine system.

{Archive Partially Corrupted. Only 5% data available}

RS7 bleated disdainfully, then scanned the mass of corrupted information and gathered that the system had been assembled as a testbed by a race known simply as the Ostrovians. The system itself had the most extreme conditions this side of a black hole devouring a supernova. It considered how anything could grow or flourish there and build a drive capable of one hundred times FTL...and started a recursive error cycle in its thought processes and a fault in its AI core. An automated subroutine sent off a data squirt to its home base and tripped an emergency transponder as the AI failed. The code in the emergency signal brought many races to a more alert standing, due to the fact an unknown vessel from a Class 9 Gamma Quarantine system just punched its way through the barrier like it was nothing.

Everywhere races scrambled to get old first contact protocols ready. No new races had been encountered in a long while and they all were unsure how to handle the situation. There had been some luck, though, since whatever it was had chosen to head towards Epsilon Terentus, a very minor joint-species colony and sensor outpost. If this unknown species proved hostile, evacuations would hopefully be easy. The Ostrovians, though, had been known for their test practices and the system they had set up inside that barrier had been insane in its conditions. They had engineered extremely high levels of gravity and insane weather conditions on the one habitable world that had been left. They had no idea what to expect, let alone any knowledge of if these creatures would even be partially friendly. As a final step, the races also quickly assembled a combat fleet of available ships in the region. This was a rarity. Yes, there were extragalactic threats, but they were being handled. For a fleet to be needed this deep within their borders was beyond unusual. They looked at estimates for its arrival. Even at its ridiculous speed, the vessel, or whatever it was, would take almost two weeks to arrive at its destination, leaving a burning purple gash in the face of space-time that dissolved half as fast as it appeared to mark its passing.

Enroute to Epsilon Terentus System

Unaware of the furor they were causing, the crew of the Askillion was dealing with their own unexpected occurrences. The first report had been of a young deck rating accidentally ripping a hatch from the bulkhead while trying to open it. The next was a follow up on how the one hundred and ten pound, five-foot-six kid, then in a state of surprise, carried the door weighing several hundred pounds to the closest engineer like it was a water bottle on a hot summer's day. There were several reports of tools being broken unintentionally, and some people accidentally launching themselves by moving too fast. It seemed like something straight out of a comic book. What was more alarming, though, was the rate of advance. What should have been months, if not the better part of a year, was being re-estimated to take a mere two weeks, with the ETA updating constantly.

Comms were not acting as expected, either. There was no signal from the relay stations on Charon or Pluto at all, but they were getting a small series of intermittent burst transmissions from what was identified as Voyager I and II, of all things, along with an encrypted burst transmission from a probe from the old European Union that was codenamed Trafalgar.

“Ma’am, we are receiving traces of transmissions from our target system, a lot of them. We might be in for a warm welcome when we get there. Over three hundred traces on six distinct frequencies, ma'am.” Skip looked over to his CO and waited for guidance while other stations began running systems diagnostics.

“Tactical and point defense systems reading in the green, ma'am. All railguns, mass drivers, laser, and missile systems are showing as ready for action and the Lab is informing us that we can possibly engage the Spinal Plasma Lance if necessary, but advise against it because the system is untested and not one hundred percent stable.”

Linze nodded her head. “Thanks, Skip. Jenkins, when we exit FTL, be ready to make everything hot. I don't want us to be caught with our pants down, and I don't like that we aren't getting any signal at all from the first relay stations. Skip, let’s move up the schedule. Drop a relay now, since we are further along than anticipated.”

The comms officer nodded and the ship, despite its speed, detached a subjectively large pod that tumbled for a moment before stabilizing and exiting the space-fold the ship was traveling in. The pod was, in reality, a minor space station, with just a crew of ten, a load of food, water, weapons, and antennas. Within minutes of deceleration, the station deployed its arrays and began scanning, then signaled a report to the Askillion.

“Admiral, Ensign Vorschl here. Ma’am, deployment is finished and we...uhm...seem to be in a spreading debris field. Scans indicate this debris was a ship of...uhm...considerable size, though there’s not many biological samples out here. Its power core survived and we are getting a power reading. We will try and retrieve samples for analysis, might have been a warship, but no corpses visible. Low likelihood of it being a passenger vessel. It is definitely proof we are not alone, though. I think.”

Linze shook her head. “Ok, Vorschl, do what you can and keep your status at Defcon Two. Go active if they are hostile, nuclear only if absolutely necessary.”

The ensign nodded and replied, “Yes, ma'am. We will keep in touch,” and cut the connection.

With the screen now dark, Linze just shook her head and sighed, wondering what else was going to happen on this trip. Looking at her personal screen, she starts scrolling through other reports of mishaps that, for all things, could be straight out of comic books or Japanese manga.

“It's going to be a long day,” she muttered under her breath.