Interstellar Spark

The Milky Way is but one ordinary galaxy among the two trillion known to the vast universe. Yet, because it cradles the Solar System—the cradle of humankind—it became, by default, the first frontier of human exploration.

From Earth, a naked eye peering into the night sky can glimpse only the Milky Way itself and four neighboring extragalactic sisters. Its two hundred billion stars weave a river of white light across the heavens, a sight both familiar and wondrous.

To humanity, even now, this boundless cosmos remains an endless riddle, a tapestry of mysteries without end.

The Solar System, Earth's home, nestles on a spiral arm far from the galaxy's bulging core, still some ten thousand light-years from the rim.

Since the Federation shattered the barrier of light speed, mastering hyperspace travel between positive and negative realms, it flung itself outward in all directions. Over five hundred million inner-galactic systems were charted, and from these, a thousand or so deemed fit for human life were chosen.

Twelve hundred colonial worlds bloomed—outposts clustered along the spiral arms beyond the core, near the Solar System's perch. No ship, even at hyperspace's breakneck pace, has breached the star-thick nucleus, a daunting forty thousand light-years distant—an unreachable void that bids caution over recklessness.

The Agate system stands as the Federation's vital relay toward that core, poised midway between it and the Solar System, fifteen thousand light-years from each.

Losing its colony there dealt a grievous blow to the Federation's dream of conquering the galaxy's enigmatic heart. Thus, at any cost, they resolved to wrest this key system from enemy hands. The "Noah Initiative" was born of that desperate resolve.

After two Earth days of tense waiting, Noah One's signal flickered back to life on the Predator's detection grid. Cheers erupted across the ship.

From the vessel's flanks, eight launch bays flung open their gravity-sealed doors. Two armed escort craft, each bearing ten warriors, streaked out first, weaving into their routine patrol.

Then came the fifty-meter landing craft, gliding from the largest bay, with the radiant Academic Natasha among its fifty souls—its commander for this perilous quest. Five triphibious anti-gravity tanks followed—swift marvels of Federation design, built for air, land, and sea.

Each held two fighters and could hit three-quarters sublight speed in normal space, though hyperspace remained beyond their reach.

In the cockpit, Natasha's eyes gleamed with a brilliance never seen before, lending her an incandescent glow. Beside her stood Colonel Pera, deputy commander and her second-in-command.

Both fixed their gazes on the swelling ninth planet ahead—its gray-yellow mountains, deserts, craters, and hardened lava now visible to the naked eye.

Two tanks scouted ahead, escorts flanked the sides, and the remaining three hovered above, below, and behind in tight formation.