The inside of the ship was nothing short of amazing. It was a technological marvel, more advanced than anything Soren had ever seen—even after waking up on Nox. Even Tamiyo was surprised, despite being an advanced CIPHER.

  The layout was designed like a mobile command hub, a large central room on an upper deck held a huge holo display that they couldn’t seem to activate. The two decks below that held living quarters, and the lowest was a massive cargo hold. It looked like it could be piloted by a single person if needed, but Inelius counted 20 rooms with beds, none overly lavish, but all definitely comfortable.

  And big, too.

  “I’m usually claustrophobic on anything not specifically built for me,” Aurania said. “But I don’t feel cramped in here at all.”

  It didn’t seem possible.

  Why would Enderfield have built something large enough for someone like Aurania?

  Soren didn’t like the uneasy feeling in his gut as he remembered the mural hanging in Silvara’s Hall.

  “Can we keep it?!” Amalia squealed in delight.

  Aurania just laughed.

  “Even if we wanted to,” Inelius said, “I don’t know if it turns on.”

  “But it keeps reacting to Soren…” Amalia pouted in defeat.

  “Yeah that magic trick seems to stop at ‘opening the door and turning the lights on.’” Inelius stood, unable to get any response from the ship’s systems. There was a moment of pause as the team admired the ship around them—but there wasn’t much to be done with it at the moment.

  “Orders?” Violet asked.

  “Back off the ship.” Aurania walked toward the exit. “There’s a lot more of this complex to explore.”

  They descended the ramp, leaving the starship behind as they made their way back into the building. Soren didn’t say anything or press any buttons, but the hatch slid closed behind them like it was watching. There was no sealing hiss or locking boom throughout the hull—just a soft click, like the ship had gone back to sleep.

  Moving across the complex, they swept deeper into the ruins. The terrain was fragmented, like tectonic plates that had shifted but never quite broken. Beneath their boots, Aether Dust glimmered in fine threaded cables under the crust. Tamiyo halted at a sealed door, larger than the rest. “I think this is a lab.” She started working on the interface.

  It pulsed once, then slid open.

  Inside, the air felt different. Not musty—there was no decay here. But it was still, undisturbed, cold in a way that wasn’t temperature. The walls were lined with terminals, most offline. But a few flickered as Soren approached, and one lit up fully when he placed his hand on a nearby sensor pad. The display came to life, casting pale gold light across his face.

  Tamiyo read the scrolling data as it populated, translating using their compiled notes from previous ruins. “This is… a research node. One of the primary hubs. The Professor worked here.”

  “Yeah…” Soren gazed around at the walls. “No doubt about that.”

  His signature style of ‘note taking’ was scrawled across various flat surfaces. No words, letters, numbers, or symbols that made sense to anyone but him or someone who had translated—just the erratic markings of the mad genius cementing notes into his photographic memory.

  Soren could feel the hum in his fingers. This system knew his presence, recognized it somehow. But just like the ship, it didn’t fully open up—only enough to show fragments.

  “This isn’t like any power source I’ve ever seen,” Tamiyo murmured. “It’s not drawing from a reactor. The energy is coming from… somewhere else.”

  “Battery bank?” Inelius offered.

  She shook her head. “No. Not storage. It's being drawn. Constantly. Like it's tethered to a power stream that doesn’t physically exist anywhere I can see.”

  Soren stepped around the console and looked at the facility schematic displayed in gold lines. “The same way the ship responded to me. It’s not internal energy.”

  Veolo cocked her hip. “Then what’s powering this place?”

  Tamiyo looked up. “Aether Dust.”

  Violet raised her hand like she was in class. “Can someone explain how Aether Dust works? Is it mined somewhere?”

  “And use small words,” Amalia teased her sister. “Maybe pictures.”

  Tamiyo tapped the screen. “No, it’s not mined. These notes—what I can read of them—suggest Aether Dust doesn’t exist in our normal space. Not as a substance you dig up. It’s… dimensional. A bleed-through of energy from a place we don’t fully perceive. You draw it in.”

  Veolo frowned. “So it’s from another dimension?”

  “I think? If I’m interpreting this correctly, the closest equivalent I could come up with would be like… storing gravity in a battery. It’s related to gravity, but different.”

  “If it’s from a different dimension,” Veolo said, “is there a way we can access it? Travel there somehow?”

  Tamiyo didn’t answer at first.

  Then Violet spoke, voice quieter than before. “Maybe that’s… how you guys spoke to Amaryn.”

  The room fell quiet.

  Soren looked down at his hands. He still remembered the way Amaryn had smiled at him in that impossible dreamscape.

  Tamiyo returned to the display. “There’s nothing in here about that specifically, but… The notes refer to Aether Dust as a gravitational interface medium—something that bends space and time. If there is a plane of existence where it’s native, maybe those who are touched by it can see it. Or be seen.”

  “So ghosts are real,” Amalia innocently whispered.

  “You’re an idiot,” Violet said, deadpan.

  Inelius leaned forward. “So if it manipulates gravity…”

  Tamiyo nodded. “Then it would make sense that it can affect time. Or at least the perception of time.”

  Everyone looked to Soren.

  The tale has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.

  He took a breath. “So somehow, the Graviton Engine didn’t kill me—instead soaking me full of Aether Dust. But then what?”

  “Well,” Tamiyo’s finger went to her chin. “This is just a hypothesis, but: the Aether Dust made you more durable, apparently durable enough to survive being in a black hole.”

  “Which was likely caused by the Graviton Engine,” Inelius added.

  “Right,” Tamiyo continued. “So, gravity and time are affected by relativity. So within the immense gravity of a black hole, time likely moved very slowly for Soren. Meanwhile, almost 8,000 years passed by without him.”

  The room was tense as they absorbed Tamiyo’s theory.

  Soren nodded. “I remember… seeing ships. Like insects coming and going. I could track their entire flight paths, but it only took nanoseconds for them to come and go. All of the planets—even Nox—looked like they were spinning around the sun and sitting still all at once.”

  “That sounds trippy,” Amalia noted.

  “Kinda makes my head hurt to imagine,” Veolo said.

  “That’s because you have a bicep for a brain,” Violet teased.

  They all laughed, but Aurania had been strangely silent, just listening and observing.

  “You ok?” Soren asked.

  “Just… worried about what else we may find here.” She shook her head to clear it. “I should be asking you that.”

  He took a deep breath and let it out slowly, looking around the lab and the team. “Yeah. It’s a lot, but…” he looked back at Aurania. “At least I’m getting some answers.”

  She watched him for a moment, then a small smile appeared on her face.

  Soren took it as a victory, finally being able to reassure her.

  Raine’s voice crackled through their comms. “—ania? Aurania, you there?” The signal was spotty but holding.

  Aurania tapped her earpiece. “Go ahead.”

  “Hey, uh, just got buzzed by Admiral Marrow. He’s asking for an update.”

  Aurania looked around the room. “Tell him we’ve made entry into the inner complex, but we’re still exploring. It only let us in because Soren is here, so the rest of the fleet team needs to move cautiously.”

  “Copy that. I’ll pass it along.”

  “And Raine,” Aurania added firmly.

  “Yeah?”

  “Tell them to keep their eyes open in the forest. Apparently some of the wildlife might be… altered. By Aether Dust.”

  The radio was quiet for a moment. Then, “Woah, you serious? Alright. I’ll let him know. Stay safe in there.”

  The comms went quiet.

  Aurania let out a sigh. “Let’s keep moving. We don’t know how deep this place goes.”

  Soren gave the lab one last glance, then turned to exit.

  They pressed deeper into the complex, finding the next chamber colder, quieter—insulated in a way that dulled even their footsteps. The walls were smoother here, etched with embedded diagrams and crystalline wiring that faintly lit up as Soren passed.

  Tamiyo reached for the terminal. “This is… a technical wing. Engineering, maybe. Experimental fabrication labs.”

  “Anything working?” Inelius asked.

  “A few logs. And… oh.”

  She pulled up a rotating, 3D schematic—Aether Dust circuitry woven into artificial organs, limbs, and spinal nodes. “A lot of this is prototype interface tech. Implants designed to handle Aether Dust output. None of this would survive in an unaltered body for long. Look at this—”

  She flicked through pages of schematic overlays—some were suits, some were bio-integrated frames, some looked almost like sacrificial vessels.

  “Wait, what’s that one?” Veolo stepped closer.

  Tamiyo leaned in. “It’s… an infusion rig. Meant to inject Aether Dust directly into a body. Temporary power enhancement.”

  “How temporary?” Violet asked.

  Tamiyo's face was grim. “Boosts strength, speed, perception… but only for a few hours. Maybe a day. And then the body breaks down from the overload.”

  “Like a one-way stim,” Inelius said.

  “Exactly,” Tamiyo nodded. “Something someone would only use as a last ditch effort.”

  Soren had a sick feeling in his stomach, he didn’t like how… familiar, it all felt.

  And then he heard her say it.

  Aurania was standing at the far end of the room near an adjoining door. She read the nameplate on the wall aloud:

  His gut twisted and he staggered.

  Aurania immediately sensed it and rushed to his side to help steady him. “What is it?!”

  He almost couldn’t answer, but he forced the words out. “Lucia Lutgardt.” He looked Aurania in the eyes. “Lulu.”

  Aurania’s eyes went wide, and they all turned toward the door. Soren didn’t know if he wanted to look behind it, but there was no way he couldn’t know. Slowly, he began to step forward.

  Aurania walked ahead, opening the door first. She tried to obstruct his view. “Soren—”

  He pushed past her—

  And almost wretched.

  At the center of the room stood a large, reclined rig, almost throne-like, but angular and mechanical. Restraint clamps extended from the armrests, cracked open like broken wrists. Thick, coiled conduits dangled from a suspended array above, their ends frayed or sealed shut—like arteries that had once carried something too powerful to contain.

  Soren stepped forward, his breath shuddering.

  The rig was no chair, it was a transformation device. A cocoon that hadn’t nurtured, but rewritten. Slanted panels jutted from the floor like ribs, and a thick vertical spine of conduits fed into the machine from a terminal embedded in the wall. The whole thing faintly glowed in response to his presence, the same golden color as the shards containing his internal light.

  A second component rested nearby—a containment pod built upright like a sarcophagus. Its glass was cracked, the internal restraints broken. It was lined with delicate wiring, neural feed ports, and receptacles for invasive medical tubing. The padding inside still bore the faint indentation of a human body.

  But no one was here now.

  No blood or body.

  Just the memory of what had happened.

  “This was her chamber,” Tamiyo said quietly, standing just inside the door. “This is where she was altered.”

  Soren stared at the rig, every part of him cold. He could almost see Lulu there—arms bound, body pierced by injection needles, lightning crawling across her skin as something unfathomable was pushed into her cells.

  Tamiyo scanned the setup. “That’s why this place keeps responding to you. It thinks you’re her.”

  “Maybe…” Soren felt hollow. “But Lulu didn’t have abilities like mine. She was subtle. Durable, yes, but not destructive. The Professor used her for infiltration. Espionage.”

  Veolo frowned. “She didn’t have your kind of power?”

  “At the end, maybe… I caught a glimpse of it. But it was always… locked down. Like he had some kind of dampener in place to keep her compliant.”

  Violet crossed her arms. “What do you mean ‘compliant’?”

  Soren finally turned, his expression hard. “After he altered her, she wasn’t the same. She always followed orders. Never flinched or hesitated. Like she wasn’t herself anymore.”

  He looked to Aurania.

  “You saw it. In one of the first memories we shared.”

  Aurania nodded. “I’m not sure what to call what I saw in that vision. She was intense. Terrifying even.”

  He remembered her laugh, the way she used to shove him when he got cocky.

  “She was my friend!” Soren’s anger boiled over. The golden shards inside violently shook as the silvery-green turned to nova. “That motherfucker turned her into one of his goddamn test subjects, and I couldn’t do a thing to stop it!”

  He could feel the power building, but he couldn’t let himself lose control. Everything was vibrant again, his senses dialed up to eleven. Through everyone else’s eyes, he knew he was burning bright. Hair and eyes, emanating that strange white light that had become familiar by now.

  Aurania stood next to him, watching.

  She wasn’t angry. She wasn’t smiling. But most importantly—she wasn’t scared. She took one step toward him, her expression clear and focused. She didn’t move to calm him, or kiss him, or anything.

  But she said, “I trust you.”

  And Soren’s rage didn’t waver.

  It didn’t explode either.

  His eyes were alight with the power of a god, and he still looked at her in awe. He looked back at the team—at his friends. They looked slightly more anxious than Aurania, but none of them were scared. None of them wanted to run.

  A burst of static cut through their comms.

  “—mander Garrin to forward team. This is urgent—repeat, we’ve made contact with the creatures. Requesting immediate support!”

  The comm crackled again, louder this time.

  “Multiple hostiles, definitely altered with something—moving to fallback point!”

  Aurania’s eyes stayed on Soren, but she radioed back, “We’re on our way.” Then, to Soren, she asked, “Are you alright?”

  The Aether Dust coursed through him, burning and alive. Silvery-green roiled out between fingers of gold. He’d struggled to control it before. He wasn’t fully sure he could control it now.

  But it didn’t feel as hard now.

  “Yeah, I’m alright,” Soren’s voice reverberated with gravity.

  He looked at the monstrous machinery, and he reached out a hand, his fingers gripping the air. He yanked his fist sideways, and the entire setup crumpled under his singularity, slamming sideways into the wall.

  He turned to leave.

  “I’ve just got some shit to work through.”