Chapter 2: Chapter 1 – Prologue

Sylen was sitting in the co-pilot seat of their old, rusty cargo ship, traveling through the chosen strand of the Astropath.The stubby, heavy vessel was being carried away by the mysterious flow between stars effortlessly, just like a fallen leaf on the top of a river. Gazing out into the cosmos, she could see the twirling, bright blue light before her, looking like water when it gets flushed through a drain. It was the walls of the Astropath, the fabric of space itself, made visible to the naked eye, that lit up the cockpit in a fluctuating, blue hue. She grew up in this ship, traveling through hundreds and thousands of systems but whenever she looked out, midway of a journey, she was just as amazed as the first time her conscious mind comprehended the wonders of nature. 

 

Her eyes were glued to the blue, flowing manifestation of reality, barely paying attention to the occasional chimes, beeps and boops, coming from the main panel before her. The old but still expensive dashboard now acted as her footrest. Laying back in the faded, brown leather seat, she was wearing an old black boot and a loose, gray cargo pant, its multiple pockets filled with different, small tools, fixing up the constantly breaking down machines in the ship’s belly. On top she had a brown, leather jacket, unzipped, only wearing a dirty tank top under it, gently curving around her perky, youthful mounds. 

 

“I hope Pa brings some coffee when he comes back!” stretched with a moan, licking her young, healthy lips, gulping loudly at the thought.

 

Beside herself, there was only one other soul on the ship, her grandfather, Miyon. To this day, she never asked what happened to her parents, when did she lose them as whenever she tried to bring it up, her grandfather's ears would go droopy and his tail would slowly drop downwards before falling completely silent. Even after 17 years, she just couldn’t press on when she saw him like that, dropping the topic immediately.

 

“Haahh…” let out a sigh, reaching up, scratching her own, sharply standing ears that were covered with the same colored fur as her hair, shining in a rusty color, just as their ship’s exterior. Blinking, her emerald colored eyes were reflecting the blue light coming in from the outside world.

 

She was, alongside with her grandfather, what now the rest of the galactic community called a mutant. Neither belonging to the race of beastfolk and neither to the now extinct humans. She was the descendant of a race that came into being as a result of the mix of the two. She may have attributes of the people of Wulfhaarn, the ears, the tail and sharp canines, hiding behind her lips… but besides that, everything else was human-like. Their skin came in multiple colors, just like her ancestors’, hers being fair and white, spotless, something what the Wulfhaarn called abnormal and disgusting.

 

Mutants. The abominations. The cursed. Every species that had any human-like genome were branded, even if they did not show it on the surface like Sylen’s kind. It was enough to find any genome in their species, related to humans. All of them were ostracized at almost all facets of life, in some systems, they actively pursued and hunted them to this day. They were killed or worse, sold into slavery if they wandered into the wrong part of the galaxy. They had to live like nomads, salvage everything for themselves as most of the time no station let them close or if they did, very few wanted to deal with them. This was what their kind inherited from their ancestors. From the Humans.

 

“The glorious Hegemony of Men!” murmured to herself Sylen, remembering the old tales she read on the data shards she had as a young girl. The tales from thousands of years ago, where humanity was the dominant race in the galaxy, conquering more than 80% of it, deterring any other races from standing in their way. She didn’t know if it was done by force, diplomacy or a mix of both but she knew the words of humans were absolute. You either bowed under their rule or you were made to bow. 

 

Nobody knows what happened back then, but one day the Hegemony simply collapsed like a castle built on sand. It happened way too fast and to this day, it is still a mystery what caused it. Only in a decade, all humans throughout the galaxy were gone, not even their corpses remaining. As if somebody or something hunted them to extinction. Those species that were living together with them also shared their fate as in every colony, no intelligent beings remained, only their empty cities, stations… and planets. Their traces were completely eradicated, not just the bodies but most of their knowledge and history too. As if they were struck from existence, from both past and present. It was such a sudden and huge culling that the Galaxy needed more than 3000 years to repopulate itself and wake up from the vacuum it left in it. By then some species believed it was their Gods’ anger that caused it, seeking retribution and wiping out those accursed Humans. Whatever it may have been, the fact remains, for the past 5.000 years no humans were sighted, ever again. In their places new empires rose up, new kingdoms and federacies and they would never admit it but they built themselves up by relying on technology that was left behind by their most hated enemy. Soon many, previously subservient species, spared from the extinction rose back up, taking their own share of the emptied out galaxy.

 

As there were no humans remaining to “punish” they started to take their revenge on the next closest of kin; The Mutants. Those species that came from the marriage of a human and of another alien lifeform… and there were many of them to choose from. Plenty as the human genome was so adaptable they interbred with thousands of other species! Some were hunted to the same extinction as the humans before them, some were ‘spared’, pushed into lifelong servitude. The only reason they could still be found free and alive, traveling and populating some parts of the galaxy is thanks to the fact that they founded their own empire, the Neo-Hegemony. They managed to take control of some previously high-tech, human colonies and deep-space factories, research stations, established at the far end of one of the spiral arms of the galaxy. They managed to re-learn their use and build a home for themselves, where they could be safe. By now, their collective had numbered 9, fully populated worlds and around a 100, huge stations, letting their numbers grow past the 30 billion mark, finally rising to the same level as some of the smallest intergalactic groups in the galaxy. A safe haven for the offsprings of humanity.

 

Their own ship had the Neo-Hegemony’s emblem on its side, the image of a blue planet with a silver moon orbiting it. It was the fabled homeworld of the Humans, its name long lost to the annals of history, now only called ‘Home’. Few know what it really looked like, where it was on the galactic map but there was one thing everyone did know. It existed somewhere, amongst the stars, waiting to be rediscovered. It was… it was just… lost. Nobody knows how or why, but no Astropaths lead to it. Every year a few new Astropaths were discovered, leading to new systems in the Galaxy, yet none was the homeworld of Humanity. Which should be impossible in theory. Yet no matter how many years went by, nobody could find the fabled planet of the Humans, where who knows what kind of wonders remained to this day, ready for plunder! 

 

“The Astropaths are nature’s law manifesting in real space. They are impervious to all machinations. We can only tap into them and let them carry our ships from point to point, traveling between the stars. They only flow one way and no beings in the universe can manipulate them otherwise!” whispered Sylen, her eyes wandering to the blinking dashboard under her legs, repeating a quote from a scientific book she once read, studying navigation and learning how to help her grandfather pilot their ship. “Yet all these paths, leading to ‘Home’ were gone! Where are they now then? They can’t be destroyed, not even supernovas could damage them!” asked a question she asked so many times yet never got an answer for, only weird looks. “Haahh… if it even existed at all!” shook her head, stretching in her chair.

 

“Existed what?” walked in her grandfather, Miyon, carrying two, steaming mugs, filled with black, bitter yet refreshing coffee. 

 

“Pa! Thanks!” jumped up Sylen, taking one away with a happily wagging tail behind her. “Nothing, I was just mumbling to myself! How’s the haul?”

 

“We are running out of our reserves!” sighed with a smile, watching her granddaughter happily slurping on it, making her own, graying tail also wag behind him. He was wearing a big, faded, orange mechanic overall, decorated with unwashable stains and patches all around it. His belly was pretty big, bouncy and his graying, bushy beard reached right down to his chest. It was just as unkempt as his thick, wavy hair and pointy ears, but under it he was smiling proudly as to what a fine young woman his granddaughter had become. “When we get back into our own borders, we are going to spend some of our cash to fill it up again!” 

 

“The salvage this time should pay out a lot! That find of the old cruiser was money in the bank!” grinned Sylen happily. 

 

“I was just checking on the data banks we recovered!” nodded sitting down into the pilot’s chair, leaning back leisurely, enjoying his own brew. “Most of the data is damaged, being exposed to the elements of the moon it crash landed on! But! There are still packets of intact slates that can be recovered from it! This could be anything, schematics, Astropath maps, whatever! So it could fetch a good price! I leave it as it is, untouched, we can auction it off that way more easily!”

 

“We should repaint the old rustbucket from the money, Pa!”

 

“Nah, it is good as it is! A shinier ship is just a brighter target in the dark! The old girl wears her age as a badge of honor!” laughed, rubbing the console before him with a happy grin. 

 

“If nothing else, at least we could upgrade my room a little? Maybe a bigger screen? A more comfortable bed?” 

 

“We can… look at some upgrades after we docked in!” chuckled, looking at his baby girl, sitting in the co-pilot seat. Sylen wanted to say something but then the ship suddenly shuddered, again and again. “What the-?!” shouted Miyon, quickly strapping himself in and even if Sylen was struck with fear, she followed suit immediately, flicking dials on her side of the dashboard. 

 

“The Astropath! It is… it… it is falling apart!” exclaimed Sylen. She was running the measurements over and over again but the results were the same. They still had 4 hours before it should return them to normal space. Yet, right now, at that moment, it was falling apart, by itself! 

 

“Impossible!” replied Miyon, unable to think about anything else as this was simply an impossibility. Yet it was happening right before their eyes.

 

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The blue fabric of space started to stop its spinning, its whirlpool-like movement finally halting completely, before it began to unfold, just as if someone was straightening out a braid, separating different, interwoven strands, one by one. In the end their ship shuddered one last time before reentering reality, popping out from nowhere, in an empty part of space. Looking around there was nothing here, no stars, no cosmic dust, no planets, rocks nor a blackhole. They were in a completely empty part of space.

 

“We exited the Astropath, 14.6 lightyears away from our initial destination.” gulped Sylen, reading the computers’ initial scannings. “We are… stranded… Pa.” looked up from her little monitors, turning towards Miyon.

 

“We…” trembled his beard, wanting to say something to calm her down but was unable to find the words. It was that moment when the computers beeped once again, drawing their attention.

 

“There is a lifeform before us at 400 meters!” read it Sylen, tapping the screen before her “It says…it is alive…?” repeated the worlds displayed on it with disbelief.

 

“Probably the impact… from… falling out from the Astropath damaged the scanners.” answered her grandfather, trying to find his own words just in time to feel the ship shake and start moving once again… by itself.

 

“What’s happening?!” yelped out Miyon, now truly afraid, trying to turn off the engines but they were already off!

 

“We are getting pulled!” grabbed onto the control wheel at her side, but no matter what she did, the ship refused to react, slowly flying forward.

 

“To where?!” asked Miyon, desperately trying to start the engine but without success.

 

“F-forward Pa… 320 meters… 224… 154… 67… 32…” and then the ship slowed down and stopped right at the 4 meter mark. “We… stopped.”

 

“I can feel that.” nodded Miyon, unbuckling himself and standing up, looking out, towards the ship’s nose.

 

Their flying home was a bulky bird, called the Dawn. It was around 800 meters long and half of that in height, with just as big of a belly as Miyon had to carry around, ready to stuff itself with as much cargo as it could. From faraway it looked like a big, rusty, overfed fish. Their cockpit was at its front, like a little bump on its head, protruding forward. In reality there were no windows on it at all, but only cameras that projected the image from the outside world into the cockpit itself. It was also one of their escape pods as the whole “bump” could be ejected with a violent force to let them escape. 

 

“Do you see what I see, girl?” gulped Miyon, looking forward, without blinking.

 

“Huh?” flinched, standing up herself and flicking on the ship’s lights, shining a strong beam right before them. “Kyah?!” screamed, jumping backwards as outside there was a body floating in the empty darkness. It was a man, very much humanoid in appearance, wearing a torn, white robe and a tight, ruined overall around his body, looking as if it was damaged in some kind of scuffle or brawl. His black, long hair was spread out behind the body and he looked completely frozen. Which was understandable and expected. 

 

“Now I am sure that the scanners are broken… that thing is not alive!” sighed Miyon, finally looking away.

 

“What should we do, Pa?” gulped Sylen, turning away from it, pressing a button, making the cameras zoom out so she finally could stop looking at it so closely.

 

“Nothing. A body is not our business! Who knows what kind of infections it may carry! Dormant, in that frozen body of his! Leave it where it is! Not our problem!” snorted, already trying to ignore it.

 

“Y-you’re right!” nodded Sylen, as she did not think about it that way at all before. 

 

But, as in the past few minutes, everything happened once again by itself, completely ignoring the two. Their own ship simply lassoed the frozen body with its tractor-beam, pulling it towards its own, opening ‘mouth’.

 

“What the hell is going on today?!” cried Miyon, truly shedding some tears as he felt himself going insane!

 

“The ship! It… the forward hatch is opening up! It is pulling the body in!” 

 

“Whhhyyyyy?!” moaned Miyon, sounding like a dog’s whine, echoed by Sylen’s own whining sounds. A few minutes later everything went back to completely normal as they heard and felt the hatch reseal itself, the monitors displaying one, simple sentence “Recovery completed.”

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