Prologue
When talking about the human race, we think about the people who went through the EVE gate millenia ago. The ones who managed to conquer vast amounts of space and develop unparalleled technology. What we forget are the people who were left behind in the journey to the stars. Almost all of the “Redeemers”, which they called themselves, swore to exact revenge upon the rest of humanity for leaving them behind during the Voyage. All but a very tiny group of people.
The Cube, Moon l, Earth
“Another wormhole.” said Lunala, rolling her misty green eyes. To her, it was just another one of the wormholes that spawned in the Solar System almost daily. Or was it?
“Who’s going to check the thing out?” Jarsen said drowsily. He was the leader of the Redeemers, a middle-aged drunkard who looked like he had been through a lot of s**t. He was known for his laziness and ruthlessness when it came to doing what he wanted to. How such a terrible man managed to become leader was unknown, but it was said among the elders that he committed terrible crimes to seize control.
“Seems like you forgot your duty as leader, didn’t you?”
“Send Aeryn or one of her deviant friends then. Don’t they have a wish to reconcile with the Voyagers and live a happy life with them?”
“Okay.”
She rolled her eyes more dramatically this time. She was well aware of the fact that he didn’t like her much, and she made no effort to hide it.
“Aeryn darling, wake up, you’ve got a wormhole to check.”
Aeryn rubbed her deep amber eyes.
“What?”
“You’ve got a wormhole to check out, girl.” Lunala repeated in a soothing, motherly voice.
“Nice. I’ll be shipped in 10.”
Aeryn smiled. Lunala was one of the few people that she liked in the Cube, a rusty metal box of a station which housed all 3000 Redeemers. And the Deviants, that’s what they were called by the Redeemers. They seeked peace with the Voyagers, thus the name.
Aeryn headed to the washroom. She cleaned her groggy face and put her blue hair in a ponytail. If you went back a few centuries, natural blue hair would be an impossibility and the only reason people had blue hair was dying. To some people, dying hair was even considered taboo. Over time, the people who lived in space were exposed directly to the sun’s radiation and developed genetic mutations. Thus, seemingly weird hair and eye colors a few centuries back became natural features.
After washing up and putting on her gold-rimmed aviator glasses, she went to grab a meal from the kitchen. The sight of the glasses every morning triggered strong emotions within her. It was her most prized possession, given to her by her mother on her birthday. She passed away a few days later.
She saw the muscular body of her best friend, Yuvria there. He was a fellow Deviant and the youngest among the 3000. He was 16, Aeryn a year older. His blond hair was always messy but smelled clean, as usual. He had brown eyes and a deep baritone voice, undeniably attractive to many people.
“Good morning, Yuvria.”
“Good morning!” he smiled back. “Where are you heading now?”
“Got a job to do, mate.”
“Can I follow, please?”
“You know the answer, Yuv.”
“But you promised me you’d bring me along before. And you know I won’t stop pestering you until you do so.”
Aeryn pondered his words for a while. Then, she walked briskly away from him. Aeryn heard the faintest of sighs and smiled.
“Come on, why won’t you let me go?”
“Why do you want to go?”
“Well…I find space cool!”
“It’s not. We’ll never find what we want”
“I doubt that. Even if we die before it’s found, it will still be found. And I like space because of the fact that there are humans out there.”
“If you say so.”
“Come on…”
“Fine. Terminal 3 in two minutes. Bring everything you need. I’m not waiting for more than 130 seconds. Washroom provided.”
He cheered so loud that the echoes didn’t stop for an entire minute. Aeryn proceeds to Terminal 3, where her ship was. As usual, the two Redeemer guards there greeted her with a frown. One of them, who went by the name Joe, was short and stout. His compatriot, Axl was an imposing young man with scars and jet black hair. He was easily close to 7 feet tall and could easily wreck Yuvria in a fight. Even with their menacing rifles, she walked past them, feeling indifferent. She pulled open the entrance hatch and hopped inside. It was a comfy haven in the franticness of her world. Then, she proceeded to the galley to sort out the replenishables.
Aeryn heard a series of loud footsteps pounding on the floor. She peeked over the hatch to see Yuvria’s messy blond hair flailing wildly as he ran towards her. The pounding abruptly stopped and were accompanied by sounds of confusion. She continued with her business while listening to them:
“Sorry, guy. No non-explorers passing through this area.”
“Umm…Aeryn?”
“Let him in,” she said.
“No, it’s against the rules. And you should know that as the Head of the Explorers.”
“Well, you said it yourself, I know the rules. Doesn’t mean I’m especially enthusiastic about them. And today I feel especially happy to have him in here with me. So screw you and your shi**y rules.”
“What-”
“Let him in. Tell Jarsen I wanted it and I’ll answer. He’s not gonna touch or scold Yuvria or the both of you. If he does, tell me and I’ll whack the crap outta him.”
They hesitated for a moment. One of them frowned. “Go on.”
Yuvria hopped into the ship. “See ya dumbasses later!”
Wormhole
The ship was a Wanderer. It was a very old design meant for exploration and travelling. The ship boasted superior speed and agility at the expense of space and resilience. The Wanderer resembled a small bird, with wings and a curved front for a beak. Aeryn liked it well enough; she thought of it as a hideaway, safe from the scorn of the Redeemers. She decorated it with her own stuff, including small pieces of furniture and posters.
“Wow, this thing looks absolutely stunning.”
“Designed it myself as soon as I got it. You wouldn’t have liked the original version.”
“I’m sure about that”
“Time to get on with business. Store your belongings in the small container. Put food and drinks in the mini-freezer.” He did as told while Aeryn set up the ship’s control panel and interface.
“I’m don-”
“Guess we’re both set then. You ready?” Aeryn asked.
“Always.”
“Good. Now get your ass on the seat and stop jumping around like a monkey.”
“That is an unprovable axiom. We’ll never see monkeys.” He sat down to Aeryn’s right and marvelled at the holographic displays and equipment. His eyes got wet with happiness.
“Thanks so much for bringing me along, it’s been my childhood dream to fly in a spaceship and see the stars.”
“Yeah yeah don’t get all weepy now”
He brushed away his tears and looked just as energetic as before.
“What’re we doing now?”
“We’re to warp to the newly formed wormhole and jump through it to check out what’s on the other side”
“Sounds cool.”
“It’s not. I can promise you that”
“Why?”
“We’ve been scanning long before we were even conceived. The chances of finding civilization is extremely low. Maybe even nonexistent.”
“All we can do is warp, jump and see I guess.” he commented.
“Yeah.”
Aeryn pushed the yoke, and the ship moved out of the terminal. When it was fully outside, she pushed a few buttons on the control panel and tapped the holographic map a few times. “Warping commenced,” declared a mechanical female voice.
“I’m nervous.”
“It’s gonna be fine.”
“I’ll trust you on that.”
The Wanderer accelerated rapidly and aligned towards the wormhole After flying for a few kilometers in its designated direction—which didn’t take more than 5 seconds given its speed—the ship began warping towards the wormhole.
“It’s all good, isn’t it?” she asked.
“I don’t feel anywhere near weird!”
“Told you.” Aeryn smiled.
“For now.” Yuvria replied.
When they reached the wormhole, Yuvria got up from his seat and peeked forward as much as he could to get a closer look at the wormhole.
“It’s…utterly beautiful.”
“Yeah, this one seems really nice.” The wormhole had turquoise tendrils expanding outwards from its core, which was pink. It vaguely resembled a flower.
“Ready to jump?”
“Definitely!”
Aeryn grinned and flew into the wormhole. They were gone in less than a second.
Red
Going through a wormhole was an interesting experience to say the least. It looked very…weird, unlike any other experience. Irreplicable. All one can see while going through is just a jumble of stars. One would know they were seeing stars, yet it would seem to be impossible to process or perceive.
“How long is this gonna last?”
“I don’t know exactly. It depends on the distance.”
After a while, they were finally sucked out of the wormhole into normal space. The newfound galaxy was a deep maroon like blood. The color was almost sinister, as if it implied someone or something was up to no good in there.
“Wow, this place gives me the creeps,” said Yuvria.
“It does seem creepy.”
“We’ll check it out and if there’s nothing, we go back.”
“Okay.”
“Help us out and go get some drinks and a snack for me from the galley. Take some food if you want to.”
“Sure.”
Aeryn activated the scanner to search for wormholes. To her surprise, there were wormholes and odd structures. There were no signs of life but it seemed like there was once an intelligent civilization here, thus the structures. Yuvria came back with two bottles of water and a sandwich.
“Did you manage to find anything?”
“Many things, indeed.”
“Huh?”
“Wormholes, cosmic oddities but no signs of life.”
“Ancient civilization I guess?”
“Probably.” Aeryn initiated warp to one of the structures.
It was a mess of a wreck. The thing looked like the skeleton of a past station. It was black and covered with weird reddish-orange tendrils that almost seemed living, sentient. Aeryn piloted the ship closer to the wreck.
“You sure that’s safe, Aeryn?”
“How safe are we living with people who want to slit our necks?”
“True.”
The ship floated into one of the more spacious cavities to look at the inside. It was just as mangled in the inside, nothing they could visibly identify. They were about to fly back out when suddenly, they heard a thump and their ship rumbled. It seemed to originate from the back of the ship.
“What’s that?” Yuvria asked.
“No idea, let me check it out.” She went to the back to look outside the window.
A large something, half living, half machine was floating outside their ship. It was a rough black sphere with red tentacles and a lot of details on its body that Aeryn couldn’t exactly see very clearly. It lashed out with one of its arms directly at the window, right in front of her face. The other arms grabbed the ship and tried to pull it towards its body. Aeryn heard a loud crunch as an arm latched onto the ship’s body. One after another, they pulled the ship towards its core.
“I don’t think this is good…” she said.
