My Infinite System.

Kaela didn’t move from her desk. Instead, she tapped a nearly invisible panel on its surface. A soft chime echoed in the office. ”The accord is struck. Then we should not delay. The archives are not here on Varros Prime.”

Silas, who had been examining a weirdly shaped glass sculpture on a shelf, spun around. ”They’re not? So where are we going?”

”A place with significantly worse weather and better security,” Kaela replied, standing smoothly. She led them not back to the main lobby, but to a private elevator hidden behind a seamless section of the wall. ”My personal hangar is this way.”

Reia gave a slight, approving nod. ”Convenient. And insulated from prying Guild eyes.”

”Precisely,” Kaela said as the elevator descended with a whisper.

When the doors opened, they revealed a compact, pristine hangar housing a single vessel. It was a Helios executive shuttle—sleek, angular, and painted a matte grey that seemed to absorb the light. It looked fast and utterly devoid of personality.

Kaela gestured towards it. ”We’ll take my shuttle. The flight will be brief.”

Evelyn, who had been quietly observing, shook her head. Her voice was firm but polite. ”With all due respect, CEO Selyn, we will take our own ship. The Star-Jumper is not permitted to carry strangers.”

A flicker of surprise, then understanding, passed over Kaela’s face. She was being shown a boundary. The Star-Jumper was their home, their sanctuary, and its secrets were not part of the deal. She recovered quickly. ”Of course. A prudent policy. I will accompany you, then.”

Soon, the familiar, worn interior of the Star-Jumper enveloped them. Kaela took a seat in the passenger area, her posture perfectly upright, her eyes curiously scanning the lived-in details—the scuff marks on the deck plates, the slightly frayed harnesses, the personal touches that were wholly absent from her own sterile shuttle. It felt more like a home than a warship.

As Silas fired up the engines and Reia input the coordinates Kaela provided, the CEO attempted to bridge the silence.

”It’s a fascinating ship,” she began. ”The design is... unique. Not like anything in corporate or Guild registries.”

Reia, already immersed in her console, didn’t look up. Evelyn offered a non-committal, ”It serves our needs.”

Kaela tried a different tack, turning her gaze to Silas in the pilot’s seat. ”The flight path will take us core-ward, skirting the Orion Arm. It’s a region most traders avoid. Too many gravitational anomalies from dead stars.”

”Uh, yeah. Anomalies. Right,” Silas said, his focus more on the throttle settings than the conversation.

Undeterred, Kaela pressed on, her tone conversational, as if discussing galactic weather. ”It makes one ponder the imbalances of our universe. The power dynamics. Here in the Milky Way, the great powers are corporations and bureaucracies. Our strength is in wealth, influence, fleets. But individual power? True, innate ability? It’s exceedingly rare. Mostly limited to racial traits—the Urdian exoskeleton, the Tarkesian venom, that sort of thing.”

She let that hang for a moment, watching them. None of them reacted.

”But in other galaxies... the stories our deep-range probes bring back... it’s a different reality entirely.” Her voice took on a note of genuine, scientific curiosity. ”Civilizations where power is personal. Where beings wield energy, manipulate matter, command elements as a common birthright. Not through technology, but through something inherent. Like you.”

Her eyes swept over all three of them, finally landing on Reia’s back. ”It’s a mystery that has occupied our best xenologists for decades. Why here? Why you? How does a single team in the entire Milky Way possess capabilities that would be unremarkable in the Andromeda Galaxy?”

The question was direct, and the silence that followed was heavy. It was the elephant in the room, now given a name.

Silas, ever the one to fill a silence, shrugged without turning around. ”Beats me. We just... do what we do.”

Evelyn offered a gentle, deflecting smile. ”It is a mystery, isn’t it?”

Reia remained silent, her fingers never ceasing their movement across the console. She had no intention of divulging their Aethel heritage. That was a card far too valuable to play.

Kaela observed their defensive, unified front. She hadn’t expected a real answer, but the attempt was a necessary probe. Their silence was an answer in itself. It confirmed that the source of their power was a deeply guarded secret, one they believed set them apart not just from corporations, but from the entire galactic community.

She leaned back, accepting the stalemate for now. ”It simply highlights how... unprepared our galaxy is. If a threat from a place like that were to ever arrive, our fleets and contracts would be like paper shields.” She looked out the viewport as the stars streaked by. ”We rely on systems. You are the system.”

The rest of the short journey passed in a quiet that was more comfortable for the crew and more contemplative for their guest. Kaela Selyn was a brilliant strategist, but she was in a room with people whose very existence defied her understanding of physics and power. She was used to being the smartest person in the room, but here, she was merely the most knowledgeable about a world that was rapidly becoming obsolete.

Finally, Reia spoke, her voice cutting through the hum of the ship. ”Approaching the coordinates. There’s nothing on scanners.”

Kaela nodded. ”There wouldn’t be. Initiate the approach vector I’m sending to your panel. And... brace for a little turbulence.”

Silas grumbled, ”I hate turbulence.” But he followed the instructions.

The Star-Jumper flew towards what appeared to be a vast, empty nebula of swirling dust and gas. As they hit a specific point in the void, space itself seemed to warp around them. The viewport flickered, and for a moment, it looked like the ship was passing through a waterfall of light. Then, the nebula was gone.

Before them hung a small, barren planetoid, its surface pockmarked with craters. And nestled within the largest crater was a facility that was the exact opposite of the Helios spire. It was low, brutalist, and built from a dark, non-reflective material that made it look like a hole in the universe. No lights, no signals, no identifying marks.

”The Black Vault,” Kaela said simply. ”Helios’s memory. Where we keep the truths too dangerous for the light.”