"So what do we do now?" Rox asked, glancing back over her shoulder, her hands still gripping the flight controls.
"Do we return or something—"
"Land," Gelhyne interrupted, her voice firm, leaving no room for argument.
She turned, walking back to her seat before buckling herself in with calm precision.
"Land just at the edge of the mist. I want to examine the readings myself. As I said earlier, I have the tools—and a plan. It's better than flying blind into that thing with reckless abandon."
Rox exhaled sharply through her nose, then smirked faintly.
"You're the boss," she muttered, flicking a switch on her control pad.
The Nightjarr's engines shifted,
*whirrr…
their deep hum turning to a low mechanical growl as the thrusters angled downward.
The ship's nose lifted slightly before descending in a steady, graceful drop.
"Celer, maintain stability at thirty percent thrust," Rox ordered.
"Stability maintained Cap'n!," replied the AI, its cheerful voice echoing across the cockpit.
Outside, the terrain grew closer—dark soil covered in pale grass that rippled from the force of the descending craft.
The trees surrounding the area loomed tall, their twisted branches brushing faintly against the mist's edge, where the light seemed to vanish entirely.
…
As the Nightjarr's engines wound down, the soft hum faded into silence… leaving only the faint crackle of cooling metal and the rhythmic tick of the landing gear locking into place.
Inside the cabin, a series of clicks and clacks echoed as Rox and Gelhyne began their preparations to disembark.
Gelhyne was already ready.
She stood near the airlock, adjusting a small, wrist-mounted device that hummed faintly with energy.
Her fingers danced across the holographic interface, lines of symbols shifting and rearranging as she calibrated it to read the dense energy signatures emanating from the mist.
The device pulsed with faint blue light, reflecting off her sharp eyes.
Meanwhile, Rox was strapping on her helmet—sleek, black, and angular—its surface whirring as it sealed around her head with a mechanical hiss.
A faint blue orange illuminated the edges of the circular eye sockets as she ran a quick systems check.
For her, the helmet wasn't just for protection; it was survival.
Without eidra, she couldn't breathe freely in certain atmospheres, especially ones thick with energy like this.
She grabbed her assault rifle from the nearby rack—the same one she had loaded earlier with eidric casings—and slung it over her shoulder with a satisfying click.
"Ready to roll," Rox muttered as she strode toward the main hatch.
Gelhyne was already there, waiting impatiently as the sound of hydraulics hissed through the chamber.
With a firm press of a button, the airlock's systems activated.
*Hisssssssssssss!
A burst of compressed air escaped as the door split open, releasing a trail of steam that curled along the edges of thr ramp as it extended outward with a deep metallic groan.
A wave of cold air swept in immediately, carrying with it a faint hum—almost like whispers from the mist beyond.
"Come on," Gelhyne said curtly, stepping past Rox without hesitation.
Her cloak fluttered slightly in the chill wind as she descended the ramp, her boots pressing into the soft earth below.
Rox raised an eyebrow under her helmet.
"No need to be all giddy about it," she muttered, crossing her arms for a moment before glancing back over her shoulder toward the ship's main console.
"Athena," she called out, her tone commanding but casual.
"I'm leaving the ship in your care again."
"By your command," replied Athena's calm, synthesized voice—the AI that handled the Nightjarr's defense systems.
Lights along the ship's hull flickered briefly, signaling the activation of its automated perimeter defenses.
Rox nodded once in approval before finally stepping down the ramp, her boots thudding against the metal before meeting the cold soil below.
The mist loomed close now, swirling and breathing like a living thing—waiting for whoever dared to approach.
Rox had seen sights like this before.
Throughout the long centuries she had served under the banner of the empire, she had witnessed the same scene in countless worlds—whether soaring above the skies and drifting through the endless void, or standing upon grounds just like this one.
And every time she encountered it, she knew exactly what she was looking at.
The Umbral Veil.
A name whispered in fear across every frontier, every colony, every command station.
The cursed mist was more than a natural phenomenon—it was a nightmare given form.
To look upon it was to stare at doom itself.
It moved like a living shadow, slow and silent yet unstoppable.
It expanded across galaxies and devoured entire systems, leaving nothing but silence and madness in its wake.
Whatever it touched, it consumed—planets, creatures, even the very threads of eidra that formed the foundation of life.
It didn't just destroy.
It corrupted.
Reality bent where the Veil passed, twisting time, essence, and life into something unrecognizable.
Rox's gloved hand flexed slightly as she gazed toward the thick black mist in the distance, her expression hidden behind her helmet but her thoughts loud in her chest.
She remembered the stories.
The screams transmitted through static.
The sudden disappearances of whole fleets swallowed without a trace.
The Umbral Veil had ended empires.
It had turned proud civilizations into drifting wreckage and sparked endless wars among those foolish enough to chase what hid within it.
And yet—
despite the ruin—
it had also inspired something just as dangerous as fear.
Ambition.
The promise of what lay beyond.
For those who dared to breach the darkness, there was said to be salvation—planets rich in untainted eidra, worlds so fertile they could restore dying empires.
Gaia planets, they called them.
Paradise worlds.
Untouched, pure, and overflowing with the energy that fueled life itself.
But paradise always demanded a price.
So the empires of the cosmos, driven by greed and desperation, sent fleets into the mist.
Thousands of ships.
Millions of lives.
Each expedition more costly than the last.
Each ending the same—silence.
No message,
no return,
just another name written in the archives of failure.
Still, they never stopped.
They built stronger engines, darker weapons, and fiercer armies, all for one singular hope:
to pierce the Umbral Veil.
To be the first to claim what lay beyond.
And in return, the Veil devoured them all.
Rox's voice broke the silence, low and steady.
"Greed," she muttered, her visor reflecting the endless black haze ahead.
"That's all it ever was. That's all it'll ever be."