The victory over the Static Creep in Sector Epsilon was a monumental achievement, but the celebration was short-lived. A quiet, heavy reality began to settle over the command crew of the Odyssey.
They were gathered on the bridge around the large holographic map of the known god verse, which glowed with the warm, comforting light of their new three-sector alliance.
But beyond their small island of gold, the map was a vast, dark ocean.
Emma was the one who put their unspoken fear into words. She pointed a slender finger at the map. "We won," she said, her voice quiet but firm. "We faced a new kind of threat, and we beat it.
But look at this." She expanded the map, and tiny, faint red flickers appeared in dozens of other sectors, like a spreading rash. "These are areas showing faint energy signatures similar to the one we first detected in the Veridian Expanse. They're small, insignificant right now. But they're there."
