Aurein pushed open the door to Megalo City’s police station and strode inside, putting his hands on the station counter with a slam. This alerted the attention of the half-awake police officer, snapping awake to an exhausted surprise. 

“Hwa-” 

“Where do Megalo City’s calls go? Where’s the call center?” Aurein demanded. 

“Sir, you—I can’t tell you that.” 

“Tell me, now!”

The officer pulled a high-tech gun out of his holster and pointed it between Aurein’s eyes. The gun had a Tymin logo on it—faction-provided. Aurein didn’t flinch. 

“Sir, I’m afraid if you do not calm down, I have permission to fire. Tymin owns the call center—to uphold the authority Tymin has over this planet, I cannot tell you where it is.” 

Aurein, still unfazed, sighed and put an index finger on the front of the gun. Almost immediately, spreading from the tip of Aurein’s finger, the gun began to transform into immaculate, glimmering gold. 

The officer saw this, wondering if he was still dreaming. His angry expression had transformed immediately into shock. He pulled the trigger, but nothing happened—too much of the gun had already turned into solid gold. 

In a lightning-fast movement, Aurein threw aside the golden gun and grabbed the officer by the collar. With his right index finger, Aurein touched the officer’s cheek and watched as, from that point, his face slowly turned into gold. 

“Wh- what the hell?!” the officer yelled. 

“Listen to me,” Aurein growled. “I know you don’t want this. I know you’re just a regular person following orders from Tymin you don’t want to, but if you don’t do what I say, you’ll be a statue within sixty seconds. Am I clear?” 

The officer nodded frantically, still trying to escape Aurein’s grip. 

“I need you to tell me the exact location of Megalo City’s call center and how to break in.” 

“The- it’s- it’s across the street from the Yera building! The skyscraper with the rounded top! But- but you need a Tymin ID to get in and I don’t have access to them! There’re some extra ID cards in the back!” 

Aurein dropped the officer at once and walked towards a door to the back of the police station. The police officer was touching the now-golden part of his face with horror. 

“It- it’s locked! You won’t be able to get in!” 

Aurein turned to the officer. “I won’t, but he can.” 

The door suddenly opened with a click and Flint walked through it holding a Tymin ID card, sending the officer into further shock. He seemed at a loss for words. 

“Let’s go,” Aurein told Flint. 

They both walked out of the police station, leaving the stunned officer alone. Aurein snapped his fingers and the officer’s face turned back to normal. 

 

---

 

The door to the Tymin call center burst open and Aurein and Flint entered the building. Each behind computers, two Tymin members were present within, both of whom got up with a jolt, but before either of them could do anything, Aurein and Flint threw them out of their seats and knocked them out. 

“Look for any and all emergency calls made within the last 12 hours,” Aurein reminded Flint. 

“I know.” 

Flint scrolled through the list of recent calls through Megalo city, or at least as best he could while he was half-tangible, and found a call categorized as “emergency” in red characters. 

“Found it,” Flint announced. “But, damn. Tymin monitors and lists every call in this city. So much for privacy.”

“Can you play the recording?” asked Aurein. 

Flint obliged and hit the “play” button beside the call’s information. The computer then began playing a woman’s frantic voice—Ligeia Mare. 

“He- hello? This is Ligeia Mare, the Tymin spy assigned to the Talo headquarters. I’m a member of the Erista Flash project. Is this the Tymin headquarters?” 

To this, a male voice replied: 

“Yes, you’ve reached the Tymin Headquarters Hyper-C emergency line. Can I have your identification code?” 

“My code is 3315-7047-1857-D.” 

There was a brief pause in the call.

“Identification confirmed,” the male voice said. 

Without missing a beat, Ligeia replied: “I need emergency asylum in the Tymin headquarters. I was discovered about five hours ago and I’m hiding in Megalo City on Verko in the Sulka district. My ship was low on fuel and I’m getting it refueled right now in the Megalo City Spaceport, but I won’t be able to make it back to headquarters for at least another 20 hours. I’m certain that I’m being followed and that I don’t have long. I’m holding class-2 Tymin intelligence and need asylum as soon as possible.” 

“We can have an escort at your location within 10 hours. Remain on Verko until then.” 

“Thank you.” 

And then the call ended. 

“Trace the call,” Aurein said. Once more, Flint obliged. 

 

CALL TO: TYMIN HEADQUARTERS HYPER-C EMERGENCY LINE

CALL FROM: 8832 ENDELO ST, MEGALO CITY, VERKO, SULKA DISTRICT

 

“There she is,” Flint exclaimed. 

“She must be hiding there. Let’s go.” 

 

---

 

The door to 8832 Endelo St. was thick and heavy, belonging to an unassuming building on the outskirts of the city bare of any decoration save for the address itself. The door was metal, and rust-covered paint was flaking off of it. Aurein turned the knob and slowly pushed it open. 

Out of the door poured bright, colored strobe lights and loud, thumping music. They entered, taking in the sight—this place was a nightclub. Amidst thick smoke machine fog and underneath flashing lights, a mass of people danced furiously in front of a headphone-donning DJ. The rhythmic music was uncomfortably loud and the air was tainted with the smell of numerous drugs. Lights of every color shone from every angle from every part of the large nightclub on the hundreds of people partying the night away. 

Aurein saw Flint’s lips moving before he barely heard him over the music:

“Where are we supposed to find her?!” Flint yelled, still hardly audible. 

“I have no idea!” Aurein yelled in response. “But look for a woman with green hair!” 

“What?!” 

“GREEN! HAIR!” Aurein yelled yet louder. 

There were many green heads of hair—the heads of everyone partying in the club were every color imaginable, some dyed and some natural. The search wasn’t made any easier by the fact that the constant strobe lights changed the color of the entire facility many times a second. 

Flint split off from Aurein to search, and quickly, he spotted someone—a green-haired woman sitting at the edge of the room, looking anxious and bobbing a knee up and down. And as Flint got closer, he saw it. 

A five-inch scar down her neck. 

He was careful not to approach too quickly, but he did grab hold of the ghostly gun by his side—his weapon. His Val. Flint positioned himself to where no other partygoers would be in the way, and then pulled his gun out, aiming it carefully. 

But at just the wrong moment, perhaps as a result of paranoia, Ligeia did a visual sweep of the nightclub—and found Flint pointing his gun at her. 

She got up and ran for the exit right as Flint pulled the trigger. His ghost gun let out its scream-like gunshot, but even that was drowned out by the thumping music possessing every other person in the club. The bullet hit the wall, cracking it, but barely missed Ligeia. Flint cursed and ran after her. 

Aurein, nearby, recognized the gunshot’s distinct sound and sprinted towards Ligeia’s receding image. He pushed past partygoers, some hardly noticing a thing, reaching for Ligeia and desperately keeping her in sight. She continued to flee, getting closer and closer to the exit, and Flint and Aurein regrouped again in pursuit of her. 

Ligeia threw open the exit door and made a run out the back of the building, Flint and Aurein not far behind. She tore down the street, between buildings and past skyscrapers, never allowing her pursuers to catch up. Flint aimed his translucent pistol at her and fired several more times, but each bullet was barely deflected by some kind of invisible shield she created with a brief swipe of her hand. So that was her Val. 

After running through what had to have been the better part of the city, Flint finally recognized their new location—they were approaching the Megalo City Spaceport. 

“She’s going for her ship!” Flint yelled to Aurein. Aurein picked up yet more speed as the light-bordered spaceport, along with its gargantuan spaceship hangar, came into view. 

Ligeia burst into the travel security office, passing the same burnt-out officer as before, prompting him, after a moment of confusion, to come out from behind his desk and anticipate her pursuers. He pulled out a Tymin-issued gun and aimed it at the door. 

Aurein and Flint burst in a few moments later, and the travel security officer immediately began taking shots at Aurein. Aurein barely dodged, not expecting the barrage, but Flint kept running at full speed towards the security officer. 

Then, with a brief flash of dark blue light, he entered the officer. 

Possession was a hassle, but Flint couldn’t simply take over a dead body—its bodily functions had already stopped. If he were to take a body for his own, it had to be done by evicting the soul already within—and it wasn’t an easy task. A strong enough will could prevent Flint from possessing a body in the first place. 

Not only that, but possession was the only moment when Flint was truly vulnerable. The material world could no longer hurt his ghostly figure in any notable capacity, but in a soul-vs-soul battle, his soul itself could be attacked. His own willpower could be damaged. A battle for possession always ended in one soul leaving the material world—and the land of the dead—for good. Permanent, absolute death, where not even a soul remained behind. 

Flint entered the realm of the mind; an indistinct, dark place of immaterialism, where the only things that truly existed were himself and the already present consciousness within. 

The mess of colors, shapes and information that constituted Flint’s body slowly arranged themselves into something real, into a body. Afar, still existing as pure indistinct information, was the host. Flint took a step across the dark landscape, then another, walking towards the host consciousness. As he got closer, he saw the host slowly become a distinct body, sitting cross-legged on the black ground. Flint stood in front of him and the host got up. 

Flint’s soul was still a boy, only twelve. The man in front of him was much taller, much bigger, much stronger. Still, Flint reared back a fist and threw a punch at the man. 

The man returned the strike and the battle began, each side dodging and trading blows. Strength in a realm like this existed not in muscles, but in raw willpower. And in this way, Flint quickly overpowered the man, used to such battles, kneeing the consciousness in the face and knocking him over. The fight was brief. 

When the man’s back hit the ground, he vanished into oblivion. 

Then Flint came to through new eyes. He had successfully possessed the officer’s body. There was a brief second where Flint could see the man’s soul escape the material world, souring his post-battle exhilaration and hollowing his victory. No real time had passed—Aurein was still on the chase. Now in a body once more, Flint ran after him. 

Ligeia, they quickly discovered, wasn’t going towards the part of the hangar that kept the ships. She had hidden her own ship somewhere else, somewhere restricted. The two watched her frantically pull out a keycard and enter through a door at the edge of the hangar, presumably where her ship was kept. As the door began to shut, Flint picked up speed, but it shut only seconds before Flint could reach it. 

“Dammit!” he yelled, pounding a fist on the door. He was much stronger now than he was as a ghost, but the body he had possessed was lanky. 

Aurein pulled out a Tymin ID card, hoping to open the door, but the sensor only flashed red. 

“It’s the wrong kind of keycard,” Aurein said. “Should I turn the door to gold?” 

“No, there’s no time,” Flint replied, his face against the glass part of the door, looking inside. Within it was Ligeia’s class-4 Lask cruiser, a number of refueling tubes plugged into it which Ligeia was frantically removing. He phased the front of his ghostly pistol through the door and aimed it at Ligeia’s head, but she noticed and created another invisible shield in front of her. Flint relented, returning his pistol to the metaphysical space it occupied by his hip. 

Flint turned to Aurein. “We need to get back to our own ship and catch up with her before she gets into hyperspace.” 

Aurein broke away from the door and sprinted towards their ship, the Lucre Main, parked alongside dozens of others in the main part of the hangar. They climbed inside and Flint got into the cockpit seat. 

“Are you good to drive?” Aurein asked, buckling up next to him. 

“I think so,” Flint replied, flexing his newfound fingers. “This body’s easy enough to use.” 

Flint started the bootup sequence, flicking a series of switches and listening to the satisfying pulsing sound of a space engine starting up. He ran a brief systems check—all clear—rolled the ship out of the way of the others, and grabbed the throttle. 

“Ligeia Mare, we’re coming for you,” he said. 

The ship accelerated quickly off of the ground, engines roaring, and right on queue, Ligeia’s Lask cruiser came into view only one or two hundred feet above them as the hangar fell away. Flint pulled even harder on the throttle, accelerating even faster, and followed Ligeia Mare out of the atmosphere. 

Once Verko’s atmosphere thinned into nothingness and the vacuum of space surrounded them, Flint turned a knob and the Lucre Main switched into deep-space gear. The ship accelerated yet faster, soaring towards Ligeia, but Ligeia’s ship had switched gear, too, and maintained a good distance between them. 

Over time, Flint noticed the trajectory Ligeia was turning towards: she was going towards Tunnis, Verko’s neighboring planet. Flint knew—no matter why she was going there, he couldn’t let her succeed. 

“Turn up the throttle,” Aurein said beside Flint. “Our ship is faster. It’s not as if she’s riding a racing ship.”

“You sure?” Flint confirmed. “We’ll pull high Gs.” 

“Positive.” 

Flint pulled yet harder on the throttle, the massive acceleration pressing him and Aurein further back into their seats. Flint felt his consciousness threaten to slip, the blood in his stolen body attempting to flow out of his brain. He tensed his muscles, forcing his blood out of his extremities and back to the essentials. He remained conscious. 

Finally, the Lask cruiser grew in size. Flint and Aurein endured the high-G acceleration as Flint navigated closer and closer towards Ligeia. Eventually, the ships were side-by-side, and Flint eased up on the throttle with immense relief. 

“We need evidence for Talo,” Aurein said, unbuckling himself. “We have to board the ship and kill her in person.” 

“Be careful,” Flint warned. “Her ship might not have guns like we do, but she does have a Val. I’ll try and keep us close.” 

Aurein got out of the passenger seat and put on his spacesuit, leaving the cramped cockpit and walking into the airlock. The airlock depressurized and the hatch opened, giving Aurein a view of space obstructed by Ligeia’s ship. But, right as Aurein prepared to jump onto the Lask cruiser, it started to turn away. 

“Hang on, she’s moving away!” Flint yelled over comms. 

Aurein grabbed a handle tightly as Flint aimed their ship towards Ligeia’s. It kept weaving around, trying to lose the Lucre Main, but Flint remained close. Aurein prepared to jump. 

Flint, meanwhile, looked through his windshield at Ligeia’s. He could see her faintly through the clear windshield, but something was off—she was wearing a spacesuit in her already-pressurized ship. What was she doing? 

Then Flint realized—she was going to vent the cabin. 

Aurein, getting into position, didn’t notice the emergency air vents on Ligeia’s ship begin to open. Flint shouted on the comms: 

“Aurein, close the airlock! DON’T JUMP!” 

Then, all of a sudden, all of the air in Ligeia’s ship was violently shot out into space from every side, knocking back Flint’s smaller Lucre Main. It twisted and tumbled through space, Flint unable to right the craft, Aurein being knocked around helplessly in the airlock, barely able to avoid flying out. Eventually, Flint managed to realign the Lucre Main towards the Lask cruiser, but they had already lost massive ground. Ligeia’s ship was far ahead now, a whitish-gray shape amongst the darkness. 

“Shit!” Aurein cursed, finally back inside the Lucre Main and seated. 

“We have to do another high-G maneuver,” Flint said. Aurein nodded. 

With another painful lurch, they soared further ahead once more, but something strange happened to Ligeia’s ship as it grew in the window’s field of view. The orange-white engine plume from the back of Ligeia’s ship was changing in color, becoming an ominous, deep blue. The blue glow was growing in intensity, eventually outshining the light of the engine itself. 

“The hell is that?” exclaimed Aurein. 

“That… hang on, that’s a warp drive startup glow. She’s preparing to warp—where the hell is she trying to warp to?” 

“I thought she was going to Tunnis?” 

Flint flicked a few switches and pulled up a screen. On it was a zoomed-in image of Ligeia’s ship, a number of digitally-rendered vectors attached to it that constantly updated. 

“She—she still is,” Flint said with awe. The Lask cruiser’s trajectory is headed straight for southern Tunnis.”

“Not even an orbit trajectory?” 

“No. She’s sending her ship straight into the planet’s surface.” 

“If she warps into Tunnis’ surface, it would be catastrophic. It could destroy the better part of the planet, including everything and everyone on it.” 

“But why? Why would she intentionally kill thousands of her own people and destroy one of Tymin’s science outposts?” Flint said. 

And then it hit him. 

What if there was a secret on Tunnis worth sacrificing thousands of her own for? What if there was something hidden there that couldn’t be found out?

“Unless there was a secret hidden there worth destroying a planet over,” Flint remarked. Aurein turned to him, wide-eyed. 

Flint turned back to Ligeia’s ever-shining ship. “We can’t let her do it. We have to see what she’s trying to destroy.” 

Flint’s hand hovered over a blue button by the throttle. 

“The railguns? You sure?” Aurein asked. “There won’t be anything left of her to turn into Talo.” 

“Change of plans. This is more important.” 

Aurein grabbed Flint’s arm, looking him in the eyes. 

“Flint. Are you sure about this? This is a 6,000 IB mission. Using the railguns saps our power, so we won’t be able to catch up with her. And if we screw up shooting her down, her exploding ship could kill us.” 

“I’m dead sure. We have to stop her.” 

Aurein looked at Flint for one last moment, then nodded. Flint slammed the blue button. 

Immediately, a shifting sound filled the Lucre Main, followed by a loud clunk. Two large railguns had unfolded from the sides of the ship, whirring and filling with a cyan glow. 

“Shutting off the engine,” Flint announced. The acceleration they were feeling suddenly dwindled to nothing, leaving the two in zero-g. Several control panels and levers unfolded themselves in front of Aurein. Aurein grabbed two levers and focused on two separate screens in front of him, each showing a view of the Lask cruiser and a series of diagrams and targets. 

“Rerouting power to railguns,” Flint announced once more. The lights within the Lucre Main cabin dimmed to nothing, leaving only the hundreds of faint glows of buttons and controls of the cockpit to guide their path. Far ahead, Ligeia’s cruiser was glowing yet brighter, appearing from their view like a blinding blue star. There were only seconds left. 

Aurein aligned the left railgun, matching a target on screen with a specific point on Ligeia’s ship. The Lask cruiser was a moving target, and with the blue light of the charging warp drive on it blinding his view, he could only estimate where to fire. He aligned the right railgun. 

“Locked!” Aurein yelled. 

There was a flash from a red button covered with a glass hatch nearby Flint. The Lask cruiser’s glow began to take on a deeper hue. Flint lifted the glass casing from the button and slammed it. 

A deep thud sound filled the cabin, and Flint and Aurein were thrown forward in their seats with the force of the railguns’ blast. Two bright cyan lights shot through space from the Lucre Main, and, almost instantaneously, impacted Ligeia’s ship. The blue glow of the warp drive immediately ceased, replaced by the fiery red of an impact explosion. The backside of Ligeia’s ship had been shot clean off with the two railgun rounds, the warp drive now floating through space uselessly. 

“Yes!” Flint yelled, pumping a fist in the air. “And we can still-” 

He was cut off by a blinding light encompassing the entire windshield, prompting the two to squint their eyes. When it faded, there was nothing left of Ligeia’s craft but ionized metal and gravel-sized shrapnel. 

“Oh. Maybe not.” 

A number of alarms lit up the Lucre Main’s interior. 

“Hey, dude, focus!” Aurein shouted. “Get us out of the shrapnel field!” 

Flint frantically turned the engine on again and flew the Lucre Main out of the way of the shrapnel, dodging pieces of the ship they had just longed to catch. 

 

---

 

Aurein studied the flight logs carefully as Flint brought their ship into Tunnis’s atmosphere. It was far thinner than Verko’s and cloudier, thick white blankets covering the sky from horizon to horizon. 

Aurein pulled up the flight info they had gotten on Ligeia’s ship during the chase, taking an especially long look at her flight trajectory when she had charged her warp drive. 

“You were right,” Aurein remarked. “She doesn’t ever aim away from southern Tunnis. She was ready to send her ship into that part of the planet at several times the speed of light.” 

“Whatever she was trying to destroy, we’re coming up on it now. We’re right above the exact coordinates she would have hit at.” 

Once the ship had slowed, Flint could make out a thick blanket of clouds below them, with dark, triangular peaks poking out. 

“Are those…” 

“Mountains,” Aurein finished. “This science outpost is for astronomy.” 

Aurein pointed to a particularly exposed peak, towering notably higher than many others. On it was a number of shiny shapes, too small to see properly from their distance. 

“It must be over there,” Aurein said. “I can see a few domes. Probably observatories.” 

Flint navigated the ship over to the tallest peak, bringing the outpost into clearer view. The mountain was littered with satellite dishes and observatories, including a few box-shaped facilities. A runway, far smaller than the one in Megalo city, awaited them, which Flint landed on with a thud. 

“Get an oxygen mask,” Flint said, looking at Tunnis’ atmospheric composition. “The air here’s really thin.” 

“Got it,” Aurein confirmed. “And we probably will need to worry about security here. Tymin doesn’t care much about a city they own, but they’ll probably be more stingy with their science.” He put on an oxygen mask and climbed out of the ship. “Especially if there’s a secret here as important as you say.” 

Flint followed Aurein out of the ship and to the nearest facility. Lo and behold, it was ID-locked. The mountain air was cold and dry, making Flint involuntarily shiver. He relished in the pure oxygen his mask provided him. 

Flint shuffled through the pockets of his stolen body. In his left pocket, alongside a bunch of junk, was an ID card. It read “Bennu Kan.” 

“So that’s who this guy was,” Flint remarked. He put Bennu’s ID into a slot by the door. 

A screen unfolded by the ID slot, prompting an eye scan. Flint obliged, leaning forward, wincing a bit at the bright light that probed his eye. 

The door unlocked with a click and the two walked inside. It wasn’t much warmer than outside, only conditioned by a few weak vents overhead that leaked warm air. Still, Flint savored the warmth when he could get it, sometimes going as far as slowing down to stand under the feeble vents. Aurein didn’t seem to care. 

“How do we know what we’re looking for?” Aurein asked. “And where is everyone?” 

“I think we’ll know what we’re looking for when we see it. People don’t just try to destroy planets on a whim. And they're probably still people here somewhere. If you see someone and they get suspicious, take them out as quietly as possible. They’re just scientists, so it should be easy enough.” 

They walked down a long hallway which branched into countless different rooms and smaller hallways. All of them were labeled with things Flint was entirely unfamiliar with—truthfully, he didn’t know where to start. Some doors were unlocked, and some required a keycard to get in, but none held the importance of a life-or-death secret. And as they walked further and further into the facility, Flint began to worry that there wasn’t anything here in the first place.

Until they came across a door with a dark interior and an “authorized personnel only” label on it. Above the gatekeeping sign was text that read: 

 

ERISTA FLASH

 

The door was locked. Flint placed his ID card on a sensor. It flashed red at him. Flint extended a hand towards the door handle and allowed the hand of his soul to escape his body, phase through the door, and unlock it from the other side. Aurein entered, Flint just behind. 

Flint flicked on a light switch, and the lights overhead turned on one by one with a slight delay between each. The room was large, filled to the brim with science equipment Flint had no chance of recognizing. A large screen across from the door held prominence in the room, though it was black at the moment. Every wall was lined with computer-filled desks, and wires trailed the floor, taped to the ground. Pinned above a set of computers were many handwritten notes, one of which with an especially large number of other comments written below. The note in question was only a single sentence: 

 

Do other factions know?

 

On the door’s side of the room were several tall filing cabinets. Flint opened a drawer on one to see it was largely empty save for a couple folders. He pulled one out and read its title: Erista Flash Files - Terkk Nunao. The date was from only a few weeks ago. He opened the file. 

The papers within, Flint quickly discovered, were the script for a presentation. Its first paragraph read: 

The Erista Flash is a phenomenon recently discovered by me, Terkk Nunao, originating from an extrasolar moon called Erista. This discovery, should it have the significance I believe it has, could grant permanent, absolute victory to the Tymin faction, allowing us complete control of the Domain (slide 1).

Flint moved to the computer below the large screen and turned it on. There was no passcode required—only authorized personnel were allowed in, anyway—and it whirred to life after a short delay. Flint navigated to a file labeled “presentations” and clicked one called “Erista Flash Discovery.” Immediately, the large screen above turned on, catching Aurein’s attention and bringing him to Flint’s side. 

Slide 1, the slide referenced in the script, was a nondescript, blurry, black-and-white image. It depicted a bright white circle, mostly off the left side of the screen, with a small white blob attached, slightly darker shades surrounding the blob and pure blackness filling the rest of the screen. A few lines and numbers wrapped around the edges of the image. It might have made sense to an astronomer, Flint thought, but it was a blob to him.

“The hell’s that?” Aurein asked, staring at the screen. 

“I found a script for a presentation on some ‘Erista Flash.’ There are slide directions on it, and this is the first slide the script led me to.” 

“You know what that image’s supposed to be?”

“No idea. Lemme keep reading.” Flint pulled up the script once more and began to read off of it. 

“While studying an exoplanet roughly 6 light-years away with the 33-Ilus telescope, I noticed an anomaly in the background of an image I took. The exoplanet’s host star, known to us as UINO-92, was dimmed slightly. Another exoplanet I had not noticed before had passed in front of the star, but this was not what truly alarmed me. That other exoplanet’s moon, called Erista, was emitting an extraordinary amount of light, appearing as a small protrusion in UINO-92.” 

Flint looked up again at the screen. “That must be the little blob attached to the big white circle.” He continued reading. 

“I dimmed the image by several orders of magnitude in the hopes of isolating the protrusion and to find its source, and did indeed find that the moon itself was emitting light (slide 2).” 

Flint pressed a key and the next slide appeared on the large screen. It was the same image as before but far dimmer, and now, it was far easier to make out what was happening. The now-dimmer star, UINO-92, was obstructed by a perfectly round black circle, occupying about a twentieth of the star’s volume—that was the exoplanet. Close to the exoplanet was an even smaller black circle, almost indistinguishable—that had to be Erista. But Erista wasn’t a perfect circle like its host planet was; a piece of it looked as if it had been bitten into, covered by a large white flash. The flash was brighter than the star behind it, appearing as a pure white in front of a dimmer sun. 

“With the dimmed image, it is clear that some light source, smaller than UINO-92 but far brighter, existed on Erista for a brief moment. The Erista Flash. I took another photo soon after this one, and the flash was gone. However, I managed to calculate the flash’s duration based on its reflection off of Erista’s host planet, and it lasted just under one second. But in that moment, the source of the Erista Flash had to have released a minimum of 150 septillion joules of energy. All without destroying, damaging, or even moving the moon it occurred on.

“Many of you in the room may understand the implications of such power. I see this anomaly, the Erista Flash, not as a freak astronomical event, but proof of the existence of an artifact of immense power. Only one thing in the known universe could produce so much power in such a small place—and that artifact is…

“...the Terminus.”

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