Commander Elias Thorne gripped the hilt of the manual override, his knuckles white. Beside him, the ship's AI, a flickering projection of gold light, pulsed in rhythm with the core.
The obsidian hull groaned as reality realigned. The violet sky of Xylos-4 was gone. In its place stood the twin suns of the Ophiuchi Reach, their light reflecting off the V2’s wings with a brilliance that shouldn't have been possible. They had crossed fifty light-years in the time it took to draw a breath. V2 imaginar 16x
"Sixteen times the precision," the AI noted, almost in awe. "We didn't just arrive, Commander. We created the arrival." Commander Elias Thorne gripped the hilt of the
It was the first of its kind. Built with the "16x" Fold-Drive, the V2 wasn't designed to travel through space; it was designed to imagine its way into a new reality. The violet sky of Xylos-4 was gone
The ship didn't move. Instead, the world outside the windows began to sharpen. The colors of the grove intensified until they were blinding, then shattered. For a heartbeat, there was nothing but the hum of the V2, a sound like a thousand voices whispering in unison. Then, the snap.