They spent the next month hunting.The Devourers were gone, but their damage remained. Universe 4,312 was a graveyard of broken worlds and scattered survivors. Thera's alliance moved system by system, searching for anyone still alive.Each day brought new discoveries. Each day brought new horrors.On the seventh day, they found a colony of three hundred people hiding in the core of a dead moon. They hadn't seen sunlight in years. They thought they were the last.On the fourteenth day, they found a battleship drifting through the void. Five thousand soldiers had survived inside it, their crystals slowly dimming. They had been waiting for rescue for six months.On the twenty-first day, they found something else.Thera stood on the bridge of the battleship, watching the system display. Vex pointed at a cluster of planets at the edge of the sector."That's where the Devourers first appeared. Sector Zero. We never went back. Too dangerous."Thera studied the readings. Faint energy signatur

The rift closed behind Thera with a sound like a door slamming.She stood alone in the middle of nowhere.Not a planet. Not a space station. Just empty void with a few rocks floating nearby. The stars looked wrong here. Dimmer. Older. Like they were tired of shining.[ Location: Universe 10 - The Frontier ][ Status: Unexplored ][ Nearby Worlds: 0 ][ Nearest Life Sign: 3 Days Travel ]Thera read the numbers and wanted to cry. Three days just to find the first world. And she only had thirty days total."System. Give me something closer. Anything."[ Scanning... ][ One Life Sign Detected. Distance: 4 Hours. ][ Warning: Signal is faint. Possibly a trap. ]Four hours. Thera opened a rift and stepped through.The signal led her to a ship.It was old. Really old. The metal was rusted. The windows were cracked. It floated through the void like a ghost, its engines long dead.Thera landed on the hull. Her boots stuck to the metal. Ice crystals formed around her feet.[ Life Sign inside. O