A third horn suddenly erupted from her forehead, crackling with dark-red energy. Her heartbeat slowed... Space slowed... Time crawled... Her body glowed with a violent white aura as she launched herself forward, bouncing between drifting ship fragments like stepping stones. She moved so fast that the fabric of space bent around her, leaving ripples behind her motions. Her feet barely tapped each fragment before she had already left it, accelerating further. The star-being's fist inched toward Aildris at the speed of dripping honey. Angy reached him, circled around the titan again and again with her horn emitting a red blazing glow. All of a sudden, time came to a standstill and began to crawl backward. Reality rewound like a film playing in reverse... The shattered fragments of their ship pulled back together. Aildris, E.E, and Falco shot backward through space, back into their seats. And the moment, Angy stopped running, she vanished and reappeared inside the ship at the exact moment before they had given the final answer. Her whole body shook with exhaustion as blood rolled down her face. She wiped blood off her upper lip and steadied her breathing. The star-being rumbled: "Wrong. You now have only one attempt left." Angy didn't give the team time to panic. She inhaled sharply and yelled with absolute certainty: "CATTLE!" The others turned toward her. "What the hell Angy?" Falco's eyes widened. "Wha—Angy, what if—" "Trust me," she whispered with a trembling tone. There was a long pause that slowly turned into a suffocating, drawn-out silence. Then the star-being tilted its massive flaming head. "Correct." The storms calmed instantly. The turbulence stopped. Space smoothed out like glass as the star-being parted its fiery arms to let their ship pass. E.E slumped backward. "Angy… what the hell did you just do?" She wiped drying blood off her cheek, exhausted but composed. "Bought us the only future where we didn't die." Aildris stared at her for a long moment. "Your power… it rewound spacetime." Falco gulped. "And you still have blood on you… so it really happened." Angy nodded once, quietly. "Let's not make a habit of it." The ship eased forward past the titan as it dissolved slowly back into the shape of a star. It's body unfolded into nuclear waves until it returned to being nothing more than a distant celestial sun. Their journey to the 42nd commander's station became unnervingly calm after the star sentinel incident. Outerspace stretched endlessly around them, deceptive in its serenity. After nearly being obliterated by a sentient star the size of small galaxies, even the peaceful buzzing of the ship's thrusters felt suspicious. Falco broke the silence first. "Anyone else still hearing that thing saying 'Wrong!' in their head?" Angy's eyebrow twitched. "If you want, I can rewind time and make you experience it again." Falco quickly looked away. "...No thank you." Aildris smirked. "Relax. We're past that nonsense. If another star asks for a password, Angy's paying." "I literally saved everyone," she muttered. E.E scoffed. "And we're grateful. Doesn't mean we won't tease you." A faint grin appeared on her face. "I hate you guys." For the next few hours, they settled into a steady pace through open space, scanning every direction. All of them were thinking the same thing but none voiced it: If the outer perimeter had a sentient star guarding it, then the 42nd commander's domain might be exponentially worse. Still, they pressed on. Sometime later, Angy leaned forward in her seat with her eyes narrowing. "Guys… do you see that?" Falco squinted at the viewport. "Looks like—no way. That's not a ship." E.E leaned closer. "It's a structure… but it's huge. What are we even looking at?" As they approached, the scale became clearer and more horrifying. Floating in the void of nothingness was not a station, not a ship, but a monolithic building... a fortress easily the size of a mountain range. Its architecture looked ancient yet advanced. Pointy tipped dark metal twisted around crystalline tubes that glowed like captured nebulae. Giant metallic rings slowly rotated around the central mass, whirring with energy signatures they'd never seen before. Beneath it rested a fractured moon that was split into three massive chunks but tethered together by glowing gravitational binders, like metal stitches holding a corpse. Falco let out a low whistle. "This… this guy is not like the others." Aildris nodded grimly. "The 42nd commander is said to never leave his post. Now I understand why. Whoever built this didn't intend for him to be disturbed." E.E adjusted the ship's trajectory. "Well… too late for that." As they drew closer, a new sound filled the cockpit. Their ship slowed as a rotating ring of scanners, extending kilometers wide, activated and swept over them in vertical beams of golden light. From the fractured moon below, massive cannons followed their movement. Hundreds of mechanical drones the size of trucks hovered around, ready to vaporize anything that failed inspection. A robotic voice boomed across their comms: > "STATE YOUR DESIGNATION. ALL VESSELS ARE SUBJECT TO FULL VERIFICATION. ATTEMPTED EVASION WILL RESULT IN DISINTEGRATION." The group exchanged looks. Falco cleared his throat. "Are we sure disguising ourselves as transferred Gustavo members was enough?" "We forged everything to perfection," Aildris reminded. "And the 62nd commander's authority codes are still active. Elevora is handling that part." Angy took a deep breath. "Alright. Let's do this." E.E activated the forged identification program. Their ship's signature flickered, then stabilized into a Gustavo Alliance cruiser profile. > "TRANSMISSION RECEIVED. INITIATING LEVEL-SEVEN ENTRY PROTOCOLS. DO NOT MOVE." The scanner beams intensified. Moments turned into seconds and seconds into a full minute... E.E muttered, "This is taking too long… something's suspicious." Just when they were starting to get worried... > "IDENTITY VERIFIED. PROCEED." The beams vanished and the massive docking gates opened like the jaws of a cosmic beast. Entering the station was like flying into an entire city suspended in endless night. The scale was impossible to describe. They could see hangars that stretched for kilometers, thousands of soldiers in formation, transport trams shooting across energy bridges, powerful machinery grinding at work. Everything was in strict order. Security here was ten times anything they'd encountered before. And the interior made no sense. Falco's jaw dropped. "How… the hell is it bigger inside? The outside wasn't even a fraction of this." "It's dimensional layering," Aildris whispered. "Pocket space folded into physical space." E.E exhaled shakily. "Of course a ghost commander would use ghost architecture…" They landed at their assigned platform where a massive alien superior with six arms and grey metallic skin waited. His eyes were suspicious. They looked exactly like the type that hated incompetence. He growled the moment they stepped out. "You four. State your designations." E.E stepped forward confidently. "Transfer squad from Commander 62's sector. Orders authenticated." The officer scanned their forged IDs. Beep. Beep. Beep— Accepted. He lowered the device, unimpressed. "Commander 42 does not tolerate inefficiency. Every step you take, every action you report, will go through me. You do not breathe without permission." Falco mumbled under his breath, "Friendly." The officer's six eyes narrowed. "What was that?" "Nothing, sir," Falco said quickly. The officer thrust a data pad into Angy's chest. > "Your tasks will be assigned in cycles. You are not to leave your designated floor without explicit authorization. The upper levels are strictly restricted. The highest level is punishable by death even for looking at it." Angy swallowed. "Understood." He studied them, especially Angy. Her tension. Her presence. Then he grunted. > "Try not to die. It's inconvenient to clean." He walked away. As soon as he was gone, E.E whispered, "We are so screwed." They rode a transport tram deeper into the structure, passing thousands of Gustavo alliance soldiers. "What the hell is this place?" Falco whispered as he watched a battalion of armored beasts march in formation. "The 62nd commander didn't have half of this." Aildris nodded. "Because the 42nd commander isn't just another commander. His station is practically a fortress of last defense." Angy looked up. The highest floor was visible only when massive cables and energy fields shifted but otherwise, it was shrouded behind a shimmering barrier. "That must be where he is," she whispered. "But how do we get up there?" Falco spread his hands. "We can't. Not without tripping every alarm in this place and probably dying.... well I won't die but I can't say the same for you guys..." E.E added, "And we can't just fight upward. There are literally tens of thousands of them. There will be too much casualties and someone will definitely raise an alarm that would ruin our whole operation." 𝑓𝘳𝑒𝑒𝓌𝘦𝘣𝘯ℴ𝑣𝘦𝑙.𝘤𝑜𝑚 There was a brief silence and then Aildris exhaled heavily. "Then we need to think differently." Angy glared. "How?" He tapped the side of his head. "Recon. Information. And patience." He pointed upward. "The 42nd commander is a ghost. No one sees him. No one talks to him. No one even knows what species he is." Falco frowned. "Then how do we reach someone no one has access to?" Aildris' tone turned dark. "By going through the ranks... definitely, the higher you get, the better the chances are..."