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Next up, the revised Chapter 1!
https://forum.shrapnelgames.com/showthread.php?t=6394
Chapter 1: Shakedown Cruise
Bright lights shone down from the roof of the cavernous space yard and played across the sleek surface of the craft. Scores of technicians, scientists, and laborers packed the slip, watching and holding their breath as their creation hummed to life. Director Halveth gazed down on the scene from the control blister. It marked a turning point—the moment their species reached for something truly beyond the known. He smiled. It was destiny.
As final checks ran through their cycles, the last of the technicians stepped back into the pressurized docking modules lining the frame of the shipyard. One by one, airlocks sealed. Warning lights turned green.
A dull hiss marked the release of atmospheric pressure from the construction bay. The outer clamps disengaged with a deep, metallic groan, and for the first time, the Eagle was free.
She wasn’t large by naval standards—long and narrow, plated in matte-black ceramic, with armored ribbing along her keel like the bones of a deep-sea predator. She had been built for one purpose: to cross the threshold.
Director Halveth stood watching from the control blister above, hands clasped behind his back. This wasn’t about building the most powerful ship, or the fastest. This was about reaching beyond the veil. Every probe sent through the wormholes had vanished. No telemetry. No signal. Whatever was on the other side, it did not speak back.
And so they built the Eagle. Not to conquer. Not even to claim. But to see. To witness. And to return.
He didn’t see it as a choice. Three wormholes had appeared without warning, defying every known law of physics. They couldn’t be ignored. Remorhaz had to understand them—had to cross the threshold. Halveth wasn’t chasing glory; he was making sure they didn’t fall behind whatever, or whoever, might already be watching.
He swallowed. Part awe, part nerves. The ship was gone now. The crew, too. He could only hope the hull held—and that the people he'd sent across the threshold had a chance to come back. And if they didn’t... then at least someone had dared to look.
The Eagle lifted from her berth and silently ignited her main engines. Slowly she guided her nose out of the space yard. She would navigate toward the closest of the three known wormholes—gravitational anomalies that emitted faint but rhythmic energy pulses, like distant beacons tapping out secrets in the dark. The distortions surrounding them suggested mass on the far side, perhaps even habitable worlds, but no signal or probe had ever returned. Whatever lay beyond remained shrouded, daring them to find out.
Some believed the wormholes had always been there—silent gravitational irregularities lingering at the edge of the solar system. For years, they were dismissed as noise or data errors, odd blips in gravitational telemetry that no one could explain. But a decade ago, the anomalies began to respond—faint, rhythmic pulses echoing in the deep void. It was as if something had finally decided to open a door.
Director Halveth took a final look at the launch bay below. The space yard crew had worked tirelessly for over three years to assemble the Eagle, enduring grueling schedules and impossible deadlines. This was only the beginning. There were discussions of a second Eagle-class ship, even early sketches of a colony vessel. But for now, all hopes rode on this single craft and her crew. The Director had no illusions—success was not guaranteed. He believed in them nonetheless. The people of Remorhaz were builders. And if the stars allowed it, they would rise to meet whatever challenges lay ahead.
Weeks earlier, the Eagle’s shakedown cruise had tested both its systems and its crew.
On the second day out, during a high-intensity pulse sequence, the main computer core went offline. Captain Gina Jager, barely adjusted to the command seat, had to oversee manual operations while engineering worked frantically to bring the ship’s core systems back online. For nearly an hour, the ship flew blind—no nav, no diagnostics, no core guidance—just raw instinct and grit. When systems finally surged back online, it felt less like a fix and more like a resurrection.
Repairs were fast-tracked, and Captain Jager compiled a list of performance shortfalls—some expected, others not. She submitted recommendations for system refinements, structural reinforcement near the main gun, and more efficient supply distribution to support longer-range missions. While the ship had technically met all operational criteria, she couldn’t shake the feeling that their reach exceeded their readiness. Engineers reviewed her reports with urgency, making the adjustments they could.
Scientists had modeled the wormhole pulse patterns for months, but the truth was, no one could say how long they’d remain stable—or accessible. Political pressure was mounting, and exploration funding came with strings. They had to press forward, ready or not.
Life aboard the ship quickly settled into routine. Boredom, not danger, was the enemy in deep space. For all their training, none of the crew had ventured beyond the local orbital network. The Eagle was Remorhaz’s first true interstellar vessel — and Jager was determined they’d rise to meet that challenge. Drills, simulations, and maintenance cycles filled their days. She pushed them hard. They were the best Remorhaz had to offer, but in the vastness of space, everyone was green.
Even with the Eagle’s nuclear pulse propulsion system—a controversial design that propelled the ship by detonating a series of low-yield atomic charges against a heavily reinforced pusher plate—the journey had taken four grueling weeks. The charges, nearly a thousand of them, were stored in a shielded magazine beneath the engineering deck—each about the size of a wine bottle, small but devastating in controlled succession. It was a compact system, but one that had pushed the limits of engineering and public tolerance alike.
The night before the mission’s official start, Jager lay awake in her bunk, eyes fixed on the ceiling, mind refusing to rest. The ship was ready. The simulations were solid. The wormhole physics had been tested and verified to the best of their ability.
But what haunted her wasn’t the math—it was the weight of command. Would she succeed? Would she make the right call under pressure? Or would she misjudge something critical and fail—and die—out there, taking every soul under her command with her?
She had made peace with theories long ago. It was choices that kept her up. The inversion drive had looked flawless—until it killed three engineers in a live test. Early inertial dampers passed every benchmark on paper—then failed under pressure, and a hull section tore loose. She’d seen too many lives lost to systems that were 'ready' until they weren’t.
"Nothing to be done," she whispered, sliding out of bed and into the shower. The water cascaded over her like a curtain, turning minutes into an hour. She sat beneath it, letting the noise and warmth drown out the storm in her head. No timer. No hurry. Sleep was off the table, and tonight, routine could go to hell.
The wormhole appeared on long-range scanners two days later: a swirling anomaly of light and gravity, vast and beckoning, promising everything and nothing in equal measure. Even with the experimental sensor suite—scaled-down versions of the arrays that had first detected the anomalies—the signal was ghostlike, fading in and out of resolution.
As they closed the distance, the bridge grew quiet. Everyone was watching. The wormhole filled the forward viewport—an eerie distortion in the starfield, like a whirlpool made of bent light and shifting gravity.
Senior Officer Langford stood beside Jager, his face pale. He offered a tight smile. She returned it.
All across the bridge, crew members sat silent, waiting. Readings streamed across displays. All indicators appeared nominal.
Jager exhaled slowly, then spoke—clear and steady.
“Helm, maintain course. Engineering, hold for final checks.”
The ship creaked faintly under its own stress. The void ahead shimmered, shifting subtly as if aware of its observers.
Jager took a few deep breaths and tried to slow her heartbeat.
The Eagle crossed the threshold—and was gone.