Max tasked a drone to go out and pass through the distorted area and report back everything that it found as it explored whatever the device was trying to hide. It might very well be a planet that had been hidden from the universe so that its occupants wouldn't be found, and that could be a wonderful addition to their data files. No matter what condition it was currently in.

The drone's speed was set to be slow enough relative to the location that Max believed was being hidden that a sudden impact shouldn't destroy the crab without providing them any sort of data, but fast enough that Max wouldn't have to wait all day for it to get there.

The problem was that there was no way of telling how much of their sensor feed was falsified with that device active nearby.

Evidence suggested that it was likely to only be one region, as they had found the device easily enough, but it was always better to be safe.

As Max had feared, the drone came to an abrupt halt the moment that it reached the obscured area, and began to crawl around on a solid surface that its other sensors said did not exist.

"Boss, I think we found something. Don't do anything for a moment, and I think that we can turn this device off and see what it's doing." The team leader informed him.

Max inspected everyone's thoughts, and they all agreed that it should be safe, a rare consensus among researchers.

lightsΝοvel "Alright, go ahead. I've got a drone out on a location that is obscured, so if you can turn that off, maybe I can learn something about it." He informed them.

After a few seconds, the device's interference faded, and Max found himself looking at the battered form of an ancient world ship.

Its spherical black surface was pockmarked with millennia of impact craters, and a long weapon blast had torn open a portion of the hull. That likely hadn't been the end of the vessel, though, as it skimmed along the surface and didn't penetrate deeply into the vital systems.

[Holy crap, we found a world ship. Does that mean we get to keep it? I mean, that's what you guys did with Terminus, right? You kept a Colony Ship that you found and used it as the base to start your Reaver Company.] One of the Innu cheered over the intercom.

[Did you forget that you work for me? The boss always gets first dibs on the good stuff.] Max reminded them.

Giving a random relic world ship to the Innu and then just letting them wander around looking for fun things to do might be hilarious when the rest of the Alliance found out, but he needed to explore and analyze it first.

[Oh, that's right. So we do get to keep it. And examine it, and see what makes it tick. Who do you think made it? Why was it hidden? Should we hide it again once we find a way inside?]

Max laughed at the verbal stream of consciousness, but the Innu had a point. They should hide it again once they were inside. There probably wasn't anyone here looking for it at this point, and the scans they were getting indicated that it might have been here for the better part of a million years, preserved by the void of space, other than the small object impacts.

[Send out more drones, I want a full exterior scan of the ship before we go any further. Everything needs to be recorded, from any lingering energy signatures, to the composition of the hull and the location of every single point of damage. Then we will find a suitable way in and get the barrier back up while we explore.] Max ordered, while the team silently celebrated in the next room.

The design of the World Ship, a perfect sphere, was incredibly common among the Alliance species, and all of them claimed dominion on the design, which was now considered common property, but with the proprietary drive components and other features still belonging to the various manufacturers.

But after seeing these, Max began to wonder if it was so common because that was what they all arrived in.

The Greys seemed to have come from this region of space at some point. There was no other good explanation for how the same species had been in both spots, considering the history of this region and the recorded history of the Greys in the Alliance, which didn't have an extreme range colonization project among them.

So, other species might have come from here during or after the Great War's most violent periods.

Too much history was lost to be absolutely certain, even to the Darklings and Arisen. But Max was guessing that the species here had left after the God of Time had been killed and time had been reset and then locked into a linear stream during the battle with the humans.

It felt like that was all that he did lately. Speculate and guess.

But, it was all that he could do until he had some actual data to work with.

Then, he noticed something strange on one of the optical scan images. There was a word written above one of the airlocks.

[Creeping Night]

Nico hadn't noticed it yet, she was busy analyzing the technical details and not looking at the optical scans.historical

But when she realized, when anyone realized what this ship was, all hell was going to break loose.

Creeping Night, The Second Flagship of the Ten Worlds Crusade, lost in battle during his previous life, and now floating dead in space a million light years from nowhere.

Max knew exactly where the ship had fallen, and how. But that wasn't here. It couldn't be. There wasn't a star system for a dozen light years, and there should have been because it was destroyed while attempting to retake a hive world during the final battle of the Crusade where Max had first gained fame as a Mecha Pilot. The battle that saw him named a Hero, hundreds of years before he had met Nico.

The memories flooded into Max's mind, leaving him dazed and lost in his mind.

He didn't even notice when Nico came and laid him out on the couch to recover, all he could see was the battle on the surface.