The breadcrumb course stretched ahead of them like a promise written in faint, invisible ink. Liam had settled the Astralis into a steady burn, keeping the systems conservative just as Iris recommended. Seven months of quiet travel loomed before him, and yet after the week on that barren world, after the rare silence of living under a roof that wasn't borrowed from a ship, he found himself oddly patient.
The stars beyond the canopy carried no lanes, no patrol beacons, no casual pings. It was raw, uncharted space, and Liam could feel the difference in his bones. Out here, there were no polite reminders from Federation beacons, no automated trade alerts, no subtle pressure of civilization watching his transponder. Just him, the Astralis, Iris, and the quiet of the void.
[Trajectory holds steady,] Iris reported. [Breadcrumb marker at 13.7 million kilometers. Course deviation negligible.]
Liam leaned back, legs stretched, fingers drumming absently against the armrest. "Good. I could get used to this kind of empty."
[Your vitals suggest otherwise,] Iris replied flatly. [You are restless.]
He smirked faintly. "I said I could get used to it. Didn't say I had yet."
[Noted.]
Hours blurred into the rhythm of deep travel. Liam kept half an eye on the console, watching the faint probe signals that represented their breadcrumb trail, while Iris quietly handled the real work—trajectory corrections, power balancing, routine diagnostics. It was monotonous, but monotony was its own kind of peace.
Until the array twitched.
A faint ripple bled into the data stream, the kind of anomaly most pilots would have ignored or marked as background noise. But Iris never ignored anomalies.
[Unscheduled density variance detected,] she said, tone clipped. [It is minor. But its vector is non-random. Would you like me to suppress it?]
"Suppress?" Liam raised an eyebrow. "No, show me."
The canopy's overlay flickered, expanding a faint ghost signal into a stretched line of white against the black. At first glance, it was nothing more than a smear of interstellar dust. But the smear repeated itself, a rhythm hidden in the static.
"What am I looking at?" Liam asked.
[Gravitational lensing inconsistent with void noise,] Iris answered. [Probability of concealed stellar mass: sixty-two percent and climbing.]
Liam straightened. "You're saying there's a system nearby."
[Yes. Masked by intervening debris. Uncatalogued. And by the Federation's metrics, unowned.]
A grin tugged at Liam's mouth. "Well, that's interesting."
[It is not on our course,] Iris reminded him. [Detour will cost seventeen days. Marker arrival will adjust accordingly.]
"Seventeen days isn't seven months," Liam said. "We can afford it."
He shifted the Astralis' nose fractionally. The stars seemed unchanged, but the array pulsed brighter, sharpening its lock on the hidden ripple. Liam felt his chest tighten—not with fear, but with the quiet thrill of discovery.
For two days, they skimmed closer, the ripple swelling into something more defined. Then, like dust parting in a sudden gust, the smear resolved into a star.
It burned pale blue-white, smaller than Erevos' sun, but sharp, clear, and alive. Around it turned five planets, their outlines traced faintly against the canopy as Iris pulled the data into form. No registry tags, no charts, nothing but raw coordinates now pinned to their map.
"Well, hello," Liam whispered.
[System scanned, preliminary data follows,] Iris intoned. [Planet one: molten, radius three thousand kilometers, atmosphere negligible. Planet two: rocky, heavily cratered, no atmosphere. Planet three: terrestrial class, approximate radius seven thousand kilometers, partial atmosphere. Planet four: terrestrial, radius eight thousand, stronger magnetic field. Planet five: gas giant, moderate rings, at least seventeen moons.]
Liam whistled low. "And no one's been here."
[Statistically unlikely that no one has ever passed,] Iris corrected. [But no registry exists. No claim filed. The probability that it has been overlooked is… higher than comfortable.]
"Which means opportunity."
[Which means danger,] she countered.
"Same thing, really," Liam said.
They coasted closer, Iris refining her scans. The gas giant painted itself across the canopy with gentle arcs of faint silver rings. Its moons shimmered like scattered beads, some irregular, some round. The inner rocky worlds gleamed cold and empty, their surfaces pocked and ancient.
But the third planet made Iris pause.
[Unusual readings,] she said, and the console lit. [Surface density anomalies. Strong metallic return. Composition analysis consistent with high-value resources.]
"What kind of resources?"
[Refining scan.] Her voice thinned with concentration. The data flickered, reassembled, clarified. [Vibranium signatures present. Concentrations are significant. Estimated reserves: enough to construct a capital vessel in excess of twenty kilometers.]
Liam's throat went dry. "Twenty kilometers?"
[Yes.]
He exhaled slowly. Vibranium was rare enough when mined in veins or fragments. An entire planet with this much in its crust was… absurd. Corporations would trade blood for such a world. Empires would send fleets to secure it. Even one moon of the stuff would alter economies.
And here it was, circling a pale star in silence, untouched, unseen.
"Mark it," he said softly.
[Already marked.]
The canopy zoomed in, resolving the surface—slate-colored plains, deep fractures like scars, mountains plated with faint metallic sheen.
"Gods," Liam whispered.
[Correction: physics,] Iris said.
He chuckled under his breath despite the weight of the moment. "Never change."
[Attempting further analysis,] Iris went on. [There is…] She hesitated. For the first time in hours, her voice faltered.
Liam frowned. "What is it?"
[The vibranium signatures are dominant, yes. But there are irregular density spikes within the larger deposits. Small. Faint. Unusual.]
"What kind of unusual?"
[I cannot classify without deeper scans.]
The console pulsed faintly, as though something in the planet's bones was whispering through the noise. Liam leaned forward, staring at the slate-colored world that was suddenly no longer just another treasure chest in the dark.
"What aren't you telling me, Iris?" he muttered.
[Uncertainty remains high,] she replied quietly. [But this is not just Vibranium.]
[Unusual readings,] Iris reported, her tone sharper than before. [Surface density anomalies. Composition analysis consistent with Vibranium. Significant reserves.]
Liam leaned forward, staring at the slate-gray planet below. The fractures gleamed faintly under spectral overlays. "How significant?"
[Projection: enough raw mass to construct a capital vessel exceeding twenty kilometers. This planet alone could alter industrial supply chains across multiple systems.]
He let out a low whistle. "That's… more than I can even imagine."
[Correction: it is more than most governments can imagine,] Iris said coolly. [But there is more.]
"More?" Liam asked.
[Secondary density spikes within the Vibranium seam. Composition consistent with Eternal metal. Confirmed.]
The words struck like a pulse through his chest. He froze, mind racing. Eternal metal. Not just flecks, not fragments fought over at auction houses. A seam. A whole seam.
"How much?"
[Conservative estimate: sufficient to construct a capital vessel five kilometers in length, with a hull of approximately ninety-five percent Eternal composition. Remaining framework would require Vibranium or lesser alloys for functional integration.]
Liam's mouth went dry. "Ninety-five percent…" He leaned back, shaking his head slowly. "Most ships in the galaxy are lucky if they get half a percent Eternal alloy in their plating. Flagships maybe ten. But this…"
[This is unique,] Iris finished for him. [If exploited, it would make your future vessel categorically stronger than anything outside of government prototypes. But secrecy is paramount. Discovery of this site would trigger a system-wide scramble.]
He stared at the fractured plains scrolling beneath them, heart pounding. "Then we don't just mark it. We build. Mine it, smelt it, stack it away where nobody can touch it."
[Logical,] Iris replied. [Fabricator and high-tech construction unit are sufficient to establish a fully automated mining and smelting station. Estimated duration: five months to extract both Vibranium and Eternal ore, one month to refine all stock into ingots. Once established, station can operate unattended.]
Liam rubbed his jaw. "So I don't have to babysit it. Just make sure it's running."
[Correct. You only need to supervise initial deployment. After that, the system will function independently.]
A grin tugged at his mouth. "Perfect. Let's get to work."
The Astralis descended toward the northern hemisphere, landing near a jagged fissure where the Eternal seam nearly breached the surface. Dust plumed under its landing struts, settling slowly in the thin air. Liam stepped out in his pressure suit, boots crunching on untouched rock. For a moment, he just stood there, staring at a horizon fractured by cliffs that faintly shimmered with metal.
This was his world now. His secret.
He ordered the bots into action. The construction robot unfolded like a mechanical titan, pistons hissing as it drove pylons deep into the bedrock. The fabricator hummed, extruding modular sections of furnaces, conveyors, and sealed vault doors. Guided by Iris's precision, they assembled a sprawling station across the plateau.
Hours blurred into days. Extraction rigs plunged into the fissure, dragging ore to the surface. Conveyors carried the dull stone to the smelters, where plasma arcs roared and rivers of molten metal poured into molds. Liam oversaw calibration, walking the lines in his suit, checking seals and gauges while Iris orchestrated every calculation in the background.
By the end of the second week, the first vault sealed shut with neat rows of ingots—Vibranium dark and gleaming, Eternal metal shimmering silver-blue with unnatural density. Liam held one of the latter in his gloved hands, feeling its impossible weight. He had read about this metal, seen fragments in auctions. But here he was, holding a bar large enough to fabricate an entire weapons mount.
"This," he whispered, "is the beginning."
[Correction: this is only the foundation,] Iris replied. [The Odyssey remains a concept until sufficient architectural data is secured. I cannot draft a viable schematic without advanced load libraries and propulsion designs far beyond your current records.]
Liam chuckled faintly despite the weight in his chest. "So we sketch for now. Ninety-five percent Eternal core. Five percent Vibranium–Eternal alloy plating, just like everyone else uses. To the galaxy, it'll look ordinary."
[Precisely,] Iris said. [Alloys will mask the metallurgical signature. Scans will read as consistent with other capital-class hulls. No suspicion will arise.]
"Meanwhile, underneath…" He glanced at the vault, at the bars gleaming like captured starlight. "We'll be untouchable."
[Correction: stronger, yes. Not untouchable. But if the Odyssey is constructed, its survival probability would exceed ninety-nine percent against contemporary vessels.]
Liam smirked. "Good enough."
For the rest of the month, Liam lived out of the Astralis, supervising the final calibrations while the station grew into a fortress of black steel and glowing furnaces. He walked the dusty plateau at dawn, staring at the smoke stacks as they vented heat into the sky, and at night he logged progress reports while Iris refined projections.
By day thirty, the operation was autonomous. The robots no longer needed him. Rigs drilled, furnaces burned, conveyors moved, vaults sealed. A rhythm as steady as a heartbeat, indifferent to his presence.
"How long until the seams are empty?" he asked on the last night, watching the glow from the plateau through the canopy.
[Five months for extraction, one month for refinement. By the time you return to Erevos, all ore will have been converted into refined ingots. Total yield: structural mass for one five-kilometer Eternal vessel, with extensive surplus for reinforcement, plating, weapons, and shielding.]
Liam's breath caught. "All of it… waiting for me."
[Yes. Hidden. Secured. This system belongs to you.]
He stared at the planet below, its fractured surface lit faintly by the furnaces he had seeded there. The weight of it pressed against him—fortune, danger, destiny.
"Seal the vaults," he ordered.
[Sealed. Coordinates encrypted. Keys fragmented and bound exclusively to you.]
He smiled faintly. "Then we're done here."
The Astralis lifted off the plateau, thrusters flaring. Dust curled away, leaving behind furnaces still burning, vaults already half full of metal worth more than empires, machines tirelessly working under a thin sky.
As the planet shrank behind them, Liam whispered, "This is ours, Iris. The Odyssey starts here."
[Yes,] Iris answered softly. [One day, this metal will carry you farther than any map.]