A new dawn is shining at Almatia. Today's date: Month of Stars, Day 22, 2175 2nd Space Era. The crew has gathered in the Astral Thread.
"Is everybody ready?", asks Rain.
"Yes. Our forces are waiting.", says Lucien through the comms.
"We're awaiting the green light from Mr. Asten.", says Hikari through the comms.
"Got it. We're preparing the internal nuke teleportation. It's so much easier now that the thing is here.", says Rain, sweating a little from nervousness.
The Thread arrives in a matter of minutes. The Driftspace's outer borders, pulsing like crazy, with green goo flying out like a solar wave.
"That is... disgusting to look at.", says Zarya, preparing her tool bag, and checking for any missing weapons.
The Thread moves closer to it, and tells Vega that they're ready through the comms. The troops have all surrounded the Driftspace, with the crew preparing coordinates inside the center to nuke the defensive layers to defeat the monster.
"If stuff go wrong, we can call Kephar. Right?", asks Aeternum. "I'm sure Kael will come and help around."
"For sure.", says Mailen. "Worry not, Kephar's our closest ally. We literally saved them from annihilation as our first mission."
"Good point.", says Aeternum.
Vega comes to the comms and announces: "Dear leaders of the Maikitan system, and the Astral Thread, I hereby give the green light to fire all your shots at the Driftspace. Good luck, soldiers."
The guns start shooting everywhere. The Driftspace starts to act up, and throw things at the soldiers and the spaceships. Several ships are destroyed, but many survive. The Thread throws a nuke inside, causing an insane explosion, causing the Driftspace to slowly expand in size but quickly shrink, destroying the first defense layer in a matter of twenty minutes.
"This layer looks like the area we used to be in... Let's destroy it, everyone!", says Mailen, throwing another nuke.
The layer is tougher, but thanks to the sheer number of troops, the Driftspace falls there too, after 6 hours. The third and fourth layers are left, but they're much harder to get into.
"We need a plan for this one. The nuke isn't doing anything!", says Mailen.
"Oh well, let's just go towards it.", says Rain, preparing another offensive plan from the Thread. "We'll just use the Thread's guns."
Xita takes control of the Thread, while the crew prepares to use the guns.
"Okay, we should be close enough.", says Xita.
Rain takes the shot first, and the Driftspace quickly hits the Thread with the wave. The entire Thread shakes uncontrollably, with Xita trying to balance it back, like how a pilot would balance a plane during an engine failure.
The Thread's inner lights keep blinking in red-amber lights, indicating danger. The monster has cloned itself inside the Thread. Thankfully, it was a clone, so the inner defense systems got rid of it quickly. The Thread's systems are insanely well built, thanks to Luvin's skills in leadership and defense.
"Well, we're screwed. We got to get out of here. Call Vega and the leaders, we need help getting out!", says Rain.
The Thread, unable to be moved by itself due to some destroyed parts from the wave, is defending itself in all its might. The outlines of the Thread shine in red, compared to its usual blue-brown. The crew keeps shooting at the Driftspace, just to attempt weakening the layer. The UHC fleet arrives and brings the Thread to a peaceful area. The crew lands on the Almatian moon – Latuya.
The UHC fleet quickly take a look at the Thread. "It'll be repaired in a matter of an hour. Please be careful out there.", says an UHC employee.
The crew thanks the employees helping with fixing the Thread. Aeternum stays behind as the crew goes inside Homiya's ship with Hikari inside. "We'll use the waypoint to get you inside the Driftspace, so that you can try and see what the monster is. We need every detail.", says Hikari, looking at a hologram of the Driftspace.
"How do you have a hologram of the Driftspace?", asks Rain, in awe of its size.
"3D scanning all areas. That's why we surrounded it, to study it thoroughly and then find weaknesses. Surprisingly, we haven't found any. This is a strong one.", says Hikari, rotating and resizing the hologram, with just her hands.
They go towards the Driftspace, and Rain, Zarya and Mailen get transported inside. Because the Driftspace is now located in the real universe, and not in another dimension, the memetic effects are weaker and can't apply to the crew anymore. "Okay, let's quickly find the monster, and deal with registering it and working on defeating it."
"Great, we're here again. Well, time to locate the "force's origin", I guess.", says Rain. She takes out the waypoint machine and locates the 'origin'. They start walking towards the origin.
"I'm a little scared, considering the Driftspace can actually hurt us now.", says Zarya.
"We have to take risks. Either way, Hikari is waiting to transport us back safely, if we get signal.", says Mailen, also feeling a bit of nervousness in himself.
Mailen, Zarya and Rain walk towards the alleged location of the monster. They notice 2 layers of defenses. One of them is a wall created by an unknown ore, while the other layer, barely visible, hides the monster.
"Well, we've found it. It's only a matter of taking photos- "
Mailen gets interrupted. A sudden shock pushes the crew away and the Driftspace around them is getting smaller and tighter.
"Is this closing down on us??", shouts Zarya in panic. If they stay here long enough, they'll get crushed within the Driftspace.
On the outside, Almatian, Xeronian and Homiyan ships notice the Driftspace moving.
"The Weavers are still inside! We need backup!", says Hikari through the comms.
"We're already on our way. Please make sure to buy us a little time.", says Jeanne.
"Same here. The UHC fleet is also nearby and coming.", says Asten through the comms. He turns around to find Vega dealing with preparing ammunition for the 'big guns'.
"Are we prepared?", says Asten.
"We should be any second now…", says Vega, locked in on the preparations.
"Got it! Fire!", shouts Vega through the ship's inside communications.
Everybody arrives and starts shooting the Driftspace together with Homiya.
Meanwhile, inside the Driftspace…
"Holy… Everything is shaking! We need to escape, now!", says Rain, running like there's no tomorrow.
Just then, a bullet punctures a wall of the Driftspace and nearly shoots Rain.
"We're saved! Make sure to hide from the bullets, fast!", says Rain, hiding so that the bullets don't hit her and the rest of the crew.
"We got signal! Let's use the waypoint to escape ASAP!", says Mailen.
The crew quickly warps to Latuya.
"Aeternum should be nearby. Let's move.", says Rain.
Zarya looks up at the sky to see hundreds of ships tearing up the Driftspace's walls.
Mailen gives a quick call to Hikari to give her registration data of what they documented inside.
"Great. Thanks, Mailen. You guys are of great help.", says Hikari.
"Of course, miss.", says Mailen.
"What a nice gentleman.", says Zarya, who overheard their call.
Mailen turns red for a second and then goes towards Rain.
The crew finally finds Aeternum, and they go into the now-repaired Thread.
"Oh my… The walls of the Driftspace are nearly destroyed. It's time for the final fights.", says Aeternum, right before Zarya tackles Aeternum for a hug.
"Aaaaaaaaaaaaahhh, I've missed youuuuuuu~", says Zarya, fake crying. "We nearly got crushed…."
Aeternum hugs her back and tells Zarya to calm down.
Zarya quickly steps like a soldier and says: "Aye, aye, mister!". Aeternum seems disappointed, but inside, he's happy to see Zarya, Rain and Mailen alive, melting his heart.