Across the Shroud and Back

The Great Flight

It was an utter catastrophe.

The crisis already plagued the Great I. Hivemind, galactic beings had invaded their territory and yet the great community of empires didn't even glance at them, they left the systems of the I. to be utterly destroyed, besieged by these beings entangling their intergalactic affairs with them.

To fight back against this threat of massive proportions, we tapped into a power, a power inherent to us all from the mysterious center of the galaxy, the shroud. This power led us to kill and keep feeding on other species. We thought we could harness this power into something greater, something that would make the galaxy quake and diminish the crisis

We had to harness the power... harness this emotion......

We built an engine.

That's where we went wrong, I can see it now. This engine was one that could destroy the entire galaxy. We needed it to defeat "the Unbidden", what the crisis called itself. This engine harnessed the great pressure and the sheer power of our capital star to power our destruction and the fire that would soon boil over the universe. We thought our friends in the community would understand

People always attack and kill what they don't understand, when they saw a massive engine with destructive power they assumed it was going to be turned on them and they attacked. One massive fleet. More than 300k ships had to be in it. We didn't stand a chance.

I had to flee from my people, in order to preserve our species which would have gotten wiped out on our remaining fringes of control, our planets with strong garrisons yet so far away from the fighting and no way to get in contact with them.

By the will of the shroud, I made it out.

We commandeered a civilian vessel, likely a part of the Galactic Market, to flee to the Skanuri Hive, another fellow hivemind that would sympathize with our cause.

My heart ached as I sped away, even now when I step onto the ship I feel the tremors of the battle, the entirety of space itself shaking with terror at how much weapons had advanced. Just 200 years ago we all would have just had a handful of ships, I guess that's how technology works, once the wheel gets rolling it can't stop. I heard another tremor that day, the tremor of my mind, the cry of my people. The Community was a dirty trick.

I wrapped the scarf on my neck closer and looked out the window as my ship was jettisoned into space, with the chaos going on nobody would notice a small ship leaving the system. Blue specks grew around me as our ship's jump drive was charging up, I felt a sense of excitement that I quickly suppressed, my people are dying, this new beginning is only temporary, and we will come back.

I heard one last boom coming from a torpedos piercing one of our star killers before the blue lines spread all across the windows and space itself turned a brilliant turquoise. The jump drive was fully charged up, I looked at the crimson red button that would initiate the jump and I pressed it, with the hope of my people in my heart.

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Hello!

This is my first fanfic I've wrote so I hope you like it!

I'll continue this soon, this is just a prelude for whats to come B)

P.S: This is based off of the situation in a multiplayer save of a game called Stellaris, I was playing with my friends and wacky stuff happened motivating me to make this.