text: For 20 and a half years did the *Stellar Compact* survive through countless conflicts, turmoil and general chaos, they deemed it was time to expand the Compact's borders, the leaders turned their head towards the Arcadian Wormhole, a deep space Anomaly which was, for years, decided too dangerous to study more closely, but because of the major decline of this great stellar nation, the situation was deemed extreme enough to allow for closer study of the Wormhole. For that they sent a man called Captain Charles Bailey along with his ship, the Rotarin, and its crew on a mission to research and eventually enter this Wormhole. Charles looked out the window of the main bridge section of the Rotarin at this oddly beautiful swirling mass of nebular remnants that seemed to slowly be getting pulled into an odd whirlpool looking dark hole in space. Charles may have had worries that this "Wormhole" was just a black hole, but after seeing it for the first time he decided it not to be so. After staring at the phenomena for a while he decided to go to the science section to see how the research was going, they had gotten a sample of strange energy which seemed to come out from the wormhole, this was intriguing so they decided to study it. As Charles walked down the spinal corridor of the ship and walked past many of his crew he heard some commotion coming from the main chamber in the science section, it didn't sound too worrisome so he kept his pace. Once he arrived he saw the young science officer Cathrine jumping up and down with excitement. "*Did you find something?*" Charles asked in his gravelly voice, Cathrine, only now noticing that her superior officer had arrived, straightened up and said, maybe a bit too formally, "*Sir, There was something irregular about the energy sample, I had noticed it when i was putting it through the room's speaker, because why not, it sounded like a pattern, I did a bit more with it, put it through some filters, etc. and once it had gone through enough of them it started sounding like a voice!*" Cathrine then put this finding through the room's speakers, and yes, it did indeed sound like a voice. At first Captain Charles wasn't convinced that this meant anything, but having known Cathrine for a few years made him trust her judgement, not even mentioning that she currently looked like she absolutely believed that what she found was indeed a voice, and he did find the usage of the room's speakers quite creative. So he said "*Alright, let's say it is indeed a voice, this might mean there are intelligent lifeforms on the other side, correct?*" Cathrine responded with an excited "*Jup!*" and then hastily adding a "*Sir*" at the end according to the ship's regulations. "*So you think we should send a probe through, I assume you'd want to do that?*" Charles continued. Cathrine replied with "*Well yes, but we probably have to outfit the probe with a few protections since it might not withstand the theoretical pressures inside the wormhole.*" Charles said "*Alright, you'll be doing that for the rest of the day, I want that probe ready for tomorrow.*" "*Understood, sir.*" Cathrine said. The next day the probe was ready, it got launched with a few minor celebrations, but other than that, the day was as boring as most days are, out in space, not much happens, the next five days were like this, just a lot of waiting, they did do daily scan to try to find out what happened to the probe, but they found nothing. After these five boring days, they saw a bright flashing light coming from the Wormhole, the light engulfed the entire bridge window, blinding Charles and his fellow Bridge crew. After the bright light had faded, they noticed a small smoking object, the probe. Even in its damaged state it seemed to still have gathered a lot of data, the data itself, was incomprehensibly strange, everything past that wormhole seemed oddly different, and that made Charles shiver a bit, he had served the Compact in many of it's wars, he had seen hundreds of strange and horrible things, but the fact that he'd never seen something so, ungrounded in reality. It truly frightened him. Suddenly, the warning sirens started to wail on the bridge, Captain Charles immediately looked at his Tactical Officer, Lukas, who seemed to frantically be taking a scan of the wormhole, something was wrong. "*Lukas!*" shouted Charles so that Lukas would hear him, "*What the hell is going on!?*" Lukas looked at Charles with a worried expression "*I don't know sir, these readings don't make any sense!*" "*Well at least turn on the Defence Systems, we might at least be prepared if they're on!*" Charles shouted at Lukas. Charles heard the familiar hum of the Defence Systems coming online amidst the wails of those goddamn sirens. Suddenly Charles' ears rang and the floor of the bridge shook as a seemingly massive shockwave hit the ship, the shockwave seemed to originate from the wormhole. "*Sir! Damage to the hull in Section Three, floor: twenty-two! Reported 4 wounded and six dead, a conduit seems to have exploded!*" Shouted Lukas as Charles was still trying to get up after he fell to the floor. "*Well stop talking and send the goddamn Medical Team!*" Charles shouted back at Lukas. Charles had already stood up when he noticed something very concerning, as he stood on the bridge of the Rotarin he looked out the window and saw these gigantic, black crab like claws slowly coming out of the wormhole. "*What the fuck!*" Screamed Charles. The two claws suddenly jagged forward at an unnatural acceleration, the claws stabbed into the ship's hull and held it tightly. Charles watched as his crew descended into panic, he watched as the Defence Systems opened fire upon the claws, but to no effect. Charles, a man which had stood as an icon of bravery through the Compact - Selarian war, felt true dread as he saw what else emerged. A large chitinous head, with a gaping maw of hundreds of rows of teeth and one central deep, black eye above it. Charles felt like it was staring directly at him. This incomprehensible creature was staring directly into his eyes. He stood there, still, for a solid minute, while his crew was shouting orders and trying to get their Captain to respond to them. To be honest, Charles felt like he didn't care anymore. Charles stopped breathing. His heart stopped beating. But still, he stood there, simply staring into this large black void of an eye. "*Isn't this whole thing just simply amusing.*" Charles said calmly, he simply gave a small chuckle as his vision went black and his body fell on the floor, dead.