-Chapter 2-

Damn, he thought, still gazing at where the wormhole used to be. Could have sworn that this wormhole was freshly formed, it should have lasted 24 hours before it collapsed. Did my corporation members seal it shut while I was still here? Harry checked his ship's log, searching for any ships that may have come behind him that the Normandy's sensors would've picked up. The logs didn't show any other ship coming through the wormhole. In fact, the wormhole collapsed as soon as he exited it. Well at least I wasn't betrayed, he thought. Right... so where am I? Harry checked the ship's navigation system and pulled up a map of New Eden. The ship's navigational computer took a while to search for where the current location of the ship would be. The results were quite shocking. The navigational computer couldn't locate the ship's current position in New Eden. Must be trapped in another wormhole system, Harry thought. His thought was proven wrong as the navigational computer whistled and worked a little bit longer to pull up a map of an entirely different galaxy, with a small, blinking, green indicator pinpointing their exact location.

Harry read about this particular galaxy in history books, the Milky Way galaxy. Several thousand years ago, this galaxy was completely colonized by man-kind. Overpopulated, and quickly running out of resources, man-kind was saved by a wormhole that they would call the "Eve Gate". Scouts went through the Eve Gate and found hundreds of new planets to colonize. The few that went through to colonize the new worlds were the great grand-fathers of New Eden shortly after the wormhole collapsed and separated the colonists from their home galaxy. As Harry looked at the new map the navigational computer was showing, he realized that this was the same galaxy that he read about in history books! Several thousand years after the Eve Gate collapsed on the colonists, and he happened to find the one wormhole that brought him back to their origins! But one question came to mind. If the history books were correct and this galaxy was overpopulated... why is there only 1 station? Surely there would be hundreds of stations. He checked the results from the probes he launched, and they showed there was only 1 station in this system.

Perhaps I ended up in a dead-end system, Harry thought. If he remembered correctly, a solar system that didn't have much to offer would have a singular outpost station. Maybe the station his probes picked up was an outpost station. I'm not going anywhere any time soon, he thought, I might as well check out this outpost station and see if there is anything useful there. Maybe I can repair the capacitor regeneration unit there. Without the capacitor regeneration unit the Normandy's capacitor will dry up quickly if he ever got into a firefight. Fortunately the propulsion and defensive systems won't draw a lot of capacitor power and he had spare capacitor booster charges in the ship's cargo-hold. But Harry didn't like the idea of eventually running out of power, especially since the distance between the Normandy and the outpost station was long enough for the ship's warp drive to eat up a good chunk of the available capacitor power. The Normandy's warp drive can carry the ship out to a distance of 172 AU before the capacitor would run dry and force the ship out of warp. The outpost station was about a quarter of that distance away. Making his decision, Harry bookmarked the location of the, now collapsed, wormhole and spun up the warp drive. The ship's Artificial Electronic Assistant (AEA), named Aura, passed the coordinates to the ship's navigational computer and began to align the Normandy in the direction of the outpost station. Once fully aligned and the warp drive was spun up, Aura activated the warp drive. Harry heard "Warp Drive Active" from Aura and watched as the Normandy slowly accelerated to 3 AU/s and shot into the stars.

Harry could have done all of what Aura did himself, if he strapped himself into the green capsule that was given to him after he completed capsuleer training. But he didn't like to use the capsule. Not because it was dangerous. As long as there was a station, he could fill the capsule up with pod goo and safely use the capsule to control the Normandy with his mind. Which is what capsuleer training was for, a capsuleer who has completed training can easily interface with any ship he or she flew and be able to fly the ship single-handed. The only difference between whether a ship was controlled by a capsule or not was reaction time. A capsuleer driven ship can react to outside stimuli much faster than a ship with a full crew. It is almost as if the ship was a second body for the capsuleer. But the destruction of the controlled ship can be traumatizing as the capsuleer's mental control is yanked from the ship and put back into the capsule as it ejects from the exploding hull. Harry shuddered at the thought of having to experience that again, which is why he preferred to control the Normandy SR9 though the bridge, not the capsule.

The Normandy SR9 began to decelerate as the ship reached the location of the outpost station. Aura verbally announced the amount of capacitor fluid used and that the Capacitor Regeneration Unit was non-functional as a warning. Knowing this, Harry dismissed the warning. What was more interesting for him was the outpost station itself, or lack of one. All Harry could see from the bridge was a dense, light purple nebula that the Normandy warped into. The navigational computer did state that the Normandy reached her destination, but Harry failed to visually locate the station. The sensors did indicate that there was a massive structure about 20 kilometers forward though. Looks like we just need to get a little closer, Harry thought as he engaged the ship's thrusters again, accelerating the ship to a maximum velocity of 165 m/s. This will take a while, Harry thought. Normally, Harry would have activated the afterburner that he equipped on the Normandy, but since he was currently limited on the amount of capacitor fluid he could use he forewent activating the afterburner to conserve precious capacitor fluid. He did not have to wait long though, as the dense nebula cleared up to reveal an open pocket within, which was home to the outpost station.

Harry was awestruck. He has seen large structures before, although the stations in New Eden were much larger than the structure he was witnessing now, but the size of the structure wasn't what amazed him. The station resembled something like a purple flower, with 5 long, massive metal arms as petals that connected to a circular metallic base. The station seemed to rotate at the base, probably to replicate gravity. There was a glow coming from behind the station as well that shown through the circular base of the station. Harry would have figured this to be a star but sensors didn't detect any gravitational forces coming from the "star". What could that have been then? Other ships were docking and un-docking with the station, and the station was bristling with life. The sight was magnificent.

His trance was cut short with warning signals coming up on the monitors indicating that the Normandy SR9 was locked on by other ships and was being scanned. Aura announced that communication frequencies were being directed towards the Normandy SR9.

"Where is the signal coming from Aura?", Harry asked.

"Communication frequencies are broadcasting from the station, Pilot".

Nodding in acceptance, Harry responded to Aura, "Well lets hear what they have to say".

"Right Away", acknowledged Aura as she translated the frequencies and sent them to the bridges' speakers.

"Unknown Vessel, this is Citadel Control. You have entered Citadel space and are approaching the station. Decelerate or we will be forced to open fire. We will broadcast this message on all frequencies until you respond, or until we deem you as too close to the Citadel".