"How curious?" Jace asked as he looked for something that could give him a view of the mining colony and quickly found nothing. He then looked out one of the windows in the direction of the mining colony. There was something in the far distance, partially visible only because of his enhanced vision.

"Curious enough that they seemed to be scouting the area. They are not sending anything quick enough to reach this far. But I saw a few ships move toward us for a bit before flipping around and going back like they were indecisive." Crystal answered.

"Hm," Jace tapped his finger against the keyboard. It ’clacked’ as he did.

"What are you thinking?" Crystal asked.

"I am thinking that one of their sensor readings we just lit up. But their sensor only shows direction not distance." Jace began explaining. "So they are sending longer and longer voyages and will continue to do so. The distance... you would need a booster to get there and back correct?"

"Affirmative. It would take half a day and use up all of my remaining fuel reserves which I need to preserve in the event of combat. Which reminds me, I found some asteroid pockets with suitable fuel supplements that just need to be refined." Crystal answered.

"We will modify one of the hangars to refine fuel and other things that we will need." Jace answered. "We are going to need an array of things for the galaxy hopping journey we have in our future. Go ahead and start making a map of the nearby rocks with composites attached."

"I will get on that. Can you get me a hangar to land in?"

"I will send Shilla to open another one in a moment." Jace answered before turning his attention back to her. "Shilla?"

"This looks like a security room or what used to be one. There are a variety of weapons. Most I would categorize as ancient relics. But there are a few that I can not tell the function of. But that could either be because it is so old or because it is advanced." Shilla declared, "Which hangar do you want me at?"

"Follow the lights Shilla. Crystal, I just sent you the external number." Jace told them as he marked his map again with the room that Shilla just described. "Now then what else is left?" Jace asked himself aloud as he stretched his limbs before looking around. The door to the room had been bent open like something pulled at it. But nothing had really been torn up. Although the people in the room appeared to have been torn to shreds.

"Hey Gladiator, Eduta and I are escorting the prisoners. Where do you want me to take them?" Victor asked over the communication channel. Pulling Jace from his contemplative thoughts.

"Umm..." Jace looked at the map. Making a few calculations before nodding. "There is what appears to be holding cells or a brig that is a level down. Head right from the exit of the hangar door. Stop at the metal bulkhead door. That should be the entrance to the stairs." Jace explained.

"Hey, I am at the hangar and the power is not working. Am I doing something wrong?" Shilla suddenly asked. She was doing everything right. But the power was only distributed to the console, not the rest of the hangar.

Jace quickly took a moment to look to see what happened. After a few seconds he was able to identify several points of failure on the schematic that could be the reason for the failure in power distribution. "Okay, we are going to start with the fuse. In that room there should be a panel box with conduits running in and out of it. Open the box and describe the inside."

Shilla went quiet for a moment. "Okay, it looks like everything is running through these glass tubes that have some wires running through them. A few have popped out like a button, are they supposed to be like that?"

Jace thought for a moment. "Nope, push them back in but be careful not to touch any of the metal." After he said that he watched as power began to be distributed throughout the hangar. "Looks like that worked."

"Yeah, where to next?" Shilla asked.

"Finish the process from before I sent the message to that terminal as well in case you need it." Jace told her. "Then once that is done, just start searching nearby rooms. I still need to make a map of this place."

"We are through the bulkhead." Victor informed him.

"Head down to the lower floor. That entire floor is a brig so you can figure it out." Jace told him as he stood and sighed. Now came the difficult part, spending time building what they needed.

—------------------

Jace could not believe his eyes. It had been less than a day since they began exploring this facility. There had been a number of things he had found interesting.

There was a small two-man craft with room for storage that looked like one of those ancient jet fighters. Although while it looked old the design was anything but old, in fact it was advanced enough that Jace figured it could make it across the solar system in five hours time which was no small feat and put it on par with their pace craft tech, but they used a completely different method.

All it needed was some repair, refurbishing, then it would be good to take out and test. Although that would take a day to do. But it was put at the top of their list of things to do. After all, most of them were still suffering from mutations.

But what they just found was of far more interest. He had thought this was just a ship building facility. At least that was how it was labeled. But after seeing this ship, he knew how old this place must actually be. All he could wonder now is... how did they never rediscover it?

"That is a complete Cruiser-class ship." Victor pointed out. "Do you think it has the same tech as the smaller ship?"

"No." Jace shook his head. "That smaller ship was at best a prototype for probably a variety of technologies. But this-" He nodded his head at the Cruiser they were looking at. It had a few open hangars. But it also had clear spots where wiring and paneling had not been completed. "This is a full-on exploration ship, probably made with the express purpose of being sent to other galaxies." 𝕗𝚛𝚎𝚎𝐰𝗲𝗯𝗻𝚘𝚟𝚎𝗹.𝕔𝐨𝕞

"How do you know?" K asked with a scoff.

"Because we found one with a similar design before." Jace answered and all three of the others in the room turned to him. K, Victor, and Jamal were all here with him. A few of the others were on the way. "Back in our galaxy near Centuria space."

"So it came from here? How are you sure?" Jamal asked as he looked at the cruiser again.

"I mean, the one we found was only a caravel in size. But I do not even need to look at the schematic to tell you that the two of them share several features that I could only describe as a maker’s mark." Jace explained as he looked at the ship. It was a long shape with a blocky design, but the portions that had been completed had the reactive armor attached.

"That only means it is similar." K pointed out with a scoff.

"Then perhaps this will serve as some better proof." They all turned as Shilla walked in with what looked like a folder with paper. "I found the records room and then searched for this as soon as I heard about this ship." She handed it over to Jace and he looked at it. "I can only read the lettering, it would drive me nuts to actually read it. But I figured..."

"That I could read it." Jace answered as he ran his hand over the label on the front of the folder. "UEE Discovery Final Report." He spoke aloud. "I can read it and yeah, this is proof. Not just what we found. But proof that just as Earth was the cradle where humanity was born, this was the classroom where we learned how to truly fly."

"What do you mean?" Victor asked.

"I mean," Jace opened the folder and began reading. "All of our ancestors that came to our galaxy, came from here. I am only guessing but they sent at least fifteen colony ships to our galaxy once Discovery- well discovered it."

"How do you know that?" Jamal asked.

"Because I know history and that is the real history of our galaxy as far back as I could trace." Jace answered with a chuckle. "There was a chunk of information missing before but- yeah, here it is. They marked our galaxy as habitable and sent a bunch of colony ships. Not through wormholes but... through stable intergalactic travel points?"

"What?" Shilla asked in surprise.