Aiana: SwordXPlanet Volume 1

The Sea of Milk

"Everyone, get ready to warp."

Gaira's subordinates nodded their heads. Ro was getting a little anxious. The fairy girl had already had enough thrilling new experiences in the last week to last a lifetime. She had clung to her seat as the aircraft carrying her and her new friends blasted off out of their atmosphere. The craft had taken them to the Tempest, a magnificent Obadan endsea yacht Gaira had converted into a combat-ready vessel. Even in the melancholy that had then threatened to overwhelm her, she was amazed. Almost overnight she had entered a new world, one not of fairies, but of men and women. And now it was about to get even wilder.

"There might be a bit of turbulence, so hold on to something." Ro nodded and grabbed one of the chairs in the bridge. She gulped. They were about to travel around a thousand light-years in a matter of minutes. Turbulence would be an understatement. Ro looked out the front window of the bridge once again. In front of them was the portal to their destination: a warp altar that looked a lot like a gate. Gaira had said that it looked a lot like the gates to the temples near his home in Obadan, except this one was made of a gold-like metal rather than wood or stone. Adorned with ornate designs and images of gods performing miracles such as making suns burn, granting good harvests, and defeating powerful monsters, and with a statue of an unnamed god sitting cross-legged at the top, this was truly a gate worthy of Olympus. Tess had told her that the gods built these altars a thousand years ago and taught humans how to build ships to pass through them in order to grant them access to their realm, the endsea.

Currently, there was nothing between the pillars of the altar but more distant stars. But that was about to change. "Oz, care to do the honors this time?" Gaira looked at the tall beastman.

"Affirmative, my lord." Gaira handed the beastman a paper scroll with strange looking symbols. It was Olympian, so Ro hadn't a clue what it said. But Oz did. He looked at the paper and began to recite.

O mighty and gracious gods and goddesses,

You are majestic and kind upon your thrones on Olympus.

We are but mere earth before your radiant forms

As you descend to our realms to bestow upon us your aid.

We pray you, grant us passage through your heavenly territory.

Guide us through your endless sea of essence

And shepherd us to our final destinations

So that your praise may sound on every world.

Mighty masters of the universe, we pray you.

The verses made it clear that travel in the endsea was not a work of men and women, but of the gods, and they were not to forget that. In one of the tanks of the ship was a small quantity of a mixture of petroleum, quartz, and asteroid dust, an inorganic substitute for the animal sacrifices originally done by medieval endfarers. Before long, some of it would combust, release a wave of silver kal to the gate and -

The ship began to shake until it was violently rumbling. Ro held tight to the seat, wondering why the ship didn't have any seatbelts- probably because it wasn't originally meant for intergalactic travel. Through the rocking window she could see that something was forming inside the gate. Something black. The stars behind it were no longer visible, and even the gate illuminated by the headlights of the ship was starting to grow dim. The mass in the center was sucking in the light. It was a miniature black hole!

Ro's stomach lurched as the ship was yanked into the hole. When she had learned about extraterrestrial masses, she had assumed that anything sucked into one of these would be torn apart by the gravity. But clearly some force was keeping them intact within. Was this the miraculous power of the gods?