The dragon of fractal light hovered silently above the refugee armada, its wings folding and unfolding in slow, deliberate waves. Every motion left shimmering trails of geometry—patterns repeating infinitely inward, like living equations.
No one aboard Astra-9 spoke.They simply watched.
Even Commander Rhea, hardened by years of deep-space service, seemed frozen by the creature's presence.
Orion finally broke the silence.
"It's not a biological organism," he said quietly. "It's… engineered."
Lyra glanced at him."Engineered? By who? The refugees?"
He shook his head slowly.
"Not possible. Their tech is crystalline, photonic, fractal-encoded. But this? This thing bends gravity like it's cloth. It stabilizes quantum fields just by existing. Their ships are struggling just to stay intact here—this dragon is operating at a scale millions of years beyond anything they built."
Rhea folded her arms, staring at the creature's colossal silhouette.
"Then who built it?"
Orion exhaled.
"Something… older."
The dragon's head turned—smoothly, silently—until its blazing geometric eyes aligned perfectly with the Astra-9 bridge.
In that moment, everyone felt the same sensation:A pressure on the mind.A presence inside their thoughts.Not invasive. Just… watching.
Lyra gasped softly."It's scanning us."
"No," Orion muttered, eyes widening at the readings on his console. "It's reading us."
The creature's wings expanded outward, their tips stretching—and for a moment, Orion saw something impossible.
Within the dragon's silhouette, the stars themselves bent—warped into unfamiliar constellations, unfamiliar timelines, unfamiliar universes.
The creature was not just a guardian.
It was a map.
A living bridge between realities.
Suddenly, light flared from its chest—a radiant burst that expanded into a holographic projection in front of Astra-9.
A rotating sphere of equations, symbols, fractal drawings, and compressed data hovered over the void.In the center pulsed a sequence of numbers.
Orion recognized them instantly.
Coordinates.
But not spatial coordinates.Temporal coordinates.
His blood ran cold.
"It's showing us a location…"He hesitated."…in time."
Lyra leaned in."What does it want us to see?"
Before Orion could answer, the hologram unfolded like a blooming flower.
A scene formed inside the projection.A planet—blue, green, white—torn apart by shockwaves.Skies cracking like shattered glass.Oceans evaporating.Mountains bending like molten metal.
Earth.
Their Earth.
Destroyed.
Astra-9's crew stared in horror.
"No…" Lyra whispered, shaking her head. "No, that can't be real."
But Orion knew the truth.
"It's a future," he said softly. "A potential future where the Unmaking reaches us."
The dragon lowered its wings.The projection dimmed.The universe around them grew painfully silent.
Then—A voice entered their minds.
Not spoken.Not transmitted.
Felt.
It rippled through every neuron, every atom, every quantum state:
THIS IS YOUR WARNING.THE VOID FOLLOWS.PREPARE YOUR KIND.
Orion staggered back as the voice hit him like a tidal wave of information.Images, equations, memories that were not his own—glimpses of universes lost, civilizations devoured, realities crumbling.
He gasped, clutching the edge of the console.
Lyra grabbed his arm."Orion! Are you alright?"
He shook his head, breath sharp.
"It… it showed me something else. Not just Earth—another timeline. A version of me sending a signal… from the end."
Rhea turned sharply."What signal?"
Orion swallowed hard.
"The same signal we detected hours ago."
Lyra froze."The Infinity Signal?"
Orion nodded.
"And it wasn't just a message."He met Rhea's eyes, voice trembling."It was a plea for help."
The dragon unfolded its wings fully—massive, beautiful, terrifying.
Seraxis, the crystalline refugee leader, reappeared on the holo-feed, its body dimmer than before.
"It speaks truth," Seraxis said."The Construct of the Fractured Stars has seen countless universes fall. It was built by beings older than physics. It alone survived the Unmaking's approach."
Lyra hesitated."Then… what is its purpose?"
Seraxis' glow flickered.
"To warn you," it said."And to defend you… for as long as it can."
As long as it can.
The words echoed through the bridge.
And everyone understood their meaning:
The Unmaking was coming.The dragon was powerful—yes.But even it couldn't stop what was approaching.
Orion stared at the creature, realization dawning like a cold sunrise.
"It's not here to fight," he whispered.
Lyra looked at him."What, then?"
"It's here," Orion said, "to buy us time."
Outside the windows, the dragon's wings folded inward.
It began to dim.
Its energy—spent, exhausted—flickered like the final ember of a dying star.
The warning was given.
Now humanity had to face what came next.