That alone was enough to capture Aurelian’s attention.
The surrounding wrecks were dragged aside piece by piece until the whole shape of the carrier beca visible again, a giant dead ship that had spent far too long buried under the remains of a battle no one living rembered.
Astra’s voice reached him over the command line, and for once, there was clear satisfaction in it.
"The main structure is intact. The power system is damaged, but it can still be started."
Aurelian exhaled slowly.
"Good. Get her moving."
There was no ti to admire it.
The fold space was becoming increasingly unstable now, and he could feel the change even without a direct sensor report to tell him so.
That was the frustrating part.
The graveyard still had more to offer.
By the ti the carrier had been found, Aurelian’s total haul from the place had already beco absurd.
Six blue artifacts.
More than a hundred cyan artifacts.
Hundreds of white ones.
Most of them had originally been pieces of ship equipnt that had transford over ti into rare items.
So could still be converted into usable ship parts.
So could not.
Either way, the value was real.
If he had been allowed to stay longer, he probably could have doubled it.
But knowing that and being able to act on it were different things, and he has never considered asking his family for help because the cost of keeping the graveyard here is much higher than anything else they might unearth.
Thinking of this, Aurelian shook his head once and let the thought go.
No point getting greedy when greed could kill you.
With the supply ship and the carrier now both active enough to be moved, the fleet abandoned the rest of the graveyard and headed back toward the unstable corridor.
The return trip was rougher than the entry.
The wormhole had beco more violent, and the turbulence inside it hit all four ships to different degrees.
Black Crown and Crimson Bulwark both lost shield strength on the way through.
The supply ship ca through with only minor additional damage.
The carrier was less lucky.
Its already-damaged propulsion system took another hit during the passage, making towing it unavoidable.
By the ti they erged back into normal space, the carrier’s movent system was in even worse shape than before.
That made the trip ho slower.
With two damaged recovery vessels in tow, the return route took a full three days before the fleet finally reached the safety of the nearest stargate line.
Only then did Aurelian properly relax.
He had too much value with him now.
Too many artifacts.
Too many ships.
Too many things worth stealing.
Fortunately, nothing had co after them on the way back.
Once they returned to Polaris space, Aurelian imdiately booked a private repair dock.
The supply ship and the carrier both needed work before anything else could happen.
The carrier activation was the real goal, of course, but the supply ship was worth trying too.
Even if it turned out to be only a blue rarity at best, that still would not make it useless. A historical supply ship was a rare thing, and at his stage, it could easily beco one of the most practical additions to the fleet.
With the help of the family’s logistics people and professional crews, the two recovered ships were moved onto the slipway and taken into repair.
Only after all of that was in motion did Aurelian receive a secure call from the family.
A holographic projection of one of the family elders appeared inside Black Crown’s command section, smiling as all of them were in a good mood recently.
"Looks like you’ve done sothing big again," the elder said.
Aurelian didn’t think much about it, but he still answered normally.
"I was just in the right place at the right ti," he said.
The elder chuckled softly at that.
"Luck matters too."
Then his expression shifted into sothing more serious.
"The Omnic investigation from your earlier report has produced results."
That caught Aurelian’s full attention at once.
The elder continued.
Following the movent traces of the Omnic force, the family and its allied investigators had discovered a life-bearing world that had already been consud long before the patrol incident.
It had never been in official records, but remnants on its surface showed that an intelligent species had once lived there.
Worse, evidence suggested that those people had not fought the Omnics at all.
They had worshipped them.
That was likely how the whole problem had started.
And a deeper investigation had turned up sothing even more dangerous.
A sealed spatial rift.
One that was likely connected to whatever larger Omnic region the destroyed force had co from.
Aurelian’s eyes narrowed slightly.
"So that was the source."
"That is the current conclusion," the elder replied. "The rift is unstable, but the location is bad enough that if it reopens properly soday, it could beco the start of a much larger incursion."
He went on to explain that the matter had already been reported upward, and a formal imperial force would be sent to the dead world to build a monitoring and defensive installation around the rift.
That was the good news.
The bad news was simpler.
They had only found it because Aurelian’s first report had forced people to look early.
If the Omnic force had not been intercepted when it was, or if the investigation had been delayed, then the trail might have gone cold, and the rift might have stayed hidden until it opened under much worse conditions.
When the call ended, Aurelian stood alone for a mont and looked out through the deck glass toward the slipways where the recovered ships were still being repaired.
A carrier, along with a supply ship.
A fold-space graveyard full of lost value.
A far-rim corridor waiting in the back of his mind.
And now a confird dangerous rift tied to the Omnics.
He let out a slow breath.
Looks like I really do need to get stronger faster, he thought.
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